CubaNet, RAFAEL ALCIDES, Havana, 3 February 2015 – In the Havana of recent days, hope and despair continue to grow. Hope, in the people: who have already begun to paint and fix up their houses, with visions of the peaceful invasion by the Americans of the future. Because, it is said with much authority, without anybody knowing the provenance of this fact, by about the end of April, we will have them arriving in waves of a million per week and, of course, neither the State-owned hotels nor the paladares (private restaurants) currently existing have the capacity to accommodate them.
An acquaintance from the neighborhood, retired and living with his wife and son, a doctor, in a small, two-bedroom apartment on the ground floor, facing the street, has already begun remodeling to take advantage of the coming boom. He has built a separate entrance to the unit from the side that faces a hallway, and on the patio has fashioned a little guestroom equipped with a shower, sink and toilet. Now he is on the hunt for a bidet, an air conditioner and a mini-fridge continue reading
– all of which need to be of the “gently-used” variety, because that is all he can afford with the bit of cash sent to him from Miami. Besides, he still needs a pair of twin beds to replace the box spring inherited from a sister who emigrated 20 years ago, and which will continue to be his son’s bed until the first American arrives to rent the room.
The government, of course, could try not to cede any ground, to take advantage of the negative effect of the struggle for democracy on the future psychological wellbeing of the people, and it will not ratify the United Nations covenants on human rights nor, much less, hear talk of elections.
Pitying me, an acquaintance of my daughters – a successful owner of a paladar who was in the midst of preparing his papers to leave the country when an opening to a bonsai-type of capitalism designed by Murillo* appeared – told me that, to him, “all that” about democracy and Human Rights is of no interest. He is no politician, he said, nor has he dreamed of writing for the newspapers. Rather, he is a businessman who has done well for himself, and he expects that with the million Americans expected to be flocking here every week, he will do even better. Making money is his thing. To that end, he has already begun setting up a second “paladar.”
Hence the sorrow, in that word’s best sense, or perhaps, the despair, of the opposition. It is a sad fact, but also inevitable: the smell of money tends to make conservatives out of even the ultra-radicals of yesterday (as we saw happen in the USSR lately). A reaction, this, all the more terrible in a country such as ours where 70 percent of the population, never having known democracy, has learned to live without it — and also being a country where survival has required pilfering here and there, dreaming of having things, of being able to live like one’s cousins in Miami. A dangerous indirect alliance with the government that will not be easy to break.
The opposition’s despair increases with the government’s silence, its apparent immobility. I say “apparent” because the government has not ceased to make changes, to transfer to “non-agricultural cooperatives” (and by extension, it is fitting that the newspaper Granma should one day speak to us of “non-veterinary doctors,” “non-merchant marines,” “non-porno artists,” “non-retired military personnel”) even small-town aqueducts. Another shift not even dreamed of before now: a new investment law with room for the native citizen (i.e. the Cuban residing on the Island) in joint venture with foreigners or as sole proprietor – a development which, it goes without saying, cancels, makes obsolete, Murillo’s brilliant and sophisticated botanical design.
However – and I repeat, however (and this is indeed the great enigma): Is the government making these changes with an eye towards opening a path for democracy? Or conversely, is it to facilitate the Chinese method, in which the pessimistic opposition presupposes the State will be immersed waist-deep in its eagerness for continuity? Only time can tell.
Apart from these “non-Lenten winds”** optimism reigns supreme. Havana goes on renovating itself, When carpenters cannot find lumber, they buy old armoires, tables, doors to recycle the wood, to keep up with their orders and deliver furniture to the owners of houses or paladares who are preparing to accommodate a million Americans per week. Those who grow flowers increase their sowings. The bricklayers charge ever higher prices. A spirit of rejuvenation reigns, as the romantics might say, throughout the land.
Of course, regarding elections, I hear less and less.
Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison
Translator’s Notes:
*Marino Murillo is Cuba’s Minister of Planning and Economy. The late Cuban economistOscar Espinosa Chepe, a regime opponent, coined the term “bonsai businesses” to refer to the types of small private businesses now allowed by the regime: bonsai, of course, are very small, and are subject to constant “trimming” to make sure they are not allowed to grow to any significant size.
**Likely a reference to the novel by Cuban writer Leonardo Padura, “Los Vientos de Cuaresma (Lenten Winds)”. The protagonist is a policeman who is growing increasingly disaffected with contemporary Cuban society. The story takes place in the spring, during the Lenten season, when hot southern winds arrive in Cuba.
Ivan Garcia, Havana, 31 January 2015 — After secret negotiations with his lifelong enemy lasting a year and a half, General Raul Castro seems to have come out ahead early in the game. But Barack Obama has been shrewd.
He is playing for the long-term and has a different perspective and strategy. The United States thinks and acts in accordance with its geopolitical interests, always with its national security in mind.
Cuba is not as attractive a market as portrayed by some analysts. On the contrary. Its potential consumers have no money in their pockets and the government’s coffers continue reading
are empty, not a promising scenario for big business.
Extending credit to a regime that is broke is always a risky proposition. There is nothing more cowardly than money, especially if there is a risk you won’t get it back.
Even worse, obstacles remain. There is the U.S. economic embargo as well as Castro’s embargo on his citizens. Ludicrous regulations are imposed on businessmen who, in addition to having to deal with absurd exchange rates and laws dictated by the regime, cannot contract to hire their employees directly.
The door remains open for telecommunications and private employment but communications is not among the monopolized sectors up for sale in Cuba.
It is yet to be seen if Castro II will allow a private farmer from Camajuani to directly seek credit from an Illinois bank in order to buy fertilizer, seeds or a tractor.
The embargo could be lifted in a matter of months if the general initiated political changes and promised to respect human rights, but there have been no signs suggesting political reform.
On the contrary. The government went into a panic on December 30 over nothing more than an event by a performance artist and used the weapon it knows best: repression. They could have been creative; they could have simply unplugged the microphone Tania Bruguera was using to communicate with her supporters.
The dictatorship is not about to take a turn towards democracy. No way, no how, if for no other reason than its survival.
Too often, American politicians are guilty of naiveté. The history of Cuba since 1959 shows that the Castro brothers have three sworn enemies.
One is external — the United States — and serves as fuel to preserve domestic unity and the politics of the barricade.
