Category: AUTHORS

Cuba: Drawing Room Dissidents / Ivan Garcia

ucraniaNever before have Cuban dissidents had it so easy. Fifteen or twenty years ago publishing a political document was a sure path to jail.

If you were an intellectual — I can recall professor Ricardo Boffill, the writer and poet Raul Rivero and the poet María Elena Cruz Valera — it was not enough for them just to disparage you with an editorial in the newspaper Granma.

You would lose your job. Your friends would not even say hello to you. You would begin to live clandestinely. Harassment by cowboys from State Security would make you paranoid. It was unbearable. They would disturb you at all hours, you would receive nasty calls in the middle of the night and, since they had absolute power, they could detain you as often as they saw fit.

Certainly, we still live under the Republic’s absurd “Gag Law,” a legal tool that allows the government to sentence you to twenty or more years in prison just for writing a newspaper article without state approval. However, from 2010 until now, 95% of arrests have been of short duration, lasting hours or days.

Of course, dissidents are still subject to karate kicks from plainclothes policemen dressed as peasants, beatings and verbal assaults in front of their homes.

Being a dissident in an autocracy while supporting democracy and political freedom carries a cost. Being subject to insults and death threats is never pleasant, but Cuban dissidents accept them.

But even if the repressors’ behavior seems savage and intimidating — which it is — fifty years ago you would have gotten the death penalty for the same things they are doing now. It isn’t much, but it’s something. The island’s dissident movement now enjoys recognition by democratic nations.

Outside the island they are more visible today. They communicate using blogs, websites, Twitter, Facebook and other digital tools. Some have received awards for their activism, and as of January 2013 they can travel and lobby American and international institutions. They chat with and take have their pictures taken with politicians.

They can also take classes that increase their knowledge. This is all positive but current circumstances in Cuban society require something more than speeches, periodic reports on human rights violations and drawing room meetings among dissidents.

The local opposition should try to reach agreement among themselves and devise a coherent political program that is inclusive and modern. Disagreements, egos and posturing should be set aside.

All dissidents agree on one point: Cuba must change. We must then work towards a common goal. It seems to me that this is the moment to be of one mind and to focus our efforts within the country.

Eight out of ten people with whom I spoke disagree with the regime. Even in official blogs by such writers such as Alejo, Gay Paquito and Elaine Díaz the complaints against previously sacred institutions reveal unhappiness within the society.

The things on which the opposition and a wide segment of the population agree are significant. Dissidents, whether they be workers or professionals, all suffer from the same material shortages caused by poor management by the government.

In our neighborhoods plumbing lines are broken and streets are full of potholes. The buildings where we live are in need of repair, the hospitals were we are treated are decrepit and in our children’s schools the poor quality of education is palpable.

It is necessary, however, to prioritize work within communities and neighborhoods. Although a high percentage of the population is in agreement with the dissidents, the divide between the population and the opposition is clearly evident.

Because of negative government propaganda directed against dissidents, many ordinary Cubans do not trust opposition figures. They see them as opportunists and demagogues.

Political proselytizing by dissident activists must be directed to the Cuban on the street. There is no point in publishing an article in a foreign newspaper, making statements on Radio Martí or giving a seminar at an American university when the audience we must convince is at our doorstep or on the sidewalk in front.

Another issue on which the dissident movement must focus is the subject of money and aid provided by foreign institutions. Transparency is paramount. It would be beneficial if they were to account for every centavo spent or resource received.

On official US government websites you can find out about contributions made by American agencies to the Cuban opposition. I am in support of this aid but not of the silence from dissidents who accept it without providing information on how it is being used.

The Cuban dissident movement should also try to find its own means of financial support. For example, it might start small, legally approved businesses that could subsidize its efforts as well as help others by providing employment.

Sometimes dependence on foreign institutions leads to undesirable compromises. A drawing room dissident movement is necessary but, I believe, now is the time to go out and look for followers in the streets.

Iván García

Photo: Unlike Cubans, Ukrainians took to the streets of Kiev to protest a political decision by their government. A majority of Ukrainians want to join the European Union rather than be affiliated with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. From La Jornada de México.

