Translating Cuba

I look at the crust, I touch it, I smell it… I doubt … but I don’t have the temerity to eat it. I think about the mother of the baker and imagine her selling in a private restaurant on the corner the butter that is “left over” at the end of the shift; and of the restaurant buying it “under the table” from the bakery warehouse; and of the one at the warehouse with the little piece of land he “struggled” to buy at the point of a clandestine rifle of rum; and at the place where he rents the almendron — the old American car in use as a taxi or delivery can in this case — to carry the merchandise; and of the almendron guy who “resolves” 80 liters of gas “…because those sons of bitches who control the oil...” and then seeing him shout, “20 pesos to Havana!” at the P4 bus stop… the coincidences of this life.

Just for gas. I then I see him “palm” 50 to the cop to look the other way and not levy a fine and he takes off with “…life is very hard!” The same cop who is drinking in the clandestine refreshment stand where he buys the cylinders of gas for the truck that needs 3000 “straws” a day “… to get by…“

And later I see EcoBio fuel truck “resolving” the inspector “because life has its twists and turns…“; and then the inspector’s wife buys meat “under the table,” first rate and “soft” to resell it to the manager of a ghost company in Miramar; I see the butcher who also takes a pinch and “greases” the Sector Chief so he can breath a little and not be asked for a cut on the Malecon; and the guy who controls the route “resolves” it all with the guy who sells at a kiosk in the “shopping” — the hard currency store — a dummy who pays cash for all the merchandise under the table to the distributor, who adulterates the prices and puts the “multichannel” to the holy trinity “to buy some good jeans and bitches shoes…” who wants to strut about like a high class hooker with a Yuma — an American — because “the first death is the easiest…” like she tells her old lady, and she can’t go around dressed like her teacher… “who looks so poor it hurts my eyes.“

Her teacher who doesn’t drive an almendron, nor have a restaurant, nor a soft drink stand, who doesn’t “struggle” in a kiosk of her own and isn’t married to a truck driver, nor to a manager, but simply to a humble doctor, and together they are black with grey stitching on the last link of the food chain, helpless in the midst of the maelstrom of dexterous and sinister scams right and left, of the twists and turns of boredom, bribes, trades, disgust, vertigo, blackmail, barter, disappointment, purulence, nausea, corruption … well … I do not know… but why the fuck did I hesitate and end up in all this filth. Look! You! I have to think of every piece of shit before this foul slice of … what?… bread?!

January 13 2012

 

by Yoaxis Marcheco Suarez

I was a teenager of sixteen and was in the eleventh grade, I was happy to study and work hard to achieve good grades, I was nearing the university and needed, in addition to good marks, to be endorsed by the Communist Party of the center where I was studying, the Youth wing of the Party, the Federation of High School Students, and at the very end, the faculty who taught me the different subjects.

To achieve this goal we students had to participate in all the “political” and cultural activities, the voluntary work, the schools in the countryside, and when a ceremony or parade was organized, very important was participating in the numerous marches for May Day, International Workers Day, Defense Sundays, days dedicated to the preparation and training of teenagers to know how to defend themselves in case of war, and we had to be ready to fight for the country and the conquests of Socialism.

Among the many subjects they taught us, there was always one where my grade average always fell ominously, called “Integrated Military Preparedness,” although the boys called it by its acronym, PMI. I never had a talent for military affairs, I dragged myself badly through the dirt or mud, and I was always the last to overcome the obstacles that we planted on the road.

If I managed to disassemble the machine gun which was our guinea pig, later there was no way to put each piece in the exact spot where it had been, not to mention that I found it almost impossible to memorize all the theory of this subject we received. We seemed like real toy soldiers as we marched along, I think it was the exercise we did best, we had the rhythm of a rhyme the teacher taught us, I was laughing hearing it and not repeating it because it had a bad word: “One, two, three, four, eating sh… and spending shoe leather.”

At the end we always said the motto of our class that ended with the phrase: “Ready for the defense,” but we were sure that this army of youth was not ready to face any war and on the other side unconsciously we saw as very remote the possibility that this would happen.

