Removing the Corset / Luis Felipe Rojas

Days and weeks rush by while people keep waiting on a miracle.  The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba is entranced before the mirror.  Their makeup has to be perfect; 52 years of wrinkles are not easy to hide.

The show has begun, the audience begins to cheer at the top of their lungs, but the main actress still does not appear on stage.  The falsettos from rehearsal remain behind the backdrop.  Seeing as the tickets have all sold out, one suspects that it will be a long and terrible night in this grand theater where they have promised marvels but where, instead, disaster lurks behind each and every crack of that old building.

Many furiously searched through the resolutions presented by the Lineaments to see if they could find some sort of consolation, but nothing can be done amid hieratic discourses and medieval immobility.  Lineaments 278 and 286, referencing the relaxation of purchasing, leasing, or selling of homes and of automobiles, are some of the most searched for and awaited for pieces of legislation.  Finally, the slave will be able to sell his small plantation, finally the everyday citizen can sell his or her old motorcycle which they brought over nearly 30 years ago from former Eastern Germany or Czechoslovakia.  Some see this as permission to be able to breath, blink, or sleep when one is tired.

Despite the fact that massive media sources of information (or “dis-information”, as a friend of mine says)  publish reports each day of supposed debates which only their journalists pay any attention to or of a supposed public approval of these measures, nothing is said about eliminating clear and absurd impositions applied to the right of a large number of Cubans (who go against the ideology of the communist apparatus)  from entering or leaving the country.  As if these human comings and goings would not produce income for the only slave owner.

Despite the winds that seem to be blowing, the neighborhood Cubans continue to return their self employment permits.  The drought which whips across the Eastern region of the country has impeded the sowing, recollection, selling, and earnings cycle which many agriculture workers were awaiting for during this time of the year.  Meanwhile, the watchdogs of social life tighten their grips, and increase the fines and constraints.

Translated by Raul G.

9 June 2011

 

Raúl Castro: 80 Candles Against the Clock / Iván García

The man who as a child liked to play with toy soldiers, and now is General of the Army and President of Cuba, turned 80 on June 3, 2011. Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz has just entered the club of octogenarian Cuban leaders.

He was the third son from the marriage formed between the Galician Ángel Castro and the Cuban Lina Ruz, and, having been born with distinct physical features, one didn’t have to wait for the rumors about his real father. Speculation aside, the truth is that he always idolised his brother Fidel, five years older than he.

Since then, he has followed him everywhere and has been faithful to him.

But 52 years later, with the country socially and economically in ruins and with the hands of the clock against him, the younger brother knows that if he wants to save the revolution, a mountain of things have to be taken apart and re-done or made in a new way.

And there he is. Trying to paddle upstream. With too many elderly sailors, and very few young ones energetic and with fresh ideas. Although perhaps the greatest danger is not in the sea. But in the nearly 12 million Cubans stranded on land and whose patience may be about to end. The people are fed up of listening to Castro say, once and again, “Now we are going to build socialism.”

An unrealistic slogan, because everywhere socialism has failed. And as the chances of its construction on the island are almost nil, it would be welcomed if they defined it ideologically and began to build the foundations of capitalism. Asian or European style. But just take concrete steps — and fast — for Cuba to once again be a modern and prosperous republic, as it was before 1959.

A year ago, the Spanish journalist Vicente Botín, presented in Madrid, the book Raúl Castro: The Flea that Rode the Tiger. In the final paragraph, the author sums up a truth:

“A Chinese proverb says that ‘the best way to keep a tiger from devouring you is to ride on it.’ But in the salvation is the condemnation. The rider cannot dismount, because when he does, the tiger will eat him. Destiny sentenced Raul Castro to ride all his life on the back of a tiger and the tiger has devoured him, even though he never climbed down from it.”

June 3 2011

Twelve Men in Brief / Yoani Sánchez

Image taken from Diario de Cuba gallery

As a child whenever I heard the name of Perico*, a town in Matanzas Province, I ended up with a pain in my stomach from laughing so hard. Until I learned that a part of my father’s family was from that area and the joke didn’t seem so funny to me any more. Last Saturday I was invited to go back and see its dusty embankment and dilapidated train station once again, but the departure of my sister left me paralyzed here on the fourteenth floor, not wanting to go anywhere. I very much regret not going, because twelve of the ex-prisoners of the Black Spring were waiting for us there, hosted by a good-natured hard-working peasant named Diosdado Gonzalez, who offered his home and his table for this important meeting.

