Translator: GH – Page 27 – Translating Cuba

Conference for Over-40s in the Casa de las Americas / POLEMICA: The 2007 Intellectual Debate, Isbel Diaz Torres

Yes, it would appear that the themes discussed yesterday at the Casa de las Américas [an institution in Havana to promote inter-cultural links with other countries <transl.>] were not of interest for the future of Cuban culture and thought. It seems like they were trying to mend fences (with every justification) with some of the victims of a period which was not just grey but invisible.

For many like me, knowledge of this part of our cultural history is limited to commentaries about some benchmarks and readings between the lines in essays and spaces such as those in magazines like Temas or Criterios. Nevertheless, the youngest artists, researchers, and intellectuals in general who wanted to attend had to be content with the iron barriers which were put up at our beloved Casa. “There isn’t space,” they said, and it was certainly true: there was no room for us in that coterie.

The sad thing in all this is that perhaps it would not have been like that, it is very possible that if they had asked our Desiderio if that was the auditorium he had in mind for his cycle of conferences, the reply would have been in the negative. And it isn’t because those who got in did not deserve to do so, but because those of us who were stuck outside would have had the right to attend as future makers of Cuban culture.

There are those who think that it was all just a problem of organisation, there are those who are more suspicious, but the fact of the matter is we couldn’t get in. How many invitations intended for members of the Asociación Hermanos Saíz, did not go out from the National Council? Why did the UNEAC [Writers and Artists Union of Cuba] manage the entire organisational process, helping themselves to an enormous quota? And what about the University of Havana? It’s very possible that half of the people who were inside, if they hadn’t been expressly invited, would have remained in their houses, and that is not as innocent a speculation as you might think. How concerned must they be about Cuban history and culture to go to such major and controversial conferences as are arranged by the Centro Teórico-Cultural Criterios [Criterios Theoretical-Cultural Center] and confront the faces of those who usually get in, the stares of those who yesterday were among the chosen?

Fortunately, deep-thinking people were also up there, people who, apart from their artistic merits, have always been in the habit of expressing their opinion, debating, confronting, being heretical. But that isn’t enough: we should also be there, and that doesn’t seem to me to require any more justification. One of those people excluded said that maybe it was better for us to be outside instead of inside, maybe we were playing our own particular part in the history; maybe, I would now say, we were demonstrating that that is not just about the past but also about our difficult present.

I welcome the entry of this debate into the schedule of the Cuban intellectuals, those who suffered the “Pavonato“, those of us who now gather the fruits of those injuries and perhaps confront others of a similar nature. I am confident that the seats at the upcoming conferences in this cycle will be available for those of us who are interested in listening so as to know what to do about the future of our culture. continue reading

Lic. Isbel Díaz Torres

Writer, member of the Asociación Hermanos Saíz

Wednesday, January 31, 2007.

CONFERENCE FOR THE UNDER-40S

OK, as you must know by now, there has been a Conference for the youngsters … or conferences … or, the workshop “The Cultural Policy of the Revolution”, as it was put on the invitations distributed by the Centro Teórico-Cultural Criterios and the Asociación Hermanos Saíz.It took place last Friday (February 23rd) at 2 pm in the ISA. [University of Arts of Cuba]

Who was invited? Well, although I don’t have the figures, there were plenty of people there, the great majority youngsters. Intellectuals from every branch of the arts, researchers, writers, from the AHS (higher-ups and ordinary members), students from the University, and creative people from many provinces of the country. Perhaps this time too they didn’t achieve an ideal auditorium, in order to generate a real debate, but I think we can agree that that’s a really difficult task. But, as Alain Ortiz said, ”the significance of the meeting lay in its multigenerational representation”.

I have conflicting impressions of this. On one side I feel satisfaction at having been a part of this debate, at having had the opportunity to speak freely, like many other young people there, and at having discussed topics which cannot be put off regarding our culture and politics. As has happened more than once, it is gratifying to feel that Abel listens to us and takes us into account. But, on the other hand, I also feel, as do some of my friends right now, that there is no confidence in any immediate solution to many of the questions which were put, and that, at the end of the day, that is what really matters. The tone of excusing the situation on the part of Iroel Sánchez (Director of the Cuban Book Institute) and at certain times of Abel himself was somewhat discouraging. We young people are in a hurry, that’s for sure. Many of the things we are asking for we should have had yesterday, and without waiting in hope that perhaps they will give it to us tomorrow.

Nevertheless, I want to be optimistic, “miracles are slow in arriving” as Silvio says, but we can see the lights on the horizon. This process which has been unleashed is irreversible, in my judgement, and I feel that the Revolution is plagued by rich contradictions, which will become more marked if we are successful in taking advantage of them. I am not talking about opportunism, but about not leaving those issues we are concerned about locked away in the filing cabinet and insisting that they are addressed and resolved. I feel that much of what we are now suffering is truly due to the fact that the injuries were not healed at the time they were inflicted. It’s like trying to conceal a piece of meat under the mattress: the putrefaction and bad smell will come out in time. That time is now. Tools such as the web and emails are in our favor, silence is impossible.

Up to this moment I haven’t noticed that this workshop has had any impact; neither in the national press, nor in emails. That worries me a lot, because I think it was a profitable debate, some ground was gained. Are we only interested in obtaining an emotional release by complaining about our misfortune, or do we want to really structure this debate? It is essential that we are fully aware of what we are doing. I am not talking about a plan of action, or anything like that; we all have our own ideas and important differences. But the desire to renew things, to be truly revolutionary, must not be lost after a short period of high spirits, but it should become part of our daily lives.

For the moment, here I publish my words in the “meeting with the young people”. The text was short, in accordance with the moderator’s request to not go over three minutes, but “I have said what I wanted to on time and with a smile”, and, above all, very honestly, which is the important thing.

Instituto Superior de Arte, Friday, February 23rd, 2007

Hello everybody.

I have an insistent thought over and over in my mind, which started when this avalanche of emails and statements first invaded the Cuban intellectual world. The question is: Will all of this make any practical sense?

What is a Cultural Policy? Does a “Cultural Policy” decide which works are aesthetically worthy, and which aren’t? Will it help me to understand whether rock is better than timba [a style of Cuban dance music], whether performance is better than landscape painting, if our own writers are better than foreign ones, if reggaeton is erotic or pornographic? Is a “Cultural Policy” something which helps black people? Gays? Provincial artists?Is that what it is? Is it something you write into the Constitution of the Republic, or put in decrees, or which you download as “guidance from higher organisations” in meetings of the Party or the UJC? [Young Communist League]. Does a “Cultural Policy” tell you what is revolutionary and what is counter-revolutionary?