4 December 2013

Dreaming of Steak in Cuba / Tania Diaz Castro

Pedro-Yanez-Foto-de-Tania-Diaz-Castro-300x224HAVANA, Cuba , December, www.cubanet.org – Pedro Yánez, an honest and decent man, led a quiet life with his wife and two small sons in a humble house built almost completely by him, on 19th Street in Santa Fe. Like almost all the residents of this seaside neighborhood to the west of Havana, he raised pigs to sell to the neighbors. He had a she-goat that gave milk and poultry for birthdays.

But one day his life changed. He began to dream of eating a steak with french fries, with their spectacular taste and smell. The dream seemed so real that one night he shot out of bed and raced the kitchen, followed by his wife, puzzled by the behavior of her husband.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Pedro answered, “I just dreamt that I ate a steak.”

“C’mon, don’t dream the impossible.” She went back to bed, trying to calm him down.

But the story does not end there. The next night, Pedro had the same dream, a dream that began to repeat when he least expected it, until it became a nightmare.

When he confided his problem to a friend, the friend told him, “This is serious Pedrito. In this country you can’t eat beef, because there isn’t any, dreaming of a steak is almost a crime. Forget about it.  Imagine if you kill a cow… You’re going to rot in jail, bro. Look, better to kill the goat, or a chicken.”

“No, it’s not the same,” said the good man, “I can’t get the smell of beef steak out of my mind.”

So obsessed was he with the idea of eating a good steak with fries, that one night, back in the nineties, without giving it much thought, he went to the countryside and helped an old friend kill a cow that was wandering loose on the road.

The end of his story is the same as for thousands of Cubans who have been sentenced to prison for committing the crime of “Theft and Slaughter of Cattle,” punishable under Cuban law with eight years in prison, or more is the beef is stolen from a State corral.

Today, Pedro is a sad and bitter man. He laments having been from home for eight years, imprisoned like a criminal, and not being able to watch his sons, Yadiel and Anyi, grow up.

For two years Yadiel, his oldest son — a robust and happy boy — threw himself on rudimentary rafts to get to Florida, despite the shark-infested sea. On the seventh attempt he managed to get to the United States.

Today, Yadiel Yanez lives and works in Houston, Texas, as a home builder. Surely his friends there have heard him tell this story.

Tania Diaz Castro

Cubanet, 6 December 2013

Karina Aspires to be a Successful Prostitute / Orlando Freire Santana

jinetera-cara-borrosa-300x215HAVANA, Cuba , November www.cubanet.org – Karina laments having come rather late to Havana from her native Santiago de Cuba. According to her, if her arrival in the capital had happened five or six years ago, the job of becoming a successful prostitute would have been much less work.

Because the competition here is huge, and the clients increasingly prefer younger girls. However, at 25, Karina still has hopes of being able to find her way through the intricacies of this craft to reach her great objective: hooking up with a “yuma,” as foreigners are called here, and getting out of this hell.

Back in Santiago, Karina left her mother and a five-year-old daughter. As a mid-level food technician, she held a job as an assistant in a seedy State snack bar, with a salary that wasn’t enough to feed her daughter. So Karina, and two other single mothers like herself, decided one day to take a train to Havana, without even knowing anyone in this city that could pave the way for them.

jinetera-carroThe first few days in the capital were difficult for the three girls, sometimes eating only once a day, and sleeping on benches at the train station. They continued that way until they met a man who sheltered them in his house. And at the end of several weeks, after earning the first fruits of her trade, Karina managed independence. Now she lives along in a rented room in Old Havana that she pays 50 CUC (about 50 dollars) for, and has already been able to send some money to help her family.

And what is more important, Karina has come to understand that she has several steps to reaching her goal. These days, still devoid of the material attributes that make it easier to trap the big game, Karina roams the areas of Havana where the cheapest prostitution is practiced, such as the doorways of stores on Monte Street, or the area around Fraternity Park. In these places almost all the customers are Cuba, and they generally pay five CUC for half an hour of rented love. Still, sometimes she’s lucky, hooking up with guys who offer as much as 10 or 15 CUC. Of course in these cases she has to really put herself into providing the service.

But, clearly, Karina believes this “poverty” will be transitory. She gives up certain comforts in order to save money so she can purchase elegant clothes, nice shoes and expensive perfumes. Then she will be in shape to launch herself on the Paseo del Prado or Obispo Street, the busiest in Old Havana, where there are lots of foreign tourists.

jineteras-carte-renta-cuartosA good presence increases the probability that some yuma will focus on her — especially it he’s middle-aged, and already written off sexually in his own country — fall in love with her, marry her, and take her to live abroad. In addition, even if a marriage doesn’t materialize, every transaction that originates on Obispo or El Prado is very lucrative for a prostitute, because it’s customary in those places to charge no less than 30 CUC.