Initially it was to be a get together to strengthen friendships, meet each others’ families, share of piece of that more than seven years the Cuban government had seized from them. However, Guillermo Fariñas’ decision to begin a hunger strike, totally changed the tenor of the day. The idea of relaxation was transformed into concern and the stools that were meant to support the festivities bore, instead, the weight of their worries. In brief and between sips of coffee–refilled from time to time by Alejandrina–the reunion became a civic staff council, where rather than maneuver plastic soldiers on a war map, they rearranged ideas on an historic statement.

Afterward, Pedro Argüelles read over the phone to me the approved text of that day, and once again I regretted not having been there. Among their demands, the signatories called for a serious investigation into the cause of death of Juan Wilfredo Soto. Also they call for avoiding the death of Fariñas and–in my judgment the most difficult to achieve–the cessation of repression and acts of repudiation against opposition activists. But this time the ears of power seem more reluctant to listen than they were a year ago. My fear, also, is that the body of the Sakharov 2010 Prize winner will not survive another prolonged fast. Hopefully life will surprise me and something will be done, and Perico will cease to be a village with a delightful name and become the place where words, civic conscience, and unity won over a stubborn and long-standing authoritarianism.

El Roque, Perico, Matanzas
Saturday, June 4, 2011

DOCUMENT OF DEMAND TO THE CUBAN GOVERNMENT

Given the high centralization of power and decisions in our country, we hold the Cuban president, Army General Raul Castro Ruz, responsible for meeting the three related demands as follows:

1. To allow an international multidisciplinary team, immediately, to exhume and examine the corpse of peaceful activist Wilfredo Soto Juan Garcia and impartially rule on the actual causes of death. This would help all parties.

2. To prevent the imminent death of the peaceful activist and Nobel Andrei Sakharov prize winner, Guillermo Fariñas Hernández, from the hunger strike he is undertaking.

3. To cease the repression, beatings, acts of repudiation and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment against peaceful pro-democracy and Cuban society activists.

In expectation of an appropriate response, according to current circumstances, the undersigned endorse this document:

Pedro Argüelles Morán
Eduardo Díaz Fleitas
Iván Hernández Carrillo
Librado Linares García
Angel J. Moya Acosta
Guido Sigler Amaya
Oscar Elías Bicet González
Diosdado González Marrero
Arnaldo Ramos Lausurique
Hector M. Maceda Gutiérrez
Félix Navarro Rodríguez
José Daniel Ferrer García

The original of this document was delivered to the Ministry of Justice of Cuba on June 6, 2011.

*Translator’s note: “Perico” means “parakeet” but is also a slang for people who are very humorous and tell a lot of jokes.

Amnesia or Anesthesia / Rebeca Monzo

On Wednesday, watching a popular program on television where they lit incense, candles and asked very good questions, one of the guests on being asked about the low fish consumption in our country given that we’re islanders, said calmly that the problem is not that there isn’t any but rather that people did not like eating it. Except that geography is the greatest influence on the eating habits of people.

After that the respondent (a relatively young musician), gives the impression that he doesn’t have very good information. Everything seems to indicate that none has said that living on an island, surrounded by water on all sides, where there are fish, some little, some medium, some larger and some huge, we would traditionally consume fish, a lot of it and very good.

For almost half a century on any corner in Havana and in any other province they sold fried fish, fried oysters, fried cod and countless other marine variants. In my homes it was customary, on Fridays, to eat fish: yellowtail, snapper grouper, dogfish, and so on. Also in many households there were those big wide-mouthed jars where marinade was stored. Anyone could fish sitting on the wall of the Malecon or going out on a boat. Never in my teens did I perceive any lack of fish on Cuban tables, and it was very cheap as well, more so than beef, which in those days cost thirty-five centavos for a first-rate pound. I think before giving opinions, particularly on a media like television that reaches the public, it would be healthy to be better informed. I don’t know if the interviewee had a problem with amnesia or anesthesia.

