Sugar Cane in Three Chunks / Iván García

In the space of twenty years, Cuba ceased to be the world’s sugar factory and began to import the sweet grass and turn its main national industry into heaps of scrap metal in forgotten sugar refineries.

The great culprit for the shortage of sugar—and for the sugar tradition becoming an anecdote—is a man who now wears checked-shirts, writes reflections and gives talks to those who want to listen about the nuclear catastrophe now lurking over us.

His name is Fidel Castro Ruiz. And if the shut-off Cuban system insists in giving him its blessing for being the father of the great successes of the Revolution (education, sports, public health) then it should also blame him for its failures.

And they are many. And loud. The extinction of basically all of the sugar industry is a sample of the brutal inefficiency of the government in its role as administrator or the lands and wealth of the nation.

For over two centuries, sugar was king on the island. Sugarcane would get the best lands. From the time of the colony. During the eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries, local land-owning creoles bought hundreds of thousands black slaves brought over from Africa to undertake the rough job of cutting cane.

Elaborating sugar, honey and other derivatives—with high yield and productivity—was an indubitable merit of the local tycoons. It was the trade by excellence of a huge part of our population.

From 1926 to 1958, the sugar harvests were regulated by the State. There were production fees. In average, 5.5 million tons of sugar, per harvest, would be raised during short, four-month periods.

With the arrival of Castro into power, sugar continued to be the main industry. Harvests of up to 8 million ton were produced, but the quality, yield, cost and productivity became unsustainable. The disastrous campaign of the 10 Million in 1970 marked the start of the end of the Cuban sugar industry.

Although the government mechanized the cutting process, and modernized old refineries, large yields were never possible again. With the start of the “Special Period” and the fall of the USSR, gasoline disappeared and so did parts for all the Russian-made machinery.

In the twenty-first-century, producing sugar in Cuba is thorny. It is cheaper to buy it in the global markets. Today, many refineries have become museums of useless machinery, where people in the surrounding areas practice a ferocious, predatory act.

Visit any of these refineries and you will witness the “cannibalism” to which they have been subjected. Even the screws have vanished. Old towns are now dead and still in time. Only the older folks remain, their children gone to the cities.

The present neighbors of these countryside Cuban urban projects do whatever they can manage to find to make a living. They usually try to appease that sense of a lack of a future by hitting their fourth-grade rum bottles under the coconut trees or right under the scorching sun.

The Regime created a plan called “Álvaro Reinoso Task” to relocate the workers that were left jobless. But, like almost everything in the island, it still remains unfulfilled.

Most people have preferred to earn a few pesos selling plantains, guava bars, ice cones and white cheese on the National Highway. There are good days, but some of them are not. To them, sugar cane is only available in chunks. Three chunks.

February 6 2011

MININT Cyber Lecture Video – English Transcript

Enemy Campaigns and The Politics of Confrontation with Counterrevolutionary Groups

Download a PDF of this transcript here.

La ciber policia en Cuba from Coral Negro on Vimeo.

Presenter: Eduardo Fontes Suárez

Introduction

The title more or less says it all, we can adjust [the talk to meet] your interests, comrades, when it’s time for discussion. I am going to talk – although the topic is to talk about the whole strategy against Cuba and how this strategy has been articulated in counterrevolutionary campaigns – we are going to focus now on the newest components of this strategy. And in the second part, without any kind of limitation – I don’t know how much time is available, I am going to try to be as brief as possible – we can discuss later the rest of the topics that interest you, and are most relevant to the current operative situation, we can talk about the counterrevolution, [Guillermo] Fariñas, Los Aldeanos [a rap group], of those we’ve already talked about out there, but it seems to me that all this is very interesting, perhaps the most important at the current time, is to talk about these subjects.

We are not fighting the new technologies

Some comrades have already heard me talk about these subjects before. In reality I have become quite insistent about these issues because this is the base, comrades, the rest of the actions that are developing around Cuba. That is, if we don’t understand the psychology the enemy is working with, we will see the rest of the things as isolated events, as isolated components, simply as things that happened and we won’t be capable of understanding the time and the role played by each of the enemy’s strategy.

So in the first part I’m going to talk about how this aggression against Cuba is articulated, in a general sense, in a global sense, and what is the role that is attributed to these new technologies. Just a note because we’re going to get into the content: we are not fighting these with new technologies; it’s simply to know them, to use them to support our interests, and to know what the enemy wants to do is to put them in the country. Because sometimes we are fighting them because they crash the computer because we’re fighting with the technology, no, the technology in itself is not a threat, the threat is what someone does or could do from behind this technology, in the same way it is an opportunity because of what we are able to do with it.

So with that preamble let’s get started.

There is a group of antecedents we want to talk about, because until 2007 the blockade was closed, didn’t have… the only crack was in the sale of food. However, in 2008, we began to see a public group in the Bush administration, some of them reflected there [see PowerPoint (PPT) screen], that is, in the Miami Herald, they talked about some of them in the Los Angeles Times, Bush himself announced an offer to award licenses to provide computers and internet access to the people of Cuba. And so there is a group of declarations from the Bush administration that, at that time, we are talking about something a little counterproductive, that is, it wasn’t playing with the strategy that had been followed, with a group of components that we were seeing in the operative work of the introduction of those media by some determined groups within society. We’re talking about the counterrevolution: the bloggers who were starting to emerge as a new category – and let’s talk about that for a bit right now – and I put this antecedent because 2008 will be a benchmark of what we will discuss later, that is we’ll talk later about why Bush was already talking about these things in this year.

Obama is worse than Bush

2008 comes and a change of administration, the “embrace of death,” and I like to say, between Bush and Obama, comes the great dream of a world of change and in the end life has shown that it’s nothing more than a chimera: Obama is a man who is the fruit of his own system, what the American system was lacking, a man like Obama who was helping to clean up the image of the atrocities of Bush, but Obama is… not more of the same. continue reading

That is, we’re talking about a man who in his government, for whatever condition – we’re not going to detail now if it’s more this or more that – the military budget has grown, the number of men under arms in different countries in the world has grown, the plans against Cuban haven’t changed, nothing is reduced, on the contrary, covert actions in particular have increased, and then we’re going to see Obama give a speech about the new technologies as well, a little more intelligent.

Obama talks about measures, and the measures come out in April, fine, he announces them in April of the previous year, before the Summit of the Americas – he was cleaning up the stage where he was going to go – and finally they materialize at the and of last year in a document, but they talk about [reads the PPT on the screen] authorizing the telecommunications providers to establish telecommunications and fiber optics in Cuba, talk about authorizing the telecommunications service providers to make agreements with Cuban entities, talk about awarding licenses for the provision of radio and television signals to Cuba, and talk about awarding licenses to people “subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S.” [i.e. U.S citizens or legal residents] to activate and pay for U.S. and third country suppliers of any telecommunications service, satellite radio and television, that they were ready to provide to Cuban citizens.

Networks in Havana neighborhoods

What is the reality behind all of this?  We are going to talk to you about how we perceive this strategy in four fundamental components. First, there are a group of plans, and today we’re just going to talk about two of them—it would take too long to talk about all of them, and besides, many are already in progress and there are already various operations dealing with them.  We’re going to talk about four components that demonstrate why we want to do all this, that is, where we are going with the strategy for all this.

In the first place, [reading from Power Point slide] the access to computers and telecommunications in order to establish wireless networks throughout the country with the activation of illegal internet access points.  What do we mean by this?  Well, there are a group of programs aimed at creating networks throughout the country that provide direct internet connection.  What is the first point of this program? It is to study the networks we already have in Cuba.  In other words, they have already carried out a meticulous study of the wireless networks we have in Cuba.  Sometimes we live a little…and I say little because sometimes you chat with various comrades and they look at you with a certain face [makes gesture of incredulity]…no.

For example, in Havana there are thousands of wireless computers connected in any neighborhood, from Playa to San Miguel del Padron.  These are kids who connect online to play virtual soccer, to play those shooting games, as well as university students who connect to study among themselves.  Basically, wherever there are at least three computers with wireless ports and Wi-Fi, we can see that it’s a little device, and through it, a wireless network is created.  And besides, it’s not illegal.  So, a wireless network between my house and the apartment next door is not illegal.  As long as I am not providing a service it’s not illegal.  Well, they’ve studied how wireless networks function throughout the capital.  Or at least they tried to study this.  Based on this, they formed two projects which we will talk to you about here.

The first of the projects belongs to the International Republican Institute [IRI].  The program is called “Accelerating the Transition to Democracy in Cuba” and has set a framework of initial action from 2008 to 2010.  We must pay close attention to the date of 2008.  That year, there was already a discourse on behalf of the American government attempting to justify what they were about to do behind the scenes.

This is their website which details their entire program, the democratic transition in Cuba and how they plan to go about it.  But it does not mention what we are about to see here right now, which, shall we say is the operational component, or the secret component of the program.  The first of their objectives – there are three we aren’t going to talk about today – talks about [starts reading off Power Point slide] developing and creating conditions for internet communications in Cuba.  And I’m going to have to pause here.

What is a BGAN satellite unit?  Later on we’ll see it, and I brought a drawing here that more or less illustrates it.  We’re talking about a small device [makes a hand gesture] that allows for a high-speed internet connection via satellite.  It allows for “voice over IP”, or in other words, it allows a person to talk directly on the phone, and to be able to see videos.  We’re talking about high performance equipment which does not need a roof antenna, which does not need a cable to hook up to the device (the entire connection can be wireless), and which means I don’t have to put it in the window pointing towards the Habana Libre Hotel.  Instead, wherever I decide to put it in my house I can stay connected.  What we’re talking about is a technology that is present in the zone of the Americas in 2008.  So, in other words, it’s the latest satellite communication technology, and completely portable of course.

