Translator: Mary Lou Keel – Page 15

The First Cuban Forklifts / Juan Juan Almeida

Photo taken from Granma

Nelson Espinosa, director general of MONCAR, a business located in the Havana municipality of Marianao, told the newspaper Granma that the production of the first 15 Cuban forklifts, a result of collaboration with the Chinese entity Auto Caiec LTD, distinguished his business’s performance during 2013.

With 40% national integration in terms of physical components, the equipment is in a testing phase and capable of supporting up to 2.5 tons. We are now in 2014 and they have not manufactured one more. I suspect that the future of MONCAR is related to the manufacture of the T-34M war tanks that Raul Castro inaugurated in 1960 and these are the holy hours when he did not build even one tractor.

Translated by mlk.

18 August 2014

To Rigola I Shall Not Return / Rebeca Monzo

Two years ago, after a lot of red tape, long lines and pointless waits at Immigration, the Spanish embassy and the Plaza Military Committee, I finally managed to get the son of a friend — a woman who lives overseas and who had granted me power-of-attorney — exempted from military service so that the family could be briefly reunited.

Then, a few days ago, she, her husband and her son decided to come here on vacation to visit family. Everything seemed to be going very well. The joy of being reunited with family and friends helped mitigate the enduring economic hardship and deterioration of the country, which are very noticeable to anyone who comes back after spending time abroad.

The night that marked the return to the “mother country” finally arrived but a new odyssey had just begun.

After checking their luggage and paying the 25 CUC per person airport exit tax, an immigration official informed the couple that they could leave but that their son would have to stay behind because he had not yet completed his military service. Of course, the parents decided to stay with their son, but this meant losing their airline tickets, the exit tax they had already paid and the time spent waiting for their bags to be returned. There was also the anxiety and aggravation caused by the incompetence of the system. continue reading

Very early the next morning the three of them headed to the Military Committee to clear up what was clearly a big mistake. The excuse they were given was that the error had been committed by a “neo-fascist” who, fortunately, no longer worked there. From there they went to Immigration to resolve their son’s status.

Finally, after waiting for four hours due to a system-wide computer failure, they left with their problem resolved. The officials offered their apologies but did not offer the couple any sort of reimbursement.

As a result of all this they have had to forfeit their tickets. The earliest date the boy and his mother could get a return flight was October 8, which meant the mother would not be able to get back to work on time and the boy would not be able to take his upcoming exams scheduled for September 1. Given this new predicament, the parents went back to the Military Committee to request a document explaining the situation which they could give to their son’s school in Spain. Their request was denied, the excuse being that officials there were not authorized to issue such a document.

My friend’s husband, who did finally manage to get a ticket, will have to leave tomorrow to get back to work. He will try to explain the situation to the administrators at his son’s school in the hope that they will allow the boy to take the exams upon his return.

When they came over for a visit today, they told us that, unfortunately, due to this recent experience they had no intention of returning to Cuba anytime soon, at least not until they could forget everything that had happened to them.

All told, this may appear to be no big deal. But, to appreciate it, you had to have to experienced it. This is why, when they finally overcome all the obstacles and absurdities and manage to finally leave the country, many Cubans swear to themselves they will never return for fear of having to relive their bad experiences.

When she told us goodbye today, my friend recalled a line from an old song: “To Rigola I shall not return.”

14 August 2014

No, No and No Raul Castro / Jose Luis Garcia Antunez

Jorge Luis Antunez (EFE) — Jorge Luis Gracia Antunez (EFE)

This I believe is the second or third occasion that I write to you, and as always without the least mood or desire that you answer me, because given the absolute contempt and disgust that emanates from your person I can’t feel otherwise.

Señor Dictator and Genocide, 24 years and five months ago at barely 25 years, five months and 15 days of age I dared to defy you. Surely your lackeys and sycophants in the high command of the political police and the party mentioned it to you.

I remind the dictator, that night you pronounced in the city of Santiago de Cuba that call to the Fourth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, and as always with a discourse like so many and like so many of your brother’s, barely a few paid you any attention.

I recall that I was in the plaza that you all call Revolution, where big loudspeakers transmitted to mute, hungry and above all deaf people your verbal diarrhea. That was Thursday March 15, 1990, Stalinist Europe was falling, the old Soviet empire was at the point of disintegrating and here in the Caribbean a senile caste was clinging to power and refusing to implement reforms. continue reading

For demanding them, that evening, your bullying forces savagely beat me, their educational bodies tortured me and instructed me so that months later your lackey judiciary would sentence me to deprivation of liberty for the famous crime of “oral enemy propaganda.”

Señor Dictator, I believe it feasible to confess to you that at the moment of my detention I was still unaware of the long and proven history of crime and terror instituted by your brother and you.

From the forced labor, the concentration camps of the UMAP, the sad history of those captive peoples and not to mention the Castro meddling in the internal affairs of other countries and in international conflicts. Maybe because of that lack of knowledge, I only asked for reforms and screamed that communism was a mistake and a utopia. Today, after knowing your system better, I ask for its overthrow and I catalog communism as an aberration and a crime: the social plague of the 20th century.

