Category: Translator: Mary Lou Keel

In Treble Clef* / Rosa Maria Rodriguez

The killer sun that perches over Cuba every year hit me harder this August because I had to go several times to the branch of ETESCA in Casino Deportivo to use the online navigation room there.  It is two kilometers from my house and there is no way to get there except on foot, with the heat from the asphalt under my soles and the midday sun burning my skin.

Private taxis charge two CUCs or the equivalent in Cuban pesos to transport someone from Monaco there.  At that location there are only three sad little machines for a population of several thousand inhabitants. One of the two gatekeepers — the plump “nice lady,” who at times dozes off in her chair from boredom — takes reservations and watches over the three spots while the neighbors from the buildings across the street rest in their homes, perhaps in order to combat the drowsiness that every so often makes her nod off.  So in addition to waiting and fighting with the line of people, you must also “take a number” from the drowsy caregiver.

The saddest thing is when it urges you to connect yet you discover that you have no credit left on a card that costs $4.50 CUCs per hour and that is only valid for a month.  If your purchase happens to coincide with a special discount on telephone service that the company — the only one in Cuba — offers, it becomes a really irritating problem.  The special offer leads to demographic congestion at the entrance, sidewalk and flowerbeds of the store location because the employees inside make you wait in the sun, yes, the tropical sun.

It is outrageous that the store’s online customers must suffer these and other obscene indignities, which force them to have to type an incredible number of words per minute. If you go on sale days, you are reduced to waiting in a single line for everything, even though refilling the card is a simpler and quicker transaction than the tell-me-your-life-story process required for a telephone service contract.

This summer pentagram coincided with the school vacations.  Wherever one went everything was full, and that cyber place could not be an exception.  One resting his rear in front of his computer somewhat tired and frustrated by the wait and also from having to endure the heat and the network administrator disabling the right click, making it impossible to “copy and paste.”  That is to say, that although one brings a post previously written, you have to transcribe it onto their machines and consume more connection time.  The speed is that of the oxcart, maybe because of the incapacity of the computer or the spy programs that they install on the server to monitor what the users do and write.

This September I returned and everything continues more or less the same.  As far as what individuals may have at home, no one loses hope in spite of the blockade on computers and information — among many others — by the Cuban authorities. Never mind, it seems we still have to “tiptoe” to navigate barefoot on the hot asphalt of a dictatorship with an exhausted political discourse, but that still keeps an iron grip on many aspects of national life.

*Translator’s note: A play on words; in Spanish “the key of sun” is “treble clef.”

 Translated by mlk

24 September 2013

Bathing Alternate Days / Rosa Maria Rodriguez

Image taken from Todo Fugas

Every other night between 8:00 and 10:00 the zone where I live “has its turn” at the water, and when it runs for a while, my block shows itself off like a shiny glass mirror.  It is because the conducting pipe from the aqueduct “comes out” in that section — and in many others in different blocks, neighborhoods and municipalities — and in the absence of street cleaner cars, which have not been seen in years in Havana neighborhoods, we are left the impotent alternative of watching as the water leaks out cleaning and polishing my asphalt artery under the opaque light of an ephemeral Chinese fixture.

In Vibora it is now tradition that each time it rains the roadways flood and the neighbors and pedestrians feel like wrecks adrift on the water and waste, because they do not sweep the streets and the trash from the containers that they begrudgingly pick up are dragged to the nearest drainage and clog them.  After the downpour passes, it is common to see much filth trapped by the tires of parked cars on the side of the street and much filth and various objects — buoyant or not — change places because of the waters.

It is ironic to sit in front of the television and see spots directed at citizens that speak of hygienic-sanitary measures and encourage the saving of the vital liquid in our homes, which seems fine to me.  ”Drop by drop water is depleted,” says one of these.  We all know the importance of this liquid for satisfying fundamental human needs, and industrial activities and very necessary energy resources depend on it.

Nevertheless, the vital liquid that we consume domestically is contaminated with waste water due to the quantity of broken pipes and drains that exist and that are the result of years of negligence.  In the same way, while in many places in Havana the leaks are public, in others they have not had running water for years, months or days because of the poor organization and distribution of the supply and because the aqueduct networks are too old.  Almost all date to before 1959, so that in more than 54 years there has not existed the political will to solve this paramount subject for the people.

When a pipe breaks in the street and the neighbors call the state entity “Havana Water,” their plumbers show up as if they were tire patchers, armed with pieces of tubeless tires for wrapping the pipe and solving the problem as if it were a flat tire.

Maybe some think that I should be happy because my block is bathed on alternate days but there are so many places in our country and in the Cuban capital that lack that valuable liquid, that I cannot help but think of the cleanliness that many public offices in Cuba also need, whose bureaucrats do not stay in them because of their efficient management or for the service they offer the people who supposedly elected them, but because of their unconditional adherence to a contaminated regime of administrative inefficiencies and sewer politics for decades.

Translated by mlk

28 September 2013

Cuba: The Bitterness of its Sugar / Ivan Garcia

cuba1-600x330

Carrying sacks of sugar – Taken from the Repeating Islands Blog

In 23 years, Cuba has gone from being one of the world’s sugar refining nations to importing the sweet grass for the consumption of the tourist sector.  If in 1990, in the dawning of that silent war that was the “Special Period,” 8.2 million tons of sugar were produced, in 2013 a little less than one million was produced.

This year the sugar harvest was 11% less than predicted in the state plan. Only with that fabulous capacity that the official media have to cushion failures, did they adorn the disaster with tinges of optimism.

A peripatetic television reader said that, in spite of a deficit in the production of 133 thousand tons, “the sugar harvest of 2012-2013 was the best in the last nine years.”  According to the official version, the poor results indicated “difficulties in efficiency due to technological obsolescence in the agricultural industry and machinery, poor organization and indiscipline.”

The sugar harvest fiasco is a hard economic blow.  A ton of sugar on the world market is valued at 400 dollars.  Therefore, the rickety state finances lost an income of 53.2 million dollars.