Another requirement is also measured in the evaluation was the participation in competitions, as I liked to study, especially subjects related to the chairs of Humanities, I could certainly meet this requirement, I participated in any contest I could: History of Cuba, Spanish Language and Literature and even Marxist Philosophy.

It was at a Municipal Contest I met the strangest professor of Marxism I can remember. I spent  a week preparing for the competition, and had a long pamphlet memorized from beginning to end, including the survey questions some of which related to the application of Marxism in our context of socialism and communism. I remember how we rehearsed the answers until we managed the emotional desired to impress the jury, most of the time it worked, but to my amazement that day did not happen, but instead I was embarrassed and confused for a while.

At that time the competition jury had only one member, a middle-aged teacher of Marxism sitting behind a table adorned with a white cloth and a jar full of red flowers, who explained that other teachers were facing personal situations and not wanting to delay the date of the contest they had agreed that he would listen and would rate the contestants.

I felt somewhat relieved, this jury with one member would be a breeze for me. I explained the whole pamphlet I had learned by heart says earlier and when I finished, so excited I almost expected applause and congratulations, the teacher stared at me with searching eyes and said: “Among the many things you have said, only one catches my attention and so I wanted to ask about it, and that is saying that the streets and squares in Cuba only belong to the Revolutionaries; would not it be better for them to belong to all Cubans?”

I tried to defend myself, the result of the contest was at stake. “No,” I replied, “this country has been conquered by the Revolutionaries and they alone have the right to walk the streets and speak in the plazas.”

The teacher followed each of my gestures with his eyes until he asked again: “What would you do to a Cuban who declared in the streets and plazas that he was not a revolutionary and clearly establishing your reasons?”

I didn’t know where to get my ideas, that question was not in the pamphlet and I had not memorized it and so I remained silent for some seconds, a silence that permeated us both, until the teacher said to me: “We must learn to respect our fellow citizens and we must also learn to share our streets and squares, keep in mind that Cuba is all Cubans.”

That day of competition was very unusual, and I didn’t win as I was used to doing, but although I never knew what the teacher’s ideas were, his words penetrated me deeply, and sometimes I that disguised teacher was an angel that the Lord sent to help me reflect on the reality of my country and that we all have the right to participate in building our society.

This man risked a lot to talk to me in this way, I could have complained to the officials or other teachers of my school, but I didn’t, however every time I saw a parade or was listening to a speaker in the stands, I remembered his words.

Yes, I’m sure now that the streets and squares must by necessity belong to all honest Cubans in this country, and the monochromatic tone with which they are painted should be changed to various shades of freedom and democracy.

I finished high school and was approved to go to college, but only today do I feel supported by  dignity, my language has changed and my decision to express my desire to live in a different and fuller Cuba than that made by the Communists and their dictatorship, is, at every moment, more firm and irrevocable.

December 23 2011

Yaremis Flores.

Raul Rodriguez Soto serves his sentence in the Prison of Guanajay. Although, according to relatives, the evidence was insufficient to confirm his guilt, Raul has already served seven years of a thirty year sentence, which was imposed for the crime of human trafficking.

The head of the Prison, named Joaquin Darias, forces the inmate to wear the uniform. Even if the inmate is suffering from contact dermatitis, from the dye in the clothing. As a result of this arbitrariness he has infected sores, a situation exacerbated by his status as an insulin-dependent diabetic without treatment.

The prison doctor said that the inmate can only wear white cotton. But “The boss is the boss,” he said. When the inmate refuses to wear the uniform they don’t allow him to have any visitors, his only motivation in captivity.

Rodriguez Soto, 44, who used to reside in the U.S., has two herniated discs with affecting his urinary voiding. Because of diabetes his teeth are falling out and glaucoma is progressing rapidly. Their illnesses, treated by the prison doctors themselves, do not receive appropriate medical treatment. He is also paranoid schizophrenic with bipolar disorder since childhood, without psychiatric care.

“Already while serving his sentence, he once tried to hang himself and another wrapped himself in a burning mattress,” said his wife.

