Category: Translator: Regina Anavy

How Have Cubans Benefited Since December 17? / Ivan Garcia

"Now you are a saint"
“Now you are a saint” (Still from the video below)

Note from TranslatingCuba.com: The video is not translated into English. The gist of message (other than what is obvious from the images) is that things in Cuba haven’t changed for ordinary people since the announcement of the reestablishment of US-Cuba relations.

Ivan Garcia, 16 October 2015 — Seated at the helm of his polished 1958 Impala convertible, Eduardo Colón, a private taxi driver, listens to Adele’s concert on his player, while he waits for the marriage of an American couple outside the Saratoga Hotel, very close to the National Capitol in the heart of Havana.

The couple arrives with relaxed tourist faces, wide-brimmed sombreros, video camera in hand, and before climbing aboard the ancient Chevrolet, they take a selfie with the car in the background. continue reading

If anyone has benefited from the more than 100,000 Americans who have visited Cuba since the December 17 thaw, there’s no doubt that private taxicab drivers are at the top of the list.

“Speaking economically, since the Day of San Lázaro* last year, things have gone better for me. Especially with the Americans. For a couple of hours’ drive around the city, they pay me up to 60 chavitos (65 CUCs, “dollars”), Eduardo pointed out.

The owners of homes for rent and private restaurants in the medium- to high-price range in the usual tourist zones in the capital are earning more money.

“I rent three rooms at 30 CUCs a night. And in 2015, of the 17 people who rented from me, 11 were from the U.S. When the bonanza begins, the infrastructure of hospitality, gastronomy and transport is going to collapse. For me I’m doing well, but I admit that the markets continue to be short on supplies and telephone calls to the U.S. are still very expensive,” said Elsa, the owner of a spacious house.

For Onilio, almost ten months after the Americans, neighbors to the north, stopped being enemy número uno, the balance of positive things is little.

“I work hard at selling illegal cigars to tourists. I notice that there are more Americans, who are cooler and who help the clandestine cigars-and-rum business. But it still isn’t very good,” said a seller in the Hotel Inglaterra vicinity.

Kirenia, a prostitute, doesn’t think that Amercian affluence has caused an increase in prices. “It’s still the same: 50 or 60 bucks for a night. If the client looks like he’s well-heeled, you can ask for a hundred. But up to now the Americans I’ve seen aren’t coming in waves to link up with whores.”

For most of the people interviewed, the scene hasn’t changed too much. “It’s more peel than potato. For those who do business downtown, where the rich foreigners are, things are going better. But for those who live far from the center of Havana, life is the same,” states the proprietor of a private bar.

Still Yasmani has noted benefits. He has a bar that offers tapas, and he rents out five rooms with a spectacular view of the Malecón for 35 CUCs a night.

“I do business with Airbnb, and I almost always have clients,” he affirms. The State hotels, mainly administered by military companies, can’t complain either. “This year we are cheek to jowl (full), comments Eusebio, a receptionist at a hostel in Old Havana.

In restaurants like Los Nardos, a joint venture between home hotels and the State at kilometer zero** in Havana, it’s almost impossible to get a reservation for dinner.

“I notice there are better opportunities. Although at the moment they haven’t fallen into my pocket. I’m still earning 10 CUCs a day, like always,” says Joel, the doorman.

Those who haven’t seen any benefit are the majority of Cubans who own nothing. “I’m still earning the same shit (550 pesos/month, around 23 dollars) as before December 17. And as far as food goes, buying it takes almost my whole salary, and when I need a bottle of cooking oil, I have to save in order to buy CUCs so I can get it in a “shopping”***,” notes Manuel, a bus mechanic.

A wide segment of the population complains about the shortage of food and the sky-high prices. “No one understands that now that we Cubans can buy food from the U.S., the markets are empty,” says Rosa, a housewife who prowls the shelves of Ultra, one of the large dollar stores in the capital.

According to a recent article by Juan Juan Almeida in Martí Noticias, in a journalistic investigation among foreign businessmen in Cuba, the Regime has a silent strategy to reduce the buying of food and merchandise in the U.S. as a way of putting pressure on the U.S. business lobby to force a more energetic campaign for repeal of the embargo.

Almost 10 months after December 17, not too many benefits are felt in Cuba. The olive-green autocracy continues without implementing a road map that would please private workers, to whom, supposedly, Obama’s measures are directed.

The official sinuous politics awakens resentment and mistrust in Cubans on the street. “Before, the Government complained that we couldn’t access the Internet because of the blockade. Now U.S. businesses offer us free Internet, and the State says that they prefer to be in charge. They are interested only in exploiting Cubans with steep prices and abusive taxes,” comments Reinier, sitting on a sidewalk under the sun on Calle 23 in Vedado, while he tries to communicate by IMO**** with his relatives in Florida.

A few meters away, Diosbel waits in a Havana Tour office to buy a ticket to Miami. “We thought that after December 17, the price of airline tickets was going to go down. The flight to Miami is as expensive as the one to Colombia. And the Government doesn’t give us any news about the ferry. They’re saying that the U.S. Post Office is going to negotiate with the Cuban Post Office. What for? Those sons of bitches only permit you to send something that weighs one and a half-kilogram, and if you go over, each kilo costs 20 CUC. The reestablishment of relations hasn’t brought anything that’s good for Cubans,” he says, annoyed.

