Category: Translator: Raul G.

Fifty years ago, on May 10, 1960, the Matamoros Trio, headed by Siro Rodriguez, Rafael Cueto, and Miguel Matamoros, performed in public for the last time.  They bid their farewells on the program called Partagas Thursdays, one of the most popular Cuban TV shows at the time.

According to the Colombian investigator, Walter G. Magaña, “the silence which the Matamoros Trio was subdued in was not accidental.  We must remember that on January 1, 1959, the movement headed by Fidel Castro had displaced the president Fulgencio Batista, and during that time period the leader of the Cuban revolution announced Cuba’s integration into communism (a year later, in 1961, he announced it to the world during the ONU)- a move which Miguel Matamoros was never supportive of.  Therefore, in order to not musically represent a communist country before international eyes, he opted for silence”.

Magaña then continues detailing:  “Everyone was aware of the sympathy that Batista felt for the Trio, thanks to all their compositions previously made against the politics of the dictator Gerardo Machado.  In the 50’s, when Miguel Matamoros returned to the structure of the Trio with very irregular activity, Congress granted them economic help so their members could live decently, according to Jose Pardo Llada, the Cuban journalist who lived in Cali (and passed away in 2009).”

If such statements are accurate, the interpreters of “Son de la loma“, “El que siembra su maiz“, and “La mujer de Antonio“, along with many other famous songs, did not sympathize with the bearded revolution.  In fact, most of them came from Oriente province, just like them.

But that anti-communism, or anti-fidelism, is not exposed to the public today in Cuba.  The songs of the Matamoros Trio, just like those of Ignacio Piñeiro, Benny More, Bola de Nieve, and other great Cuban musicians, are among the most covered songs in the world.  And the cultural authorities prefer to ignore it and just skip the page.

Political disagreements aside, in Cuba the Trio from Santiago is still very much venerated.  Recently, in order to commemorate the 85 years since its beginning on May 8, 1925, in the Trio’s native city, Santiago de Cuba, Cafe Matamoros was reopened.  Every two years that large city is host to the International “Matamoroson” Festival.  The latest edition, in 2009, commemorated the 115th anniversary of the birth of Miguel Matamoros.

The version of “Lagrimas Negras” (‘Black Tears’) which Bebo Valdes and Diego El Cigala interpreted is well known in the five continents.  But perhaps very few know that the woman who inspired this song was not Cuban.

In 1930, during a tour in the Dominican Republic, the Matamoros Trio witnessed an unexpected hurricane.  The devastation was tremendous and the death toll was up in the thousands.  The musicians returned to Santiago de Cuba in a Cuban military plane that had transported doctors and medicines to the Dominican Republic as humanitarian aid.

Impacted by the disaster, Miguel Matamoros first composed “El Trio y el Ciclon” (‘The Trio and the Hurricane’), and a few days after, “Lagrimas Negras”.  The lyrics to this song were inspired by a lady that he saw crying uncontrollably in Santo Domingo.  Her husband had abandoned her and between sobs she would utter that she did not care if she died because that man had been the love of her life.

Miguel Matamoros (1894-1971) was not only a talented composer and innovative musician, but also a chronicler of his era.

It’s noted that in June 1929, the Basque doctor Fernando Asuero (San Sebastian; 1887-1942) arrived in Cuba. He had become a media hit in Spain, Portugal, France, Argentina, and Mexico, among other countries, for having discovered a method to cure certain kinds of paralysis by pinching a nerve known as the “trigeminal.”

That “therapy” did not cure anyone on the island.  But the volume of information about the doctor and his miraculous cures served as inspiration for Matamoros to write “El Paralitico” (‘The Paralytic’).

The Paralytic is an original and catchy son.  But its lyrics aren’t as brutal as the “Cocainomana”, a song which Silvio Rodriguez made an excellent cover of.

Ivan Garcia

Photo: jaramij, Flickr

Translated by Raul G.

During the last few years, Cuban places located outside of the island have exposed the production and consumption of catfish- that voracious species- in an unpleasant light, in fact, it has been stated that the environment may be at risk if we do not control the production of such a plate.

The issue already made headlines in 2006 as product of the documentary titled “Blue Revolution” which was made by a Mexican student of the International Cinema and Television School of San Antonio de los Banos, in the outskirts of Havana.

According to Jesus Baisre, the fishing industry adviser, two types of catfish were brought into Cuba between 1998 and 2000.  These were the macrocephalus and the gariepinus, coming from Asia and Africa.  The catfish were introduced in the country in order to increase the consumption of protein of the population.

“But the cure was worse than the disease because the catfish has become a powerful threat to the Cuban ecosystem”, argued Nibaldo Calvo who has a degree in economics and is a resident of Mexico.