June 3 2011

Pedro Pablo Oliva: The Art of Honesty / Miriam Celaya

Pedro P. Oliva creation. Graphic taken from a virtual gallery

I have read the words of the famous Cuban painter Pedro Pablo Oliva, 2006 National Prize of Plastic Arts, published on his website following his demotion from the post he occupied as a delegate of the Provincial Assembly of Popular Power in Pinar del Río which, once again, demonstrates the perverse nature of the system. Here is a government official — who allegedly represents the people who (also allegedly) elected him to do so, but was deposed by the delegates of the power elite — trapped in the sordid corners of the policies of a country, where, inexplicably, a parliamentarian is not designed, even remotely, to voice political views, much less to voice questions that criticize the national situation.

Because of those ironic life’s coincidences, Oliva has the fruit of the tree of peace as his last name but the system has declared war on him. That is why they have officially labeled him with nicknames such as counterrevolutionary, traitor to the Motherland and annexationist as befitting all those who “have moved onto the dissidence dividing lines”, according to a dictum formulated by the “ethics commission” destined to seal the cease of the functions of this parliamentarian.

About the Pedro Pablo Oliva case there might be much or perhaps nothing to say. The painter himself states that the purge did not take him by surprise, from what may be inferred that he was aware of the price for his audacity. Already various informational agencies and various websites have offered details about the news. There are those who have given their verdict as well, stoning Oliva from the most inflexible positions of the very “dissident gang”: guilty. Though these accusations are exactly the opposite of what the revolutionary diehards accuse him of, duplicating the same disqualification methods. The charges? Having been an official representative of the government, having partaken of the ideas of the revolution, having painted Fidel Castro, having confessed to (through persuasion) “sympathy” for him, and being grateful to that same defunct revolution for having become an artist. This isn’t anything that several of his relentless inquisitors have not done at some point. If there is something plentiful among Cubans it’s the propensity to being district attorneys, judges and executioners of ourselves, forgetting that, if viewed through a calm and rational eye, Oliva not only has the sovereign right to commune with whatever ideas he has chosen –the privilege of many, including his second-hand critics- but, as far as I know, he has lent true cultural services to his community, from his potential, a lot more than what most of the celebrities in this Island are willing to do, or what those censors have ever done.

That is why I have chosen to be on the side of the testimony of the heretic of the day himself in order to conjure the fairest opinions possible, leaving out all the tribunals of the Inquisition. The analysis of Oliva’s critics, stemming from his own words, is the most enlightening. That is, what he writes in a letter that was published in Yoani Sanchez’s blog, in the answers he gave Little Comrade Edmundo García for this show “La Noche se Mueve” – the Miami version of the Round Table, only more colloquial, sweeter, and with a deceptive sensitive touch — as well as in the letter that the painter has just published in his website.

Apart from the likes or dislikes that everyone may feel towards Oliva and from their views or positions (let’s remember that this is really not a politician, but an artist who once thought fit to assume responsibility as a public official in one of the provinces of the Castros’ Cuba), the fact is that everyone has the right to amend his course. Let’s say that the former Delegate to the Provincial Assembly has decided to return to his brushes and resume, full-time, his vocation after being punished for making statements that fall within the broad range of malcontent. That is, in Cuba everything that challenges the official line to any extent qualifies as criticism of a dissident nature. And, up to a point, it is, though, in our view, Pedro Oliva might not be – or he might not have realized it himself — an activist dissident. It is not necessary to always label people or to form the two monolithic sides, so similar to each other: dissidents / not dissidents or revolutionaries/counter-revolutionaries; who may be “good” or “bad”, depending on how they relate to the ideas of the labeler.

As far as I’m concerned, if Oliva — with all his prestige as an artist and as a person — makes public statements that many of us agree with, labeled or not, it’s OK with me. We are not talking about two high nominees like Lage and Pérez Roque, who, after Oliva’s downfall signed respective mea culpa little letters exonerating the regime of all liability and burying themselves in their own crap and the crap of their superiors. Oliva is something completely different, and, so far, has not retracted anything he said, neither what we like nor what we haven’t shared. That is honesty and courage. If, in addition, as is the case, the painter made his remarks while he held an official position, I think that is a testimony to the state of putrefaction of the system. And if it doesn’t stink even worse, it is because the coffin’s hinges have not completely popped. Oliva’s judgments are, therefore, welcome. May he paint much, because his art exalts him and us. I, an acknowledged dissident, dream of a Cuba where no one has to keep silent or hide to state what he is thinking. Not even communists.

