Pedro Corzo – Page 3 – Translating Cuba

Jose Marti Versus Totalitarianism

Statue of Martí in the 13 de Marzo park, in Havana, this May 19. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Havana, 28 January 2023 — We are 170 years after the birth of José Martí, a citizen par excellence, a man who at the young age of 17 was sentenced to serve six years of forced labor for writing a critical letter to a young man who had enrolled in the volunteer security forces in favor of Spain to combat the Cuban insurgency. Absurd and unfair sentence, like most of those currently handed down by the Castro-Chavista regimes that prevail in Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Bolivia.

Martí was a man consistent with his convictions, without considering the risks that could arise from his decisions. He was also a notable intellectual.

Writer, poet, journalist, thinker, but more than any other condition, a lucid patriot, a notable organizer and a man fully identified with democracy, which is why, when he established the Cuban Revolutionary Party in 1892, the most precise commitment was to create the bases for the establishment of a democratic republic in Cuba, “a fair republic” “with all and for the good of all.”

The dedication to his patriotic convictions was absolute. He disembarked in Cuba in a precarious boat and on May 19, 1895, despite having no combat experience, he set out to face an enemy force only to die “facing the sun,” as he had predicted in one of his poems, “I am good and as good, I will die facing the sun.”

Castro’s totalitarianism has committed innumerable crimes, but one of the most horrendous was identifying José Martí with his revolutionary project. Intoxicating the new generations with the false propaganda that the Apostle* was the inspirer of the process that had begun in Cuba in 1959 was a lie that germinated in many people, to the point that there are many who fought totalitarianism thinking that Martí had been the promoter of that shameful regime. continue reading

Whoever studies Martí will easily realize that because of his life’s work he could not promote a dictatorship, let alone a totalitarian regime. The man who said: “Freedom is the right that people have to act freely, think and speak without hypocrisy,” would never have been able to defend a society of double standards like the one established in Cuba by the Castros.

Nor would he support a regime that instituted hatred between labor and capital, about which he wrote: “The worker’s right can never be hatred of capital; it is harmony, conciliation, the common approach of one and the other.”

The Apostle was never a sectarian, divisive man, the essence of the Castro dictatorship. Martí worked intensely for the unity of Cubans and for the respect that every human being deserves, even when he acts miserably. He always rejected hatred, a key instrument of totalitarianism and ideological populism, which he considered a nefarious sentiment. That is why he said: “There is no forgiveness for acts of hate. The dagger that is stuck in the name of freedom is stuck in the chest of freedom.”

The man who made the Necessary War was also capable of affirming that a republic is not governed like a barracks. He was a man of civil law, a republican, never a dictator. Totalitarianism is the extinction of the republic, the end of citizen rights.

Martí’s example must germinate among us. His perseverance, patriotic stubbornness, manifested with particular vehemence after the failure of La Fernandina, show a man who never gave up and who assumed his commitments regardless of what the results were going to be, a conduct that many honor today. #José Martí is a rich source of knowledge. His vast work should be studied by those who aspire to be politicians because it is a reservoir of wise reflections on problems inherent to public affairs. He was an exceptional man for the fact that he defended his ideals to the last consequences, but he was also exceptional for the richness of his thought and the vastness of his teachings.

José Martí, for Cubans the greatest symbol of freedom, would be very alarmed by the situation that the geographical space he called Our America is currently facing, a crisis that is largely induced by the regime that has tried to plagiarize his teachings.

*Translator’s note: Cubans of all political persuasions refer to José Martí as “the Apostle.”

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Spy for Cuba: Belen Montes

The released prisoner acknowledged that she was spying for Fidel Castro, and after her release when she arrived in Puerto Rico, she said she was an irrelevant person who would lead a private existence. (Archive/FBI)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 14 January 2023 — If Ana Belén Montes had been arrested in Cuba for spying for the United States, I have no doubt that she would have been executed by a firing squad, as happened to so many Cubans who fought for freedom and democracy for their country; and if her life were miraculously saved, she would have been frightened, like so many political prisoners of the regime, of the Manto Negro prison, the favorite women’s dungeon of the government she still defends.

Montes’ crimes were many, apart from supporting the bloodiest dictatorship that the continent has suffered.

For 17 years she served the Island totalitarianism by sending Havana information that affected the management of several hundred American agents. She spread influence in favor of the Castro dictatorship in the circles where it developed, as well as the belief that Castroism was not a threat to the United States. In addition, during her trial, she was associated with the shooting down of two Brothers to the Rescue planes, which resulted in the death of four young civilians who were carrying out humanitarian work.

U.S. military counterintelligence specialist Chris Simmons told Ricardo Quintana, a colleague of Radio Martí, that the spy should have been sentenced to life imprisonment because there was enough evidence that the Salvadoran guerrillas attacked the Fourth Brigade barracks five weeks after she visited that facility.

Simmons claims that Montes passed information to Cubans about when exactly the garrison would be almost defenseless, pointing out “that four-hour period that it was at that base, and this helped the guerrillas kill an American adviser and 70 Salvadoran soldiers. Yes, we know that the information, at the very least, went to Russia and China, and, of course, to several guerrilla groups.” continue reading

The released prisoner acknowledged that she was spying for Fidel Castro, and after her release when she arrived in Puerto Rico, she said she was an irrelevant person who would lead a private existence, while condemning the United States embargo on Cuba, demonstrating that her convictions have not changed, which is why, on the Island of her desires, instead of being free, she would have been reconvicted at least once.

I am convinced that if Montes had been imprisoned by the regime for which she spied, apart from remaining in prison after serving her sentence, she would have suffered other particularly painful experiences. Her confinement would have passed under the mantle of oblivion, as happened to Cary Roque and Ana Lázara Rodríguez, among many other women, of whom no one spoke or heard from during their long years of imprisonment.

