English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
Ivan Garcia, 30 June 2015 — In a maximum-security prison in Texas, more than 900 miles from Cuba, Ana Belén Montes, former Pentagon military-intelligence analyst, is serving 12 years, incarcerated with some of the most dangerous women in the United States. She shares a cell with a disturbed housewife who strangled a pregnant women to … Continue reading “Ana Belen Montes, The Spy Unknown in Cuba / Ivan Garcia”
In the Zamora neighbourhood, next to the Carlos J. Finlay military hospital, in the Marianao Council area, in Eastern Havana, many of the neighbours don’t know anything about the background of Allan Gross, the US contractor, who is stuck there. It’s a poor district, with little houses, dusty streets and broken pavements. The midday heat … Continue reading “Alan Gross: Trapped in a Cold War Tale / Ivan Garcia”
LA HAVANA, Cuba, September, www.cubanet.org – I must confess that after the episode of the North Korean freighter, Gan Chong Chon, it is increasingly difficult for me to imagine what might be behind each of the surprising happenings of the Raul regime. And if, in fact, Silvio Rodríguez is involved, everything becomes more convoluted. The … Continue reading “Silvio Rodriguez To The Rescue of Robertico Carcasses / Luis Cino Alvarez”
—Did you hear? —What? About the robbery of the giraffe from Havana’s zoo? —Yeah, a giraffe, four monkeys and a pony, but I’m not talking about that… —Those guys must have been ninjas. A Cuban version of “Madagascar,” “Calabazar[1]: The Story of How a Group of Zoo Animals Trying to Prevent their Friends from Becoming … Continue reading “The Great News / Enrique del Risco”
News on Mondays tends to be unflattering, and that is why, instead of writing a story, I would rather share a gossip, which if it doesn’t get you informed will entertain you. So I risk it. You may surely remember the spell of that magician who at the Pioneer parties, amid the heat of a … Continue reading “From La Finca, the Spy Asks for More / Juan Juan Almeida”
As I was reading “an extensive special report” by a journalist for Juventude Rebelde,Nyliam Vázquez García–published on September 23 of this year and dedicated to Adriana, the wife of Gerardo, one of the Cuban spies sentenced to prison in the United States–I could not avoid thinking of those purple prose novellas that were often printed … Continue reading “Man Out of Focus (A Romance Novel) / Rebeca Monzo”
“A Miami-based Cuban journalist” is the same one who, a while ago, was complaining, as usual, because in Miami they permitted for only 24 hours a billboardshowing the five spies sentenced by the United States. We should thank him in some way for teaching us that there, in “enemy” territory, at least they can engage … Continue reading “Mr. Lázaro Fariñas / Angel Santiesteban”
Until now I had decided not to write about the five Cuban spies, who are serving sentences in the United States, mainly out of consideration and respect for the feelings of their families. However, in the face of the frenzied media campaign unleashed by the Cuban authorities, with the obvious complicity of them, I consider … Continue reading “A Frenzied Media Campaign / Fernando Dámaso”
I saw him before me, for the first time, in a television studio in Miami. He had been invited to debate an incident in which he had been a protagonist: A billboard, in an anti-Castro city par excellence, that for twenty-four hours spoke out on behalf of the five Cuban members of the “Wasp Network” … Continue reading “Among Dissidents: My Interview with Max Lesnik (I) / Ernesto Morales Licea”
The contractor Alan Gross, 61, remains in jail. Raúl Castro’s government definitively sentenced him to 15 years. The Gross case was shrouded in mystery and uncertainty. And it brought back the Cold War era. After 15 months in a cell and in legal limbo, the judge handed down the sentence. Something similar happens to other … Continue reading “Alan Gross or the Political Chess Game between Cuba and the US / Iván García”
For those who do not have the slightest idea what prison is like in Cuba, a punishment cell and how prisoners are treated, they would have been shaken by the fanfare regarding the supposed mistreatment of Gerardo Hernandez, confined in an American prison for committing serious and proven crimes against the national security and stability … Continue reading “The Spy Gerardo Hernandez and the Cynical Campaign Supporting Him / Antunez”
An article published by the official Cuban press (Granma, Tuesday June 15, 2010, front page) reports a collateral appeal, or habeas corpus, filed on behalf of Gerardo Hernandez, one of the five Cubans imprisoned in the United after being tried on charges of espionage, as “the final legal recourse for his case,” under the judicial … Continue reading “Unjust or Legitimate?”