At any rate, Pedro Pablo Oliva’s saga once again places on the front burner the subject of the government’s inability – in all its instances — to head a process of change within Cuba. The real loser in this process is the regime. For the rest, if the elected officials themselves cannot state their points of view and are punished for disobeying the norms (“code of ethics” is what they call the mysterious ritual of swearing in that deprives representatives of their right of speech; in theory, of the people’s will) what’s left to mere mortals, without a voice and with a false vote! The proposition to change a system without changing ideas is absolutely impossible, and neither is the intention of a vote to overcome the inertia without breaking, de facto, the rigidity of the Stalinist schemes rooted in the ruling ideology. Wish there were more “Olivas” among the artists, intellectuals, and officials of this Island. In the meantime, we will continue to wait for a statement of the UNEAC or the Ministry of Culture … or at least a small Granma notation informing its people about the “deviations” of this illustrious derailed comrade. To your health, Pedro Pablo Oliva, and may honesty and the muses of your art continue to guard you!

Translated by Norma Whiting

30 May 2011

Against Homophobia vs the Slogans / Luis Felipe Rojas

I have spent days waiting to see if the official press is going to publish a report, or a snippet, mentioning the fact that Miss Mariela Castro was in Santiago de Cuba as part of the Cuban campaign against homophobia.

Since this is not a news blog (and knowing that even if it was I do not have the ability to cover all the developments around me) I have had to wait.

On May 17th, the date which Cuba celebrates Farmworker Day, an enormous fair took place in Santiago de Cuba where souvenirs, posters, and pamphlets dealing with homophobia were distributed.

Miss Mariela Castro, with an entourage of CENESEX specialists, presided over the activities. In the emblematic Plaza de Marte, in the general barracks of the large baseball crowds (epitome of machismo) pamphlets were handed out, songs were performed, and certain people who, in one way or another, have felt excluded or singled out because of their sexual preference had hours of escape.

However, the campaign was not mentioned in the official media. Many people, upon seeing the diverse multitude of excited people under the protection of the General-cum-President’s daughter, watched with shocked faces.

The key of the discord due to so much fuss seems to be that Miss Castro (Mariela) shoots up into the air and makes allusions without properly pointing out those who, through official procedures, committed the worst homophobic acts in the nation’s history. But it’s clear that she would have to ask the heads of her family: Why so much intolerance?

For a moment, it’s as if she were accusing the flags and the origins of so much hate towards gays and lesbians in Cuba.

I’m sharing photos of her and others which her group of body guards allowed me to take. There was a foul mood in the air, with so many people laughing, as if it was a fair, and shocked while “daddy’s little girl” traveled throughout the island with a slogan which people will soon forget.

What we would have to counteract would be intolerance, of any kind of preference whether it is sexual, nutritious, dress, economic, sport, environmental, politics? Did I write politics? No, I must be dreaming. Miss Castro (Mariela) would not go so far.

Photos: Luis Felipe Rojas

Translated by Raul G.

5 June 2011

A Part of Me / Yoani Sánchez

Emigration has taken my friends, my childhood acquaintances, neighbors from the place where I was born, and people I greeted once or twice in the street. One day it grabbed my paternal uncles, cousins, classmates with whom I shared the joy of graduation, and even the shy mailman who brought me the paper once a week. And, as if still unsatisfied, now it has come back for more, taking also the part closest to me, the most intimate of my life.

I remember when my sister told me she’d entered her name into an international visa lottery. Yunia was always very lucky in games of chance, so I knew what to expect from the outset. My mother tells of the day she gave birth to her, the doctors and nurses crossed themselves seeing a baby emerge from the womb with its amniotic sac almost intact.

“You came into the world in a bag,” they told her, as if this guaranteed prosperity, love, happiness. Hence, this Island seemed too narrow to contain the good fortune of my older sister. And more than twenty years ago she reached the same conclusion as the majority of my compatriots: How can one set down roots in a country where so few can bear fruit? I didn’t even try to convince her, I just watched her in a blur of paperwork here, a line waiting for permission there, meanwhile knowing that the moment of parting was near.

Finally, on Friday, her plane took off, taking also my only niece, my brother-in-law, and a little stray dog they could not abandon. My mother cried the day before, “I’m not ready! I’m not ready!” while my father hid the tears of one for whom “a man who is a man doesn’t cry.”

Nothing prepared you for the separation, Mami, for knowing that the ones you love are only ninety miles away but in an abyss of immigration restrictions.

You are right to mourn, Papi, because this distance should not be so definitive, so harrowing, so conclusive.