When Karina is asked why she moved to Havana instead of undertaking her work in Santiago, especially if we take into account the police repression against prostitutes here in the capital, she replied that she faces the risks for both practical and family reasons. Back in Santiago there’s less chance of meeting a yuma, perhaps only at Cespedes Park, across from the terrace of the Casa Granda Hotel.

Furthermore, she doesn’t want her mom and daughter to find out how she’s earning a living in Havana. She’s lied to them, saying she works as a cleaning lady in the residence of some foreigners. And this young woman who is a “fighter” concludes, “I’ll let them know the truth after I get out, and I can also sponsor them to get the out of this agony.” Karina didn’t want her portrait on Cubanet. And we understand.

Orlando Freire Santana

Cubanet, 5 December 2013

War-Time Opportunists / Pablo Pascual Mendez Pina

Raúl Castro.

In Cuba the practice of wasting time is a daily phenomenon. It evaporates in conversations on the street corner, in workplaces, while waiting for buses, resolving bureaucratic problems, reading the newspaper Granma, looking for bargains in the farmers’ markets and “building socialism,” which is like a long road from one form of capitalism to another.

Ninety percent of those questioned on this topic agree that the island’s biggest waste of time and resources has been preparing to confront “Yankee imperialism,” which has been threatening us with invasion for fifty-four years.

Because of this “imminent threat” the Ministry of Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR) and its General Staff maintains a headquarters with 500 offices housing more than 4,000 officials and civilian workers, an illusory comfort obtained through exorbitant expenditures of energy and fuel.

According to anonymous sources the Sierra Maestra Building, formerly the Havana City Hall or INRA Building, contains three dining halls as well as coffee shops, a gymnasium, stores, a logistical center, a medical clinic and a restaurant-bar reserved for high-ranking officials. At least 400 employees provide service and maintenance, among them an elite battalion in charge of security.

Inside one will find the Universal Hall of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) — a smaller scale replica of a similar room in the Kremlin’s Palace of Congresses —which is used for official celebrations. There are also vast areas set aside for parking lots, repair shops, corps of engineers, a firefighting brigade and a sizable fleet of cars and buses used to ferry officials from the General Staff offices to their housing compounds.

It is worth noting that all of the Castro brothers’ highest ranking officers live in mansions that once belonged to Cuba’s former upper-class, all of which are located in affluent residential districts: Nuevo Vedado, Kholy, Miramar and Biltmore. There is even a special brigade in charge of maintaining and remodeling them.

Throughout the length and breadth of the island, MINFAR maintains an endless number of underground military units, clubs, hospitals, weapon repair facilities, hangars, airfields, naval bases, ammunition supplies, spare parts stores, fuel, food and and underground command centers. A high percentage of these rely on obsolete WWII-era equipment, while the rest of the technology dates from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

Engineers have had to modify much of the military’s machinery because it is now difficult to get supplies of spare parts from Russia and Ukraine.

Military employees are the island’s least productive workers and paradoxically its best paid. Their pay scales are based on military rank, years of service, awards, security clearance, educational level, scientific knowledge and other factors.

They also also receive free clothing and uniforms, cigarettes, housing, and vacations at holiday resorts reserved exclusively for the FAR. They may also purchase home appliances and other consumer items sold at hard currency stores (known in Cuba by the English word “shoppings”), except that for MINFAR personel Cuba’s dual currency system does not exist. In the fiefdom of Raul Castro the CUC (convertible peso) and CUP (Cuban peso) have the same value.*

To finance the expenditures of this military behemoth, the general-president created the MINFAR Business Administration Group (Grupo Administrativo Empresarial or GAE), a conglomerate that absorbed the state phone monopoly ETECSA, the import-export company CIMEX, the retail chain TRD Caribe, the now-defunct CUBALSE, the hotel chains Gaviota and and Horizontes as well as other state-run corporations.

In his report to the First Communist Party Congress, Fidel Castro acknowledged, “As long as imperialism exists, the party, the state and the people will give the defense services its maximum attention. We will never neglect the revolutionary guard.”