It was only enough for me that day to feel that as a young man and a Cuban, I was not free; that as a social being I lacked something in order to be able to breathe and walk. I felt that I was prohibited from speaking and that I must either continue using the mask in order to avoid problems, or remove it and act and live in accord with myself although that would mean suffering the most horrible repression.

I did that, I defied you, General without battles. I did it in spite of your known fame as a cruel and bloodthirsty man. I did it, General and the only thing that I regret is not having had the valor, the opportunity or perhaps the possibility of doing it much sooner.

On the other hand, I also have to confess to you that the idea never entered my mind that such a sickening fury of hatred and harassment was going to be applied to me.

That in 1993, three years after the arrest and completing my unjust imprisonment in Cause # 4 of 1990, your famous division for crimes against State Security in the gloomy Popular Provincial Tribunal of Santa Clara condemned me again, now in Cause #5 of that year for supposed acts against your socialist Revolution for which I had to spend 17 years and 38 days of uninterrupted political imprisonment which offered me the possibility of learning firsthand about torture and vexation as a weapon of political repression.

Raul Castro, my case is known to you, because it was you and no one else who ordered the multiple searches and lootings by those who have victimized me in my home during the last weeks where in the grossest flaunting of force and impunity you commanded that your cowards and opportunist assault troops partially destroy my house and steal items left and right on more than one occasion, goods, office materials, medications, food during these acts known in the Cuban jargon as acts of thievery, well, in the end, each does what he is taught.

Señor General, and now that you also title yourself president of the Councils of State and of Ministers, I know well how many letters opponents have sent you from within and without asking you to carry out reforms and political opening as well as to hold elections. They ask it of you as if you really were a president and as if in Cuba a true government were in power and not a tyranny.

We know that at any moment, you, a Machiavellian and opportunistic tyrant, are going to accept what they ask and carry out a referendum, that is to say, an electoral farce under your control, where like in Venezuela the totalitarian officialism will continue in power.

And it is no longer a secret for anyone, the desperate and astute maneuvers that you and your acolytes carry out in order to manufacture supposed opponents and assure with them the dynastic and ideological succession.

But we warn you, General, which is one of the reasons for this missive, that we, the decent Cubans committed to the future of our country, we are not going to accept that fraudulent and cosmetic change that you all forge. Know also that the Cuban Resistance does not expect or want reforms implemented by the criminal tyranny over which you preside. The only reforms to be accepted by us would be after your overthrow or withdrawal from power, which the people will carry out from their base.

Señor Dictator, enough tricks, because you will not get another new mandate, that does not even matter to us. That you carry out reforms in the arena of economics and migration, that is a bunch of lies, and that does not matter to us, either. That your regime carries out an update of its model is another fallacy and another lie. That is more of the same. That you will sell a monetary reform, tremendous trick and lie, General.

We, the people of Cuba, need a democratic system where a market economy prevails. One, two, three or ten thousand currencies, it does not matter, as long as there exists a centralized and asphyxiating economy like your totalitarian system. We, Señor dictator, we do not want you, nor reforms nor openings, you people are not our owners, nor do you need to dictate our guidelines.

We know that your time on the earth is running out, and that powerful interests have shown the intention of playing the game or dividing juicy profits at the cost of the pain and sacrifice of the Cuban people.

General Raul Catro, warning about the danger of the fraudulent change, you ordered killed Oswaldo Paya and young Harold Cepero. I doubt that you now have enough goons to keep killing the thousands and thousands that like Paya and Harold will keep denouncing your tricks and constant maneuvers.

For Laura Pollan, a defenseless woman, you sent your paid assassins to get you out of it, because you could not defeat her in her marches every Sunday on Avenue Quinta. It did not matter to you her condition as a woman and the justice of her cry. But also Laura defeated you, coward General, because her valiant troops of the Ladies in White survived the cruel execution of their leader and now spread like patriotic wildfire across the whole Island.

And they have also defeated you: Pedro Luis Boitel, Olegario Charlotte Pileta, Orlando Zpata, Wilman Villar and many others who had the courage to sacrifice themselves in the name of liberty and in respect for their dignity, this honor that you lack as well as your goons who threatened me with death in reprisal for my slogan that “I won’t shut up and I won’t leave Cuba.”

They themselves, also, barely some days ago, during one of the many arrests of which I have been victim, tortured and beat me, now that according to them and you, I sabotage the efforts of your tyranny to normalize relations with the United States.

Know General Raul Castro that neither the absurd precaution of house arrest that weighs against me and the evident threat of being assassinated, will be able to make me change my purpose which is shared by thousands and thousands of Cubans.

You all will not be able, Raul Castro, to crush a people who have grown tired of living without freedom, just as you will not be able to materialize the international conspiracy that is conceived against the cause of freedom for Cuba. That conspiracy, Raul Castro, will not have success, whether it comes from Havana, Washington, Brussels or Vatican City itself. You people will not be able, General, because as much as you, your family or that cruel and bloodthirsty party may know, you will be excluded from all process of democratic change because you all mean the negation of democracy itself.

