TRANSLATORS – Page 243 – Translating Cuba

Crisis in Agriculture: Land for Those Who Work It / Dimas Castellanos

By Dimas Castellano, 9 February 2016

Property and crisis

Once the Cuban Government arrived in power, imbued by an exacerbated voluntarism, it ignored the laws that govern the economy and subordinated them to ideology. From this moment on, the loss of the autonomy that is required by economic processes was converted into a factor of poverty.

In 1959, with the first agrarian reform law, the Government handed over property titles to 100,000 farmers but concentrated in its own hands some 40.2 percent of cultivable land. In 1963, with the second agrarian reform law, the 1,000 farms that had more than five horses swelled the fund of State lands, which grew to almost 70 percent.

In 1976, with the objective of decreasing the numbers of small owners, the Government initiated a project of “cooperativization,” through which it created the Cooperatives of Agricultural Production (CPA), thereby raising the share of land that was State property to 75 percent. The result was inefficiency, scarcity of products and high prices, which obliged the Government in 1993 to convert continue reading

a part of unused State land into the Basic Units of Production Cooperative (UBPC), while retaining the property ownership for itself.

Fourteen years later, on July 26, 2007, in his speech in Camagüey, General Raúl Castro recognized the deficiencies, errors and bureaucratic or indolent attitudes reflected in the fields infected with the marabú weed, and he announced the decision to “change everything that should be changed.’

And in 2007, he promulgated Decree Law 259, through which he began the handing over of idle land to private individuals. However, the measure sidestepped the declaration of changing everything that should be changed and was limited to transferring — through a form of leasing known as ’usufruct’, which is the right to use the land without actually owning title to it — a part of the land that the State wasn’t able to make productive. The poor result obtained from this measure did not achieve what was proposed.

Of the 420,000 acres held by the 1,989 existing UBPCs, almost 40 percent remained idle; their expanse, although comprising 27 percent of the agricultural area of the country, produced only 12 percent of the grain, food and vegetables, and 17 percent of the milk, and only 27 percent had satisfactory results. In 2010, 15 percent of the UBPCs closed with losses, and another 6 percent didn’t even submit a balance sheet.

In order to stop the deterioration, in August 2012, the Council of Ministers issued a package of 17 measures and a new General Regulation for the UBPCs that recognized what before had been denied: the capacity to acquire rights and to contract obligations; that is, juridicial personality [a legal term meaning an entity that has a distinct identity, with rights and obligations].

In December 2012, without altering the structure of the property, Decree-Law 300 was substituted for Decree-Law 259. It alleviated some restrictions, but it kept others and implemented new ones. Article 11 said that lands in usufruct could integrate with a State farm with a juridicial personality, to a UBPC or a CPA, for which “the usufruct cedes the right of usufruct over the lands and the improvements to the entity with which it integrates.”

In May, 2013, at the meeting of the Council of Ministers, Marino Murillo Jorge, Vice President of the Council of State, recognized that the measures, which for decades had been put into practice for managing the land, hadn’t led to the necessary growth in production. Finally, in 2014, Decree-Law 300 was modified with Decree-Law 311.

The loss of autonomy — which is to the economy what oxygen is to living bodies — together with voluntarism, the methods of command and control, the centralized planning, the inability of the bosses and administrators, and the diminished interest of the producers, shaped the agricultural inefficiency that has characterized Cuban agriculture for several decades.

The process described shows the impossibility of resolving the crisis in agriculture with the monopoly of State property and leads to the analysis of usufruct and the cooperatives in Cuba.

The cooperatives and usufruct

As far as cooperatives are concerned, the Declaration of the International Cooperative Alliance (ACI), adopted in 1995, defines cooperatives as autonomous associations of persons who unite voluntarily to cope with their needs and their common economic, social and cultural aspirations, through an enterprise of conjoined and democratically controlled property.

In agreement with this definition, the ones created in Cuba — with the exception of the Cooperatives of Credits and Services, where, although without juridicial personality, the farmers conserved ownership of the land and the means of production — are not classified as such.

The Sugar Cane Cooperatives, created in March 1960 in areas that formerly belonged to private sugar mill owners, almost immediately were converted into State enterprises. The emergence of the CPAs in 1976 with the purpose of reducing, even more, the quantity of land in private hands, was also a State decision. And the UBPCs, organized in 1993, didn’t result from a true socialism but from the crisis in State agriculture.

If the cooperatives in Cuba are created by the will of the State; if the Council of Ministers regulates them; if the entity that authorizes their constitution is the entity that controls, evaluates their functioning and defines when the “members” can contract with salaried workers; if the activities and tasks that the “partners” can assume are created in places decided by the State and “deal with segments of the market that are not competitive with the State”; and, on top of this, if the State retains ownership over the fundamental means of production, then they are not true cooperatives, but State cooperatives in usufruct.

A convincing proof of this false cooperativism was the report published in the newspaper, Granma, on Friday, January 25, 2013, which announced the decision of the National Association of Small Farmers to replace or remove from their positions 632 presidents of agricultural cooperatives.

For its part, usufruct consists of the use and enjoyment of a good belonging to others. If there had been consistency with the principle of changing everything that should be changed, the idle lands, infected with marabú, would have been handed over to those who work the land.

Nothing justifies making private producers — who have demonstrated they can be efficient — owners in usufruct, and giving ownership to the State, which is responsible for the inefficiency. The question sends us to one of the reasons declared by the 1959 Revolution: to return the land to the farmers. Why now does the land not belong to those who work it?

Neither the State lands, nor the cooperatives created by the State, nor the 17 measures of 2012, nor the successive decrees that handed over land in usufruct have managed to pull Cuban agriculture out of the crisis created by the State monopoly of property.

On the contrary, the crisis has worsened.

Such a result, like it or not, places on the agenda the need for a new reform directed at eliminating the large State land holdings, converting the present owners in usufruct to owners in title and transforming the rest of State property into private property and large cooperative enterprises.

Therefore, what is needed is to determine what are the most effective forms of property in each moment and place for personal and social development, which will make the institution of property a foundation of personal and social order.

Not recognizing this need explains how the administrators of cooperatives can be separated, not by the members, but by a para-State institution like the National Association of Small Farmers, or that the Second Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba threatens the owners in usufruct with the emphatic declaration: “The land belongs to the State. Without discussion.” The obvious question is: And what is the State going to do with land that it never managed to make productive?

The answer is requires the democratization of economic relations, so that parallel to the State, Cubans participate like subjects with institutionalized rights.

From Diario de Cuba

Translated by Regina Anavy

Cuba and the Phantom of the Internet / Jeovany Jimenez Vega

Free Internet, Mayor’s Office of Guayaquil (Ecuador). Image courtesy of photographer Julio R.B. for Jeovany Jimenez Vega.

Jeovany Jimenez Vega, 26 January 2016 — A ghost is haunting Cuba: the phantom of the Internet. All the forces of the old guard have joined in a holy crusade against that spectre: the Castros and Ramiro Valdes*, the censor, before ‘Furry’ Colomé Ibarra and now Fernández Gondín**, the radical communists and all the opportunistic cops … Thus begins the Manifesto of the Internet for the Cuban people, placed at a horizon so far away that it’s as elusive as everything else concerning connection to the outside world.