Before 1959 the main fish consumed by Cubans was the biajaca.  “In the ’70s they introduced the tilapia, which at first nobody liked thanks to its dirt taste.  But seeing that there was no choice, we had no other option but to invent recipes so our families could eat it,” remembers Lidia, 67-years-old and a retired teacher.

Other exotic fish species that are consumed in the island, besides catfish, are Tench, Sea bass, Red Sea Bass, and the Chinese Grass Carp.  On April 2009, during a workshop in Artechef, a restaurant of the Cuban Culinary Association in Havana, numerous elaborate plates were presented with various different kinds of fresh water fish, among them the catfish.

Someone who does not want to hear talk about “the catfish or any of those strange fish” is Jose Miguel, an 81-year-old grandpa.  “It’s incredible that on an island surrounded by sea they have to spend money raising fish and that they have not been capable of allowing us the fish that we Cubans have eaten all our lives, like snapper, ruffle, swordfish, and the yellowtail snapper.”

The local press publishes information about the production and consumption of the catfish and some journalists acknowledge its dangerousness, especially when there are intense rains or hurricanes and the dams overflow and these fish escape.

But that occurs among the ecologists- nationals or foreigners- directly affect by the controversy.

The economist Calvo points out that the uncontrollable expansion of catfish in Cuba during the last decade “is provoking serious havoc among aquatic fauna and vegetation.  The ecological equilibrium and domestic life is also affected because the catfish preys on tilapia and frogs and could very well introduce itself into subterranean caves, sewers, and household tubes.”

The fact is that the catfish- also known as the devil fish- is capable of traveling across land, thanks to very strong whips of its tail, in search of food outside of the water.  Since it is carnivorous, if it is loose, it can swallow anything in its path:  lizards, snakes, rats, and even birds, turtles, and small crocodiles.

There is not much worry right now for the population.  Neither ecologically or with regards to food.  “It must be known that no one has become sick or has died yet because of eating catfish.  It is a dark and ugly fish, but its meat is white and tasty.  When I have oil, I bread and fry the filets.  Sometimes I also make croquettes which my kids love,”  explains Roxana, 35, who works as an office assistant.

Just one kilogram of catfish filet costs around 39 Cuban pesos (1.50 dollars).  “It’s very popular, it sells quickly.  I get about 200 kilos and in two days it’s gone,” declares Dionis Cruz, a fish vendor in the capital.

Ana Rosa, 70 years of age and a housewife, defends the controversial fish:  “They say that catfish eat rats, but if we have eaten cat stew, and cats also eat rats, eating catfish filet is now a luxury.”

During the difficult years of the Special Period (1990-2000), many Cubans substituted cats for rabbits, for once they are skinned there is no difference. If in home bathrooms they raised pigs, while animals were disappearing from the zoo and vultures had gone to look for food in household cooking pots, then eating catfish today is the most normal thing in the world.  At least for Cubans it is.

Ivan Garcia

Photo:  Breaded catfish filet

Translated by Raul G.

It is organized for the weekends in the city of Havana.  It takes place in public spaces, avenues or wide plots of undeveloped land.  Trucks arrive and improvise points of sales- some sell directly from their vehicles, on boxes, on the floor.  The offers vary:  viands (potato, sweet potato, yucca, bananas), fruits, vegetables, meat derivatives, and hardware tools, among other things.

Local restaurants offer fast food under thick colored carps:  fried chicken, smoked pork, and beer.  Lunch-sellers with tall white hats and squared pants prepare pork sandwiches, ham, hot dogs, or breaded fish.

There are sky-rocketing prices.  Just one kilo of papaya costs 20 pesos (one dollar).  Black beans are 10 pesos per pound (half a kilo).  Well, at least what is supposedly a pound.  Manuel Montoya, 65 years of age, is retired.  He always finishes stressed and with high blood pressure due to the displeasure he goes through when he has to purchase some viands and meat.

“Despite the prices, the sellers try to swindle you when they weigh the product.  I always take a small personal weight and whatever I buy usually weighs up to two pounds less than those measures given to me by the sellers,” points out Montoya while he tosses around yuccas and sweet potatoes that are full of reddish dirt.

Hygiene is not the specialty of the viand, vegetable, and fruit sellers.  In Cuba, agricultural products are not taken aside and cleaned.  They are brought in bulk in bags and boxes and they get all mixed in platforms or on the floor, together with dirt, rocks, and bugs.

The Red Plaza of La Vibora, in the municipality of 10th of October, which is actually neither a plaza or painted red, and is nothing but  a 260 foot wide street, is converted into a mixed flea market on Saturdays and Sundays.

Besides vegetables and other foods, they sell recycled clothes, plumbing products, and efficient light bulbs.  The good stuff starts early in the morning.  Refrigerated trucks that offer fresh fish for 15 to 20 pesos per pound arrive to the rhythm of Willy Chirino and Isaac Delgado, exiled Cuban salseros who live in Miami and are censored by state media.