Ana Belén Montes’ prison in Cuba would have been marked by hunger, overcrowding and lack of medical attention, without discounting the mistreatment and humiliation to which the henchmen of the regime are so prone. Better not to imagine what would have happened to her if she had declared in a Cuban prison a year after her sentence that she had obeyed her conscience and that the policy of the United States towards Cuba was cruel and unjust, adding, “I felt morally obliged to help the Island defend itself from our efforts to impose our values and our political system on it.”

There is no doubt that she is a woman of strong convictions, which will lead her to repeat the past, because everything seems to indicate that potential allies will not be lacking if, as Senator Marcos Rubio and Mr. Chris Simmons claim, the Cuban espionage network remains vigorous, with up to 300 agents active in the United States and two-thirds of them working in the Miami area.

Although there are those who doubt it out of naivety or by being useful idiots, saying it’s just stupidity is very generous. The Castro totalitarian system has two regular practices inherent in its scorpion nature: to repress the population as much as possible and to destroy the United States by any means within its reach and through espionage against this country, something that it has been carrying out since 1959.

I’m convinced that this confrontation will only end when one of the parties disappears. For my part, I will work for the end of Castroism.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Castroism Destroys Everywhere It Goes

Decades after its appearance, the nations mentioned are submerged in misery and suffer from a total absence of freedoms and rights. (14ymedio)14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 30 December 2022 — It is a truth, one of those that leaves you breathless, that Castroism with all its variants — including those of the so-called “21st century socialism,” the route to impose real Castro-Soviet socialism as is happening in Nicaragua and Venezuela — although it continues governing several republics in the hemisphere, has been disastrous for the countries in which it has established itself.

The work of the Cuban regime has offered a wealth of experiences and knowledge for its Latin American counterparts. The dictators of these nations have found it easier to impose their will thanks to the direct advice of the island’s totalitarianism, which has sent many of its executioners to teach how terror must be imposed systematically and institutionally.

However, at least some of us believe that, its lousy management has discouraged many potential followers, although it has not seriously affected the thinking of certain academics, despite the fact that one of the most repeated statements by Castroism in the seventies was “the Responsibility for an event is directly proportional to knowledge.”

The Cuban model, as some describe it, was proposed and developed in the image and likeness of its creator, Fidel Castro. A man with a pharaonic mentality who believed in the fantasy that he was a redeemer who would save the world, when in fact he almost completely destroyed it, as happened in Cuba, due to his obstinacy during the Missile Crisis.

The Cuban, to the regret of those of us who share that designation, was simply a great manipulator, a seller of promises, capable of captivating many deluded people and, also, of seducing a large number of the most poisonous snakes in the human fauna, both Cuban as well as foreign. continue reading

At least in Cuba, partially in Venezuela, I know the responsibility of some of those who enthusiastically supported the Fidelista mandate and Hugo Chávez, including a part of the ruling class of both countries, although Cubans were much more delirious in their complicity with Castroism.

These populist dictatorships have had numerous accomplices. Their work has been favored by the bad judgements, negligence, and complicity of a broad sector of their populations, including intellectuals, businesspeople, social leaders, artists, and professionals. These people, at least on the Island, as of January 1, 1959, and after the end of the armed conflict, listened to the firing of rifles, the consequence of fraudulent trials, and could read newspaper headlines where the lists of those executed were published, but they chose not to see or to listen.

The control exercised by Fidel Castro over Cuban society can be classified as absolute. Owner of lives and estates, without obligation to render accounts to a higher authority. A subject who ordered the killing of his enemies, whom he exonerated and released if an influential politician from the United States visited him and asked for their release.

His doctrine and action was always oriented to the seizure of power and perpetuation in it. From his projects and performances, it is easy to conclude that he always considered himself enlightened, capable of breaking social molds and establishing new ones.

Castroism has been catastrophic for Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia and a certain threat to the progress and stability of the rest of the countries of the hemisphere. Decades after its appearance, the mentioned nations are submerged in misery and suffer from a total absence of freedoms and rights, a situation that forces their citizens to fight opprobrium with the tragic consequences of death, jail and exile.

However, although the tragedy continues, the resistance, started from the first day of despotism, has not been broken in any of these countries, which is why it is important to give those resisters and their contemporaries the information that enables them to know the past, because as Cicero is credited with saying, “peoples who forget their history are doomed to repeat it,” and it is very easy to forget it when by the force of official will silence hangs over it.

The warlords who impose ignominy are the ones most responsible for the misfortune, but not the only ones. Their collaborators and followers share responsibilities. José Martí wrote it: “To watch a crime calmly is to commit it,” which is why one must act against tyrannies.

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Cuba: The Shadows That Will Not Pass

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 21 November 2022 — Recently, a public tribute was held for an exemplary citizen, poet and former Cuban political prisoner, Ángel Cuadra Landrove, an intellectual committed to freedom who never conceded to those who violate it.

In times when we see that creators in general, including artists, do not defend the oppressed so as to avoid becoming targets or simply to avoid losing their audience, it is more than necessary to render tribute to those who risk their lives and end up in prison for 15 years, as happened to Cuadra, who in 1981 was named “the world’s prisoner of conscience” by Amnesty International. PEN Sweden made him an honorary member and he was named President of the II Congress of Intellectuals for the Freedom of Cuba.

Creators like him are examples we should publicize. They are pillars of any proposal that has freedom, democracy and respect for human dignity as its motto.