In Havana opinions are divided. Some believe that in 2016 gaps will inexorably open up, and there will be better conditions for those Cubans who have only coffee for breakfast and who don’t receive hard currency.

Others are more pessimistic. And they’re certain that the Regime won’t move its chess pieces until the Americans lift the embargo. And if the Regime is good at something, it’s inertia.

Translator’s notes:
*One of the more popular saints in Cuba, venerated on December 17.
**The location from which distances are measured and from which you can set your odometer, usually in a capital city.
***Special stores that take only Cuban Convertible Pesos, which can be bought in exchange for Cuban Pesos; these stores carry food items not found in the Cuban Peso shops.
****Popular program for audio and video chat.

Translated by Regina Anavy

The United States Continues Opening the Door to Cubans / Ivan Garcia

Cuban woman watching Obama on TV. Source Galicia

Ivan Garcia, 10 October 2015 — Dressed in black, a young and elegant female officer from the Consular Section of the U.S. Embassy in Cuba, who didn’t want to be identified, met on October 2 with ten Cuban journalists, official and independent, to chat about the new Program of Diversity Visas for 2017.

Beginning October 1 until November 3, an open lottery will remain in effect, administered by the Department of State, which will offer permanent residence to those people who fulfill the strict requirements for qualifying.

The requirements to participate are simple: be a native of one of the eligible countries — among which Cuba is now included — and have an approved baccalaureate or a minimum of two years of work experience. continue reading

The candidates in the program are chosen randomly by computer. Registration for the 2017 Diversity Lottery is carried out only through the Electronic Diversity Visa Lottery.

Although the elegant woman didn’t know the recent statistics of Cubans who arrived in the U.S., legally or illegally (up to September 23, the rough figure was 55,000, including some 20,000 approved for family reunification and close to 34,000 who arrived illegally in the U.S. under the protection of the Cuban Adjustment Act), she indicated that this strategy is promoted by Washington and Havana in order to encourage safe, legal and orderly emigration for people who don’t have family in the U.S.

Friendly, with that innate capacity that some U.S. politicians and managers have for communicating with the media, without giving anything away and smiling at loaded questions, the officer stoically withstood a photo and video session in a salon of the Embassy, flanked by the stars and stripes and a photo of Barack Obama.

Forty-eight hours after the press conference, the news spread like wildfire   throughout Havana. In a short time, I received some twenty phone calls from close friends gathering information.

I left for Old Havana. In a narrow and dusty alley, a group of adults and young people were conversing about the new lottery. “The Americans went back to opening el bombo [The U.S. lottery] although this time it’s a global lottery,” commented Josuán, who learned about it “because now I connect to the Internet every day in the Galiano wi-fi zone.”

Raudel, a private entrepreneur without relatives in the U.S., entered his data Saturday afternoon on the registration form. “They ask for a ton of information. But it’s easy. In the ’90s, I enrolled several times in el bombo, when it was exclusively for Cubans, but I didn’t have any luck. Now we’ll see. I believe it’s a good option for those who, like me, don’t have family on the other side and aren’t so desperate that we would throw ourselves into the sea on a raft.”

Lourdes, an engineer, is waiting to fill out the form until next week. She has access to the Internet at work, but she feels “frustrated and without a future. I’m going to test my luck. It’s like playing the bolita [An illegal lottery, very popular in Cuba]. If I enter the lottery I might win; if I lose I’ll continue trying.”

According to a diplomatic source who requested anonymity, this is the first of programs that, in the future, will be offered by the U.S. Government, so that Cubans can opt for a safe emigration and obtain temporary study or work visas.

Abel, a colectivo* taxi driver, views the good news from another perspective: “Now Obama is moving the island North. It’s painful to see how most Cubans want to leave. If the emigration doors keep opening, Castro and his henchmen will be the only ones left.”

The way we’re going, Cuba will soon be empty.

*Translator’s note: Colectivos (collectives) are shared taxis following a fixed route.

Translated by Regina Anavy 

 

Camajuani in Suspense over Corruption / Juan Juan Almeida

1443142995_camajuanensesJuan Juan Almeida, 24 September 2015 — Cuba is trying to silence a national “explosion” of great intensity, which implicates officers of the Interior Ministry (MININT), the Ministry of the Armed Forces (MINFAR), the Cultural Goods Fund (a Cultural center promoting and selling art and handicrafts), the National Bank of Cuba, foreign businessmen and artisanal shoemakers in the Camajuaní municipality of Villa Clara.

According to sources inside the National Prosecutor’s office, one of those implicated was surprised overseas by the news, and in order to evade justice, prefers not to return.

Fraud, falsification, bribery, extortion, contraband, abuse of authority, illicit enrichment, tariff violation, tax evasion of the National Tax Administration and influence peddling are among the presumed crimes for more than 50 people in different training centers. continue reading

The estimated amount of bribery charges exceeds five million pesos (US$188,679) and is expected to continue being sniffed out; right now there’s an impasse in the legal process.

By decision at the highest level of Government, the affair acquired a “character of secrecy” in order to not tarnish His Holiness’s visit to the island, to not give a bad impression to possible investors, and, furthermore, because it involves several officials whose names don’t appear on the list of those implicated.

A BIT OF HISTORY

Camajuaní is a small municipality, founded in the 19th century, located in the northeast of Villa Clara, right at a crossroads and railroad lines. This easy public thoroughfare converted it into a settlement for merchants and traders.