They also sell turkey, chicken, and cured meats.  It usually sells out very quickly.  The lines are long and many people wake up very early to be one of the first ones.

Those people from Havana attend these fairs in mass.  But they are very shocked by the abusive prices, like Josefa Cerdena, 60 years of age, and who is a housewife.  “One mango is sold for 5 or 10 pesos, while a mamey is sold for 15 pesos,” says the lady with her eyes wide open.  Other fruits, like guavas, oranges, and grapefruits are just as expensive.  However, there is an abundance of potato, cabbage, and tomato.

Despite the fact that the aggressive June heat quickly decomposes vegetables and fruits, the prices stay just the same.  They have a news series on TV that has criticized the inefficient form of commercializing these products and the scandalous corruption displayed by many of the vendors.

According to official sources, the decrease and devaluation of fruit and vegetable quality, over 750 thousand pesos (30 thousand dollars) is lost daily, in the capital alone.

We know where that money ends up.  The majority ends up in the pockets of the administrators, while the minimum goes to the sellers.

Whatever the case may be, these weekend street sales are a relief for thousands of families.  With pesos, they can purchase merchandise that they lack.  It’s true that such fairs have a common denominator:  the long lines.

Ivan Garcia

Photo:  Kirsty Stephenson, Flickr

Translated by Raul G.

Carrying out any sort of political analysis or political prediction in Cuba is almost like an Indiana Jones adventure.  The media does anything it can to misinform.  They barely extract any bit of information from those in power.  There is no way of getting any official statistics or facts.

When one is an independent journalist and the government does not approve of you, everything becomes much more difficult. Instinct and reading between the lines of official reports are common investigation methods.

Another way of trying to understand the reality of this island is if you have friends or sources who work for important organizations and they chose to whisper information into your ear.  It is already known that Cubans are extroverted.

Well, back to the point.  It is true that in Cuba something is moving.  For the first time in 51 years the Castro government has given in to a group like the Ladies in White.

The strategy used by those in power was a very interesting one. They pulled the letter of the Catholic Church out of their sleeve.  Using the church as a mediator and as a valid interlocutor has various interpretations.

They either pretend to win some time and sell the idea that the regime is willing negotiate certain political things, or in reality the economic crisis that has been plaguing us for 21 years, the decrease of foreign investments, and the empty treasury, are forcing the government of Havana to search for a negotiated exit with two heavy-weight actors: The United States and the European Union.

Castro, a charismatic statesman of unpredictable strategies, always confused Western politicians with his tricks.  Just ask Felipe Gonzalez, Carlos Solchaga, or Jimmy Carter.

When you think you have him cornered and without defenses, he pulls a card out of his sleeve as if he were a magician.  It turns out that this situation is different.  Since July 31, 2006, Fidel Castro has lost a large portion of power.

And it has not been the dissidence that has opened the breach.  It is the generals, those businessmen in the island who are ruled by his brother, who have taken over power.

Ever since the 1980’s, a portion of the military and intelligence sectors were allowed to establish certain businesses, and so started the beginning of the end for the monolithic rule of Castro I.

For years the generals have made money.  They have hidden bank accounts and have become corporate men.  They traded in their AK-47s for executive briefcases.  The word comrade was traded for the word sir.  And the rustic Soviet technology was exchanged for sophisticated first world equipment.

Those elite military men who control the few profitable businesses that function in Cuba prefer to drink Jack Daniels over our own rum.  After a while, they traded in their traditional guayaberas for very formal suits with silk ties.

They have converted themselves into cut-throat capitalists.  Their advisers studied marketing and speak about efficiency and profitability, costs and gains.  They also like to keep some dollars or euros under the mattress.

It is precisely those generals who are really in charge during this summer of 2010.  Fidel Castro is only a symbol.  Very heavy.  Perhaps the old guerrilla leader just pulls the strings of exterior politics.

But the economy is in the hands of the military.  And they want certain changes.  Nothing big, really.  Economic freedom for the people.  Firing a million workers in the inflated labor scene.  They want to give autonomy to small and medium companies.  They want to do away with the benefactor State.  They want to lighten the load.

The military favors some liberalizations in Cuba for the simple reason that it would be a much more effective way of staying in power.  They know that with hard-line and radical discourse, and with the huge crisis that faces the planet, business doesn’t work.

Internal peace is needed.  Developed countries do not need to condemn the island.  Then, they had to give in.  And they used the church.

It is also possible that a number of political prisoners may be released.  Not all of them.  The regime needs prisoners like spare change.  But it is the only way of keeping the determined Ladies in White calm.

The internal dissidence is not very worried about the generals who control the power.  For various reasons.  One of these reasons is that the opposition is deeply penetrated by the political police.

The other reason: they do not have a solid base within the population.  They also do not have brilliant or charismatic leaders.  That is why I think that the recent move by the Castros was conditioned by the pressure of a sector of the military.