No nation lacks traitors, nor citizens willing to give their lives for liberty. José Martí said it, “Others have within them the decorum of many men. They are the ones who rebel with great force against those who rob the people of their freedom, which is to rob men of their decorum. Within those men go thousands of men, an entire people, human dignity.”

Compliments to those who live up to their country are in order. The life works of those who have sacrificed should never be forgotten. Contrary to the title of a book I read more than fifty years ago, Hartzell Spencer’s Vain Shadow, dedicated to Francisco de Orellana — the explorer who discovered the Amazon — I believe that those who sacrifice themselves in the name of progress and, more so, freedom, will never be shadows, but rather lights that guide and counsel, paradigms for those who share their goals. continue reading

Those who consecrate themselves to a cause cannot be dark, but rather a sure presence among those who love justice and liberty above all else.

Personalities such as Cubans Ángel Cuadra and Jorge Valls Arango, Nicaraguan Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal or the young Venezuelan assassinated by Castro-Chavism, Juan Pablo Pernalete, and many others, will always point the way toward the path of justice.

The event, which included the unveiling of a plaque to honor his memory, organized by PEN Club of Cuban Writers and other exile groups, took place at Human Rights Park on the grounds of the Westchester Library, with the support of Commissioner Javier Souto, whom as many know, was a member of the groups that clandestinely infiltrated Cuba in the 1960s.

The poet, as many of his friends referred to him, was a very sensitive man and was always among the first to sign up for any proposal in favor of freedom and democracy in Cuba, which is why he led organizations such as the Ex Club and was one of the founders of PEN Cubano.

Speakers Luis de la Paz, Ángel de Fana, José Antonio Albertini, Commissioner Souto and he who types these lines focused on different aspects of his life. The honoree’s capacity to deliver was not unique, but it was singular. He was an intellectual who never betrayed his commitment to take on the type of struggle for freedom demanded by the circumstances.

I am among those who feel embarrassed when I hear of a compatriot with creative capacity who is incapable of sensitivity in the face of a 63-year tyranny. Cuadra was never among those intellectuals, he was so voluntarily tied to the struggle for freedom that he sacrificed his creative capacity, as writer José Antonio Albertini has pointed out many times.

Imagine the volume of work our well-remembered friend would have produced had he not struggled clandestinely against totalitarianism and been in prison, had he not been in exile and dedicated most of his time to activism against the dictatorship.

Cuadra, like most Cuban creators throughout the nation’s history, managed to work in exile, but we are convinced that his legacy, and that of others like him, will help rebuild our nation.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Aid to Cuba: Humanism or Collaboration?

History has shown that many recipients of aid have used these riches for their own benefit, selling the donations to the needy population itself. (Granma)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 4 November 2022 — Some of us don’t understand how a significant number of people who defend democracy and freedom can assist dictatorial regimes when they face some type of disaster, either because of natural disasters or because of terrible administrative management, even knowing that those regimes divert the aid to satisfy their governments’ needs.

Consider President Joe Biden, who gave two million dollars to Cuba. The Island dictatorship, in an unprecedented wink, accepted that the contribution be made through the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the same entities that the Cuban government doesn’t allow to contact political prisoners.

Solidarity with those who endure and suffer is an extremely laudable decision; however, history has shown that many recipients of aid have used that wealth for their own benefit, selling the donations to the needy population itself, or depositing the money in their own accounts, then outdoing themselves in perfecting repression or in concluding some project that assures hegemony.

The best example of this reality is North Korea, which, due to the terrible economic management of its dynastic dictatorship, endures chronic food crises and even devastating famines, such as that of 1995 to 1997, to the extent that the dictatorship acknowledged continue reading

that more than 200,000 people died, although international media claimed that the deaths reached two million.

Despite its economic difficulties, Pyongyang has managed to mount a powerful army, 1,200,000 active soldiers and more than 600,000 in the reserves, in addition to having nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, plus submarines capable of launching them. It has one nuclear weapon, it says, and despite serious economic problems, is building another.

The most appropriate question is, how is it possible for a country to achieve such advanced military development and not be able to produce food for its citizens? In these subsidized and indebted dictatorships — North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia — the limited food they offer to their population comes from foreign aid, while their development and military production is basically a consequence of their productive management. Have they discovered the solution to the alternative: “cannons or butter”?

North Korea and Cuba are two countries receiving large economic aid. Billions of dollars have been given from the Kremlin to Pyongyang and Havana for decades. The Koreans developed nuclear weapons, despite the fact that several U.S. governments sent them aid, fuel and other proceeds in exchange for paralyzing the construction of nuclear reactors and the production of plutonium.

For their part, the Castros spent the multi-billion Soviet subsidy and Western loans on the subversion of the democratic order in America and in its African imperial wars. The hunger and difficulties suffered by Cubans are due to the country’s bad government and not because of foreign measures against the dictatorship.

Cuba has swindled material aid from abroad for its benefit. I remember that, in 1963, the devastating cyclone Flora hit Cuba, and the dictatorship ordered that all the goods that were in Customs having been sent from abroad to relatives in need on the Island, be confiscated and sold to the population, a situation that has been repeated on numerous occasions with international donations. This was the case with clothing and Mexican contributions, basically rice and beans, sold in stores that require hard currency; or the extreme example of the sale of cooking oil donated by the World Food Program, which led the Minister of Interior Commerce to declare that “the decision to sell donated oil was an alternative to the shortage experienced on the Island.”