Raul Rodriguez Soto does not meet the Castro parameters to be pardoned. Meanwhile, he has to endure the excesses commanded by the head of the prison. The military prosecutor is aware of what happened to him, but still hasn’t ruled on it.

According to prison rules a prisoner is entitled to receive adequate medical care, and the requirement to wear the regulation uniform applies only if it does not affect his health and dignity. However, this regulation appears to be an almost secret dead letter. Even for the officials themselves who fail to comply.

March 2 2012

After 6 in the evening, Carlos, 48, looks distractedly at his fold Seiko, and takes a swig from a large Corona beer. He’s dressed in light blue vented Bermudas, Nike shoes that cost $120, and a shirt with the face of Messi, the Argentine star of the Barcelona football team. Right now, from his iPhone, he’s bargain shopping for a Willy jeep made in the USA in the ’50s.

Daily, Carlos meets at a downtown cafe near the Paseo del Prado, with the five contract drivers who work for him. He waits there for each driver of the 3 jeeps to give him 1,000 pesos (40 dollars) and 550 per capita for the two drivers who drive “almendrones,” — the old American cars — faded, but strong as tanks, and while he waits he drinks half a dozen beers with Gouda cheese cubes.

In one day, Charles took home 4,200 pesos (170 dollars). The five drivers who work for him usually earn between 400 and 1,000 pesos a day, a wage unimaginable for a state employee. Although it is true that their work shifts sometimes exceed twelve hours.

Carlos doesn’t spend all the money he earns he earns on beers or nights with expensive whores. “I have to invest in tires, fuel and spare parts. Also pay the mechanic that maintains my cars,” he says.

Like Carlos, there is a growing legion of successful small entrepreneurs. The most profitable sectors are transportation, paladares (private restaurants), and trading in agricultural products.

In Havana there are not only newly minted entrepreneurs who own a fleet of 5 or 6 cars. In the services there are other types, people who run several rental houses, a couple of cafes, or own a dozen trucks in any corner of the city where prices are going through the roof, offering fruits, vegetables, beans and even apples.

After October 2010, when General Raul Castro kick started new forms of self-employment, and the army of his state inspectors got a little more flexible, a number of Cubans who kept their money under the mattress were ready to invest that money in businesses that offer good short-term benefits.

Not without a certain trepidation. Anyone who has lived in Cuba knows how the regime goes. At times, when the economic situation is extreme, they let out the line for private initiatives. But if they see that the boat is no longer taking on water, they make up a lot of regulations and send people behind bars for their little initiatives.

Now, Castro II has promised to respect certain rules as long as people can demonstrate that their money is from legal sources and they pay their taxes on time.

People like Rene, 60, who all their lives they have scrounged to find money on the black market, initially had misgivings. He is one of the old foxes can be found in the underground world of business.

“When the artisans began in the Cathedral Square, there I was. In the 80s, I also sought money in agricultural markets. I’ve been in jail twice on charges of illicit enrichment. So I do not trust them. It’s like a chess game. I have to have an exit strategy in case of danger,” said Rene, owner of two retail clothing stands and eight fruit and vegetable trucks.

Rene takes in just over 150 dollars a day. After a cup of strong coffee at home, starting at 4 am, on one side of the Joseph A. Echevarria City University (CUJAE), in the Rancho Boyeros municipality, he awaits the arrival of trucks packed with agricultural products, to buy in bulk and cheaply.

Others like Yosniel, 36, one day asked his relatives on the other side of the pond for a loan, and he got $4,000. And with the money he set up a home repair business. It has a crew of masons and plumbers. “The thing was doing well for me. I even get construction materials at bargain prices then resell to people who need to repair their homes,” he says.

Among these new native entrepreneurs, a particular interpretation of the regulations of self-employment predominates. They think the State does not allow control of those businesses — whether one or several — that encourage a lot of money in the hands of one person or family.

But Havanans like David, owner of two auto repair shops, manages in his own way. He is used to finding money under the pressure from a government that sees a threat in the entrepreneurial types.” We’ve been playing cat and mouse for 53 years, we try not to be the hunted,” says David with a broad smile.

Rightly, the regime feels that if their retailers do not offer raw materials, they can assume that they go out through the back doors of the state workshops.

