Translating Cuba

A young lawyer who sometimes invited me to his trials told me a few days ago about something unusual that happened in the Territorial Military Court in San Jose de las Lajas, to the south of Havana, where some Santeros filled the judges’ stand with dust, seeking a favorable result for their relatives, implicated in serious crimes. His client didn’t contract for the services of any witch, but received an unexpected penalty just like the other defendants.

The criminal attorney assumed that the decision was influenced by the discomfort of the judges before the trail of dust and other signs of witchcraft. On noticing “the work” the Head of the Chamber ordered the Registrar to find a cloth to “sweep away the trash.” The tension of the oral hearing with the interventions of the prosecutor, witnesses, the accused, the defense and the arbitration by the judge were warmed by the challenge of the alleged curse.

A friend notes that this is more common than many assume. Some believe that the engagement of a palero, a Santeria practitioner, can reverse the outcome of the trial and “soften the prosecutor’s proposal, tie the tongue of the attorney if his client is on the opposite side, or put into the mouth of the judge the orders of the “pot,” linked to the dead who assist the practitioner, who speaks with them through a complex system of divination that passes through the interpretation of the snails and the feeding of animals like a rooster, goat or sheep.

Although there are naive and opportunistic, the “godchildren” of paleros, santeros and babalawos believe in the power of those called on, the strength of the dead and the details of their own magical religious conception, which leads them to “throw the judges, the lawyer or the prosecutor” after exploring the possible sentence, so that sometimes, when passing by a ceiba tree or at the door of their houses, these powers of the law face signs of witchcraft.

The defense attorney doesn’t worry about “the mess in the pot” because he believes that every trial is a theatrical performance under pressure from above, through money or the police they invoke “secret operational tests” that complicate things for the accused, leaving the defense at a disadvantage, unless the Head Judge, committed to fairness, disregards the testimony of those in uniform.

He says that a few weeks back, a babalawo who got someone accused of molesting his stepdaughter out of jail, went through his house and instead of thanking him, told him he owed his freedom to Orula and Olofi, gods from the Yoruba pantheon, who advised him what to do during his confinement.

The faces of error of such a peculiar way of influencing justice are evident also in the Havana Provincial Court, where sometimes they have to dust off the stands and remove “other gifts” intended to appease judges, prosecutors and lawyers. According to the defense attorney friend, if anyone benefits it’s the family of the victim since the judges are not impressed and issue judgments without thinking about the anger of the dead or the power of Oshun, Yemaya and Orula.

December 16 2010

Our official press, the only one authorized, has been characterized by a triumphalist approach to national events and friendly governments, and a catastrophic one toward all others, mainly the United States and the European Union. This narrow political and ideological prism determines what information is selected and written about, and even establishes its degree of importance. Thus we find headlines which in any normal country, would have no significance.

Another striking feature is the profusion of news related to problems in the country to the north and in Europe, to the detriment of the treatment of national affairs which should be the priority, since most readers are Cuban citizens. This situation forces us to seek national information outside the official media.

In recent years some space and time has been devoted to criticizing the national reality, of course, properly balanced and diluted among adverse weather conditions, the embargo (called the blockade), difficulties with supplies, transportation, etc., and without going too high up the scale of responsibilities, reaching only to the category of functionaries. These appear as those primarily to blame for the numerous political, economic and social setbacks, almost always because the didn’t comply with, or properly implement, directives from higher authorities.

Also, with a press that hides from reality, it is very difficult to clear the way to solve problems. If the reality is not known by the citizens, if there is not an open inquiry into its causes, if there is a continued insistence on hiding to not give the game away to the enemy, there is little that can be accomplished, despite all the calls-to-action and propaganda, with regards to civic responsibility.

Political, economic and social changes are needed. It is a national desire. A responsible press could facilitate it, without straightjackets, with journalists who exercise their profession honestly and are not mere functionaries, following orders, incapable of finding independent sources of news. These professionals have existed in our history. In this way a single press could be credible and respected.

December 28 2010

Every day brings us closer to the new year and, with it, the growing alarm over the job cuts and reductions in subsidies we face in the coming months. A phrase from Raul Castro’s latest speech — “continuing on the edge of the precipice” — is not a metaphor but our painful reality. Among the social assistance that will be eliminated is the so-called ration market, which distributes a small monthly quota of products to each citizen. No one can survive eating only what is recorded in his “ration book,” a document more important here than even the identity card. But the extremely low wages in the high prices in the country’s other markets make the abolition of this subsidy dramatic and highly controversial.

