Internet for Cubans

By this means I want to call on the attention of all the righteous people of the world to show solidarity with the demand for internet access for Cubans. Now that Cuba has a fiber optic cable provided by the Republic of Venezuela, the pretexts to prevent us from exercising our right to freedom of information have expired. Every time you promote human rights for everyone, it is a vote in favor of free access to the “internet for Cubans.”

March 28 2011

“Unbirthday” Parties

It has always disturbed me how men can feel respectable with the humiliation of their peers.

Given his age and delicate state of health, Fidel Castro has led me to think that every time he appears on National TV it’s a new birthday that, like an expected gift or anticipated party, his followers have arranged for him before a captive audience.

In his most recent appearance of February — at the time of the International Book Fair — in the company of a group of national and foreign supporters, there was everything: from showing off small and large vanities, memories and opportune forgetfulness, to new prophecies, purposes and adjectives (above all praising the boss) in advance of the August 13th birthday of the historic Cuban leader.

We could, then, find it ironic that we have a unique calendar so that they don’t judge us too harshly: a periodic calendar that allows lapses according to needs, interests and desires of the governing class. That is why it is also necessary that those of us who are a part of the alternative civil society “not be too demanding” with regards to the remaining in power of the man, because we already know that time is relative and flexible; why shouldn’t it be for us as well?

And so we received painful images of shipwrecks in praise (or flattery?) on the part of the national participants. At times I get the impression that the ex-president is a person who needs constant praise to reaffirm for himself his work and to indulge in the idolatry that for many represents his image. It is absurd that a leader who has bragged so much about himself, along with his model of government, the champion and promoter of national honor, would promote and disseminate collective humiliation. It seems that “in Wonderland” the dignity of Cubans has worth only to be wielded against “capitalism,” but when it comes to the champion, no praises should be spared…

March 28 2011

One Spring I’ll Never Forget / Iván García

On the night of March 17th, 2003, my mind was somewhere else. I did not have a single cent in my pocket and I had to buy vitamin enriched milk formula (which at the time cost 4 dollars) for my daughter Melany, who was only a mere one and a half months old. The excessive appetite of the baby had compelled the pediatrician to suggest the vitamin enriched milk along with the mother’s breast.

At the time, I was an independent journalist for the Cuba Press agency which was run by the poet and journalist Raul Rivero. I wrote for the website of the Interamerican Press Association and for Encuentro on the Net, a site created by Cuban exiles in Spain.

But the pay for writing articles would arrive every two or three months. And on March 17th, the day before the government would unleash an oppressive wave against 75 dissidents and independent journalists, I was trying to make ends meet. I spoke to my wife about the possibility of selling a watch of mine and some of my clothes in order to have enough money to buy the food for my girl.

That night, I stayed over at my daughter’s house, so that I could help her mother, who was exhausted by the customs of little Melany who would frequently wake up in the middle of the night and stay awake until dawn.

At midnight on Tuesday 18th March, I returned to my home in the neighborhood of the La Vibora, where I lived with my mother, my sister and a niece. With a weariness of the ages and eye bags to the ground.

On the balcony I saw my mother, Tania Quintero, also an independent journalist, making incomprehensible signals. When I arrived, she told me that several journalists and dissidents had been arrested.

The sleepiness I had was suddenly taken from me. The bad news did not stop there. Mass detentions were taking place throughout the island. The next day we found out that almost a hundred people had been arrested and their homes meticulously searched.

My mother and I were expecting our detention at any time. We went about with a toothbrush and a spoon. I talked with my wife and I told her grimly that at any moment they might come for us.

Our hearts were in our mouths. Those were days full of fear. I did not understand the reasons for the government to jail a group of people who opposed them using peaceful means or who wrote without restriction.

Journalist colleagues like Raúl Rivero, Ricardo González, Jorge Olivera and Pablo Pacheco, by state decree, slept in the windowless cells of the political police. We listened to shortwave radio and the denunciation from the rest of the world was dramatic. Castro, in his calculated strategy, believed that the war in Iraq would divert attention from the issue. Not so.

As the days passed, a powerful burst of attacks was unleashed on the opposition in the official media. And the circus began. Unfair trials and a series of moles that had infiltrated the dissidents and independent journalists came to light. With horror I remember that there were seven requests by the procecution for the death sentence.

As “strong evidence” the prosecution presented typewriters, radios, books, blank sheets of paper … Not one single firearm or explosive material was produced. “Castro has gone mad”, I thought. One thing was certain: the blow to the opposition had been prepared meticulously.

The Varela Project, by Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, had Fidel Castro up by the balls. Any Democrat that passed through Havana asked the Comandante only that he comply with the laws of his own Constitution, which authorized the implementation of law reforms when 10,000 signatures were collected.

And that was what Payá’s movement had done, collecting more than 10 thousand signatures. Even the ex-president of the U.S., Jimmy Carter, in a speech in the auditorium of the University of Havana and before Castro himself, said that he was required to meet the constitutional requirements.