Another is internal — the community of dissidents — which, no matter the particular type (political, journalistic, intellectual or artistic), is always treated as a threat, targeted by the special services, whose main mission is to divide, discredit and destroy them.
The third enemy is the private sector, whose small businessmen are seen as criminals. Just check Cuba’s statutes and read the second paragraph of the legal guidelines promulgated by Raul Castro.
It is stated quite clearly: Cubans living on the island will not be allowed to accumulate capital. The statutes covering self-employment are designed as a firewall to prevent citizens from acquiring wealth.
The government knows jobs and professions are uncertain. People may earn money to feed and clothe themselves, have a beer and maybe spend a weekend in a hotel, but nothing else.
The label “small businessman,” which the U.S. Chamber of Commerce so generously bestows on someone like Pablo— a guy who sells bread with mayonnaise and churros filled with guava in the south Havana neighborhood of Mantilla — is not inappropriate according to the organization’s bylaws.
There are many examples in the United States of tiny personal businesses which go on to become major corporations. Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook almost as a game while goofing off with his fellow university students.
One morning Bill Gates started a computer company in the garage of his house. LeBron James, a boy who grew up without a father and with n mother living in poverty, is now a formidable basketball player earning millions of dollars a year.
Such is the mindset of businessmen and politicians in the United States, where people are born into a society that nurtures creativity, enterprise and individuality.
But on the Island of the Castros, society is set up to thwart individual talent, competency and small businesses.
These are the laws of communism. China and Vietnam were more original, but they are not in the western orbit and their maritime borders do not hug the coast of the most powerful and affluent nation on earth.
Deng Xiaoping’s maxim that making money is not a sin is not part of Raul Castro’s strategy. The Cuban regime only allows those enterprises run by its most trusted associates, mostly men from the military, to prosper.
The key to the regime’s system is power. Did Obama therefore make a mistake by changing the rules of the game? No, it was a good move based on his own nation’s interests and its ideas about how a society should operate.
But on this side of the Florida Straits, the mindset and the maneuvering are very different. One might think that, without an enemy on which to blame the disastrous economy, Raul Castro would open the gates.
Until December 17, 2014, the regime operated best in confrontational situations, but with the ball now in their court, they are feeling uncomfortable.
They will accept new reforms and changes in the economic rules as long as these do not threaten their hold on power.
Politics will continue to be completely off-limits and for the foreseeable future they will continue to levy tariffs on the self-employed through a barrage of excessive regulations and high taxes.
They will do this for one simple reason: This is who they are.
Photo: General Raul Castro, from Lawrence Journal-World.
14ymedio, Pedro Campos, Havana, 6 February 2015 – The Government that emerged from the popular and democratic Revolution of 1959 has been characterized since its inception by its internationalist policies of solidarity, aid and cooperation with revolutionary and national liberation movements in Latin America and almost all other corners of the world.
The practice of internationalism has been a norm in the foreign activities of the government, always as a part of the “Marxist-Leninist” principles that uphold it.
It has its roots in our national history, in the participation of many foreigners continue reading
in our independence battles and even in our last feat against Batista’s tyranny, and also in the participation of Cubans in the struggles for liberation of the Thirteen Colonies of the North from English colonialism. Additionally, in American ventures against Spanish colonialism, in the Spanish Civil War, and in World War II against fascism, to point out some well-known historical occurrences.
The solidarity of the Cuban government never remained in simple declarations. Well-known are many actions of direct support in the form of arms, training, funds and men to many of those movements throughout the history of the last half of the XX century.
It would suffice to recall the actions of Che in Africa and Bolivia and the involvement of Cuban troops in the Arab-Israeli, Algerian-Moroccan, and Ethiopian-Somali conflicts as well as in the southern tip of Africa.
On the other hand, important international events that encouraged the use of violence in their political efforts also took place in Cuba.
The Cuban government encouraged armed struggles in Latin America for many years as a means of liberation from imperialist oppression.
The Cuban government encouraged armed struggles in Latin America for many years as a means of liberation from imperialist oppression.
The Island’s press services, especially Radio Habana Cuba, which broadcasts in all continents and in several languages, has constantly denounced human rights abuses at the hands of governments and reactionary forces throughout the world and has breathed life into communist parties, movements of the left, of workers, antifascists, and practically any popular cause that has developed in the world.
Cuban officials feel a sense of pride from those internationalist activities. Many of us Cubans took part in some way, directly or otherwise, in that great movement of solidarity, because internationalism has been part of our education from the State.
These policies began to revert at the fall of the Soviet Union and the “Eastern Bloc,” principal economic, political, and military supporters of the Cuban government.
In adapting to that new global order, a new foreign policy has been developed and applied throughout the last 15 years: upholding political solidarity for “anti-imperialist and revolutionary” movements without direct aid or involvement in other countries’ conflicts, instead seeking greater diplomatic recognition and the creation of favorable conditions that would diversify the Cuban State’s sources of income.
Cuban leaders reduced internationalist support to verbal solidarity and limited aid to natural disasters and health crises (the sale of medical and professional services is a business of the State, a separate subject matter) and they’ve also been effective in mediating to solve Colombia’s armed conflict.
At the same time, international activities aimed at combatting the embargo-blockade* were increased and, more recently, negotiations to reestablish and normalize diplomatic relations between the government and the United States have also taken place.
The Cuban government hopes for its new conduct of respect for international law to be equally met by the international community and, especially, by the United States in this new era of “normal” relations.
The ample and varied activities of aggression and subversion by all administrations of the United States to oust their Cuban counterpart are well-known.
From its sponsoring of the Bay of Pigs Invasion and support for opposition fighters in the Escambray Mountains, going through direct efforts against the national economy and assassination plots against Cuban leaders, to the U.S. Secret Services’ provision of logistical, economic, and political support to all kinds of armed and political movements against the Cuban government.
One should assume that in a new era of normalized relations, all those policies should cease on both sides.
This government could not accuse others of meddling in its internal affairs through the political and public efforts of other governments in favor of the Cuban people’s rights and liberties.
But, it will be necessary to keep in mind that it is not the same thing to show solidarity for the victims of unjust government policies as it is to conspire with nationals of other countries to topple governments. The right to self-determination does not restrict solidarity with the oppressed or with those whose rights are violated, only the practical and effective action that may be directed at undermining a people’s sovereign right to decide its own future, democratically and by itself.