But we all know in Havana, including the government, that behind this growing mass of vehicles that came out of the workshops of Detroit six decades ago, there are a handful of ingenious mechanics and body guys who keep the fleet of 6,000 ’almendrones’ rolling in the capital.

And the question of how far a State with a grudge will go in allowing those given to individualism and the good life to make money, is something that is always latent in these post-Fidel businessmen.

“That depends on the General. If our businesses don’t affect the wallets of the military corporation, I think they’ll leave us alone. But otherwise, they’ll give a turn of the screw to certain regulations to suffocate us,” says Carlos, the flamboyant entrepreneur, who owns five cars. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Photo: ZX-GR, Flickr. Entrance to Chinatown of Havana, where you can see the rise of private entrepreneurs.

February 11 2012

The Interests Section of Cuba in Washington D.C. has called the first National Meeting of Cuban Residents in the United States of America for April 28, which will involve a representation of Cubans who are “linked to their country in a respectful manner, aware of the urgency to defend its sovereignty and national identity.” This quote, taken from the meeting notice, is part of the process of normalizing relations with the country of emigration.

It is good to remember that throughout the history of Cuba, since the first settlers who arrived through the arc of the Antilles, to the tens of thousands Europeans, Asians and West Indians who came in the first half of the twentieth century, there was an immigration flow that, due to the loss of civil and political rights, the failure of wages relative to the cost of living, and the dispute with the United States, was transformed into a diaspora beginning in 1959.

Mass migration, negative effects

This migration, which began with the departure of people linked to the ousted regime — unlike the mass migrations that respond to a temporary crisis the process continued over time — and was followed by some 14,000 children who, under Operation Peter Pan, fled in planes and boats, until the lack of freedoms and the economic downturn caused the first mass exodus from the port of Camarioca in 1965 and the so called “freedom flights,” through which about 260,000 Cubans fled the country.

In April 1980 came the second mass stampede when thousands of Cubans stormed the Peruvian Embassy in Havana to seek refuge, an action that culminated with the release of another 125,000 thousand citizens through the port of Mariel in what became known, in the United States, as the “Mariel Boatlift.” In the summer of 1994, after assaulting the residences of the ambassadors of Belgium and Germany and the Consulate of Chile, and a mass protest in Havana, tens of thousands more fled.

This mass migration has had several negative effects for the country, among others, a population decrease, which has turned Cuba into the only American nation with a declining population and whose rate of departure in the next 24 years points to a critical reduction, particularly of young people, which is turning the island into a country of the elderly; and in the decapitalization of professionals because of the tens of thousands of doctors, engineers, lawyers, technicians and skilled workers who seek fulfillment in other places.

Return to inclusive policies

Until now, the government has considered that the presence of the Cuban diaspora in the country endangers the Revolution, the Fatherland and Socialism, which explains the mechanisms for the control of those who decided to leave. The exit and entry permit, the regulation of length of stay abroad, the seizure of personal and real property, and the exclusion from the nation, are among the exclusionary measures and violations of human rights.

However, the results obtained by Cubans abroad, the knowledge gained in administrative practices, the financial resources and other types of assets, together with family ties and a longing for their country, have converted the diaspora into a part of the solutions that Cuba needs.

History shows that violence has been the most commonly used response to conflicts, but it also demonstrates that conflicts are not resolved until submitted to dialogue and negotiation. The government of Cuba, according to sociologist Peggy Levitt and anthropologist Nina Glick, “treats its immigrants as if they did not belong to the country and often has branded them as traitors.” In addition, they do not recognize dual citizenship and other rights which reinforce the sense of belonging.

From a false and exclusionary vision, the Cuban government invited Cubans of the diaspora to “dialogue” in 1978 through the “Nation and Emigration” conferences, held in Havana, whose purpose was not the normalization of relations, but the collection of currency and seeking of support in the dispute with the United States. However, until now it has refused to move towards normalization of relations.