The call of the Assembly of Cuban Resistance to President Biden is timely: sending aid to the Cuban people through totalitarian authorities means nurturing repression and increasing poverty. I don’t doubt that this opinion allows the supporters of those repressive regimes to accuse those who state it of being official haters, but the truth must be told even if it can be distorted.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Hate Crimes of the Castro Regime

Fidel Castro and Pope Juan Pablo II. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 1 October 2022 — Although the leadership of the Revolution tried to give the insurrectional triumph a certain religious and humanistic aspect, very soon the belief in another superior being became the most feared enemy of the triumphant insurrection, along with proclaimed humanism, as green as palms.

Fidel Castro attacked religions in Cuba with ferocity, just as he did with homosexuals. He anointed himself as the paradigm to follow, he could not allow another religion that was not embodied in his person because, after all, Castroism is a form of mystical fundamentalism.

Church attendance dropped dramatically, as did membership in fraternal associations like Freemasonry. In Cuba a new religion was installed in which Fidel Castro was its God and “castrolicism,” as Gerardo Fundora described it, was truth revealed.

The regime then imposed values and norms that were inspired by Fidel’s beliefs and Marxism, following the dogma that “religion was the opium of the people.” Ethical foundations of society were thoroughly attacked, one of its most important objectives being religions in general, and the Catholic Church was a key target to destroy, in order to build the promised new order.

It was an indelible experience for believers who, in defense of their faith, were discriminated against, persecuted, humiliated, imprisoned and shot, as happened, among many others, with Alberto Tapia Ruano and Virgilio Campanería, who shouted “Viva Cristo Rey” before they died. continue reading

The regime-imposed values and norms that were inspired by Fidel’s thinking and Marxism, following the dogma that “religion was the opium of the people”

Verbal attacks against religions were very severe, among others, and Church-owned schools confiscated. Parishioners were systematically harassed, and those without deep faith buckled under pressure as a result.

Still, a significant number of the faithful, despite the fact that repression and discrimination became accentuated, maintained their religious commitment, as was the case of young Arnaldo Socorro, a native of Unión de Reyes, Matanzas, whose family moved to Havana during his adolescence.

Socorro had been awarded a scholarship to study at the Belén School, where he joined the Catholic Workers’ Youth. On September 10, 1961, he attended a procession with the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, Patron Saint of Cuba.

The procession was set to start from the Church of La Caridad, under the guidance of the then auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Havana, Monsignor Eduardo Boza Masvidal, one of the most courageous censors of the Castro regime, who was expelled from Cuba a week later with another 130 priests, by order of the hater by trade.

Arnaldo decided to participate in the religious procession that was undoubtedly an expression of rejection of the regime. When he arrived, he learned that the authorities had banned the procession, however, like thousands of people, he remained in front of the church to demand that his rights be respected.

The verbal attacks against religions were very severe, among others, confiscations of church-owned schools

Sheltered by an image of the Virgin, he marched at the head of hundreds of people who decided to follow him, shouting cheers to Christ the King, the Virgin and freedom, just as many of the young people shot by the dictatorship at that time shouted in front of the firing squad.

Socorro’s courage would not be respected by the regime and his henchmen. One of the enforcers, aware of his impunity, unloaded a machine gun into the young man, who fell mortally wounded.

He was 17 years old when he was assassinated, but, as journalist Julio Estorino sustains, “crime and outrage,” was added to the homicide by the regime, by proclaiming that the murdered young man was a revolutionary who had gone to the scene of the events to prevent an act of the “henchmen in cassocks,” as Castro identified Catholic priests.

The murder was blamed on Agnelio Blanco, a priest who was on the Isle of Pines at the time of the events, another cruel lie in Castro’s extensive defamation campaign against his critics. The evil did not end there. State Security officers went to Arnaldo Socorro’s house, threatened his family, buried him as a combatant killed by the counterrevolution and forged another martyr for the motherland.

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The Massive Migrations of Castroism

One of the boats intercepted by U.S. authorities. (Twitter/@USBPChiefMIP)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 17 September 2022 — El Instituto de la Memoria Histórica Cuba contra el Totalitarismo y Plantados hasta la Libertad y la Democracia en Cuba [The Cuban Institute of Historic Memory Against Totalitarianism and plantados (political prisoners) for Freedom and Democracy in Cuba] recently organized a conference on the different migratory waves driven by Castroism, which was coordinated by businesswoman Carmen Gómez de Toro, with the participation of several people who told their dramatic experiences.

During the event, the solidarity of the Cuban exile was highlighted through the work carried out by the Miami Medical Team, el Hogar Cubano de Caracas [the Cuban Home of Caracas] and the la Casa de los Balseros de Cayo Hueso [the House of the Rafters Key West]. They emphasized that the regime has resorted to all possible ways to expatriate its citizens.

The dictatorship has used emigration as a political and economic instrument since it took power in January 1959, causing, due to the insecurity that was established in the country, the first massive migratory wave in the history of Cuba and, later, by the systematic repression associated with an abhorrent material and moral poverty.

That first wave of exiles ended in 1962. It was mainly composed of a significant number of government officials of the overthrown Fulgencio Batista regime and the majority of the ruling class, businessmen and professional sectors, who never trusted the revolutionary proposals. In addition, there was the peculiar “Operation Peter Pan,” a contingent of 14,000 young people and children taken out of the Island in a large humanitarian operation with the assistance of different charitable organizations in the U.S. and pro-democracy activists, some of the latter of whom ended up in prison. continue reading

The second exodus, in 1965, was made from Camarioca, near Varadero. Closing that boarding point, Washington and the dictator negotiated the departure of Cubans through an airlift. Between 1965 and 1973, the so-called Freedom Flights transported about 300,000 people, with two daily flights for five days a week, all paid for by the U.S. at a cost of 12 million dollars. It was “the largest air operation to transport refugees in the history of this great nation.”