This ended up aggravating Castro, who since 1998 had a network of 12 spies dismantled in the U.S. with 5 imprisoned. No legal maneuvering had made the remission of the penalty possible so he decided to play hard.

He made reforms to the Constitution to perpetuate his political system. And launched the sinister Law 88, known as “gag rule”, which could send you to prison for more than 20 years, just for saying, writing or disagreeing, under the accusation of serving a foreign power.

The conditions were created to unleash a crackdown on the opposition. The Iraq war was a smokescreen that Castro decided to use to evaporate the news.

No opponent or journalist was sure of their situation in the following months. My mother, my sister and my niece went into exile. I preferred to see my daughter grow up. Watching her take her first steps and say her first words in the country where she was born and where her parents and grandparents were born. Nobody was going to stop me. Even at the risk of going to prison.

Eight years after that fateful spring, Fidel Castro, somewhat recovered, continues to write a litany of thoughts about events on the planet. Now aware of the uprisings in several Arab countries.

His brother Raúl has not made big changes and continued the same policy of repression against opponents. Those still discrediting and rejecting. Of the 75 prosecuted in 2003, two remain in prison.

In the air of the Republic, the intimidating Law 88 remains afloat. The prisons can be re-filled at any time. With nationals or foreigners, such as the American Alan Gross, who was condemned to 15 years in prison.

At this stage, the Castros are determined to remain in power until death comes to them.

Photo: tuty240, Panaramico. Calzada de 10 de Octubre and Santa Catalina, in the Havana neighbourhood of La Vibora.

Translated by: Araby

March 19 2011

The Legacy / Claudia Cadelo


Havana has been asleep since I was born. I like to stand at the end of Calle 12 and look at the line the sea draws in the distance. Almost all my friends live, or intend to live, on the other side of that line. Where my eyes cannot go.

I read “The Color of Summer” by Reinaldo Arenas and I feel myself stuck beyond the fiction. I’m happy, in a way, that Reinaldo has not seen his novel come true, with fifty-two years of Revolution. I am a kind of character after the Grand Carnival. We are all survivors of the pages he didn’t write, because for him fifty was a number too large, too round. We’ve already lost the idea of whole numbers, of all numbers.

I live the sensation of breathing a change, but I cannot know. It seems I’m at the end, but I open my eyes and in reality it’s no more than the beginning. Things end, people age, cities change, and ideologies die. But there are days when I wake up with the impression of having woken up the day before.

29 March 2011

History of a Kidnapping / Katia Sonia

At dawn on March 18 I was kidnapped along with Aimé Cabrales Aguilar at the corner of Calzada de Infanta and San Tomas a few meters from my house and on a public street, from a bus with a veneer of tourism in which women in the uniform of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) came, along with two Chinese-make Geely cars with private license plates with State Security agents who wore civilian clothes, easily identified by their cruel faces and well-fed bodies.

At four in the morning and after a struggle between these women and us, we were then attacked as if we were two highly dangerous women and taken in the Geely to the Cerro police station at Infanta and Amenidad, where they led us to the back and put us in separate rooms. Within seconds an individual appeared whose rank I couldn’t make out because we had a little altercation and he immediately took my cell phone and then took me from there, in a police car escorted by a policewoman in uniform, who had my phone and an arrest warrant that said “Counterrevolutionary,” although it wasn’t written in this way but as “Counter revolutionary,” an adjective they use every day and don’t even know how to write.

Then began a long journey until we reached the Santa Fe station where I was rejected by the officers on duty when they were shown the warrant, and in a matter of minutes they decided to take me to the station at 7th and 62nd station in the municipality of Playa, better known as the Fifth Station (La Quinta), where they searched me thoroughly taking my wallet and all my belongings including my clothes.

An official from police criminal investigation (CIM) tells me, from a distance, that I have to change clothes and approaches with a gray uniform with white numbers, my only words were, when the guy from CIM came I told him he should put it on, and then I saw how their faces started to change and his response was only, “No, relax,” and they showed me to cell 7 where I remained from 6:30 AM on March 18 to 10:00 PM on the 19th, without taking any food or water as a protest for the arbitrariness of the detention. The total was 42 hours.

In that same humid cell there were three women dressed in gray, with uncombed hair, gloomy faces, and smoking uncontrollably. Yenima was there for embezzlement and had been in that same place for 39 filthy days. They could not prove her embezzlement case, so they are now trying to get her through falsifying signatures, but once again have no proof. She works for CIMEX corporation and must be either 39 or 40 years old. She has two sons, one who is 16 and the younger one who is 3, both which she has not been able to see during this whole time.

Betty is another young woman, a hair-dresser with a 10-year-old daughter who kept a bag of medicine in her house for a friend. It turns out, the contents were actually prescribed medications which can be used as drugs. She turned it in to the police and now awaits preventive prison.