It is not only a basic, though meager, support, but it is like the birdseed that justifies the cage. Whenever the tone of criticism rises, and dissenters began to point to the system, officials emerge to remind us that the government spends millions each year to provide us a few beans, a packet of coffee every thirty days, and that slice of bologna that feeds popular humor more than stomachs. So it has been for more than forty years, since the establishment of the regulated market at a time when my parents thought it would be a temporary, a transitional measure until the planned and centralized economy began to bear fruit. Within a few days of my birth, my name was inscribed in the register of consumers, and twenty years later I had to enter the name of my son in the same list. Rationing has become so ingrained in our lives many do not know whether to laugh or cry at the news of its end.

We are all aware that keeping the “booklet” is unsustainable for the national economy, but few can imagine life without it. In our house, we have decided to put the little book of graph paper we’ve been given for 2011 in a safe place, because if it really is the last one, surely it will become an historic document. Those who defend its immediately elimination are sure that it will mean the automatic placement of tons of goods on the free market, and they assume this will cause prices to drop in the market not regulated by the state. But the biggest change, perhaps, may be in the minds of the people, when they sense that the tiny portion of seed is no longer being placed inside the cage, they may begin to feel the real pressure of each one of the bars.

December 29, 2010

We invite you to participate in this platform because we have the profound conviction that life is something sacred and should be an indispensable value in the Republic we desire.

We understand that respect for life as a supreme value is a moral principle that can be assumed by believers and non-believers. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in its Article 3, is energetic and affirms that “Every individual has the right to life”.

The abolition of the death penalty in Cuba, now, tomorrow, and forever can be our first commitment as a nation. A commitment that — assumed by Cubans on the island and those in exile — demands of the Cuban Government its immediate suppression and stimulates transition toward an authentic democracy.

Capital punishment remains in effect in the Cuban Penal Code. It is true that at present the regime maintains a de facto moratorium on the application of said sanction, but we all know that it’s due to tactical conveniences and not due to a questioning of the moral nature of the same. For this reason, it was sadly applied in 2003 after several years of not having been used. All Cubans, especially those condemned to death, know that the regime keeps this terrifying resource intact and that it can be applied at any moment.

In the free world the death penalty tends to disappear from legislation or has been overruled by moratoria that make its application a de facto impossibility. Besides defense of human life, there exist different reasons that have motivated these important advances.

The reality is that no judicial system can guarantee the absence of errors that can lead to the execution of an innocent person. It’s a fact that in recent times, thanks to DNA tests, many convicts have been freed, victims of errors or judicial omissions.

Another argument to consider is in the case of a murder, the punishment doesn’t serve as retribution for the crime committed, as it cannot repair the loss of a dear one with the execution of the murderer; on another count, how many times can we execute someone who has killed many? We have one life alone and one death alone.

Also arguable is the example of the death penalty, the crime rate is no lower in countries that apply it and the executions of Nazi leaders in Nuremberg haven’t dissuaded genocide, to cite recent cases alone, such as those of Slobodan Milosevic or Saddam Hussein.

On the other hand, the experience of many democratic countries demonstrates that, if adequate legislation is established and social and political pacts are observed that enable its systematic application, social peace can be guaranteed without the violent physical elimination of its enemies being necessary in a State of Law.

In Cuba’s case, the usual subordination of judicial to political power and the present deteriorating material, moral, and civic conditions make us doubt that Cuban justice, now and in the near-term future, will be able to guarantee due process to anyone condemned to death.

We share the conviction that Cuba’s future has an urgent need of justice and perhaps now is the time to ask ourselves if it is desirable that in this future, the application of the death penalty should continue in effect; if the justice we seek requires the spilling of other Cubans’ blood.

We do not believe that the death penalty serves as retribution for harm committed in our Motherland and, much less, that it contributes to guarantee a social peace that can be fully attained with the restoration of a State of Law and the citizen compromise with adequate legislation, and with social pacts that emanate from democracy.

To proclaim the necessity of the death penalty in Cuba’s future contributes to that our children and grandchildren, parents and siblings of those who might be judged shall be less disposed to accept a justice that might include capital punishment. Eliminating capital punishment from whichever Cuban penal code will bring safety in the process of the transition toward democracy, guaranteeing that said sanction shall not be used as revenge or as a method of eliminating one’s enemy.

We believe that those who wish for and manage change in Cuba — whatever be its level of compromise — would appreciate an agreement of this nature, especially those inside the regime who might wish to move in a direction toward authentic democracy.

This agreement for the abolition of the death penalty in Cuba shares some values that are defended by the chancelleries around the world, especially those of Europe, where the death penalty provokes great rejection; this citizen’s platform will plant an important moral and diplomatic challenge for those who govern in Havana.