Because of this, decades of a planned economy and “revolutionary” experiments (half revolutionary, half communist) didn’t manage to keep the entrepreneurial spirit from passing, like DNA, from generation to generation.

In Camajuaní, the footwear industry is the local engine of growth. So an important number of artisanal shoemakers are members of the Cultural Goods Fund, a State institution that has the peculiarity of permitting artisans to break the State’s monopoly on imports.

The artisans in the Fund can leave Cuba and buy raw material, machines and/or tools to use in production; they can import quantities of material from specified countries by making use of a special document called the “Importation Document;” and they can sell their products to people, businesses and/or ministries.

This may seem simple, but no: This sector of Cuban entrepreneurs also has to face the general corruption in a narrow legal framework and a widespread social prejudice. It’s very easy to offend when almost everything is prohibited.

So, faced with increasing demand, these artisans, in order to expand production, and because State procedures are so cumbersome, falsified the Importation Document.

Others, more astute, began to alter the import permit and their productive capacity by bribing Customs bosses and agents, MININT officials and important executives of the Cultural Goods Fund, who permitted them, in exchange for green bills, to change the classification “artisanal machinery” to “industrial equipment.”

A secure market. The boots bought by the Armed Forces and the Youth Labor Army normally are made by COMBELL, a depressed company that tries to guaranty a supply to the military.

But when this isn’t achieved, a practice that appears premeditated, the Armed Forces impresarios open up a bidding in which the artisans participate.

The Cuban authorities presume that these operators, now in prison, won the bidding after buttering up those in uniform with decision-making power, along with National Bank officers, who, after receiving a commission, gave preference to the Fund.

What’s bad is that the private workshops that gave a living to a good number of people, including former workers from the health industry, who before earned a laughable salary and, today, as private individuals, can earn 100, 150 and even 200 pesos daily, will have to close for lack of raw material; it’s only a question of time.

The Camajuaní municipality has a population of under 60,000 inhabitants. It’s worrisome to know that an important part of them will be left unemployed; and, logically, this will cause major problems.

Translated by Regina Anavy

El Sexto is Free! / Somos+

José Manuel Presol, 21 October 2015 — Yesterday we were thrilled to hear the news. Several media outlets have been in touch with the Cuban citizen, Danilo Maldonado Machado, and he himself confirmed it: He’s free and there are no charges!

Right now Danilo isn’t just any Cuban citizen. He’s known artistically as “El Sexto” (The Sixth), and he just spent 10 months as a prisoner. Ten months for having tried, only tried, to stage a public performance of his art, which someone considered offensive, and for which they detained and imprisoned him without charges. Ten months in a punishment cell, false promises of release and confronting injustice with the only weapon he had: a hunger strike. continue reading

Danilo, we repeat, isn’t just any Cuba citizen. He wasn’t in prison for releasing two pigs with the names Fidel and Raúl on their backs. He was in prison for defending his right of free expression. For defending my, your, our right of free expression. Everyone’s right of free expression.

But Danilo wasn’t alone. Hundreds, thousands of Cubans raised the protest inside and outside Cuba. They demanded freedom with their voices, their letters, the Internet, new technologies, with every means within reach. They got prestigious organizations like Amnesty International to join the petition for release and to name him as a prisoner of conscience.

Finally he’s free. We don’t deceive ourselves: Tomorrow he could still be detained for any reason. Also for any reason, he could be forced to leave Cuba. The tyranny continues, but there are four things we should keep in mind:

He obtained his freedom with words, formal protests, signatures by computer,  the cell phone, and he obtained it peacefully.

He obtained it through a common objective for many, very many, Cubans and, it is known, without the participation of any foreign government.

He obtained it through the strength, even though dispersed but every time more organized, of those thousands of Cubans.

For the first time we, with our struggle, have made the present Cuban Government surrender on something basic. Up to now we have obtained other surrenders: when the Mariel Boatlift crisis happened, during the Maleconazo, etc., but there always have been surrenders of the type, “Let the worms who want to leave go!” said Fidel. Now we got them to surrender, setting someone free inside Cuba, one of our brothers. They, the Marxists, know that this wasn’t a quantitative surrender; it was qualitative!

Can this be a turning point? Let’s hope so! Can this be a sign of weakness? Let’s hope so!

This won’t be the last battle, but it’s one we won. There will be many more. We’ll win some and lose some, but this shows us the path to follow: clear goals, demands through peaceful means, confrontation through words and without violence.

Let’s prepare ourselves since the battles are going to come, are coming, in days, weeks, months and decisive years. Change is nearer every time, but we must keep the words present that our companion, Joanna Columbié, reminded us of a short time ago in this same atmosphere, referring to our Proclamation of Independence on that tenth of October:

“Perhaps the blood we have to offer in this struggle isn’t physical, like that of others, but we also are ready to follow their example and obtain a triumph that, as Martí said, costs the same as all triumphs: “…blood, from the veins or from the soul.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

Holguin: Cholera and Dengue Fever Patients Kept Out of Sight of Pope / Juan Juan Almeida

Juan Juan Almeida, 31 August 2015 — For the Cuban Government, the level of job insecurity, the index of diseases (above all those provoked by the deterioration in the control of hygiene, epidemiology and health) is politically sensitive information that must be hidden or, at the very least, disguised.