Yuvisnavi, the other young 30-year-old, was out partying with her husband when she had some drinks and began filling ill. They quickly went to the nearest clinic and had an argument with some police officials. The cops beat both of them savagely. She still had the scars on her body to prove it, as well as a missing tooth, the result of a punch. She threw a soda can at the cop’s back and the couple now awaits a fiscal petition which will accuse them of “attempt on someone’s life”.

Upon noticing that I was wearing different clothes than they were, they began to ask me thousands of questions at the same time. We entered a lengthy conversation. They already knew who the Ladies in White were, and I then explained to them a bit about the organization I belong to, the Cuban Democratic and Independent Party, in addition to our purpose and the activities we carry out.

During the afternoon hours they took me out of the cell so that doctor could examine me and fill out a brief clinical record for me. After a while, the prison guard took me to a small interrogation room where a State Security official, claiming to be called Vladimir, waited for me. I was there with that arrogant man with a harsh voice for 2 and a half hours. Throughout the entire time, however, I displayed a vibe of indifference, for I knew I was going to be kept there anyway. He then told me that I would be re-educated there, among other threats. He jotted down a few things about my life on various pages which made up my file.

Later, I was returned to my cell and entered into another room where they took various photos of me — one with a ruler measuring my height, one of the right side of my face, the left side, with my glasses, without them, barefoot, with my feet together, etc. They also took my digital fingerprints and filled out a sheet with my general physical details.

Since my cell was at the entrance of the waiting room, I could see that there was another woman dressed in White. It was Tania Maldonado, also a Lady in White detained under the same conditions as me, as she left her house with Sarah Marta Fonseca. They were separated in the same fashion I was separated from Aime, who I did not know where she was.

I felt a bit relieved that there was someone I knew there. She was also taken to cell # 7 and also chose to cease eating or drinking liquids. For this reason we were constantly being visited by the Chiefs and Officials of the Unit, as well as doctors and CIM agents. Going on strike, as they call it, is something which worries them deeply, in addition to the fact that we kept shouting that we were peaceful women who were being kept there against our will. We also told them that whatever happened to us from that moment on during our detention was completely the responsibility of the Cuban government and all the repressive organs of State Security. They would constantly take our blood pressure, and did the same to Hector Julio Negrin Cedeno who was also detained a few blocks from Laura’s house and who assumed the same rebellious posture.

Late that night, official Tamayo from section 21, and Tomas both entered my cell and I had yet another interrogation for a few hours. I kept my same posture, with the same indifference I displayed before, but this time I had a very bad headache due to the lack of food. They asked me why I did not eat then and I responded by saying that in addition to protesting, not even dogs would eat the food they offered. The menu was always white rice, boiled potato, and something else which I could not decipher. It was some sort of omelette which would cause heartburn in the women who ate it, and there was no medicine available afterwards to calm the sensation.

As was expected, both these agents touched upon the subject of the CID, that party which robs them from sleep. They mentioned Huber Matos and his organization inside the island. Among the threats I received was one that, after they finish off the Ladies in White, they were going to go after the CID to end it. They stated that they knew I had been in the province of Pinar del Rio and that everything was prepared so my arrest would take place in that area.

According to Tamayo, he told his friends from Pinar del Rio to leave me alone because he would easily catch me here. Did he think that for a moment I was going to hide? He talked to me about the CID in general — about when the elections were, etc. He gave off the impression that he was very misinformed and wanted to gather more information, but he failed. He then said that the CID was a lie and that Huber Matos was asking for money throughout all of the United States. I ask myself, if it’s all such a lie then why do they constantly oppress and harass each one of its members? This group is here to stay, I would repeat them over and over again. And they are scared of that.

They returned me to my cell and re-appeared shortly thereafter with some crackers, bread, soda bottles, and Dipirona tablets. To ease my headache, I got a pill out of the bottle after checking that it was sealed. A doctor then appeared to examine me again. They then took away all the other things they gave me to eat because I did not touch any of it. The agents asked the doctor if he had any injection they could put on my tongue or an electro-shock that would change my thoughts. I didn’t even pay attention, and I only responded by asking the doctor if he had two of each because the guard would need it as well.

Back in my cell, where I could not shower, I threw a a mat on the floor and both Tania and I laid down. We actually fell asleep quickly, thank God. I thought it would not be so easy to get some rest since the smell of urine was so strong, as was the presence of mosquitoes, the sound of officials slamming doors all night, and a constant ringing which would go off every time someone walked through the main gate, whether they were prisoners or police officials. There were also constant arguments between the authorities. They used very obscene and vulgar words against each other, and despite the fact that they speak the same language, they still cannot manage to understand each other.