In my opinion, the Cuban Cultural Policy, so tied up with the spheres of power, and very often more than tied up, subordinated to the apparatus of state, fortunately has not been immovable, but has moved in parallel with the development of this nation. Many times it has remained at the mercy of orders remote from the culture itself: international situations, “defining moments”, hare-brained ideas, which, in the mind of some executive committee become transformed into laws, etc. There have been moments of greater or lesser permissiveness, sometimes of tolerance and, why not?, also of real understanding. But is that what we really need now: to be grateful for the arrival of a moment of greater tolerance? To sing a Requiem to Social Realism and a Hallelujah to postmodernism? I think that would be a frivolous attitude on our part.

Since I was a kid, I have been taught that true transformations, or at least the most necessary ones, are those which spring from the roots of evil things. Later on I learned for myself how difficult they are, since they presuppose, above all, identifying the evils; which requires a strong dose of wisdom, detachment and love. But who wants easy tasks? We need true transformations and for that we have to “think Revolution”. This doesn’t just have to do with the world of the arts or the intellect, but all of society, all the country, of the Revolution.

Cuban society is a society of fear, as well as other more comforting descriptions which could be applied. It’s possible that a similar name could be applied to other societies right now, where forces which are superior and invisible determine the destinies of their inhabitants, which might be a sign of the times, but at the end of the day we are responsible for our society, for our Revolution. I don’t have the theoretical tools in order to demonstrate that fear has been established in our country, but names such as “Pavonato”, “Five Grey Years”, “Secrecy”, “Mystery Syndrome”, will give you an idea of what I am talking about. A process as sad as this for this nation’s soul cannot be shaken off that easily; the bruises they were showing following my message “Conference for the over-40s” showed me how far we still are from having left the disastrous influences of fear. The censors are there, they exist, they occupy positions from where they can harm us. When will they be recognised as counter-revolutionaries? When will we have a television which reflects our society with its contradictions, instead of investing time and money in inane slots for self-glorification. When will we have daring and inquisitive journalists? Why does nobody over there on the outside know we are here saying these things?

The cultural policy we need is one which encourages the exercise of criticism wherever it comes from; one that, from a position which is ecumenical and non-paternalistic, embraces creative activity; one that does not have “The Institution” acting as its headquarters, even when “The Institution” supports the creator, but that its guiding light is in the cultural activity itself; one that teaches us how to converse.

We need both old and new (but distinct) streams. We cannot give ourselves the luxury of letting names like Gramsci, Trotsky, Varela (to mention a few) be only known in intellectual circles and totally alien to Cuban knowledge and practice.On the other hand, we young people cannot continue waiting for others to design spaces for free expression, for criticism, the power to generate these spaces and multiply them lies in our own hands.

GIFTS (The right human time, 1962 Herberto Padilla)

(…) And nevertheless, you had things to say:
dreams, desires, journeys, agonizing resolutions;
other voices (or, another voice) did not distort
your great love nor your true angers.

Isbel Díaz Torres

Translated by GH

Link to original post
31 January 2007

No Respect for the Teacher / Victor Manuel Dominguez (Posted on Dora Leonor Mesa’s Blog)

By Víctor Manuel Domínguez

Havana, Cuba, 2.7.2013 http://www.cubanet.org

Another academic year with more pain than glory comes to its end (2012/2013). Another mess-up. Never mind that the information media go on about the advances in the pedagogical methodology, the implementation of the plan, the improvement in the basics of study, the improvement in the learning of the student body, and exemplary discipline.

The parents, teachers, education sector managers and the students know it isn’t so.

The promises of better courses for the students are erased like words written in chalk. The fraud, corruption and the lack of interest in teaching or learning are common in the schools.

The reasons why, course after course, things go from bad to worse, are there. The frustration of many professional parents who hardly have enough to live on, the low salary of the educators who can’t survive to the end of the month, the corruption of many directors, and the lack of prospects on the part of the pupils, are more than enough to ensure things don’t get any better.

Obdulia Camacho (not her real name), librarian, ethnologist and professor of literature and Spanish for more than six decades, says that the education sector is one of the worst and most complex in the country, because of its influence on the formation of the people from infancy.

“Before, without learning, you couldn’t advance,” she said.

At the age of 80, she still works in the sector on a contract basis. Although, as she points out, because of her low pay (about 350 pesos in national money, $16 USD) she has had to work as an attendant in a hospital and receptionist in a primary school, as well as washing and ironing for anybody who wants it, looking after people who are ill, among other work she does to make up her salary, because she has a daughter and a grandchild to support.

In accordance with her authoritative opinion, indiscipline in the sector is general. The study plans leave much to be desired. Most education centers are in bad condition in regard to basic needs, sanitary fittings, but above all education is miserable because of lack of values and corruption.

“Last week,” she said, “the mother of a student in a school located at 20 de Mayo and Ayestarán in El Cerro, turned up very upset in the center’s management office and shouted that her daughter had to pass the physics exam, since she had paid $20 in order that she wouldn’t have any problem with the grade.”

In another school in Central Havana, a student taking an exam stood up in the middle of the class and, in a disrespectful and threatening manner, went up to a female teacher, who had been in the sector for more than 40 years, and shouted at her:” Hey you, cross-eyes, if I don’t come out well in this test, you will see what happens to you.”

The teacher started crying.

According to Obdulia, although such things can happen in any country, the causes are distinctly different in Cuba, whose educational system is permeated by a disproportionate control, coercion and indoctrination of the student body to the detriment of a free and universal education.

“It’s embarrassing”, she said, “that with so many basic problems, like indiscipline, the frustration on choosing a course which offers hardly any benefit, the sale of exams – recently recognised by the official press [1] – the favoritism and a thousand things more that demand radical change in the national educational system, they still talk as if nothing was wrong and they hold up the Cuban educational system as an example which the world should follow.

Another academic year with more pain than glory, comes to its end. The teachers dream that in the following year their pay will go up and their working conditions will improve. The parents pray because the vacations are coming up soon. And the students enjoy themselves away from a classroom which gives them more nightmares than dreams.