5 June 2011

Raul Castro’s Legacy / Iván García

In the pantheon of history Fidel Castro will have a place. The only commander and leader of the Cuban revolution for good or evil has earned it for himself, and in the future, after his death, fables will be woven about him.

His brother Raul knows he never was the smartest in the class. He has his feet on the ground. His is to do the dirty work. To try to sort the mess and chaos created by his enlightened and fraternal brother in the 50 years he was in power.

The economy wasn’t something Fidel was good at. And look, he tried. He could read in one sitting complex theoretical books on how to create wealth and lead to the safe harbor of a nation’s economic structure.

Nobody doubts his skills as oral snake charmer, his cunning to handle military situations and his ability in foreign policy, but Castro has one major flaw: he pays little attention to the opinions of others.

In the economic sphere he failed. From when he decided to plant coffee in a ring around the capital, create a race of dwarf cows to give pints of milk for the family breakfast, or to try to grow strawberries, apples, grapes, pears and peaches in the center of the country.

His disasters in economic terms may have been more expensive than those generated by the U.S. embargo. He even tried communism in the town of San Julian, Pinar del Rio, to see how it worked.

Castro is just Castro. You can agree or not with his outlandish doctrines, but in the end you end up loving him a little. Perhaps out of pity. But if anyone in this world loves him it is his brother Raul. For many reasons.

By blood, ideas, and theories of his big brother, Raul was always in Fidel’s tow. His were not the brilliant elocutions or sweet-talking a political adversary or a lit-up crowd.

Raul was better given to administering a war zone, as he did with the Second Eastern Front in the guerillas war, and listening without interrupting his friends or those more capable.

His mission was that things should work acceptably well. And he did it. If anything in Cuba works like a Swiss watch, it is the armed forces. Also the dozens of businesses run by managers in olive green.

Castro II doesn’t have such an ego, neither does he believe himself to be a fantastically gifted military strategist. Even the Cuban wars in Africa were managed by a Havana cigar chewing brother Fidel from a house in Nuevo Vedado, replete with maps and mock-ups where the Maximum Leader moved miniature tanks and little tin soldiers with ease. Even the caramels and ice cream pots eaten by the troops in Angola and Ethiopia were administered by Fidel, with that incurable mania of a grocer that he possesses.

Then the year 2006 arrived; a tremendous year for Cuba. Fidel became gravely ill and death began to stalk him. It came Raul Castro’s turn, who for quite some time together with his battalion of military technocrats had already been trying to straighten out the path of the precarious local economy.

His steps have been timid, slow, and prolonged. We can’t expect large changes from Castro II after the 6th Congress. He is a long-time Communist and a believer in having State institutions be rational and efficient.

This much is certain: he is far from being a democrat. If he doesn’t lock up his opponents, independent journalists and bloggers right now, it is because the era of the Cold War has been left behind.

But the General wants to leave a legacy. To create the foundations on which tropical socialism can operate full steam ahead. The task is for titans, but he has no other choice.

And his biggest enemy isn’t the dissidents nor the gringo embargo. No. It is time. Without criticizing his cherished brother, he has meticulously dismantled the ludicrous way of managing and supervising the management of the country that Fidel had.

We already know how El Comandante did it; Olympically hurdling institutions, presuppositions and ordinances. Castro I did not believe in rules. He was God, and Gods do not respect the norms. His brother knows that time will run out soon. Because of that he wants to leave the rules of the future political game well-written.

Now Cuba will not tolerate yet another enlightened warlord. Therefore, the General takes his forecasts and dictates that all political offices shall be elected every five years, and no one person can stay in power for more than ten. It’s logical and makes sense — it is demonstrated that a politician has a short useful lifetime.

The sweetnesses of power are treacherous. The hard part for Castro II will be to get people who are both young and blind believers in that German jew named Marx. Marxist theories don’t sell so well in Cuba. It is a lot like wanting to go back to silent films in black and white. Jokingly, the average Cuban calls the author of Das Kapital “the guy who invented misery”.

Also, for five decades the young managers who wanted to make career paths in government fell noisily, always accused of desiring power. An urgent task for the General is to find a talented replacement who can run the Republic in the medium-term future. Another is to see if the economic plan of Castro II works. The majority thinks not; but after 21 years of touching bottom, worse off we shall not be.