President Raul Castro has tried to revitalize the formerly premier national industry by making butcher cuts. In 2012 he closed the enormous bureaucratic apparatus of the Ministry of Sugar and, with a third of the employees, created a state enterprise called Azcuba.

The entity announced that it aspired to an increase of 20% in the sugar production with respect to the prior harvest of 1.4 tons.  The possibility was studied of managing a center in the province of Cienfuegos with the Brazilian firm Odebrecht.

The preparation of the harvest was thoroughly planned: petroleum to be consumed by means of transport, inputs for cane cutters, pieces of spare machine parts for the mills and output that should be obtained per 33-acre tract sowed with cane.

The forecast was a resounding failure.  I asked a sugar industry expert why, for a long time, the sugar production has not exceeded the barrier of 2 million tons. Currently he is retired, but for several years he worked in the Ministry of Sugar, in days gone by a powerful institution, with a millionaire budget and a structure surpassed only by the Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior.

In that time, the official traveled half the world, buying equipment and machinery. “If you want to know what has stopped working in the current sugar campaigns, you have to do a little history.  After 1911 in the Cuban republic, sugar production fluctuated between 5 and 7 million tons.  They were harvests that rarely took three months.  The productivity per hectare was among the best on the planet.  At the level of Hawaii or any sugar power of that time.  The Cuban industry was a jewel, with a world class efficiency.  With the arrival of Fidel Castro into power in 1959, there began the slow decline of our premier industry.”

The specialist continues his story. “Blunders and volunteerism succeeded each other in abundance. The lack of spare parts for the machinery of the mills and the insufficient training of technical personnel in the mills, who occupied important posts thanks to their political loyalty, were undermining the sugar industry.  Castro involved himself in the sector on an authoritarian basis.  His plans and fantasies caused a lot of damage. By pure whim, he substituted the cane variety that was planted in the fields, very resistant to plagues and with high sucrose volume. The ’Ten Million Ton Sugar Harvest’ in 1969-1970, was the coup de grace.  Those consequences are still taking their toll on the production of sugar.”

According to the expert, Castro was like a devastating hurricane, a noxious plague. “He not only planned the cold campaign in a wrong way, the subproducts that the cane generates were also wasted.  Sugar powers like Brazil take advantage of it all. The cane is not only sugar or alcohol.  It serves to produce furniture, medicine and animal protein, among other features.”

In the Cold War years, when Cuba allied with the communist countries of Eastern Europe, the island sold its sugar production at a preferential price.  Inputs, fertilizers and machines were not lacking.  In the Holguin province, some 800 kilometers east of Havana, with Russian technology, a factory was built that produced cane cuttings.

By the end of the 20th century, all the sugar machinery was being dismantled.  In 2002, the government put into place a plan of plant conversion.  Of the 156 existing plants, 71 produced sugar; 14, sugar and molasses for livestock feed; and of the 71 others, 5 would be converted into museums, 5 would be kept in reserve, and the other 61 would be dismantled.  But in 2005 government sources reported that between 40 and 50 of the still active plants would be closed.

In October 2002, Fidel Castro designed a reordering of the sugar industry and named it Alvaro Reinoso’s Task (he was a considered a founding father of the scientific agriculture in the island in the 19th century).  In a public speech he said that in the coming weeks schools would be opened for no fewer than 90 thousand industry workers.  In an undercover manner, thousands of sugarcane workers were forced out of work.

Today, dozens of sugar mills and its warehouses are considered scrap.  Along with the “company towns” around them, where people subsist eating little and badly and consuming alcohol in alarming quantities.

Via the rationing book people get five pounds of sugar per person. In the black market the prices of this commodity is almost prohibitive in a country where the  average monthly salary is $20 dollars.  The cost of a pound of white or refined sugar is $8 Cuban pesos (40¢ US), and $6 Cuban pesos (30¢ US) for raw or dark sugar.  Due to its awful quality, there have been more than a few occasions where the tourism industry has had to import refined sugar from the Dominican Republic and Brazil.

When the history is retold about the leading and monumental failures of Fidel Castro’s revolution, the sugar industry will be in first place.  From a great exporter in the past to an importer in the present. That’s a bitter reality.

By Ivan Garcia

Translated by mlk

22 September 2013

“We Want Many Things More” / Rebeca Monzo

Thursday the 12th of this month everything was ready for the presentation of the big concert, “dyed yellow” by suggestion of the agent himself Rene, in the “Protestdrome,” as the “Hill of Flags” is popularly known, in front of the United States Interest Section.  All was previewed by the Ministry Culture, the Writers and Artists Union of Cuba (UNEAC) and controlled by State Security.

The musical groups and artists that usually act in all the “so called patriotics,” had rehearsed and previously reported the musical numbers that they would present. What no one could foresee is that in front of his very well known and popular group, Interactive, a brave young man, Robertico Carcasses, great improvisor, in the middle of that well-rehearsed scheme, would give the discordant note, which would put all the Nomenklatura on edge.

The moment arrived to perform the well known number Cubans for the World, and Robertico, leader of the group, dressed all in white, left the piano to take the microphone and improvise, before the astonished gaze and surprised ears of all those present, who could not really believe what they were hearing, and which the public repeated enthusiastically, following the contagious cadence of the chorus:  ”I want, remember that I always want,” “Free access to information in order to have my own opinion,” “No militants nor dissidents, all Cubans,” “We want many things more,” “Direct election of the president. . .,” “I want, remember that I want, the end of the blockade and self-blockade. . .”

He surprised everyone, he gave the authorities no time to improvise, they could not divert the cameras to the dark night sky, he did not give them time to project something else on the screens.  He caught them “in motion” as we say here. Robertico knew how to intelligently take advantage of the opportunity that presented itself. That was no accident, it was his deepest feeling, to which he could give free rein, where he knew he was going to be heard, not like that open letter that he made to Harold Gramatges, in front of the music section of UNEAC in 2007 and that surely was shelved, maybe with one or another similar.

Now it is only left to us to be very aware of what could happen to this artist and, using word and writing as effective means, try to prevent reprisals against this valiant musician. I am sure that you, I, everyone, we are agreed that “we want many things more.”