General Raul Castro, however, justified MINFAR’s resistance to change and the economic burdens it imposes when he said at the conclusion of the Bastion-2013 military maneuvers on November 24, 2013, “To avoid rivers of blood, rivers of resources are needed.”

In contrast, 95% of those interviewed believed that, in spite of all the exhortations, political speeches, military exercises and multi-million dollar expenditures, Cuba’s defenses remain vulnerable to an American attack.

They’re coming or they’re not coming

Reinaldo Rodriguez, a 58-year-old electrician, alleges that, when Castro was building up his forces in the Sierra Maestra, he plotted a confrontation with an enemy giant like the United States to parody the legend of David and Goliath and to engineer worldwide anti-imperialist solidarity.

“Castro used us,” says Rodríguez. “I was taking classes at a technological institute in the 1970s and year after year we were required to train for forty-five days as anti-aircraft artillery gunners. The cold, the hunger and the rough times that they put us through in the trenches were pointless. And still our generation had to put up with the same harangues about an invasion that never came.”

Javier, a 40-year-old resident of Vedado and bread store employee said that in 2007 the Military Committee called him up for mobilizations on numerous occasions and even threatened him with arrest if he did not show up.

They were taken to a unit in the vicinity of Artemis, where they were given uniforms and boots. They were left there for fifteen day with nothing to do. He recalls that at the end they were given diplomas while a colonel — drunk as a skunk — gave a speech to conclude their training.

An engineering student at the José Antonio Echeverría Polytechnic Institute (ISPJAE) says, “According to military instructors at ISPJAE, in the event of a confrontation, Cuba would be invaded and occupied by the ’Yumas.’”

“Then the ’war of all the people’ would begin,” he says. “A model of terrorist resistance in which every Cuban would have access to an explosive or any weapon necessary to massacre a Yankee soldier. A quota drawn up by the top leadership of the Communist Party would require one invader a week to be killed in every town for a total of 168 murders a day.”

He and one of his classmates ask themselves, “If MINFAR is not capable of deterring an invasion and we are the ones who are supposed to kill the Yankees, then what devils are they painting?”

Paco Echemendía, a 52-year-old accountant, spent his military service in a mechanized troop unit and participated in several maneuvers at Jejenes in Pinar del Rio province. He noted that, in the years in which he participated, fuel costs were in multi-million dollar figures.

“How is it possible,” asks Paco, that they demand more and more sacrifice in public service ads only to spend all the savings on military exercises? Listen, those amphibious tanks drink gas like crazy.”

Chicho, a 72-year-old retiree from Cerro, says, “At this point and with all things the public needs, it is inconceivable that people are still acting stupid and running around with rifles made of straw… For 54 years MINFAR has been the presidential headquarters of both Fidel and Raul Castro and, as long as they are alive, those fat asses in the army will still be the biggest opportunists on the island.”

Pablo Pascual Méndez Piña

From Diario de Cuba, December 3, 2013

*Translator’s note: Cuba has two currencies: the convertible peso (CUC) and the Cuban peso (CUP). The CUC is pegged at roughly one-to-one to the US dollar. Most wages in Cuba, however, are paid in CUP, which amounts to an average monthly salary of US $20. By treating CUC prices as though they were CUP prices (in reality 1 CUC equals 26.5 CUP), hard currency stores offer military personnel a huge discount on consumer purchases.

Social-political Inventory of the Dictator / Angel Santiesteban

1959: “I have said very clearly that we are not communists.”

Several posts back I claimed that if Fidel Castro was once a communist, even he him himself didn’t know it; ultimately he ceased to be one from the time when he put his personal interests ahead of those of the Cuban people. And the history of his first months in power, demonstrates this.

In a magazine of the time, Bohemia, there is abundant evidence that the Commander denied he was a communist. Today these magazines, treasured in the José Martí National Library, are not available to the public under the guise of conservation, but the real reason is that those generations forget it and those that came later, do not know it.

Observing his work in his more than half century as leader of the nation, I dare say he wasn’t even a leftist. At that time the word “terrorist” was not fashionable, but his behavior was consistently in the style of the extremists of Al Qaeda. The sentiments of a communist, according to what I can infer based on his ideological and ethical approach, do not correspond to his actions.