What will be the next move?  If the money does not continue coming in and the international pressure does not stop, there will be new sacrificial moves. The Castros still hold some winning cards in their hands.

But the deteriorated economic situation, which has not had any possible solutions mapped out, the disgust of a wide portion of the population, the poor rule of the leaders, and the huge monstrous bureaucracy all have the Creole mandarins cornered.

This summer promises some interesting things. Raul Castro has been on the throne for two years and has only implemented cosmetic measures. The situation which the country faces needs an entire package of wide reforms, from top to bottom.

The generals look at Vietnam.  This Asian nation has achieved economic changes while maintaining its hard fist towards internal politics.  Of course, Cuba is not an interesting market like China or Vietnam.

If the European Union or the United States continue with their politics of closed borders and deaf ears and if they don’t ease up in response to the liberation of only a hand full of political prisoners, then the government will have to change its strategy.  This would most likely lead them to negotiate with a sector of the opposition.

The regime wants power and it needs financial oxygen.  It will everything in its power.  In politics, it’s all worth it.

Ivan Garcia

Translated by Raul G.

While some prisoners of the Black Spring of 2003, like Pablo Pacheco and Adolfo Fernandez Sainz, have their optimism levels up in the clouds, there is much more caution amongst the feelings of the Ladies in White.  In fact, there is much pessimism.

The doctor Lidia Lima, wife of the prisoner of conscience Arnaldo Ramos (an 68-year-old economist- one of the oldest political prisoners) has her doubts.

For Lidia the transfer of Arnaldo to the 1580 prison in the municipality of San Miguel del Padron in Havana is a relief.  The Ramos family resides in the capital and the trips to Santi Spiritus (about 400 kilometers from Havana) were always difficult and painful journeys for her and her two sons.

According to what Arnaldo told his wife during her latest visit, the food has improved.  However, he now resides in a galley full of very old men who suffer from mental illnesses.  At this very moment Lidia has more desire than faith.  She prefers not to fool herself with the idea that her husband could be one of the prisoners that will be liberated thanks to the visit of Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican’s chancellor.

This sentiment of doubt prevails amongst other Ladies in White.  The government of the Castro brothers has found itself at a crossroads.  If there is something that has defined them during these last 51 years it is that they do not like to give up any of their power.  The difficult political situation, the amount of international pressure, especially that of the US and the EU, has put them in a very uncomfortable spot.

It is very well known that with just a phone call from one of the Castros to the high ranking members of the Ministry of the Interior, the 56 prisoners left from the Black Spring, or the more than 200 political prisoners that still remain behind bars, could immediately be released.

If Fidel Castro took a few weeks to detain and judge 75 people only for opposing or writing without a mandate, freeing them would be a breeze, that is if the regime wanted to do it.  In Cuba, such situations are not solved in parliament.  They are personal decisions.

The ball is already rolling in South Africa.  The World Cup could be a good moment to free some political prisoners.  Some are in very poor states of health, like Ariel Sigley Amaya, who is practically paralyzed.

It was in the beginning of the war in Iraq, on March 18, 2003, that the one and only commander unleashed an oppressive wave against groups of dissidents and independent journalists in order to minimize the impact of such news.

Now, the regime of Havana could opt to try a military strategy.  The planet is focused on soccer.  At least that is what Pablo Pacheco thinks.  If you ask the family members, they’re not that optimistic.

Ivan Garcia

Photo:  Martha Beatriz Roque.  Ladies in White outside the Santa Rita Church on Sunday, June 6th.

Translated by Raul G.

At the intersection of Acosta Avenue and Calzada 10th of October, around 11 pm, a police van detained a group of people who carried bookbags or handbags. Inside the vehicle there were seven young black men who were detained and handcuffed. With blank stares, they clearly questioned the motives for their detentions.

Lieutenant Delfin Carneado did not know how give them a concrete response. “Shut up”, was what he told them. A frail mulatto with an afro and various green and yellow bracelets on his left wrist, wished to know if the cause of his being suspected of some presumed crime was the color of his skin.

Lieutenant Carneado stared at him coldly and answered: “I am not a scholar, but I do know that the majority of thieves are black”.  The lieutenant said something that was right. According to reliable sources, 88% of prisoners for common crimes in Cuba are either mestizo or black.

The Ministry of the Interior has never published any statistics about the number of common prisoners on in the island and their ethnic classifications. There is a statistic that states that in Cuba there are more than 100,000 behind bars, this is according to estimates made by human rights activists.

If 88% of these are mestizo or black, then the numbers are shocking. This would mean that within the island’s prisons there could be over 88,000 Afro-Cubans. Blacks are involved in 8 out of 10 bloody events that finish in death. They are also more prone to theft, pickpocketing, armed theft, and rapes.