Translated by mlk

17 September 2013

Who Keeps Ernesto Borges Prisoner? / Lilianne Ruiz

Ernesto and his Father
Ernesto and his father, Raul Borges Alvarez

I have lost my little scissors, the ones for cutting fingernails.  For a moment I thought the world had ended because here things are very well kept.  A lot has to change to find good scissors, especially with the characteristics of the ones I thought I had lost.

I was still talking with a friend on the phone about that matter and Ernesto’s call came. He is the son of Raul Borges Alvarez, a well-known political dissident.

Fifteen years ago he was imprisoned for political reasons. In 1998, being still a captain of counterintelligence and analyst in that department, he collected files with classified information about more than 20 baited agents prepared for international espionage, and he tried to get them to a US official based in Havana.

The story was more or less this: He threw the files into the garden, near the front door. With a pole he managed to ring the bell but the door never opened. He was detained for a few hours, taken to Villa Marista and advised that the penalty was death. But that broke up the Wasp Network and the fact is that Ernesto thinks that is why they did not shoot him.

Five years ago he should have been on parole according to the law. Because the prosecutor recognized the family on the day of the trial as being military  and having no criminal background, having been judged by a military tribunal, he would only complete a third of the 30 years to which they sentenced him.

But, although after two hunger strikes last year he received a visit from the Commission to examine his conditional release, he has received no answer. Until a few days ago he was called together with his father and brother to the office of the Combinado del Este prison, where he has spent recent years, and notified that his parole had to keep waiting.

Among the arguments given by the military of Section 21, known also as “confronting counterrevolution,” was that his father Raul Borges Alvarez attended Santa Rita in order to march near the Ladies in White, which is the Movement that most effectivtely works to make visible the situation of Cuban political prisoners, and that continued its “counterrevolutionary” activities. Because father Borges is president of a Christian democratic party.

The second argument brandished to refuse conditional release was that Ernesto Borges had carried out two hunger strikes.

Some few have achieved their liberation with that recourse of the hunger strike, others like Zapata Tamayo and Villar Mendoza (recently, because history has more examples) have died because they have let them die.

Ernesto ends the call reminding me of a quote from The Social Contract, by Rousseau, “When one man is above the law, the rights of others are in danger.” He also tells me that after the second hunger strike, last year, he received a visit from a general, Chief of jails and prisons, who told him that his case was not in his hands but at “the highest management level.” What do you think?

1378487046_ernesto-borges-perez-antes-de-19981
Ernesto Borges Perez before 1998

Translated by mlk

6 September 2013

Sense and Sensibility / Regina Coyula

Translator’s note: At the end of this post is a video (without subtitles) of the State Security operation around Estado de Sats during the event Regina appeared in (shown in the above photo). It is this type of operation that she is referring to in the opening lines of her post.

It seems the Estado de Sats setbacks will become an ordinary thing: discouraging apocryphal messages, intimidating operations, unnecessary detentions. They are trying to prevent Estado de Sats from achieving a quorum, by my impression is that it has come to stay, satisfying a need not met by any institutional space, however open it pretends to be.

Invited to speak about self employment, I shared the panel presented by Antonio Rodiles with the journalist Orlando Freire and with Antonio Ocampo and Francisco Valido, engaged in private dining and transport respectively.

I believed that my foray as an “expert” on the topic would make me nervous, but not at all. A relaxed air connected with those present for more than two hours. Questions, opinions, laughter, and in the end, more questions and many compliments.

I had the pleasure of meeting in person a Cuban who lives in Spain whom I already knew virtually. All would have been very fine except for several people being prevented from coming.

At home, after breakfast, I undertook (or took on) the kitchen. A thorough cleaning, of the kind not done every day, in order to put the ego in its place, to remind myself that it’s not about speaking well on a panel, that I continue to be one more citizen.

Translated by mlk

2 September 2013

Official Statement about the Petition for Review of the Trial Against Angel Santiesteban Prats

Statement to readers

About the Petition for Review of the Trial against Angel Santiesteban Prats.

A few hours after the official web page STATE OF SATS published the post “Justice for Angel Santiesteban Prats,” in which it was officially reported that the petition for review of the trial by which the said writer had been unjustly and arbitrarily sentenced to five years in prison had been presented before the relevant bodies of the Cuban judicial system, we began to receive worried messages from friends, colleagues and unknown people (but interested in the injustice for which Angel is incarcerated).

Many of those messages presuppose that, the blog The Children Nobody Wanted being the “International Public Face,” the “Official Voice” of Angel Santiesteban Prats, we were in direct contact with those in Cuba who carry out the processing of legal matters.

The concern, in short, centered on three basic aspects:

First, for what reason did the announcement only appear in a couple of media outlets pertaining to the Cuban exile community and were not reproduced, as has happened on other occasions, on other internet sites and in the written press, in order to guarantee that the reach of the news had a more crushing effect?

“Leaving to one side that only a specific and limited sector of the exile community goes to those sites, I believe they must work more so that the civilized world knows that this review has already been presented.  I am a lawyer, I am familiar with Cuban justice because I worked in it, and I know that if that news were more widely spread, in Cuba they would find themselves obliged to pay more attention to the petition,” F.O. Sonora said from Burdeos.

Second, why was the document presented so elemental, so superficial and so unclear?  And why was it, even, badly drafted?

“If those are the weapons with which they try to defend Angel, I see them as bad.  In a totalitarian system defeat is chirped from the first play if it is not forceful, firm and clear,” Samuel Gonzalez Perez wrote from Tampa.

On the STATE OF SATS page itself, Ricardo E. Trelles had written:

“// Indispensable to be clear, lucid and forceful // Facing the pseudo-legal system that we have imposed in Cuba, it is indispensable to act with total transparency and with clear and firm legal representatives (if they are not to be had, look for and use the participation of better document drafters although they may not be lawyers).”

Third, why haven’t this petition or other previous legal documents (for example:  the file of the Further Appeal against the sentence), where firm proofs exist of Angel’s innocence, been circulated for review in intellectual circles?

