This has been given to me from the blog of a fellow pastor who identifies himself as Miqueas de Roca:
“I do not use electrical cords for this…”
This story was also told me by a good friend, who although he is not a pastor, is a sincere and faithful Christian, of one of those heroic Cuban congregations.
As everyone knows, except of course (!) the majority of ordinary Cubans, on October 9, 2011, eve of International Human Rights Day, a flotilla sailed from Miami in yachts with some of us who live there, on the north side of the Florida Straits, with the simple proposition of showing a little solidarity with our compatriots, who live south of the Straits, on the Island kidnapped and raped by the “terror twins”; a greeting for such an important and relevant “Day.”
But it seems that the little brothers are not only bothered by airplanes*, boats worry them as well, whether those who leave in search of freedom (do you remember the “13 de Marzo” Tugboat incident, or the massacre of Rio Canimar?), but also those who bring freedom. Do the “twins” believe… that only they have the right to board a ship and fight for freedom?
OK fine, they (the “twins”… of course!) orchestrated an interesting campaign within the Island in which their agents in the neighborhoods started to encourage the young people to go to the Havana Malecon and throw themselves in the sea to meet our boats that would take them safe and sound to the American coast.
At the same time, the official agents, those who dress in the green suits that are the fashion of ’50s era dictators, started to visit some workplaces, directing the workers to go to the Havana Malecon after the workday and fight against this new “crude imperialist aggression.” To do this they gave the men some pieces of thick electrical cable about 30 inches long, to beat all the people they saw trying to throw themselves into the sea. Then, my friend, one of those men of dignity who still remain in Cuba told the agents, “I am an electrician and, of course, I use electrical cables, but not for that.”
And so it goes in the XXI Century on the Island of the Castros.
*Translator’s note: A reference to the Brothers to the Rescue planes shot down by Cuba.
The Cuban government and its supporters abuse the ballad — they already made traditional — of the Cyberwar against Cuba. They don’t speak about their own, that floods our media with propaganda, offends those who disagree with their political model, violates many of our rights — among others the right to have Internet access from our homes — and speculates with excessive prices for Internet connectivity offered in the hotels.
If there is something they should recognize in the authorities is their capacity to improvise arguments and pretexts according to their convenience. It doesn’t matter if they’re very convincing or not. Before the fiber optic cable came from Venezuela, in February 2011, the argument was that the United States, with its blockade, prevented the Cuban State — relying on satellite connections — from having the capacity necessary to allow its own citizens to access the mega-web. However, foreigners have had the right for years.
Now, thanks the Venezuelan cable expanding the Cuban bandwidth by 3,000 times, it is still the United States with its blockade that is guilty, “because they are the owners of the Internet and have focused a media war against our country.” You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t! In other words, a raft of excuses for why Cubans can’t surf.
We Cubans on the island already have a wide experience over half a century of audacity against our fundamental freedoms, and for those of us who have computers in Cuba, they kill our chances of being able to independently surf in this sea of knowledge, culture, economic, communication, and globalized information that is cyberspace. We assumed that with the arrival of the fiber optic cable we should be enjoying this right, but the “government sharks” ate this cable — all by themselves.
I was arrested yesterday afternoon leaving our recording studio. Reason: Presumption of public disorder. They took me to two police stations and I finally ended up locked up at the Central Police Station in Alamar.
In the cell with me were Williams (bass player for Porno Para Ricardo), and Didet (producer for Matraca).
A little later Berta Soler (Coordinator for the Ladies in White) arrived.
They detained us until about 2:30 in the afternoon. None of us there accepted anything to eat or drank any water that they brought us. In fact I never think of eating or drinking anything those bastards give me every time they kidnap me.
Down with the Tyranny, I have a dream, tomorrow we continue…
On the tenth of January 2006, the Provincial Court of Las Tunas condemned Ramos Utra to 20 years in jail for the rape of a six-year old girl. The accused, 46 years old, declared himself innocent. Nevertheless the judge sentenced him convinced that “the facts occurred in this way and no other, according to the testimony of the minor”.