For that reason, and because of the epidemiological situation that exists today on the island, all the institutions and organisms of the central administration of the State, the Party and the Government worked tirelessly to ensure that the visit of the Supreme Pontiff would be a success, and this included camouflaging that which couldn’t be exposed. continue reading

His Holiness Pope Francis helped to forge the historic rapprochement between the United States and Cuba. His pastoral visit to Havana, and even more his later travels around the island, awakened special interest in all sectors of the country.

It was, undoubtedly, a delicate moment that was calculated with the precision of a Swiss watch, so that no one, beginning with the head of the sacred Catholic Church, nor any members of the retinue accompanying him, including the foreign press and parishioners, would receive more information than what was previously determined.

The priority was to hide what was ugly and shameful for the Cuban Government’s propaganda. The alarm went off when the Government-Church Commission designed the itinerary for the papal visit.

Immediately after they knew of His Holiness’ plans, on Monday, September 21, to visit the province of Holguín, there was an urgent “flash,” and as required by the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba for disasters, the Council of Defense had a meeting, and in coordination with all the competent authorities in every corner of Holguín, ordered that an exhaustive analysis be done of the health situation in the province.

And later, armed with the evidence of colossal chaos, even more with the need to hide their own responsibility, they elaborated a plan of action with specific guidelines, not to solve the problem, but to cover up that which must not be shown.

Poverty can’t be seen when it’s generalized, but the overwhelming number of those sick with cholera and dengue in Holguín’s Vladimir Ilich Lenin General Hospital, jumped out like dynamite in the middle of hostile terrain.

Controlling that immense truth necessitated something more than whitewashing the facades of the streets through which, presumably, the Holy Father’s caravan would pass. So, not to take any chances, it was also ordered that the patients be hidden by moving them to less accessible and, of course, less visible centers.

It’s been approximately a month since the dengue patients have been returned, without the required antiseptic conditions, to the poorly adapted rooms in the province’s nursing school, and to the classrooms of the ancient school for social workers.

For their part, those infected with cholera found a “new hospital bed” in one of the rooms in the old renal building, in equally bad condition, located next to the surgical clinic.

It’s a Hippocratic cataclysm and an extravagance of governmental hypocrisy; nonetheless, it’s good to know that, miraculously, in none of the cases has the relocation of patients been implicated in the elimination or loss of their records; and, according to information coming from overseas, the provincial health department’s data base from last Wednesday reports a discreet decrease in the population hospitalized for cholera and dengue in Holguín.

Luck or disinformation? I don’t know, because I don’t believe the Cuban Government even when it’s telling the truth.

Translated by Regina Anavy

Something Has to be Done / Fernando Damaso

Fernando Damaso, 16 October 2015 — Some governments declare that they are fighting and defeating the fundamentalists of the so-called Islamic State, but the facts seem to negate their words: The fundamentalists are expanding their territory, expelling the inhabitants, committing horrendous crimes, destroying architectural, religious and artistic jewels, which form part of humanity’s heritage, raping and enslaving women, girls and boys, and committing many more atrocities in an interminable orgy of blood and terror, in the supposed name of religion. continue reading

Now Russia, together with Syria, Iran and other Arab countries, is carrying out a crusade to exterminate them and re-establish peace and coexistence in the affected regions. It’s not easy to fight against an irregular army, especially if it’s made up of extremist fanatics coming from many parts of the world. Russia, when it was part of the now-extinct Soviet Union, in Afghanistan, and the United States in Iraq and also in Afghanistan, have bitter memories of their experiences.

No one doubts that we need to liquidate the Islamic State because of the present danger it represents, and for what it would mean for the world if it triumphed, established itself, and consolidated: No citizen in any country would be secure, nor live peacefully, before their rampant acts of terrorism.

What’s important is to do it well, with the effective participation of the largest number of states possible. Every government must put aside its particular interests of trying to obtain political and economic advantages or conquering zones of influence, because the Islamic State is the enemy of all of them.

Hopefully the definitive defeat will be accomplished for the good of humanity, with the least possible number of casualties.

Translated by Regina Anavy

A New Treaty Between Cuba and the U.S. for the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base / Juan Juan Almeida

Juan Juan Almeida, 3 August 2015 — In redundant speeches, more rhetorical than combative, the Cuban Government has requested — among other things — the return of the territory where the Guantánamo Naval Base is located.

But given present circumstances, since Washington and Havana have decided to stop being best enemies to become respectful neighbors, it’s worth asking if the U.S., by delivering that territory, would lose control of the zone and its regional influence.

History tells us the Naval Base was established in 1898, when the military occupation of the U.S. on the Island took place, after defeating Spain in what many of us know as the Hispano-Cuban-American War. continue reading

Later, the signature of the first President of the Republic of Cuba, Tomás Estrada Palma, on February 23, 1903, granted that unusual and controversial condition of perpetual lease, which also was ratified with the rubric of the Treaty of Relations on May 29, 1934.

It originated as a historic anomaly and, today, now that without Tylenol even the Cold War caught a cold, the Base appears to lose its military meaning. Some need an unequaled gesture of neighborly coexistence: that the Pentagon return to MINFAR the 117.6 sq. km. of territory in dispute and, in passing, savor the opportunity to close the center of detention and its so-questionable reputation.

Seen like that it sounds convincing. However, everything is not as it seems. The moon was smooth and perfect until Galileo appeared. He modified the telescope and let us see a lunar surface chock-full of dark craters and unsuspected irregularities.