He was simply a brilliant and manipulative man who used the leftists of the world, especially in Latin America, deceiving them with the dream of “a better world is possible,” failing to add “under my leadership.” He turned them into guerrillas bringing these nations long and deep social wars, some lasting half a century; with the much-vaunted prosperous future for the poor submerging them into trauma and regression, hunger and family division, a real ordeal for more than fifty years; and in the end these guerrillas were sought by international justice as accused terrorists, assassins, drug traffickers, extortionists and kidnappers. Those were the armies he helped to shape. Leaving the aftermath of the war itself: thousands of victims and displaced persons.

The Cuban reality has been a silent social was maintained at the point of a bayonet, a constant exhaustion that has left in its balance divided families, the agonies of prisons, executions and ostracism.

The story sharpens the teeth, the time has come to render the accounts. Surely the Commander is not interested because he lived like a sultan surrounded by subjects willing to oblige him. Truly, his intelligence deserved better, but his personal ambition blinded him.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

Lawton Prison Settlement. November 2013
2 December 2013

Siren Songs / Fernando Damaso

Photo by Rebeca

Cuban authorities, instead of promoting the country’s development in a diversified manner, by applying science and intelligence to serious, systematic, and responsible work, have always gone about it by constant improvisation, betting on this or that economic factor that could resolve all the problems in one go. That is, they tend to put all their eggs in one basket.

So in the early years they bet on the unlimited support of the Soviet Union and, when some political differences with their key leaders arose, on the Harvest of Ten Million, which disrupted the whole country, enthroning economic chaos as a way of government and laying the foundation for the subsequent liquidation of the sugar industry.

When that failed they doubled down, letting the Soviet specialists virtually run the economy, implementing State Committees in Cuba in the image and likeness of those in their own country, and incorporated in aid to the other socialist countries, grouped within the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CAME). It was the era of the Central Market, only one for the whole country, of the mini markets and stores offering products at high prices, well out of reach of existing salaries.

With the disintegration of the socialist bloc, they concentrated on the accelerated search for oil in the national subsoil and surrounding waters, until the miraculous appearance of the Venezuelan patrons with their large subsidies, which, however, have never reached the previous astronomical amounts provided for nearly thirty years.

When those disappeared, with an unstable situation causing economic and political complications in the Bolivarian country, they hastily resumed the search for oil, this time on the Gulf seabed, with the participation of foreign companies, which — after the explorations did not yield quick results, and due to the uncertainty of their investments — have withdrawn.

Facing the new unknown, the bet is now focused on the so-called Mariel Special-Development Zone (ZEDM), located west of Havana, which, according to the senior leadership, will become the solution to all our economic problems starting in 2015, when the Panama Canal expansion becomes operational. We have already heard these siren songs many times, and in the end that’s all they are, siren songs.

The interesting thing is that the small openings and closings in the domestic economy moved in concert with the ebbs and flows of foreign subsidies. While receiving socialist aid, they never spoke of nor permitted private work, with the exception of craft work, authorized originally in the Cathedral Square,then persecuted and decimated, moving to G Street and Primera Street, both in El Vedado, until ending up now, under the protection of the City Historian, on the old San Jose docks, primarily of interest to foreign tourists.

These subsidies ended, they appealed to small scale private work (in a few rudimentary trades) and authorized the Free Farmers Market, which lasted until the first bet on petroleum and the emergence of the Venezuelan patrons.

Given the insufficiency of the resources provided by the latter, they reestablished private work, not baptized “self-employment,” expanding the authorizations of some of the trades principally of the medieval court, allowing the rental of rooms in private homes, authorizing agriculture on leased lands, legalizing the buying and selling of houses and cars, relaxing the procedures for emigration and travel, and increasing the allowable size of private restaurants, snack bars, etc, rather than the absurd twelve seats.

The patron, Hugo Chavez, physically disappeared, and given the uncertainty of what might happen in Venezuela, they opened up some new trades, almost all in the areas of services, and there were relaxations in the social sector.

Now, with the great of Mariel Special Development Zone (ZEDM), the restrictions and prohibitions are returning, starting with the 3D movie rooms and the private shops. It’s the never ending story: one step forward and five back, “updating” according to Lenin.

If they never authorized these activities, as the authorities and their representatives allege, why, in full view of everyone, did they allow some citizens to invest their scarce resources in them? More than a political problem (it has reached the point of absurdity where they are claiming that 3D movies are a threat to national security), or an economic one (the private shops compete effectively with those owned by the state), it seems a simple act of government evil against the citizens they claim — in any international forum where they speak — that they are protecting. Perhaps as compensation, they have ironically, lately, added to the private activities authorized, the incredibly important one of “caretaker of public bathroom.”