The right to self-determination was born in the United Nations in 1960, precisely as a consequence of international solidarity with the people of Africa, who suffered beneath the boot of colonialism. Nobody could expect Cuba’s government not to voice solidarity with internationalist movements of the left, or to back them up politically as they sought to reclaim political, economic, and social independence, finally denouncing the violation of other people’s rights.
On that same note, this government could not accuse others of meddling in its internal affairs through the political and public efforts of other governments in favor of the Cuban people’s rights and liberties.
The best way to prevent such involvements would be by thoroughly respecting the political, civil, economic, and social rights of Cubans, especially the freedoms of expression, association, and election, as well as their ability to freely carry out productive and commercial activities. Applying, in short, without prejudice or discrimination, the principles set forth by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its respective agreements, which have been signed by this government.
Human rights are not of right or left, capitalists or socialists, northerners or southerners… they are human.
Whoever travels down these roads should know that they, too, have laws and they cut both ways; they are put in place to be respected and to prevent “accidents.”
The new international scenario that Cuba faces doesn’t only require from it a new focus on its international politics, but also on its internal affairs. A connection between the two should exist; there should be some correspondence.
*Translator’s note: The Cuban government calls the American embargo on Cuba a “blockade.”
The medication crisis that was anticipated in Venezuela is a storm that scared people even before it began. Not only because the inventories of the Ministry of Peoples’ Power for the Health of Venezuela, a governmental organization of national jurisdiction, are practically exhausted, but also because some of the medications handled by the Cuban medical mission came into the country without the consistent rigor of matching them to a corresponding medical registry.
It’s repugnant to read how a country’s problems are met with messianic discourse and disgusting to hear how continue reading
some of the upper-echelon Venezuelan health officials justify the bad management, assuring people that the scarcity of medications is due to laboratory workers taking vacations, and the chains of distribution being altered because of an “economic war,” and that as a result of “enemy” propaganda there was alarm, which caused people to buy in 15 days what they usually buy over 2 months.
The Cuban and Venezuelan governments some time ago crossed the line of respect for human dignity, and for that reason, although I’m not giving the written numbers, I’m copying part of the report issued by the Analysis Group for Medications of the Cuban Medical Mission in Venezuela, received via email in the Ministry of Public Health in Cuba.
In this dossier there is evidence of unquestionable irresponsibility that crosses the criminal line, and a deficit of medications that the Biofarmacuba company hasn’t procured and won’t procure for delivery on the agreed-on dates in order to fulfill the recent yearly plan.
According to the report, there’s a mountain of medications lacking for the 2015 plan that Biocubafarma won’t be able to provide. I list some of them here:
1. Ampicillin 125 mg/5 ml p/susp x 60 ml: Out of stock in the warehouses.
2. Local anesthesia (cartridge of 1.8 cc: Out of stock. Pending (Dentistry).
3. Atropine 0.5 mg amp x 1 ml: Not in solution, controlled, without medical registration in Venezuela. (CDI, Surgery).
4. Atenolol 0.5 mg amp: In facilities. Pending arrival in Cuba of discontinued imported product.
5. Carbamazepine 200 mg x 90 tab: Not in solution because it is a controlled product. Imported. Not on medical registry in Venezuela (Peoples’ Medical Consult).
6. Cefalexina 500 mg x 10 cap: Pending production.
7. Ciprofloxacin 200 mg/100 ml BBO: Pending export (General Use).
8. Clorhidrato de tramadol 100 mg amp: Pending import permit.
9. Chlorpromazine 25 mg amp x 1 ml: Not in solution. Controlled product. Imported without medical registration in Venezuela.
10. Diclofenac sodium: 1 mg/ml col x 5 ml (Voltaren): Not in solution. Inventory expired (Eye Clinics).
11. Digoxina 0.25 mg x 20 tab: Out of stock. Pending removal from port.
12. Elitrol 1 x 5 ml fco: Out of stock. Pending arrival in Cuba of imported discontinued product.
13. Ergometrine 0.2 mg x 1 mil: Not in solution. Controlled and imported without medical registration in Venezuela.
14. Glibenclamide 5 mg x 10 tab: Out of stock in warehouses.
15. Hydralazine 20 mg amp x 1 mil: Out of stock in warehouses.
16. Hydrocortisone 100 mg bbo: Out of stock in warehouses.
17. Actrapid Insulin 100 u bbo x 10 ml. Out of stock.
18. Human Insulin 100 NPH bbo x 10 ml: Out of stock.
19. Isoprenaline 0.2 mg amp: Out of stock. Pending removal from port (High Technology Centers-CAT).
20. Meropenem 1G BBO: Unavailable for 22 weeks (Therapy and hospitalization).
21. Salicure-Test 50 det x 100 ml. (Clinical reagent).
22. Ureterovesical probe No. 18 x 20: Out of stock.
23. Coombs serum: Out of stock.
24. P Tubes/Pentra Complete Hematology packet x 400: Distributed one part of what was received because of their expiration dates.
25. Thiamine 100 mg bbo: Not yet in solution due to technological problems (CDI).
26.Timolol Missing for 20 weeks. Reported by 12 states. Affected by material in the container.
27. Thiopental 500 mg bbo: Missing for 6 weeks. Affected by raw material.
28. Vitamin A and D2 drops x 15 mil: Not in solution, inventory expired (Peoples’ Medical Consult).
29. Vitamin C drops fco x 15 ml: Not in solution, inventory expired (Peoples’ Medical Consult).
This is enough without boring you to show that – as my grandmother, who didn’t have good sight but knew how to see – would say: It’s much easier to catch a liar than a cripple.
With the death today of the Queen of Campesina Music, Celina González, the noon news had a long and flattering account of her career. Fortunately, they skipped over the 1964-1980 hiatus when Celina disappeared from public view, briefly noting that “the duo Celina and Reutilio unfortunately disappeared,” or something like that.
The truth is that Celina had also enjoyed a successful solo career but was not considered sufficiently representative of the Revolutionary continue reading
culture. There was even a period when her recordings were not played on the radio. The media later took notice of her only after her immense popularity in countries like Peru and especially Colombia. Even then, her best-known song, “Que Viva Chango,” was not broadcast until much later (I cannot remember when).