Yes, without doubt, for Cuba to recover this space, which geographically forms part of its “Sovereign State,” could mean a political victory that would convert Guantánamo into one of the most attractive national destinations for researchers, film crews and tourists. But the Cuban Government won’t stop at that. Lacking naval resources and potential cash to exploit the installations of a base that includes two airfields, docks, jetties and moorings with the capacity for different types of cargo ships, it would have to solicit bids, and that would bring a pack of wolves.

Sufficient indications reveal the marked interest of Russia and China for grabbing the Caribbean, and experts on terrorism agree on the authentic danger of certain groups — radical Islamists — known for spreading panic in the Middle East, who look for means and ways to extend their regional religiosity into this zone in order to bring it closer to the U.S.

For that reason and much more, I believe that today, strategically speaking, the Guantánamo Naval Base has special importance and should be immovable. But circumstances have changed, and the conditions of the contract could also change. Since July 20 and the reopening of embassies, there is no political, diplomatic or military argument to impede Washington and Havana from conversing and remaking a treaty, beneficial for both (and  for the region), through which the U.S. delivers the occupied territory, and Cuba, with new contractual criteria, would permit the North American soldiers to continue operating the base.

Which is a long way of saying that, by reaching an agreement, the U.S. could augment its influence in the region; Russia, the terrorists and China would remain outside this hemisphere. The internal Cuban emigration would change direction if Guantánamo, as a province, increased its GDP with the rent that today it neither charges nor enjoys, and the up-to-today forgotten municipalities of Caimanera and Boquerón would immediately be converted into the aurora borealis of Cuban entrepreneurship.

I like that idea; I don’t know about you.

Translated by Regina Anavy

San Antonio de los Banos in Uncertainty / Alexander Perez Rodriguez, Somos+

SOMOS+, Alexander Perez Rodriguez, 24 September 2015 — With the new relations between the U.S. and Cuba the hopes of many went skyrocketing in an alarming manner, principally in the Diaspora, where people dream of returning to their country and prospering there in a dignified way. I already imagined my city as totally changed, with new streets, shops full of everything a human being needs and no ration book to restrict them.

Well, finally the moment arrived to go and visit my family on the island. I remember that on this occasion I exited the airport earlier than usual. I only had to enter Calzada de Boyeros to have all my illusions fall away. Everything, absolutely everything, remained the same or worse than when I was there a year ago. continue reading

I left for the outskirts of Santiago de la Vegas Carretera Rincón to go to the municipality where I was born. Those who know San Antonio de los Baños will share with me that it’s a very unusual and attractive town. At least it always was.

This municipality is known as the City of Humor, and those who live there are known as ariguanabenses.*  And we are very funny and talkative. We laugh at everything and everybody. Like, for example, that day when we went to sleep in Havana and woke up in Artemisa, ha ha ha, I’m still laughing about it, ha ha ha.**

We never knew when this change was discussed and who approved it. However, there have been many events in these last few years that have brought the town a pure disaster and wiped the smiles off our faces.

We still remember and bleed for the loss of the 14 young people who left the coast of Mariel to go to the U.S., and their precarious boat sank. This grief today is kept alongside a rage that is on the point of exploding.

However, the events of these last months have put San Antonio in a desperate situation. News like the Computer Science University’s passing into the hands of the Minister of Education has made many of the workers who were from my town believe that things are hopeless. The same thing will happen with the Eduardo Abela School of Art, since the level of deterioration in less than five years is incredible. The Iván Portuondo Hospital is also in critical condition.

When I asked why my town was so deteriorated, they sat me down and explained: Only two months ago, all or almost all of the leaders of my town had fallen victim to an investigation, presumably for embezzling funds.

But in spite of having a new municipal directorship, people don’t seem to have accepted it, at least in fact.

Because no one has given a concrete explanation of what happened. It’s not possible that this not be published by the State agencies when it’s an issue for a whole town. The result: Today San Antonio is a town where nothing works.

Everyone whispers about the problem. I remember when I arrived at the physical planning office to manage my house and they told me the paperwork wasn’t there because the Director’s signature was missing.

I asked where I could find her and, very mysteriously, they informed me that a doctor confirmed she had a psychiatric problem. It seems she was embarrassed about it, and thus all the State agencies in my town couldn’t function.

There’s a lot of sadness and indignation because that president, Tomy, was respected and admired by the town. Everyone concurred that whether or not she ripped things off, in any event this had been happening their whole lives. And everyone agreed that the only time the streets were fixed was under her leadership. When there was a lack of water, she found a solution. She paid attention to many people who were not important and helped them. That’s the Tomy the people remember.

The culprits appear to be others: the upper Government, those who have disengaged from Cuba for more than 55 years, and no one has audited them and called them out for everything the people have suffered.

It’s sad to see the condition of my town. Nothing pretty remains. It’s ugly, very deteriorated and the schools are in the worst condition; the hospital, the hotel, the Cecropia trees, the shops and the bars are very dirty. My god, how it hurts to see my town in this condition.

But I know and am certain that one day, not far in the future, my town will look different. It will return to its youth. Now, we can’t make the many who have perished at sea fleeing a lack of opportunity return. But we can guarantee a more just and equal society where young people don’t have to flee as if they were guilty.

We are more, much more, those of us who every day struggle for this dream and know that it will come true, and soon.