And tell your subordinates, General, that I am here and will be, in my beloved homeland of Placetas from which neither you nor your repressive forces nor anyone will remove me, and that my humble home, although profaned, vandalized and sacked by your faction, will continue being a bastion of Resistance, fight, refuge and sanctuary for my compatriots who fight against you and in favor of liberty and justice.

And tell them also, General, your promoters and accomplices, whether your spokesmen are in Miami, Washington, Brussels, Havana or the Vatican itself to stop rubbing their hands, we say no to your preservation of the status quo because here in Cuba there will be no reconciliation without there first being justice, liberty and democracy.

And, as we foresee, also tell some governments that call themselves democratic and are in on the conspiracy, that they are wasting time, General, that the event that we Cubans need and hope for international solidarity, does not mean that some country or foreign power, as very powerful or influential as it may be, is going to form part of our process of change, because Cubans, those who are within and those who are without, we are convinced that the solution for Cuba has to be and must be resolved among Cubans, excluding of course you people, General, who because of the damage that you have done to our nation, do not even deserve to call yourselves Cubans.

Raul Castro Ruz, in the name of the people of Cuba, my fellow prisoners and the victims of your dictatorship, I tell you no, no and no.

From Placetas, in the heart of Cuba, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez “Antunez,” who will not shut up or leave Cuba.

Translated by mlk.

21 August 2014

RWB Exhorts Cuban Authorities to Clarify Angel Santiesteban-Prats’ Situation

Published Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Cuban writer and blogger Angel Santiesteban-Prats disappeared from the jail at San Miguel del Padron on July 21, 2014. Authorities at first said that he had escaped; nevertheless, ten days later his daughter managed to speak with him briefly at a police precinct. His whereabouts are still unknown.

After having denounced the disappearance of Angel Santiesteban-Prats from the jail where he had been since April 2013, his relatives are worried about the accusation of attempted escape.

They have not yet been able to learn the Cuban writer and blogger’s version, but his family suspects that this new complaint is unfounded and its only purpose would be to increase his sentence to captivity. continue reading

The only person who has been able to see Angel Santiesteban-Prats since his disappearance has been his daughter. The interview only lasted ten minutes and was in the presence of a police agent; during this time the father, therefore, had no opportunity to speak freely. Since the said encounter occurred, the authorities have reported nothing about the writer’s situation, and rumors grow.

“Reporters Without Borders exhorts the Cuban authorities to explain clearly the current situation of Angel Santiesteban-Prats,” said Camille Soulier, head of the Americas’ Office of said organization. “The risk increases for the blogger each day that passes without news of him. We demand his immediate liberation and the withdrawal of all and each of the accusations brought against him. The repressive methods of the Cuba regime increasingly resemble those days of the ’Black Spring.’”

It has been more than a year since the author of the blog “The Children Nobody Wanted” found himself behind bars by virtue of his ostensibly critical position towards the Cuban government. In December 2012 after an expedited trial he was found guilty of “home violation and assault” and was sentenced to five years in prison. In April 2013 he was transferred to the prison center of San Miguel del Padron where he suffered torture and mistreatment.

His recent disappearance conincides with an interview given by his son last July 15 on Television Marti, a news channel with headquarters in Miami. In that interview, he affirmed that he had been forced to corroborate the false accusations against his father. Also, according to Eduardo Angel Santiesteban, the “hero of the report” has never assaulted his ex-wife, and the judgement is a mere sham.

Cuba is in place number 170 among 180 countries in the 2014 edition of the World Classification of World Press Freedom by Reporters Without Borders, occupying the last place among countries of the American hemisphere.

Published by Reporters Without Borders

Click the link to sign the petition for Amnesty International to declare Cuban dissident Angel Santiesteban a prisoner of conscience.

Translated by mlk.

6 August 2014

S.O.S.: Angel Santiesteban Transferred and His Whereabouts Unknown

Since yesterday, July 21, Angel Santiesteban Prats is in an unknown location. I will now relate the events that preceded this new arbitrariness on the part of Cuban State Security.

Joining him in his helplessness is his younger son, Eduardo Angel Santiesteban Rodriguez, 16 years old, the son of Angel and the woman who plotted against him with State Security in order to incarcerate him.

The youth — once old enough to escape from the clutches of his mother — asked to tell the truth about what had happened and how he was manipulated by her and by the Castro regime State Security to testify against his father. Here is the link to his statements.

Obviously, we are very worried about the fate that may await the boy, for we already know through Angel’s own experience that no apologies are made for harassing and incarcerating minors. In fact, Angel learned the drama of prison at 17 when he was jailed for saying goodbye to his three older brothers who were planning to leave the Island on a boat. The escape was thwarted, the three “deserters” were captured, along with the youngest (Angel) for “harboring” them. After a year and a half of incarceration, he was freed because saying goodbye to his brothers was deemed “not a crime.” continue reading

But no one gave him back the lost time and the hard experience he lived through, which – justifiably – became prime material for his prizewinning literature widely regarded for its unflinching realism and strong condemnation of the prison system, among other criticisms. Angel has already well-explained how the Regime endured this literature without taking much action, awaiting the opportunity to attack him directly, which happened in 2008 by opening the blog and publicizing everything that was of the public domain.