They had an elderly lady in custody, but she was not being kept in a cell. Instead, she slept on a stone bench. She had been taken by the DTI (Department of Technical Investigation), together with her son who was also in a cell and carrying out a strike. She was a very corpulent woman who arrived to the jail at the same time as me. When I left, she was still there, and as I stepped out she came close to me and said, “Tomorrow, when you go to Church, pray to Saint Rita for me and my son”. I never knew why they were there. They didn’t give us time to talk.

During the next morning the parade of the authorities continued. They kept checking our state of health, and the food somewhat improved. However, they could not convince us to eat. An official later handed me a bucket of water (for showering) and some clothes which my husband had brought me, which reassured me that people did know about my kidnapping. I shared my water with Tania, who also had to brush her teeth with my tooth brush, which is something so personal. We also shared my towel. There was no other option. A penal instructor then took me out of my cell to once again write down declarations from me. This time, she wanted to know where I was headed when I was detained and why I was not eating.

During that same time another woman, who must have been around 40 years of age, was taken into my cell. At first glance anyone could tell, based on her face and her way of talking, that was someone who had some sort of mental instability. She was there because an employee from the Aedes Aegipty Campaign pushed her elderly mother inside her house, so she (the lady in the cell) got into a fight with the employee to defend her mother. During the fight, both women ended up hurt. Immediately, the police took her to the station and they want to prosecute her under “attempt at someone’s life”. The public health worker was free from any accusations.

Once again, that night I was taken out of my cell and taken to the interrogation room. An official from Villa Marista was waiting for me. He asked me various questions, among them about my hunger strike. Then agent Vladimir appeared, who also asked me about why I was not eating. It was all a matter of 15 minutes, and when I returned to my cell I would say that 2 minutes passed and the head guard approached me and said, “Get your stuff. You’re leaving.”

They handed me my belongings, I made sure I was not missing anything, and that I had left everything in order. I put on my earrings, other jewelry, and put my lip-stick on. Agent Vladimir gave us a release letter to sign and cop car # 716 was waiting for us with an escort police officer who was holding both Tania and my ID cards. The officer also had orders to drop us off at the door of our respective homes, and she only gave me my ID card when I stepped out of the car.

Half translated by Raul G.

March 24 2011

Onward to a Career / Regina Coyula

My son behind.

My son has been a protagonist in recent postings since it is at a crucial time for his studies and life. Last week he had to fill his “ballot” to request admission to the university, paperwork in which the student can put up to ten options. Rafael, indecisive, and without a strong vocation, opted for a career in economics with its practical utility, and filled the rest as he chose. I had to go to the school because the parent’s signature was required in filling out the ballot. There I was in a line together with students and some parents to deliver the ballot. It was common to hear the male students, especially, say that they would welcome the option of the Ministry of Interior. It filled me with curiosity; months earlier, these same boys had been visited by officers of MININT in a recruitment effort, and none of them was interested.

Their mediocre educational performance keeps them away from the university classrooms, however, to enter the MININT an entrance test is not required, nor do they have to do military service. I noticed, while waiting, the self-assurance with which they believed themselves so ready to skip the test that would allow them to enter university, the laughter with which they called each other chivas (goats), it reminded me, full with excitement and pride for almost forty years, that I was so different from these guys who think now that they can solve something so long, like the future.

Translated by: L. Rodriguez

March 28 2011

“Deportation or Release from Prison is not Freedom”/ Normando Hernandez Gonzalez

Here is another article by Normando Hernandez Gonzalez, Cuban ex-prisoner of conscience currently exiled in Spain. In this essay, Normando makes it clear that exiling, deporting, or simply releasing from prison is not the same thing as being freed, which is a common misconception. The civic Cuban fighter states that dissidents, and ordinary Cubans, will not achieve real freedom until the cynical and totalitarian laws which took people like him to jail for demonstrating peacefully are repealed.

In his own words:

Deportation or Release from Prison is not Freedom

by Normando Hernandez, ex prisoner of conscience

For those who think that with the release of the last 2 prisoners of conscience from the group of the 75, the Cuban government has given freedom to all the peaceful dissidents from the Black Spring who were in prison, I hate to say that you are wrong.

Don’t fall for their lies. Deportation or release from prison is not freedom. Pushing people out of the prisons under Extra Penal Licenses is also not synonymous with granting freedom. Freedom, among its many meanings, signifies having the “right to do and say anything as long as it does not violate any laws”.

And the Cuban laws are there, very active, constantly jailing, assassinating all sorts of freedoms, inalienable rights, and political dissent.

Those who were released under Extra Penal Licenses are still restricted by article 53 of the Constitution of the Cuban Republic (CRC) which prohibits them from expressing any words which go against the purposes of socialist society. In addition, they are also prisoners of Article 39 of that same Constitution which does not permit creative freedom if it is contrary to the Revolution.

Released dissidents cannot legally and peacefully organize themselves because the Cuban government does not acknowledge the existence of other political, social, cultural, or economic organizations to which they (dissidents) belong. This is all because such organizations do not agree with the “tasks of building, consolidating, and defending the ideals of a socialist society” as set forth by article 7 of the CRC.