The victim recognized as hers underwear found in the home of the accused, with which she was supposedly tied and gagged. But the investigation found no physical evidence corroborating that it was this underwear and no other, that used in the crime.
According to judicial authorities, the convicted took advantage of his having found himself alone with the child and “giving free rein to prurient impulses, penetrated her, performing movements pertinent to the act”. The following day, the child told her mother what had happened and “she alerted the authorities”.
It turned out to be credible to the judges that although and when the accused had “aberrant desires”, it was the child alone who presented with raised fissures in her genitals, unnoticed by the mother who did not suspect what had happened.
Although three witnesses testified that the accused was not alone with the minor at any time, they were dismissed by the Court “not for being favorable to the accused but for showing a marked interest in helping him” the judges confirmed at the time of sentencing, when they also threw out a laboratory test that affirmed that there was no match between the semen found and the blood of the accused.
The lawyer for the defense proposed a DNA exam of the underwear that the minor was wearing on the day of the crime. The judges denied this and validated what had been declared by a police investigator who assured a match between the semen and the blood type of the supposed guilty, insufficient evidence in any just legal system, to overturn the presumption of innocence of the accused
Cuban judges judge sheltered in a “free” assessment of the test. A flawed assessment allows that “you may arrive at any decision but justify it well” according to the President of the Chamber of the Court of Havana which conveys its “insights” to the less experienced. In this manner, the accused must bet on the good faith of those who judge them.
“A delayed examination of DNA, beyond 24 hours, successfully revoked a wrongful judicial finding in the United States, in the case of one sentenced to life imprisonment for sexual assault” according to a press release published in the official press Granma on the 12th of December, 2005. More than 160 people have been freed thanks to the test, in this country.
Ramos Utra has slept more than two thousand nights in prison and insists on his innocence. The possibilities that a trustworthy laboratory analyzes the genetic information of his blood at this point are zero. This is because the Court ordered the destruction by burning of the underwear containing the semen and the panties found in his home.
The Havana Court notified Maite Alonso Campanioni, wife of one of the 6 accused of killing Humberto Gonzales Otaño, a jeweler in San Miguel, last March 12, of the verdict which imposed sentences that ran between 2 and 35 years in jail.
According to the sentence, Pedro Valerino Acosta, 29, came up with the idea of robbing the goldsmith’s house, without specifying how much to the rest of the accused. As the mastermind of the crime of robbery by force or intimidation he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Jesús Daniel Forcade Portillo, 29, and Ramón Echevarría Fernández, 40, were sentenced to 35 years in prison for the crime of Murder. According to the court, on September 14, 2010, at about two in the morning, both entered the house of the jeweler with tools provided by Leonardo Rodríguez Díaz, also sentenced as an accomplice.
The court imposed on Rodríguez Díaz, 49, a sentence of 12 years in prison as an accomplice to the crime of robbery with force and intimidation, and for providing the methods and tools used in the assault.
The court came to the conviction of the guilt of Jesus and Ramon because their scent trails were found in the bathroom window, where the attackers entered, and on the ropes that tied up the victims.
Galindo Madan and Limonta Rojas, both 27, were sentenced to 2 years in prison for the crime of failing in their duty to inform. They did not participate in the crime, but they knew it was going to be committed.
The court also imposed on Valerino Acosta, Forcade Portillo and Echevarría Fernández the obligation to compensate the widow of the jeweler for the damages and injury caused, valued at 206,193 national pesos, and a payment of 68,731 pesos each, under the concept of civil liability for criminal offenses.
According to reports from the mothers of Forcade Portillo and Echevarría Fernández to this reporter, Mrs. Esther Fernández Almeida, the widow, left the country. They say further that, during investigations, the jeweler’s wife also received permission to leave to go abroad. However, she testified at the trial.