Before being allowed to leave Cuba, many of the participants in this group had to work in the Johnson and Jacqueline Brigades*, a punishment imposed on those who wanted to leave Castro’s paradise. These people, regardless of their qualifications, had to work in the fields and cemeteries until they received their exit permits.

A particularly cruel migratory current was the Mariel Boatlift. This scandal placed the Castro regime in the place it deserved, because people kept voting with their feet. The emigrants were humble people, some educated under totalitarian power.

Some scholars attribute the motivation for a large part of the population to leave the country to the visits of Cubans returning the Island in 1979, banned by the regime for almost two decades. The fact is that the income forced from foreign diplomatic headquarters in Havana increased, the most scandalous of all being that of the Embassy of Peru, an event that led to the Mariel exodus.

The events of Mariel moved the country and further split society. The most orthodox henchmen of the dictatorship, following orders, organized massive rallies of repudiation, humiliating numerous people and injuring many, who, when they visited hospitals to be helped, saw more than one doctor deny them assistance. The repudiation rallies, known since 1959, became more cruel and popular than in the Castro past.

At the end of the 1980s, the inexhaustible exodus created a new tide known as the Rafter Crisis that reached its climax in 1994. Thousands of people left the country on rustic and fragile rafts that, curiously, the authorities watched being built without preventing it, when in the recent past they had sunk boats with refugees, throwing sandbags at them from helicopters. The number of missing on these journeys is incalculable, and the late Arturo Cobo made a wall of mourning to remember them in the Home of Key West.

In the 21st century, the cravings for freedom paired with material needs continue to motivate Cubans to leave their island, with the U.S., for the majority, the final goal. In 2022 alone, more than 140,000 Cubans have entered this country, overcoming infinite hardships.

*Translator’s note: See more here. Partial auto translation: “They were forced to work in jobs outside of their usual duties, mostly in agricultural work for shifts that averaged 14 or 16 hours a day. These individuals were compulsorily housed in barracks that were in terrible sanitary conditions. Surveillance and control in exchange for recognition of the right to leave the country, they served a sentence that fluctuated between three and five years.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

Cuba: In Defense of Radio Martí

Radio Martí has reduced its transmission hours due to financial difficulties. (Archivo)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 10 September 2022 — The Cuba Broadcasting Office (OCB), which groups together Radio and Television Martí and its website, Martí Noticias, is facing serious problems to survive, since the administration of President Donald Trump drastically reduced its budget. President Joe Biden has not considered increasing it and, according to some, would welcome its closure, as the Cuban dictatorship has always demanded.

Due to the lack of resources, the transmission has been reduced to 12 hours a day and it is unknown to what levels it will decrease after planned Reduction in Force (RIF) has been implemented, which would drastically affect the already small workforce, of just over 60 people, possibly affecting 23.

At a time when the situation in Cuba is especially convulsive and the population, particularly activists, need to communicate with each other, the decrease in the operations of these media is harmful, because their listeners have a high confidence in what they hear from them, which protects them from falling into provocations, a common practice of the dictatorship.

Beyond any other consideration, the work carried out by the OCB has been highly beneficial for the people of Cuba and in particular for the opposition to the totalitarian regime. I confess to being proud of having had the opportunity to work for 23 years at Radio Martí. continue reading

I joined leading the station with Herminio San Román and Roberto Rodríguez Tejera. Two notable journalists were directing news, Gilberto Rosal and William Valdez. The four were committed to truthfully informing the Cuban people, to assisting all the opponents on the island, and to ensuring that the news and analysis were based on reality. Everyone was deeply hurt by the situation in Cuba and we were striving to get truthful information to the island.

The stations have always worked according to the guidelines of the federal government, which are very rigid as far as information is concerned, measures that we may or may not like as Cubans, but that are established for all the media controlled by the Government.

Unfortunately, there has been no shortage of people who for different reasons have severely criticized the station. It is true that there have been mistakes and mismanagement, that it has been possible to do things better, but that does not detract from the OCB’s many achievements in favor of informing the Cuban people and serving as a liaison to those who fight for freedom in the interior of the island. We must not forget that the iron Castro censorship makes it practically impossible for what happens at one point on the island to be known a few kilometers away.

The vast majority of workers are talented, information professionals who take their work very seriously, and are governed by very strict reporting standards that must be faithfully adhered to. I assure you, without any reservation, that objectivity in the information is fundamental, and editorializing in a news story, regardless of the orientation, is rejected. I learned about cases of colleagues separated from their duties, in my opinion, after no serious transgressions, because a supervisor in Washington interpreted a report or a program with too much zeal.

Periodically, from the central office in Washington, which coordinates all the communication offices of the federal government, officials travel to give seminars to refresh old guidelines or point out new provisions. It should not be forgotten that the OCB is an agency of the United States Government, which acts on the basis of the provisions of the officials designated to direct it, and these do not always support the existence of the station, or simply do not sympathize with its programming.

The OCB, in my opinion, is in danger of dying from consumption. If the readjustment takes place, they will have to reduce more hours, so I wonder: will the organizations in exile continue to remain silent in the face of the slow death of Radio Martí? More importantly, will the Cuban-American congressmen who defended these entities for decades simply attend their funeral without striving to resurrect it, as Ileana Ros-Lehtinen would without even being a representative of the House? I repeat, there have been bad officials, but repeating to the late colleague Cristina Sansón: “Where is the mission and commitment to Cuba?”