Now the son, Eduardo Angel Santiesteban Rodriguez, worthy seed of a valiant one such as Angel, runs grave risk of going through what his father did, or even worse. Eduardo Angel already has told what State Security did in collusion with his mother, Kenia Rodriguez Diley.

With regard to Angel’s own situation, the Regime continues to punish him for his upright position against it, and does not back down in its efforts to complicate all the judicial interventions to which he has a right by law. The objective is to eventually water down his claims because they do NOT have any argument that can sustain all the false accusations hanging over him, now that his own son told the truth, unmasking the dictatorship’s judicial farce.

Angel declared on the blog:

“My family has just, coincidentally, found out that the Review Department has sent a letter to my lawyer Lourdes Arzua, who substitutes for Amelia Rodriguez, who was cut from service for six months, where they informed her that I have asked not to have legal representation, which is completely false. I suppose that the “misunderstanding” is due to my call to that Department, in order to find out if the file had arrived in their hands, after the tribunal denied the number and my name matched. My lawyer appeared in order to clarify that the number and my name were correct. Although it appeared a joke, because that number — 444 — was that of a police serial that in 2012 was shown on Cuban television. I suppose it has to do with some joke that the bosses played with my case.

I was assisted in the call by Chief Oslaydi, who has just been ousted, perhaps for assuring me that she “would correct it and that she would pass the verdict to the Ministry of Justice, which was who, definitively, would determine what measure to take in my case.” The last time that I spoke with her, her affable and polite manner had changed. Her behavior was coarse. I supposed that she had already been visited by State Security officials, and they dictated to her what to write in my case, just as they did with the tribunal that “judged” me, then on Appeal and now on Review.

I always say, I am not naive, that the procedures to restore justice in my case are not for the government to straighten out, because they have never done it, they have never recognized an error, the “Revolution” is not mistaken, thus, its governors are perfect; complaints are made in order to continue sliming people and one day the truth may be known. Justice demands it because that is our reason for being, what has us jailed, therefore, we must continue forcing them to grow their institutional evil, which they do by refusing to accept the truth as justice.

For my file to arrive at the Review Department more than a year has passed, when normally, and according to their laws, it should take no more than three months to issue an answer. Once they had to accept the Review, six months from the filing, they invalidated my lawyer Amelia Rodriguez; now they send a letter to the office in a new effort to invalidate my representative and, as in the “trial,” leave me once more “legally defenseless,” as attorney Miguel Iturria, who was my defender then, recognized.

In recent days my lawyer inquired about the course of the file, and they informed her that a document “of the cause” is missing, which the tribunal must present; which contradicts what the ex-chief told me, that the file had already been delivered to a specialist who was working on his exhausting review.

All this foolishness by State Security, I feel it like the kicking of the hanged man. If they thought that once I was incarcerated they were going to sap my strength, I cannot think anything other than that they calculated this as if they themselves were in my place, but in my case, my strength to fight for the liberty of my country has increased.”

The day after denouncing this new judicial hoax, he declared:

In the most extreme example of “the secretiveness of the State,” State Security is preparing my transfer to a border patrol unit.”

For days now a rumor has been circulating that is now taken as fact, given that the prison authorities await my transfer to be completed so that they can transport a Minister and a Vice-Minister of Construction who are serving sentences for “diversion of resources”. There is no way that officials will allow these prisoners to coincide with me, fearing that I will obtain information from them and later divulge it on my blog.

Following the escape of a prisoner and his arrival on the coast of Miami, State Security ordered a reinforcement of the surveillance being conducted on me. They established a 24-hour command post and they’re watching every move I make within the settlement.

A few minutes ago, they just ordered some bars to be soldered to secure the place where they will take me, and they said these had to be in place before tomorrow at the aforementioned border patrol unit.

Evidently, they will keep me there more watched and isolated. Thus begins another chapter in this journey of injustice, all for my my dangerous crime of thinking differently.

I reaffirm that I have more strength than on the first day of my incarceration. It is an honor that they commit these extreme acts against me, for exercising the faculty of thinking and expressing my opposition to the dictatorial regime that has been subjugating our country for more than half a century. Meanwhile, they tolerate murderers, drug traffickers and rapists, barely even harassing or watching them, as they do in my case.

Long live live Cuba, and may She Live Free.

Sunday, June 20, 2014. Lawton Prison Settlement, 10:30pm.

The rumor became a reality

Ángel was transported yesterday, illegally, without his next of kin being notified nor him being permitted to make a telephone call. Since then, he has been held at an unknown location.

The recent confession by Ángel’s son regarding his father’s innocence, and the fact that just a year ago (2 August, 2013), Ángel was transported illegally and arbitrarily, without his family knowing, to the settlement where he currently resides — and that he was held for four days at a location unknown until his relatives investigated the matter outside of official channels, causes us to think that this time the punishment could be more severe.

The sadism of this Regime is enormous, and they are hitting him where it hurts the most: his son. Evidently they’re trying to punish the father for the courage shown by his son, isolate him even more, and prevent him from continuing to denounce to the world the reality of how it is with him and with Cuba.