You have to see it to believe it.

All these arbitrary acts, and many others that they surely will commit in the future, have a common denominator: the absence of a rule of law. Without this, the authorities act without any citizen control, at their free will, and often according to their personal whims. Until this situation is resolved and we return to being a republic based on democratic laws, nothing will change.

2 December 2013

Tradition and Mirror Images / Regina Coyula

Alicia Alonso
Alicia Alonso

I stopped having any contact with the National Ballet of Cuba (BNC) almost thirty years ago. That experience was marked by some close friendships, affection and oversized hatreds. But reading “BNC’s Dancers Reveal a Long Tradition” brought me back to an Orwellian 1984 when a group of dancers — all young people at the time — staged an attempted protest. Basically the issues were the same as those being raised in writing today: poor lodging, transportation and food during international tours. In addition the dancers of that time, who “we are now longer the same people,” also complained of favoritism, which was a factor in choosing who would go on tour. Though everyone would have preferred to practice internationalism in Europe, it was the era of friendship with Nicaragua. And then there were the roles. The principal ones were also under fire, since many of them were cast based on personal rapport rather than on merit.

Among the non-conformists there were excellent professional leaders in both the company and the UJC (Union of Communist Youth), who were treated badly by the BNC. The atmosphere was tense in classrooms, dressing rooms and behind the scenes. Situations were neutralized with threats or favors, which explains the anonymous nature of the current complaint.

Certainly our dancers live better than most Cubans, but if we compare them to their counterparts in world-class companies — a league which includes the BNC — they are malnourished, exploited and involved in shady dealings. Everything is done to increase the stipend and better the quality of life. Because for many years dancers and maitres were able to work anywhere in the world without having to hand over a substantial portion of their earnings to the Ministry of Culture — a gift courtesy of its prima ballerina assoluta — the BNC opened a pathway to exile.

Nothing seems to have changed, nor do I think it will, but it is my heart’s desire that the young people who authored the letter of complaint in 2013 might be able to fight for their artistic and labor rights without the need for anonymity.

It was well-known within the BNC that Alicia Alonso and Fidel Castro were mirror images of each other. Each ruled at whim, as in a royal court. Each was surrounded by sycophants, eager to fawn and even to play the fool. Some did it out of conviction, others in hopes of gaining advantage. Subordinates maintained a love-hate relationship with the matriarchal-patriarchal figure. But woe to anyone who dared question a decision or challenge their leaderships! It was embarrassing to see how many of the people who mocked her backstage would file through the diva’s dressing room after a disastrous performance, or her office on the following day, to assure her that she had been magnificent, divine (though never a “bitch.” No, that would have been very coarse). At the time Jorge Esquivel was still her partenaire. With Orlando Salgado it would have been even worse.

My personal relationship with Alicia was decent enough until Fidel Castro gave a reception for the BNC after a successful international tour. Bruzón, one of Castro’s personal bodyguards, approached me to say that Fidel wanted to meet and chat with some young dancers. I rounded up a few, including some who inevitably felt uncomfortable, and drove them to a small establishment.

Castro was talking to Alicia, her husband, Sonia Calero and Alberto Alonso when I burst in, preceded by Bruzón and this insolent group. As directed by the bodyguard, I introduced them one-by-one to Fidel, who went about asking them questions. At one point Alicia’s thumb, painted “pink pearl,” found its way into my shoulder, a gesture which foretold of problems. “He already knows them,” she told me in a tone of voice that matched the finger in my shoulder.

The next day my boss was called into Carlos Aldana’s office. At the time he was the heir apparent and was “dealing” with ideological issues, in other words party-related matters. Alicia had called him to demand my ouster. Aldana realized it was just a tantrum; my boss was aware of everything there was to know and backed me up. But in light of complaints from “the old lady,” I was not allowed to have further dealings with the company. Almost all the rebels of that period now live outside of Cuba, so it does not behoove me to lie.

For some scatterbrain who plugs along cluelessly, in the same way that Aldana used to deal with ideological issues, I “dealt” with the country’s dance movement. It’s the stuff of G2.*

Regina Coyula
*Translator’s note: Also known as DI, an acronym for Intelligence Directorate, the main state intelligence agency of the Cuban government.

Diario de Cuba, December 1, 2013