In addition, these same dissidents are not granted the majority of the inalienable freedoms and rights protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for the sole reason that the rights defended by the Universal Declaration go against the establishments of the Cuban laws, which state in article 62 that “none of the freedoms granted to citizens can be exercised against the establishments of the constitution and the laws, the existence and goals of the socialist State, or against the decisions of constructing socialism and communism”. And to top it off, this article concludes with a threat: “the violation of this principle is punishable”.

And for those who still doubt, there are the tribunals which, according to the CRC in article 121, “constitute a system of state organs which are hierarchical subordinates of the National Assembly of Popular Power and to the State Council”. We cannot forget that the State in Cuba is a totalitarian one.

As one can clearly see, those who have been released from jail continue being prisoners as long as Cuban constitutional laws do not guarantee individual, collective, social, and political rights, as well as any other fundamental rights. They will continue being prisoners as long as Law 88, best known as the Gag Law, is in practice. They will continue being prisoners as long as there exist any judicial restrictive norms which impede people from practicing their freedoms, and from being able to work in favor of coexistence among all those who seek freedom and democracy.

We can’t forget that the sanctions of those who were condemned were never repealed, and the laws which led to our imprisonment have not been abolished. However, we have all committed to continuing the peaceful struggle in search for Cuba’s freedom, “with all and for the good of all”, as our apostle, Jose Marti, would say.

Let us help him fulfill his promise.

28 March 2011

This post taken from Pedazos de la Isla (Pieces of the Island), where some of the political prisoners — now in exile — who formerly blogged in “Voices Behind The Bars” post their writings.

The Peanut Seller Arrived / Reinaldo Escobar

The arrival in Cuba on Monday of the former U.S. president Jimmy Carter “to have meetings with President Raul Castro and other leaders” has triggered a series of speculations ranging from the case of Alan Gross to the opening of breaches in the blockade-embargo.

But the oddest thing, in my view, is that this visit comes after a group of programs designed specifically to discredit and demonize meetings between opponents and personalities from Cuban civil society with American diplomats and citizens have been aired on national television .

Personally, I think it’s a good thing that Carter will talk with Raul Castro and be received in his office, what I can’t understand is: who has given Carter a certificate of good behavior that disassociates him from USAID, the State Department, the CIA and other demons?

Why can one sit and talk with a person who was of the commander-in-chief of all the armies of the Empire, while an ordinary common citizen can’t have a cup of coffee with a simple official from the U.S. Interest Section or with a representative of some American NGO?

28 March 2011

La Mala Letra in La Joven Cuba / Regina Coyula

For Roberto Peralo:

Traditional media have had to modify their budgets with the advent of blogs. Now any citizen, from a blog and more recently from Twitter, can offer primary news in real time and the traditional newspapers must refer to the primary source of such news. Blogs have given a voice to people who never wrote or dreamed of writing in a paper newspaper. They serve to denounce the lack of guarantees for journalists after the coup d’etat in Honduras, and serve to expose the lie that the unofficial bloggers are paid by the Empire.

The possibility of having a voice on the Internet allows the presentation of information on any country, any phenomenon. Before what was known about Cuba was what was published in the Cuban press or in some dispatch from a foreign correspondent. Now, in any latitude, open you PC and you have access to formal and informal information; for and against. Your education and abilities depend on how you interpret this avalanche of information, and our ethics, what use you put it to.

Calling anyone who wants change in Cuba an annexationist — meaning they want Cuba annexed to the United States — has been a tactic designed to alienate popular sympathy toward anyone who thinks differently, though it’s possible that there is a party or a annexationist current that I don’t know about, but I know the term is used in reference to people who have nothing to do with annexationists.

The quote from Political Affairs of 1981 is outdated, at that time the profound impact that having access to information through the still new internet was not envisioned, much less the existence of social networks. And one thing was true then and is true now. Read, find and inform yourself about what is of interest that happens around you. A lot of people, including nationals, pass on newspapers to look at bulletin boards or sports.

One example is a man named Miles. The ABC’s of serious journalist require you to verify information that doesn’t come from a reliable source, and even in the latter case, if it is very sensitive information, you should try to verify by all means. That is a discredit to the source and very serious for a journalist.

It’s a stereotypical journalism burden from one side or the other. I invite you to discover the stereotypes of the national press.

I could subscribe to the last paragraph of the work, I would like to write for Cubans without the disgust of seeing myself demonized for my opinions. And I will end with a joke. In reference to a book published by Duke University, it talked about the four media that influence the thinking of Americans. In Cuba it has been simplified and there is only one.

March 27 2011

Translator’s note: La Joven Cuba is a website of students at the University of Matanzas and Regina has begun to engage them in conversation through their forum. She also posts her comments there, here.