The investigation was conducted by the Territorial Division of Investigations (ITD) of the capital and the First Criminal Chamber of the former Audiencia de la Habana undertook the prosecution. Its president, Judge Greta Vila Bernal, in a fit of hysteria, expelled the relatives of the accused during the conclusion of the hearing, for applauding Aracelis Milian Ruiz, defense attorney for Galindo Madan, who requested the immediate acquittal of all the accused.
Translator’s note: Earlier reports of this trial, where Laritza explains her doubts about the guilt of any of the accused, and her suspicions regarding the jeweler’s wife, are here, here and here.
I did not want to overlook a significant event that occurred a few days ago. While we were participating in the successful Film Critique Workshop, Fernando Perez quit his job as the director of the Young Filmmakers Exhibition, an even that, thanks to its vision and what it delivers has become an irreplaceable audiovisual reference point on the Island. Reading your blog, its text THE HIGGS PARTICLE, with the echoes of our recent debates about the cinema of the 70s fresh in my mind and encouraged by the workshop, I have to express my complete support for Fernando who, once again, has shown his ethics as an artist and as a Cuban. At the same time, I can’t but be alarmed by the silence of so many filmmakers, young and veterans, with regards to it.
Over ten years ago, in a text published in Revolution and Culture, titled Noises in the Warehouse, I expressed my point of view about the state of audiovisual production in the nation, from the emergence of the new generations and the weakening of the official industry.
I said then, that the main problem I saw was this fragmented creation was precisely its weakness as a generation. Everyone seems to be staring at their navel, without really taking sides for the fate of their cinema. For them the important thing was to create, make, film, tell their stories and express themselves without a sense of belonging to anything, with a fidelity to anything outside themselves.
A little later, we saw the first symptom of it when Ian Padron saw his documentary Out of Season censored, without any of his contemporaries saying one word about it publicly. The Young Cinema Exhibition itself has seen, year after year, how diverse materials are “uncomfortable” for this apparatus that is faceless and nameless but that prohibits, cuts, limits and silences, works created by the youngest artists.
The documentary Revolution was the object of derision, polemics, arguments and dismay two years ago, although the Exhibition managed to show it and even give it a prize, other later Festivals refused to register it under pressure from “on high.” Significant movies like Family Video, the aforementioned Out of Season, and the documentaries Of Divers, Lions and Tankers, The Illusion, Havana Looking For You, Utopia or Revolution, still have not shown in our theaters or on television, in a natural and commercial way. I only mention a few that have won awards and have been considered, by the critics, among the most prominent films made in Cuba in the last decade.
When Fernando Perez signs his text and remembers his position as an inclusive project manager, who has for year been a leader against every kind of “external forces,” those who love art and cinema should be at his side, although for them they have to paralyze the Exhibition. Never mind here if the documentary censored now is any good, successful, or mediocre, what matters is the common position the younger creators should take and also for those who are or not, with this attitude that censors and bans.
If the ideologues, or the functionaries of ICAIC, believe that a documentary can cause the fall of a system, an idea, a societal project, then little has been achieved over the last 50 years.
If a film, however realistic or critical it may be, leads to the bureaucracy or the mediocrity censoring it, worried about the “ideas” expressed in it, it is simply a sign of the total failure of this will and the extraordinary weakness of this political project.
Speaking: Raudel Collazo, from Patriot Squadron. Sadly… the situation is a little complicated… my voice… my poetry… it is not permitted to hear it… it’s a word like censorship…
STATEMENT OF COOPERATIVE PRODUCTIONS
To Whom It May Concern:
The reason for this letter is an event that happened on March 6, 2012, Year 53 of the Revolution; an event which from our perception as novice… and not so novice filmmakers, is an unusual event.
At 2:00 pm we met with the director of the Information Center of the Cuban Institute of Motion Pictures Arts and Industries (ICAIC), compañero Robert Smith, to whom we reported that the documentary Awakening from directors Anthony Bubaire Pérez and Ricardo Figueredo Oliva, is “outside the cultural policy” of the aforementioned institution; therefore the decision had been made “not to exhibit Awakening’ in the Young Filmmakers Exhibition.”