Cuban society, for decades, has been doomed to depreciate life and render worship to death: “The Motherland or Death”, “Socialism or Death” have been the slogans par excellence. We have gained nothing on that road, let us allow life — not death — to be the cornerstone of our future.

We invite you to sign this proposal for the abolition of the death penalty in Cuba now, tomorrow, and always.

December 9, 2010

The Australian Julian Assange has succeeded: his Wikileaks website is today’s star of the headlines. I do not think that the history of politics contains another incident more exotic and fit for Hollywood, and one where the revelations of the diplomacy of a certain government mixes so many nations in a complex skein, to the point where it starts to look very like backyard gossip.

Assange, who has just been arrested in London and will soon face some timely charges alleging sexual abuse and harassment in Sweden, has benched Osama Bin-Laden with regards to who attracts the greatest gringo hostility: he has become public enemy number one, starting on the day he announced he had 250,000 Department of State documents up his sleeve. And especially now that he has cleared up any doubts and proved to us he wasn’t joking.

Now that his website makes it easy to find a range of classified documents about the relations of the United States with the world, and has moved Hillary Clinton, and apparently will continue moving the global chessboard of foreign relations, various aspects of the “Wikileaks” case are of particular interest.

International reactions: With the exception of a handful of lawless governments or opportunists — among whom I would like to exclude my country, but I can’t — who have received the news like kryptonite for their rabid anti-Americanism, the vast majority of nations have condemned the leaking of these documents, some publicly, some less so.

It is not, however, about an epidemic of morality. The causes of this widespread rejection point, rather, to the feeling common among politicians: As Mexico’s former ambassador to the United States, Jorge Montaño, recently said, there is nothing extraordinary about the tone in which U.S. diplomats communicate with their superiors on subjects of “strategic” interest. Harder things, in more direct language, are shared among politicians of any nation with a domestic naturalness. And here, let he who is without sin cast the first stone: show us your records.

The only difference between current American diplomacy and that of all other countries, is that Julian Assange chose as a victim the most powerful nation in the world, while the dirty laundry of our governments, at least for now, remains in the shade. The choice is certainly more than reasonable: I do not think any newspaper in the world would have devoted their front page to leaks about the foreign policy of Equatorial Guinea.

Incidentally, we Cubans cherish a stupendous Wikileak, the precursor of those newly released: A couple of years before leaving — officially — the presidency of the republic, our former President Fidel Castro published, in full, a telephone conversation he had with the Mexican President Vicente Fox in which he “diplomatically” urged him to leave his country so as not to cause an embarrassing incident when George W. Bush arrived at the Summit of the Americas. El Comandante was, that time too, a visionary pioneer: the first Wikileaker in history.

Another interesting aspect of the case in question is as follows: From the point of view of freedom of expression, is it respectable or censurable to air objectionable information of governmental interest?

According to the President of the Inter American Press Association, Gonzalo Marroquín, who was asked by CNN about it, it is perfectly respectable for an individual, exercising his right to free expression — guaranteed even by the American First Amendment — to publish documents of public interest if it is within his power to do so. But Marroquín had to acknowledge that the investigation must focus on whether Julian Assange’s accessing of these reports was in violation of any recognized legal provision, in which case it would be subject to a legal, not a journalistic, analysis.

Let’s be clear: Of course there is no way to take over 250,000 State documents without violating the law, unless there is a Department of Copying and Reproducing Diplomatic Documents to which one can come with a flash memory and say, “Please …” Julian Assange’s revelations constitute a personal outrage whose reasons are still unknown (did the Australian ever reveal his real intentions?), and cannot be watched with approval, although they can be with amusement, by citizens possessing civic awareness.

But from the standpoint of universal human rights, which are respected in democracies, Wikileaks itself should be able to publish these records without being censured for it, and without the server behind his portal being knocked out as was accomplished by some higher American spheres, just because someone does not want certain issues to be known.

For its part, and from another perspective, the U.S. government is already accumulating so many lessons that I see no difference from an irresponsible kid in kindergarten: They had to “learn” from security mistakes relating to the Twin Towers; they had to learn from the incident involving a couple of citizens who snuck into the White House and took photos with President Obama, making a mockery of presidential security; and now they must learn to keep their secrets better if they don’t want to see them in the headlines. In the United States today, in many ways, “security” is a word with atherosclerosis.

However, we must recognize, leaving aside political seriousness, and leaving aside our admittedly boorish anticipation of what Oracle Wikileaks is going to surprise us with next, there is something positive that has come from this unusual scandal: It is not only Big Brother who watches the citizens. The citizens have also learned to monitor Power.