La Mala Letra in La Joven Cuba / Regina Coyula

My greetings to all forum members. Late as usual. Collegial leadership in the government has not existed. Fidel, a man of great physical and intellectual capacity, has been the decision maker on issues as dissimilar and unrelated as the functions of a head of state and the selection of school uniforms, the construction of housing and the cross breeding of cows. The oldest among us remember these and other matters which his intervention, not that of specialists, determined the paths that would be followed.

There is a famous anecdote about the Minister of Sugar warning him in advance of the impossibility of completing a ten million ton sugar harvest, which resulted in his replacement. Fidel has been so pervasive a force that his leaving the political stage will imply a change in the national live.

I speak of the future, because although at the beginning of his illness he delegated his functions to several people, with his recuperation, and despite they fact that his Reflections do now address national problems, internally he must continue deciding on topics that interest him.

His brother does not exercise such power of decision and ascendancy over the masses (which is better). For my part, I am very concerned about what will happen in Cuba; the people for the most part largely complied with Fidel’s will because of his personal charisma, and allowed him to drive them where he would, in Cuba we have had Fidelism as a cult of personality accentuated with the years.

Whatever happens, it will be different. In that sense, I don’t know how the Party Congress will be handled, although it was clarified that the only topic on the agenda will be the economy, and in practice, almost all the measures proposed in the Party Guidelines have already been implemented.

For the forum member Josep Calvet: The Chinese emigrated to Cuba in the first half of the last century, keeping their traditions very alive and, in almost all cities where they settled, having their own neighborhood with their businesses, theaters, etc. There was the newspaper you mention (Wah-man-sion-po). It was very depressing walking through the Chinese neighborhood and all its facilities, until 20 years ago with the help of the Embassy, of families overseas, and the Office of the Historian, the Chinese neighborhood was revitalized, and with it, the Chinese newspaper, a curiosity, because it has been many years since Chinese have emigrated here from China.

March 25 2011

Translator’s note: La Joven Cuba is a website of students at the University of Matanzas and Regina has begun to engage them in conversation through their forum. She also posts her comments there, here.

Quota for Revolucionaries, or “If you have to do it, you have to do it.” / Miriam Celaya

University of Havana. Photograph from the Internet

If someone had told us in the distant 70’s that the day would come when attendance at a march or other event in support of the revolution would be guaranteed by assigning quotas, I’m sure we would have made a face, incredulous. However, what back then would have been unthinkable is today a palpable reality.

Just a few days ago, the official press announced the forthcoming implementation of a parade to mark the 50th anniversary of the proclamation of the socialist character of the Cuban revolution and the victory at Bay of Pigs to be held on April 16th with the massive participation of children and the young in the municipalities of Havana “on behalf of the Cuban people.” What the press did not report is they had begun a process of selection in primary schools, secondary technical schools and colleges days before, pledging a fixed number of potential participants to ensure a respectable attendance at the event. A similar process has been taking place at universities and workplaces, where grassroots committees of the UJC (Communist Youth League) have had to mandatorily meet a quota to pay tribute at the parade. This is not really very difficult, given that the capital has a population of two million people and the event will begin with a military parade, which will swell the march.

It seems clear that the authorities know the lack of spontaneity of “the people” when holding the ceremonies of the revolutionary anniversaries. In previous years, many study centers were not limited to collecting lists of the disposition of their young to march in different events, but they were coerced into taking part in the ritual using resources previously unimaginable. For example, the School of Stomatology used a procedure sui generis for a more massive achievement at the March of the Torches — a fashion reminiscent of the Brownshirts youth of Nazi Germany — which in Cuba ends before the Marti’s Flame. The repressor-wannabes of that university faculty have established, throughout the course of that march, three control points to which each student must report, preventing the classic dispersing into side streets after the young people leave the march starting point: the aforementioned faculty is located at Carlos III and G Streets. I heard that other schools are using the same method as the only resource for the parade to be sufficiently attended.

The procedure for the allocation of quotas has become widespread and in a way that even the repudiation rallies have had to appeal to it. At the March 18th march, the Ladies in White were the target of further harassment by pro-government mobs that prevented a march of remembrance for the crackdown of the Black Spring. The repressive forces were ordered to deploy an operation to block the exit from Laura Pollan’s and Hector Maseda’s house, and from Neptune, a main street. Meanwhile, they arrested several people who were preparing to participate voluntarily and spontaneously in the march.

They also mobilized their hordes of people to keep the participants at bay, hordes that were maintained throughout the day on Friday the 18th and Saturday the 19th shouting pro-government slogans and yelling insults. To achieve this, they rely on the quota system. This is why every base committee of the UJC at all campuses in the capital and the suburbs had to allocate at least one militant for such an bothersome mission. Since Friday, for example, 18 young CUJAE (Technical University) militants had to guarantee the ones who would concentrate the next morning at Parque Trillo, Centro Habana, to go to “repudiate” outside the home of Laura and Hector. The operation, of course, was a “success.”