“I have received hundreds of messages from Cuba, from writers asking me for information about what is happening with Angel.  As I agreed with Angel’s family and with you all, I have been sending to Cuba, to those writers, all the dossiers that we have prepared about the international support that we have obtained; I have sent them all the pronouncements of international agencies and institutions that have been gotten thanks to personal arrangements of the blog’s managers, some Cuban writers living on the outside and prestigious intellectuals and foreign journalist friends of Angel, and since (after an incomprehensible delay the legal files of the case arrived in my hands), little by little, due to its weight, I have also sent to Cuba those files, asking that they irrigate there,” Cuban writer Amir Valle, Angel Santiesteban’s legal Representative and literary executor, reports from Berlin.

All the preceding obliges us to clarify publicly that by decision of Angel Santiesteban, all the legal steps in Cuba are in the charge of his lawyer, Attorney Amelia Rodriguez Cala, working with Antonio Rodiles, Director of the website STATE OF SATS.

Our responsibility is limited to handling the post through the shipments that Angel manages to get from Cuba by diverse means; to establish contact with the hundreds of websites, blogs and internet press that have manifested their interest in following this injustice; amplify our means of press and promotion by print or internet everything concerning Angel’s life and situation in captivity, and to establish ties with international institutions and agencies in order to achieve our statements of support for Angel (to show but one example, the last two of these efforts have been the presentation of Angel’s case in the Inter-American Human Rights Commission and the Request for Precautionary Measures in the face of the death threats that Angel has received throughout this ordeal).

As far as promotion and management of his literary work, Amir Valle, in his capacity as legal Representative, and in coordination with other Cuban and foreign writers, has gotten important pronouncements of support by prominent intellectuals, agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations of the international cultural world.

All that work, which has placed the case of Angel Santiesteban Prats as a point of interest for thousands of intellectuals and dozens of the most important international political, human rights and cultural  institutions and agencies, has been possible thanks to the coordinated work of a small group of people (some today are occupied with other responsibilities in the fight for Cuban liberties, but they keep helping us as much as possible).  And, in any case, always in complete coordination among the managers of the blog, some family members and friends of Angel in Cuba and Angel’s family in exile.

Due to the communication barriers that always exist between Cuba and the outside, and also other reasons that even today we do not understand, we regret to inform that that joint work has not been able to materialize, not with the lawyer nor with those from STATE OF SATS who are occupied with working with the lawyer in those legal efforts.

By luck, until now, in spite of the lack of communication, the efforts on behalf of Angel on both shores have been successful and, although until today we have never been informed directly of the plans or of the legal efforts planned by those  you suppose must be our colleagues in Cuba in this fight to get Angel out of jail, we have always supported and publicized all and each of these efforts.

But, we insist, although we are, by Angel’s own designation his “Public International Face,” his “Official Voice,” in relation to all the legal handling of the case of Angel Santiesteban Prats in Cuba we are simply observers.

Relatives, managers of the blog The Children Nobody Wanted and literary Legal Representative of Angel Santiesteban Prats.

Translated by mlk

19 July 2013

New Challenge for the Cuban Judicial System. Documents from the Trial against Angel Santiesteban

Requested review of the trial against the dissident writer Angel Santiesteban Prats, we make available the documents from the same.

At a month after the presentation of the review of the trial against Angel Santiesteban Prats, last July 4, not only has no judicial reply been received about it, but, as is already public knowledge, on August 2 he was moved for the second time, in an illegal manner from the 1580 prison to an unknown location until day 7, on which even if his whereabouts were known, he continues incommunicado, with no right to calls or visits. 

Angel Santiesteban Prats finishes five months in prison, sentenced in a judicial farce prepared by the political police of president Raul Castro with the clear objective of silencing one of the few intellectuals of international stature who has decided to lift his voice, his active journalism and literature in order to denounce the dictatorial situation prevailing on the island from his blog The Children that No One Wanted.

Crimes that were not proved because he did not commit them, false witnesses used on the part of the accuser, refusal to accept testimony that demonstrates the innocence of the accused, scandalous links among the political police and the judicial organs that violate the separation of powers, and juridical irregularities throughout the process, have been the reasons put forward by those charged with defending the writer in order to interpose the judicial review fulfilling all the elements set by existing law.

This is a new challenge for Cuban justice which — as the case of Angel Santiesteban Prats itself demonstrates, and as has been denounced by many opponents over the last ten years — is a system bound by the political and ideological interests of the government.

In this case, in a method that is a systematic practice against the opposition on the island, the Cuban government tries to publicly discredit another dissident.  This is not the first time that the tactic is used to portray important writers as “mediocre writers,” “drunk losers,” “trashy journalists,” and other derogatory labels (remember the cases of the poets and journalists Raul Rivero, Manuel Vazquez Portal and Ricardo Gonzalez Alfonso, sentenced in the so-called “Black Spring of 2003″).

Now they criminalize, accusing Angel Santiesteban Prats of a common crime of family violence, a writer well respected by the intellectual and artistic classes of his country and of other nations.  The objective is very clear: detract validity from the force and reach of his international denunciations about the human rights violations that this regime commits every day against Cuban citizens.  One of the most shameful links in this strategy, as the writer himself denounced on his blog before entering prison, is the fact that the sanction was communicated by an official of the political police, weeks before the tribunal gave its verdict. 

Since he was thrown behind bars, on February 28, from the La Lima prison, from an open regime that corresponds to his sentences, the writer has not stopped his denunciations.  When at the beginning of April the Cuban government selected a group of the best jails to show to a Commission of National and Foreign Journalists, in a visit preceding the Report that Cuba had to present to the UN”s Commission on Human Rights in the month of May, Santiesteban Prats was moved in a violent and illegal manner to another maximum severity prison in order to isolate him from any possible contact with said Commission.

In the Petition for Review presented officially in July, the lawyer, Amelia Rodriguez Cala, analyzes exhaustively all the violations and judicial irregularities committed during the prior trial, which sentenced the writer to five years for supposed crimes in spite of the extenuating legalities that according to Cuban law only permit imposition of sentences of fines or a year of deprivation of liberty.  In addition, new elements that demonstrate the innocence of the writer are provided in the File of the Petition for Review.