Carlos Saladrigas, president of the Cuba Study Group, explained that, although members of the historic exile constitute the majority of the Cuban-American citizens entitled to vote and made up the social group with greater buying power, as well as those who controlled the media in South Florida, a long process of change had occurred in some exiles, who had come to abandon the attitude of permanent confrontation.

In short, after more than half a century of physical and verbal violence, the exclusion of the diaspora — in violation of 16 of the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — must end. For this to happen, Cubans in the exterior would have to have to right of dual citizenship, and the current laws of the Island would have to be brought in line with internationally established principles on migration, such that citizens, regardless of where they live, could participate in the affairs of the nation. This would help the economic reforms currently being implemented to have a greater chance of success.

Without these changes in conduct and policies, the call for the First National Meeting of Cubans Resident in the United States would be nothing more than another new episode in the old intention to consider the diaspora as a means to support the regime, without reintegrating their rights as Cubans. It would, like those that previously took place in Cuba, be exclusionary and so contrary to the interests of the nation, which consists of all Cubans, inside and outside.

Any call, in order to respond to the interests of Cuba, must be based on an inclusive dialog, that permits an analysis of the past, the present and the future relations between the diaspora and the nation. Dialog should be promoted as a starting point, as a guiding principle, and as a permanent strategy, which requires, as Carlos Saladrigas expressed, that we all change.

Cuba must open itself to the diaspora and the diaspora to Cuba. Cuba has to respect the rights of all its children, a respect missing in the call of the Interest Section of Cuba in Washington.

Originally published in Diario de Cuba

2 March 2012

Here, as the economic measures (and others as well) have no fix, people are already commenting on the street that the carters (street vendors) will soon disappear, along with other jobs authorized only a few months ago, after being banned and persecuted for more fifty years. It appears that the cavedwellers (of different ages) existing within the party and government are concerned that these self-employed can get rich, which, for them, it is inconceivable and can not be allowed under the Cuban model.

It happens, that the small openings approved, demonstrate every day in the clear view of all citizens, the incompetence of the State.

These self-employed offer better products and services, more choices, better treatment and even, many times, better prices, than the government facilities, which have more resources and better conditions but, accustomed to dominate and prevail by force of official law, are unable to compete honestly with this form of individual ownership. Given the failure, they cannot hide the loss of credibility and the negative view of citizens, they are trying to do the only thing they know how to do: prohibit

I imagine, despite the unanimity so often proclaimed, that there is a struggle between those who seek to maintain the stagnation and their failed and obsolete positions, and those who know that without changes, even minimal ones, it is impossible to gain some time.

The public is tired of so many advances and retreats (more so of the latter) and so much improvisation and experimentation with vital issues, and demands definite and firm action, that tries to alleviate the economic, political and social chaos we find ourselves in. Is it that the Guidelines they carry on so much about, as has already happened so many times before, have already been converted into so much wet paper?

March 3 2012

It seems that an important part of the Cuban Jewish community, from fear or pressure, have turned their backs on the U.S. contractor,Alan Phillip Gross, age 62. I venture to predict he would not finish his sentence, nor even a couple of years of it, if his family and the lawyers tied to the case publicized the statement, using the vulnerability of the vulnerable, seeking understanding and support from certain members of the international Jewish community.

Of course I’m not referring to the unquestionable help a campaign would be, preceded by an open letter demanding release, signed by important people. I’m talking of a meeting, also in support, the good deeds of well-known Jews like my good friend Enrique Rotenberg, the enigmatic entrepreneur and Mossad retiree Rafael (Rafi) Eitan, or the charismatic French sugar producer Serge Versano, whose words carry weight and are heard in Cuba.

The Internet connection on the island is regulated and controlled, why dwell on that subject; but there is no legal prohibition. And according to the penal code, you can not punish what is not penalized.

The trifling “accessories” whom some blow out of proportion as an info-communications system, although they deny knowing the imprisoned American citizen, are merely descendents of the Ashkenazi and/or Sephardi eager for information. It’s not forbidden, and there is no social danger. The only contravention of the man condemned to 15 years has been to violate the customs regulations specific to a country, not the security of a State.