Translator’s notes:
*Those who live by the Ariguanabo River, which runs through San Antonio de los Baños.
**A political-administrative redistribution in Cuba created two provinces for San Antonio de los Baños, and Habana Province became Artemisa Province.

Translated by Regina Anavy

What Cuban Doctors are Thinking / Somos+, Kaned Garrido

Somos+, Kaned Garrido, 21 September 2015 — Cuban doctors have sustained everybody’s health for decades. The reason Cuban medicine has such prestige is because of the incredible effort of its professionals. The same as Cuban teachers, doctors earn very little. They spend years and years at their careers, and later in service to the country.

That’s the reason we have quality education and healthcare in Cuba. Not by some magical social politics nor because we want to take money away from the rich, like Robin Hood. It’s because of dedicated professionals and the rest of the Cuban workers who finance the expenses, all with pathetic salaries.

But it’s not easy work to sustain such a good health service in a country with such an unproductive economy. This burden ends up falling on the shoulders of Cuban doctors. Some choose the path of the missions in the Exterior to earn a little more. Others prefer to leave the island. So we need to know what they think.

These are the opinions of doctors who presently work in Cuba.

Doctor R. M. earns 1100 pesos (44 CUC, or about US$50) a month. Her specialty is general medicine. She describes her work conditions like this:  continue reading

Million-dollar Robbery at the Cienfuegos Refinery / Juan Juan Almeida

Juan Juan Almeida, 24 August 2015 — More than 500 barrels of fuel disappear daily from the terminals or storage tanks of the Camilo Cienfuegos refinery, located in the province of Cienfuegos on the south-central part of the island.

The theft, in addition to being really ingenious, has an organization that shows even seasonal patterns, revealing that there are fewer robberies in summer than in winter.

The Cienfuegos industrial enclave, after being shut down in 1995 and later materializing in the ALBA accords, with a remodeling and modernization project that cost over $83 million, reopened its doors in October 2007, as part of a large, mixed binational business between Cuba and Venezuela. However, with a processing capacity of over 8,000 barrels a day, the thefts are crippling and, let’s say it, frightening. continue reading

The authorities say that the Cienfuegos Polo Petrochemical project continues being a priority for both Governments, that they are consolidating their methods and doing everything possible to lower the statistics for fuel theft that continue to emerge. It’s known that part of the leakage occurs in “vampire operations,” which are nothing more than premeditated perforations in the pipes, where farmers clandestinely take small quantities of diesel for local farming activities and/or private provincial transport.

But those filterings are minimal and controlled by a systematic cross-checking of plant security, an efficient anti-theft offensive in conjunction with the national police.

The more important, apocalyptic, robbery, which doesn’t seem to interest any authority nor be suspected of being committed by a criminal with a Robin Hood complex, and whose distribution is the result of misdeeds and illegal gains at the service of the community, is centered on industrial quantities of refined gasoline being taken out of the refinery.

With the same notoriety as a polar bear hibernating in a Holguín park, “without anyone seeing anything,” hundreds of daily barrels of gasoline are packed in waterproof bags that normally are used for industrial waste or to guarantee the organoleptic stability of specified products.

There’s nothing discrete about it. The packages continue to mock the sophisticated security system, and they hop, like lice on the heads of babies, until they fall into the channel that flows into the Bay of Jagua.

Gasoline has a less specific weight than water; the packages float and the tide finishes the work. Of course some bags break, and the spill becomes a contaminant that directly affects the ecological equilibrium of the zone. But that, it appears, isn’t important either.

What’s interesting, or at least surprising for an illegal traffic impossible of being executed by a common criminal without having help is that, as in a Spartan task of extraordinary implications, it’s the efficient members of the border troops who finally pick up the floating bundles on the sea.

Who receives so much stolen gasoline? I don’t know; I couldn’t find out, and the more I asked, the more no one wanted to answer. Only one informed person told me:

“It neither returns to the refinery, nor is it lost in the black market.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

The Campaign to Have a Plebiscite for Freedom in Cuba Begins

Maurice Ferré: The solution for Cuba and Puerto Rico: plebiscites.

From El Nuevo Herald, August 15, 2015 / Reprinted from Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo’s blog

Although both were the booty of war, the results for Cuba and Puerto Rico were different in the Treaty of Paris (1898) at the end of the Spanish-American War.

The Republic of Cuba was established in 1903. As a republic, Cuba prospered for 37 years. With the Constitution of 1940, eliminating the despicable Platt Amendment, Cuba advanced. But by 1959 Cuba was already a corrupt country. After 55 years of Castro-communism, Cuba went from being one of the most prosperous countries in Latin America to place itself, currently, among the poorest. continue reading

Puerto Rico did better. Washington cultivated Puerto Rico as a military base, guarding the Panama Canal. In 1917, the U.S. Congress unilaterally gave U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans. In 1922 the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, William Howard Taft (before being President of the U.S.), presented the majority opinion in the last Insular Case (about the relationship between the U.S. and Puerto Rico), Balzac v. Porto Rico, concluding that although Puerto Ricans were U.S. citizens, they didn’t have all the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution. Puerto Rico would continue “belonging to the United States but not being part of the United States.”* This infamy of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1922 is still alive in 2015.