At this news we immediately called on our logical reasoning: Why can not our film be shown after accepted for the Young Filmmakers Exhibition? How far outside of the artistic or political Cuban culture is it? What is the Cuban cultural policy?
As a second step we met with Fernando Perez, an exceptional director in Cuban cinema and president of the Young Filmmaker’s Exhibition. In the conversation with Fernando, he told us that he had decided to resign from his post as President, maintaining that support but taking that unfortunate decision.
Fernando Perez with his team, in selection meetings, approved Awakening; but this was not valid for X culture officials, who told Fernando that Awakening was out of competition; obviously, this information was not shared by compañero Roberto Smith.
What compañero Roberto told us is that, after the film was chosen for the competition, there was “a review” by the board of ICAIC, where they determined, “among other things” that for “a question of production” it could not be submitted.
We question all of this. Does it still exist? If this ploy is part of the cultural policy of the country, then consider that we are devolving emotionally, or realigning ourselves in underdevelopment. If we are heading down the path of social development, if the economic projects are maturing, and if compared to the world situation we are in a “period of proliferation,” those mentalities and projections are inversely proportional to the policy exposed up to them. Are we really changing. Rectifying the errors? Events of this type, are they errors or solutions? In previous decades, were we wrong, or “were we wrong”?
From our position, the hoop is smaller, which makes us think that our “case” as not been the only one in recent years, so of course it’s to be expected that we are very concerned. We must exercise a strong criticism against events like these. If the institutions and the officials of the institutions continue to act in this way, Cuban art, which is manifested in the streets, which emerges from reality, is going to go under one of these days.
Will Cuban art be elitist? Or will the “art of the people” be elitist? What is the “art of the people”? Every day I see different manifestations of Cuban art displayed in the mass media and most of it does not represent us, it does not show the true reality. Is that valid? What, then, does it represent? Who does it represent? Is this the image? Festivals of culture, films, theater, music happen; but what “artists” are included there?
If the process of selection and “revision” are similar to what happened with my work, what is on display: art or propaganda?
It is peculiar how the are “within the Revolution” has experienced several interesting processes; those meetings at the National Library or “The Words to the Intellectuals”; the First Congress on Education and Culture, the Padilla case, the “Five Grey Years” or Pavonato; and many others; in most or in every one of them huge errors were committed, irreparable errors for art and culture in general, errors that perhaps affect the actions of many artists, errors to which today not a word is addressed because they are surpassed, errors that are now exposed as mechanisms for disposal.
We see, if these processes are taking as guiding examples for the direction of Cuban art today, we would like to emphasize, then, that we are marching in a different direction contrary to progress, and that every day will further strengthen the executors who don’t hesitate to censor, not as a function of a sovereign culture, but as a function of growing as an Inquisitor power; becoming in this way, as in former years, the Cuban culture in a State beset by irrational arrogance, insensitive and unreasonable.
To limit this disagreeable immediate future we wish that ICAIC would offer us an explanation for the event discussed here, or perhaps an apology, a reappraisal; naturally we would not want obsolete justifications; there are many people affected by this and there has been so much sacrifice in every image; therefore, I make a call on the good judgment of some people, in whom we still have hope.
This report is from “Pieces of the Island” where you can find more updates on the nationwide repression associated with the Pope’s visit.
The author of the blog “Crossing the Barbed Wires“, Luis Felipe Rojas Rosabal, is still detained since last Saturday, March 24th. Just days before his arrest, he had confirmed that his name was finally included on the list of those who would be allowed to travel to the Mass of Pope Benedict XVI on March 26th. This occurred after communist functionaries had told him that either his wife or him could go, but not both. After demanding his rights, they added both their names, as well as the names of their young children. It seems that this, however, was just a taunt because the blogger was rapidly detained on the afternoon of the 24th.