Being a blogger is not a bad thing

Here, they are talking about distributing [looks at and points to the Power Point] a group of BGAN satellite units to dissidents (the traditional counter-revolutionaries), and bloggers.  And there’s something I must bring to your attention because it is precisely at this point where they start manipulating our language.  The bloggers establish themselves here as if they are a new category, that is, they are people who have blogs, who run their own blogs on the internet; if we leave it to the enemy we are going to have the bloggers, just like we have the concept of civil society at a given point, just like we have the concept of democracy, and very soon we will have a department to work with the bloggers.

That is, being a blogger is not a bad thing.  However, they are already presenting them as part of the same counter-revolutionary group as one more category that can oppose the revolution, and this is a subject and a term that we can’t accept. That is, they have their bloggers and we will have ours.  And we’re going to battle to see which group is stronger.  We will talk more in depth about this later on.
Anyway, the idea, comrades, is to distribute this equipment and to establish national networks, and they want to supply members of these networks with cell phones with text messaging service.  The modules we’ve operatively detected have mostly been high-performance Blackberry phones with satellite connectivity, which is paid for outside of Cuba, so they do not depend on our networks, nor do they pass through our supervision mechanisms.

And of course they pay for this service, and they send emissaries to contact and finance these networks, which are made up of about 5 to 10 members (later I will explain why).  They train them, establish and maintain contact with them from the outside, and they have to activate the networks of technology businesses in Cuba.  But what are networks of businesses? All of this sounds very sophisticated, doesn’t it?

They are computer-savvy technicians that we all know in the neighborhood.  You know, the guy down the street who fixes computers.  I’m somewhat computer-savvy.  When my neighbor’s computer breaks I go over and try to fix it for him, and I help him out if he wants to install a program.  Those “technological businessmen” are no more than these kinds of people.  So, they look for people, usually young, who are interested in fixing computers. They then recruit them and have them on their side over there.

And what will these people do for them?  They will maintain the networks.  In other words, they count on certain people they can pay, and in turn, those people guarantee things for them, like, “Hey, fix this for me.  Install that program for me, etc.”  They work together with these people in order to benefit themselves.  Recruit.  And that’s the exact word they actually use, to recruit citizens who are not American in order to evaluate the use of cellular technology in Cuba, in this study that they are doing, of the cellular and wireless networks in Cuba.

Why in a third country?  Because this BGAN equipment functions with a small internal card, just like cell phones, but the service provider is not in Cuba.  The Inmarsat service is only found in countries that have contracts with Inmarsat.  Cuba has contracted Inmarsat service, but Cuba does not provide Inmarsat service.  So it must be done from a third country.  In our case, we have sources who indicate that it could be coming from Costa Rica. Perhaps later in the presentation we can talk about Costa Rica because it is a country that keeps coming up when it comes to subversive activities against Cuba.

Internet connections everywhere

Just quickly and trying to be clear: What is the idea? That is, to put in place — don’t be fooled by the drawing, the BGAN is not an aerial and it doesn’t transmit signals like an aerial, it’s linear transmission, which makes it more difficult to keep under surveillance — and set up the IRI project in different parts of the country. At first we’re talking only about 10 points, around wireless networks which already existed and would allow, without filtering the IP’s, that is, when I come and set up all the machines in the area without a WiFi port they can connect to the Internet through me.

Basic social psychology, comrades: if you’re at home, sitting in front of your laptop, and a message pops up saying you’re connected to the Internet, the last thing you’re going to do is ask where it came from. What I can guarantee is that before it goes down, people are going to start to log on, search, surf, download videos, it’s obvious.

Let someone come here or anywhere else and say, “Hey, I’m getting on the Internet for free! How is that possible?” and that is part of the psychology that they’re banking on to get this going without too many setbacks. What’s the idea? That is, this thing here [points at the screen] on the right, blue and black, is the WiFi network transmitter. You can have a network and with this transmitter you’ve got a range, that is a communication, with the computer that’s here, depending on where the transmitter is, a half a mile to a mile, that is we’re talking about an area of a half mile to a mile we can connect 25-30 machines, which are connected together, and I come with this device [the WiFi] and the whole network is connected to the Internet through me. There are many useful possibilities.

We will be able to connect through high-speed, if any of us has for whatever reason a home connection, you know that the Infomed server is the best, at 56 k, if you are near a telephone hub. But if you live, like I do, in San Miguel del Padrón, the day you get it at 33 k is a good day.

Then through here, you will get a much faster connection, more comfortable, and you won’t ask yourself where it’s coming from; but if we put ourselves in the enemy’s place, it also gives us the confidence that any intelligence transmission of any kind, I don’t know, sitting there on that corner, I can open my laptop and have a secure connection which the Cuban authorities cannot control. And that is the second part we are adding to this issue.

What does a BGAN module bring, that is, this thing they are distributing in Cuba? What does it include? It comes with a video camera, five Blackberries (five, because remember the network was for 5-10 people, and the minimum is 5), a Notebook—which is a very small computer that guarantees the connection—the BGAN itself and that’s it: we’re on the Internet. This is what they are intending to distribute for free, so nicely, these people in the country.

Alan Gross came to knock down the Revolution

There is a second project that follows the same line. This man we have up there is Alan Philip Gross, an American who is a prisoner in Cuba, a mercenary — now we can’t say ‘mercenary’, in modern discussion he is a ‘contractor’, those are the terms of modern language — for the DAI, Development Alternative Initiative, that is, an agency subcontracted by the USAID to create subversion in Cuba.

Comrades, since I was a little boy, those whom they pay to fight, to battle in a foreign land, that is a mercenary. And that is what this man is doing. The very same as in Playa Girón [the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961], but this guy came with other arms. He didn’t come on a boat and didn’t disembark with a gun in his hand, but it’s the same story.

This man comes to Cuba, he is following the same line more or less, I mean more or less, this is a case that is in the criminal process at this moment, pending a trial, and he is detained. For the next act, the protests will start, hey, they took my guy, I have a man who is a prisoner, and this document comes out from the director of the DAI [U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency] on 14 December 2009, he [Gross] was detained since the 3rd, his arrest was made public the 4th, where he recognizes — the director of the DAI — hey, this man isn’t a spy, my guy isn’t with the CIA, he’s one of my guys who was there because I have a contract with the USAID, which means DAI has a contract with USAID, to plan a contingency and democracy program in Cuba, to help the American government to implement activities in support of the law, human rights, political competition, the construction of consensus, to strengthen civil society in support of a democratic government in Cuba.

This means he isn’t a CIA guy, no, no, he’s a guy who I sent under a contract to Cuba to knock down the Revolution. Because when one reads the concept that the DAI made public of why this man was in Cuba, this man was in Cuba to change the political system in Cuba. However, he comes out with this defense argument.

They know that this is a setback of giant scale and 48 hours later this letter disappeared. Today on the internet this letter doesn’t exist and you go to the DAI’s website, look over the site map, and this letter never existed. What’s happening? Like always, one eye is looking at you, on the internet someone is always recording you. And what you put up one day, although you took it down within 10 minutes, that stays recorded somewhere. And in this case we have the document, which we have managed to preserve until now.

The danger to young people

What did Alan Gross come to Cuba to do? The same thing the IRI project is trying to do, like all the other many projects. We believe that this will be supplemented with these ten little devices that IRI would place. There are 10 from IRI, another ten Alan Gross could place, another 10 that others could place… the idea is to undermine the territory of this story… The idea is, as we said at the beginning, to create a technology platform outside the control of Cuban authorities, that would permit in some way the free flow of information between Cuban citizens — not any Cuban citizen, those selected by them, that is opponents, bloggers, those they have chosen — and between those citizens and the world.

This is the first time. But it comes with a second part in the strategy. In parallel, it is articulating and organizing a virtual network of mercenaries, of counterrevolutionaries, who are not the traditional counterrevolutionaries. Who are we talking about. Martha Beatriz [Roque], you say Martha Beatriz in Cuba and everyone distances themselves from her; you say Elizardo Sánchez, Vladimiro Roca, and everyone identifies them as the enemy.

But we’re talking about young people, people who may have an appealing spiel, guys who live with our children, our brothers and can seem like normal people, but they may have a spiel from the networks.

It’s no longer Darsi Ferrer [Cuban dissident doctor] from the park on Calzada [in Vedado] protesting, no, the park of the protest here is the internet. From the network we are generating our own conflicts.

The most notable example — it already bores me to talk about her — is the case of Yoani Sánchez. I say the most notable because she is a great fabrication. And it’s a great fabrication where a girl from nowhere is turned into the most important journalist in the world, [among] the ten most important personalities in Latin America, Ortega y Gasset [the country’s largest prize for journalism] prize winner in Spain, Maria Cabot Prize from Columbia University [U.S.], that is in two years she’s turned into a great character, from nothing more than the result of a money laundering operation.

The drug money, you wash it so no one knows where it came from. The money from subversion you wash through prizes so no one can say that the U.S. government gives Yoani money. No, the money comes from the prizes. We’re talking here about prizes of 15,000 euros, 50,000 euros, that is the money out there. Then, the great construction is Yoani.

Anyway, you don’t have to be afraid of Yoani. Yoani kills only herself, in fact she’s already committing suicide. She says in the interview [with] Salim Lamrani [French blogger] — I assume most of you have read and if not I recommend you read it several times — she says Salim manipulates her because at the end of the interview Salim Lamrani stands up and she hugs and kisses him very warmly.

I mean, of course, if you are a journalist. If you weren’t, and he was, the journalist who managed as good an interview as any that will be awarded prizes in the whole world, the best interview of Salim Lamrani’s life, and you gave it to him, you gave him the opportunity to wipe the floor with the construction of the Americans. And he did.