In 1952, the North American Congress conceded autonomy to Puerto Rico in local matters, creating the Associated Free State (AFS). In 62 years of self-governing with bad judgments by its governors and responsible financial counselors and with lucrative contracts for friends of the government in attendance, Puerto Rico had an external debt of $73 billion, more than the annual GDP of the island. On August 1, the island, for the first time, failed to comply with a Wall Street bank debt. As a result of the precarious financial situation, Wall Street Hedge Funds and vulture investors bought up Puerto Rico’s junk bonds. Puerto Rico fell into the hands of the “savage capitalists” that Pope Francis has criticized so much.

The President of the United States, Barack Obama, who insists on the opening with Cuba, ignores Puerto Rico’s fatal condition. The North American Congress, presently in the hands of the Republicans, insists that the Cuban political system be modified to one that establishes the consent of the governed, but ignores that in an internal plebiscite in 2012, Puerto Rico, with 78 per cent participation, voted 54 percent to not consent to the system of government presently alive on the island, the AFS.

Among Cuba’s dissidents, Rosa María Payá, daughter of the fallen martyr, Oswaldo Payá-Sardiñas, has created a new opposition entity called “Cuba Decides,” which has numerous followers on the island. Payá, with her group, attended an important meeting of Cuban dissidence in San Juan: First National Cuban Meeting, which met on August 11, 12 and 13.

Cuba Decides presented, in Puerto Rico, a continuation of Oswaldo Payá’s patriotic vision: a plebiscite for Cuba. The questions, although not finalized, ironically are similar to the active questions in Puerto Rico: consent of the governed and the preferred form of government on the island.

Cuba is a sovereign nation where its citizens, internally, don’t have individual liberties.

For its part, Puerto Rico doesn’t enjoy sovereignty, since it’s an unincorporated territory of the United States, whose citizens are governed under the plenary powers of the U.S. Congress under its territorial clause. But Puerto Ricans who reside on the island do enjoy individual liberty.

In order to resolve these incongruencies with the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and the U.S. Constitution, in the case of Puerto Rico separate plebiscites should be performed. Both plebiscites should entail compliance with conditions, previously agreed upon by the respective governments.

In the case of Puerto Rico, President Obama has recommended and the U.S. Congress has accepted an appropriation of $2.5 million to “educate” voters on the alternative conditions of the plebiscite. Because of the results of the 2012 island plebiscite, in which 61 percent chose federated statehood as a political status, the question of the new plebiscite would simply be: Statehood, yes or no?

The questions for the Cuban process are very complex because they require acceptance by the Government of a future plebiscite in Cuba, without the presence of the Castros.

Cuban exiles and dissidents on the island, some of whom reunited this week in San Juan, should carefully study Rosa María Payá’s presentation and persistently demand of the Cuban Government a plebiscite that determines the consent of the Cuban people. Then Cuban citizens will decide if they want a socialist government or a democratic, pluralist republic and a free market.

Declaration of San Juan

The text of the declaration can be found in English here, along with the list of signatories.

*Puerto Rico was not incorporated into the Union.

Translated by Regina Anavy

Alarming And Strange Increase In Illness Among Cuban Colleagues In Venezuela / Juan Juan Almeida

“Outbreaks of illness increase and official silence persists.” (YA!@Ya_Venezuela)

Juan Juan Almeida, 11 August 2015 — The suspicious increase in certain inopportune illnesses is now the most sensitive factor for the normal development of the Cuban medical mission in Venezuela.

During the present year, and especially in these last weeks, an alarming and strange increase has been reported in the number of Cubans who get sick while fulfilling their “internationalist” service.

Undisclosed official data reveal that up to week 28 of 2015, there have been 514 cases of Cubans affected by respiratory infections, mainly caused by outbreaks of H3N2 influenza, Rinovirus, Parainfluenza and Metapneumovirus. The states with the highest rate of those affected are the Distrito Capital, Barinas, Monagas, Falcón, Sucre, Nueva Esparta, Mérida, Trujillo, Vargas, Carabobo, Bolívar, Yaracuy, Amazonas, Cojedes and Lara. continue reading

It’s equally noticeable that by the end of week 29, also this year, there were already 33 new cases of dengue fever reported versus 33 in the previous week, bringing to more than 900 the total figure of those affected since January. And much more curious is that during the same time period, 17,391 Cubans have been under quarantine; of these, 12,870 have been in contact with dengue fever, suspected of having contracted Chikungunya fever and other undiagnosed fevers, while 4,184 colleagues were under watch for cholera.

The Party ideologues and the paranoiacs of MINIT do not hold cards without playing them and already have organized a whole novel of pathological persecution. They are taking advantage of the occasion to implement the usual model of fear, blaming such an anomalous situation on the premeditated undercover actions of their everlasting and eternal enemy, the CIA.

In spite of this melodrama, the reality is worrisome. Ever more so when, coincidentally, in the States of Aragua, Carabobo, Zulia, Distrito Capital and Cojedes during the same week, 90 nurses, 23 doctors, 29 laboratory technicians and 20 dentists, through negligence and/or bad manipulation of needles, scalpels and biological waste, suffered what are defined as “occupational accidents through exposure to patients’ blood and bodily fluids,” contaminating themselves with infections that are sometimes diagnosed and sometimes unknown.

The Venezuela medical mission is an important bulwark for Cuban propaganda, and the Cuban authorities, in addition to losing credibility, aren’t acknowledging a failure in this field. Then, in the face of so much going wrong, they developed in Havana in record time a detailed plan that they took to every head of the mission in the different Venezuelan states: a document of alert entitled “Epidemiological Update,” from which I took all these data.