Considering that the majority of telephone lines of dissidents on the island remain blocked, the information that has come out of Cuba has been scarce. Together with Luis Felipe Rojas, there are countless other activists detained but very little information is known about their situations. In the case of Rojas, the Baptist Cuban Pastor, Mario Barroso, managed to send out some Twitter messages (@maritovoz) detailing that the blogger remains detained “without having ingested any food or liquid”. Barroso added that Rojas’ brother was “desperate” as he was very worried about his brother’s health. In addition, the Pastor denounced the situation, explaining that Luis is a “devout Catholic” and was arrested “in order to keep him from attending the Pope’s Mass”. Meanwhile, Rojas’ wife, Exilda Arjona, and their two small children, Malcom (8) and Brenda (3) are surrounded in their own home in the town of San German by political police guards, under the threat that if they step out, they will be arrested.
This is just one of the many cases of in-communications, detentions, threats, and harassment against Cubans who demand freedom during these days in which Pope Benedict XVI travels throughout the island.
We demand the immediate liberation of Luis Felipe Rojas Rosabal , as well as that of all other arrested Cuban dissidents.
Monday March 26, 2012, at 2:00 PM, Holy Father Benedict XVI arrived in the Cuban archipelago, Santiago de Cuba. He officiated at Mass in Antonio Maceo Plaza of this city and honored our patron saint, the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, with the Golden Rose in the Jubilee Year four hundred years after the discovery of her image in the waters of the Bay Nipe.
The visit of this religious dignity to any place in the world, for what it represents, it obliges all flags to be dipped as a sign of respect to the 265th Successor of Peter. In Cuba, and elsewhere, for most Cubans, this is a unique opportunity for religious celebration and reaffirmation of faith and hope.
In his first homily to the people the key words sent to us by the Pope were peace, love, harmony and reconciliation. If the visit of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II marked a before and after in our recent history, we hope that this one now will imprint a new motivation and new impetus to the transformations that the nation urgently needs, indeed, with all and for the good of all.
A persistent rain said goodbye to His Holiness John Paul II in January 1998 and he announced that this manifested the Holy Spirit to us. Rain, even today, accompanied the Pope in the plaza in Santiago; we Christians pray because this has been the continuity of the Grace of the Holy Spirit for all Cubans.
Statements made to the international press by Pope Benedict XVI, the expected visitor who treads our Cuban soil for a few hours, raised my levels of hope a little with respect to what the political and religious leader can do with his impact on our country. Not that I expect his presence here will change the course of history, but at least it may contribute to the truth of our reality.
I expect a little more of the highest representative of the Roman Catholic Church, not a political speech, but a direct demand to the Cuban government to respect the human and civil rights so abused in Cuba. Yesterday afternoon in Santiago de Cuba, both the Archbishop Dionisio Garcia Ibanez and the Pope made reference to intolerance and a call for understanding and reconciliation among Cubans, but it is necessary to warn, reconciliation is respect, it is silent and hatred before a different voice, it is to live in peace without having to account to the powers-that-be for our ideology or political thought.
I hope from the Pope that he mentions the sad and shameful fact that many Cubans, including practicing and recognized Catholics such as the layman Dagoberto Valdes may not participate in any of his masses because they remain repressed and detained at their homes or in dungeons, with their cell phones silenced and without any media.
That bringing to light the lie of this nefarious totalitarian regime be before the Cuban people and before the world should be an important part of the papal calendar. That he does justice to the marginalized politicians, the voices raised against the dictatorship and that he promotes the rights of our human race to Cubans inside and outside the country is essential.
As an evangelical Christian and Protestant, I know God’s voice is my voice because I have appropriated it and the voice of God is that of the humble, the poor, the disadvantaged, it is them that I defend, I am part of them. I hope Benedict XVI also takes this opportunity to ask, without subtlety, or ambiguity, that they cease the acts of repudiation, the abuse of dissidents, the arbitrary detentions, the lack of respect for ideas and make it clear that a Cuba with all and for the good of all, would be an inclusive Cuba and not otherwise.