I once had the privilege of hearing her sing a capella — in full form and powerful — at the home of choreographer Victor Cuellar. I mentioned this to her years later when I met her and her son, Lázaro Reutilio, in 1990 amid the hustle and bustle of buying our (I guess it was one of hers) now-deceased Aleko.*
*Translator’s note: González, performed with her husband, Reutilio Domínguez from 1947 to 1964, when the duo disbanded. In 1981 she formed a duo with her son, performing songs she and her husband had made famous. Her best-known song, “Que Viva Chango” (also known as “Santa Barbara Bendita” or “Blessed St. Barbara”) was a tribute to the Afro-Cuban god of fire and his Catholic counterpart, St. Barbara. She later recorded a version, “Que Viva Fidel,” with different lyrics that paid homage to Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolution.
Last summer, 48-year-old Lisván, owner of a small photographic studio in a neighbourhood in the east of Havana, personally suffered the consequences of the absurd prohibitions that the Castro regime imposes on its citizens.
With the profits made from his business and after saving a part of the money sent to his family from abroad, he stayed for five nights with his wife and daughter in the hotel Meliá Marina Varadero, for 822 pesos convertibles.
“On the beach I struck up a friendship continue reading
with a group of Canadians. One morning they wanted to invite me to come fishing on a yacht they had rented. But, in spite of being a guest at the hotel, the marina hotel management did not allow it. No Cuban citizen, resident in the island, is allowed to get on a boat with a motor, without government permission” said Lisván.
Ten years ago, the prohibitions were even stranger. Cubans could not stay in luxury hotels, rent cars or have a cellphone line.
If you sit down in a hotel lobby, you become a suspicious person in the eyes of State Security. With Raúl Castro’s coming to power, following his brother Fidel’s executive with its fingers in everything, various discriminatory regulations were repealed.
The Cubans were third class citizens in their own country. Óscar, a barman in a five star hotel in Havana, fought as a private soldier in the civil war in Angola.
“The ones who supported Fidel, who hardly could eat anything in our country because of the scarcity, we were not allowed to go into a foreign friend’s apartment. And the Cubans who went off to Florida, called ’worms’ by the government, had the right to enjoy the tourist centres. It was an Olympic-sized contradiction”, recalls Óscar.
In the winter of 2015 these prohibitions no longer exist. But various regulations which breach the inalienable rights of the island’s citizens remain in force.
They talk a lot about the the US economic and financial embargo on the Raúl Castro regime, with arguments for and against, but not much is said in the international forums about the olive green state’s embargo on its people.
The internal embargo has become more flexible, but we Cubans still don’t have the right to open an internet account at home, travel or fish in a motor boat or access certain health services reserved exclusively for foreigners.
Civil rights hardly exist. They forbid the formation of political parties. Demonstrations in the street. Workers’ strikes. independent trade unions, free popular elections to elect a president. Independent newspapers or arranging to watch cable TV.
It’s an imprisonable crime to personally offend the President. And, since 2002, following a campaign by Fidel Castro, no civil groups may introduce a proposal to change the Constitution.
The system is perpetual. The Cuban leaders are an untouchable caste. The people owe duties to them, not the other way round. Only the state can put out news, books and movies.
Although independent journalists do exist, as well as dissident parties and an emerging civil society, the government maintains legislation which allows the sanctioning of political disagreement with years in jail.
Cuba is the only country in the Western hemisphere where political opposition is illegal. Making fun of or caricaturing executives of the autocracy is not permitted. A magazine like Charlie Hebdo is impossible in the island.
Discriminatory rules which prohibit Cubans going where they want in their own country are still in force. Like decree 217 of 1997. the Ministry of the Interior dismantles small local wifi networks where youngsters play on the internet, send movies, or chat.
And some of these perverse regulations have gained a new lease of life. The customs service has implemented a group of measures to to stop Cuban travellers bringing things in.
These rules affect the quality of life and the pockets of Cuban families. Ask Migdalia, an engineer, about this. In the last two months she has spent 75 CUC to receive parcels exceeding the one and a half kilos authorized by the customs.
There weren’t any “counter-revolutionary” leaflets or luxury items in the suitcases. Just clothes and presents for her daughter’s birthday. It is the Castro government’s embargo that is the more damaging to the Cuban in the street. The other one, the US one, gets the media attention but is less effective.
Iván García
Photo: Cubans can’t rent or get into yachts or other types of boats in Meliá Marina Varadero, or other hotels or places on the coast. Taken by Cuba Contemporánea.
Ángel Santiesteban-Prats was and is the victim of Cuban State Security, which wants to silence his voice of opposition.
They fabricated a judicial action based on false denunciations from the mother of his son, who properly denied them when he announced internationally that he had been forced by his mother and the political police to declare against his own father.
Angel’s innocence has been shown with more than enough proof, and all good Cubans (and others) know it. Before the impotence of puppet justice to “prove” these denunciations, in spite of the fact that international law doesn’t consider one element of the accusation valid, they justified a sentence of five years on the report of a calligraphy expert: “guilty by the height and inclination of his handwriting.” continue reading
Some secret accords between the administration of President Obama and the dictatorship of Raul Castro, encouraged by his Holiness Pope Francis I (knowing the “Santiesteban” case, since he has received many letters and faxes), have effected the renewal of diplomatic relations between both countries. As a gesture of “good will,” the dictator freed 53 political prisoners, of whom 14 were already released, demonstrating once again how Castro ridicules the whole world, including those who favor treating him in a way he doesn’t deserve.
Shamefully, Angel Santiesteban-Prats wasn’t included on that list [of prisoners to be released]. Obama, as well as the “human rights” organizations that composed the list, know very well that the dictatorship’s most effective method is to condemn the opposition for common crimes that are invented in order to take support away from them and in order to deprive them of the possible benefit of amnesty.
Nor can those who composed the list of “approved” political prisoners justify the Machiavellian maneuver of the “legal bureaucracy” (not being “bureaucratically” political prisoners, they can’t be on that list, although the trap perpetuated against them has been made public).
The fact is undeniable: They ignore and exclude those “common prisoners” condemned because of their opposition and moreover are responsible for the injustice they committed with Angel’s exclusion.