His accomplices are not dissidents nor opponents, but inexperienced or corrupt customs officials. And although there is talk of a subversive project of the United States government against Cuba, the only obvious motive is to discourage a miniscule group that is part of a marginalized community in a marginalized society.

Politics has no place; and espionage here, it’s too much. Even so, the Court for Crimes Against the Security of the State of the People’s Supreme Court, the highest organ of justice in Cuba, issued an order rejecting the challenges or other legal recourse. The government needs a piece to use as pressure, Alan Gross is its move. Now they sit back and wait, and as the bribe-able guardian fighting to complete their plan, the glorification of their testicular hypertrophy, they hide the pardon under the table in order to negotiate.

March 1 2012

It seems to me, every time I hear a nice song, I avoid it, where there is nothing more real than the anger, the tears to call on God, so I want to keep the memory of iron compared to everything happy and nice that I still encounter.

Do not let anyone fool with the graduation of doctors because it is part of the dark condition to serve their purposes just like “The Lord of the Flies” and his entourage. They cease to respect people at the moment they rise up. And in reality they don’t respect anyone, not even their servants.

The history of Cuba has proved it, but God sees in secret, and no murder, no abuse, will go unpunished. Here people go mad for the return of a little boy rafter, but no one thinks about Wilman Villar’s little girls, Zapata’s mother, and so many people I don’t know who have suffered before I woke from my lethargy. I don’t want to sleep any more. The Revolutionary rhetoric was always so low, so manipulative. What happened to us? What happened to my grandparents? What was their price? Why did they surrender?

March 3 2012

Yesterday, February 23, 2012, for a second time, Cuban TV has honored me by exposing my image — along with those of several other independent journalists and dissidents — in the national news. The previous occasion occurred months ago, during an unfortunate program televised through the famously dull Roundtable, regarding an alleged cyberwar that the everlasting CIA was orchestrating (who?), serving the interests of (the same villain!) the U.S. government, which is always called “the North American government” as if Mexico and Canada were just simply northern provinces.

I’m not going to wear myself out with accusations of defamation, misrepresentation and misuse of my image to a government that has never had the decency to acknowledge their responsibility for crimes far superior to these. The executions, the senseless Cuban deaths due to adventures of war in other countries when Soviet subsidies allowed the feeding of the egomania and megalomania of the interventionist F. Castro, the torture and deaths of political prisoners throughout the so-called “Revolution”, the events* at the Psychiatric Hospital of Havana in January 2010, more than five decades of systematic destruction of a nation as a whole, the separation of tens of thousands of families by permanent exodus, the debt irresponsibly imposed on present and future generations, and many other sin whose list is endless, sins that dwarf any official insults to a few people. If there were not the possibility of some dark maneuver of the well-known style of repression that consists of demonizing citizens just before launching the blog that throws them into prisons, perhaps I should be flattered.

However, since this is about the disproportionate onslaught of the longest dictatorship in this hemisphere, owner of the media, of the repressive forces, of the army and of all the power, against just a handful of citizens who have the audacity to feel themselves to be free, allow me on my personal and absolutely individual account and not representing anyone else, to once again refute the official discourse, that by repetition, demagoguery, and mendacity, has not ceased to be unhealthy. And given that, in their proverbial cowardice the authorities can’t even permit the luxury of awarding me the right to reply in their own media — for obvious reasons — I launch my dart from this blog that, obviously, has been making a dartboard for them for four years.

On the morning of February 22, I attended the video conference “Press Freedom and Expression”, organized by the Office of Public Affairs of the United States Interest Section, with the participation of Luis Botello, the International Center for Journalists, Dr. Sallie Hughes, professor of Journalism and Latin American Studies, University of Miami, and Zita Arocha, Cuban-American journalist and professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Texas at El Paso. Among the topics of the conference were also social networks and the Internet, and the importance of the digital age for freedom of the press. A whole meal for those who use such means as the only space to express themselves. Just as I might have attended a similar event had it been organized by the embassies of Iran, Syria or Venezuela, or if it had been held at the Faculty of Communication at the University of Havana; but this falls in the plane of pure fiction: we know that to discuss certain topics requires democratic spaces.