When people feel more free to speak and their lives improve is when the true contradictions will start. For then, by the laws of life, the Castros won’t be among us.

Photo: AP. Raul Castro during the Jewish Hanukkah festivities in the Bet Shalom synagogue in Havana, Sunday, December 5, 2010.

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April 20 2011

The Death of Juan Wilfredo / Mario Barosso

Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia

By: Yoaxis Marcheco Suarez

I know that the truth will always prevail over a lie and that light will disperse darkness, leaving all things once dark and hidden to be discovered; thus it shall be with the events associated with the death of Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia, who his friends and acquaintances called “The Student”. This man fought against the Cuban Regime from the age of 16, suffered three sentences making a total of 12 years in prison for the “terrible crime” of dissenting. His state of health was extremely difficult, although his appearance pointed to a stout and healthy man; but many times appearances deceive us, and inside that bulky body there was a very sick heart, and his organs were suffering the effects of Diabetes Mellitus, gout, and severely high blood pressure that reached levels of 230 maximum and 130 minimum, truly alarming figures.

Juan Wilfredo was a loving man, even so another pastor told us that he shared with us and his relatives, friends, and battle comrades the feelings of pain for the loss of this human being, who always demonstrated being opposed to violence, and whose methods of fighting were peaceful. I remember seeing him once embracing my husband very spontaneously and effusively, calling him ‘Pastor’. So this he also called him that Thursday morning when he was to be transferred only to the hospital to be attended to after the beating, which according to his own testimony, was given to him by agents of order in Vidal Park in the City of Santa Clara, a place that Juan Wilfredo frequented. He moved with great pain and in one sentence to my husband — which didn’t seem to be literal to him — told him “they have killed me”. Sadly, he complied with what was predicted for him, and hours later he died.

Pastor Mario at the funeral.

I have no doubt that the Regime will start to look for arguments to shake the death of Juan Wilfredo from its shoulders, but this death is an error more of the system and of the Cuban Government; and the sum of these errors grows every day. They will try to distort the diagnosis or the cause of death, the scene of the crime will be falsified, the same as the testimony of victim himself and of any other witness who without fear and motivated by conscience might decide to expose what he saw and what really happened. Nor will the cunning arguments be lacking to discredit Juan Wilfredo with wild accusations; perhaps they will attribute him with the qualifier of habitual criminal or common criminal, and diverse accusations of having performed illegalities or what other fallacy. But the fact of the death of this man is out there, it is real, and the world has started to know it.

Light will never be underneath a bushel, but on the candlestick, the light will shine and leave to be discovered all the garbage hidden underneath the carpet of the decadent Cuban ruling system: “Because there is nothing hidden that except to be made visible; nothing is hidden except to come to light” (Gospel of Mark, 4:22). Whichever lie one wants to weave about the death of this sick man and by his condition — almost defenseless — killed by nightsticks in the hands of the revolutionary police, will remain incinerated by the light of the truth, that which always arises even in the best of hiding places. God will see to it because in this case the most perfect justice might be made, and that those guilty for this death shall not go unpunished.

May 10 2011

Logic, Absurdity and Socialism in Cuba / Laritza Diversent

Logic passed through Cuba. He was curious about how socialist democracy worked, but full of doubts. He asked everyone he saw, and only Absurdity could give an answer. “Why have the decisions of a political party been so decisive in the life of an entire people?” was Logic’s first concern.

“The Sixth Communist Congress,” Absurdity began his explanation, “discussed the final draft guideline of economic and social policy of the Party and the Revolution, to update the Cuban economic model and ensure the continuity and irreversibility of socialism.”

“The continuity of socialism as a system must be decided by all the citizens,” interrupted Logic. “So why does a political party of nearly 800 thousand members decide the issues to be discussed and what should or should not be reformed? Were they elected by the people”? he asked.

“The Party does not participate in the elections, but it’s the driving force of the State,” answered Absurdity. “In this country we have made it clear that we will defend ourselves, if necessary with arms. Only socialism can overcome difficulties and preserve the gains of the revolution,” Absurdity affirmed.

“Does this mean that the Communist Party has more power of decision than the National Assembly, the body that represents and expresses the will of 11 million Cubans”? Logic inquired. “Don’t look at it like that,” replied Absurdity. “Look at it as the Party of the people.”