The OCB is an important instrument to help totalitarianism disappear on the island, in addition, it is very useful to continue defending freedom and democracy throughout the hemisphere. Let’s do something.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba, Breaking the Truce

Massive night demonstration in the early hours this Friday in Nuevitas, Camagüey. (Captura/Facebook)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 28 August 2022 — El 23 se rompe el corojo [on the 23rd the truce is broken (and we start riding again)], is a Mambisa expression that meant the end of the truce between the insurgents and the Spanish, who refused to leave the “always faithful island of Cuba,” a phrase that, over time, became synonymous with the fact that there is no possible conciliation when the victims of the abuses assume that they have no other alternative but to defeat their perpetrators.

General Antonio Maceo, Bronze Titan, the most distinguished Cuban general, 26 wounds in combat, refused to sign a peace agreement after ten years of struggle, 1868-1878, with the Spanish general Arsenio Martínez Campos, both agreeing to resume hostilities eight days later, motivating among the guerrillas the enthusiastic exclamation: “on the 23rd the truce is broken!” alluding to the end of the truce that many considered ominous.

Castroism breathed into broad sectors of the citizenry the certainty that the regime was immovable, that any action against it would fail and its actors would suffer the consequences. Still more, Fidel Castro had the audacity to proclaim that socialism in Cuba was irreversible, as Adolf Hitler proclaimed his thousand-year Reich.

However, we write with pride that in these six long decades, the resistance has not ceased, as shown by the numerous political prisoners who rot in prisons without international organizations being able to visit them as demanded by, among others, the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights.

On the property called Cuba, which the Castro brothers appropriated, it seems that so many opponents have emerged that the political police can’t control them. Many are losing the fear that gripped them day after day, and others show that the population is willing to break the vile armor of an atrocious dictatorship that has humiliated and vexed them for years. continue reading

It’s evident that Cubans want to break the truce since they don’t stop demanding better living conditions along with the end of the dictatorship, as has been seen in the city of Nuevitas, where the city dwellers have constantly shouted at the dictatorship that they were tired of living as slaves, some alluding in their demands to the Mambi machete redeemer and apparently echoing the expression of General Antonio, “Freedom is conquered on the edge of the machete, it is not asked for; begging for rights is typical of cowards unable to exercise them.”

The protests in most of the national territory are a constant, a symptom that the population is losing its fear and freeing itself from the burden of blind obedience to a leadership that has only reaped failures and that has devastated the country as if it had suffered a war.

Apparently, the growing misery and the permanent harvest of frustrations have led the people to realize that the promises of the regime are invalid and that they need to act at any cost to be able to access a better life.

After the protests of July 11, 2021, there has been a notable discontent aggravated by the power cuts. Power is miraculously restored when the population protests firmly, as has happened in the neighborhood of Pastelillo, in Nuevitas. This can be understood that for the Castro government, those who are obedient suffer the most.

Everything seems to indicate that repression is no longer enough to continue controlling a population dissatisfied in all aspects. Fear and hope, the two most leafy trees of Castroism, are apparently drying up rapidly.

Citizens are noticing, more than ever before, the high levels of corruption and ineptitude of officials to solve the numerous and constant problems generated by the regime itself, which aren’t caused by the vaunted embargo or American aggression.

In addition, the most faithful supporters of Castroism, no matter how servile they may be, understand that the protests are legitimate, that they are not imported and that they don’t respond to proposals from abroad. It is the neighbor, the repressor himself, who suffers from the systematic and permanent stupidity of a failed dictatorship in all aspects, except in their effort to destroy the Cuban nation as they did with the Republic.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Castro, Another Member of the Argentine Military Junta

Fidel Castro harangues the crowd. (Archive)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 24 July 2022 — Fidel Castro was a legal opportunist. A fundamentalist of power and obviously an unscrupulous subject. His indisputable talent guided him to the conquest of power and its preservation; in both projections he had a resounding success. He was the dean of Latin American dictators and the one who governed the world the longest: 49 years and 8 days, according to a recent exhibition.

On the other hand, although Castro always tried to present himself as a civilian leader and incessantly attacked the military governments of the hemisphere, which he described as gorilla regimes, he maintained close relations with various uniformed caciques.

One of the first was General Juan Domingo Perón, about whom Castro wrote. “We are very grateful to General Perón, he was the first to recognize us. He sold us those cars that we still have, those Fords that are still around. He sold us wagons for our railroads. We are very grateful to him. We have always been friends of the Peronists. Perón seriously wounded the snake (the US says so) although he did not kill it.”

This was the origin of the more than 2.7 billion that Cuba owes to Argentina and the basis, perhaps, for the close relationship of the Military Junta of that country with the Cuban dictator, despite the fact that the defenders of the Cuban regime in that country accuse the military of thousands of disappeared. Bad memory is everywhere and those who best represented it were the Fernández-Kirchner couple.

Argentina was a target of Castro’s subversion. However, several years ago the secret links that existed between the Argentine Military Junta and the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro were discovered, a relationship that was denied by the supporters of Castroism. In 2003, however, Alfredo Felipe Fuentes, a former political prisoner of Cuba’s Black Spring, published a book [La Falsa Imagen de Fidel Castro (En Colores): Evidencias Irrefutables], which I do not intend to comment on, in which he graphically demonstrates that these relationships existed and were beneficial for both. continue reading

The book presents graphic testimonies of the unusual relationship, not exceptional, if we remember the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, signed in Moscow seven days before the Nazi invasion of Poland, which resulted in the partition of that country between Berlin and the Kremlin. In other words, the opportunism of the Caribbean leader was inspired by the example of two of his teachers, Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler.

Among those blessed by Pope Castro, not to be confused with Francisco, despite his human relationship with the executioner Raúl Castro, was the Peruvian general Juan Velazco Alvarado, who led a military coup against President Fernando Belaunde Terry and established an iron dictatorship that Castro distinguished with his visit, to the extreme that months later a large delegation of high-ranking Peruvian soldiers attended the Cuban military maneuvers called “Ayacucho 150” in which the dictator Castro said, “And in Peru Today, as in Cuba, Yankee imperialism no longer dominates!”