Of course, blacks live in the worst neighborhoods in the most precarious of homes and most come from fractured families.  In a discourse by Fidel Castro on February 7, 2003, he acknowledged that the revolution “had not achieved the same success for eradicating the differences in social and economic status for the black population of the country.”

Seven out of ten managers of important businesses are white. In high political positions not even 10 percent of the positions are filled by blacks. If we consider the census of 2002 to be factual, then 34% of Cubans are either mulattoes or blacks.

Ethnologists and sociologists do not consider these statistics to be accurate, instead they state that the true numbers of black and mestizo citizens in Cuba ranges somewhere around the 60% mark. The numbers and the routines ring true when it comes to the police squad headed by lieutenant Delfin Carneado which operates in the late hours of the night and detains a considerable number of dark-skinned men.

It’s common. Before any operation or round-up blacks are the first suspects. That is why lieutenant Carneado does not have an answer to offer the young man with an afro who wishes to know if his arrest has something to do with prejudices. Perhaps it isn’t a racial problem. Habits, sometimes, are stronger than certain laws.

Ivan Garcia

Translated by Raul G.

A door has opened.  Slightly, but there are signs that something is moving.  The government of the Castro brothers asked for help in a very low voice.  And they decided to ask the Cuban Catholic Church.

The calculated strategy has its logic.  They had to look for a solution to the 21 years of lethal economic crisis as well as a dignified exit from the difficult internal political scene that has produced worldwide repercussions, starting with the death of the peaceful dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo, the marches of the Ladies in White, and the hunger strike of the journalist and psychologist Guillermo Fariñas.

The Castros have realized that one cannot permanently be immersed in a state of war and on various fronts at the same time.  Especially when the country urgently needs credits and investments in order to start the motor of economic productivity.  The brothers are not dumb.  If they continued buying time with patriotic discourses their roofs would come crashing down.

The economy does not understand ideology. It is a science. And it is screaming for reforms. Such reforms would serve to maintain them, or any future aspirants, in power.  Yet they took their chances with the Catholic Church which now, more than ever, is in need of credibility.

And cardinal Jaime Ortega happily accepted his role as a mediator between the Ladies in White and the government.  According to speculations, it was not an idea that was born from Ortega’s desire.  It was the Castros who served as the architects of an agreement with “those inconvenient ladies”.  When they would see them with their desire, their flowers at hand, and demanding freedom, they would set the streets of Havana on fire.

The negotiations could be a rehearsal for the future.  It’s likely that when the president Raul looks at himself in the mirror he will see the face of Jaruzelski.  And perhaps in cardinal Ortega’s role he will remind himself of Wojtyla of Krakow.

Both men want to make history.  They don’t want to be remembered as indolent and lazy people who did little to save the nation.  The government and the church are doing what they know how to do, in roles they prefer.  Important protagonists within a society in crisis.

They do not prevent the leaders from being afraid. They know that in that future that creeps up on us they will have to enter into dialogue with the internal dissidence and also with the exile.  The regime has not prepared its mediums for that option. However, sooner or later it will happen.

The first step would be to cease the escalating violent verbal attacks against those who choose to dissent.  Later, they must give the people more diversity.  Soccer in June, and beach vacations during July and August recess.

The task that awaits the General is a task of titans.  Reshaping the economy using unpopular shock methods. Stocking up the markets and improving the deplorable quality of life for the majority of the population.

And, overall, they must design a viable future.  It’s not an easy task.  For all of them it will be necessary to engage in political pacts with peace and concordance.  There is no other option left for the Castro brothers.  The role of the church as mediator is an initial strategy.

It’s true that they pay no attention to the dissidency.  But in the long run they are going to have to sit down at the same table.  The beginning of the dialogue between the government and the church could be the beginning of the end for the closed system.

Upon opening a space within society that would allow them to continue governing, the Castros are sacrificing a quota of power.  And that’s how we come to this marriage of convenience.

In sum, neither one or the other is left with much options.  The church because for 50 years it was more of an enemy than a friend to power, and their limited hopes have been reduced to just preaching in temples.  And the government because it wishes to continue running the country in the style of China or Vietnam more than that of Caracas.

Each person decides their own percentages of benefit or harm.  Many think that the government is digging its own grave by starting this transition.

I don’t believe it.  Perhaps Castro II will emerge even stronger if he triumphs in his role of “savior of the country”.

Ivan Garcia

Translated by Raul G.

It seems like a kids’ game.  Two sides.  Good guys and bad guys.  The Cuban government tries to make us look like a bunch of crooks, fools, delinquents, mercenaries, and traitors to the country.

But life is much more complex.  It has mixes.  Nothing is black and white.  A wrongful precedent is created when the president of a country intends to govern exclusively for his followers only.

Society becomes fractured.  It polarizes.  Unnecessary hate is created among citizens only because they think differently.  And that is what the Cuban regime has been doing for 51 years.