[1] Recognised recently in the official press.

http://www.cubanet.org/articulos/granma-destapa-%C2%A1ahora-fraude-docente/

Translated by GH

16 September 2013

Where the Boss is Judge and Jury / Cuban Law Association, Eliocer Cutino Rodriguez

Lic. Eliocer Cutiño Rodríguez

Many people work in the TRD* chain of shops, subject to what may be called military regulations. A vast number of those workers are unaware of the rights which could help them in the face of possible violations of labor discipline.

How could a process be fair in which, per Resolution 1072 of 2011 which regulates this activity, the person who issues the sanction is the same person who addresses the initial claim?

Setting aside, obviously, the possibility that this person recognizes that he made a mistake in the first place and the affected party gets a favorable response.

Nevertheless, workers who appeal – because they disagree with the outcome – would only have the route of going back to their immediate bosses who disciplined them in the first place, without having the slightest possibility of the judicial system hearing the matter and perhaps resolving it in accordance with the law, which by constitutional mandates would apply to this situation.

It is a process lacking in transparency and impartiality, which has been abolished for many years in the contemporary legal world. This idea could be tried among the TRD workers in the discussion of the future Workers’ Code in this country and perhaps lay a new foundation for what, on the issue of labor discipline, the military institutions have encouraged, completely alienated from the institutions that administer the law such as the Popular Courts.

*Translator’s note: TRD is the acronym for “Tiendas de Recuperacion de Divisas”; literally “Stores for Recovering Hard Currency.” These are the stores operated by the State which sell only in hard currency (Cuban Convertible Pesos, or CUC). They are the only source of many basic products available legally nowhere else (as well as luxuries), and are designed to “recover” the cash sent to Cubans as remittances from friends and family abroad, a function clearly stated in the name the State has chosen to give them.

Translated by GH

20 September 2013

Cuban Fast Food / Ivan Garcia

As there is no McDonald’s or Burger King, Cuban fast food is flour fritters and home-made pizza.

Bread with croquettes of uncertain origin are also popular, and donuts filled with guayaba, condensed milk or chocolate. A vast number of families on the island only prepare one hot meal a day, at night.

They have strong black coffee with sugar for breakfast. And some plain bread, or with oil and garlic. Lunch is whatever appears, depending on what money is available. It could equally be a snack in a private cafe or a disgusting bread and pork in a state eatery.

The star “fast foods” in the Havana streets are the croquettes and fritters. A perfect “wild card”. Since they are cheap, they have become the “peoples’ food”. You can serve it for breakfast or lunch and for dinner for the poorest folk.

Noelvis has become and expert fritter-maker. He works 12 hours a day. “I sell up to 900 fritters a day. My profits are around $400 or $500 pesos. I also sell loose croquettes for a peso or bread with two croquettes for five. A fritter costs a peso. I prepare some dough with white flour and add well-chopped chives, garlic and some off-the-shelf seasoning. The secret is that I don’t use yeast to make the pastry rise. I fry them in boiling oil and when I spoon them into a pot, I try to make sure they aren’t very big. I let them fry long enough so that when they cool they don’t go sticky and caramelized. After some hours they are crispy.

A packet of ten croquettes sells for 5 pesos in the state-owned fish shops. The fritter sellers buys them for resale. “I get a profit, half and half.” says Noelvis. Their ingredients are unknown. The nylon bags where they come in don’t tell the ingredients. Cubans call them “croquettes to be deciphered”.

Ricardo works in a factory where they make croquettes and gives an assurance that they are chicken based. “They use all of it, from the skin to the bones. They grind it well and make a dough. The hygiene measures are good. The people who prepare food wear rubber gloves.”

Their flavor varies. Sometimes they have a distant aftertaste of chicken, other times fish. Or they taste of nothing. They seem like plastic, artificial croquettes. But if they are eaten fully fried they don’t taste bad.

Before she leaves her house, Diana drinks a coffee and when she walks to her pre-university institute she religiously breakfasts on two flour fritters and a croquette. “To keep my figure I eat just one croquette without bread. Although with so much saturated fat it’s a little difficult. My parents give me six pesos a day, and with this money I can only buy croquettes and fritters. The lifesaver for many people.”

Another staple of “fast food” are the churros. They were always sold thin, long and powered in sugar. Yamila, who owns a churro station in the Luyano town, says that they are made of wheat flour and if you add a “yucca mixture they taste better. But right now the trend is to prepare them in a fatter mold and two fingers in width. After, they are filled with a thick marmalade, condensed milk or chocolate syrup. The profits increase significantly due to the flavors”.

Filled churros are the latest trend in Havana. Their prices are expensive for the middle class pocket. A churro filled with guava, mango, coconut or chocolate is approximately $5 pesos and $10 for the ones filled with condensed mild or tuna fish.

“Children are the best customers, although adults also buy often. If you want good sales you have to get a place in a central avenue or close to a children’s park as is my case”, says Eusebio. The market competition is aggressive. In his zone, there are three churro posts; so they have to become creative. “I have family in the United States and they have told me that at McDonald’s they don’t only sell hamburgers, they also do promotions. They offer children’s menus and they give toys or balloons so that gave me an idea. In my post, I will install a TV and the clerks will be dressed as clowns. If you buy three churros, you’ll get another one free”.

Perhaps you can’t compare the “fast typical Cuban food” with a Big Mac or a Pollo Tropical meal in Miami, but we can also sell ours in bulk.

Ivan Garcia

Picture – Filled churros which are now in trend in Cuba, they also like them in. countries like Spain, Mexico, Peru, USA and England. These were taken from “Los Churros: A Secret History”.

Translated by GH

21 September 2013

About the Screening of a North Korean Movie in Havana / Ivan Garcia

Autocrats and Commanders like the cinema. Fidel Castro tried to convince the US director Roger Donaldson to act his part in the film 13 Days, about the 1962 missile crisis.

According to Castro’s security people who deserted to Florida, on his property of more than 40 houses, known as Zone 0, to the west of Havana, the only Comandante also had acres of land where they tried out new varieties of beans and vegetables, he had an ice cream factory, another for cheese and a private cinema.

Although he didn’t take matters as far as his North Korean opposite number Kim Jong-il, who, in 1978, gave an order to capture the South Korean movie director Shin Sang-ok to try and establish a movie industry which would reflect an artistic vision of the communist madhouse and the Juche ideology.