Velazco Alvarado was followed by two Panamanian soldiers, Omar Torrijos and Manuel Antonio Noriega, who for Castro were good dictators due to the close relations he had with both. These rulers, like his mentor, did not hesitate to crush the opposition.

However, the most productive military man for Castroism was Hugo Chávez Frías. The Venezuelan coup leader, affirms journalist Alexis Ortiz, was the bridge of salvation for Cuban totalitarianism when it lost the multimillion-dollar subsidy from the former Soviet Union. The Castro state, sucker by nature, found in Chávez and Venezuela the necessary cornucopia to survive, despite the fact that the Cuban model was already exhausted by that time.

However, in my opinion, the most aberrant relationship was that of the Argentine Military Junta with Castro, as Felipe Fuentes’ book demonstrates. Supposed ideological enemies allied themselves to avoid being condemned in international instances for their systematic violation of human rights but, even more monstrous, is that the relatives of those who attribute thousands of disappeared and murdered to that Military Junta, defend the legacy of Castroism.

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Cuba, Protests Against Totalitarianism

Protesters in Santiago de Cuba, on July 11, 2021. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 17 July 2022 — The protests of July 11, 2021 were a glorious feat for all of us who reject the Castro totalitarian regime.

That bravery, to a certain extent, neutralized the criticisms issued by some about what they describe as the extreme passivity of the Cuban people in the face of an iron dictatorship — an unpleasant saying, but one that reflects a real perception of what is happening on the island.

Without pretending to justify what must be criticized, the cowardice and apathy of many, we should brandish the epic courage of men and women who have never stopped confronting Castro totalitarianism.

Many have been martyrs in this bloody process and even more so the political prisoners who have served years behind bars in these more than six decades, including the large number of young people trained under the Castro regime who populate prisons for refusing to submit to tyranny.

It’s true that for so many years there have been few protests, but it’s an irrefutable truth that the more closed the regimes of force are, the more difficult it is to oppose them, and a totalitarian regime like the Cuban one, which has been able to establish strict social and police control, doesn’t cede space but must be taken away, which has a high human cost as history has shown.

The average Cuban, apparently, has concluded that it’s better to conspire to overthrow the regime than to participate in a media demonstration, because it’s as criminal to the Castro authorities to take to the streets demanding freedom as it is to participate in a plot to overthrow the tyranny. Other dictatorships brutally beat protesters and imprison them for hours; on the island of the Castros, the beating is joined by long years of sentences to be served under subhuman conditions. continue reading

Young people in prison for participating in barely-known protests or in other high-profile protests are in the same condition as artists who, through their creations, manifest dissent and freedom of opinion.

The first anniversary of the protests of July 11, 2021, lead us to remember some of the popular demonstrations against Castroism, many of them forgotten by the long years that have passed and whose protagonists have mostly left for eternity.

Lost in the mists of time is the protest organized by mothers, wives and daughters, in January or February 1959, to demand an end to the shootings.

In February 1960, discontent with communist penetration into universities materialized with a protest organized by students in the Central Park of Havana, on the occasion of the visit to Cuba by the Soviet Deputy Prime Minister, Anastás Mikoyan. In October, the students demonstrated again in Santa Clara, against the execution of five captured guerrillas, including the president of the FEU of Las Villas, Porfirio Ramírez Ruiz. That same year, the electricity sector carried out a massive march in the capital rejecting the regime’s measures against workers.

In 1961, the provinces of Oriente and Camagüey were the scene of student protests against communism and, in September of that same year, parishioners and Catholic organizations organized a procession in the church of La Caridad, in Havana, which had been banned by the authorities. However, the religious walk occurred with exclamations of “Long live Christ the King,” “Cuba Yes, Russia No.” The authorities reacted violently and shot dead the young Arnaldo Socorro.

In June and July 1962, the cities of Cárdenas and Perico, in Matanzas, were shaken by large protests, and in Cárdenas the regime took out tanks to repress it, a legacy that had its climax in the great protests of July 11 of last year, with its sad aftermath of numerous wounded and hundreds of prisoners, many minors.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Very Cruel and Painful Days are Coming in Cuba

Amelia Calzadilla*, in her second video, also denounced the shortages experienced by the Cuban people. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 19 June 2022 – “I don’t care about your fear”: I heard this phrase in a film from Cuba. A woman’s voice that synthesized the feelings of many others, all fed up with a cocktail that has lasted 63 years, in which only repression and misery are mixed. An expression that reflects, in my modest opinion, the probability of very cruel and painful days that should lead to a new homeland where there are no executioners or perpetrators.

That was one of the voices I heard on social media this week. A comment that only occurs in a frightened society like the Cuban one. Where terror prevails, people censor themselves and ensure that their loved ones don’t break the circle of fear because of the harm that could happen to them.

Another heartbreaking testimony I had the opportunity to see was that of a mother of three who denounces the precarious situation she faces with her family. A forceful and irrefutable evidence of the failure of Castro totalitarianism, in addition, to show the useless sacrifice of large segments of several generations of Cubans to work in favor of a project that has devastated the island and many of the values of its citizens.

Castroism in any of its derivatives, Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Bolivian and an eventual Colombian if Gustavo Petro comes to power, only leads to failure and frustration. It is an inefficient proposal in all its expressions, except for its undeniable ability to impose strict social control based on repression and disinformation. continue reading

Young people should consider miraculous political proposals with great deliberation. It’s true that in politics there are very bad things that must be eradicated, but they shouldn’t be a reason to blindly believe in an enlightened person who only assures that he will change everything to build a bright future. You have to educate yourself, know the past and learn that “my rights end where those of others begin.”