“Within the revolution everything, outside of it nothing”, said Fidel Castro before fearless intellectuals in 1961.  That has been the ruling idea that has guided those who run the country.

The Castros continue treading down a well-worn path.  Manipulating society is nothing new.  These methods were also used by Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and the rest of the satellite countries of Eastern Europe.

It’s much more comfortable to govern when you oppress those who think differently.  When you control the flow of information and when you have a press that glorifies its leader and serves as a weapon.

You can’t talk about democracy when these precepts are being violated.  You shouldn’t use that word when citizens have to ask permission to leave their country or to visit it.

It is vile to pronounce it when the doors are closed to those Cubans who dissent with the official ideology.  One is far from being humanistic or democratic when they jail people just for writing or having a different political perspective.

A government is not credible when it accuses everyone who is against it of a string of insults.  For the Castro brothers there is not a dissident, independent journalist, blogger, or human rights activist who is not a delinquent or mercenary at the service of the United States or of the European Union.

There is no single figure within the opposition that is respected.  The path of encouraging hate is a dead end street.  It will solve nothing.  The grave political and economic problems from which we suffer will not be solved in that manner.

Cuba is not going to escape the grave economic crisis from which it has suffered from for two decades by using monologues.  In fact, it will probably sink deeper.  Without an articulated and sensible dialogue we will never have a real democracy.

With the slogans and the hard-line discourse of neighborhood “tough guy”, shouting such things like “the street belongs to the revolutionaries”, and trying to prove who has more balls, we just will continue back tracking towards the worst instincts of human beings.

If what we have in Cuba during this Spring of 2010 is a participatory democracy, then there is something terribly wrong.  The strategists have lost their focus.  To find a solution for the acute problems of the island, violence is not necessary.  Not of any kind.  Not verbal, not physical.

Lots of injustices have been resolved by peaceful struggle.  Just read Gandhi.  Investigate Mandela.  Ask a Vaclav Havel.

Ivan Garcia

Photo: Hop-Frog, Flickr

Translated by Raul G.

When Cubans find themselves struggling with personal problems they usually prefer to visit a babalao so that they could toss their shells instead of confessing to a priest in the church. Catholicism has the most followers on the island. But the beliefs brought over by former African slaves of the XVI and XVII centuries also have many followers.

During recent times when Cubans became more and more disillusioned with the olive green revolution, believing became popular.

Together with Catholics and Santeros, Evangelists, Protestants, Baptists, and Jehovahs Witnesses, among others, have risen in numbers.  The Hebrew community has also experienced a boom, as well as Masonry, Spiritualism, and those ladies who toss cards and read the palms of your hands.

But in January 1998, with the visit of Pope John Paul II to Cuba, the Catholic religion regained much of its strength. In fact, it converted Santiago de Cuba’s Archbishop, Pedro Merice Estiu (1932), into the most loved and credible figure of national Catholicism.

Maria de Jesus Gonzalez, 72, is a practicing Catholic. When she remembers the speech by monsignor Meurice on January 24, 1998, she can’t help but get teary eyed.

“I had been waiting all my life to hear those words spoken by a priest.  And father Meurice spoke them in front of the Pope and of the Virgin of Charity, Cuba’s patron saint”.

The pope was received by Meurice in the plaza named after the mulatto combatant from Santiago who fought against Spanish rule- Antonio Maceo. That day the father told the pope:

“Holy Father, Cuba is a country that has an intimate calling towards solidarity, but throughout the course of its long history it has witnessed a disjointed and stranded civil society in which association and participation is restricted.  I present you with the soul of a nation that longs to reconstruct the fraternity of freedom and solidarity”.

Marcelino Linares, 57 and a militant of the communist party, did not like that speech. He considers that “Meurice took advantage of the fact that he could speak before all Cubans and the world to make some noise in the system”. The paragraph that Marcelino disliked the most was precisely the one that the people liked the most.

“In addition, I present you with a growing number of Cubans who have confused Country with only one party, a nation which has gone through a historical process which we have lived through within the last decades in which culture has embedded only one ideology. They are Cubans who refuse everything at a time without discerning. They feel rootless, they refuse everything from here and overvalue everything foreign”.

Twelve years later, many Cubans would have been happy if Pedro Meurice would have been one of the hierarchs that sat down with Raul Castro to talk for four hours on May 19.

Upon asking ten people between the ages of 35 and 60, 5 men and 5 women, why they would have been happy about this, the answer was unanimous: because in him we saw the bravest of all Cuban priests, since 1959.

In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI accepted his retirement. Since then, Archbishop Emerito inhabits the Sacred Brotherhood of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Charity in the outskirts of Santiago de Cuba.

In the farewell mass on February 18, 2007, Meurice made a calling to Catholics to work towards reconciliation and emphasized the importance of “renewing our pastoral practices…and moving away from many things that are currently happening”.  It seems like God heard him.

Ivan Garcia

Translated by Raul G.