The dictator of Pyongyang treasured an archive of more than five thousand films. And he appears as the executive director in the credits of seven of them. We know that in the “command and control” countries art is the property of the state.

This means that the supreme leader can censor a work, approve the budget of a production which praises the regime, or send a dissident intellectual to the slammer.

When many cinema enthusiasts in Cuba assumed the grey chapter of socialist realism was closed, when movie posters only announced Soviet and East European films, these days in Havana they are showing North Korean films.

For the last two decades, 80% of the movies seen on television and in the cinemas have come from the States. That’s the positive part of the gringo embargo. Both the ICAIC and ICRT openly pirate American serials, films and documentaries without paying a cent for the author’s rights.

For the new generation of Cubans, the films they shoot in Pyongyang are a mystery. From 10th to 13th of September, the children’s cinema in Central Havana was the centre of an exhibition of North Korean movies. Not the first in the island. In the 60’s and 70’s they also presented crap there from the Asian country.

The first day, I couldn’t get in. It was invitation only. But I did notice a mob of functionaries and diplomats, dressed in grey tones with small pins of Kim Il-sung on their shirt lapels, looking after the invitees.

Who were not many. Fifty official journalists and ideologues from the Communist Party who, for reasons of protocol attended the premiere of a film in a bellicose style with little artistic merit.

The next day, entrance was open to everyone. It rained at intervals in Havana. At 5:00 in the afternoon they announced the showing of a movie about martial arts. At 8:00, another, about war, the favorite theme of North Korean cinema.

In spite of the fact that entry was 3 pesos (15 cents), people weren’t too enthusiastic. They looked sideways at the poster and asked which Korea the movie was from. When they realized it was from the north, they walked on.

At the entrance, a group of bored pensioners waited for the start of the performance. Two passing peanut and popcorn vendors moved on somewhere else as a result of poor sales.

The woman selling the tickets looked me up and down when I bought two. I told her I was thinking of watching both films showing that day. “I don’t think you have the stomach to watch all the way through both of them”, she predicted.

I have watched dozens of soporific movies from the former Soviet Union and the old East European countries, but the North Korean one topped the list: it was an artistic genocide.

At my side sat a scrawny North Korean diplomat who had forgotten to use deodorant. It seemed that his role was to assess the level of acceptance of the exhibition on the part of the people of Havana.

The man look shocked when people walked out in the middle. Me with them.

by Iván García

Photo: Scene on Wolmi Island, a war movie projected at the premiere of the exhibition of North Korean cinema in Havana. Shot in 1982, lasting 92 minutes and, in North Korea it is forbidden for kids of under 16. It is based on what took place on the Island of Wolmi in September 1950. In order to respond to the general counter-attack of the Korean popular army, the US army tries to land on Inchon Beach in the Yellow Sea. The Wolmi Island soldiers resist for 3 days in the face of 50 thousand soldiers and 500 ships led by Gen. MacArthur. It also shows the role played by the Korean women in the war. It is the star movie of the Pyongyang regime and, in spite of having been shot 31 years ago, it features in the North Korean film weeks in other countries, like in 2010 in London. Taken from the website Movie Firearms Database.

Translated by GH

19 September 2013

About the Family / Cuban Law Association, Rodrigo Chavez Rodriguez

Lic. Rodrigo Chávez Rodríguez

The great majority of Cuban families are not illiterate but they don’t know that there is a Family Code. They may also be oblivious to the fact that in the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba (which definitely needs to be changed) you will find in Chapter IV, Art. 35; The State protects the family, maternity, and marriage … Until someone explains it to me, and I manage to understand it and feel convinced, I will perhaps continue to be mistaken or each time clearer in my thoughts.

Is it that when people separate, including parents leaving their kids at an early age to emigrate to other countries, almost always for economic reasons, the State protects protects maternity and the family? From what I have just said we can deduce that sustainable marriage cannot exist when, for this or other reasons, the links of a marriage, or voluntary union or whatever, are dissolved, and nor can the State protect marriage and the family, nor indeed the very low level of pregnancies among Cuban women due to lack of many indispensable things.

In other families, aware of what has been decreed and stipulated in the Articles of the above mentioned 1975 Family Code, which can apparently assert that knowledge; this maternity, this marriage and the family are also split up, with the difference that in the case of migrants, here it is about political reasons, their rejection of the government, because they lack one of man’s most precious assets: FREEDOM, and although it brings with it separation and distance from their family, it is necessary for them to search for it and they do find it.

The state recognises in the family the fundamental component of society and attributes to it responsibilities and essential functions in the education and upbringing of the new generations, referred to in Art. 38 of the Law of Laws: Parents have the duty of feeding their children and supporting them in the defence of their legitimate interests and in the achieving of their true aspirations; as well as in contributing actively in their education in their upbringing as useful citizens, ready for life in a socialist society. Why in a “socialist society”? Why if they have to support them in their legitimate interests and just aspirations, and that may not be the interest nor aspiration of the family?

Translated by GH

13 September 2013

Exporting Doctors / Orlando Freire Santana

According to the government, there are 47,000 medical students in Cuba, and a doctor for every 137 persons. What is the real picture on the national health service?

The popular Cuban refrain, when referring to the contradiction which presents itself when the person producing something hasn’t got that thing in his own home, employs the very handy saying, “In the blacksmith’s house, you find a stick for a knife.” Well, we can say the same thing on the big picture with the health service nowadays, with a large number of doctors and medical students, and on the other hand poor attention for the ordinary citizen.

A little while ago the French news agency France Press, basing its information on what appeared in the newspaper Granma, official organ of thee Communist Party, let it be known that more than 47,000 students — 10,000 of them foreigners — had enrolled in medical courses in Cuban universities in the academic year 2013/14. It then went on to emphasize that, taking into account that Cuba has more than 85,000 doctors for a population of 11.1 million inhabitants (data as at the end of 2012), which would represent a doctor for every 137 people, the island finds itself, in this sense, in a privileged position on the international level.

Nevertheless, such statistics contrast with the calamitous state of many of the health services on offer in our country. It’s the same in hospitals, health centers, dental surgeries, opticians and in the famous family health centers. These centers started up nearly three decades ago, with the intention of providing 24-hour primary health care in peoples’ home areas. But they function so erratically now that the intention in question has pretty well disappeared.