The complete story of this crude maneuver that the Havana regime carried out in order to silence an intellectual that made it uncomfortable, is summarized by Amir Valle, another prize-winning Cuban author who suffers exile in Germany, on his blog A título personal (Personal Capacity) and can be read here: General Chronology of an Outrage.

The Editor

Translated by mlk

10 August 2013

The Evil Not Mentioned / Fernando Damaso

Photo Rebeca

The economic update, whose measures are tested and applied in drips and drabs, has not ended up, because it cannot, liberating productive forces, the only possibility for beginning to solve our critical situation.

Authorizing the exercise of all professions and trades, without any kind of limitation, and permitting the establishment of small and medium enterprises, whether individual, cooperative or any other type, are indispensable conditions for development.

Together with those, it is also necessary to reform the current Foreign Investment Law which, as its name indicates, does not encompass investment by Cuban residents in this country or abroad, and only accepts that of foreigners, something that leaves the quite vaunted national independence and sovereignty at a standstill.

Also, this foreign investment has not been produced in the amounts foreseen, due to a deficient legal foundation that protects against changes in political winds, so common in the country, nor does it stimulate people to assume risks, because to the meager earnings possible.

Complicating the situation, the latest judicial proceedings initiated against some established firms, that has led to their closure and the prosecution of their foreign owners and Cuban collaborators, have only added fuel to the fire of worries.  With so many thunderclaps there is no one who invests, especially when they can do it in other countries of the region, with better deals and greater stability and respect accorded to the signed agreements.

Dismantling the political and ideological bureaucratic web which, having primacy over the economy, grips all initiative and makes its oxygenation difficult, is a condition that must be met, if we are really trying to solve something.  Continuing to languish by drops, waiting for better times, something that, unfortunately has turned into a chronic ill, though it has not appeared on the list presented at the end of the last session of the National Assembly, only leads to the abyss.

Translated by mlk

5 August 2013

Who Provoked the Riot in the Guatao Women’s Prison? / Dania Virgen Garcia

Havana women’s jail. Photo: Ismael Francisco/Cubadebate

Havana, Cuba, July 25, 2013, Dania Virgen Garcia / www.cubanet.org.  A reliable source who asked to remain anonymous for reasons of safety — it is clear that this source is not political prisoner Sonia Garro, illegally confined in that prison — said that those who provoked the riot in the Guatao women’s prison west of Havana this last May 26 were male and female officers of internal order.  These had been transferred to other prisons without being prosecuted for incitement to commit crime, among other crimes that were sanctioned by military laws.

The source blames the riot on the first petty officer of internal order, Yunieski Figueredo Garcia; Yasnay Velez Hariarte, Chief of Re-Education, transferred to prison 1580 in San Miguel del Padron, a municipality where they conferred on her an apartment near this prison; Ismari Torres Pexidor, re-educator of detachment 3; and the chief of internal order, Rosaidi Osorio Palmero, alias “Iron Lady,” who was transferred to the prison Valle Grande.

All those mentioned maintained strong corruption with the so-called White Collars.

The deputy warden of the prison, officer Betty, was transferred to the National Direction of Jails and Prisons, located at 15 and K, El Vedado, in Havana.

The six prisoners who initiated the riot, most very young, still are in the Manto Negro women’s prison.

According to the source, “They sent the worst management team from MININT (Ministry of the Interior).”

The new head of the prison, Major Sara, was previously the second.  She arrived sanctioned by another prison. Until she serves out the sanction, Lieutenant Colonel Diaz is standing in for her.

Yunieski Figueredo, alias El Negro, husband of the chief of internal order, Rosaidi Osorio, still continues in the prison as if nothing had happened.  This deputy receives the new inmates.  He is accustomed to harassing the prisoners to force them to have sex with him.

The source alluded to the fact that the White Collar prisoners, who run the economy and finances in the prison, were prohibited from exercising their duty and were replaced by officers who had no experience in the matter.

One group of prisoners who worked in the “Luis Ramirez Perdigon” military school dealt with the location of prisoners in the penitentiaries as well as other military details.

Now, the White Collars are located as cleaning helpers in different Havana hospitals, like the Surgical Clinic, the Pediatric “Juan Manuel Marquez,” Calixto Garcia and the Oncology Hospital.

A racist jail

The Guatao prison hosts more than 100 prisoners for economic crimes, embezzlement, corruption and theft in customs packages, among others.  Every week women with these crimes enter.

“Lieutenant Colonel Diaz is racist,” assured the source.  She refers to fact that the jailers who direct the leading platoon, who are mostly black, were replaced by white jailers, which has inconvenienced the officials.

She said that the prisoners who are pregnant or have recently given birth, who are in the galleries of the Manto Negro prison, live in extremely deplorable conditions. The galleries are very humid due to the seepages in the walls and roofs.

She indicated that in the Guatao prison there are two jailers who belong to the repressive rapid response body that put down the Ladies in White; their names are Yarelis Hernandez Herrera and Maria Pedroso Herrera, both deputies.

The former director of the Manto Negro women’s prison, Lieutenant Colonel Mercedes Luna, was promoted a couple of years ago to the National Directorate of Jails and Prisons (15 and K).  Now she is serving on an international mission in the Republic of Angola.

dania.zuzy@gmail.com

Translated by mlk

3 August 2013

Official statement: We are publishing the complete record of the judicial farce mounted against Angel Santiesteban

We make available for anyone who wants to know the truth and have all the evidence of the judicial effrontery against Angel Santiesteban Prats, the complete record and all the documents that form part of this judicial farce behind which they incarcerated him in concentration camp 1580, El Pitirre, San Miguel del Padron, Havana, where they keep him in a grim regimen, besieged, blackmailed, threatened and isolated from his peers

Furthermore, we facilitate here — again — access to the proof of the innocence of Angel and to that which proves that Angel is an object of persecution on the part of the State Security for political reasons since he decided to open this blog.  On the video of Reasons for Cuba, Cyberwar, they recognize him blatantly and declare him “cyber mercenary enemy of the Revolution.”  The last violent action against him, being still at liberty, was recorded on video on November 8, 2012.

