Translating Cuba

The right not to be subjected to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or penalties should be addressed in several ways in the context of HIV in Cuba, for example in the treatment of prisoners who are sick.

The penalty of imprisonment should not provoke the loss of those rights or of dignity. In particular, the State, through the penal authorities, has the duty to care for prisoners. This implies the duty to protect the rights, life and health of all people in their custody.

Denying prisoners access to information, education and means of prevention (disinfectants, condoms and sterile injecting equipment) with respect to HIV / AIDS, voluntary testing and counseling, confidentiality and health care to HIV/AIDS and the ability to participate.

The National Directorate of Prisons in Cuba has recognized a total of six prisons for inmates with HIV/AIDS. Prisons that do not differentiate between the treatment of healthy prisoners and the prison population affected by this disease.

Inmates who commit dangerous acts, such as rape and sexual violence should be punished regardless of their HIV/AIDS status. There is no reason for the health or security authorities to justify mandatory HIV testing or to refuse prisoners living with HIV the chance to perform all the activities available to the rest of the prison population. The only justification for segregation of people living with HIV in the prison population would be the preservation of their own health.

The Cuban state should consider that prisoners with a terminal illness, including AIDS, be given early release and given proper treatment outside prison.

https://www.ligacubanacontraelsida.com

March 19 2012

Pedro Valerino Acosta, 28, son of Pedro and Corina, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for killing Humberto Gonzalaz Otano, a jeweler in the neighborhood of San Miguel del Padron in the capital, a process that also resulted in sentences for 5 other people.

He had no criminal record, but he didn’t participate in the activities called by the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. His neighbors “reject him for his maladjusted conduct,” said the judges.

According to the Havana Court, the existing proofs against him “are sufficient to name him as the intellectual author of these events.” In its sentence it affirmed that he sold the idea of burglarizing the goldsmith’s house, without specifying how, to the rest of the accused.

Valerino Acosta admitted that he put two acquaintances in the neighborhood in contact with the jeweler in San Miguel, who bought clothes and exchanged US dollars for convertible pesos.

The police say they all proposed to rob the place and the court that they participated in the meetings to perfect the plan, circumstances denied by the rest of those punished in court. According to the judges, the declarations of the accused vary, because of the bonds of friendship that untie them and because they stated in the same prison during their pre-trial detention.

However, recognizing that the declaration of the co-defendants was not proved, the court came to the conviction of his guilt, because along with Eduardo Serna, one of the witnesses who spoke in court, they visited the jeweler’s house. Also there was a relationship with the rest of the accused because of the ties of friendship and living the same neighborhood.

Soltero, with a 9th grade education and unemployed, Valerino Acosta is described by the judges as a tough guy who shows off shouting obscene words. “He frequently disturbs the peace and associates with anti-social elements, and has been an object of interest for the operative organs of the Ministry of the Interior,” they affirmed,

The instructor/investigator in the case, Capitán Yoelkis Céspedes Ramos,who according to the court showed the masterly manner in which the investigation was carried out, never explained why Serna was discarded as a suspect, if, like Valerino Acosta, he knew most of the accused and lived in the same neighborhood.

According to the families of the accused, Eduardo was not charged because a member of his family belongs to the Havana Territory Division of Investigations, a military arm in charge of investigating the case.

In Cuba, we are equal under the law, but having friends, or a family member with a position, or simply being well-off economically, can make the difference. Worse luck for Pedro Valerino Acosta, son of Pedro and Corina, who has no one to protect him.

April 4 2012

The decor of the interrogation rooms was antediluvian, pure Soviet-style political propaganda, with quotes from Fidel Castro stuck to his early icons of the Revolution: the assault on the Moncada Barracks, the landing of the Granma yacht, Che Guevara’s arm in a sling, the wide-brimmed hat of the late Commander Camilo.

The dungeon looked newly renovated, with a certain look of having been straightened up by me, which rendered the neatness in terrifying detail. I felt an inconsolable loneliness in that basement of bars and colossal locks. I had never been imprisoned, I have no criminal record. In fact, this time I was hunted like a wild animal in the street. Without criminal charges against me. Without identification from the commando that kidnapped me (they never told my family or friends). Without legal documents for the arrest, seizure of property, and detention for two days: two days of Pope Benedict XVI in Havana, in a parallel installation of bliss and barbarism (Kafka 100% flush with the Caribbean Sea).

On the morning of Tuesday 29 March, on the eve of the Pope’s Mass at the Plaza of the Revolution, the Cuban capital awoke unhinged by a flood of officers in uniform or civilian clothes. They coagulated traffic. They coerced and captured countless independent journalists, human rights activists, political opponents (as well as beggars and unlicensed vendors). They did so right in the face of the international press correspondents, all concentrated on the altar of Joseph Ratzinger, or perhaps in the facial reactions of President Raul Castro before every subtlety of the papal homily.

From a few days ago, the State telephone companies — ETECSA CUBACEL — were complicit in the operation unofficially called “Vow of Silence” and blocked, without any technical reason, thousands of their users’ lines, without notice or right to compensation. They also cut all the very limited internet service, which in Cuba is the privilege of foreigners and a certain caste of officials.