According to reliable sources, this has led to the establishment of a sort of lottery, through which militants that are called raffle off “the package.” There are discussions among those who already participated “the last time” and who wield in their defense the phrase “I already did it.” A total aberration of what once was a true and enthusiastic support for the revolution and its leaders.

Having learned about such unorthodox procedures to force young people into shameful practices, I feel even more contempt for the system that turns people into beasts and more compassion for the unaware youths that lend themselves to such a degrading service. Poor rookies, who condemn themselves to have to hide, tomorrow, such a mean and cowardly attitude!

Translated by Norma Whiting

March 21, 2011

The Peruvian Embassy 1980 / Juan Juan Almeida

JJ – Zenaida Gonzalez Cuétara is a Cuban worker, proud of her origin. She was of those people who, on a not too hot day in 1980, decided to take refuge in guarded premises of the Embassy of Peru.

ZG – I lived at O’Reilly and Aguiar, Centro Habana, until April 5, 1980 when I entered the Embassy of Peru. That day changed my life.

JJ – The Cuban government has repeated over the years that people who entered the embassy of Peru, were all criminals. Is that true, or is it infamy?

ZG – During the terrible ordeal I was 24 and a member of the Union of Young Communists. I worked in the town of Regla in a state enterprise exporting shrimp and lobster. That’s not a crime.

It is true that the situation became chaotic without taking into account the needs of human beings themselves, but all sorts of people in Havana came to the Embassy of Peru, most from upright and educated homes. Look, really, we were not criminals but victims of robbery, outrage, and many violations not only of Cuban officials, but also of some Peruvians who crashed the ambassador’s car to extort money from the Cuban victims of blackmail in exchange for a little sugar, and victims of threats to deprive us of our gold chains. Thus we came to Peru, and the campaign here was destructive.

JJ – That’s just what I want. So that the agreements between both governments were not kept; and remember that many people in Miami and elsewhere in the United States, seem to forget that the Mariel boatlift depended on the sad events of the Embassy of Peru and of those Cubans who, like you now live stranded in Lima.

ZG — That’s right, Mr Almeida, this was terrible here. We’ve gone through everything, fortunately the years have managed to erase much of what happened. I sell Peruvian candy here on the street, I have a 17-year-old son ready for college. That’s what I can do, it has dignity.

JJ — And tell me Zenaida, how Cubans like you, who in 1980 took refuge in the embassy of Peru, how do you live.

ZG — There’s everything. The majority live from working, some live on drugs. I live quite far from that, I have to work. But I invite you to come to Peru, to visit everyone. Everyone, the few who remain. Some left from here, others have died of old age, illness or overdoses… It’s been 32 years, there has been a lot of despair.

JJ — I accept the invitation. I think drugs are simply the result, has anyone been offered a job?

ZG — Never, sir. The UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) has purchased several lots on the outskirts of the city, well away. There we built little houses. But nobody has ever given us work.

JJ — Has the Cuban Embassy or its officials ever done something for you?

ZG — No, never. When a Cuban passport must be renewed, there they are to collect. That’s their greatest aid, to charge you. The last place you would go to seek help is the embassy.

JJ — I know well, but I want to stress – for those who think so – if ever the government of Cuba, in one of its highly publicized humanitarian gestures, has been concerned for you.

ZG — For us? Never.

JJ — For a working person it’s impossible to pay the consular fee, what it costs is highway robbery. But would you not you like to return to your country and show it to your child?

ZG — Sure, sir, of course. I have 15 brothers and sisters in Cuba, isn’t that reason enough to go to my country? I would love to forget spending 32 years missing my family. Hopefully some day it will be within my power to teach my son about his family, his culture, his country. But it’s hard, Sir, every day is very hard. I’m a street vendor, I sell on the streets of Lima, porridge and rice pudding.

JJ — Now I have to ask the question of sixty-four thousand dollar question. Why did you leave Cuba?

ZG – To look for a better future, another alternative for my life… Could you tell me why you, considering everything, decided to leave Cuba?

JJ — I left my country to be reunited with my family, to receive medical treatment that does not exist in my country, because a profoundly dictatorial system bored me, because I’m not one of those who can practice hypocrisy as a way of life. I was not looking for a future, I was looking for a present, because mind was crap.

Thank you Zenaida, it has been a pleasure talking with you.

March 22 2011

Yoandris Gutierrez Vargas: “Walking Through the Labyrinths of Hell” / Luis Felipe Rojas

Photo: Luis Felipe Rojas

For Rosi of Cuba…she knows.

It was Sunday, and amid the suffocating heat and the sluggishness of the truck which was taking me from Santiago de Cuba to Las Tunas, I chose to instead get off at Bayamo, that symbolic land full of rebellion and patriotism bequeathed to us by our ancestors. I gulped down a refreshing drink, an “Eastern Pru”, which consists of a fermented base. I went all the way to the home of Yoandris. For quite some time now I had really wanted to talk to him; I wanted him to tell me about his jail experience and how life was treating him now as a freed dissident.