Also, we show some photos of Angel with is son Eduardo taken at different times, including when the complainant, the ex-wife Kenia Diley Rodriguez Guzman, testified that the boy had a terror of his father because of the blows that he gave him.  One can draw his own conclusions.

The objective of publishing here everything together is to shed light on the case, deliberately hidden from Cuban public opinion (and international, although they have not managed this), which public does not know that Angel was submitted to a rigged trial by false claims and incarcerated for five years with the sole purpose of silencing him and using him as an example of what awaits those who dare to defy the Regime.

continue reading

 If Angel were guilty of the crimes imputed to him and the trial to which he was subjected assembled all the legal guarantees, if the condemnatory sentence were just, could it explain why the Havana Regime keeps everything secret from the Island’s citizens?

 We know on good authority that even those who have signed the shameful statement against macho violence promoted by the writers of UNEAC, the only object of which was to criminalize Angel and turn him into the paradigm of the violent and macho Cuban male, have done it under pressure and without ever having had at their disposal the information and documentation about the case.  But the more outrageous and incredible thing is that neither have the sponsors of the infamy ever had it, that is to say, those writers — among which there are friends quite close to Angel — who know that it is all a farce in order to silence him.  Regarding close colleagues and/or friends, who well know how Angel is, having been paid to firmly believe the dictation of the political police without having asked for proof before pronouncing, it converts them to slanderers that, sooner or later, must render accounts before Justice.  They have indulged and validated the rape of all of Angel’s rights, but, even more seriously, have themselves raped Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:  No one will be an subjected to arbitrary interference in his private life, his family, his home or his correspondence, nor to attacks on his honor or his reputation.  Every person has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

 The writers from UNEAC, sponsors of the infamy, should go read carefully the Penal Code, paying special attention to articles 318, 319, 320 and 321, which speak of defamation, infamy and injury.  It does not take much for democracy and the state of law to again prevail in Cuba, and then they will have much to explain before Justice.

In case the mentioned writers do not have the Penal Code, here we provide the article that they will have to have learned well:

TITLE XII.  CRIMES AGAINST HONOR

CHAPTER I

DEFAMATION

 ARTICLE 318.

 1. He who, before third persons, imputes conduct, event or characteristic to another, contrary to honor, which can damage his social reputation, lessen public opinion of him or expose him to the loss of trust required for the performance of his duty, profession or social function, is sanctioned with deprivation of liberty for three months to a year or a fine of 100 to 300 shares or both.  2.  The accused does not incur any sanction if the proof that the accusations that he made or that he propagated were true or that he had serious reasons for believing them, as well as that he worked or that he fundamentally believed to work in defense of a socially justified interest.

 3.  The test provided for in the previous section is not admitted for the accused if he manifestly had no design other than to denigrate the victim.

 4.  If the accused does not prove the veracity of his imputations or retract them or they are contrary to the truth, the tribunal consigns to him the sentence and must give the victim the due record of that fact.

 CHAPTER II

 CALUMNY

 ARTICLE 319

 1.  He who knowingly divulges false events that redound in discredit to a person, incurs a sanction of deprivation of liberty of six months to two years or a fine of 200 to 500 shares.

 2.  If before the tribunal the guilty party acknowledges the falsity of his statements and withdraws from them the sanction is deprivation of liberty of three months to a year or a fine of 100 to 300 shares.  The tribunal must give the victim due record of the retraction.

 INJURY

 ARTICLE 320.

 1.  He who purposely by written or spoken word by means of drawings, gestures or acts offends another in his honor incurs a sanction of deprivation of liberty of three months to a year or a fine of 100 to 300 shares.

 2.  The tribunal can withhold the sanction if the injury is due to the provocative behavior of the victim or if he reacted immediately with another injury or attack against bodily integrity.

 ADDITIONAL PROVISIONS

 ARTICLE 321

 1.  The crimes of calumny and injury are only actionable by complaint by the offended party.

 2.  Defamation requires complaint by the offended party.  If the defamation or calumny refers to a dead person or one declared absent, the right to sue or to establish the complaint falls to his closes relatives.

 Now, with the publication of the full record, we expect that all those who have judge without knowing, will be informed and will realize the grave error of commenting gratuitously.  Expecting correction from those who have defamed and injured Angel is much to ask of people whose morality is worth what it weighs, that is to say, nothing.

 Value the recognition for all those who do not judge without evidence.

 Now, let’s see how those who have done it sustain their infamies.

False testimony of Alexis Quintana bought by Kenia Rodríguez Guzmán

The Cuban Juridical Association, through its various specialists, legally dismantles in this video the farce mounted against writer Angel Santiesteban-Prats.

Agent Camilo pursues Angel Santiesteban-Prats

Agente Camilo amenaza a Angel santiesteban 2012-12-15-13-09-52 from Los hijos que nadie quiso on Vimeo.

 The Cuban Juridical Association, through its various specialists, legally dismantles in this video the farce mounted against writer Angel Santiesteban-Prats.

 Agent Camilo pursues Angel Santiesteban-Prats

Agente Camilo amenaza a Angel santiesteban 2012-12-15-13-09-52 from Los hijos que nadie quiso on Vimeo.

 
This is Eduardito, in the arms of his father Ángel.  Kenia Rodriguez testified that the boy was terrified of his father because of repeated beatings that he suffered at his hands.
  
Ángel and his son when he was already separated from Kenia Rodriguez, mother of the boy and who testified that this boy was terrified of his father because he hit him.
 
Ángel and Eduardo, one month before they jailed the writer.  His son always next to him.

Ángel and his son Eduardo February 27, 2013 during the tribute that they made to Angel before his incarceration the following morning.  Eduardo was not separated for even a moment from his father.