It’s worth remembering once more that Angel Santiesteban-Prats must be the only common prisoner on the island who was offered freedom in exchange for abandoning his political posture, many times. Each time he refused.
Angel not only remained off this list because he is — according to the dictatorship, the Pope, President Obama, and the intervening human rights organizations — a “common delinquent,” they also laid another legal trap, delaying for more than a year the “benefit” of a review of the ridiculous judgment.
This “review,” approved but not yet carried out, left Angel outside any possibility of enjoying his rights as a prisoner, among them conditional liberty, which he should get in April, upon fulfilling half of his sentence. The explanation is again a bureaucratic one: While there are pending “matters” with justice, there is nothing conditional; now Angel has a pending review that will never happen.
The ones guilty of this situation are Raul Castro and his always-and-never-dead brother, Fidel. But by the same measure, so are all those compatriots who call themselves “activists” and “dissidents,” who know that Angel IS NOT a common prisoner but a prisoner of conscience. They left him alone and excluded him from the list. You have to ask yourself how many more of those “common prisoners” have also been forgotten when that list was drawn up.
Any honest and decent agreement must include the demand (no one demanded anything from the dictatorship) of immediate and unconditional freedom for ALL Cuban political prisoners. Angel Santiesteban-Prats has always expressed this demand in his writings from prison.
From here on, and condemning the silence and the complicity of everyone involved in these agreements, WE DEMAND THE IMMEDIATE, UNCONDITIONAL RELEASE OF ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS. The rest, as the people of Cuba say, is mere jabbering, cheap politicking.
ANTONIO G. RODILES, Havana, 4 February 2015 – Days ago the attorney Rene Gomez Manzano wrote an article about the similarities of the Roadmap formulated by the Forum for Rights and Freedoms and the four points of the Civil Society Open Forum. Upon hearing yesterday of the regime opponent Manuel Cuesta Morua’s remarks at the US Senate hearing on Cuba, it seems appropriate to me to point out as clearly as possible what are the points on which the two predominant positions within the Cuban opposition agree and differ.
The announcement by President Barack Obama last December 17 polarized the opposition into two trends. The essential differences between the two groups are not only about whether or not they support the measures launched by Obama, but the focus on how we conceive the transition and the kind of country we see in the future.
Both positions show our commitment to democracy, human rights and the end of totalitarianism. But are we giving the exact same same connotation to these terms? continue reading
Obama’s policy is applauded by those joined together in the Open Space, which has several visible elements:
It gives legitimacy to the regime to restore diplomatic relations, that is it accepts the government as legitimate.
There is no roadmap or preconditions for the political process although it mentions four points without fixing a methodology.
It accepts that the transition process will be principally, at least at the beginning, in the hands of the political actors of the regime, which presupposes that they will be part of the future of the island.
It considers that the democratic changes will come as an evolution of supposed economic transformations that the regime will be motivated or pressured to pursue from the new measures implemented.
And something that has not formed part of the measures but that has happened in practice, it accepts that the Obama administration gives preference to those from the opposition and within the Island, who share this view.
Those of us who join together in the Forum believe that the political process must be based on a different logic:
The Cuban regime is not a government elected by the people and therefore is not legitimate for representing a sovereign people, although for reasons of logical survival we have to accept certain rules. As a sovereign people, i.e. as Cubans, we have the right to demand with regards to the relations of democratic nations with our country.
We do not conceive the future of Cuba in the hands of the political heirs and relatives of the Castro. We will not join the construction of a new authoritarianism that will continue the process of destruction of our nation.
We consider that any political process must have full transparency in its objectives, must be well considered if it is to at least have some certainties at the end. Hence the Roadmap with the points raised.
Human rights and the promotion of democracy, as primary objectives, should not be masked by other elements. They must be shown especially to the Cuban people, confused after 57 years of dictatorship, so they can decide in what direction they want to take this country.
So yes, it belongs to Cubans, inside the Island and in exile, to find their way, giving space to the political actors of civil society to give direction to the real changes.
It is time to discuss with total clarity. The serious and direct debate should be in the maturation of the actors and the political scenario. The distinct visions about how to construct a nation are natural and healthy, but we can play our roles effectively only if there is a certain political confidence among the actors. Perhaps we do not form a symphony orchestra, although we could be a jazz ensemble, where everyone plays their parts without strident or abusive sounds.
Photo taken by Universo Increible (Incredible Universe)
Rafael Alejandro Hernández Real, who says he was an agent of State Security in Cuba — infiltrated into the Eastern Democratic Alliance — in September 2014 chained himself in the Plaza Bolivar of Bogota, Colombia, and now is on a hunger strike, demanding that he be allowed to go to the United States, according to a report from Universo Increible.
“Ten young Cuban emigrants have declared a hunger and drink strike in the immigration station at Acayucán, in the state of Veracruz, in order to avoid being deported to Cuba. Right now there are seven men and three women. The group of strikers has been increasing before the official denials and threats of being returned to the island,” reports the news source.
Hernández Real made himself known in 2008 when, together with Eliecer Ávila and other students at the University of Information Sciences in Havana, they questioned the then-president of the Peoples’ Power National Assembly. Ricardo Alarcón. On that occasion Ávila and Hernández Real called for the freedom to leave the country, to visit historic sites of the world like “Che Guevara’s tomb in Bolivia,” and they questioned the supposed unanimity of the general voting that takes place in Cuba.
14ymedio, YOSMANY MAYETA LABRADA, Santiago de Cuba, 3 February 2015 — Concern has spread in recent weeks among patients with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in the province of Santiago de Cuba. According to a new “guidance” from the Ministry of Public Health, care of HIV-positive people will no longer occur in a specialized clinic, but rather will be handled at the regular family clinics in their neighborhoods.
The measure has been greeted with alarm by those who say it will result in a decreased quality of medical care, and who fear the loss of privacy over their status. In an environment where prejudices and fears still prevail continue reading
against people living with HIV, medical attention in the area where they live could cause neighbors and family members to reject them.
Several physicians who work in the family medical clinics, moreover, acknowledged in the meetings held to implement the new policy that they are not prepared to treat people with HIV. Until now, the monitoring and care of these patients has been in centralized clinics, handled by a medical doctor and a nurse specializing in the treatment of this virus.