God is not the private property of the Revolutionaries, He belongs to everyone and for the benefit of all. I hope, then, that Benedict XVI will be sure to bring that truth and that his voice can impact the nation with a strong call for harmony, love, reconciliation and unity among all those born on the island. And in fact I fully agree with him on the need to “build an open and renewed society” that cares about “the legitimate aspirations of all Cubans wherever they are.”
In Kuba werden kritische Stimmen im Netz lauter und mutiger. Das Beispiel einer Video-Plattform zeigt aber auch, wie das Regime reagiert, wenn es offen kritisiert wird.
Ein Feind des Internets
Trotz aller Widrigkeiten bleibt Rodiles kmpferisch: “Dass sich etwas ndert, lsst sich nicht aufhalten.
Die Frage ist nur, wohin die Reise geht.”
Kuba sei wie ein treibendes Schiff, mit ungewissem Kurs.
Orlando L. Pardo, einer der aktivsten Blogger der Insel, ist da eher pessimistisch: “Nichts hat sich verndert.
Estado de Sats hat so ziemlich jede politische Regel gebrochen, die man brechen kann.”
Laut Verfassung gilt das Recht auf Meinungsfreiheit nur, wenn es im Interesse der sozialistischen Gesellschaft ist.
Regimekritik wie die von Rodiles ist der kommunistischen Partei ein Dorn im Auge.
Nicht umsonst gilt Kuba der Organisation Reporter ohne Grenzen als einer von zwlf “Feinden des Internets”.
“Klar, dank des Internets gibt es jetzt weltweit Sympathisanten”, sagt Pardo, “doch hier auf der Insel hat das Projekt keinerlei rechtliche Grundlage.
Deshalb trauen sich auch viele Gste nicht, Einladungen zu den Events wahrzunehmen.”
Translator’s note: I will let you paste it into Google Translator yourself! I have “some” German but I wouldn’t want to overstep myself!
Graphic taken from recursosparaelcamino.blogspot.com
Present relations between Church and State and the Papal visit have turned unbelievably controversial. Nonetheless, for Catholics and devotees of the Virgin of la Caridad del Cobre, the arrival of the Pontiff Benedict XVI in Cuba will culminate the Jubilee Year for the 400th anniversary of the discovery of our Beloved Mother and Patroness. For 365 days, our beloved “Cachita” has made a pilgrimage throughout our country, surrounded by the faithful who came to pay tribute to a replica of her image, to ask for her grace and to reaffirm themselves in faith.
Across the years, many Cubans from different places called for the reconciliation of the Cuban State with the Catholic Church, for religious freedom, for the return of the Church’s property, the rights of parishioners to processions, the respect of pastoral and evangelic spaces, etc. And now that a climate of compromise has been established between the Cuban clergy and the authorities, a political and propagandistic bitterness has reawakened in some sectors with contradictory edgings. Which is it? Do you want reconciliation or confrontation? I really don’t understand. Now it turns out that the Marxist government, which fought, marginalized and harassed the ecclesiastic institution and its faithful — and wielded the presupposition that religion is the opiate of the masses — is now the good, that which defends her, as well as her flock. Doubtlessly, there is an interested and intelligent manipulation behind this change of roles.
The Catholic Church always has its doors open to all. We will attend the Mass that the Successor of Peter will celebrate in the Plaza of all Cubans, that although it has been militarized, it is public. It was constructed during the previous government, it is civic and in it officiated Pope John Paul II. We will go — as one must — to listen to the Liturgy of the Word and to receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist.
The Mass which will be officiated by the Vicar of Christ and Maximum Authority of the Vatican on Wednesday the 28th, will welcome Cubans who attend to join in fellowship and pay tribute to the Word of God with faith and gratitude. It doesn’t seem fair that people should have to use the establishment of a religion as an excuse to voice a claim to their rights.