The text orders the reprogramming of biosecurity courses among staff and requires all personnel (doctors, nurses, laboratory assistants, dentists, podiatrists, etc.) to pay special attention to secure methods in treating patients, as well as directing them to maintain constant communication and interchange with the new epidemiology monitoring centers.

In the Cuban health system, like the war in Angola, the casualties aren’t counted; the only thing that matters is victory.

Translated by Regina Anavy

Twenty-One Years After the Maleconazo* / Somos+, Elizabeth Cruz

The Maleconazo. Photo: Karl Poort, 5 August 1994

Somos+, Elizabeth Cruz, 5 August 2015 — We Cubans are chatty, talkative and protagonists of everything whether it’s for good or for bad. Recently arrived in Miami, I heard someone say that we’re like crabs in a pail: when one tries to escape, another one pulls it back to the bottom without needing a lid. The analogy seemed so ingenious to me that, for a long time, it was enough to confuse me about our essence.

In reality, the vast majority of Cubans are noble, brave and full of solidarity, and there are innumerable examples of this. Why delve into despair? Who benefits from our division and mistrust?

Today it’s been more than two decades since the Maleconazo took place. I don’t know if you remember, but in my memory I’m in my apartment facing the Malecón and there is a party feeling. Down the streets comes a lot of excited activity, which at first we confuse with some official act, one of the many that go by unnoticed, even for those who participate. continue reading

From the propped-up balcony, it didn’t take long for us to hear the shouts of “Freedom.” A good neighbor pointed out the little boat from Regla that, facing the Morro, was trying to escape. With binoculars I managed to see it threatened by two Coast Guard boats, and this time they didn’t dare carry out the order to sink it. I like to think that they put on the brakes because of the spontaneous protests. From my roof-top, stones were flying, and the police shot in the air, so that the adults protected us kids. And the fact was that before Fidel made his presence known, now more members of State Security occupied my balcony than members of my family.

The Maleconazo was a popular expression of rebellion, solidarity and dissatisfaction, which didn’t stop with the arrival of civilian militias and Fidel. It reached its conclusion in the so-called crisis of the rafters, where the vote was exercised with rafts. If free and plural elections had existed in our country, neither the violence experienced in those streets nor the loss of the rafters’ lives would have been necessary.

Although I believe firmly in peaceful ways to participate in political activism, what happened shows me that we Cubans aren’t in any way like crabs, but rather are ready to demand what we deserve.

The siege against any political alternative provoked an explosion of this type, disorganized and violent. But it’s elementary that the means and disposition exist so that we Cubans can present different proposals. We should recognize plurality, minimize slogans, flight and blows, and allow dialogue to be the road to keeping peace in our streets, but happily, knowing that the country marches toward prosperity.

*On August 5, 1994 there was a spontaneous uprising in Havana, as Cubans poured into the street along the Malecón and chanted “Freedom.” The demonstrators were dispersed after a few hours by Cuban State Security and police. This event is remembered around the world as “Cuban Resistance Day.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

 

Angel Santiesteban: Most of our people pretend

Disoriented in time like all ex-prisoners, Ángel Santiesteban brings with him a thousand prison demons.

Interview with Ángel Santiesteban after his conditional release – Cuba 2015.

Havana, Cuba, Augusto César San Martín —  The writer Ángel Santiesteban Prats suffers with every word he writes. “I classify my work as social,” he declares in an interview given to Cubanet. “It’s always about the environment that surrounds the Cuban,” he adds.

And “suffering” is the best word to describe a people numb with fear, according to the writer who won the Short Story Prize from the National Union of Artists and Writers in Cuba (UNEAC).

“Most of our people pretend; they hope that this will pass and that they don’t encounter that wall. They don’t brave any consequences they might receive for confronting the dictatorship,” he expressed. continue reading

Named by Reporters Without Borders as one of the 100 Information Heroes in 2014, Santiesteban was released from prison under a cautionary measure that can reverse his current limited freedom.

The author of several books of short stories, he received the Franz Kafka Novels of the Drawer Prize for his novel, “The Summer When God Was Sleeping,” where he recounts highlights that mark Cuban society: the participation of Cubans in the war in Africa, prison and the rafters.

Perhaps this last is a reckoning with his past for the 14 months he remained a prisoner at the age of 17, accused of conspiracy for saying goodbye, on the coast, to the family that failed as rafters.

He confessed to Cubanet that he carries fears with him in order to defend his ideas. They are in his blog, The Children That Nobody Wanted, and in the fear of dragging his family along when he’s repressed by the police.

He states that the two and one-half years in prison made him grow as a writer, a human being, and revealed to him the courage of Cuban freemasonry, to which he belongs.

His memory for the offenses he received has the same power as his disposition to reconcile with his adversaries. He suggested that I invite them to a rapprochement, even though conciliation appears difficult.

Disoriented in time like every ex-prisoner, he brings with him a thousand prison demons that will sleep with him for the rest of his days. Perhaps he doesn’t know that they’ll be persistent companions, but he is convinced that they are there, watching over his spiritual damage on the orders of those who imprisoned him.

The writer describes death threats by the police, arrests, insults, psychological damage to his family and imprisonment – a scenario that could well accommodate negative feelings. But in the hour that we share in one of the offices of the Great Masonic Temple, Ángel Santiesteban Prats doesn’t show the least hint of rancor.

Published in Cubanet.

Translated by Regina Anavy