Walking through any park in Guayaquil, Ecuador, at every Metro stop, in many cafes and shops, in every mall, and at every corner, I find at each step an announcement of a free Wi-fi signal, and my thoughts fly to my closed little island.

Internet censorship in Cuba is a subject that has been brought up so many times it now stinks. The amply demonstrated reluctance of the Cuban Government to cede a bit of ground in its information monopoly has ended up putting our country at the bottom of the index of connectivity on the whole American continent, and in the select group of those who are behind globally. continue reading

I’m bringing up the trite question again on this page, before the news that the representatives of both governments of Cuba and the U.S. have sat down to talk about the subject in recent days, as part of the thaw fostered after 17 December 2014 by the Obama administration and accepted by Raúl Castro, but only because Venezuelan President Maduro’s boat is going under.

But I certainly heard nothing new. “The blockade prevents the financing of any United States project to enlarge the infrastructure; it would be precisely to democratize the administration of the global network; that if cyber-security, that if the solar storms or the rings of Saturn” — whatever excuse the censors could use to delay our right to unconditional access to the world highway.

Surely nothing was mentioned by the Cubans at this meeting about the three-quarters of the Venezuelan submarine cable that remained, deliberately, without exploiting its potential for almost a decade, and they dissimulated or evaded when any allusion was made to concrete proposals, on more than one occasion, by U.S. businesses to make investments in the island, which, in the short term, would make Internet service accessible for the average Cuban and would ostensibly improve telephone service.

Before every proposal by the U.S. or any other country on the matter, the Cubans have followed their usual strategy: find a problem for every solution. On this rough point the dictatorship has its eyes fixed on its only intent: maintaining, at all cost, until its last breath, the most absolutely possible iron control of information. Thus every U.S. proposal came up against this primordial interest, since the dictatorship knows that censorship is a vital matter.

When I walk through the streets of Guayaquil and see at every step announcements of a free Wi-fi signal offered by the city, and the posters from cyber cafes inviting you to use the Internet at a comfortable speed and without restrictions, for U.S.$1.00 for three hours of connection (!), and I see on every roof a parabolic antenna or a coaxial cable, I can’t help but contrast this reality with the Cuban government’s cynical policy and ETECSA’s*** monopoly on “free” Wi-fi service at selected points in drips and drabs.

They all have something in common: you pay $2.00 CUC (more than U.S. $2.00) for an hour with a very slow connection, in a country with an average monthly salary between U.S. $15 and $20. You get connected from a navigation room, outdoors in a park, or “accommodated” under the sun on a sidewalk, but never from your home, since such a service is available only for the Regime’s acolytes, and you always have to show your identification and personal data when you enter.

Furthermore, you should know that every click of the keyboard or every site you visit will be spied on, and you will find that all the sites that are inconvenient to the Government have been zealously censored.

For my part, beyond the fact that my blog, Citizen Zero, is not approved in Cuba — I didn’t have the occasion to try the “superb” Wi-fi service or ETECSA’s navigation room — I will never forgive the satraps of Havana who, by their cojones (balls), vetoed something as simple as a video-conference with my children. This is something that hurts and offends, and converts my conflict with the dictatorship into something personal.

As for their policy, however, there is inescapable evidence to take into account, which is the essential and last cause of the problem: the uncontainable and absolute terror of the Cuban dictatorship before the unsubmissive truths poured out on the Web, which it hides them from the Cuban people because the despots who dis-govern depend on this censorship to perpetuate their power. The Cuban dictatorship’s dilemma is as simple as that. This “menace” makes them lose sleep.

Translator’s notes:

*He defended Internet restrictions, saying, “The wild colt of new technologies can and must be controlled.”

**The old and new Ministers of the Interior.

*** La Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A., Cuba’s one telecommunications company.

Translated by: Marlena (PL) and Regina Anavy

The School for Others / 14ymedio, Luz Escobar

Havana International School on 18th Street in Miramar

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 2 February 2016 — She is not wearing a uniform, she is not carrying a bag with snacks, nor does she have a kerchief tied around her neck. However, at nine years of age, Malena is on her way to school, a learning center for the children of diplomats where she has been able to register with her parents’ economic means and a Spanish passport – a legacy from her grandmother.

Cuban education is no longer the same for everyone. There are classrooms where students enjoy unlimited internet connection, air conditioning and new furniture. In the dining halls, the menu is varied, vegetables are plenty and it is common to hear a child talk about how he or she spent the weekend at the exclusive Cayo Coco resort or that his or her dad got a new truck.

Founded more than forty years ago, the Havana International School was originally designed for the children of ambassadors and consular personnel. In the 1990s, the children of foreigners working for joint venture firms arrived, but as of a few years back Cubans who can afford the high tuition fees and show a foreign passport have appeared. continue reading

As opposed to public schools where material resources are scarce and the deficit of teachers increases, the International School on 18th Street in Havana’s exclusive Miramar neighborhood, has a library, a multimedia center and a playground. The waiting list of those interested in working at this attractive place would be enough to fill all the empty positions in primary and secondary classrooms throughout the country.

To register a child in the International School or the Spanish Education Center of Havana, near the Aquarium in Miramar and founded in 1986, you must show documents that confirm you are a foreigner. A condition that up to a few years ago was exclusive to the children of diplomats, but that now is shared by the offspring of returned émigrés and those naturalized as Spaniards through the Spain’s Grandchildren Law, like Malena.

Registration requires showing the student’s previous test results and a willingness to pay the tuition. A year in the first few grades of elementary education can cost between $4,000 and $10,450, from kindergarten to fifth grade.

Despite the high fees, there are Cubans who can afford this amount to avoid sending their kids to public school. Among them are those who, after living long years abroad, refuse to accept the ideologized Cuban education. “Our girl was born in Madrid and is not used to any of those things you see in schools here,” the mother of a teenager who attends secondary school at the so-called “Spanish little school” told this newspaper. Married to a renowned artist, and after a more than a decade living in Salamanca, they now juggle to pay the school’s tuition.

“But, we make the sacrifice because there they teach her to be creative and to think for herself,” added the proud woman. “I don’t want to even imagine what it would be like to have to register her in a one those other schools,“ she says from her house in Central Havana. The girl shares a classroom with the children of foreign reporters, managers of joint venture companies, and the new rich.

The teachers at these schools, as well as the administrative and maintenance personnel, are hired directly through recommendations. In this case, there is no involvement of the agencies controlled by the State, and this is common in the majority of positions paid in freely convertible currency or tied to foreigners.

Lina, a young graduate of San Alejandro Fine Arts Academy, taught for several years at one of these learning centers thanks to her good English language skills. Now, she says that the salary was “magnificent,” but that the most important thing was the “airs of freedom that could be felt upon entering.” On its web page, the International School describes itself as a “progressive institution.”

More than a third of the teachers at the school come from Canada, United Kingdom, Holland, Germany and Portugal. The rest are Cuban hires that had to show that they are “versed in modern pedagogical methods.” At the end of their studies, the pupils obtain valid diplomas that are recognized by the European Union or other nations.

The curriculum is not very different from that of the public education, although the way it is taught is. Among the subjects that they must learn in elementary school are Math, English, Spanish, Arts Education and Music, together with Physical Education, Computer Science and Civics. This last one without an iota of ideology.