“So Cubans themselves decided to require permission to enter and leave their own country, and that only foreigners could have private businesses on the island, and that their own involvement in the economy would be limited to running tiny little stands and kiosks?” asked Logic. “Yes, it’s so,” said Absurdity. “We all decided to sacrifice ourselves for the Revolution and Socialism.”

Logic continued investigating. “As I have understood, now the National Assembly must transform into law the decisions adopted by the Communist Congress,” he commented. “Yes, that was the recommendation of the Party,” reaffirmed Absurdity. “So the Party commands and the Assembly obeys, without asking the people?” Logic asked.

“In fact, Cubans were consulted about the guidelines. For your information, they were analyzed by a little more than 8 million participants, and 3 of them spoke in the debate, a real lesson in democracy,” Absurdity commented.

“But you just told me that the Party isn’t a body elected by the people,” Logic again interrupted. “So in order for there to be institutions, there has to be a referendum. Logistically a popular referendum is a waste of resources, which, in the historic moment we are experiencing, we cannot assume.”

“To our historic leaders, it seemed more necessary to invest such efforts in a parade where we showed our military arsenal to our enemies. Many are those who want to destroy the Revolution and socialism, so only they have the experience to decide what is best for all,” explained Absurdity.

“This is democracy?” Logic asked in amazement. Absurdity frowned and looked cross. Logic understood that he shouldn’t continue asking questions. Something told him that he never would understand Absurdity’s explanations, much less his reasoning, about how socialism worked in Cuba.

Translated by Regina Anavy

May 30 2011

The Government Considers Abolishing the Invitation Letter as a Travel Requirement / Laritza Diversent

The streets of the island were full of comments after, around the middle of the month, the government brought out a paper with the debates of the congress, and a leaflet with the ideas that were passed, confirming that Cubans will be able to sell their houses and cars, and in the future to travel as tourists.

In the 60’s the revolutionary government, for political reasons, empowered the Ministry of the Interior to decide which Cubans could enter and leave the island. In 50 years the motives for emigrating have changed, but the controls and the bureaucracy involved haven’t.

At the moment Cubans cannot make international trips as tourists. The Law on Migration only allows people to leave Cuba on official business or to visit friends and family. Those who travel for private reasons have to show a letter of invitation.

“To consider a policy which permits Cubans resident in the country to travel abroad as tourists”, says the final line of decision number 265, passed in the communist congress, and intended to be carried out during the current five year period, which began in January 2011.

“Pack of lies, imagine waiting till 2015 to hear the results of the study, that there will be no entry or exit permits”, said Juan after buying the pamphlet. This man, about 40, wanted to check for himself the rumours that began to circulate the second week of May, when it went on sale.

The document must be applied for and issued in the country of residence of the inviting person and must be legalised through the consulates. It is valid for one year and is issued to a single invited person, for a single journey.

Its removal means the disappearance of one of the most troublesome pieces of bureaucracy which Cubans have to pay for in order to travel, and, as well as the visa of the country they want to visit, they also need to get an entry and exit permit.

The problem then would be that the State would give an entry permit to someone who, under whatever conditions, would be a potential emigrant. Ecuador abolished the visa requirement for Cuba. Since then thousands of Cubans, legally or illegally, are looking to legalise their situation in that country.

Undoubtedly it will still take a lot to abolish the system of permits and discretionary powers which the government has to issue them. In these proposals there is a lack of precision — the word freedom is also missing — and, whatever it says, few Cubans are hopeful of travelling as tourists some day.

Translated by: Jack Gibbard

May 26 2011

Chiaroscuro / Yoani Sánchez

Image take from: boticatriole.blogspot.com

It’s been almost two years since I’ve been seen at a hospital. The last time was in that November of beatings and kidnapping when my lower back was in very bad shape. I learned a hard lesson on that occasion: given the choice between the Hippocratic oath and ideological fidelity, many physicians prefer to violate the privacy of their patients–often compared to the secrets of the confessional–rather than to oppose, with the truth, the State that employs them. The examples of this pouring forth on official television in recent months have strengthened my lack of confidence in the Cuban public health system. So I am healing myself with plants that grow on my balcony, I exercise every day to avoid getting sick, and I’ve even bought myself a Vademécum–a Physician’s Desk Reference–should I need to self-prescribe at some point. But despite my “medical revolt,” I haven’t failed to observe and investigate the growing deterioration of this sector.