From the beginning, I stopped eating and drinking water. Nor did I responded too much to the personal provocations of an attorney for State Security, like a character out of the film Minority Report, he wanted to buy time until the Pope took off for the Vatican, charging me with the words, without requiring evidence, “subversive activity” and “public scandal” with “preventative character.” Apparently, H.G. Wells’ time machine Wells retains all its functions intact in the Cold War Museum of Cuban Counterintelligence (or perhaps should be renamed the Cuban Countercitizenry).

Only one small battery radio, a gadget discontinued at the time of Cuban socialism, kept me connected to the world beyond our modern catacombs (the police station is across from the Regla cemetery). So I kept count of the passing hours (it was the world’s most endless night). Thus, already with symptoms of muscle weakness and lack of glucose in the brain, I finally heard the chorus of the only liturgical Mass kidnapped in the history of Catholicism.

It was a sad theater crammed with atheists workers, inspired unions more Stalinist than Marxist-Leninist, not to mention security personnel disguised as Red Cross stretcher-bearers or, who knows, as altar boys. Not even the parishes could choose freely who would attend and who is not among their faithful, as there were “black lists” with names that were promptly thrown under the official buses, which were the gateway to the Plaza of the Revolution: the tribune so often changed into a tribunal, where the blind masses and the Maximum Leader (excommunicated by Rome decades ago) have clamored hysterically for “Death to the traitors.”

When the Mass of His Holiness Benedict XVI seemed it would never end, I knelt instinctively and prayed for release from my cell. Not to God, but to the man Joseph Ratzinger in person. I asked him to abbreviate the stages of his rhetoric, to skip the Eucharistic formalities, and not to delay over the diplomatic greetings between the Catholic and Communist hierarchies, that would not repay the bullying of the Cuban Cardinal’s smile, that the Popemobile leave at top speed from the altar itself directly to Havana International Airport, so as not to commit heresy, I prayed that no Pope ever again accept an invitation to repress the poor people of this or any other country-prison.

This morning I had invited some friends to watch the Mass at the Plaza on television, and afterwards to talk. The last call I got yesterday evening was from my friend Agustin, before the political police stopped him, was to tell me that he had talked with Felix, the pastor of the beautiful Baptist Church, and that he had let him know that the whole area were I live would be closed off to access, and we would see each other after the whole thing was over.

I don’t remember seeing such a display of control by the government. Nor seen it look as ugly as in these days when they march and shout in the same plaza where the government celebrations are held. Everything is closed, Boyeros Avenue is so quiet since yesterday evening. Then in the morning, from afar, some people passed by and I compared it with the days of their Revolutionary marches when, at dawn, that would gather around the Plaza. We mustn’t forget that the Pope will officiate the Mass in front of a few believers and a multitude of paramilitaries.

First we notices that Ismael Diego disappeared, he’d gone out to look for cigarettes and was detained as on another occasion. Afterwards we knew he’s gone looking for Agustin. Later Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo and his girlfriend, they were also detained at some station. None were able to call their family or friends, we still don’t know where they’ve taken anyone.

The Vatican knows of these abuses of the dictatorship. We are treated like leaves, like stones, like animals, people without rights.

The dictatorship of “the good” has woken up to congratulations. Everything went well, the Pope behaved very well, he is not a dissident Pope. Somehow he’s awarded an ecclesiastical license to the regime to repress. They can’t even prove we wanted to go to the Plaza where this disastrous marriage was celebrated.

But the leitmotif had been announced with the Cardinal’s order to evict the protestors from the Cathedral, this will be the color of the Pope’s visit. We don’t matter, humans don’t matter, nor do Christians, what matters is the Doctrine, what matters are the negotiations that exclude these mundane sinners who want to be free and need Cuba to open itslef to the world and the world to open itself to Cuba. Agustin, my friend is a prisoner, Ismael Diego,Orlando Luis and his girlfriend, and so many others whom we will be finding out about because the cell phones were cut to block communication.

April 3 2012

Os Gêmeos

Esteemed visitors:

In the previous post, “Scorn for Prices,” the first paragraph did not show up on the published post. With this omission, the necessary introduction and its integral clarity were lost. I hope you will forgive this inconvenience, which is the fruit — in part — of the difficulties we Cubans have in accessing the internet and the conditions in which we do this work.

Due to the very little time on-line we have (and the very slow dial-up speed) I have been unable until today to amend the piece and offer my apologies. Thank you for your generosity and patience.

April 5 2012

I spoke with Agustin’s sister. She doesn’t know yet where they have been taken. The detainees right to a telephone call was not honored by the Cuban authorities. We know that they took them: the political police, because Augustin was sleeping in his sister’s house.

If they’d taken him from his “tinajón” where he lives alone we’d know less about it. Like the case of Ismael, who just went out in slippers to buy cigarettes and his mother and girlfriend haven’t heard anything. Or Ciro, from Porno para Ricardo, they abducted him when he was crossing the street. Of Orlando Luis we still know nothing. Because they disconnected our cellphones we aren’t able to know how many are in trouble now.