However, the constant loss of medical personnel who leave to go on international missions, along with the apparent decrease in resources available for healthcare, have made it impossible to maintain the specialized clinics. A setback to which is added the recent cuts in the supplemental food received by seropositive people.
The constant loss of medical personnel who leave to go on international missions has made it impossible to maintain the specialized clinics
Prior to this guidance, many patients were already complaining about violations of the code of ethics on the part of the physicians and public health personnel, who revealed their disease to other people. Now, fears about possible indiscretions are growing. Given the more local and neighborhood character of the clinics, the problem could worsen in the coming months.
Otto Reyes is one of the many HIV patients who claims to have been a victim of an indiscretion on the part of a nurse who treated him, who revealed his HIV status to a near neighbor. An experience similar to that of Damaris Rivaflecha and Dulca Maria Benitez, who were extremely disgusted by how information about their illness was publicly aired; as a result of such carelessness they decided not to return to the clinic.
The situation is more dramatic among very young patients. A young man, 18, who prefers anonymity, said that he fears that people in his area will learn about his illness when he has to start being treated at the nearest family clinic. For him, “It will be like starting from zero,” and he says he will feel like “they gave me the diagnosis all over again, people will look down on me and what I’m most afraid of is rejection.”
Lester Acosta, who also lives with the disease, told this newspaper he had suffered discrimination for being HIV positive, including within his own family. He, who has experienced it firsthand, wonders what will happen now with the end of the specialized clinics. “What will become of those who don’t want their condition to be publicly known?” he laments.
Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 4 February 2015 – Early in the morning Josefina heard on the morning news that Artemisa province had started the potato harvest. She heard that the “planned economy” target was almost 8,800 tons of potatoes and that the harvest would run through the middle of April. Almost intuitively, she looked through the blinds of her 8th floor apartment from where she could see that at the nearby farmers market there were two trucks unloading some sacks.
At that moment her daughter Olivia was staging the daily drama of putting on her primary school uniform and Josefina was faced the dilemma or whether to go stand in line before taking her daughter to school. “The potatoes are here!” her neighbor shouted and half the building leaned over their balconies to confirm it. By twenty minutes to eight she had already left her daughter, hair uncombed, at the door of the school, where an aide asked her, “Is it true? Are the potatoes here?”
The line extended around the corner, but her friend who sells plastic bags outside the market beckoned her to come and stand behind her. Half an hour later, Josefina had achieved her purpose. She hadn’t eaten a real potato for six months, and had only rarely had the hard currency necessary to buy a bag of dehydrated potatoes. The additional advantage was that 20 pounds of potatoes only cost 20 pesos in national money*, less than what she would have to spend for a little packet of instant mashed potatoes.
As she was leaving the market she heard the authoritative voice of the administrator shout, “No more potatoes!” A few steps away two burly young men whispered their proposed alternative, “A ten pound bag, only two fulitas (“little dollars”)**.”
Translator’s notes:
*See this article for a discussion of Cuba’s dual currency system.
**In other words, the black market potatoes cost more than four times the official market price… but they are available.
14ymedio, Havana, 2 February 2015 – The number of arbitrary arrests for political reasons in Cuba declined during the month of January to 178, according to the latest report of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN) released Monday. Despite one of the lowest figures in recent years, the organization “looks to the immediate future with extreme skepticism as long as the regime continues to impose a totalitarian model on pour people which is the primary cause of the poverty and hopelessness that plague the vast majority of Cubans.”
The report notes that, “despite possible changes in the geopolitical scenario, the situation of civil and political rights and other fundamental rights in Cuba remains the worst in the entire Western Hemisphere.”
During the first month of the year, the Commission also recorded 48 cases of physical assaults and 36 victims of various forms of harassment by the secret political police and paramilitary agents.
The organization describes as positive the releases of political prisoners in the framework of agreements between the governments of Raúl Castro and Barack Obama, but recalled that “dozens of political prisoners and thousands of innocent Cubans continue to languish in Castro’s prisons under generally inhumane and degrading conditions.”
14ymedio, Havana, 5 February 2015 (With information from agencies) — The Cuban government has canceled the visit of the US members of Congress that were scheduled for this month in connection with the resumption of bilateral relations, as reported Thursday the Associated Press. US sources consulted by AP say that the travel plans of several congressional delegations are postponed until at least mid-April.
Among the lawmakers who were planning to travel to Cuba, are Democratic Senator Nancy Pelosi and Republican Senator Jeff Flake, a promoter of removing the ban on US travel to Cuba.
“Right now are not ready for our visit,” said Republican Senator Jerry Moran. “We do not know the reason. The Cubans have informed my staff that they can’t coordinate the meetings they want us to participate in. It could be a matter of reprogramming, but I don’t know.”
AP notes that Havana’s decision has raised questions about the willingness of Raul Castro’s government to receive investments from the US.
The trip cancellation occurs in parallel with a series of hearings in the US Congress on the rapprochement between the two countries following the announcement by President Barack Obama last December of an end to five decades of estrangement.
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 4 February 2015 – This coming February 22 Tania Bruguera should be in Madrid to present one of her works at the ARCO International Contemporary Art Fair, but she knows she isn’t going to make it. Trapped by Cuban justice since last December 30, when she was arrested during her performance #YoTambienExijo (I Too Demand), the artist remains in Havana hoping to resolve her legal situation. We talked with her about this, her artivism, and the future of Cuba.
Sanchéz. What is your current legal and immigration situation?
Bruguera. I am waiting for a prosecutor to reduce the charges against me. I have been advised by several attorneys, such as Laritza Diversent from Cubalex, and also René Gómez Manzano, from Corriente Agramontista [both independent legal groups]. They have told me that in this case there are at least three possible outcomes: one is the dismissal of the case, which could be temporary or permanent. Another is that they could impose an administrative measure, which carries a fine. The detail with this option is that I would have to recognize my guilt and accept the charges and accusations they’ve made against me, and I don’t think this variation is just. The third possibility is that it will be taken to trial continue reading
, although that seems unlikely to me.
Sanchéz. You are trapped in the intricate mechanisms of Cuban justice…
Bruguera. Throughout this process, I’ve come to realize that there is a very strong vulnerability for citizens who find themselves in similar situations. For example, it has been very difficult for me to find a lawyer who wants to take on my defense. They only allow attorneys “in the system” to represent a defendant, so the independent lawyers can advise me but they can’t represent me.