With the just obtained Spanish passport, Ivette, owner of a paladar (private restaurant) in Old Havana decided to save her daughter from the “dirty bathrooms, the greasy metal [lunch] tray, the female teacher that smokes and yells,” states the prosperous entrepreneur, talking about her own childhood school experiences. “This is the best money I spent in my life,” says the woman about the “little school for yumas*” that her daughter attends every morning.

*Cuban slang for foreigners.

Translated by Ernesto Ariel Suarez

Cuban Musicians Are Freeing Themselves / 14ymedio, Lilianne Ruiz

JouMP’s alternative recording studio, “Espacio Latino Records.” (14y medio)

14ymedio, Lilianne Ruiz, Havana, 12 January 2016 – In an apartment located in a dingy, rundown concrete building of Havana’s Plaza district, dozens of musicians have made the dream of recording their songs come true. Here we find one of those “home studios” that are becoming essential for the Cuban music scene, and especially for the online market.

A couple of years ago, nineteen year-old Claudia Pérez chose a new more “intriguing” name befitting a “grand diva,” Nina. However, her vocal and performance talents will not get her very far without the backing of a musical expert and an independent producer.

JouMP, a music producer and editor, owns the studio where Nina recorded her first singles. It is composed of a single room with wood paneling, pompously advertising itself as “Espacio Latino Records.” JouMP spends hours in his studio, insulated from street noise, mixing musical effects and composing songs. continue reading

“The only thing I need to do is find the right musical thread, and then the right instrument that defines the piece’s esthetic,” remarked JouMP. He added, “Right from the start I know how to identify songs that are sure to be hits.” This is why he is so respected, and why so many entrust him with recording their albums, songs, or creating background melodies for them.

JouMP has been involved in the world of independent creativity for more than a decade, and considers himself “a sound artisan.” His most prized possession is an external hard drive storing more than four thousand musical pieces encompassing several genres, all created by him.

Stored together with his compositions are sound editing programs such as Fruity Loops, Wavelab, and Logic Pro, as well as dozens of recording tools. The majority of these programs are pirated versions, purchased on the black market.

The apple of JouMP’s eyes is his digital console, which along with his monitors, his computer with a powerful soundcard, and his microphones, gives the studio a professional look. This equipment was also acquired outside of official State channels, purchased second-hand, or from those travelling abroad who are asked to bring it back to Cuba with them.

The lack of copyright laws and official authorization give a clandestine feeling to these ventures. Still, this does not discourage those who jump at the opportunity of turning their bedrooms into “sound factories.” For the most part, the reggaetón played in shared taxis and on teenagers’ earphones are recorded in these types of alternative studios. The most common way of promoting this music on the Cuban market is by way of the “weekly packet.”

JouMP bragged about creating an arrangement for rapper Wilder 01 by mixing cha-cha with an electric guitar, thus giving it a “crunch” sound. He called the piece “Estar contigo” (“Being With You”), and offered it to EGREM. This State-run music label hailed the song’s originality, and recognized that it did contain “some traces of Cuban music.” Nonetheless, it was “too foreign.”

Those times when membership in a (government-run/official/State) organization was a prerequisite for recording an album are now in the past. “Privately owned studios give you more freedom,” commented Dj Xon, an eighteen year-old who performs at parties, and who also dreams of compiling all his work and uploading it to iTunes.

Until now, the only option available for the majority of Cuban musicians who wanted to post their music online was Bis Musica, a label owned by the State-owned corporation Artex. Bis Musica is in charge of uploading music to platforms such as Spotify, iTunes, and Amazon. It often also acts as an agent, retaining up to fifty percent of a song’s royalties.

Some artists manage to upload their songs onto the Internet thanks to a friend or relative abroad who also helps them secure their royalties. Despite the difficulty of accessing the Internet or collecting royalties in Cuba, iTunes offers a wide variety of music produced by Cubans living on the island.

In their short years, JouMP, Nina, and Wilder 01 have witnessed a giant technological and social leap forward. They have seen the industry go from old vinyl records, whose production was under total State control, to the new wave of independent studios where songs are not even burned to CD’s anymore, but instead are being produced for online streaming.

“They’ll be able to hear me anywhere in the world, because I’ll be up there,” commented Nina. While singing in that narrow studio with wood paneling, she daydreams about “the cloud,” and the enormous potential her voice could have online.

Translated by José Badué

A Hero To Justify The Cuban Failure / Cubanet, Luis Cino Alvarez

What in abundance are those who distort and manipulate the ideology of José Martí (Reuters) — What we have in abundance are those who distort and manipulate the ideology of José Martí (Reuters)

We continue on without wanting to admit that if our “wine is sour,” even if “the wine is our own,” it is no more than that: sour wine.*

Cubanet, Luis Cino Álvarez, Havana, 28 January 2016 — Today marks the 163^rd anniversary of the birth of our national hero, José Martí. It is the time to repeat by rote the two or three of his sayings that all of us Cubans learned since grade school. It is but a short time before we again commemorate his death on May 19. Those two remembrances comprise most of the veneration of Martí that was instilled in us from childhood. What a shame! continue reading

We have the myth, but the counsels and teachings of Martí have served us precious little. Rather, from the era of independence [from Spain] up to today, we have systematically devoted ourselves to incurring everything against which he warned us. We have done as the Israelites in the Old Testament, who continually disobeyed Jehovah and were punished for it. Although we are not even remotely like the Hebrews, our people, too, have received their due punishment. And what awaits us, still…

Whatever became of all that which was quoted so often but has never come to pass, of the republic and the nation “for all, and for the good of all”?

We Cubans have exploited, with no compunction, the legend of Martí. Few peoples enjoy the privilege of having a poet as their national hero. But poets and their worldviews are not easy to comprehend. We never understood Martí well, and we have idealized and inflated him into the politician that he was not and never wanted to be.

Upon preparing for the War of Independence, Martí fulfilled his principal historic role. There was little else by then that he could do. His death at Dos Ríos, on 19 May 1895, confronting a Spanish patrol, was almost a suicide mission. It provided him the out that that he could not find before such great obstinacy and lack of understanding among the principle leaders of the Mambíses.

But the official story, that which was taught before [the 1959 Revolution], and which is badly taught today, refuses to acknowledge the conflicts that existed among the leaders of the independence movement…

Would Martí, after independence had been won, been able to work with those who were intending to lead the Republic as if it were a military camp**, and instill in them his civic and democratic vision?

Very few Cubans have read Martí deeply. What we have an abundance of are those who distort and manipulate his ideology. Thus, they have created a multi-purpose Martí, useful and convenient for all.

The greatest plagiarist, Fidel Castro, made of Martí the intellectual author of the attack on the Moncada barracks, his guide for the construction of a socialist society, and mentor to his pathological confrontation with the United States. To justify his single-party dictatorship, Fidel cited the case of the Cuban Revolutionary Party, overlooking the fact that it was created solely to organize the War of Independence, and not to perpetuate the rule of any political caudillo.

The legend of Martí contributed to the construction of a meta-history, a teleology of the nation’s destiny, which has done us more harm than good. Rather than redeem us, it bequeathed to us, among other things, a bad conscience and the fate of national misfortune.

Writing from exile, Martí idealized a Cuba in which he lived barely 20 years of his life. But the Cuba he invented surely would have been much better than the real one, if we Cubans had been able to make it come true—if not exactly as Martí envisioned it, at least close to it. But we were not able. And we continue not being able.