Now, we are not speaking solely of accusations of human rights violations committed against an adult who is dedicated to his country’s liberty. We are now dealing with a grave violation of the rights of the child during the Kafkaesque proceedings visited upon the father. They used the child as cannon fodder to falsely incriminate a dissident courageous enough to call Raúl Castro a dictator. Now, this child become an adolescent – who has provided a tremendous lesson in courage and honesty to the world – is at the mercy of State Security and its sadistic system for punishing those who dare express themselves freely. The boy’s helplessness is further increased by his father being not only encarcerated, but in a unknown location.

It is not an exaggeration to sound an international alert in support of Ángel and Eduardo Ángel. It is enough to witness the numerous cases publicized by the media regarding the abuses and punishments of the children of dissidents, including their incarceration. One such is the case of the three Alexei brothers, Vianco and Django Vargas Martín , who were jailed starting in late 2012, when the twins Vianco and Django were only 16 years old. They are the children of the dissident Miraida Martín Calderín, a member of the UNPACU [Patriotic Union of Cuba] and the Ladies in White. There is the case of an eight-year-old girl, Yanisleidis Olivier Reve’, daughter of Damaris Rodríguez Revé, member of the Ladies in White, who was held back a grade in school because of her mother’s activism.

From this post I call upon the international community to support Angel and his son, and I emphasize, once again, that the life and health of both are the exclusive responsibility of Raúl Castro. The world is watching and there is no longer any hiding it, even less in the sham accusations against Ángel, ripped apart by a mere boy.

–The Editor

Translated by mlk and Alicia Barraqué Ellison

22 July 2014

Descriptive Penury / Rosa Maria Rodriguez

An acquaintance of mine swapped his apartment of a room and a half for a smaller one and “some chump change on top of that” to relieve his alcoholism and misery. I never entered his home and that’s why I was unaware of his poverty. His furniture had the appearance of shabby knick-knacks, which probably — as in the majority of Cuban homes — were bought before the triumph of this guerrilla model which installed itself in power in 1959 and has been there ever since.

A matte oil painting, covers the surface of a dresser that perhaps once was covered in formica, the quite ramshackle wardrobe tells a story of age and overuse, the hollows of his three-quarter mattress, the remains of his sofa and of his Russian half-washing machine — they had to amputate the dryer — that accuse like the speeches of the rulers of Cuba, are words blurred by abandonment and demagoguery.

During the move, he got from a yellowish nylon bag a bunch of black and white photographs to show to his companions how beautiful the apartment was when his father first moved into it in 1958. Then the furniture seemed alive and the walls still wore an attractive and aesthetic coat of paint. Monochromatic feelings showed the nostalgia on his face buffeted by frustration and liquor. continue reading

His party friends helped him get the old junk and they had it in the sun for close to an hour awaiting transport. There were a dozen “solidarity” addicts summoned and encouraged by the rum, which at times served as fuel to keep up enthusiasm. A truck from the ’30’s took part of the “skinny” heritage to the “new house,” that for sure also was built before the Castro government and which will host, as in many other Cuban homes, the alcohol scandals of that part of society that plunges its disappointments and misery in cheap and sulphuric homemade rum, which is what they can afford.

The solidarity and drunken brigade remained on site to care for the liquid treasure that remained in the bottle. Its emptying was the starting shot towards their own contraptions and penuries accumulated through decades of governmental injustices, apathy, anti-democratic subjugation and social fatigue. The delirium tremens or terrible delirium of trying to deceive societies all the time with drunken ideological and economic theories has failed all over the world.

Maybe in the tranquility of their houses and before the knockout punch of the drink, they will get out their own yellowish nylon bags of history, testimonial photos of what they once were — when addiction did not have them bound by the neck — of what their houses once were and of what this country was, before this bad government brought it to ruin.

Translated by mlk.

17 April 2014

There You Go Again / Fernando Damaso

Often the resolutions of the United Nations’ Committees are worthy of laughter. So it happens with the recent resolution by the Decolonization Committee, ratifying the right of Puerto Rico to self-determination. The initiative was presented by Cuba, with the sponsorship of Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Bolivia and the intervention of Syria. Birds of a feather flock together.

Maybe this Committee is unaware that the Puerto Rican people have voted repeatedly about this, always defeating the independence option with a minimal (4%) vote? Is it unknown that in the last referendum, the majority voted for annexation to the United States as the 51st State, unlike previous votes where there was a tie of 48% who preferred the current status and those who opted for annexation, for a grand total of 96%, against 4% who wanted to be independent?

Of course the Committee and its members know all this, but they entertain themselves in continuing to waste time. It is said that it is the 33rd time that a similar document was approved. How many times is it necessary to trip on the same rock? They also confirmed the Latin American and Caribbean character of Puerto Rico, which, due to obvious geography, no one denies. But also Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Granada, Aruba, Grand Cayman, Guadalupe, Virgin Islands, Martinique, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, etc., are Caribbean, united by the language, history and traditions of Great Britain, France, Holland, and the United States, and no one questions them.