The few who have agreed to represent me have warned me, as of now, that the solution is to accept everything because the situation is over and to try not to go to trial, because the day that we get in front of a court, the sentence will have been decided before the first word is said. We will have lost before we start the defense.
Sanchéz. Among the worst nightmares of many Cuban emigrants is that of visiting the island and then their not letting you leave. Do you experience this?
“Only lawyers “in the system” can represent me, so the independent lawyers can advise me but they can’t represent me”
Bruguera. For me it’s the opposite. My nightmare is that they let me leave but they don’t let me return. Indeed, if tomorrow they return my passport, which they confiscated, I will not go. I need to be completely sure that there will be no bitter surprises like not being able to return.
Beyond that, what I have experienced in the last weeks has changed my life. I will never stop being an artist, but maybe now I have to be here. They have to understand that they cannot throw out of the country everyone who bothers them.
Sanchéz. Can you say Tatlin’s Whisper # 6, both in its first version in Cuba in 2009 as well as in this attempt now, is it a work that has marked your life?
Tatlin’s Whisper #6. With English subtitles. Tania Bruguera’s performance art which took place at the Wilfredo Lam Center in Havana at the 2009 Bienniel.
Bruguera. The performance of December 30 had its antecedent in Tatlin’s Whisper #6 realized in 2009 at the Wilfredo Lam Center, which also profoundly marked my professional life. I didn’t know at first, because it wasn’t public, but I was banned from exhibiting in Cuba.
I began to realize it because no one called me to explain here, which I assume was because they were trying to protect… something natural in the system. However, the same people who censored me at the time a posteriori, and who are censoring me now, want to use the realization of that performance as an example of tolerance… and it wasn’t.
Sanchéz. Why do you think that at that time it was possible to open the microphones to the public?
Bruguera. What happened at that opportunity at the Wilfredo Lam Center was because of the particular conditions that came together. It was during the Havana Biennial, a space which in itself is more tolerant, there were a lot of press and foreigners present, I was the guest of Guillermo Gómez Peña, the special guest of the Biennial, plus it was within an art space with an audience the majority of whom are intellectuals. Afterwards, there indeed was a punishment.
I propose projects to Cuban cultural institutions and they always tell me no. Something very unfortunate happened, which was a trip I made with my students from the French École des Beaux-Arts during which we wanted to visit the Superior Art Institute (ISA).
Then from ISA they sent a pretty clear and direct letter to the director of the school in Paris saying they couldn’t accept this visit if I would be leading the group and they should send another professor, because I was a person with whom they had no professional relationship, ignoring of course that I graduated from this school and was a professor there for a few years.
On this same trip, when I got to the airport, I was met by a representative from the National Arts Council and a person dressed in civilian clothes who never identified himself. Both let me know that I wouldn’t be able to do anything with the institutions and tried to tell me that there were problems with my passport, with the permit, trying to block my entry to the country, but I was able to prove it was all in good standing under the new travel and immigration law.
“If some foreigner asked about me, I was a valued artist, but if I proposed to do something in the institutions they wouldn’t allow me to”
On a subsequent trip to Cuba, I asked for an appointment with the Deputy Minister of Culture, Fernando Rojas, to deal with my case. Also attending this meeting were Rubén del Valle, president of the National Arts Council, and Jorge Fernández, the director of the Havana Biennial.
I explained everything that had happened to me and they responded that none of this would have occurred if I hadn’t been provocative in the 2009 Biennial and they weren’t going to forget about and I wouldn’t have any more expositions in Cuban institutions.
I could see then that there was a clear double-standard policy against me; if some foreigner asked about me, I was a valued artist, but if I proposed to do something in the institutions they wouldn’t allow me to.
On that occasion, I remember that the deputy minister told me that the fact that I was there meeting with them indicated that they wanted to redefine my relationship with the institution and I told him I could see that, but I was an artist who dissented and criticized what didn’t seem right to me, and I had done it here and wherever I did my work and that wasn’t going to change.
Well, today we know the result of that cultural policy with those who return: bring us your money and your prestige but not your criticisms.
Interview: Yoani Sanchez and Tania Bruguera (14ymedio)
Sanchéz. How did you get the idea of repeating the performance, this time in the Plaza of the Revolution?
Bruguera. I was in Italy, at a performance festival I’d been invited to, and on Wednesday, 17 December, I traveled from Venice to Rome to participate in a Mass of Pope Francis.
When it was over, I returned on the train and my sister called to ask me if I had seen the news about the announcement made by the governments of Cuba and the United States. It was very powerful news emotionally, as it was for any Cuban. It was a surprise that shook the foundations underlying the entire Cuban identity. The answer to this emotion was to write a letter.
I wanted to look him in the face, Raúl Castro, and ask how he could explain so many years of confrontation. While I was writing the letter, a phrase started to emerge, “as a Cuban I demand that…” And in that I was putting all my doubts, all my unanswered questions, about a future that wasn’t clear, about an idea of a nation that was redefined without a good look at where it was going.
Then I sent it to my sister and a friend who answered, “I also demand.” So I also sent it to the newspaper Granma and this paper [14ymedio] where it was finally published. It was a very nice experience, because it was something I did spontaneously… I’d never published anything like that, but immediately many people started to say “I also demand” and even created a hashtag on social networks. I was very excited to see so many people get involved and I must confess that I remembered my time with Occupy Wall Street.
Sanchéz. The energy of spontaneity?
Bruguera. Yes, the strength that comes from the enthusiasm that something can generate. Here the cultural and political institutions want to own the enthusiasm of Cubans, they believe that enthusiasm is only legitimate if it is something that is consistent with the interests of the State.
“The cultural and political institutions believe that enthusiasm is only legitimate if it is something that is consistent with the interests of the State”
Sanchéz. Did you expect the reaction from the cultural and official institutions?
Bruguera. I never thought it would generate such a disproportionate response. Most significant was that of the president of the National Council of Arts himself, Ruben del Valle, who told me after two lengthy meetings that he washed his hands of what might happen to me legally… or anything else.
On the other hand, the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) published a rather aggressive statement, and I am a member of that organization, and they didn’t even call a meeting with me beforehand, without inquiring or investigating. They simply judged me and questioned that what I tried to do was art.