I saw it today.  It is in black and white, has little yellow spots on it, and smells like cockroach.  I recovered a photo from my adolescence, frozen in time and already in Sepia color.  It is a portrait of 11 young men, joyful under the effects of the poor man’s drink, alcohol mixed with water, which we used to buy for 5 pesos per bottle from Giralda’s house, located on Buenaventura street.

It took place, perhaps, towards the end of 1988.  I had been demobilized from military service, and while we sat on the steps of the Vibora Institute, I celebrated the fact that I would never again have to wear that horrible and hot olive green uniform which was designed by some Russian sadist who apparently hated the tropics.  Besides forcing millions of youths to wear that horrendous garment, he also made them march with heavy steel-tipped boots which were fabricated in a factory in Minsk, in the former Soviet Union.

From that group of eleven only three remain in Cuba. The rest have all left. Damian is now an overweight nostalgic. He works in a canteen in Manhattan and, while a harsh cold sweeps through New York, every night he dreams of once again sleeping in his house on Carmen street, at the corner of Saco.

Mario resides in some corner of Germany. But he and I both know how much he really loves La Vibora, his small country, his neighborhood, and all of his people. When he has enough euros he takes a flight toward Havana to ease his troubles, drink some rum, and cry at the feet of the Jose Marti statue, in front of the Institute, in the hot Havana nights.

In the photo, Ariel Tapia was young and very thin. I remember the moments we shared as amateur independent journalists for the agency, Cuba Press, surrounded by giants of the writing world, like Raul Rivero, Ricardo Alfonso or Tania Quintero.

I can’t forget the day when Raul Rivero asked Ariel and me to cover a story. It was the trial of a dissident from the 30th of November party and we were to chat with the guy and later publish the story. While we waited for the trial to end under that falling sun, Ariel and I bought a bottle of Caney rum, sat under the shade of a horrendous Yugoslavian technology building at the Esquina de Tejas, where the Valentino theater once was, and chatted about women and baseball.

When we returned to the court, the trial had finished.  It was a true odyssey, the mother of the dissident was screaming for help at the top of her lungs out in Calzada of 10th of October and shouting at the cops. We didn’t give up. We followed the exasperated woman and managed to find out where her dissident son lived. The news came out. Like the pair of stories which we wrote about the hunger strike carried out by Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet in Tamarindo 34 street.  Biscet lived in Lawton, the neighborhood adjacent to La Vibora, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2003.

More than twenty years have passed.  Ariel now walks around Florida.  Three of the other friends are shown in the photograph also reside 90 miles from here:  Javier, David, and Frank. They watch time fly by in Miami, the second homeland of all Cubans.

There is another guy in the picture, but I forgot his name.  And I really don’t know how he ended up in Tel Aviv, Israel. They have told me that he makes a living by planting oranges in a Jaifa cooperative and has converted to Judaism.

Erick married a Danish woman and has 6 kids, an uncommon family in that very tranquil society.  As for Arturo, I have bad news.  He signed up with a drug cartel in Colombia. His body was found in the bathroom of some bar in Medellin. They had cut off his penis.

Only three of us remain on this island of material shortages and poverty.  Today, Fernando is a successful music producer who lives between the Mexican capital and his Havana. Frometa, a “jabao” (mestizo) standing at almost 7 feet who played basketball like Kareem Abdul Jabbar, is now 44 years old and is a regular at Cuban jails due to the most insignificant crimes.  As for me, I write posts for my blog titled From Havana and for the newspaper “El Mundo”.  It’s a way of keeping those ghosts of loneliness away from me.

That’s how a great majority of us have ended up living our lives in Cuba. With divided friends and families. Withering away by the heat of a slow fire, under a revolution that claimed itself to be socialist, and that years ago, many of our fathers, and even we ourselves, would have been capable of giving our lives for.

We belonged to an obedient generation.  One which no one consulted about anything with. We marched towards the tobacco fields singing hymns under the agricultural reforms of the secondary countryside schools. Bursting with patriotism we marched towards Angola or to any other lost war in the African continent.  No kidding.  All of this to glorify the name of a man who only cared about himself and his life’s work.

But all of that was already lost. And black and white photographs, like the one I found in a box, are abundant in the Cuba of 2010.  An indelible sign that our lives were lies. That all of this was a trick. A great big fraud.

Ivan Garcia

Translated by Raul G.

Cuba today is more of an island than ever before.  The discourse which took place this past Sunday, 4th of April, by the Cuban general and president, Raul Castro, has slammed the door to any anticipated reforms.

During the closing ceremony of the IX Union of Young Communists (UJC), Castro II, with his hoarse voice, guttural and worn out, returned to Cold War discourse, a tone that unmistakably resembles that of his brother Fidel.