They beat us over the head so much with the pure heroes and the bronze statues that they ended up boring us. As a result of this boredom, today many Cubans, especially the young, associate Martí with the Castro regime’s harangue, and they reject him outright.

We Cubans should be ashamed of all the ignorance of and distortion of Martí. But it is easier to feel sorry for ourselves. So we continue to quote his sayings—even if they are out of context, or we do not understand them well, or we interpret them according to our whim and convenience—to justify our failure as a nation.

Thus attached to Martí, we continue not wanting to admit that if the wine is sour, for all that it is our wine, is no more than that: sour wine. Or even worse: vinegar. Which stings so much in our wounds…

luicino2012@gmail.com

Translator’s Notes:

*A reference to a quotation of Jose Martí well-known to Cubans, “Nuestro vino es agrio, pero es nuestro vino” – Our wine may be sour, but it is our own wine.

** A reference to another oft-remembered phrase from José Martí (though not one commonly invoked by Fidel or Raul Castro): “Un pueblo no se funda, General, como se manda un campamento” — A people is not founded, General, the way one commands a military camp. Martí wrote this in a 20 October 1884 letter to General Maximo Gomez, in which he resigned from the revolutionary movement.

About the Author

Luis Cino Álvarez (Havana, 1956) has worked as a professor of English, in construction, and in agriculture. He entered independent journalism in 1998. Between 2002 and Spring 2003, Cino was a member of the reporting team at De Cuba magazine. He is assistant director of the online magazine, Primavera Digital [Digital Spring], and is a regular contributor to CubaNet since 2003. A resident of Arroyo Naranjo, Cino dreams of being able to make a living from writing fiction. He is passionate about good books, the sea, jazz and blues.

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

If We Are Talking About Terrorists / Mario Lleonart

concasacuba2-jpg — Photo: with friends Roberto Pisano and Leonardo Delgado

Mario Lleonart, 29 January 2016 — A few days ago (January 15th and 16th) I took part in a gathering in Miami of the Coordinating Liaison Committee of the Cuban National Meeting, of which I am a member, along with eight others. On the 18th, on Martin Luther King Day in Saint Petersburg, Florida, I paid tribute to King, joining in the parade in his honour distributing copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On the 19th I visited locations in Sarasota and Manatti, Florida, which had been pounded by tornados early in the morning of the 17th. continue reading

While I was doing this, the political police made appointments with or visited people who know me in Cuba, who take part in forums of the Instituto Patmos, parishioners, collaborators, friends, neighbours and family members, to warn them that it was dangerous to have anything to do with me, inviting them to cooperate with their secret services, and to turn them against me. After I returned to Cuba some of them dared to tell me about these contacts, pressures, harassment and threats. One of the reasons put forward by the Cuban Gestapo, without any support, was that I had met terrorists in the USA.

In the afternoon of the 20th, I visited Leonardo Delgado, a one-time political prisoner, in his house in Tampa. He has been battling lung cancer for five years. With him was Roberto Pisano, one of his prison companions. His stories about the ancient Cuban prison are shocking.

That morning I had received some mail from Cuba, testifying to the arguments put forward against me by the State Security. Listening to Pisano and Delgado’s stories made me think how ridiculous it was that someone in Cuba would say that I had met terrorists in the US, since it was in fact the opposite.

I replied to the mail saying that if, by any chance I had had a meeting, without knowing it, with terrorists in the USA, it would have been if I had unknowingly met an undercover agent, one of the hundreds illegally infiltrated into the US by the Cuban political police. Like those involved in the shooting down of the four Brothers to the Rescue pilots, or those who specialise in assassinating without leaving any traces.

Translated by GH

My History / Somos+, Frank Rojas

Somos +, Frank Rojas, 26 January 2016 — My history is like that of most Cubans born during the Revolutionary period. My generation grew up with our lives administered by others, carrying ration cards and bearing witness to those great moments that marked the lives of millions of us.

The Mariel Boatlift, the ridiculous and extreme religious and homophobic persecutions; the “adventures” in Africa, Central America and the Middle East not only cost us resources, but also the lives of thousands of Cubans who bled across these lands and stole the only given chance we had to a rapprochement with the United States in the middle of the Cold War. continue reading

The collapse of the USSR and the fall of the Berlin wall; the “Special Period” that arrived, supposedly for a short time, and brought shortages with it as baggage, but has over stayed its welcome in our homes to this day.

The pathetic image of Fidel in the streets of Havana trying to appease a people who revolted during the Maleconazo and the 1994 Rafter Crisis because they simply couldn’t take it anymore. The unending process of the “rectification of errors” which is still ongoing.

The Elian Gonzales custody battle, and the open tribunals that bled our already fragile economy dry and left us with the “Dummy Table of Disinformation” as an inheritance. The succession of power is handed down in a fashion typical of the dynasties of the past. Three papal visits to Cuba and the actual re-establishment of relations with the “Empire” are just some of the imprints made upon me and my people.

I was like any other child of my day. I received political-ideological indoctrination at every grade in school, wishing all the while (subconsciously) to be like Che. During my adolescence, I started to see things around me more clearly, how I was being influenced and how I saw things.

Like many others of my generation, I also belonged to the Union of Cuban Youths (UJC) until I realized that I was just another puppet in a system that forced me to march and yell slogans that I didn’t even believe. I complied with SMO (Obligatory Military Service) where I was harassed by the Military Counterintelligence for something as simple as discussing Christ and Salvation with my friends, who like me, had become toy soldiers.

At the University, I began to strip myself of all that tied me to the system. I stopped attending the May 1st marches and all the other absurd and endless gatherings, among other things. By the time I began my career, I understood I lived in a romantic fantasy that resulted in a farce and I got out of all the Communist Party labor organizations that far from representing the worker, constituted a tool for punishing him. I stopped paying my monthly dues, money that only served to maintain high salaries for thousands of people who live in this country without producing anything and get fat like internal parasites that consume us. This is my history; a history similar to that of the majority of Cubans.

I found out about the Somos+ (We Are More) movement through my best friend and through her, about its growing pains during its formative stages. I have to confess, at first I was a bit annoyed by her “fanaticism,” but I later understood that it was a reflexion of her passion when it came to the topic of Cuba; a different and unknown Cuba for the majority of Cubans and one that was being uncovered thanks to the internet.

In one of his visits to the island, I got to know Eliecer Avila, a young man I had felt a certain sympathy for since his public clash with Ricardo Alarcon. I’d never heard such illogical arguments come out of a political figure of the government.

I had at my disposal an amazing opportunity to sit and have a frank and cordial encounter, to have a profound conversation and debate about my country. I finally had the opportunity to speak to someone about Cuba with solid fundamentals and coherent answers to my questions. That day I saw that there was a completely different alternative to what I knew up to that moment as material opposition in Cuba. When I saw that video from the UCI, I said to myself, I’ve got to meet that bold guy and I would shortly get to without knowing it.

I went back to my neighborhood that day with my head full of thoughts. The seed was already sown, it only needed to be watered a bit. That’s how I started my life as a political activist. After my membership was accepted, I started to study the movement’s statutes and meet others, friends already fighting inside and outside the country. Important meetings occurred and I got the opportunity to participate in a national council; the conviction grew within me that I’d finally found the right place, it was where I wanted to be. The Patriot, the Rebel and the Fighter within me finally came out.