Eduardito saying goodbye to his father Ángel in the patrol car when he is about to be transferred to the Valle Grande prison, February 28, 2013.  Kenia Rodriguez had testified that he son was terrified of his father because of the blows he dealt him.
Ángel with his arm fractured from the beating that they gave him in May 2009 warning him not to be counterrevolutionary.
 
The shirt that Ángel was wearing when he was arrested and violently beaten November 8, 2012 across from the Acosta police station
Violent arrest of Ángel November 8, 2012
Agent “Camilo” pursuing and threatening Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

 Translated by mlk.

17 June 2013

Little Paper Boat*. My disloyal friend. / Fernando Damaso

The mess about the North Korean boat loaded in Cuba with obsolete arms for repair, hidden under some tons of sacks of sugar, suitable for the captain’s suicide attempts and the crew’s hunger strike, all lunatics of Kim Il Sung and his descendants, continues to monopolize international media attention.  Nevertheless, for Cubans, after the concise initial report, absolute silence and secrecy are maintained trying to give the impression that nothing is happening, basing that on the fact that if it does not come out on the TV News or appear in the newspaper Granma it is because it does not exist.

It calls attention that this happens immediately after the end of the 9th Congress of the Union of Cuban Journalists (UPEC) where, among the few things of interest that were considered, some journalists requested (they did not demand) to be permitted to have access to the reports.  It seems that, although the word was yes, in practice it is no, beginning with the concealment, the same days as the closing ceremony (July 14), of the composition of the baseball team, which would participate in a tournement with one agreed to by North American universities in cities of that country, from which sports reporters discovered, when this was already known in the United States (July 15), in the afternoon, in the schedule of the insufferable Roundtable TV show, and continuing, almost immediately, with the mess about the boat.

The official press and the secrecy that accompanies it seem to have no remedy: it is something inherent in the model, that cannot subsist in a climate of freedom of information, not even under the control of the party through the UPEC, its bureaucratic shell.

The boat is another thing: no one understands this political bungling, it it wasn’t orchestrated for the purpose of torpedoing possible contacts, directed at the gradual normalization of relations between the governments of Cuba and the United States.  As was expected, on the event of the 60th anniversary of the 26th of July assault on the Moncada Barracks, after the sausage of slimy speeches for the occasion by the invitees, absolutely nothing was said about the thorny matter.  It seems that this stings and extends until August. Give it time!

*Translator’s note: “Little Paper Boat” is a Cuban children’s song. The words, in English, are: Little paper boat, my faithful friend / carry me away over the wide sea. / I want to meet children from here and there / and take them all my flower of friendship. / Down with war, up with peace / We children want to laugh and sing.

Translated by mlk

26 July 2013

Havana Carnival, Another Lost Tradition / Rebeca Monzo

When February began, the mass media (radio, television, print) began to promote the parties of King Momo.  The whole city was infected by the expectations of such a grand celebration.  Old and young used to enjoy these festivities so much that they were always celebrated in this month, for four weekends, leading up to Lent.

Days before the chosen start date, already utility poles on the city streets exhibited, by way of ornamentation, contest-winning posters, as well as photos of the Queen and her Ladies in the windows of the major stores, which had been chosen by a prestigious jury.

I remember when I was a girl, my family used to rent a box at the carnival in order to enjoy more comfort while we watched the endless legion of beautifully festooned floats pass by, with young girls on board, sometimes very dressed up and other times scantily clad (confronting the cold February temperatures), according to the theme the sponsors wished the rolling stages to represent.  Then came the convertibles cars and trucks, beautifully decorated.  Of all this, what without a doubt raised expectations most was the float of the Queen and her Ladies-in-Waiting.

The climax was the passing of the troupes with their colorful costumes, some of them carrying enormous lanterns, following the rhythm of their original and well-studied choreographies.  Among the most acclaimed always were the Guaracheros de Regla and the Alacran, this one the oldest of all.  Another spectacle that captured most attention was the risky acrobatics of the Acrobatic Police Motor Squad, with their red jackets and their snug black pants, highlighted by tall boots and varnished leggings, driving their impressive Harley-Davidson motorcycles.  The ride always opened with a profusion of fireworks.

Once the parade ended, we children, defying family prohibitions, threw ourselves into the street to gather the streamers strewn along the way and made big spheres with them to roll down the street.  The one who made the biggest felt, without anyone saying so, like a kind of champion.

The parade had a long route, coming out from the premises of the old Sports Palace, following the whole Malecon until taking the Paseo del Prado, turning at the Fuente de la India and traveling back again to the Prado, resuming the Malecon until the point of departure, where the floats were parked.  Many people during the parade used to cross from one sidewalk to the opposite one to again see the floats on their return trip.

1959 arrived, and these happy celebrations were losing their splendor.  Slowly at first and later sharply, when all businesses were nationalized and their sponsorship was lost in the absence of advertising.  It is noteworthy that the Havana carnivals before this year were considered among the world’s most famous.

I managed to reach a little of the brightness that they still had when I was elected Morning Star in 1963.  By then, the terminology had already changed from Queen to Star and from Lady to Morning Star because the former were considered expression of the petty bourgeoisie.  It was no longer enough to be pretty and cultured and have good manners; now an important element as well was being an “integrated” person (working or studying or participating in political events).  Also the gifts offered to the winners stopped being relevant.  They still kept the tradition of displaying big photos of them in the store windows.

I remember by then I worked in the Foreign Trade Ministry in one of its enterprises. One afternoon, the syndicate secretary passed in a great hurry, touring all the offices, to announce to us, all the girls who worked there, that at the end of the workday we would not leave because an assembly would be held to elect the permanent cane cutters for the sugar harvest, and also the star who would represent the enterprise in those festivities.

To my surprise, I was the favored one.  The next selection would be among the more than 12 enterprises that composed the ministry, and this would determine who would be its representative.  I was elected again. Later competition was held among all the agencies that belonged to the Public Administration sector, to choose the Star herself, who would then compete on a national level.