Perhaps it is intended to include Puerto Rico, against the desires of the majority of its citizens, in the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States? Who thinks the Puerto Ricans are going to trade for a pig in a poke?

If the Committee has no work to do, because they no longer have anyone to decolonize, it is better that it disband, and its members can dedicate themselves to something more useful. Thus they would at least help reduce the high costs of the United Nations.

Translated by mlk.

30 June 2014

Hammer Blow to Freedom of Expression / Juan Juan Almeida

The editors of the Catholic magazine Laity Space, a sociological debate organ of the Archdiocese of Havana, were removed from their posts. Roberto Veiga and Lenier Gonzalez announced it in a brief note that is circulating via email: “We want to inform you that after a decade of intense work — in which we tried to help construct pathways of prosperity and stability for our country — we have been relieved of our duties as Editor and Deputy Editor of the magazine.” It continues, “It has been a true pleasure to have been able to share this time with all of you clinging to the desire for the possibility of building a better Cuba. Without you this beautiful adventure would not have taken place.”

To put it bluntly, the Cuban authorities are afraid, very afraid of the word.

Translated by mlk.

13 June 2014

Journalist Roberto de Jesus Guerra Perez Beaten / Luis Felipe Rojas

Photo: Roberto de Jesus Guerra Perez, beaten June 11, 2014

Independent journalist Roberto de Jesus Guerra Perez was beaten on Wednesday, 11 June by a regime partisan. Guerra Perez uploaded a photo to his Facebook account where he appears with contusions on his face.

Guerra Perez is director of the Information Center and Prensa Hablemos (Let’s Talk Press), and in days past had warned about the threats that he was receiving daily. Perez made public the detentions Monday morning of journalist Mario Echevarria Driggs and journalism student Yeander Farres who receives training at Let’s Talk Press.

The independent reporter and director of Palenque Vision, Ramon Olivares Abello, was beaten on 31 May by a “State Security collaborator named Fidelito,” his wife told Martinoticias.com from the city of Guantanamo.

The director of Let’s Talk Press, Guerra Perez, added a brief message that the known dissident Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello also had been beaten on leaving her house on Wednesday.

The telephones cut off by Cuba’s only phone company (the state-run ETECSA), short but continuing detentions, beatings and death threats seem to be the messages that the regime sent to non-conformist Cubans at the same time that the Vice-President of the government, Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, insists that the official press should be “more transparent.”

Translated by mlk.

11 June 2014

Summer Entertainment / Juan Juan Almeida

Because of stubbornness, I always trip on the same rock and end up insulted.

The following are summer vacation possibilities in Cuba; I am not exagerrating and take no position one way or the other: Due to our intense heat, most people opt for the beach and camping, but this is also a good time to talk about the magic of libraries. The fine arts entice us with their forms and colors, so visiting museums is a good choice.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to break away from the crowd, meet up with some friends, stroll through the galleries and you will see how gratified both body and soul can be. Cinema, television and radio accompaniment offer diversions that should not be overlooked during the summer season, when a willingness to make the most of it will make all the difference. Certainly, these are options for Cubans without access to hard currency.

Please, more respect by and for our people, these are not alternatives for summer vacation. These are typical weekend activities for any family in the world. Enough.

Translated by mlk.

9 July 2014

New Teachers Graduation / Juan Juan Almeida

The provincial director of education in Holguin estimates that the graduation of hundreds of new Education professionals from the province’s two teacher training centers will favorably impact the availability of teachers in the coming school year. The recent graduates will offer classes in the different provinces of the country’s east.

Margarita McPherson Sayu, Vice Minister of Education, said that the entrance of the new teachers into the educational system will mean not only that the faculties will again nurture youth, but also that well-trained professionals will together with the rest help make the leap to the path of quality.

Works for me, as my grandmother used to say. I do not question the quality of the new professionals, I refer to this leap; because the deterioration of instruction in Cuba is so, but so great, that really they need a magician.

Translated by mlk.

10 July 2014

They Direct the Machinery of Harassment Against a Cancer Researcher / Lilianne Ruiz

Young Oscar Casanella is threatened in the public roadway by “factors” of the revolution. State Security wants him fired from his work.

HAVANA, Cuba. — Someone must have heard the telephone conversations of Oscar Casanella. Those days he was organizing a party with his friends to welcome back Ciro, the guitarist for the punk rock band “Porno for Ricardo,” who had returned from abroad.

Unexpectedly, on Thursday December 5, 2013, at 9:15 pm, just across from his house (at 634 La Roas between Boyeros and Ermita, Plaza de la Revolucion, Havana), four unknown people, two men and two women about 60 years old, blocked his path to tell him: “Oscar, you cannot do anything these days and if you do, you are going to suffer serious consequences. People unknown to you can harm you, and even we can hurt you a lot.”

This was the preamble to a Kafkaesque story:

Some neighbors told him later that among those who had threatened him was one named Gari Silegas, and that the four were members of the communist party, which met in something known as the “Zonal Nucleus,” a group of militants retired from various “Committees in Defense of the Revolution” (CDR). continue reading

The next Saturday, the day of the party, Oscar went to the Police Station at Zapata and C to make a complaint. But there they referred him to the Sector Chief, named Eusebio, who operates in the streets surrounding his house; which meant that Eusebio, the police and Silegas, the communist, knew each other and even worked together. Let’s remember that in Cuba that work group is known as “neighborhood factors.”