“In the year 2006, my grandfather Manuel Gutierrez returned to Cuba to see his family. After just a few days of being here, he was taken to a tourist hotel in Guardalavaca (Holguin province) by political police officials. The argument given to him was that Mr. Fidel Castro was going to visit Bayamo for the celebration of that unfortunate date- the 26th of July. That was a day when many Cubans died on both sides. My grandfather was relocated to Holguin and had to pay the mandatory hotel guest fee. He had to spend the little money he had left which he had brought from the United States since he is already a retired man.”

“Since they were giving out little flags during those days in order to decorate the streets, I took one of those flags which were slipped under my door and I painted the white stripes black as a symbol of mourning. I then wrote a “75” on it, in reference to the prisoners of the Black Spring. I hung it outside my house and it stayed there through the night. Then came the attacks from the so-called authorities. It was on July 23rd 2006. On that day, State Security took me to the barracks known as “El Punto” (“The Point”) on the outskirts of Las Tunas. They shouted at me, they offended me, and they threatened me thousands of times. In addition, they even fabricated a crime for me, something about offending patriotic symbols. Afterwards, my family was left abandoned.

My 4-year-old son was stripped of his father and protection, seeing as I was the one who sustained the family. They sentenced me to 1 year of imprisonment which I served in the Provincial Prison of Las Mangas. That is where I met Jose Luis Garcia Paneque, Jorge Gonzalez Tanquero, and Felix Navarro, all 3 from the group of the 75. Within a few days, I got to witness firsthand the torture that political prisoners were subjected to, all the threats and humiliations they force on them.”

“I arrived the same way thousands of other youths did, without knowing what a prison was like. In that place I was threatened by Major Nunez from State Security. They quickly locked me up in a room with a group of violent men who actually had knives with them. The leader of the group was Nilson, who belonged to the Council, and they all operated under the freedom granted to them by State Security, the Prison Security, and the Interior Order Chiefs.

They told me that they were going to kill me if I publicly protested against the government because they had been authorized to do so by all their bosses. They are people who are sadistically used to create terror, which is the only discipline exercised by the prison authorities. Nilson later died in the Manzanillo prison for causing the death of another young prisoner, Yuliet, who was a 19-year-old homosexual that had been “bought” between one prison and another. Yuliet was assassinated by a so-called Negrito. And Nilson was charged for the death of Yuliet.”

“There, I received beatings and plenty of restrictions just for protesting, as a dissident, against the government. Later I was imprisoned again under the pretext of ‘disrespect towards the figure of our Commander in Chief.’ That’s the name they have given to that cause which has taken so many Cubans to prison. The law was applied to me when this self-titled ‘Commander in Chief’ wasn’t even exercising the role of President anymore. I was sentenced to 2 years which I served in the prisons of Las Mangas and the one known as ‘El Secadero’ (‘The Drying Room’). In the provincial prison, I received multiple beatings carried out by Colonel Modesto, as well as one by Lieutenant Silvera on September 2nd. The re-educator, Eddy, was the one on guard, and he ordered I be taken, injured, to the punishment cell with no medical attention. That’s where I spent my birthday on September 6th. I was not allowed any visits, my family was not allowed to see me at all until 2 months had passed and my bruises had disappeared.”

“When I heard the disc containing an excerpt of ‘Against all Hope,’ by Armando Valladares, I felt as if I was once again hearing the screams of the prisoners, the abuses of the jailers, as if I was once again living behind the bars, because every single thing he narrates is real. And it is even possible to say that today it has multiplied. In modern Cuban prisons, they still assassinate and torture, they continue harassing family members of prisoners, and when they are political prisoners it is even worse.”

“Now, besides being a member of the Republican Party of Cuba and of being an activist from the Eastern Democratic Alliance, I am also a missionary from the First Baptist Church of Bayamo. My pastor is Samuel Columbie Iglesias, who has been attacked by State Security on multiple occasions. Despite of all that has happened, I tell my oppressors to repent, to cease staining their hands with blood. And to those who have kidnapped the happiness of Cuba, remember that we have all been created by the same God. I tell them to repent before it’s too late for them. Cuba needs to live in freedom, just like other nations of the world. We Cubans have the right to be free and that is why many of us are fighting for it.”

I left Bayamo late that night, the land of Cespedes and Fornaris. I left without snapping a photo of Yoandris, but I kept his words in my pocket. This is a voice that needs to cross the barbed wires, I repeated to myself over and over again.

PS: Yoandris Gutierrez Vargas lives on 19th Street-A No. 11, e/ 12 & Liberty, Zamora Complex, El Valle, Bayamo, Granma.

Translated by Raul Garcia

March 25 2011