Today, I see thousands of Cubans that know we have to do something, but for many reasons, they don’t dare and that’s the worst thing that can happen to us. I invite you to not cross your arms, but like me, to give that grain of sand to help build a new and different Cuba. We owe it to our country and not to leave this debt to future generations, we are the only ones who can change history and now is the moment to do so.

Translated by Yamile Someillan

Cuban Toy Thieves Knockout Three Kings Day / Dora Leonor Mesa

Dora Leonor Mesa, 22 January 2016 — In 2016, the toy thieves from Cuban State Security do not wish to say much about the subject, but the comparison is inevitable, and there are more than a few people now who point to their undertaking as a vile and damaging one.

This past 6 January, the day of the Three Kings and the traditional day Cuban children are given Christmas gifts, instead of hunting down rings of drug traffickers and pimps who trade in boys and girls, who have a lot of money and expensive gifts to steal, the agents had to take on a useless activity: utilizing schoolchildren, dressed in their uniforms, accompanied by poorly-paid teachers who let the boys and girls out of school without prior parental permission, to go out and insult and taunt peaceful people who today give gifts on Three Kings Day. The lowlifes in need of defending their illegal business dealings were also present at the show, persecuting women, boys and girls. continue reading

It doesn’t matter if the women are Ladies in White, or Shakira herself. In the toy thief profession, the important thing is to destroy the magic of childhood, for life in Cuba is hell. Knock on wood! At least, that was the message of thousands of Cubans in Costa Rica and other countries, Panama, Colombia, Mexico. Cuban refugees unwilling to return to their homeland, not even for thousands of dollars. Even Pope Francis got wind of the tragedy!

Clearly, all Cubans on their beloved and dilapidated Island know of the Three Kings perfectly well, for the worthy Pope John Paul II brought them back [during his visit to Cuba in 1998]. According to UNICEF (2015), there are 15 toys for every 100 Cuban children. For them, having the awful experience of not being able to play with toys, to have one must be like [an adult] dreaming of owning a Rolex or a Patek Philippe.

The Three Kings will again struggle to make their appearance in Cuba next year. Every Cuban man and woman who loves his neighbor, and especially children, will come out to support the Three Kings, doing something so that Cuban boys and girls, of any age and in every corner of the country, can have not just one, but many toys. They need not be new ones. The paramount thing is to break the curse of the toy thieves until, little by little, they disappear. Alelluia!

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

Necessary Investigation Into Dead Cubans In The Nicaraguan Jungle / Juan Juan Almeida

Juan Juan Almeida, 18 January 2016 — Why don’t the countries which are implicated carefully investigate, in a reasonable period of time, the disappearance of these Cuban migrants? Why doesn’t the Nicaraguan government carry out an effective judicial investigation into these cases?

The accusers whisper, but, out of fear, do not accuse. They speak cautiously about dozens of Cubans abandoned in the jungle.

We will only have a rough idea of the number of those who have disappeared when those who are arriving and those who are still in Costa Rica, decide to break their silence. continue reading

Although for now there is no exact number of Cubans who have disappeared, whether assassinated, or lost, we are beginning to hear worrying tales, referring to the Nicaraguan jungle as a mass grave, where the bodies of some of our countrymen are hidden.

Sadly, while they ignore all this, the useless media is pleased with itself, and entertains itself scrutinising with disproportionate voracity and exaggerated delight, the motives, whether political or economic, which oblige these people to abandon their country.

This Friday, the first group, out of the thousands of Cubans who are stuck in Costa Rica, arrived in Laredo, in South Texas. According to the authorities in the Central American country, the selection criterion for this group of 180 was how long they had been there, that is to say, the date they entered the country.

But no one says that the list was modified because, in spite of the order of arrival, or the date of entry, some of them didn’t have the money – over $550 – to pay to continue their journey, or because, simply, they had disappeared.

And little or no attention is paid to the predictable slipping away of Cubans who, fed up with waiting, unwise or impatient, under their own steam, or with the help of traffickers – and most of them know who they are, where they live and how to contact them – decided to enter the jungle in order to get to their destination and today are dead, or locked up in Nicaraguan prisons.

The accusers whisper, but, out of fear, do not accuse. They speak cautiously about dozens of Cubans abandoned in the jungle, and of some mutilated with machetes, but they don’t say how many. They also, between themselves, say that some countries in the area know about this, but are not saying anything. It is serious and brutal, like a small-scale extermination.

For one of those people, who didn’t want to give his name, because he is still there with his family, the fact of not hiding the bodies of Cubans who tried unsuccessfully to escape from Costa Rica, by way of the Nicaraguan jungle, has two explanations: lack of interest in or respect for the fate of a Cuban, and a clear warning, with an element of threat, directed at the rest of those stuck in Costa Rica: “Don’t even try to get through the jungle.”

Fortunately, everything seems to indicate that our countrymen will arrive at a safe port, but, unfortunately, we will only have a rough idea of the number of those who have disappeared, when those who are arriving and those who are still in Costa Rica decide to break their silence, which casts a shadow over their complicity, and when all of them arrive in the United States and the families of the lost ones start to ask about their relatives’ whereabouts.

With so many unanswered questions, I wonder why don’t the countries which are implicated carry out diligent investigations within a reasonable period of time into the disappearance of these Cuban migrants? Why doesn’t the Nicaraguan government carry out an effective judicial investigation into these cases? Why doesn’t the press, both here and there, make any comment about what seems to be a badly-kept secret? There is no choice, we will have to wait, investigate and ask questions of our arriving fellow-countrymen.

Translated by GH

Forgive the Castro Regime? Never! / Cubanet, Luis Cino Alvarez

Cubanet, Luis Cino Álvarez, Havana, 11 January 2016 — I am a resentful person. I have to admit that, at least in this regard, the officials from State Security are correct, they who have condemned me as such during multiple, more or less menacing, interrogations throughout the past almost-20 years.

I am full of resentment against that calamitous abomination that some people still call “the Revolution.” And how can I not be? I would have to be a masochist, or emulate Mother Teresa of Calcutta, to love the perpetrators of the system that has crushed my life for as long as I can remember.

I would have to be exceedingly hypocritical to say that I am willing to reconcile with and forgive those who have never, in the slightest way—arrogant as they are—asked for forgiveness.

I am not a man given to hatreds and vengeances, but I cannot abide duplicity and hypocrisy. So leave me to my resentment which, in the reasonable doses in which I dole it out, will do no more harm than it already has; on the contrary, it helps me to keep going and not give up. continue reading

I cannot forgive those who thought themselves infallible, with a monopoly on the country, keepers of the keys to Paradise, with the right to decree the collective, obligatory happiness of the masses—all at the price of turning us into cogs in a machine, with no freedoms nor hope, yoked to the wagon of a mistaken history.

I cannot help but begrudge those who caused our individual dreams and aspirations—grand or simple, but valid and legitimate as any others—to be indefinitely deferred, annulled in the name of the Revolution, the Homeland and Socialism: all of which, according to what they said, were of a piece, despite the fact that the words did not rhyme, and we knew they could not rhyme.