Who knows if, after all, these media revelations might generate unexpected side effects among the governments of the world which, though annoying to politicians, would be applauded by us citizens: the obligation to play ever more cleanly, more honestly, and more respectfully, just in case the Wikileaks custom sweeps through the world like one more plague.

December 7, 2010

Reading a cable from the Prensa Latina agency, I am informed that 22% of a total of 44,500,000 Latinos who live in the United States live below the poverty line. Stated another way, 34,710,000 live above this level and 9,790,000 below. I don’t know specifically what that level is. It would be marvelous if in Latin America only 22% of its citizens lived below poverty levels. Another figure from Prensa Latina: in its entirety, in the country (the United States) the poverty level is 13.5%, which means that 86.5% live above this level. It is an enviable percentage, which I think few countries attain.

Analyzing these percentages and figures, I asked some known people who work in this sphere what was the indicator level of poverty in Cuba. All answered that it doesn’t exist and one added that it was because in Cuba there were no poor people. I remembered that neither were there any unemployed and that the country, at least in its official statistics, reported only 3.6% unemployment.

I worked out some figures and came to these results. If the average monthly salary doesn’t exceed 400 pesos in national currency, that which is equivalent to 16.66 convertible pesos, or stated another way, some 20 dollars (keeping in mind the 20% duty imposed on the dollar), the average annual salary is 240 dollars. I believe this average annual salary (I am not talking about annual minimum salary) is far below poverty level, not just of the United States, but of all the countries of Latin America.

You can assert, correctly, that the Cuban people live below the poverty line, with well-known exceptions, mitigated, in part, by remittances sent by family members from overseas, the deviation of resources, and illegal businesses. Perhaps someone — a stranger to reality, might point out free education and medical attention — certainly deficient enough — but one shouldn’t forget that these are paid for with that which is left over after paying workers, maintaining miserable salaries for more than fifty years.

In the new economic measures, in process of analysis and implementation, it has been left very clear that the taxation process to be applied has as its goal to not allow citizens to become wealthy. It would be necessary to ask if the level had already been set, starting at which one might consider a citizen rich. In this way we only grant another recognition to the current poverty, and prevents the legal creation of riches, the only way out of the current crisis.

December 23, 2010

Although I received an invitation by mail and by text messages from a number of friends to go to the National Plastic Arts Award Ceremony for the artist René Francisco, I didn’t go. Since that Pedro Luis Ferrer concert, where I discovered that I am banned from entering the National Museum of Fine Arts and other Cuban cultural institutions, I’ve been overtaken by a strange, “Because as long as that flag is flying, I vowed not to enter.*”

Now my relationship with my country’s art has become subtle and intimate: fragments of event reach me through cables and USB ports. It’s probably much more exciting to listen to Luis Alberto García in person, rather than alone in my house with headphones. But I’ve decided that until freedom of expression in Cuba is more than a performance, I won’t participate.

*Translator’s note: A line from a poem by Jose Marti, loosely translated to convey Claudia’s meaning.

In my country there is this unfortunate custom of generalizing blame. Thus, when someone commits errors and, for one reason or another, sees himself obligated to explain them publicly, he doesn’t say “I made a mistake” but “we made a mistake.” He involves everyone who listens, be it ten, a thousand, or a million people. It must come from the supposition that shared blame touches fewer. Without a doubt, it’s a comfortable and advantageous position.

Anywhere the Constitution and laws are respected, when a public figure makes a mistake and, as a result, affects the lives of citizens, he should answer for it, and until he can, be separated from his duties. Examples are superfluous. Conceding the right to correct one’s errors is not the most usual course, much less to do so repeatedly. Just as no one is indispensable, no one possesses absolute truth — if he fails, he should leave the road free to those more capable and with better solutions. This practice excludes no one.

In closed systems, where power is obtained to hold onto it until the last breath, errors and mistakes repeat cyclically, using the nation as a laboratory and its citizens as guinea pigs, to experiment as it might occur to someone, without any concern for the costs, or the failures, and without having to account for them.

It’s something complex and difficult to solve, but not impossible. Each of us can start taking responsibility for our irresponsibilities and substituting the “we” with “I.” Thus the blame never becomes diluted, and it has a name. Nobody should be considered infallible nor untouchable. This would be a healthy and civilized way to clear paths.

With the advent of a new year, it’s right to think about these things and dream that they might come true, for at least — after so many failed years — to not lose the little optimism that still remains.

December 25, 2010