For example, in one of the constituencies covered by the Héroes de Girón health center, in the Council area of Cerro, Havana, out of four centers started in the ’80s, today only one remains offering services, leading to frequent overcrowding in the place, and the inevitable irritation both of the patients and the doctors.

Note also the case of the doctors who move out of the houses annexed to the centers, for their relatives to live in. In those cases, although the doctor turns up for the day in the center, he doesn’t any longer live next door, leading to lack of attention for patients with emergencies in the night. You have to note also the dreadful state of the building in many of these centers, and the same is true in hospitals and clinics. There are propped up roofs, leaky walls, out of service toilets…

Not long ago the newspaper Granma reported on the complaint of a doctor about the breakdown of the ophthalmic service in the eastern province of Manzanillo. In its edition of Friday August 16, the official newspaper echoed the complaint of a surgeon in the Laser Surgery Service of the Celia Sánchez Manduley hospital. The doctor pointed out that for more than a year they hadn’t practiced optical surgery in that health center due to technical problems with the air circulation equipment in the operating theatres. That’s to say, while in the context of the so-called “Operation Miracle”, the Cuban doctors give back sight to people from various countries, more than a few Cubans lack such benefits.

They say that, on a particular day, on the balcony where an old lady lives, there appeared a sign with the following text, “I’m off to Venezuela.” It was, obviously, the cry of a desperate patient who could not see the solution to her health problem within the confines of our “medical power”.

Sometimes patients have to travel great distances to be attended to by particular specialists (dermatologists, ear nose and throat doctors, cardiologists, etc.) because the health centers in their health district don’t have such specialists. Many Cubans have to give a little gift to these doctors in order to receive a quality service. Moreover, there is a scarcity of medicines in the network of pharmacies accepting “national money,” also known as Cuban pesos. Clearly, you almost always find those missing drugs in the international pharmacies, who sell for convertible pesos, the currency in which most Cubans are not paid.

And while all this is going on in the country, the “Castrismo” is going on about having more than 40,000 doctors in 58 countries. It’s not a secret to anybody that those professionals work in difficult conditions in those countries where they offer their services, and that the Cuban government repays them just a tiny fraction of what the recipient countries pay for them. Nevertheless, every time we talk to a doctor who works in Cuba, his desire comes across to go abroad to serve on “a mission.” It’s logical, since, even bearing in mind the financial robbery referred to, there will always be more than is evident in the island. You mustn’t forget that a doctor in Cuba, on average, earns the equivalent of 25 or 30 dollars a month.

Obviously not everything is the color of roses for those doctors who are sent abroad. In many places they don’t recognise their professional qualification. Right now, the first 400 have arrived in Brazil; this is out of a total of 4,000 that will be in the South American giant by the end of the year. We know about the protests of that country’s Medical Union, an organisation that casts doubt on the skills of those doctors, at the same time as they accuse president Dilma Rousseff of getting up to political games, rather than acting to improve the country’s health. In the same way, more than a few countries require an ability test for the doctors who graduate from the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) based in the Cuban capital.

Nevertheless the Cuban authorities take into account the obvious judgement that this huge quantity has to be balanced with quality. Every year a larger number of students are summoned to study medicine, a course which they now run in all the provinces throughout the country. Here the utilitarian consideration far outweighs the functional. The foreign medical services have become the country’s principal source of income, more than tourism, nickel, tobacco and other things. Other considerations don’t appear to matter.

Orlando Freire Santana

From DiariodeCuba.com

Translated by GH

10 September 2013

Compulsory Purchase. What for? / Noel Rodriguez Avila

Lic. Noel Rodríguez Ávila

Our present work is concentrating on the processes of compulsory purchase (forced expropriation) against the owners of motor vehicles transporting freight from the provinces of Holguín and Las Tunas.

Before they started this, in the extinct transport sectors, they created commissions for the buying and selling of trucks, which followed the express instructions of the Ministry of Transport in regard to inspecting the vehicles in question, to detect anything illegal done by their owners in terms of parts, components, accessories or engine units.

Once they had finished the inspection, they wrote out a report on the deficiencies they had detected; afterwards they gave the owner a document directing him to sell his vehicle, for which they paid by cheque in the payee’s name in national money for the value of $1800 or $2500, depending on the tonnage.

This transaction was covered by an ambiguous, corrupt and one-sided contract of sale authorized by Resolution 118-88 of the Ministry of Transport, the law 1090/63, complemented by the law 1148/64, and the law 1206/67, which entitled the Central Administration entities of the state to acquire the assets required for the taking forward of their activities; giving rise to a situation in which, on the presentation of demands before the Civil and Administrative Chamber of the Provincial Tribunals, the sale was Held to be Null and Void because of the exclusion of the spouse’s interest.

In those cases where the vehicle’s owner refuses to effect the sale, the process of compulsory purchase is commenced; a procedure which is instituted in our legal and constitutional system, ensured both by the Constitution of the Republic in Art. 25 and also in Arts. 425 et seq. of the Law of Civil, Administrative, Employment and Economic Procedure; being the prerequisite which mediates the declaration of public necessity and social interest.

On that basis the Ministry of Transport issued Resolutions number 40 and 85, which declared the public necessity and social interest in acquiring the said vehicles which were operating in the eastern area, in order that the Holguín Truck Company could achieve its transport plans. Looking back, it is clear that the objective of this process was to get rid of the private sector.

This view is backed up by an legal Opinion issued by the legal directorate of the Ministry of Transport, in relation to a complaint presented by truckers from the province of Holguín addressed to Raúl Castro Ruz, who was at that time Second Secretary of the PCC (Communist Party of Cuba) and Minister of the FAR Revolutionary Armed Forces); in which, among other things, there is the following reference: The compulsory purchase of trucks, initiated against their owners, has its antecedents in the year 1989, when, on the orders of the high command of the country they made available what was termed “The policy of making things harder for the private sector, with a view to its gradual disappearance”, reflected in agreement no. 1507 of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the PCC …

We can therefore conclude that:

Firstly: The private carriers were grouped in the defunct Fleet Operator, from where they offered their transport services, both to private individuals and companies, as well as the Central Administration of the State.

Secondly: That the Ministry of Transport secured, employing anticipated alleged technical violations and by way of a corrupt contract of sale, the compulsory purchase, with no voluntary aspect at all, of private sector trucks, resulting in the later nullification of these legal transactions.