What first drew my attention on arriving at the site where the conference was going to be held, was the excessive display of “official paparazzi” who were excitedly rushing around with their cameras every time some participant arrived. The number of “journalists” who were government employees almost exceeded us. That, not counting the vehicle deployment occupying the adjacent areas, for a moment made me suspect that they were organizing one of their classic rallies of repudiation.

I emerged from a taxi and immediately was the focus of Cuban TV cameras and other official media, which at the moment made me feel like a Hollywood star or, perhaps more suited to the environment, like a postmodern Mata Hari, such that I had to walk to the corner of 7th and 24th, Miramar, where other colleagues were waiting, to get in bright sun, take off my glasses and wave my hand at the cameras. I am a caring person, gentlemen, if I want to film me, do it well.. Nor did I have the least intention of hiding myself, given that I was not enrolled in a conspiracy in the style of the Vi Congress or the National Conference of the Cuban Communist Party.

The town criers of Sauron, however, despite all the time they spent taking pictures of us front and profile, chose a bad picture to display on national TV. One in which the we conference attendees were in front of a table where they were checking the names of the guests and giving us printed materials relating to the topics and details of the speakers, such that, by necessity, we were offering our backs to the cameras. This encourages the false impression that we were shying away from the photographers. We were the “mercenaries” caught red-handed at the moment when we were rushing to “hide” in the shelter of the “masters” of the Empire. We had gone, according to the mediocre Castro media, “to receive instructions from the North American government,” and even, I was told, a rabid official blogger declared that in that moment they were giving us “tickets for the snack.”

You can see how people project their own existential misery over whatever space. No, buddy, we were not at the Conference Center, and so we didn’t need tickets to have a soft drink or a cup of coffee. The servants of the Cuban government have a sick fixation on credentials, tickets, snacks, imaginary “goodie bags” with gifts and currency supposedly offered by the functionaries of the United States and certain European countries as rewards to the dissidents. It is a reflection of their own reality. However, the most favored of this incredibly miserable caste have no modesty whatsoever when it comes to exhibiting their private cars, with which the government awards the official journalism’s most bitter liars.

The U.S. Interests Section (USIS), meanwhile, has been accused of interference and other similar epithets, which makes me reflect on other events taking place in that country, without the participants being harassed by hostile cameras and a phony press. I refer, for example, to the performance of the children of Cuba’s La Colmenita, in the public space in front of the White House in Washington D.C.; or to the street rallies in favor of the release of five Cuban spies that State Security freely orchestrates in the U.S. and in other countries sympathetic to this dictatorship.

The leaders do not seem to care much that the Cuban government is promoting their revolution beyond the borders of the island. But it would not occur to me that he USIS, another embassy or simply ordinary Cubans, could meet to debate, whether it be press freedom or the survivability of insects, in any public place in this country. Sometimes it is not possible even in private spaces, as the Ladies in White can testify to; on Thursday, February 23, they were the targets of long hours of hatred and fury from the “repudiators” who, with complete impunity, convened by the powers-to-be, harassed them while they paid homage the memory of Orlando Zapata Tamayo on the second anniversary of his assassination; a blundering police and paramilitary deployment which closed off Neptune street, in the capital, to traffic and maintained a disturbance of the public peace, in what is officially a tribute to the martyr and a recognition of dissent.

But there’s no point in crying over spilt milk. A government that feels it must harass dissidents so openly must be afraid. After this new media attack I just have to reaffirm publicly my position in a declaration of principles: in my capacity as a free citizen I claim the right to attend the events I myself decide of my own free will, without asking permission of the government; I do not receive financing or a salary from any government, including Cuba’s, and I refuse to abandon these principles under any circumstances; I am the absolute owner of my actions and my ideas and I am willing to vouch for them; I also publish and will publish my work and my ideas wherever I see fit. The gentlemen farmers should come to understand that not all Cubans are slaves on their endowment. Number 59100900595, my official inscription number in this island prison, was freed years ago by my own will and conviction. I would rather die than return to the irons.

Translator’s note:
*The events at the psychiatric hospital were the deaths 26 mental patients due to starvation and cold.

February 24 2012