“They asked Gary Silegas not to threaten me again. It was all a prophylactic work, they told me. I tried to make a complaint but they dismissed it,” explains Oscar.

That same day there appeared a Suzuki motorcycle with a blue (i.e. state-owned) plate. The intimidation increased in tone. Two individuals dressed in civilian clothese refused to show him their identification but presented themselves to him as agents of State Security. Oscar narrates:

“They threatened to put me in jail. They told me that I could think whatever I want but I could not say it to anyone, and I could not meet my friends at my house. They also told me that I should leave the country and that they were going to ’fuck up my life and my family.’ Having committed no crime or infraction that harms anyone, I feel threatened. They mentioned also my attendance, as a spectator, at Estado de SATS, which is held in Playa township at the home of Antonio Rodiles. Witnesses to those events were practically all the neighbors.”

That night the party took place. Oscar’s neighbors, active CDR members, to give him more “flavor” of the process, dedicated themselves to copying the plates of cars that were parked in the street without it mattering if their owners attended. There were more than fifty invitees, the majority young graduates of the University of Havana. Oscar played records by Juan Luis Guerra and the 440 and Ciro’s punk music, but everyone spoke the same language and spent the night dancing and having fun.

The reaction was swift

On December 9, a surprise was waiting for Oscar at his workplace, the National Institute of Oncology and Radiobiology (Cancer Hospital), where he works as a researcher. His doctorate thesis is about sporadic colon cancer. He also works as an adjuct professor at the Biology School without receiving any salary for this latter work.

A colleague of his, Pedro Wilfredo Fernandez Cabezas, was waiting to tell him that by continuing to attend activities with counter-revolutionary groups, “mercenaries, annexationists and neo-liberals” — a cocktail of amazing accusations — he could suffer negative consequences in his work.

Oscar answered him that he has friends who express themselves against the government but they are not mercenaries or annexationists*. Calmly, he explained to him that he did not believe that they were of a neo-liberal tendency, although he thought that if that were so, it did not justify any action against them.

We return to the starting point

“Wednesday December 11, 2013, I tried again to make a complaint about these threats at the PNR Station at Zapata and C. The first lieutenant Abad refused to write the complaint because, according to him, the threat is registered and attended to only when it is a death threat, not when they threaten to hit me or put me in prison or take my job,” continues Oscar in this absurd saga.

And last April an official from the National Revolutionary Police left a citation at his home for him to appear the next day at the Zapata and C Unit. The reason? An interview with Captain Jose A. Blasco.

“But when I presented myself at the Unit, Captain Jose A. Blasco directs me to an office and immediately withdraws. There was never an interview with the said captain. Three men younger than I were there, dressed in civilian clothes, only one of whom identified himself as Marcos, although the others said they were from State Security.

In short, they told me that they were going to take me out of my job, where I have worked for 10 years without any work problem, and put me to work in a less important center or in a polyclinic. They told me they could hurt me and my family even more, because State Security says that I cannot keep communicating with some friends, like Ciro, the one from Porno para Ricardo, whom I have known since before the university,” continued Oscar.

His alternatives were clear, and there were only two, in his case complementary. Talk with this reporter and complain to the institutions of the State.

The young researcher wrote letters to everyone. He gathered signatures from many of his friends and students. He took them to all possible institutions and delivered minted copies to each of those who supported him.

The Kafkaesque machinery seemed to stop at one point, but in reality it continues. All this has stolen many hours of research from him. He has had to dedicate them also to studying the law and trying to understand why a regime dedicates itself to interrupting the people and discouraging the talents themselves of people that interest it, above all, providing knowledge. Oscar still is not a dissident.

Lilianne Ruiz, July 4, 2014, Cubanet

*Translator’s note: “Annexationist” is an accusation made against opponents to the regime which implies that they want the United States to annex Cuba.

Translated by mlk

5 July 2014

Remnants of History: Cubans in the Independence of the United States / Angel Santiesteban

Many Cubans are unaware, although living in the United States, that we were participants in the independence of the Thirteen American Colonies.

When in 1776 the conditions were given for the confrontation with England, commercial relations between Cuban and the North had already reached a mutual development and interest, independent of their cities. In 1764, England cut off commerce with the Spanish and French Antilles which affected thirty distilleries that produced the coveted “Anitillean Rum.” This was one of the reasons for the separatist movement, recognized by John Adams, second president of the United States.

After that event, Havana became a supplier for the independence army. A commercial fleet was in charge of bringing resources while in Havana shipyards and arsenals American ships were repaired and mounted with cannon.

Part of the rebel force was made up of Cuban Creoles and brown and moreno battallions. On the Pensacola Site, April of 1781, the Havana forces that had arrived as reinforcement were the first to enter the city. continue reading

In revenge, England attacked Havana, attempting another capture like that of 1762 but — this time — they found different circumstances. Twenty years later, the defenses were impregnable and their forces were strategically positioned. The harassed Admiral Rodney, then, beat a retreat. The Cuban forces continued their contribution to the American cause and managed to evict the English from control of the Mississippi River, guaranteeing the provisioning of the rebels through that route.