I cannot be at peace with those who, in keeping with catchphrases that invariably posited death as the alternative, divided our families and pulverized our values, turning us into impoverished, vulgar riffraff, cynical and suspicious, perennially wandering in the desert…

My love for my neighbor (why deny it) is insufficient to be lavished upon those who fucked up my life: those teachers who, applying punishments prescribed by Comrade Makarenko, pretended to be forging The New Man; the sergeants in the compulsory military service; the psychiatrist-prison guards; the jailers at police precincts; the snitches who compiled exhaustive reports on me; all those who were wont to expel me from anyplace because of ideological divergences; the agents of the political police who “tend” to me, that is, who watch me even while I sleep…

Of no use have been the many times that they have tried to convince me that all the bad things that happened were not the Revolution’s fault—no, Man, of course not, they happened because of those extremists of which Lenin spoke—opportunists, as he called them—and all kinds of other shit. As if such as these were not the ideal subjects of a system like this!

Do not tell me anymore that those terrible events were errors—because in those “errors” have our lives been lost, and there is no getting them back…

I do not resign myself to having been one more rat in the Castros’ laboratory. The damages have been irreversible, and I do not believe that at this point they can be compensated.

Therefore, all we have left is the memory of what was and what could not be, because they prevented it, by force.

The poet José Mario—one of those who suffered the severities of the UMAP*—was right when he said that that those explanations of how “things were not as bad as they really were, it was a matter of errors committed by some extremists,” are worse than forgetting.Do not expect me to slobber. I am one of those who do not forget. I cannot, nor do I want to. For this reason, I am a resentful person. And proud of it.

luicino2012@gmail.com

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

About the Author: Luis Cino Álvarez (Havana, 1956) has worked as a professor of English, in construction, and in agriculture. He entered the field of independent journalism in 1998. Between 2002 and the spring of 2003, Cino was a member of the reporting team at De Cuba magazine. He is assistant director of the online magazine, Primavera Digital [Digital Spring], and is a regular contributor to CubaNet since 2003. A resident of Arroyo Naranjo, Cino dreams of being able to make a living from writing fiction. He is passionate about good books, the sea, jazz and blues.

Cuban Education in Free-fall / Ivan Garcia

Ivan Garcia, 21 January 2016 — Seven in the morning on a weekday. After a frugal breakfast of bread and mayonnaise and an instant powdered drink, Yamilka Santana, fourteen years old, puts on her backpack, weighing a little over 12 kilos.

She isn’t going on a trip, nor is she going camping. She is going off to her junior high school, Eugenio María de Hostos, in la Víbora district, a thirty minute drive south of Havana.

“I am taking all my books and exercise books in my backpack, as we don’t yet have a timetable for our classes. There are about twenty notebooks. Also, a snack, a lunchbox, and a sunshade. It looks as if I am going on a journey abroad”, Yamilka says, smiling. continue reading

About 350 pupils study in her school. They need to stay in school from eight in the morning until twenty past four in the afternoon. The state does not provide them with a school breakfast. Nor lunch.

It only gives them a snack, which most of the kids don’t eat. “It’s rubbish. Bread and a hamburger, which has a strange taste, or horrible potato croquettes. The bread is almost always hard and old. You have to be really hungry to be able to eat it”, says Melissa, a seventh grade student.

The school patio where they line up in the morning is uneven. In a wide area, previously used for sport, there are no basketball backboards and the smooth-finish concrete surface is lifting.

When it rains, the water penetrates the walls and the roof. “You get more rain inside than outside. When you get heavy downpours, they suspend classes”. says Josuán, from the ninth grade.

More than a few parents have complained to the school. “It’s dangerous for the kids. They haven’t carried out any maintenance to the school for years, and one day the roof or the walls could collapse and that would be a tragedy. The government should be concerned about the bad state of most schools in Cuba”, says Magda, mother of one of the pupils.

But the complaints have had no effect. The government’s response is to paint the fronts of the schools with a coat of cheap paint. The teaching materials are insufficient and are deteriorating.

“Ten-year-old books are passed between pupils. There aren’t enough for everyone. I share a book with two or three kids. The notebooks, pencils and school supplies hardly last a term. Parents have to pay for the rest of the things out of their own pockets”, a teacher from Eugenio María de Hostos tells us.

The first problem the parents and families of the children and young people who are studying have to deal with is the uniform. In Cuba, uniforms are compulsory up to pre-university and degree courses.

Every other year, the state sells two uniforms per student. “But they screw you. They almost never have the right sizes. And you have to go to the market, where they charge you 5 convertible pesos for a uniform, which is equivalent to 125 Cuban pesos, five days’ pay. Some families get them, much better made, in Miami, explains Berta, mother of two.

In primary school, skirts, shorts and trousers are a wine colour, and blouses and shirts are white. In secondary, mustard yellow with white blouse or shirt. In preuniversity, blue. Technical education has ochre coloured uniforms. Nursing and medicine students wear white blouses and shirts and violet skirts and trousers.

Twenty six years ago, when Fidel Castro’s Cuba was subsidised by the Kremlin, public education in the island guaranteed snacks and lunches for students.

Also, two uniforms a year, a pair of school shoes and sport shoes for physical education. That was when a proud Castro repeated in his lengthy speeches that Cuban education was among the best in the world.

Now, parents have to buy the sneakers and snacks, which accentuates social differences.

“In spite of the fact that the school management asks families to avoid any ostentation, there are clear inequalities. There are students who come with sports shoes costing 100 CUC or more. Tablets, smartphones and even first generation laptops. They also bring good snacks and lunches. Others feel bad. With patched up tennis shoes and only eating bread and oil”, the director of a school tells us.

Up to the date of writing, no primary, secondary or pre-university in Cuba has an internet connection, producing backwardness in the use of information technology, which has a negative impact on the younger generation.

“We have adolescents who arrive at school, never having used a computer and never having surfed the internet. That is fatal in the 21st century”, comments Richard, a computing teacher.

But if the shortage of decent equipment and adequate food is notable in Cuban schools, the free-fall in the quality of education worries parents a lot. From their already battered domestic finances, they have to pay for private tutoring by experienced teachers.

“I pay 4 CUC a week to the retired teacher who gives my daughter tutoring, 16 convertible pesos a month, nearly half my salary. It’s a big sacrifice, but I do it not just so that my daughter gets good marks, but also that she builds up her knowledge and will be able to take a university course”, says Magda, referring to a seventh-grade student.

The deterioration in the quality of public education in the island is reflected in rude behaviour and in an alarming reduction in adolescents’ and young peoples’ level of culture. They hardly read or learn at all.

“We have not yet caught up with the 21st century. If we keep going like this, most of our current students will not be able to adapt to the requirements of the modern world. We are twenty years behind in terms of modern teaching methods”, explains a retired female teacher.

Very few people in Cuba want to be teachers. Low salaries and poor social standing are among the reasons. Many qualified teachers prefer to work as porters in five star hotels, as taxi drivers, or making pizzas in private restaurants. Or to emigrate.

Photo: from El País de Colombia.

Translated by GH

Leap Year, Creepy Year / Miriam Celaya

The Cuban outlook does not look hopeful for the beginning year (photo taken from the Internet)

Miriam Celeya, Cubanet, Havana 15 January 2016 – The year 2016 has begun under a bad omen. If it weren’t enough with the general gloominess after one year of uneasy peace between the governments of Cuba and the US without any perceived improvement in living conditions, the food crisis has become more acute, and shortages are increasing. Agricultural products are increasingly scarce, of poor quality and high prices, while merchandise at foreign currency stores is very scarce. Many self-employed (cart pushers) have disappeared from the cityscape, while the cooperative stores are showing shortages signaling worse times ahead.