Thirdly: That the State disguised its true intentions, aided by a false declaration of public necessity and social interest, when its real interest was to get rid of the private sector.

Fourthly: Today it remains clear that this sector represents a great public utility and is in the social interest, as the state has had to turn to the private carriers in order to sort out the situation with the transport of passengers and goods on a national level.

Therefore it would be good to get a reply to the question in the title: Compulsory purchase: Why and what for?

Translated by GH

26 August 2013

What Should Not Happen / Cuban Law Association, Argelio M. Guerra

Lic. Argelio M. Guerra

The Law of Criminal Procedure is clear when it indicates in the penultimate paragraph of Art. 251 that: The Police, the Instructor, the Prosecutor or the Tribunal, as the case may be, will decide in relation to the application for modification of the provisional measure* in regard to a time period not to exceed five working days counting from the moment in which the application is made.

It is not clear why the preceding period is breached so often, sometimes doubled or trebled, without complying with the requirement by the legislature to respond to the application for variation of the provision status* of the accused in the brief space of a week. The most serious instance case of such violation occurs when the variation in question is in relation to an accused who is has been remanded in custody, given the very nature of this provisional measure.

An even more unfortunate circumstance is when, in the face of an application for change in a measure, time passes without receiving the due response, ending up with the prosecutor declaring the matter finalised whenever it suits him, in complete disregard of the law.

Unhappily, we see a lot of behavior by the authorities who seem to be acting in a sort of discretionary manner and not in accord with the requirements of the law. This sad reality is even more sensitive when such conduct is in relation to the system of justice, infringing the most basic rights of those subject to legal proceedings.

They are just one example of what should not happen in our battered social system.

*Translator’s note: The provisional status (see next paragraph) under discussion here refers to requests for changes in the custody status of the accused, that is, for example, requests to be released pending trial.

Translated by GH

4 August 2013

The Revolution Might Have Leaked Out the Sewer / Manuel Cuesta

HAVANA, Cuba, August , www.cubanet.org. Revolutionary tourism is a first world practice. It’s like it is the tourism-tourism. The second and third world revolutionaries don’t have the time or money to travel all over the globe to idealize the misery produced by the violence which triumphs in the name of the people.

I ought to make it clear right away that first, second and third world aren’t geographical notions, as I see it. All countries have their own particular combinations of them, and always in relative terms. In Cuba too there is an element of first world. So that those people who are involved in the tourism of the revolution come from all over the place, all of them sharing three things: a blindness in regard to social reality, an anthropological disapproval of the poor people who inevitably generate the revolutions, and a bulging wallet.

But recently a piece of information drew my attention: the loss of hygienic awareness on the part of the revolutionary tourists. Because Cuba is the dirty country of tomorrow. I wonder, therefore, how from the status of the first world can you defend a filthy revolution. You can be on the side of nationalism, populism or indigenousism, regardless of their aseptic quality. Of unhygienic revolutions, no.

Cuba, hygiene and revolutionary tourism

Anyone visiting any part of Cuba should be frightened, except in small towns or small cities like Cienfuegos, by their foul odors. It’s as if Cuba were uninterruptedly evacuating the gases of a slow digestion, hearty and heavy in virtue of the food it eats. Except that in this case the public waste system is broken and doesn’t have the capacity to resist an environment of putrefaction.

A country without bathrooms for pedestrians, without water or soap to wash your hands after going to cafes or restaurants, no napkins nor toilet paper in public places, without even slightly effective garbage collection, with doorways that accumulate three decades of dirt, with half-collapsed buildings serving as “motels” for young couples without private spaces for sexual pleasure, with steambath-buses in the morning, with hospitals and polyclinics ready to transmit infection, all in a hot climate that synthesizes natural outgrowths between the heat and humidity, such a country can not treasure its own future.

What distinguishes utopias is hygiene. If you think of the funding vocabulary of revolutions: throughout history it has associated with the past destroyed by rot, with trying to start some kind of sanitization of society to build the beautiful country of tomorrow. Everything about them seems to come down to health and hygiene: mental hygiene, the difficult relationship of totalitarianism with the madness that equates aristocracy with the plague; of social hygiene, separation and isolation of the offender are also pathological reactions for the construction of utopias; and body hygiene,which we see in the obsession with health in a type of society that thinks its subjects are always sick.

These hygiene are basically totalitarian techniques of control and discipline where no cracks are permitted. However, all these areas of health-related work are collapsed. The number of mentally ill continues to grow, the population is almost endemically criminal and the sick crowd the statistics. And let’s not even talk about the language.

Unthinkable development

That utopias are unproductive, well that’s not a big problem, the stresses of productivity and consumption are theoretically alien to the revolutions of the future. They are unimaginative, it does not matter; imagination is an individual trait that, in essence, threatens the coherence and rigid core of the powers-that-be of the builders of peoples. What should be an alarming signal prosaic filth of the Cuban utopian city. As a sign of its health, its people should be wearing patched clothes, but clean, as recommended by my grandmother.

And worst of Cuba is not the stench of daily work, but a type of medieval dirt shows in four features: the accumulation of filth, the indifference as if everyone is immunized against the city’s garbage, the proximity of the centers for processing the population’s waste, and the lack of modern infrastructure for the recycling of waste. As in the Middle Ages, the septic tanks are very close to the bedrooms and it’s easy to confuse drinkable water with sewer water.

Why doesn’t revolutionary tourism realize that the Cuban Revolution might have leaked out the sewer? Getting to Havana, Holguin and Santiago de Cuba and having to drink bottled water, sold at prices inaccessible to those who supposedly made the revolution, should be the supreme test that without hygiene it is impossible to see the outlines of the streets of the future. Also broken and filthy.

Manuel Cuesta Morúa

From Cubanet

12 August 2013

Translated by GH

CUBA Journalism in the street / Ivan Garcia

Photo: Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

Owing to the lack of statistics and figures, independent Cuban reporters have to reinvent certain rules when providing information. We don’t have access to government press conferences and no minister gives interviews or comments.

Nor can we rival the foreign agencies accredited in Havana. Not having technology, 24-hour internet access, being unable to cover official events, it is impossible to compete with the speed of the foreign press.

There are certain types of news which an independent journalist can put out faster than a correspondent from the BBC, EFE, or AP. Above all in relation to the world of opposition: a dissident’s hunger strike, an eviction, or one of the Ladies in White being beaten up.