One of the great moments of Cuban collaboration for the independence of the Thirteen Colonies was the delivery — to aid General George Washington when he was without resources — by the native Cuban general and first Creole named governor of the Island, Juan Manuel Cagigal y Monserrat, of his loyal collaborator, intimate friend and personal aide — the Venezuelan Francisco de Miranda — to meet with Washington.

On his return, they gathered resources through public fundraising and jewelry donations by Havana ladies. Thanks to that contribution, Washington began the attack against the troops of British General Cornwallis in Yorktown, Virginia. After intense fighting, he achieved the surrender of the English.

Particularly, Havanans had the opportunity to clear their honor after the loss of The Havana, taken by the English in 1762. With their contribution to the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, Cuban natives fought for the first time to liberate another country.

Thereafter, America began to be the largest trading partner of the archipelago and the second home.

Angel Santiesteban-Prats

Lawton prison settlement. June 2014.

Follow the link to sign the petition for Amnesty International to declare Cuban dissident Angel Santiesteban a prisoner of conscience.

Translated by mlk.
4 July 2014

Opportunistic Foreigners Who Suck the Dictatorship’s Tit: Alessandra Riccio, the Most Castroite of All the Neapolitans / Angel Santiesteban

Alessandra Riccio, a Neapolitan who resides in Cuba, knew how to live, like so many leftist foreigners, from the benefits that the totalitarian regime offered them. I don’t know if she came to be one more of the secret collaborators of State Security, captured by Commander Manuel Pineiro “Red Beard,” of course, dead in suspicious circumstances at a time when that death was very convenient for the Castro brothers, because with his secrets as Fidel’s private scribe he could sink them before international justice.

What is certain is that the lady in question has written a book about her memories of Cuba, at least those that she can or they permit her to tell, because if she tells some others she would be catalogued as a traitor by those who helped her out for so many years on the island. continue reading

Without seeing the book — really among the list of texts that I need to read, I don’t plan to give it space — I am sure that she did not tell, logical with her usual lack of honesty, that when she was a juror of the story genre in the “Casa de las Americas” prize in 1992, together with the Cuban and great writer Abilio Estevez, and the fabulous Argentine writer Luisa Valenzuela, State Security prohibited them from awarding my book “South: Latitude 13,” because of the heartbreaking stories of the internationalist Cubans in Africa.

She will not tell that they, as jurors, gave into those “extraliterary” demands because, according to Abilio, the political police officials told them that if they gave me they prize they would do me much harm. Coincidentally, an aide to Riccio told me that a little later she left Cuba disappointed and hurt for having seen herself “obliged to commit such injustice;” so much so, according to what they told me, that she had denied meeting me because of the shame that she felt because of her actions.

Abilio and Valnezuela, on the contrary, did decide to confront their guilt and tell me what happened. The first one explained to me what happened; then he did it with others, above all several years later on a trip to the Dominican Republic, when he told that shameful incident to several colleagues and editors, who corroborated their pain and shame because of that literary assassination.

For her part, on meeting me, Luisa Valenzuela was surprised by how young I was (I remember that she exclaimed that I was the same age as her daughter), and immediately proposed to take me to Argentina, a gesture that I appreciated although I refused.

For further embarrassment, last year, at the beginning of my incarceration, Riccio appears in a grisly list of “women against violence,” supporting the government’s injustice which sentenced me without evidence, in a biased trial where nothing that my lawyer did to demonstrate my innocence with five witnesses, videos, and documentary proof, which Riccio could have easily consulted on the internet, did any good.

But as in old times from the already mentioned Commander Red Beard, she prefers to attend swiftly to the call of the tyrant to shape her signature, as if it were not enough already to shoulder the weight of the shame of that other literary injustice that she had committed against my person and my literary career.

Now nostalgia has made her write a book remembering the authorized part that she can narrate, and the newspaper Granma has gotten a photo and a report about her love for Cuba (although I would dare to correct and change Cuba for dictatorship). Do not worry, Riccio, your role as bootlicker has suited you well, and the tyrant rewards you.

Congratulations!

Angel Santiesteban-Prats

Lawton prison settlement. May 2014.

Follow the link to sign the petition for Amnesty International to declare Cuban dissident Angel Santiesteban a prisoner of conscience.

Translated by mlk.

2 July 2014

Very Deep to be Real /Juan Juan Almeida

The Latin Press agency reports that in a scientific seminar of the Cuban Economic Studies Center (CEEC), the attendees analyzed topics related to the updating of the Cuban economic model, among them those related to decentralization, municipalization, education and development. The specialists linked to this workshop say development has to be built and planned, and should include sector policies, macro-economics, national priorities coordinated with territorial priorities, innovation, competition and a marketplace.

I am convinced that they are talking about another country, because judging by the concrete reality that we touch, the experts met and met again; they studied and studied but in the end, they disapproved.

Translated by mlk.

27 June 2014