Sanchéz. Some artists in the country have supported you in the past few weeks, as is the case with the painter Pedro Pablo Oliva, while others like Lázaro Saavedra criticized aspects of the performance, and the great majority have remained silent. How do you view the attitude of the Cuban intellectual and artistic world toward what happened?
Bruguera. First it is important to say that everyone has the right to react however they want and not to be judged for it. Now, well in Cuba we know that there is a cultural policy of many years with certain invisible boundaries that people know they should not cross because there will be consequences, and it is also true that in a place where they pressure you to define yourself, at times silence is the most articulate argument. I have had a very warm response and support from many artists and people on the street whom I don’t even know.
Sanchéz. Were you willing, at some point, to change the location of the performance and not to hold it at the Plaza of the Revolution?
Bruguera. Even for me, the location in the Plaza was problematic from an aesthetic point of view. I had problems with the Plaza of the Revolution because on a symbolic level it’s exhausted, it is a symbol that has been overused… that doesn’t even represent ordinary Cubans, but rather the great powers of the government. Doing it in the Plaza, I wrote in the letter addressed to Raúl and published in 14ymedio on 18 December, was more like a metaphor.
I also imagined a place like Old Havana where there is every type of person, where the people are. I proposed other locations, like the street in front of the universal art of the Art Museum and the space between the National Belles Artes Museum and the Museum of the Revolution, but they weren’t accepted.
Sanchéz. What was the proposal of the National Arts Council?
“Ruben del Valle insisted that the right of admission had to be controlled, so they wouldn’t let in ‘the dissidents and the mercenaries’.”
Bruguera. They proposed to do it inside the Belles Artes Museum in the Cuban Art Building. I told Rubén del Valle no, in the first place because of the aesthetic problem. I didn’t want to repeat the same work from 2009, so I said that five years later it wouldn’t be inside the institution where something like this has been done, rather it had to conquer the streets.
I proposed then that we do it on the stairs at the entrance to the museum, but he insisted it has to be inside and that the right of admission had to be controlled, so they wouldn’t let in “the dissidents and the mercenaries.”
He boasted that the opposition only represented 0.0001% of the Cuban population, to which I responded that I was often 0.0001% of something and it was very good, because it is also necessary that there be minorities.
Sanchéz. They are waiting for you in Madrid to present a work in ARCO 2015, but you probably won’t arrive in time. What will you show there?
Bruguera. It is like so many projects that are now halted and won’t be realized, something that was coordinated over many months, almost a year. It is a work I did in Cuba when I saw myself like a Nkisi, an African religious icon that people put nails into to make a wish. In return, they promise something to the icon and they have to keep their promise, if not the spirit will collect on the promise. People have a lot of respect, because they feel that it is a very strong spirit.
In 1998, dressed like that, I went out into the streets of Old Havana and it created a kind of procession. I wanted to represent, then, the idea of promises made to the people and never kept. The suit ended up with residue on it and there is a gallery in Madrid that I had planned to have repair it, before the show, because it was damaged in transit. But I know now that I won’t get there, I have asked the organizers to invite the spectators to the show and they themselves can repair it, putting nails into it and making their requests.
Sanchéz. ¿Artist or artivista ?
Bruguera. I make political art. For me there is a clear division in art, on one side that which is a representation because it comments, and on the other, art that works from the political because it wants to change something. I make art that appropriates the tools of the political and tries to generate political moments, an art through which one speaks directly to power and in its own language.
For example, I had a school (Cátedra Arte de Conducta / Behavior Art School) for seven years because education is one of the long-term pillars of politics, and I also did a newspaper twenty years ago (Memoria de la Postguerra / Postwar Memory) to “take” the media like they do, and now I take to the streets, the plazas and the places they create that belong exclusively to power.
“Artivisim” is a variant of political art which I ascribe to that tries to change things, not satisfied with denouncing, but rather trying to find solutions to change, a little bit, the political reality in which we live.
Sanchéz. Do you think that after December 30 Cuba is closer to an Occupy Wall Street?
Bruguera. That is what they fear most. Even in the various meetings I had with the cultural authorities and officials they told me I wanted to do here the same thing that had happened in the streets of Ukraine. That’s their great obsession.
The irony is that they felt Occupy Wall Street was nice when it happened over there, in the United States, but they make clear that they will not allow the use of plazas for something like that here.
Sanchéz. Some saw in your call to the Plaza an act that could impede the restoration of relations between Cuba and the United States. Did you feel that? What do you think of this process?
Bruguera. It is very contradictory, because on one hand the authorities here tell me that what I do does not matter to anyone, and on the other hand they accuse me that my actions will ruin the country’s future. They make you feel like you don’t matter, but also that you carry the weight of the blame for what happens.
It is very naïve to think that some negotiations between two governments for 18 months, with so many interests involved, are going to be ruined by a performance… I don’t have such a disproportionate ego.
“It is very naïve to think that some negotiations between two governments for 18 months, with so many interests involved, are going to be ruined by a performance”
Personally, I think all that is peace is welcome. The problem is just making political headlines in the short-term and not legislative policy in the long-term. Everyone wonders whether the “blockade” will be removed and that is very complex process in which many details, and techniques, need to be negotiated.
For me, what is important are the possibilities that exist today, because they have started to restore diplomatic relations and there is a serious debate about the “blockade,” to rethink the project of the nation from a collective space where all Cubans participate, and that is what #YoTambienExijo is about.
It is time to ask for a decriminalization of opinion differences, to create another policy with the press and the media, to legalize civic associations and political parties, to revise the Constitution, to allow Cubans to be active citizens and not just aspire to be passive consumers.
And we must also ensure that the benefits reach everyone. Cubans are very defenseless, especially those who remained in Cuba. Without revising and changing the laws, without a civic literacy program, without institutions beginning to respond not to the government but to the interests of the members of their organizations, without non-institutional critical spaces… it is not possible to prevent the coming, for example, of a huge transnational that mistreats the workers, that doesn’t pay a decent wage, and that doesn’t allow unions to protect them.
It is the government’s responsibility to prepare citizens for what is coming and to provide laws that protects them, but they seem so focused on keeping themselves in power that they can’t see how important it is to empower ordinary Cubans. In Cuba we have learned our duties very well, but not our rights. The time has come for ordinary Cubans to demand their rights.