When Raul rose to power two years ago, various “Cuba experts” predicted that an era of reforms was on the horizon.  The supposed tropical “perestroika” limited itself to changes in design. Pure make-up. A slight touch of the brush, no substance.  Cubans were allowed to rent cars and hotel rooms.  They now could own cell phones and surf the web, as long as they paid the equivalent of the minimum salary on the island.

The rest was just a war between clans.  It is a fact that the tough guys exert power with a clique of men who are loyal to their man.  And Castro II did not even remotely trust in the men who were trusted during the Fidel era.

And there was a change of furniture.  When you move the furniture around in your house you get a new look, another perspective.  But it doesn’t change the fact that you continue living under the same exact roof.  That was what the General did.  With his chess moves, he dethroned 12 ministers and a hundred lower-ranking functionaries.

He surrounded himself with his people.  He was advised by his son-in-law Jose Luis Lopez Callejas, the type who stays away from the cameras and the limelight, but actually ended up being one of his most valuable advisors in everything dealing with businesses that report in hard currency.

At his side on each foreign trip or public act within the island, one can see his grandson Alejandro, also known as the “Crab,” and of whom it is rumored he will eventually have an important role in the future of Cuba.

Mariela, the daughter, pretends to be the First Lady.  She is supposed to be the tolerant one of the family, reaching out to gays and lesbians who decide to come out of the closet.  Pouting, she asks her dad to allow homosexuals into the military.

Another one of his trusty men is the Minister of the Armed Forces (FAR), General Julio Casas Regueiro.  The Cuban military, just like that of China, has become excessively involved with businesses.  The majority of those companies that are succesful just so happen to be those that are being run by military-businessmen.

Abelardo Colome Ibarra, Furry, another of Castro II’s right hand men, is in a delicate position. The current Minister of Interior, it is whispered – on the island almost everything is rumor or speculation – is very ill. Also, he might be involved in acts of alleged corruption.

Among the key personalities in the era of Castro II is Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, Minister of Computing and Communications, now with super minister powers. He is the same one who goes to Caracas to whisper advice in the ear of Hugo Chavez, who travels to the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba, 900 kilometers from Havana, to monitor water rehabilitation works.

The economic changes that lie ahead are timid. First aid for an economy that has called for help for many years. There is talk of giving autonomy to a number of state establishments that have never worked, such as barbers, cafes and small domestic appliance repairers. They would work as cooperatives. But everything is still on the table in the hierarchy.

In this year of 2010, the death of the opponent Orlando Zapata Tamayo and the hunger strike that Guillermo Fariñas is staging have become a big fat problem for General Castro.

Much of the world openly criticizes the political inertia of the Castro brothers. The European Parliament signed a condemnation that has greatly upset the regime in Havana.

In his speech on April 4, Castro closed the wall. He hid in his shell. He said more of the same. To increase productivity, to respect disagreement and he criticized the submissive unanimity in all sectors of Cuban society.

Of course, all these disagreements are within the Revolution. For the others, dissidents, free journalists and opposition supporters, he shot them with the usual verbal shrapnel: mercenaries and traitors paid by U.S. or European imperialism.

The hardship of this Numantian policy is that they speak in the name of the people of Cuba and of ethereal ideals that do not put food on the table. General Raul Castro has had a hard job. To bring to safe harbor a leaky old boat, worn out by 51 years of hazardous travel.

Now nothing is the same. A high percentage of the population does not believe in its leaders. And does not look favorably on a course that takes the country back to polarization and the speech of the bully. And worse, nobody knows the final destination.

Iván García

(*) “To close the wall” is an expression used in Havana as in other cities. In the seventeenth century, due to the constant attacks of corsairs and pirates, the Cuban capital had to be walled. The wall was closed at 9 pm, when a cannon was fired from the fortress of El Morro-La Cabaña. More on the history of the Wall of Havana. In 1958, Nicolás Guillén, national poet, wrote a poem called The Wall, which became famous when set to music and performed by the Spanish duo Víctor Manuel and Ana Belén.

Translated by: Raul G.

At whatever time, the hustle and bustle around India square, next to Fraternity Park, in front of the National Capitol, is always constant.

It is a coming and going of people from all the provinces.  Also tourists, with their hats and their cameras.  Despite the ruins and her age (she has already turned 490 years old), Havana sill preserves her enchantment.

The Cubans, as usual, in the streets.  Taking care of things.  Each one of them dealing with their own problems.  “Struggling”, “Solving”, “Surviving”: three of the most common phrases on the island of the Castro brothers.

In the former building of the Marina Newspaper, which now serves as the headquarters of the Provincial Court, the public is much different.  Cuffed prisoners, police and jailers, lawyers and judges, witnesses and onlookers all impatiently await the commencement of the trial.

A few blocks down, where El Paseo del Prado ends, one can see those who prefer to pass the time sitting on the best spot the city has to offer, the wall of the Malecon, morning, noon and night.

Text and Photos:  Ivan Garcia

Translated by Raul G.