English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
I wasn’t yet old enough to go to school and I was at the park the neighbors in the area called “Carlos III,” although the maps insisted on labeling it “Carlos Marx.” My sister and I were playing in the dry fountain, jumping from one bench to another. At some point we glanced over at … Continue reading “Emerging From Inertia to the Left or the Right? / Yoani Sánchez”
After being confined to a dungeon of the Versalles Police Unit in Santiago de Cuba for 27 days, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba, Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, narrates how his recent arrest occurred, of which “crimes” he is being accused of, and sends out a message to the international and national (Cuba) … Continue reading ““Whatever We Need to Do for the Freedom of Cuba, We Will Continue Doing””
By Alexis Jardines José Daniel Ferrer suffers in the dungeons of State Security in Santiago de Cuba, subjected to psychological pressures and macabre practices (like night attacks from swarms of mosquitoes) that seek to break his health. What has Raul Castro gained by the detention and harassment of the leader of the Patriotic Union of … Continue reading “The Great Bubble and the Complicit Silence / Estado de SATS, Alexis Jardines”
After the storm, may also come the storm, the hurricane, the tornado. A few days ago we thought the punishment would be concentrated between Monday and Wednesday of last week, that it would last only as long as Benedict XVI was on Cuban soil. We lived those intense days between prayers and screams, with full … Continue reading “Punishment / Yoani Sánchez”
Dozens of people have been arrested in the last few hours in Santiago de Cuba. The home of regime opponent Jose Daniel Ferrer was attacked by the political police, and he his wife were dragged out by force and the took computers and documents. In different parts of the city there were demonstrations. No one … Continue reading “What’s Going On in Santiago de Cuba? / Reinaldo Escobar”
Keep on eye on the blog Pieces of the Island, for up-to-minute reports of repression associated with Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Cuba. Here are some “highlights” since the last report re-posted here. Benedict XVI Will Arrive to “a Nation in which Communism Has Left Behind Devastating Destruction” Former political prisoner of conscience Jose Daniel Ferrer … Continue reading “Updates on Repression Relating to Pope Benedict’s Visit from Pieces of the Island / Translating Cuba”
Site manager’s note: The information about the extensive repression leading up to the Pope’s visit is coming to us through Twitter, emails, Hablalo sin miedo (Speak without fear) and other routes, other than blog posts. Raul Garcia Jr., over at Pieces of the Island, has prepared an excellent summary of the most recent reports. Keep … Continue reading “(PARTIAL SUMMARY) Wave of arrests and threats sweep across Cuba just hours before the visit of Pope Benedict. #PopeCuba”
That same day, March 18, 2003 I went to Chinatown, in downtown Havana, to exchange ideas with colleagues in the independent press. The issue was the Iraq War, which had been declared unilaterally, and without the strong international support there had been for Operation Desert Storm, after Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. Like the previous … Continue reading “Nine Years After the “Black Spring” / Juan Adolfo Fernández Sainz”
Jose Daniel Ferrer denounces aggression with a machete against an opponent. 15 March 2012
The National Orlando Zapata TamayoFront of Civil Resistance and Disobedience condemns the brutal and arbitrary arrests of those who inrecent days have beenvictimized includingtwo of the most important leaders of the internal Cuban Resistance. I refer to former political prisoners Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia and Angel Moya Acosta as they were getting ready to join … Continue reading “Communicated from the Front in solidarity with the prisoners in Palma Soriano / Jorge Luis García Pérez Antunez”
In politics, all isn’t what it seems. Considering that there is no way out, a solution always looms. Above all and more than ever, dictators desire power. But when this isn’t possible, they negotiate the future. Not so much for love of their country or her people. Simply to preserve their lives and their perks. … Continue reading “Could the dissidence become a valid interlocutor for the Cuban regime? / Iván García”
Another tragic event focused again on the eastern Cuban provinces started the year. Wilman Villar Mendoza, sentenced to four years’ imprisonment, died after conducting a hunger strike, which has rocked the Cuban dissidence and international public opinion which follows events of the island. The rapidity with which these events developed surprised everyone. In October of … Continue reading “One More Time / Rafael León Rodríguez”
A little less than a year ago I lived for two weeks thinking I had cancer in my lymph nodes. In November, 2010, a team of pathologists at the “Carlos Manuel de Cespedes” Provincial Hospital in Bayamo signed a yellowish paper, prepared on a typewriter with a number of typing errors, telling me I had … Continue reading “Medical Policy, or Political Medicine? / Ernesto Morales Licea”
She said it with a tone somewhere between surprise and disappointment: “They don’t give a damn, Ernesto. How mistaken we exiles are.” And I nodded because I knew too well what she was talking about. For her, a woman from Santiago who hadn’t stepped foot on her native land since 1999, living in Miami and … Continue reading “The Winners’ Trophy / Ernesto Morales Licea”
What happens when the old art forms of attacking and killing become the norms of a country? What can we expect from oppressors and the oppressed if not the most acid fruit of human relations: violence? Belkis, wife of former political prisoner Jose Daniel Ferrer, had her arm cut open after she was attacked by … Continue reading “Agenda of the Political Police, Agenda of the State / Luis Felipe Rojas”