The high expectations arising out of the 17 December 2014 announcement of a reestablishment of relations between Cuba and the United States are shipwrecked and long gone. The stubborn reality has once again proved to everyone that Cuba’s ills are endemic: they rest only in the evil combination of an obsolete and failed sociopolitical and economic system and the persistence of a politically inept dynastic clique that seized the country 57 years ago, whose beginning and essential end are centered in clinging to power at any cost. continue reading

In other words, the national disappointment is based on placing the prospects of happiness in a miracle that would come from “outside” to save us from the native demon we have in Cuba: Castro-ism, cradle and reservoir for disaster. Hence, in the face of disappointment (delusion?), thousands of Cubans choose to seek abroad the happiness that is denied here.

However, by coincidence, the natural decline of the Castro experiment, which is already exhausted, will have its biggest survival test this leap year. Because, while 2016 threatens to be difficult for ordinary people — that conglomerate of the majority which some are in the unfortunate habit of referring to as “Cubans on foot” — will not be a honeycomb for the olive-green gerontocracy and its brown-nosers.

It is true that the Government-State-Party, embodied in the General-President, continues to hold power at his own free will, but in recent times the circumstances have not turned out to be as favorable as were expected. Despite the many awards and being hosted by governments and international organizations and against the grain of legitimation – useless to date – of the Cuban dictatorship in forums, including those of a financial nature, throughout the democratic world, envisioned foreign investment has not yet materialized, investment which would provide the necessary capital to start to repair the internal economic crisis.

The “new era in relations between Cuba and the international financial community,” according to the French Department of Finance, has yet to bear fruit for the elite of the Palace of the Revolution, while the Foreign Investment Act continues to lack the legal guarantees required by potential investors. Widespread corruption, rooted in the national reality, also advises caution when negotiating. Obviously, the slow pace of “reforms” of State socialism may be commendable in the hypocrisy of the forums, but it is incompatible with the urgencies of capital.

On the other hand, important changes have taken place in the regional political physiognomy, undermining alliances on which the plans of the Castro regime’s eternity rest. “21^st Century Socialism” is shaking, and, just like the ‘real socialism’ of Eastern Europe, it tends to “come undone.” While the fallen scepter of populism Kirchner-style in Argentina, Venezuela’s Chávez-style regime also just suffered a tremendous setback, when the opposition won the majority seats in the recent legislative elections amid a national crisis ranging from the greatest food shortages, corruption and citizen insecurity in recent history, to drug charges that point to the President himself and his closest acolytes.

In this vein, Venezuela’s support for the Castro regime through daily oil shipments – already in a phase of decline since 2014 – is hanging by a thread. Raul Castro’s promise of a reform “without haste, but without pause,” has not ameliorated the fear of blackouts that have begun to spread across Cuba, and the increasing uncertainty adds pressure to the valve, which will guarantee the ongoing exodus, mainly to the US.

Add to this scenario is the political crisis generated by the corruption scandal in Brazil, involving the president and his party. The region’s left has fallen into the cone of a tornado and is lagging far behind those glorious days when a jubilant Chávez hurled threats and “anti-imperialist” insults at every podium, and lavishly gave away Venezuela’s national wealth for the benefit of Latin American autocracies and other opportunistic parasites.

In closing, repressive signs in Cuba’s interior have been emphasized. This is an indication of the regime’s growing insecurity, as well as its preoccupation with maintaining control over an increasingly poorer, unhappier, more irreverent and less fearful population.

By natural logic, in this leap year we will witness the last congress of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) to be led by the so-called historical generation. It is unlikely that a 90-year old Raúl Castro or his spectral, 95-year old brother would be able to direct the 8^th Congress in 2021, nor does it seem possible that the shadow of what was once the Cuban nation will be able to survive five more years of Castro-ism.

The 7^th Congress of the PCC to be held in April will undoubtedly be the most important domestic political event in Cuba. Like it or not, this improbable Party that lacks a political program, with ranks of less than one million members, and which not a single fairly lucid Cuban believes in “is the highest leading force of society and the state,” as Article 5 of the Constitution endorses, so that, at least the intention of the government on the political future of the country for the next five years should be made clear. It would be unwise to propose 300 more ineffective guidelines.

Another important event of the year will certainly be the proposed new Electoral Law. Given the fear that anything that resembles democratic elections awakens in the gerontocracy, we will have to see what freak of jurisprudence they will propose to “make perfect” (even more in their favor) the electoral system, and how they propose to make it look “more democratic.” In particular, the recent Venezuelan experience will make them cling more strongly to that famous maxim of our former President: “Elections? What for?”

“Leap Year, creepy year,” our grandmothers said. And indeed, so far, all signs point to more poverty, more emigration, more corruption, more repression… and also to the fastest growing dissatisfaction and internal dissent. However, nothing will prevent a change for the better in Cuba, with the help of those who have nothing to lose but their own fear. The picture being sketched is thorny, and it suggests that 2016 will be a decisive year for Cubans.

Translated by Norma Whiting

Venezuela, a Lesson for Cubans / Miriam Celaya

A “Venezuelan Che Guevara” after finding out the election results (Internet photo)

Miriam Celaya, Cubanet, Havana, 8 December 2015 — Despite all adversities and cheating to attempt to sabotage the opposition’s victory in Venezuela’s parliamentary elections, the forecasts were on target: the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) didn’t just come ahead in surveys, which Maduro was hoping for, but it swept the polls.

The puppets at Telesur, “Latin America’s television channel”, could barely hide their apprehension. The long wait that followed the closure of the polling stations was a clear indicator that the ballots cast were so in favor of MUD that no Castro-Chavista trickery could reverse the outcome. However, announcing the results would turn out to be a bitter and difficult pill for Maduro and Cabello’s patsies to swallow. continue reading

Well after 12 midnight in Venezuela, Tibisay Lucena, president of the National Electoral Council (CNE), officially announced the results in a nervous and stuttering manner, in contrast with her usual energetic and poised style. MUD had risen, so far, to 99 seats in the parliament, well above the 46 achieved by the Chavistas. It is such a crushing blow to the ruling party that until last night [7 December] the results of the remaining 22 seats, completing a total of 167 in Parliament, had not been declared.

A stunned Nicolas Maduro posed as a democrat and pretended to be satisfied with the “triumph of democracy.” An advisor obviously suggested he leave his belligerent stance of the previous days, when he threatened to “govern in the streets” with “a military civic coalition” if Chavistas (Maduro’s party) conceded losing the election. We can imagine the advisor: “Mr. President, ‘the street’ is precisely who voted against you”. Thus, the speech accepting his defeat could not have been more gray and monotonous, recounting past victories which contrasted even more against the failure of the day. The faces of amazement of his audience shouted clearly that the glory days of Chavismo were over. Another one that bites the dust, after the sharp fall of the empty figurine of the Casa Rosada just days ago.