Behind Yoani Sanchez

The great example in the whole story is Yoani, but not only Yoani: Behind her there is a grand strategy involving coordination of the social networks. Very briefly — the topic today is social networks — I recommend the intranet [the Cuba government’s own internal-only network] to you, and there is already an explanation of social networks there which, unfortunately for you, I gave myself, so you’ll have to see me again, and Thursday we are going to have a second explanation, not from the point of view of the activities of the enemy, but from how social networks are operating in the country, which Rosa Miriam Elizalde will give, and I think Friday or Saturday the second conference will be on the Intranet.

With these two we can get a general idea of what social networks are, but all this we have heard talk of: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube — the video network You Tube more or less the whole world knows about it — Flickr, which is a photo network, that is a network where people don’t go physically but through the web. And the networks are very broad, like Facebook. In Facebook any one of us — and we can test it — can create, speaking the language of youth, even the ones who consider themselves “less popular,, can enter, put in a set of your actual data, and in ten minutes it will return to you links to all your classmates from school, or whomever is in the social network.

You put in: “I studied at Saul Delgado [high school] in this year and I graduated in this year,” and in ten minutes they say “Look,” and you can see all the people you know: Joe Blow, two years younger than you, two years older than you, but one of those guys from Saul Delagado in Vedado,” and from there the network begins to develop.

And they begin to use — they no, we use, because we are also part of the social networks and we are using the values that are the traditional values when human networks form: family in common, common interests, common history, these are what are most used in the Facebook networks, that is, the strongest links to people, especially in our case the schools link us strongly, the years in junior high, high school, and from there we began to link ourselves. And they try to break the ideological barriers on the part of these linked generations. And then the graduates of Saul Delagado, the graduates of Lenin, are, more than any ideology, graduates of that school where we spent our best times. And from there, these relationships begin to be articulated.

We have to fight On Twitter

These are networks of more than a personal nature, but you will find another like Twitter, which is a classic combat network. Twitter is a network of short messages — we’ll put up a couple of short examples here — which is a network where there is constantly a battle. They have their battle and we, we have ours.

But the idea is to create this supposed counterrevolution on the networks and act against Cuba. When one looks retrospectively at what happened with the Orange Revolution [in the Ukraine in 2004], what happened with the Iranian Green Revolution  [in 2009], what happened after the Iranian elections, it was this, to say, the world there was going normally, but through these networks they succeeded — those people they already had prepared there — to mobilize a group of people, launch them in the street and report about it through those same social networks. Today any telephone has a camera, any telephone has video, anyone can subscribe to YouTube from that same telephone across the internet — in our case we don’t have this service controlled, but we do have BGAN, the computer and access without control — there it is.

It’s all a strategy: if I put the technology platform [in front of you], the people who can generate the conflict for you and at the same time those who are going to report this very conflict abroad. Why is this in Cuba, which at times we think we are immune to this — when we say we think what are our own comrades? As we have had our own institutional limitations as part of our functions [in the Ministry of the Interior], we believe that society also has them.

Those who are on the right [pointing at the screen] are the web sites most visited on the internet in the world. This is about 15 days worth of data. There we see Google, Facebook … those in yellow are social networks; those in red are blog platforms. And the rest are search engines, in one form or another. In Cuba we are at the same level as the rest of the world.

At times we think that in terms of internet access we are lower, no, no, the trend in navigation is the same as in the rest of the world. The first place we see in Cuba is Google. The social network seen the most in Cuba, which is also in 4th place of the places most visited in Cuba is Facebook, which is the second in the world.

YouTube is among the social networks seen the most. Twitter, is in 9th place for us, worldwide it’s in 11th place. This is to say that there is a relationship between how the world moves on the internet and how we move. As such, we should be convinced, comrades, that the formula, the mathematics, the psychology that works over the internet [works on] Cuban internauts the same as on Chinese, as on Brazilians, and on Bolivians.

Because we sometimes have the tendency to think, among our comrades, that no, here people are going to search more on Google, than if we put ourselves on Wikipedia for our youths’ homework, no, no, that is a component of those who are already a little more advanced in age. For our young people, who are those who navigate the internet the most, they have the same trends as everyone else.

A spark to generate conflict

This is what I am showing you—I won’t ask you to understand it, but to inform yourselves on how Twitter works, if you have the access—these are the profiles of four people on Twitter. Twitter is a network for short messages, 140 characters, and there we find Yoani. Twitter works in such a way that I follow You, and You follow Me. That is: I follow people, people follow me.

Whatever people I follow reach me, and the people that follow me, whatever I write reaches them. According to Yoani’s profile on Twitter—this is from today at 1:30 PM—she has 52,946 people following her on Twitter. Each time Yoani says anything, at least 52,000 people in the world get the message.

But to each of these 52,000 followers that she has, the message will reach them, and it’s like a spider that threads a web, and sometimes we say: Why is it anything Yoani says, someone who is nobody here, the whole world knows about it? That’s one of the explanations. This is a method of diffusion in real time.

And there you will see some of the things Yoani said today: “It’s time to organize the first quedada or twit up for the island’s tweeters. The question is where and when?” What are we talking about here? The same thing I was explaining a while ago in Iran. To say “Tweeters, rise, let’s do it, let’s go… let’s meet at…” and so that is how she is going to set off the spark to start a conflict.

And like that you’ll see—as an update on Fariñas’ hunger strike: “Fariñas is on hunger strike since June 1st [sic] and has been taken to the emergency room,” being re-tweeted as text messages. “I am reading the Manual, and I think from this will emerge many ideas for alternative Cuban twittosphere publishing.” In other words, I am talking about very concrete things, very short, but messages that always carry an ideological component.

Next to Yoani, I have placed another one of the bad guys, the Twitter of Penúltimos Días, this from a Cuban [Ernesto Hernández Busto] who lives in Barcelona, the person who was with Bush at a cyber-dissidence event last month; Bush organized an event with that name, Cyber-Dissidence, and invited an Iranian, a Colombian, a Sudanese [EHB has clarified there was no Sudanese at the event]…someone else… and a Cuban.

The Cuban guy, of course, was not from here, but from Barcelona, and he even says he feels proud of being financed by Bush and of working… There’s a fabulous photo that shows him in an embrace with Bush. But, equally so, it’s about constant messages of aggression against the Revolution.

The internet is the field of battle

And, of course, we have our own twitterers. The network of Cuban twitterers is growing, and already starts to have a certain strength. Here we have Yohandry Fontana, who is the most recognized twitterer among revolutionaries, Yohandry’s blog is a strong blog, strong enough that now they are applying a formula to discredit it: You look for Yohandry on Twitter and it’s not him. There’s the same avatar, the same logotype, the same name, but it’s another person writing the tweets, you realize it is someone very very counterrevolutionary. Then you have to go to Yohandry’s blog and from the blog he posts the tweets, it’s all the tools of a plot.

They are doing the same thing to Chávez and I’ll explain why. If you search for Hugo Chávez’s blog online and if you put it in the search engines it doesn’t appear. They have…[sentence not completed], because what is being done to the blogosphere is very forceful. And here I have Tina Modotti, of course Tina Modotti is not Tina Modotti, it’s a person behind the image of Tina Modotti, and she, comrades, is the one who whips Yoani.  She doesn’t let Yoani live.  If Yoani says white, this one says black and explains why it’s black.

Well, there what happens is that she is opening fire on Laura Pollan [leader of the Ladies in White].  “Yoani Sanchez is out of competition,” and they tell Yoani, “Take it or leave it, last chance to make a buck here,” and that’s how it happens.  This, comrades, is something you must live for yourself.  It’s very difficult to explain.  It’s a dynamic of permanent combat, and we cannot lose the perspective that the internet is the battlefield, and that the enemy has their troops ready.  We cannot step off the battlefield; we must enter the field with the strength and knowledge of our people so we can fight.

An example of this? It’s Chávez’s Twitter. Chávez goes on Twitter, I say that Chávez doesn’t look like anyone — the image [on the screen] is a little old, it wasn’t put up today, now let’s see today. Here he had 326,000 followers, Chávez already has on the order of 470 and some thousand. Chávez says that he doesn’t follow any more than five people: Fidel Castro — the reflections of Fidel are on Twitter, Correo del Orinoco — which is one of their magazines, the Socialist Party of Venezuela, Tarek [El Assaimi, minister of the interior], and another one of the government ministers.

He doesn’t follow anyone else, but Chávez is Chávez, he can give himself this luxury, and he has almost half a million followers. And Chávez has been moving Twitter. What happens to Chávez with Twitter? What generates so many followers that he has to divert those followers to a space where he has more capacity to respond: 500,000 people following the messages of a single person doesn’t give you time to read them, even if you pull one a day. So this was a little out of hand and here we see the solution.

This is an example of how Twitter works. Until the day Chávez joined, the Reflections of the Commander-in-Chief [Fidel], which is the Twitter of the reflections — as you will see, the central ideas of the reflections are posted there — had close to 6,000 followers. After Chávez joined, it’s gone to more than 30,000. What do I want to tell you? The people who were watching Chávez and they saw that he followed Fidel, they were people who then started to follow Fidel. People who didn’t know that [Fidel’s Twitter account] existed started to follow him, and this is the fundamental logic of social networks.

I see that you follow a guy and I follow that guy, and when I see that guy follows another, I begin to interact with more people. This is the blog [sic] Chávez today. I emphasize that Chávez doesn’t seem like anyone. There you have it, this is the data from today before I left to come here, at 1:31: 547,390 followers on Twitter. But, what has Chávez done?

Read here: People ask Chávez on Twitter for houses. It says, “My roof fell in.” And Chávez through Twitter says to his ministers, look here, from bottom to top [pointing at the screen], the second is a person who is saying, “Hi President, forgive my message, I need your help to repair my mother’s roof.”

Chávez’s answer: “Urgent, Tarek.” And this is an order to Tarek to resolve this problem. What happens, Chávez announced that from the dynamic of this code, he’s already got a team of 200 people to respond to all these problems. What has he done? Created a system of exchange, but in Venezuela now SEBIN [Bolivarian Intelligence Services], the former DISIP [Police Intelligence Services Directorate], set up a Twitter through which people could denounce enemy activity.

And you should see the flow they have. Of course, half of what comes to them isn’t real, but interesting information is emerging. That, comrades, is what they mean to say that this is a tool that even though it was created by the enemy, we must also use it to fight.

An important component in this is socializing. These are platforms you don’t pay for access to, they are free. You have to have your internet connection, but they are free. What happens? When you do something like what Chávez is doing, you have your command back.

In fact, Twitter is not made to solve social problems. What’s happening? I emphasize, Chávez doesn’t look like anyone and he has made a revolution with this, to the point where I’m now telling you, now they no longer know what to do with him. They already don’t put him on the search engines, you won’t find Chávez there, but it doesn’t matter, it keeps flowing like out of the mouth of a cannon. So, it’s something we have to follow.

What I can guarantee you is — because there is also a psychology of this — if you don’t react, you shut down the plant. And it’s not that you shut it down, there’s a level of reaction and a level of response, because every day there are more and more signing up.
Twitter has a formula like the blogs: If you don’t write in a blog for three days, no one will come to see it. In a blog, you have to write at least every 48 hours; when you enter a place and there’s no activity, you don’t return. So this is really an efficient operation.

Organizations with a new face

The third component of how we see the strategy being implemented today in Cuba: The creation of a group of organizations that are different from the ones we’re used to seeing. It is no longer the Cuban American [National] Foundation (FNCA, in Spanish), no. They are there, but these do not resemble FNCA nor the Council for the Liberation of Cuba, Alpha 66—all those we know as counterrevolutionary terrorism. No, now they appear with names a little more interesting: CubaVibra, [Cuba Vibes] on the web, of course; Raíces de Esperanza [Roots of Hope]; Red Hispánica [Hispanic Web].

I emphasize these names to you, because they are names that we will be hearing about soon in various scenarios. What are they about? They are the organizations founded by the children of Cuban-Americans in the US.

What is their discourse? “I am not my dad, I did not leave Cuba, I was born here and I want to reconnect with my roots. And my roots are the same as yours, you are my same age, and you are there. It doesn’t matter to me if you’re part of the Juventud [Union of Young Communists] or if you are part of the Party [Communist Party] or if you go to Lenin [School for the children of Party higher ups] or University of Havana; I want to connect with you.”

“Let’s talk young person to young person, professional to professional.” And with these dynamics they try to give the US Cuban community a new face with which to engage with their counterparts, our nation’s youth.

As examples, comrades, to cite two very simple ones: when you enter CubaVibra’s homepage—CubaVibra has a social network, which is, they say, for ex-alumni from the Lenin [School]—you see the page divided in three chapters: people still studying at Lenin, those who graduated and left, and those who graduated and stayed.

You can take it or leave it. You read along and realize that the level of manipulation in it is terrifying. But if you enter with naiveté, you fall in their trap, and you go along.

The first news I had about the disaster of the Math tests [from the 2009-2010 pre college level final test] I found through them. Because the kids would come out of the test and go straight in there to post “They’re finished with us, they don’t want us to go to university, this is a crime,” because it’s already become… before, you’d sit at the park and chat. Now, it’s sitting at the computer to tell others what you are going through. That is CubaVibra.

We grab the ball, fire it up…

Roots of Hope is the organization that was behind the Juanes concert [Havana, September 2009]. They tried to damage us with the Juanes concert because they still don’t get how we work here: we grab that ball, fire it up, and turn it back on them again….

But, well; after all the racket generated, and many surely saw the videos of Juanes and the other one [Miguel Bosé,] it was nothing but—they only played that small segment—a string pulled by the Roots of Hope people, who—when they realized they had been caught—went to Juanes and said: “Hey, this is fucked-up. These people know where we’re going and we must cancel the concert.” Which didn’t amount to anything, because the concert went on and it was a huge success.

Lastly—we can’t leave it out, because it has an important ideological component—there’s the topic of the scholarships. That is, the creation of scholarship programs for Cuban students to go to study in the US.

Not to study Agriculture, or for our youth to learn how to produce a transgenic corncob that will feed Cuban people better, or—as a comrade used to say—a scholarship “for our agronomists to learn how to turn a pig into a cow…” No, no: They are “leadership scholarships.”

What do they think they can teach us about leadership, when we have the best leadership school right here? Here any Cuban, wherever you put him, stands up and gives a speech, or quotes the Commander-in-Chief as a reference so no one can disagree, but he will also convince you to buy hot water and drink it up. And then, they want to develop leadership in our youth, young people with leadership capabilities. These scholarships came along through a rather messed-up course at SINA [US Interest Section – the substitute for an embassy, as Cuba and US don’t have diplomatic relations]. There wasn’t good management with the kids even after the scholarships had been granted.

The decision was not to allow them to travel [out of the country]. There is an official from SINA who said this was one of the best ideas these people had come up with, because if kids left and came back, there was a gain for them because they had formed someone under their ideology and had planted him back here. Or, if the kids left and stayed there, it was also a gain for them because they now had a talented person they themselves had chosen. If Cuba didn’t let them go, he said, that was also a gain for them, because then they had accomplished creating a mess for us to deal with; in other words, this was a gain-gain situation anyway you looked at it.

The solution? They were not allowed to go. And what are they doing? They put up a third container box at SINA—there are two already for Internet access so the Counterrevolution can write up the news, or not really write; just appear to do so, because mostly it is already written, so it’s really for them to send out the news. Now they have a third one with tremendous Internet capability so these kids who couldn’t go to the US can still take the courses here in Cuba.

In other words: they saved the airfare money, they now just sit the kid in the cubicle and, through the Internet, video-conferences and televised-courses are given—we had already invented televised-courses, a long time ago, but now they are giving them to us as ‘leadership’ and developing our young people right here.

Forming the leaders of the future

This is a component which, looking at the four previous points carefully, closes the circle a little. That is, and summarizing:

  • The creation of a technological platform
  • The formation of the opposition, of the counterrevolution, through those networks
  • The establishment of a good image, nice people from abroad, who will make it attractive for the youngsters here to start a dialog. Imagine: if a CubaVibra person comes up and says “I am giving you a free laptop, and a cellphone, no charge,” that cannot be a bad thing, can it? How can we then tell the kid that guy is a bad guy? He’ll say “Hey, he didn’t ask me to do anything with this, he only gave it to me.” So that makes everything very complicated for us.
  • And, lastly, by forming the leaders of this new youth, they are creating the people who will direct that agenda.

What I am telling you next was good until yesterday, because today there is new information. These, comrades, are the funds that have been approved for 2010 [a chart pops-up on the screen]. Bear in mind the program was 2008-2010. These are the funds the USAID will pay from 2010 on. An article today from the Miami Herald claims that, of these $20 million, all of it has already been released and will soon be distributed, except for the funds for the DAI organization. The DAI is Alan Gross, who is in prison here. So that money won’t go, because it seems they were doing something bad and their man is now in jail in Cuba. They found this out because we took their man and jailed him, the guy was doing something he shouldn’t. So they have frozen those funds until they know what will happen with their man.

Let’s take a brief look at these funds. In 2010, for human rights, there was only $1.5 million. Why do I say “only”? Up until three years ago—2008—most of the USAID funds would go to those small groups, under this chapter of human rights. This year, they get only $1.5 million. Why? Because $16 million now goes to this story we have been talking about here. That is, $16 million goes to new technologies, networks for Cuban and civil society. For example, the IRI, which was to distribute 10 BGAN, from now on has $1.5 million more. For what? To expand their networks, those networks that according to them they were creating. To give them more wings.

Freedom House, $900 thousand for artists, musicians, bloggers… I want to emphasize the idea that they want to create the concept in our heads that bloggers is a category of enemies of the Revolution. If we get into a war with bloggers, then we would have a serious enemy, because in the press alone we have nearly a thousand bloggers in Cuba—journalists, revolutionaries, who are also bloggers. But they want to make people believe Cuba is at war with bloggers.

Well, $400 thousand more to identify community leaders; $200 thousand for People in Need so they can provide equipment and training in the support networks; $2.6 million for the DAI—which they are keeping this time around, being the guy is in jail here—for what? To widen the support network in Cuba. In other words, what this man Gross was doing now comes with $2.6 million more. When one adds it all up, comrades, there’s enough there to undertake a lot of enemy activity. Very quickly: $2 million for networks for the civil society, $2.5 million for the CAI—the Creative Associates [International].

What is that? It is an organization based in Costa Rica, that is, an international organization with its Cuban-attack base in Costa Rica, its actual… that is, in it the one who is coordinating programs is Caleb McCarry, who was the proconsul they had planned to assign to Cuba when the transition was formalized. So, according to the Bush Plan, Caleb McCarry would be the man who would direct the transition process in Cuba. And also in Costa Rica, as co-director of CAI, is Mr. [James] Cason; let’s not forget Corporal Cason, head of the U.S Interest Section, who went around after he left here, went to Brazil and now is in Costa Rica, working against Cuba.

Millions to continue harassing us

The Creative [CAI] now has two million [dollars] in 2010 to continue harassing us; two million for the Department of State to promote free expression on the island, mainly among artists, musicians, writers, journalists and bloggers. I emphasize this topic. And half a million for religious repression and the groups that reprimand us for religious repression. I do not know in other countries, but I doubt there are many places where there are people as religious as ours, that in the morning they’re a Catholic, a Protestant in the afternoon and in the evening they will have a touch of the saint. But they are still spreading the opinion that there is no religious freedom here, there is religious repression, and they give money for that. That’s interesting.

Half a million for labor policy on the island and to generate international pressure to reform our labor laws, that is, it is wrong for our women to have a year of maternity leave, it has to be like in the rest of the world: Three months and that’s it. And if you don’t have someone to care for your child, that’s your problem. 350 million for Cuban civil society groups; half a million for NGOs and other organizations related to Washington and so on… We can see another million plus for Cuban bloggers and finally, of course, the money for handing it out, for managing the programs; that adds $2.6 million to the DAI that they don’t release, it stays with them.

What do I want to tell you about this, comrades? This is what it is today, this the budget that I already told you about, that today’s Miami Herald is talking about the release of these funds. This is the strategy that is being articulated right now against our country. This is not a substitute for anything — and it was part of what I said we could talk about, of course, besides this – the subject of counterespionage, is, in fact these new possibilities for intelligence activity in the country. The traditional counterrevolution continues with the groups creating incidents, continues with provocations in the street, continues with Fariñas and his hunger strike, the traditional subjects that cause our operative situation are present.

The emigration issue continues to be a subject to pay attention to even though we are at very low levels compared to the most complex years of the emigration situation, 2007, 2006, the levels now are really very low. Which doesn’t mean it’s not a subject we don’t have to pay attention to, the emigration potential exists, the Cuban Adjustment Act exists…

There are three components that have really limited this and one of them, well, the confrontation system is really working, but we can’t underestimate the role of the economic crisis in the United States. Today it is easier for Cubans to send money to their family in Cuba, with a little money from there they can maintain themselves without working. Sometimes we can’t… [sentence unfinished]. There are times some comrades say no, things are quieter. No, no, no, there is the economic reality: today the human trafficking – the emigration situation is primarily human trafficking – there are fewer cases you see in rustic means [i.e. homemade rafts] and a human trafficking operation costs money for promoting it, and organizing it. And here is a Cuban, with the $300 they send every month you can live richly. And $300 there isn’t enough to pay for Medicare. On balance it’s better to maintain your family in Cuba.

Then there is the issue we must continue to pay attention to, because as long as there is a law that says if you step foot on American soil you have everything guaranteed, there will be people who will want to go there. When Cubans who arrive in the United States are treated like Haitians, we’re going to see them singing another tune.

These are the elements that in general sense I wanted to mention. Questions? (END)

==== Information about the presentation, the video and the transcripts====

Presenter: Eduardo Fontes Suárez, cybernetic specialist in counterintelligence. Political Section of the Ministry of the Interior (MININT), Cuba.
Delivered: June 8, 2010

The Cyberpolice in Cuba, uploaded to VIMEO by Coral Negro. Time 53 minutes.
Spanish transcript prepared by CaféFuerte

English translation by HemosOido.com, a cooperative translation site for Cuban bloggers. Contributors included: Anonymous (multiple), Raul Garcia, Jr., Ivana Recmanova, JT.

Doubts Over an Official Note / Regina Coyula

So, at the end of the day, what is it that Alan Gross did? Was it ever proved that he was involved in spying activities? That he brought over subversive material (USB memory sticks, satellite phones?). Who were his contacts in Cuba? Why if he’s been detained for over a year is it only now that the population hears about this? Is it true that the wives of two of the five Cuban prisoners—jailed for spying—who were forbidden entry into the US were authorized to see their husbands and, in exchange, Alan Gross’s wife was allowed to visit him in prison? Neither of these questions is clarified in the brief note that was posted on the official organ, which tells of an imminent trial and a very strict district attorney.

(Non-official) NOTE

Last Monday, January 31st, I posted a piece titled Mazorra y el secretismo (Mazorra and Secrecy) where I claimed that no names had been named. That same day, the official press was publishing, for the first and only time, the names of the punished and the total of the sentences as a follow-up item of the news. For connectivity issues, this post was already programmed, and also for connectivity issues, it is not until now I am able to clarify this. The rest of the post stands. Thanks to all people who wrote comments, worried about my credibility.

February 8 2011

Neighborhood Spokespeople Launch a Proposal to Modify the Election Law / Silvio Benítez Márquez

This 26th of January a modest representation of Neighborhood Spokespeople met in the Havana locality of Punta Brava to officially launch a new citizen proposal. The proposal consists of proposing to the Cuban government that they change or modify the current Electoral Law.

This proposition of the Neighborhood Spokespeople is founded on the last intervention before the National Assembly of People’s Power of the General – President Raúl Castro, when he recognized some deficiencies and errors in the Cuban revolutionary process, leaving an enormous vacuum concerning who is or are truly guilty of the failed process.

As such, and in harmony with the renovating speech of the General, those who formed this proposal think that this is the best moment to build a new selection mechanism to elect our delegates from the base to the National Assembly.

A mechanism that would immediately break with something as ridiculous and absurd that has been imposed for 34 years, without the slightest shadow of a disclaimer, where to be elected as a candidate only one’s individual attributes or merits are considered; obviating the theory that to vote for someone one must know first how the person thinks and how he might definitively behave when it is time to legislate were he to become a parliamentarian.

The minimalist proposal of the Neighborhood Spokespeople would be implemented in two working phases. The first, the participation in a debate of the economic and social guidelines in the neighborhood with the goal of making public the petition of modifying the Electoral Law. And the second, dedicated completely to collecting signatures throughout the island with the goal of presenting them as a National Demand before the Cuban parliament.

It is also worth mentioning that the efforts of various Neighborhood Spokespeople who on the even of deciding to give the document to the State Council and the National Assembly, considering that decades of restrictions and absolutism had been used in the past to support the General-President against the Assembly.

Punta Brava, 2 February 2011
By Silvio Benítez Márquez
Promoter of the project Voices of the Neighborhood
Ave 249 4614 % 46 Y 48 Punta Brava, la Lisa.
Mobile – 052541300

February 7 2011

Cubans Are Neither Arabs Nor Muslims / Iván García

This isn’t to reject or alienate those who, from abroad, across the internet and social networks are calling for a people’s uprising or a general strike in Cuba. It’s a question of reality.

Despite the fear and the inertia that has kept the population paralyzed for 52 years, Cubans are no more brave nor less cowardly than other peoples. Nor is it a problem of streets. The regime has made people think that “the streets belong to the revolutionaries”. And that in them, there is no room for those who are disaffected or “counterrevolutionary.”

That ‘state property’ of the public spaces, be they streets, avenues, or parks, the day least expected can be taken by an unstoppable multitude of discontented citizens, who peacefully or violently decide to protest, like they’re doing right now in Liberation Plaza, in the center of Cairo. For whatever fact, whatever spontaneous form in whatever moment, to follow the actual state of things, one can be produced.

But not because nobody from other countries tells Cubans that they must (or must not) do away with the Castro Brothers’ dictatorship, one of the longest-lived and repressive in the world. More than those of Ben Ali in Tunisia or Hosni Mubarak in Egypt.

That is a reality. The other is that Cuba is an island, a nation without borders, surrounded by sea. A geographic particularity that allows almost absolute control and they wish they it now had in the revolt area of the Magreb.

It is also a fact that the Cuban dissidence is very divided, some are barely known and don’t number more than a couple hundred in all the country. That is not the case of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations, with thousands of followers who don’t fear death. With an amazing calm they set themselves on fire, like that young Tunisian, who ended up being the match that lit the fire of rebellion that today crosses North Africa.

The Cubans are westerners. Life is important to us, and we are not willing to give it up at the first opportunity. Since that stage of “to die for the Fatherland is to live”, as stated in a verse of our national anthem, has long passed.

The new generations think it’s already enough, what with the number of dead compatriots in African wars, thousands (of kilometers) away from Cuban shores. Or that Che’s slogan is already past, to create “one, two, three Vietnams” to defeat “Yankee imperialism.”

Another real fact. Barely 3% of the Cuban population has access to the internet. Of that minimal percentage, almost all are official journalists and representatives of the governmental elite. Or independent journalists, opposition members, and bloggers. Even now in telephone service the panorama is changing. Right now, in Cuba there are more than a million cell phones, a number greater than landlines.

When one acquires a cell phone, he can receive and transmit SMS. Nonetheless, the immense majority of the owners of cell phones use that service to transmit personal messages, because it’s not free. Neither is it free to have Twitter on a mobile.

On Facebook the few who have ADSL in their houses, legally or illegally, can participate. Or artists and intellectuals who travel abroad and people with relatives and friends who sign them up abroad. Until this date, the social networks have constituted neither a massive means of communication nor an effective one among the average Cuban.

And it could be that it will not reach a peak in the future, either. Not even after that fiber optic cable is connected between Venezuela and Cuba. It reinforces a fact: at the head of the Ministry of Computing and Communications they named another military officer, General Medardo Díaz, 48-years-old, professional engineer.

Nor can we forget the existence of the Defense Center of Computing Studies, directed by Jesús Bermúdez Cutiño, a retired division General, born in Las Tunas in 1935. Before occupying this post, Bermúdez was head of Intelligence of the Ministry of the Interior, and head of the Military Intelligence section of the Armed Forces.

I mention it because it’s the organism in Cuba which studies in depth and follows closely all the wars and popular uprisings that are being produced in Myanmar, Iran, Tunisia, or Egypt.

While these analysts of the minute have the latest events happening in regions of conflict on the planet, Cubans continue to depend on the scarce and manipulated news that the official media offers them. When they offer it to them.

Photo: EFE. Youths demonstrate in Yemen with photos of Che.

Translated by: JT

February 6 2011

To the Almendares River / Rebeca Monzo

This last Sunday, as I was coming back home from visiting a friend, I crossed the bridge over the Almendares River. And looking at this river, I remembered that beautiful poem the famous poet, Dulce María Loynáz (1902-1997) wrote, inspired by it.

I met this great lady late in her life, when she was already retired and in her voluntary incile* at home, where she had let time and memories peacefully flow. It was her birthday that day, and a good friend of mine had asked me to accompany her in her visit to greet her. I was excited by the idea, because I would have the opportunity to be face to face with one of the most important figures of Hispanic literature. As I did not have anything to give her as a present—it was a last-minute invitation—I decided to give her a beautiful conch shell with a maidenhair fern planted in it. She was a great lover of nature and simple things.

I was very impressed by her beautiful house at El Vedado, even when it was run-down by her evident lack of resources. You could still see some fine furniture and porcelains around, mute witnesses of her former social status. The ceilings had patches of missing plaster, the rugs were worn-out by time, and the lack of paintings on the wall surrounded the house’s owner in an aura of mystery. She received us with a wide smile and a steaming cup of coffee, served by a niece who took care of her. This wonderful lady, already forgotten, became news once again in our planet when she received, a few years later, the important and well-deserved Cervantes Award.

This is how her poem to the river starts:

This river with a musical name
Reaches my heart through a road
Of warm arteries and a tremor of diastoles

This is its last stanza:

I will not say what hand tears it away from me,
Nor inside of what stone of my breast does it find its source:
I will not say it is the most beautiful
But it is my river, my country, my blood!

*The opposite of exile

Translated by T

February 7 2011

Popular Street Protest in Punta Brava Due to the Absence of Water / Silvio Benítez Márquez

Punta Brava, Havana- 01/17/11

A civic event without any precedents throughout the history of the Castro reign inspired Punta Brava natives on the morning of Thursday, January 14th. To the grand surprise of the locals, a group of women took to the streets in a peaceful manner, holding up signs which demanded to the authorities, “We Want Water”. The unique demonstration began at around 50th Street and went on until 51st Avenue, where the Popular Council Headquarters of the Havana Community is currently located.

It was the first time that such a complex act was set in motion and promoted by local citizens all by themselves, without the presence of any members of the Democratic Cuban Opposition. “Such a daring attitude was expected sooner or later. If it wouldn’t have been these ladies, it would have been a group of other people who would have done it,” emphasized Angela, one of the upset women.

For a few days now, the mood in the town is more and more tense and worrying. Entire families stay up all night watching and waiting for any signs of water. Others, with extensive bags under their eyes, wait for miracles from the Almighty to be able to get some water in order to clean the most intimate parts of a sick elderly relative. Meanwhile, others become fed up with all the lies and jump from the position of obedient militants to nonconformists, as was the case with the son of a fervent communist on the block who, prior to the demonstration, placed a sign outside his home which read, “I don’t even have enough water to wash my a…”

But not everything was simple for the protestors. Along the way, the women were approached and intimidated by the town’s Sector Chief who quickly snatched the sign from the women’s hands. Later on, he wielded his truncheon in case the women had any intentions to start screaming anti-government slogans when they came to confront the delegates.

The community had been taken over by watch-dogs, paramilitary soldiers, and secret police. One high-ranking official gave the order to, “not accept any verbal aggression or political questioning on behalf of the citizens towards the delegates”. Immediately, two policemen showed up guarding the entrance and exit of the Popular Council, attempting to control the discipline of the locality with the help of a patrol-guard. The next morning, a rumor was traveling through town like gunpowder. The plastic garbage tank which stood outside the Basic Secondary Fructuoso Rodriguez School had been found burnt to ashes.

The mood could not have gotten more chaotic. The regime party members automatically speculated that the incinerated tank had been an act carried out by a counter-revolutionary. The situation was rather complex and convulsive, allowing for more political police agents to enter the scene, especially in the general barracks of 249th Avenue, where the well known informer Candelario Cruz, better known (through word of mouth) as “Little Mockingbird of the Park”. Cruz is a despicable character who voluntarily lends his own house in order to squash any activities carried out by the Spokespeople of the Neighborhood, 365 days a year. During this specific occasion he was in charge of watching over the movements of yours truly, in order to prevent any civil demonstrations.

But like the old saying goes, “When you don’t want broth, they give you two bowls of it”. Before the very eyes of that snitch, and of that amalgam of policemen which lingered around 249th Avenue, a huge argument broke out. The discussion was between the frustrated neighbors and the inefficient Delegation, seeing as the latter kept the local citizens from serving themselves water from a truck’s pipe, because it was “not their designated distribution day”. This argument led to the further rage and inevitable disrespect of the electors and the local functionaries.

“This has been an incomparable experience which will never be erased from the minds of all our neighbors,” expressed Alicia, who from afar seemed impatient and worried about the hostile scene which erupted when a tank arrived to the neighborhood. Later, and referring to the soldiers, she exclaimed, “Silvio is not the only one who protests and criticizes. Now, all citizens of this town are one big protest sign”.

Silvio Benitez Marquez
Promoter of the Project Voices of the Neighborhood
Ave 249 4614 %46 y 48 Punta Brava, la Lisa.
Mobile-052541300.

Translated by Raul G.

January 22 2011

Price and Guarantees of the Governmental Cadres / Laritza Diversent

A Cuban knows that appearing to unconditionally support revolutionary ideas and stepping forward every time you’re called is better than to criticize. The road is bumpy, but the ride is always smoother if it is known that you are an enrolled member of political and mass organizations, especially the Communist Party of Cuba (PPC).

Better yet if you have a position in the government, this increases your chances of climbing the hierarchical ladder and receive training as a government cadre. If the historic moment requires the fulfillment of a task, one must assume the duties. It does not matter that you do not have the slightest idea how to run an enterprise or ministry. If you get stressed or you have no head for heights, there are always options.

Raúl Castro said in his last statement to the Cuban Parliament that “the true modern revolutionary is the cadre that, at any level” resigns when “they feel … unable to fully perform their duties or comply with new guidelines.” He also said that we are in era of reform and the opposition no longer represents counter-revolution.

Of course it is not good to trust too much. The head of government also said: “He who commits a crime in Cuba, regardless of position … will have to face the consequences of their mistakes and the scales of justice.” But so far, none of those removed from office have had to answer to the courts. The dismissal for incompetence is safer than a resignation for disagreeing with the policies.

Similarly it is possible to take deep breaths and resist until those house renovations are completed. The fulfillment of the task is not all sacrifice; friendships are made and those who have friends have a way in. Public office is used for traveling abroad or to get a scholarship in Germany for one’s child.

You can also open a Swiss bank account and if someone questions its moral integrity, do not fret, you are not the first one to do so. The offering of scapegoats is cyclical. Do not misinterpret, it is not malice. It is logical that, if everyone steals from time to time some head must roll eventually. The stagnation and backwardness of the economy is the responsibility of someone. When have you seen that blame falls to the ground?

The process is hard, but it transcends the personal, and has no larger consequences. It is easier to end up in prison for not working, than to omit or alter data in financial reports. The facts are not presented outside of a political trial. Even then, if you acknowledge the mistakes and correct your behavior—i.e. take a few insults—you can keep your status as a member of the party.

Look at the example of Jorge Luis Sierra and Yadira García, one a transport minister, the other a minister of primary industry. Both took on functions that did not correspond to their qualifications, and that led to serious mistakes in management. Today, they find themselves in jobs related to their specialties; or at least that’s what Raúl said.

The worst thing they endured was severe criticism in separate joint meetings of the committee’s political bureau and the executive committee of the council of ministers (by the way, the members of one committee are the same members of the other).

Yadira García, for instance, did a terrible job as head of the Ministry, mainly through her poor control over the resources allocated to the investment process, leading to their waste. Had she committed such offences as director of a base company, things would have been different. Today she would be at the disposal of the public prosecutor and accused of the criminal offence of misappropriation of financial and physical resources.

It does not matter whether it was due to fraud or inexperience; the law is clear and it sanctions the person who oversees the administration and squanders—or allows someone else to squander—financial or physical resources. The punishment increases if there are considerable economic losses. However, García Vera is a close friend of Raúl!

There is no comparison: it will always be better to operate from the top than from the bottom.  One remains certain that the level of misconduct will never be fully known. The Cuban press is official, not sensational; the code of ethics does not allow for corridor gossip, let alone gossip about a leader. That is the price and guarantee of being a cadre of the government.

Translated by: Eric Peliza
February 7 2011

Let’s Talk About Martí on His 158th Birthday / Dimas Castellanos

(Published in Cuba Daily, www.ddcuba.com, 28 January 2011)

The birthdays of figures who marked our history in past times and are observed today constitute an excellent opportunity to return to their ideas. This is the case of the 158th anniversary of José Martí’s birthday, who, at this opportunity, coincides with the start of the changes that the government is introducing in the economy, but will have to be generalized to all social spheres.

José Julián Martí Pérez, son of a family with a limited education, thanks to his sensitivity and intelligence, to the love of his mother and uprightness of his father, and to his relationship with the director of the Boys’ School of Havana, Rafael María de Mendive; he became a historian, poet, literate, orator, teacher, journalist, and the Cuban politician of the largest stature.

Nonetheless, despite the quantity of pages about him that have been written, his essential ideas are barely known. Having attributed the intellectual authorship of the Assault on the Moncada Barracks to him and placing him next to Marxism as the foundation of the process which led to a totalitarian system, he has provoked some Cubans — especially the youngest — to show rejection of this alteration of his person. From there, the importance of calling attention to simple, but racial, aspects of his work which remain valid for today’s Cuban. With that end, I advance eight of those aspects.

  • His humanism, putting man at the beginning and end of his libertarian work; to dream that with the first Law of the Republic there might be full human dignity, which is impossible without the freedoms that serve to sustain him. A humanism expressed in the love for one’s neighbor that, like Jesus, he extended to his own enemies and whose best proof consists in that, despite the inhuman treatment he received in the Political Presidio, he never expressed hatred for Spain, or that when he was an enemy of American expansionism, he was also a fervent admirer of the culture of that country and its people. From that humanism emanated his ethic, which in its political action constituted a distinctive element expressed in his human dimension and in the correspondence between thought and action.
  • His deep capacity for analysis, thanks to which he performed a critical study of the errors committed in the Ten Years’ War and demonstrated that Spain didn’t win that contest; rather that Cuba lost it. From that study he derived a system of principles that included: revolution as a form of evolution, the inclusion of all components in the analysis of social phenomena, the union of differing factors, and time in policy. In this system are the cement of a theory of revolution that includes the function of necessary war and the role of the Party.
  • His iron-willed opposition to autocracy, which took him to refuse participation in the Gómez-Maceo Plan of 1884, of which he left perseverance to the General: “A people doesn’t found itself, General, like one commands a camp”; an idea so simple as essential, whose consequence showed itself all throughout the Great War and remained reserved in his Campaign Diary, 14 days before his death: “… Maceo has another concept of governing, a junta of generals with command power, by their representatives – and a Secretary General: the Fatherland, then, and all her officers, who create and animate the army, as a secretary of the army”. An idea that had been repeated time and again, as in April 1894, when he expressed: “A people is not the will of a single man, as pure as it may be… A people is a composition of many wills, vile or pure, frank or stormy, impeded by timidity or precipitated by ignorance[1]. Ideas that should be incorporated into today’s textbooks.
  • His conception of the Cuban Revolutionary Party (PRC) as an organizing institution, controlling and creating of conscience to direct the war that the Republic had to carry out; not to dominate and prohibit the existence of different parties following victory, not to work for predominance, of any kind present or future; but by grouping, conforming to democratic methods, of all the living forces of the Fatherland; by brotherhood and common action of Cubans resident on the island and abroad[2]. For, as remained recognized in the Basis of the PRC, to found a new people and of sincere democracy, capable of overcoming, by the order of true work and the balance of social forces, the dangers of sudden freedom in a society composed for slavery[3]. And he insisted that it was an idea that Cuba had to carry, not just a person[4]. Thoughts completely foreign to the single-party system implanted in Cuba.
  • His concept of the Republic, conceived as a form and station of destiny, different from War and of the Party, conceived as mediating links to arrive at it. A republic as a state of equal rights to everyone born in Cuba; a space for freedom of expression of thought, of many small businessmen, of social justice, which implied love and mutual pardon between the races, built without foreign assistance nor tyranny, so that every Cuban might be a fully free politician.
  • His doctrine of Fatherland, of which he conceived as a “community of interests, unity of traditions, unity of ends, most kind and consoling of love and hope”. An ambition condensed into the following words in “Wandering Teachers“: “Mankind has to live in a state of peaceful enjoyment, natural and inevitable from freedom, as they live enjoying air and light” and “The independence of a people consists of the respect that public powers demonstrate to each of their children.”
  • His enmity for violence, despite having suffered much himself. In May of 1883, he wrote: “… Karl Marx studied the methods of putting the world on new bases, awakened the sleeping, and taught how to throw away broken props. But he walked quickly, and a little in the shadows, without seeing that they weren’t born viable, not in the hearts of the people in history, nor in the heart of the woman at home, the children that haven’t had a natural and laborious birth … They dream of music, dream again of the chorus; but we note that they aren’t of peace.”
  • His rejection of State Socialism, of which he left evidence in “Future Slavery”, where he proposed that “the poor, who are used to losing all to the State, will soon stop making any effort for their own subsistence”; “that when the actions of the State become so varied, active, and dominant, it will have to impose considerable charges on the working part of the nation in favor of the impoverished part”; that “as all public necessities come to be satisfied by the State, functionaries will acquire the enormous influence which naturally comes to those who distribute some right or benefit.” And that “To be a slave to oneself, it will come to man to be the slave of the State. To be a slave of the State, as they call it now, one will have to be a slave of the functionaries. A slave is anyone who works for another who has dominion over him; and in that socialist system would dominate the community of mankind, to which the community will dedicate all its work.”[5]

Just as people who are ignorant of their history are condemned to repeat once and again the errors of the past, and in Cuba political matters have regressed to the 19th Century, we have to be advised that Marti’s political thought continues to be effective, for we are detained in a time in which he would have lived. The republic of all and for the benefit of all is a pending matter. Once the model of totalitarian socialism has failed — exclusive by its nature — Marti’s thought, a combination of love, virtue, and civics constitutes a legacy we cannot depreciate.

Havana, 25 January 2011

[1]MARTÍ, JOSÉ. Selected Works in Three Volumes, Vol III, p. 359
[2] “Resolutions taken by Cuban emigration of Tampa and Key West in November of 1891”. MARTÍ, JOSÉ. Selected Works in Three Volumes, Vol III, p 23.
[3]MARTÍ, JOSÉ. Selected Works in Three Volumes, Vol III, p. 26
[4]MARTÍ, JOSÉ. Selected Works in Three Volumes, Vol III, p. 192
[5]MARTÍ, JOSÉ. Complete Works. Vol 15, pp 388-392

Translated by: JT

January 31 2011

Free Fall / Iván García

"Welcome to Our Green Caiman"

The only thing need to fall is to be above. And although Renato knows this, he is still not used to the sacrifices of the real Cuba’s tough life. He was a heavyweight in an imports firm. A jet-set of the elite.

He wore the red insignia of the Communist Party and had a promising future ahead of him. On many an evening, he would be enjoying seafood, salad dressed with olive oil and fruits at some luxurious restaurant of Havana. And a good Spanish wine on the side, of course.

On his return back to his splendid house at Miramar, he would smoke a Cohíba cigar and have a cup of strong Brazilian black coffee. He would then go to bed, unstressed and relaxed, to have sex with his wife, an exuberant light-brown-skinned young woman of thirty-two.

As it happens in any marriage, they had plans. And Renato aimed high. He envisioned himself at 47 as director of a ministry and climbing up the ladder within the party hierarchy. His life was beautiful. He spoke several languages and traveled the world. He always had euros, dollars or Swiss francs in his wallet. He was not an extremist in his dealings with his workmates, nor did he judge severely the ideological weaknesses of his friends.

He never climbed higher by trampling over anybody else. He followed a very specific ethical system: to give priority to talent. Loyalty was essential, but it could always be second. He was not a shameless corrupt, either.

Yes: like any Cuban official, he knew some tricks and accepted bribes from capitalist impresarios under the table. But he always negotiated in ways that were favorable for the nation.

He was a professional and a Sybarite. He did not have lovers. He never participated in scandalous orgies. He did not even drink rum in excess. Like any other person with political ambitions, he had his aspirations. He dreamed with one day of becoming president.

He had logical and measured projects, in tune with the system in which he lived. He would even say to his closest friends that a socialism with a human face—one that was efficient and that did not support political repression—was indeed possible.

Renato did not see it coming. The day he was summoned to his supervisor’s office he never imagined that he would be subjected to a prickly telling-off and a litany of accusations due to political immaturity and lack of faith on the historic leaders of the Revolution.

A few weeks later he was thrown out of the party and his official car was taken from him. He no longer had a position of trust. No trips abroad, no business with refined capitalists.

He was stunned. He asked around, he begged, he made appointments with the high powers. He felt they were doing him injustice. His only crime was to believe in the reforms that General Raúl Castro was proposing. And to wish these were even deeper.

Months before this, Renato had participated in a meeting with the high cadres of the party. Everyone in the room was asked to, openly and with no regard to censure, say what their opinion was regarding the supposed economic changes that could be tried in the island in a near future.

He thought this was his chance. He had already undertaken meticulous research on a plethora of options to forward the economy. He expressed that the State needed to get rid of inefficient enterprises. He applauded the measure that resulted in the loss of a million jobs, and he thought the number should be higher, as to lessen the burden of the State. And he provided a series of counsels on how to engage the issue of the self-employment.

Our blunt official was betting, and so he said, on large reforms, market economy, small and medium-sized enterprises funded by Cuban-American capital, on the removal of the tax on the US dollar and on the gradual abolishment of the rationing system.

In his thesis, he did not mention anything about political changes, nor did he judge the work undertaken so far by the revolutionary leaders. After he finished his contribution to the meeting, he did not notice any sign of alarm at the big wigs’ table.

Some bureaucrats with power even came over to congratulate him. Twenty days later, when he was summoned to the supervisor’s office, he understood that his pragmatic project had become the cause of his disgrace.

The blow still hurts. Good-bye to those trips to Europe, to those shrimp dinners in the twilight. Only his wife and family are left. And the certainty that a better Socialism is still possible. Now he suspects that it won’t be feasible within the government of the Castro brothers.

The only thing needed to fall is to be above. When you touch ground, you learn a lesson. In the power structures of Cuba there are two capital sins: the ambition of power and thinking big. Renato had wished for both. And now he is paying for it.

Translated by T

February 4 2011

Bureaucratic Obstacles and Obsolete Protectionism Regarding the Self-Employed / IntraMuros

By Dagoberto Valdés

There can be no economic development without freedoms and human rights. As we gather statements from Cuban men and women who are trying to develop their private initiative through their own small businesses—those that have been included in the list of medieval trades that the Cuban government, in a false overture, has approved as a liberalization of work—they are faced with endless bureaucratic obstacles and State protectionism for their inefficient enterprises or useless services so that no one can compete with these fossils of bureaucratic totalitarianism.

The acquisition of permits and the following of procedures take each Cuban who takes on the risk of enterprise on a goose chase from office to office. To mention only a few of these offices, if you wish to build a shack for your paladar—home-cooking and home-based restaurant,—for example, you will need to visit Urban Planning, the Popular Municipal Power Administration Council, the Directive Offices of Municipal Public Health, the National Taxing Office (ONAT) and others. In each of these offices, you must be subjected not only to the contempt of bureaucracy, but also to the obstacles that have been implemented so that no one person is able to earn too much, or acquire titles to more than one property, accumulate properties or money, or have the opportunity to personal progress above the leveling standards of true Socialism. In other words, you are allowed to pursue a minimum level of survival under State dependence and through the mental and daily work that are indispensable for mere survival.

Another insurmountable obstacle is the government’s protectionism over any service, business or enterprise, all of which are the sole property of the State, as to eliminate possible, potential and incipient competition from the self-employed, or the small, private entrepreneurs. A home-based restaurant (paladar) cannot be opened within two blocks from a State cafeteria because it would entail competition against the State-owned business. And this, of course, never takes into account the fact that the state-owned cafeteria hardly ever has anything to sell. Minister Murillo has clearly stated at the Cuban National Assembly that State enterprises should not fear competition from private businesses, as these are but mere “rustic shacks”. And, were they to progress, there are still economic and social guidelines that reaffirm that national economy is in the hands of the State, and that the accumulation of capital will not be allowed, nor will it be allowed to go beyond any mechanism of State planning even if the enterprises in question are not State-owned. Not even water can ever be as clear as this.

Cuba will never step back from the edge of the cliff with only “rustic shacks”. Enterprises that are not subjected to competition can only produce misery and bad service. These supposed overtures from the government, without the element of recognition of private and protected property, are not real overtures. Work and bureaucracy are natural antonyms. And economy and liberty are inseparable.

Therefore, we all know where this is heading. Or, better yet, where it is not heading.

But, being that totalitarianism does not allow for reforms, who knows!

Dagoberto Valdés

January 20 2011

News Without Newness / Miriam Celaya

One of the characteristics of the scandal unleashed late last year by the website WikiLeaks is the frequency with which certain developments that should not be a news flash for anyone are revealed. Simultaneously, an idea seems to be enthroned that tends to overestimate the importance of this site as the information legitimizer. Something like saying that “if it came out in WikiLeaks, is true,” which means the birth of a sort of absolute cyber-dictatorship for informational truth: the substitution of a monopoly (the mainstream media, which WikiLeaks claims to fight) by the monopoly of a supposed “freedom of information” which, in fact, tends to advocate anarchy.

Paradoxically, it is said that the Spanish newspaper El País “has exclusive rights on information filtered by Julián Assange’s Web.” Could it be that this is a free exclusivity deal by virtue of a freedom of expression defense turned offering? Why would a major media, the Spanish language newspaper with the largest circulation, be the repository of filtered “firsts”?

As for me, among the cables published by such a site that somehow make reference to Cuba, I have not found any new news items. I think I am not mistaken if I declare that most Cubans do not need the new defender of published news reports of the US Interests Section in Havana to find out, through its former representative, Michael Parmly, that “corruption in Cuba has become a widespread phenomenon that reaches both the Communist Party leadership and professionals without political affiliation.”

Other cables reaffirm the same, detailing aspects of Cuban life that have been reported by independent journalists and alternative bloggers for a long time, such as “corrupt practices, including bribery, misappropriation of state resources and accounting shenanigans, including purchased jobs for hundreds or thousands of dollars that will later spin off copious interchanges of influence.” We are well aware of that social cancer metastasis, corruption, that has even invaded the police, one of the most affected sectors; but it is absolutely present in every niche of national life. Even the comandante himself, the generator of the Cuban National Disaster, acknowledged in 2005 that the revolution could implode because of the great corruption that exists on the Island. He stated it much later than the independent press. WikiLeaks, through El País, merely sanctifies through the mouthpiece of a foreign official what many honest Cubans –- many of whom are in prison because of it — have denounced in the first place and, more recently, as if to conjure old faults, it has been acknowledged even by the olive green gerontocracy and its most reverent acolytes.

Among the latest of the retro-exclusive news flashes that the site of the famous Julián Assange has regaled us with these last few days is Parmly’s own communication that contains “confidential information” provided to him by Vilmar Coutinho, a Brazilian who in turn received it from the Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim (what a mess!). According to the “revealing” communication, the latter “had a talk with Raúl Castro” in which the General declared “that he had no intention of doing away with the white card” — the travel permit required to leave the country — because “that would produce a mass exodus,” whose host country would be fundamentally Mexico, which “would harm bilateral relations” between Cuba and that country.

Thank you, WikiLeaks! But we Cubans already knew that the white card is one of the government’s more lucrative diabolical “milking” mechanisms. As a Cuban-American economist coined it, the “emigration industry” produces juicy dividends for the Cuban government, at no cost whatsoever, and the famous little card is one of its sources. The so-called white card, which allows native Cubans to exit the country costs only 150 CUC, and it can be obtained, in the first instance, only through the corresponding letter of invitation from abroad, paid to the Cuban government in hard currency, with the exception of those who have obtained their Spanish citizenship, who need no letter at all to go to Spain, though they still need their white card. Add to that the application for a regular passport which has a price of 55 CUC. Considering the large and continuing flow of Cubans to immigration offices to perform procedures related to this, it is easy to calculate that the amount of income generated could be, at least, in the order of hundreds of thousands annually. Add to that the monthly rent required to be paid to the Cuban consulates abroad by Cubans who left only temporarily and expect to return to the Island. That is why the General could not eliminate the white card, not because a supposed massive exodus to Mexico (more like the United States, the main and dreamed-of destination of almost all Cubans aspiring to escape). The cynicism of the General when recognizing the possibility of a “mass exodus” is not a WikiLeaks news flash either.

I could cite other examples, but that would be to extend myself in vain. I agree with those who have found only a great source of old gossip in the controversial site. If you look closely, it is only useful for fleeting chitchat, and to show that the Internet also has that dark and sinister side that that puts issues under a microscope that perhaps should remain in some office files and drawers. Apparently, for media that thrives on scandal, the personalities implicated in the gossip are more important than the news itself. Personally, I’m not very interested in revelations after the fact, unless they have the purpose of amending errors, an issue that is beyond the scope of a mere mortal like Assange. Nor does it seem ethical to me to advocate the collapse of a site –- be it official, famous, or not — as some cyber-fundamentalists have done to avenge the attack to the new idol, because I defend freedom of speech in its universality. As an independent blogger living in a dictatorship, I know what it feels like when an absolute power blocks that right.

I don’t know what WikiLeaks proposes to do ultimately; perhaps it is only about good intentions gone wrong. Maybe my assessments take me beyond a critique, but my readers know I am not complacent, and I hope that they can clarify some of my doubts. I count on that. As for the referenced website, I think so much internet talent could continue, though based on better causes (he’s done it before), and promoting the free flow of information in areas where there are serious access restrictions, while respecting the right to privacy. Freedom should not be synonymous with chaos. The WikiLeaks experience is, in my opinion, one more demonstration of the human capacity to deal ethically with technological advances, just like it has happened so many times before in history. And forgive me, readers, if this seems like an old fashioned presumption, but sometimes what we call “information” is nothing but stupidization disguised as news.

Translated by: Norma Whiting

February 3, 2011

José Martí, Los Aldeanos, and a Christmas Celebration / Claudia Cadelo

There are those who say that every effect has its cause and that there is no chaos in the universe. Each to his own philosophy. A friend — half joking, half serious — asked me is I could define the year when our reality became an absurdity. Something like the Big Bang of our island reality — in an implosive sense, of course, a kind of anti-Big Bang. Jokingly I replied: After seeing some of Fidel Castro’s speeches in the archive, I’d say 1959. Later, when I was alone and thinking, the joke wasn’t such a  joke and the year perhaps not totally exact because I have no first-hand experience. I was born in 1983 and it was just a few weeks ago that I realized I haven’t lived in any other reality than that absurdity my friend was asking me about. Disheartening, no?

Turning to the effect, to the cause and the chaos, it would be illogical to draw a coherent line between the Christmas Eve party, the music of Los Aldeanos, and some of the thoughts of José Martí. However, two brothers from Holguin, Marcos and Antonio Lima Cruz, could attest otherwise, having been prisoners since December 25, 2010, charged with “public scandal” and “insulting national symbols.” This last paragraph from the Penal Code is only surpassed by the emblematic “Disrespect” — mocking the figure of the Commander-in-Chief — whose very existence as a criminal figure implies a hilarious joke, I would say.

In Holguin — anywhere outside of Havana can be frightening territory for freedom-related activities  —  Marcos and Antonio decided to write some of Martí’s thoughts on the wall of their house. Phrases we never see written on the government’s banners though it’s worth pointing out that some of the latter are apocryphal and wrongly attributed to the “Apostle” — as Martí is known to Cubans. Although the reasoning isn’t clear, if we follow the logic of the official propaganda, they supposedly admire Martí so much that they no longer remember what he wrote and what he didn’t, and after several repudiation rallies in front of the brothers’ house, Martí’s thoughts were erased in favor of Fidelist slogans.

Then came the night of the twenty-fourth — young in Cuba, recovering traditions through the perseverance of a people who did not forget them despite certain ideologies — an authorized party, a gathering of those in the area, music for the people. And the people’s music includes Los Aldeanos. So the Lima brothers listened to it while they celebrated Christmas. And because they were celebrating Christmas in Cuba, perhaps they came walking down the street — the rappers in the background — wrapped in a Cuban flag.

So the party was over. They are prisoners. And you, like me, might be asking yourself how listening to Los Aldeanos can become a public scandal, and in what way wrapping yourself in, dancing with, shaking, breaking or burning the country’s flag may offend a patriotic symbol. I didn’t know this outrage could be exercised against inanimate objects. There is no cause-effect relationship, it’s not logical, there isn’t least bit of sense in it, and yet, it exists. Wouldn’t this latter be the rejection of some Marxist principle I can’t remember right now?

February 7, 2011