But that’s not the best side of the field to be playing on. Cuba is an area full of stories that the regime tries to ignore. In the streets and shanty towns, chatting to ordinary folk, we always find good reports.

We have something to thank the poor work of the state journalists for. If Granma and Juventud Rebelde were in the habit of providing information about marginalization, ruinous infrastructure, or how Cubans manage to survive inside the socialist madhouse, there would not be much reason for independent journalism to exist. continue reading

We would limit ourselves to writing boring opinion pieces. Or cover opposition meetings. The official journalists have left the battle-field and left it open to the dissident journalists.

It was a major error not to provide information about day-to-day life, nor about the ills that afflict society, like drugs, prostitution and corruption at all levels.

The ideological Taliban like to sell their account of how the island is different from the rest of the poor capitalist nations of the American continent.

At one time it was. There wasn’t freedom of expression or of association, but the state, supported by the inflow of millions of Soviet rubles, guaranteed a grey kind of life with health and free education.

In return, we were supposed to be “Revolutionaries”. To applaud speeches about the “Maximum Leader” and condemn Yankee Imperialism. That was the deal. Political disagreements were restricted to our living rooms.

It was prohibited to ventilate them in public. Any criticism, we were told, had to be “constructive”. You were allowed to complain about poor food service or inefficient officials.

What you could never do was indicate that Fidel Castro was responsible for the economic disaster and the failure of a social project. The Comandante was like Zeus. God of gods. Untouchable.

The independent journalists crushed that myth. Not to be seen as heroes. Or martyrs. Just that one morning we crossed the borderline of what we were supposed to talk about or say laid down by the government.

And we know what enormous courage was required and that there is a price to pay. From libel to jail. But here we are. Telling the stories of the man in the street. Everyday I talk to workmen, kids, the old and the marginalized, the tired and those disillusioned by 54 years of autocracy.

I am not writing about the human misery experienced by some of the people in order to damage the image exported by the government. Describing the lives of the losers, the ignored and forgotten is part of the commitment of a free journalist.

If the mandarins who control the media consider that “disseminating human misery helps the enemy”, that’s their problem.

It’s up to me to relate what happens in the place where I live and in the city where I was born. To give a voice to citizens who don’t exist as far as the official press is concerned, And they are there. You only have to go out into the street.

Fat Antonio said “I’m fed up with it.”

(This anecdote was published 14 September 2009 in the blog Desde Havana.)

Antonio Mateo, felt he was about to go mad. Monday August 3, 2009 he woke up early, took his usual sip of bitter coffee and decided that on that Monday he would do something different. He wrote an open letter telling about his boring life and the bad state of his home.

Antonio, 46 years old, and 280 pounds, living next to Malecón 655, had had enough. The long-drawn-out bureaucratic processes for dealing with his problems were now just too much. For years he wanted to do an exchange — trade his home for someone else’s — but the rigid and absurd laws applied by the Housing Institute did not permit people to exchange in certain neighbourhoods.

Not even if they own their own houses, as in Antonio’s case. He knows very well that in Cuba the word proprietor is a bad joke. People who own their own homes, lose their rights if they decide to leave the country and have to go through long processes when they decide they want to exchange it. Selling the house to someone else is prohibited by the anachronistic Soviet-style statutes which still exist in Cuba.

Desperate, Antonio decided to cut things short. He moved his old bed into the middle of the public street and deposited his 280 pounds in it. It was his way of protesting. The fearless police were there for three hours, trying to find a way out of the conflict, unused to these signs of rebelliousness in a population that was generally very peaceful.

Of course, he was taken off to the police station. It is not known what sanction or fine was imposed. In one part of his letter, with a dose of anguish and anger Antonio says: “I address myself to you to set out my problem, in view of the fact that I have applied to other levels and had no reply. I live in a room, which I own, and when the Malecon Plan started, the zone was frozen, and I can’t move, or carry out maintenance, or have a wife and children living with me. I have realized that everything is an argument with lies and more lies. I don’t want a palace, I only ask that they come up with a solution. I am a sick man who needs peace and a place where I can live with my loved ones who could look after me and help me.”

Simple people, like Fat Antonio or Pánfilo, famous for exploding with anger a few months ago in front of the foreign press cameras, and as far as we knew, have been sentenced to two years in jail for the crime of “being dangerous”, show that something is changing in some people’s mentality in Cuba. For the moment, Fat Antonio says “I’m fed up with it”.

Translated by GH

14 July 2013

Counter-revolution / Cuban Law Association, Julio Alfredo Ferrer Tamayo

Lic. Julio Alfredo Ferrer Tamayo

REVOLUTION, for Fidel Castro Ruz, Historic Leader of the Cuban Revolution, is the sense of the historic moment; it’s changing everything that should be changed; it’s full liberty and equality; it’s to be treated and to treat others as human beings; it’s our own emancipation through our own efforts; it’s standing up to powerful dominant forces inside and outside our social and national space; it is to defend values we believe in no matter what sacrifice; it’s modesty, disinterest, altruism, solidarity and heroism; it is fighting bravely, intelligently and realistically; never lying or breaking ethical principles; it is the profound conviction that there is no power in the world able to crush the force of truth and ideas. revolution is unity, independence, fighting for our dreams of justice for Cuba and for the world, it is the foundation of our patriotism, our socialism and our internationalism. Gathered together like this in the Guidelines for Economic and Social Policies, discussed in the VI Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, ratified by the President of the Republic of Cuba, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, like a fundamental compass in the construction of a prosperous and sustainable socialism.

Starting off from this definition, it is possible to work out what is COUNTER-REVOLUTION; whatever opposes or contravenes that concept. When we are not treated or don’t treat others as human beings; when we lie and violate ethical principles; when we are immodest, selfish, mean and egotistical; when we do not defy powerful dominating forces in our social and national space. when we do not fight bravely, intelligently and realistically; when we don’t change everything that should be changed, when there is not full equality and liberty; when they don’t allow the Cuba Law Association to exercise its clear human right to have its constitution, and to realise our dreams of justice for Cuba.

Translated by GH

8 July 2013

Venezuela: Maduro Digs In / Ivan Garcia

The PSUV (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela) brothers have divided the country into two trenches. Their followers — in petrocasas (mass-produced small houses) and medical practices painted in red and white with images of Chavez hanging from the roof — if they show absolute loyalty, gain the right to a position as a minor official, where they can earn thousands of bolivars extra.