The saga is going to be very interesting. The new Parliament will assume its functions on 5 January 2016, and even the 99 already seats called for MUD will guarantee the simple majority, those who will be allowed to directly rescind root matters, such as electing the assembly board, (‘bye, ‘bye, Mr. Diosdado Cabello!) approving or vetoing appointments, enacting legislation or appointing Supreme Court judges and the Attorney General of the Republic, among other powers that would put an end to 16 years of Chavismo government impunity and authoritarianism enforced through violence, fear and coercion.

Such power in the hands of political opponents, however, would not be the Bolivarian autocracy’s worst nightmare. The most hostile circumstances for the dying Venezuelan regime is that MUD only has to win 11 more seats of the 22 remaining open (two have yet to be announced). Reaching 112 deputies will allow the opposition contingent to get two-thirds of seats, a sufficiently overwhelming force to bring down the whole dictatorial scaffolding erected by Hugo Chavez and his followers. MUD could exercise legislative functions of great scope and depth, such as promoting referendums, constitutional reforms and constituent assemblies.

It is no wonder, then, that however incomprehensible it may be — given the speed and efficiency of an electoral system fully computerized with the latest digital technology — almost 24 hours after completion of the referendum, CNE officials, still mostly Chavistas, had not made public the final results. Maduro’s supporters and his troupe are worried, and they have very good reason to be.

Yesterday dawned with Telesur completely silent on the subject. It would seem that there had been no Sunday parliamentary elections held in Venezuela. Elections which, by the way, the government itself announced would be “historic”. Admittedly, they were right this time. Yesterday, December 7, however, Telesur focused on the French municipal elections…. things of the Orinoco.

Havana’s Reaction

Castro II’s message to his Venezuelan counterpart has a somber tone, like those formal condolences one coldly offers an acquaintance on the loss of a close relative: “We’ll always be with you.” With enough problems of his own, the General-President was sparse, dry and distant with his “Dear Maduro” letter, despite the ‘admiration’ with which he listened to the words of the arrogant president. It ends with “a hug.”

Democratic Cubans, however, are celebrating. The victory of democracy in Venezuela cheers and encourages us, and we hope that MUD knows how to appreciate, in all its worth, the enormous importance of the victory achieved. It is a well-deserved laurel, solidly fought by them at a very high cost, but it is only a first step on a path that promises to be difficult and full of obstacles. Personally, I think it is a beacon of hope for all who aspire to the end of the dictatorship in our own country. The time is right to wish Venezuelans success as they return to the path of democracy.

And it is also opportune for dissidents and opponents here, inside Cuba, to meditate on the need to exploit the cracks of the precarious official legality more effectively. It is true that political parties alternative to the Powers-that-be in Cuba are without any legal recognition, that they are demonized and persecuted, their forces are constantly repressed and that we do not have the legal space that democratic Venezuelans have been able to defend, but the legalistic route has not only proven to be an effective tool, it is the only one that would have international support.

In the last elections, in the city of Havana two members of the opposition opted for the office of district delegates. It was a courageous act, and they were repressed by mobs at the service of the government, and criticized by quite a few of their fellow members of the opposition ranks. However, they both demonstrated that a representative portion of their communities dared to vote for them, and so they broke the myth of the opposition’s absence of roots.

Today, Venezuela’s victory stands not only as a hope, but also as a lesson for us: no dictatorship is too strong to not be defeated. If it happens at the polls, all the better. No space gained from a dictatorship is small or negligible. In the coming year, a new electoral law will be enacted in Cuba. Perhaps this is a good opportunity to push in that direction: pressing hard and with determination against authorities to achieve legal recognition spaces, fighting from these spaces, leaving defeatism aside because “that’s their game.” The distance between the Venezuelan reality and ours is indeed very great, but when results could motivate the change, it’s worth trying.

Translated by Norma Whiting

*Note to readers: Sadly the translation of this post got “lost in the internet ether” and it is now appearing here, very belatedly.

Discrimination Against the Poor, an Injustice in Present-day Cuba / Juan Juan Almeida

Juan Juan Almeida, 11 January 2016 — Racial and gender designations were fundamental in the dynamics of international politics, basically dominated by white men; but, fortunately, and like the rough action of a Russian-made Aurika washing machine, there are cycles with an expiration date.

Several penal codes in the world sanction racism, homophobia and whatever other ways to exclude human beings; and, disgracefully, there are people and groups that, clinging to outworn concepts, tarnish themselves by raising flags, at least in Cuba, that are shameful and unrestrained. continue reading

It’s clear that bad news is always the most fascinating, and segregation of whatever type is an image that, by being unpleasant, seduces the media and certain politicized groups. But I don’t think that Cubans who live on the island are racist or homophobic; it’s more a matter of being “classist.”

Discrimination, whether racial, sexual, religious, ideological or by social condition, is a phenomenon that came to our hemisphere long before Columbus. Fidel Castro didn’t invent it, nor did the so-called Revolution create it, although, without doubt, in a purposeful moment they used it. This “divide and conquer” stimulated resentment and generated a cruel individuality that, paradoxically, ended up dynamiting the essence of an “egalitarian nation.”

Demonizing wealth had the opposite effect to the one desired by the Revolutionary leaders. It ridiculed the “way of acting that had been established as the way of the proletariat” and created a negative image of the working class. They started to disrespect the sacrifices of the journalist, the soldier, the housewife, the engineer, the builder, the street sweeper and everyone who was working. Thus, the work of those who were able criminals was glorified.

The pyramid inverted itself, and the persistent spectacle of indoctrination saturated everyone. By force of repetition, the echo of the word “discrimination” contaminated all of us and converted us into a transmitter of a thought that, I’m not saying is a lie, but yes, truth was exaggerated so much that today I consider it worthy of study.

It’s true, Cuba is a dictatorship where the consumption of any hallucinogen is better than Raúl Castro for social health. We don’t have a multiparty system, much less a free press, and it’s shameful to see how every day the percentage of the population that finds a solution by fleeing the island is growing. But to say that apartheid and homophobia are growing is a mistake or a very studied manipulation of those who analyze the phenomenon from a single side of society, and identify it as a generality.

It’s a serious fault, I think, the fact of seeing things in a provincial way, clearly biased, and not taking personally our social responsibility; but this appears to be a subject that is as interesting as the problem of mating between a drone and a queen bee.

No one can deny that there exist racists, homophobes and a pack of people who feel superior or with the right to exclude others in Cuba, but this isn’t the majority. It’s a shame that the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), the National Center of Sexual Education (CENESEX), and even some opposition organizations seem to be pushing strategies that, instead of helping, are stimulating the fracture of Cuban society.

The reality is that today in Cuba, with rare exceptions, Cubans don’t discriminate by black, woman, old, gay nor religious; they discriminate against the poor, and more so when the underdog shares the aforementioned conditions. Without a doubt, the rejection, marginalization and differentiation by social status is frightening.

Translated by Regina Anavy

It is Better to Run a Risk than to Shut Up / Angel Santiesteban

Correspondence between Toine Heijmans and Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

The renown Dutch writer and journalist, Toine Heijmans, a regular columnist for the national Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, and who sponsored Ángel Santiesteban during his political imprisonment, published the correspondence they maintained during those two and a half years. He has dedicated four pages to it in the prestigious medium. continue reading

We reproduce here the photos of the printed version.

Angel’s Editor, 10 January 2015

Translated by Regina Anavy

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: