Translating Cuba

Punta Brava, Havana, 11 January 2011

In the afternoon on January 6 a group of residents on Avenue 249 between 46the and 48th in the Havana province town of Punta Brava engaged in a spontaneous public protest in front of their houses, with buckets, tanks and various containers, against the prolonged lack of water in their homes.

This coupled with the degree of laziness and cynicism of the local authorities, leads to an atmosphere of anxiety and instability in the neighborhood. The limits of blind obedience had been exceeded. The angry neighbors had gone 17 days without the precious liquid filling the pipes to their homes. To add to the helplessness, from December 31 these families were deprived of water service with no alternative of where to get it, said one of the neighbors.

“Nobody gives us a detailed explanation, not the Executive nor the Chairman of the People’s Council, no one knows for sure what the reason is for our being without water, and the days pass and the problem becomes more and more chaotic. And if you talk too much about the subject you fire up the restless boys of State Security (DG2) who are on the hunt for their victims wherever they like, to the point of ideologically challenging a group of residents who, at the end of the year, were humming the lyrics of a popular song. In reality, this is not a situation we can put up with,” said Norma, one of those affected.

The news of the protest was so noteworthy that it flew from mouth to mouth through the whole community of Punta Brava, reaching the ears of the incompetent delegates who, at dawn the next day, sent a water truck to the protest site in order to calm the excited mood of the residents of Avenue 249.

*Promoter of the Project of Neighborhood Voices.

Avenue 249, # 4614 between 46 y 48 Punta Brava, Havana.

Cell phone: 052541300

January 13 2011

A new day should mean a new adventure, a new approach to our duties and rights, a constant growth and rebirth, but in the narrow framework of a routine instituted and supervised by the State there is no room for logical thought. I robotically go out in the street and find with regret that everyone has a warning side on their forehead reading, “No I can’t.” I look at the eyes which, paralyzed, should meet mine and they don’t, and I notice they’re looking with dread at my own forehead…

I shake my old wristwatch, which is so lazy it decided to stop marking the minutes, and I verify that once again it has stopped: I think, then, that it’s likely someone has pressed “pause” on the Cuban film of my life.

January 31 2011

I am originally from Punta Brava, in La Lisa. I am married and have a 14 year old son. Currently I chair the Liberal Party of the Republic of Cuba and am the Spokesperson for the Candidates for Change Platform.

January 13 2011

A hustle and bustle filled the air as the ringing of the “wake up” bells resonated throughout the prison. The scene was similar to that of a rooster fight, right at the most exciting moment of the battle. For a second, I could have sworn I was in a dream and that all of these events were figments of my imagination, but seconds later I realized that this was all real.

A tall mulatto soldier used the same large spoon designated for handing out water and sugar to the prisoners to bang on the bars of my cell. Before he continued giving out breakfast, he left a piece of stiff bread in the only opening of my new home.

My appetite was far from being the same one I used to have. I didn’t ingest a single thing. I submerged myself in family memories, which served as the only shield I had against all the henchmen who surrounded me. Suddenly, I heard a voice of authority: “Stand ready to be counted!” At the time, I didn’t understand such an order so I just opted to continue thinking about what had happened to me. Minutes later, however, soldiers opened the doors to my dungeon and the official superior guard who had checked us in the night before said, “Pablo, why are you not preparing yourself for the count? You don’t hear the command?”

Without hesitating, I responded, “I think you have made a mistake, Captain Emilio, for I am not a soldier, I do not take orders.”

That chief officer of order in Aguica did not expect to hear such an answer. I could tell that his eyes were full of fire, hate, and arrogance. I did not look away from his stare, and I think that attitude won me a few favorable points in the future. Another one of the guards then stated, “Let’s go chief, we’ll eventually have enough time to re-locate this CR (with time, I figured out that these initials stood for ‘Counter-Revolutionary’). “

“Yes, you’re right,” Emilio assured as he turned around to exit my cell, sarcastically adding, “the slogan of this prison is: ‘You’re in Aguica. Get yourself straight or we’ll do it for you.’”

I continued to stare back at him, for it was the only response I could use.

The other prisoners who resided around me heard the entire conversation. When all those prison guards walked away, the inmates started to ask, “Hey, new one, where are you from?”

“Ciego de Avila,” I replied.

“Be careful. That guy is the most abusive within the entire prison.” I told them that I’d keep that in mind. The closest prisoner to my cell introduced himself as Raciel, and as a resident of the municipality of Matanzas known as Cardenas.

“Are you a political one?” he asked.

“Yes,” came my response.

A third prisoner then jumped into the conversation, exclaiming, “That’s why you spoke back to Emilio that way!”

That morning was filled with questions and answers with the common prisoners- a dialogue which is normal when we enter a new world that we are supposed to get used to. The faster we integrate into the process, the least damage will be done to our immediate future. Through my new companions-in-misery I found out that Miguel Galban, also a member of the 75 and native of the municipality of Havana dubbed as Guines, was in the galley section known as “The Polish”, as was Roberto de Miranda, native of the capital. The latter suffered from a weak state of health, so he was actually imprisoned in the hospital ward of the prison.

That day, I did not eat lunch and I only ate that small piece of insipid bread with mayonnaise, in addition to a glass of sugar and water. I spent the remainder of most of my afternoon looking over old family photos and reading my Bible. Truthfully, I could not find peace in anything else. I showered when night fell and I filled two bottles of water given to me by Jesus, another prisoner who displayed his solidarity with me from the very beginning. Fortunately, he warned me that the valuable liquid was only given twice a day and that we had to take full advantage of it.

I continued thinking before finally falling asleep. I could not fathom that human beings lived in such deplorable conditions for so many years on end. There was cruel treatment, poor diets, and horrid bathrooms which were just holes on the ground — and we were supposed to shower there, clean our utensils, and brush our teeth. In addition, we had to somehow jam all our belongings in this tiny space of two meters by two. I was far from accepting and understanding that the following 16 months will be marked by similar experiences as that of these other prisoners, and in some cases even worse. Our allowed visits, which only lasted two hours, were planned by the guards every three months. Priority was given to elderly family members and young children. Conjugal encounters were only allowed every 5 months and only 30 pounds of food and goods were allowed in. Nearly every aspect was twice the pain for us.

Today, I still ask myself how I was capable of living through such horror. I would say that the inner strength which we all harbor deep inside, in addition to the justice of our own convictions, was what helped me to stand back up to face any sort of obstacle. This also helped me to draw up an objective that would sustain me during my captivity. I made the decision to describe the reality of the Cuban jail system to the world. Perhaps my voice was just a small voice, but without it, truth would have been much more diminished.

NOTE: Pablo Pacheco was one of the prisoners of Cuba’s Black Spring, and the initiator of the blog “Behind the Bars.” He now blogs from exile in Spain and his blog – Cuban Voices from Exile – is available in English translation here. To make sure readers find their way to his new blog, we will continue to post some of his articles here, particularly those relating his years in prison in Cuba.

December 28, 2010

Message from Paquito de Rivera to Marta Valdés

Dear Marta (Valdés):

I congratulate you on your brave insertion into the group of Cuban intellectuals against the sadly famous ex-ex-ex cultural leader Luis Pavón, who, by the way, has been for a long time a perfect non-entity (pun intended). I hope this is just an introduction before you engage, with full force, him and those who physically conducted that bloody repression against those long-haired/short-skirted youngsters—as Zenaidita Romeu accurately calls them; no one has ever seen Pavón, or that moron Papito Serguera, or any other cultural leader, scissors in hand, go on to cut that long hair or cage those “foreignizing” youngsters at Coppelia, am I right? And given your renown sense of timing, I think I am right to be sure that you already have prepared a song to commemorate the UMAP, that shared idea between Raúl Castro and Che Guevara (maybe the song could have a che-che-che beat, right, you naughty one?). Pablito Milanés should add its first verse (the left-wing gay community would be grateful for that [truncated text in the original]

I patiently await that day when I will be able to support you on your next protest against the higher powers that caused so much pain to us (not moribund rams like Pavón and Serguera). The same goes for Antón Arrufat, Jorge Ángel Pérez, Zenaidita Romeu, Desiderio Navarro, Arturo Arango, Reynaldo González, César López, Norge Espinosa, Abelardo Estorino, Ramiro Guerra, Jaime Sarusky, Monseñor Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, Nancy Morejón, Ambrosio Fornet, Luciano Castillo, Sigfredo Ariel, Marta Valdés, Ena Lucía Portela, Waldo Leyva, Enrique Pineda Barnet, Jorge Luis Sánchez, Senel Paz, Rebeca Chávez, Reina María Rodríguez, Luisa Campuzano, Carlos Celdrán, Pancho García, Adelaida Fernández de Juan, Aries Morales, Magaly Muguercia, Pedro Pérez Sarduy, and the rest of the “protesters” who have “heroically” made firewood out of the fallen tree. This is your time to revindicate yourselves. The two big “R’s” are waiting for you: Ramiro and Raúl. Let’s just see if you have what Tito Puente had, and in excess!

From here to the Victoria (the neighborhood of the happy girls), always!

Paquito de Rivera

United States

Message from Paquito de Rivera to Fefé Diego

Hello Fefé:

Yes, it is true that we do not know each other personally, but you are quite familiar to me, because I always have heard good things about you on the part of people like Lichi, Rapi, Felipe Dulzaides, and especially my old and good friend Sergio Garcia-Marruz, who, out of that whole Vitier-Garcia Marruz-Dulzaides family, I consider—for many reasons—the best of them all. With Sergio I never had much of a friendship in Cuba, but he was the first one to destroy what never made sense from the time Marx wrote his first letter in his big book of German jokes.

I have neither the time nor the desire to immerse myself in all this “pavoroso” (horrific) gossip, but I have read with lots of laughs the stupidities written by our—or, better yet, YOUR—”brave intellectuals.” One whose name is Jiménez wrote, plagiarizing the dissidents (and I am not a dissident: I am a gusano—a worm—mind you): “Revolution belongs to all”… Oh save us all! Such shame, still today! Even your own brother Lichi had the nerve to say, from Mexico, that “no matter what happens, there are still revolutionary writers in Cuba.”

Also in Germany there are writers who still yearn for Hitler, and countless idiots in the United States who belong to the KKK, and not because of that will we cease to despise them and boycott their filthy ideas, my dear Lichi. It’s just like my grandma used to say, “the leopard doesn’t change its spots,” except that in some cases (a few) the earth’s springs DO NOT entice them more than the sea*. Especially the sea of bliss that Chavez talks (or rather barks) about. The damage and the wounds have been indeed huge, but this damage didn’t start with Pavón and Serguera, and Quesada didn’t act alone, dear Fefé. Everything was coming down from “higher up.” Or is it that perhaps you too were also fooled with that idea that the Crook-in-Chief had no idea about UMAP and the cocaine traffic?

Believe me when I tell you that—as Argentinians put it—it bursts my balls to waste my time talking about foolishness, but you and everyone else know that the “Special Period” began very early in the twentieth-century, and that these “mistakes” that were made, and this cultural, economic and social disaster—and disasters of all kinds—started a long time ago. What nerve these cheap intellectuals have to claim they didn’t know about the purges of Stalin, of Socialist Realism, of the dark cultural Maoist revolution and of the how cruel, bloodthirsty and homophobic Che Guevara, Breshnev and Ho Chi Minh were!

In regard to the absence of my name from the cultural circles of this country, I am in very good company, and I am quite happy about that. I don’t want my name to be used like they have used Lecuona’s name or John Lennon’s name. Neither am I interested in having as colleagues and fellow travelers those Cubans who have irresponsibly supported such a vicious regime: the writers and artists. On this side over here we have Cachao, Bebo Valdés, Carlos Alberto Montaner, and many others who fill us with pride, personally and artistically.

Counter-revolutionarily,

Paquito D’Rivera

*Translator’s note: A reference to the Jose Marti poem from which the lyrics for the song “Guantanamera” are based.

Link to original post
December 31 2009

Some days ago, the newspaper Granma published on its first page of news: Google’s censorship of a Cubadebate channel of videos for “copyright infringement,” and the following note: Miami: Billboard Dedicated to the Five Dismantled. The newspaper explained in the associated article: “For 24 hours the air of tolerance and freedom of expression was breathed in Miami. But no longer.” Then it talked about an organization located in that city, a minority (and the word was not meant sarcastically, quite the contrary), that exercised “the right of freedom of opinion,” and asked for the release of the five spies who are serving sentences in the United States.

The TV news and Granma exalted as they delivered the report. And that seems fine to me. We all have the right to express our opinions from wherever we are, where we want, and by whatever means we choose, or at least whatever we have access to. I will always be a defender of my opinion and of the opinions of others, even if I don’t share them.

Then, ultimately being thinking beings, one is obliged to wonder how much self-censorship is imposed on us? At least in Miami — for 24 hours — they could breathe “the air of tolerance and freedom of expression.” And in Havana?

To underestimate the leaders of Cuba’s government would be foolish; at times I have experienced their ignorance of freedom of expression and tolerance. Now, to the contrary, it turns out that they reclaim it and use the right to exercise it. However, when will we have the opportunity to publish, here, an article in defense of the 75 dissidents imprisoned after summary trials in the spring of 2003?

Where were those who have access to the media when the daughters and wives of those prisoners of conscience were beaten for demanding the release of their loved ones?

When can we publish a note of condolence for the death of the prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata?

Why wasn’t Guillermo Fariñas allowed to explain his reasons for maintaining a hunger strike, beyond the official lies?

Where was the tolerance they demand now when, just a few hours after trying to hijack a tugboat to get to Miami, young men were executed, though no hostages had been harmed? Hostages who appeared more like accomplices, as was known later, when they declared that it was a vile injustice to apply the maximum penalty to the offenders?

What did he say to the mothers of those young men when they went to the prison to bring their children personal hygiene supplies and they were informed that their sons had been shot that night?

When he couldn’t even remember the anniversaries of the victims of the sinking of the tugboat 13 de Marzo?

Who pays for the deaths of those innocents? And when?

Who could, on their personal printer — to even think about the possibility of a billboard would be insane with the current regime in power — print a poster with the faces of some of the many innocents executed in half a century of dictatorship?

How long will they prostitute words and not give them the same meaning when they are in favor or opposed?

When will they allow debate on the official website, the conceptually erroneously called Cubadebate?

When have we had, not 24 hours, but just a few minutes of that freedom of expression enjoyed in Miami, or by some who reside in that city?

In another official newspaper, Juventud Rebelde — Rebel Youth — a gentleman named Lazarus Fariñas, resident of Miami (I don’t know the reason he is found there, only that he abandoned Cuban soil like so many thousands of others), denounces in an article “the corruption of some Florida politicians,” and, contradicting the statement of the official notice of the Communist Party of Cuba, refers to “a lack of tolerance and freedom of expression that exists in Miami.”

First of all, I want to congratulate Mr. Fariñas for that freedom to denounce the political corruption and not subsequently having the police at the door to arrest him and take him to the dungeons of the State Security in Villa Marista, as a dangerous enemy who threatens the maximum power; and also because his family is not besieged, persecuted simply because of their blood bond, and because without the slightest justification he is not left without work and without the possibility that his children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews can aspire to attend university.

I want to congratulate him another time for having the ability to publish his point of view in the official Cuban press, something that many of us who have remained on the Island have not managed to achieve, and so, by necessity, we have had to turn to digital media and become bloggers, assuming we will be professionally marginalized, beaten, persecuted, subjected to harassing and fraudulent judicial processes and in many cases end up in prison.

(At that time facing a prosecution request for more than fifty years, the court has rejected my witnesses and accepts no compelling evidence: the recording of the supposed “witness ” to the prosecution where, before a hidden camera, he explains in detail how he has been pressured to declare and exhibit the gifts received in payment).

Mr. Lazaro Fariñas, I assure you that the day you do not agree with the official views of the Cuban government, not only will you cease to be published in the official press, but perhaps you will never set foot on your homeland again. If in doubt, try it. I suppose you have at least one edge that does not converge with the official attitude — think of the children of the tugboat 13 de Marzo, of the young men executed — some fiber of your being will be moved. Then write, try to publish it and you will discover (I cling to the thought that it is naive and romantic, not cynical), that the doors will not open to receive it.

We will be there as a group, waiting, ready to offer supportive companionship.

February 3 2011