Among the recent hospital cuts, the most notable have to do with resources for diagnostics. The doctors receive greatly reduced allocations for X-rays, ultrasounds and MRIs which they must distribute among their patients. Anecdotes about fractures that are set without first being X-rayed, or abdominal pains that become complicated because they can’t do a scan, are so common we’re no longer surprised. Such a situation is also vulnerable to patronage, where those who can offer a gift, or surreptitiously pay, obtain better medical care than do others. The cheese given to the nurse and the indispensable hand soap that many offer the dentist noticeably accelerate treatment and complement the undervalued salaries of those medical professionals.

A thermometer is an object long-missing from the shelves of pharmacies operating in local currency, while the hard currency stores have the most modern digital models. Getting a pair of glasses to alleviate near-sightedness can take months through subsidized State channels, or twenty-four hours at Miramar Optical where you pay in convertible pesos. Nor do the bodies who staff the hospitals escape these contrasts: we can consult the most competent neurosurgeon in the entire Caribbean region, but he doesn’t have even an aspirin to give us. These are the chiaroscuros that make us sick, and exhaust patients, their families, and the medical personnel themselves. And that leave us feeling defrauded by a conquest–long brandished before our faces–that has crumbled, and they won’t even let us complain about it.

5 June 2011

Chronicle of my Trip to London (Pt. II) / Pablo Pacheco


by Pablo Pacheco Avila

After meeting with the Amnesty International UK group in London, I went with Sue Bingham and Yaniset Zapata Grenot to Sonning Common, Reading, where both these women reside. Yaniset served as an interpreter and added the Cuban “touch” with her sense of humor.

In the evening I met Graham, Sue’s husband. I was impressed by his knowledge of sports. He confessed to me that he was a fan of Teofilo Stevenson and Alberto Juan Torena due to their athletic feats. I told him that I also greatly admired Jonathan Edwards, an international triple jump record holder and an Olympic champion from the 2000 Sydney Olympics, in addition to Gary Lineker, Peter Shilton, and other English soccer players.

On Saturday morning I accompanied the family to one of the most welcoming places I have ever seen: a castle-garden which historically belonged to a British aristocratic family. It was very interesting to see so many years of history up close, and before I knew it I was traveling back in time and imagining foreign and local soldiers in the fields I was now walking on.

The climax of the day was emotional and gratifying. Sue took me to the Global Cafe in Reading. At the cafe there were various voluntary activists from Amnesty International which traveled from other towns nearby Reading to meet the person for which they had worked to free for countless hours.

In the meeting I let them know the importance of the letters they sent to political prisoners and prisoners of conscience. I explained to them that the postcards they sent me served as a protective shield against our oppressors because it proved that we were not alone. Sometimes the letters would be given to us, and other times they would not. Regardless, these letters had an enormous effect, for they showed our jailers that all their strength was futile against human solidarity.

These people I met in Reading worried about the situation my family and I currently faced. They do not understand why the government will not give political asylum to some of my brothers in cause. Despite the fact that many of them solicited these permits more than 8 months ago, many of them continue in a legal limbo in Spain. It was also difficult for them to believe that the Cuban government has taken so long in sending documents to the deported prisoners and their families that would allow them to validate their titles and re-commence their professional lives in the Iberian country. The minimal demand on behalf of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero towards the Cuban regime also seemed unbelievable to them.

After a pleasant and constructive chat, in which Cuba’s current reality was the main subject, we took some photos together and they gave me various souvenirs and a CD of Cuban music.

That night, we all went to bed late at Sue’s house because we were able to successfully connect through Skype with Miguel Galban Gutierrez, Jose Luis Garcia Paneque, Jesus Mustafa, Alfredo Felipe Fuentes, Regis Iglesias, Arturo Suarez, Alexis Rodríguez and his wife, Juan Carlos Herrera, Mijaíl Barzaga, Luis Enrique Ferrer, and Yamilka Morejon, the spouse of Jose Ubaldo Izquierdo who lives in Chile. One could tell by Sue’s face that she was very happy and she actually cried with more than one of them. Before we all headed off to bed she told me, “At least today I have felt more important, for my work at Amnesty can be seen on your faces. I feel very happy, Pablo, and as a consequence my compromise to the cause of defending human rights has been multiplied,” she finished saying with tears in her eyes.

On the following Sunday afternoon we went out to visit the city of London. But I’ll tell you all more about that in the next chronicle.

Translated by Raul G.

27 May 2011