Those who are against — half the Venezuelan population — are treated as enemies. Nicolás Maduro is governing in virtually a state of siege. The army in the streets. And his comrades turn up in Parliament with gauntlets hidden in their pockets in case they need to hit their opponents.

Maduro has drawn the short straw. The man has a short fuse. He has little room to manoeuvre. As a statesman, he leaves a lot to be desired. His public speaking is a disaster.

He pulls three or four phrases out of the drawer and repeats them to the point of tedium about his love for Hugo Chávez . It doesn’t look as if the old Caracas bus driver is able to more Venezuela forward with his government drawn from the street, where only his own followers turn up.

A country is not a party. You should govern for everybody. Listen to the others. And respect their opinions in the parliament. Many people believe that the advice that Fidel Castro is whispering from Havana is seeking to polarise and radicalise a Bolivarian revolution which is deflating.

That’s how Castro governed in Cuba. The bearded guerilla humiliated the priests and any religion which was not Marxist. He nationalised all property. And provided an air bridge which allowed his enemies and the middle class to flee to Miami. But that was in the time of the cold war.

In the 21st century, to put together an almost scientific autocracy, with a parliament in the Cuban style in which they vote unanimously, is impossible. Following Castro’s strategies is the shortest route for the PSUV to dig its political grave. For many reasons. One of them: Castro’s government is a monument to inefficiency.

It survives on exile dollars and passing the collection box in Venezuela. Productivity is at rock bottom. Salaries are laughable. The infrastructure is dysfunctional. Even the much-trumpeted successes of the revolution in public health, education and sport are going backwards.

Politically, guaranteeing basic rights and employment while sacrificing liberties will never be worthwhile. Those rights and duties which a modern state must fulfil. Without asking for votes in exchange.

Maduro isn’t Chávez. The man from Barinas had charisma. Ability to manoeuvre, and, in spite of his major screw-ups, with his oratory he was able to convince his supporters.

Maduro creates distrust even in typical Chavistas. The position of President is too big for him. Rushing forward is not the right decision.

Whipping up the political differences between Venezuelans is putting out a fire with gasoline. Entrenching himself in institutions which respond to the interests of his party is not the correct solution.

He should offer political breathing room and participation to the opposition. It represents 50% of the electorate. It’s not a small thing. If you could grade Maduro’s performance in his first month of government on a scale of one to ten, he would get a zero.

As President he has not been up to scratch.

Iván García

Translated by GH

4 June 2013

Thoughts About the Agricultural Problem in Cuba / Dayana Cruz Vega, Cuban Law Association

Agricultural Problem: These have been two very controversial words down the years, they refer to the unequal distribution of land between the rural population, also the combination of socioeconomic and political conditions, relations and contradictions which characterise the structure and working of the agricultural sector. This problem has been a persistent presence in Cuban political legal thinking even though it was one of the first labour directives after the triumph of the revolution.

The Agriculture Reform Laws acquired a constitutional status which they maintained up until the 1976 Constitution took effect.

On the subject of agriculture there exist bodies of law such as Resolution 288/90 which establishes the regulations for the functioning of the register of land tenure, Law number 36 relating to farming co-operatives, repealed by Law 95/2002, among others which have seen the light of day in recent years, like Decree Law 259 which guarantees the awarding of the right to enjoy land for the purpose of production and number 300 which modifies the extension of lands which the previous one permitted to be handed over.

But in spite of all of this pointing in the direction of the improvement of the living and working conditions of the farming sector, and the increased productivity of the land as the only way to replace imports, they haven’t met their objective.

In this regard it is necessary to stress that the scattered legislation, the legal ignorance of the peasants in relation to their rights and the process of accounting in the various sectors and co-operatives have had their influence of production and productivity, in spite of there being sufficient projects put in place for this function; and, just as important as the above-mentioned, are the occurrence of instances of violation of the generally accepted Principles of Accounting, breach of the System of Internal Control, all of which have encouraged the commission of economic crimes with increasing frequency.

All of this brings us to the point at which we can conclude that the land problem is in need of objective solutions which have the necessary legal backing to turn agriculture into our principal source of income, and not what has in fact happened which is to be converted into an unproductive sector incapable of satisfying our immediate nutritional and economic needs.

Translated by GH

22 May 2013

Analysing What’s Happened / Cuban Law Association, Wilfredo Vallín Almeida

By Wilfredo Vallín Almeida

It’s good news. People like Yoani Sánchez, Eliecer Ávila and Berta Soler find themselves abroad enjoying a right which was denied for fifty years

In the Asociación Jurídica Cubana (Cuban Law Association) we are always happy to receive everything which implies more liberty for the Cuban people, without closing our eyes to the problems which continue to be presented by government decisions, especially when there continue to be unclear or arbitrary legal positions.

Let me explain

In the year 2003, 75 people were accused of crimes against the Cuban state. Tried immediately, they were condemned to different and severe prison sentences. During the following seven years they were all freed.

In relation to that something is happening which I would like to share with our readers, but which will require more than one post, and because of that, in this one I want to set out essential introductory elements to help with this analysis

For someone in jail, who hasn’t completed their sentence, there are two ways of waiving the remaining term and going free. They are:

A reprieve

An amnesty

In the case of a reprieve, they extinguish the criminal responsibility and it is construed as pardoning the penalty which was applied to the person. If it is a complete reprieve, they extinguish the prisoner’s entire sentence. If it is a parcial reprieve, part of the prisoner’s penalty disappears or they change it for more minor sanctions.

A reprieve applies to one individual person. In order for it to have effect, it is necessary to have an administrative act and a firm sentence and you don’t necessarily have to extinguish the preceding penalties of the individual in question. Normally the possibility of a reprieve (also known as “The Law of Pardon”) rests in the hands of important representatives of the State.

As far as an amnesty is concerned, it doesn’t refer to the penalty, but to the offence itself. It relates to all those who have committed it, not to particular individuals, it extinguishes total criminal responsibility and eliminates the preceding penalties in removing the criminal status.

In he case of an amnesty, it is necessary to pass a law in order to arrange it, and it extinguishes the antecedent penalties of the individuals involved given that it covers all who committed the crime and not particular individuals.

The amnesty is used above all for political offences and not normal crimes.

With these elements, we are ready for an analysis of what has happened.

Translated by GH

24 April 2013