So it was that one night I found myself in the Sports Center, competing with all the stars from all the syndicates.  Then I was elected first Morning Star of the Havana Carnival of 1963.  I never again went to those celebrations in spite of the fact that during the next nine s received invitations to the Presidential Box.  Now the carnivals that I enjoyed so much in my childhood had disappeared, and all that was left of them was a sad caricature.  In spite of the celebration of all these festivities, including this one, they were transferred “by decree” to the month of July, just when the heat is unbearable.

This weekend there will be a sad caricature of the carnivals on a reduced route along the Malecon where alcoholic beverages and repeated gastronomic offerings will abound.  Vulgarity and marginality, as is now customary, will reign at these celebrations.

Translated by mlk

27 July 2013

The Military King / Rosa Maria Rodriguez

Photo taken by “The Voice of the Sandinismo”

I am not going to refer to the song by Mexican Jose Alfredo Jimenez but to the spirit, the intention that gravitates like smog over the Cuban archipelago and part of the world.  Given the person that it concerns, we should be accustomed to that kind of personal publicity stunt, but in that respect he does not cease to surprise us.

Fidel Castro, the ex-president of my country, appears from time to time in the media to intone with his muffled voice like the whisper of an old conspirator and guerrilla the melody “I keep being the king.”  First it was Rafael Correa for his retaking possession of the highest post in Ecuador, now he makes public a letter of congratulations to Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo for their interventions in the Petrocaribe Eighth Summit.

One could not miss in the letter “the recognition” of the black Venezuelan udder, now led by the verbose Nicolas Maduro.  Throughout this process we have observed Castro I’s  fawning over all who have financed and supported in some way his blunders and experiments in his management as head of Cuba.

In the Soviet era they uniformed our children in the Russian style, filled our television with films and cartoons from that country and even made us study the Russian language by radio.

He still shows the same stagnant and immoveable political discourse — for the Cubans — anchored in past decades from which there is no possibility of success, because he leaves behind the school of delay, corruption and lack of liberties that fosters, among other abuses, excessive control.

That’s why they begin with populism and transform themselves into dictators — I wonder if it is something implicit previewed by the strongmen leaders — because only so can they maintain power in spite of their resounding failures and ineptitude.

From the flattering political bubble with its rusted chain, he projects himself as the historic leader of the so-called Cuban revolution, maybe oblivious to the reforms that his brother Castro II is making to his inflexible model, but aware of those who provide the continuity of his last name, family and lineage in order to wax eloquent.

If anyone has any doubt about Castro I’s blandishments, he only has to refer to the end of the letter of yore, dated June 28, 2013.  In it he committed a monumental historical error by erasing with a keystroke the known phrase “Until Victory, Always” by Ernesto “Che” Guevara in order to award it to his friend and oil creditor Hugo Chavez who borrowed it, included as a goodbye in his speeches and made use of it repeatedly.  So, if Paris is well worth a mass, Venezuelan petroleum that guarantees them the permanence of power, well deserves whatever praise, although it may be an evil thing.

 Translated by mlk

2 July 2013

Loss of Ethical Values / Rebeca Monzo

“We have painfully perceived, for more than 20 years of the Special Period, the increasing deterioration of moral and civic values like honesty, decency, shame, decorum, honor and sensitivity to the problems of others.”

So reads one of the paragraphs of Raul Castro’s discourse before the Cuban parliament, published today, Tuesday, July 9 in the daily Rebel Youth.

I ask myself, why did he have to wait more than 20 years to put the brakes on a situation that was already noticeable and perceived to be worsening?

At this point the social indiscipline and human deterioration is almost uncontrollable. There are many factors that have influenced it and they were known by all. The fragmentation of the Cuban family, product of the political confrontations and political estrangement among their members, many times imposed by the regime itself, is perhaps the crux of all the subsequent social misfortune. The family was always considered and in fact is the fundamental social nucleus of a nation.

The misconduct of the marginalized, like screaming loudly in the middle of the street, the use of obscene words and the vulgarity of speech, have been present in our daily lives. Television, one of the most influential of the mass media, also has contributed to exposing all kinds of vulgarities and mediocrities, in terms of image and vocabulary.

Throwing trash in public roadways, as well as indulging physiological needs in streets and parks, is something now of daily routine and are acts that are carried out before the indolence and apathy of observers, maybe for fear of being verbally or physically assaulted by the actor himself if attention is called.  Walk in the morning through the old Asturian Center, now a museum, and you will be horrified to have to move away from the doorways by the strong odor of urine that these emanate.

With respect to the increased consumption of alcoholic beverages by the populace, their indiscriminate sale in almost all the state establishments from early hours is noteworthy, being that the only one responsible is the State itself.  It is a shame to see in any state business, very neglected and rundown, a little table dragged to the middle of the sidewalk for the sale of rum, so that the pedestrian does not have to bother entering the place in question to drink.

As far as the abuse of the school uniform, generally the teachers themselves have given the bad example, dressing inadequately to stand in front of a student body and make themselves respected teaching a class.  All of this of course has been a product of the bad training of many teachers, the prolonged shortage of clothes for sale, the low salaries and the transportation difficulties, which has brought about having to use a kind of clothing that does not impede climbing into a truck or hanging from the platform of a bus.

Nevertheless, barely hours after publishing the discourse in question, a friend of ours was an eyewitness to an event in the farmer’s market at 17th and K streets, in Vedado, when a young man came running and tripped and almost fell on an elderly woman, who sells plastic bags at the exit of said establishment.

She, feeling battered, uttered one of the most gross curses, “now so in fashion,” which begins with “P.”  Then out of nowhere came another man, also young, dressed in plainclothes, who immediately asked for the woman’s identity card, in order to impose a fine of 200 pesos, not for selling bags (which is considered a crime), but for the “curse.”

The woman began to cry living tears, explaining that she was retired and hypertensive, that she had no money, etc.  When the young man in plainclothes saw that those present began to encircle them, he told the vendor that “this time he was going to pardon the fine,” but instead he was going to “draw up” a warning.  This made the woman burst into tears again, before the astonished gaze of all those present, who daily often utter these curse words and others even stronger, before the indifference of everyone.

Translated by mlk

9 July 2013