The example of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua should serve as a model for new generations who hope to “conquer heaven” without understanding that a comfortable life within justice is only achieved with work. The rest remains to be seen.

Cubans overwhelmingly embraced their Messiah and repudiated those who denied him. In that commotion of unbridled hysteria, as the historian and journalist Enrique Encinosa described it, representatives of all generations closed their eyes and lent themselves to hunt down those who disagreed. They were the ones who helped destroy the country, leading the emerging generations to the degree of despair that this mother shows when, aware of the reprisals she may suffer, she accuses the Government of being inept, corrupt and complacent, with everything badly done.

It’s true that it has been the Castro leadership and all its officials, including police and military, who have supported the disgraced regime for more than six decades, but they have also contributed to the support and formation of the colonies of Venezuela and Nicaragua, who have lent their skills and talents to disseminate and convince the so-called silent majority of the justice and profitability of the totalitarian project.

A totalitarian regime doesn’t allow fiefdoms; only those who oppose it are relatively free of its mandates. However, the rest of the citizenry must behave as ordered by the authorities, which motivates a very high level of complicity and an understanding of the fear that transcends the individuality of the person, a syndrome of defenselessness that transforms citizens into a herd without will, but that reaches a moment of rupture as happened with this mother, who asks to be arrested and urges the rest of the mothers of the island to unite, to demand once and for all respect for their rights and a dignified life.

This anguished mother* calls the regime a liar when she exposes one of its fundamental falsehoods that says the “goods belong to the people.” We all listened and read, repeated ad nauseam, “this belongs to the people,” and we must have the courage to deny it as this lady, who is suffering numerous reprisals and abuse from the authorities, has done. All that remains is to trust that more mothers, citizens, will join her call to achieve a country “with all and for the good of all.”

*Amelia Calzadilla

Translated by Regina Anavy
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Pedro Luis Boitel, Prisoner Number 26621

Pedro Luis Boitel died 50 years ago today in prison, during a hunger strike. (Capture)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 25 May 2022 — That was the numerical identification that the prison administration of the Isla de Pinos prison hung on Pedro Luis Boitel, who on May 25 marks 50 years since he died on a hunger strike.

Giving political prisoners a number was a form of dehumanization, of standardization, but they did not achieve their goal, because the prisoners proudly displayed the number, which reflected their time in prison and, to a certain extent, the fight for democracy.

This martyr of the country, a worker at the emblematic Cuban radio and television company CMQ, was also a leader of the historic University Student Federation (FEU), an independent entity that was distorted by Castro’s totalitarianism.

Pedro Luis was a man capable of reaching the maximum stage of a human being in society, that of a citizen fully aware of his duties and rights, always ready to claim and defend his prerogatives without fear of consequences.

In the documentary, Nobody Listened (1984), Boitel’s mother, Clara Abraham de Boitel, expresses with great pride that her son could not bear an injustice. She affirms that he was a man not destined to live long because of his strong commitment to the truth and fairness. His mother knew him very well because his life was soon distorted by Castro’s totalitarianism.

His life was short, but full of national glory. He was one of those men who fully conformed to Martí’s expression: “When one dies in the arms of the grateful homeland, death ends, the prison breaks; life finally begins with dying!” continue reading

Boitel faced the regime of Fulgencio Batista. Persecuted by the Police, he went into exile in Venezuela, where he fought groups that sought to destabilize the incipient democracy of that country.

In Venezuela and before the triumph of the insurrection, he had his first confrontation with the Castro brothers, who were drastically opposed to him informing the world of what was happening in Cuba, a sign that, even before coming to power, the fateful brothers intended to establish absolute control over information.

His status as a student leader was contested by the Castros and the 26th of July Movement (M26J). The moncadistas did not trust Boitel to preside over the FEU, his independence of opinion made him unpredictable for the interests of the new regime, and they decided to support another university student, Rolando Cubelas, a government official, commander of the rebel army and leader of a rival organization of the M26J during the insurrectionary stage, the Student Revolutionary Directory.

The new leadership of the FEU led to this prestigious entity becoming one of the transmission belts of totalitarian power. The Cuban student body was subdued and the historical rebellion crushed before the firing squad or with long prison sentences.

Pedro Luis went to prison for many years. His colleagues remember him as a tireless man, always ready to report any abuse and willing to endure any punishment without ever giving up.

His rebellion was such that he even escaped from the Isla de Pinos prison. His companions in the escape, Armando Valladares, the only survivor of that brave deed, evokes with admiration the leadership of the student leader before and after being captured, evokes his stoicism in the face of the insanity of the henchmen and affirms that he learned a lot from Pedro Luis.

For many of his colleagues, he has been the most emblematic Cuban political prisoner after José Martí. His rebellion and constant hunger strikes made him unique in a setting where brave men like Alfredo Izaguirre, Armando Sosa Fortuny, Onerio Nerin Sánchez, Roberto Martín Pérez and Israel Abreu, just to mention a few, left traces of exceptional courage and national convictions.

Pedro Luis Boitel’s legacy of heroism and fidelity to Cuba was picked up by many Cubans, particularly those of more recent generations. Jorge Luis García Pérez Antúnez founded the Pedro Luis Boitel Political Prison organization in the Castro prisons; his sister, Berta Antúnez, formed the Pedro Luis Boitel Civic Resistance Movement, and the numerous times imprisoned hero of the Black Spring, Félix Navarro, organized the Party for Democracy under the name of an unforgettable martyr.

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