The State, on this visit of the Pope, has boasted of its power to cause unhappiness to those who are not soldiers, nor do I believe the soldiers are very happy. They are terrified of the “people,” of the citizens, because the name “people” — pueblo — is the one they have given them.

The police don’t think, if they can’t convince you, intimidate you, try to conquer you as if there were no natural ethics, innate to human being, that prohibit their behaving as they do. Someone, we can guess who its been, has given the order to kidnap, detain, imprison, while the Successor to Peter is in Cuba. We all wanted to leave. The Pope washed his hands of it, it’s enough to proclaim the Gospel, to give a sermon that works for everyone.

And I remember that Christ in the Gospels, independent of speaking of salvation for the whole world, judges, discriminates, constantly signals. So much pain, anger, have made me resort to Teresa de Avila once again, Trying to make sense of it all.

The Pope has proclaimed the Gospel of Freedom in a Plaza lying. It was another May Day, except for the few orthodox Catholic laity of this society, and the nuns and priests. I know that the Gospel is the power of God, but my friends are in prison and I do not know what to do. And all this has happened in the morning prior to the appearance of Benedict XVI at the Plaza, so I am reminded of St. Bartholomew. What the men say can’t impress me, not the Pope, nor F. Castro in his Reflections: they are wolves in sheep’s clothing to deceive those who have no sign, no judgment, no ethics.

April 4 2012

The official discourse has “educated” citizens in the pathological character of independent thought, especially the ideological. For half a century Cubans have received a message on the subject, full of platitudes, generalizations and situations out of context, and a butchered teaching of History. It seems more healthy (remember I spoke of disease) to avoid contact with harmful influences. The spaces of otherness are open, but shadowed with malice; the official spaces, on the other hand, have lists, solapines, the right of admission.

How can we reverse the social damage that is perceived in any interactive forum (I use this example to be the space in which people manifest more freely in all directions, which does not happen in real spaces), on reading comments full of intransigence before an expression that doesn’t “jive” with certain ways of thinking? Extreme and hateful in Cubadebate, but in other sites of the opposite persuasion as well. Why is our primary reaction to scream, slap, discredit, insult?

The biological laws will bring the renewal of the government, and here there will always be a commentator will do the accounts. These accounts, will bring out the history, not the justice, and it’s good that it should be so, to cut the spiral of hate and resentment they’ve instilled in us. When that happens, we need a culture of dialogue, where the parties to determine who their voices will be; because there is also a tendency of power to choose its potential dialogue partners. To decriminalize differences of opinion becomes a matter of urgency, and if a call for everyone who prefers to be remembered as a patriot rather than a politician.

April 4 2012

To Tweet from a cell phone in Cuba is disproportionately costly, almost impossible, and only comparable with the draining of the Cienaga de Zapata swamp, the eradication of prostitution, computer illiteracy or the forbidden game.

To write 140 characters via a cell phone in Cuba, however simple it may seem, is a luxury few can afford and there are few people who enjoy the privilege of being able to access the social network Twitter because of the high price of this service on telephones and in hotels. One hour of internet access in one of the cybercafes, that are proliferating more and more in the major cities, cost between six and eight dollars, which represents a fortune if you consider the average monthly wage for the average Cuban is around 20 dollars.

On the island, there are few who have a quality computer in their homes. Those who manage to break the limitations of this internal blockade and get a computer, then have to deal with the nonexistent connections in home and the high costs of surfing the internet on the island. Although social networks like Twitter and Facebook are not blocked by the Cuban government, like some other sites of a critical and dissident nature, for the average Cuban to access the, outside the monitored schools, is a luxury not granted to most. But before these critical hurdles, Cuban bloggers who are active on sites like Twitter have found other alternatives, although they remain expensive, they allow us to get on the network more often and to express ourselves.

This alternative is through text messages of 140 characters send via cell phones and subsequently published on the accounts of the microblogging site. To participate in the social network in this way cost one convertible peso, around 24 pesos in national money, for each Tweet sent, something that many call “the luxury of expression.”

This option, as expensive as it is, at least some of the dozens of Cubans who have a web presence use. Access to the Internet, and in particular this latter alternative of tweeting in our country is as scarce as beef and tolerance. The officials say the island doesn’t limit Cubans’ access to social networks, and that platforms like Twitter and Facebook don’t have agreements with the Cuban Telecommunications Company to allow free messages to these networks from mobile phones, but the reality is that communication is complex and excessively expensive for the citizen in the XXI century. An issue that makes me question the supposed social function of the Cuban telephone monopoly.

This reflection brings to mind the solidarity shown by a person who recently recharged my cellphone from the internet, so I would transmit via Twitter the essentials of the hunger strike undertaken by Dr. Jeovany Jimenez Vega in Guanajay in March. Thank you, actions like these make me thing that those of us who want to communicate and express ourselves through tweets in Cuba are not alone, but be must analyze the cost-benefit, right-freedom that this option brings.

3 April 2012