English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
I recently read a document on the net that captured my attention immediately because of its suggestive title and the justice claimed in its content. Grupo Concordia (havanatimes.org) in Contra la Censura en Cuba, dated February 27th of this year, has complained against certain official actions which states that “in recent months…have been carried out … Continue reading “Warm, Warm… / Miriam Celaya”
This past 28th of January, the Cuban government presented us a renovated Jose Marti amid the shouts of the little red pioneers, portraits of Fidel Castro, and songs of Silvio Rodriguez. The celebration was also marked by beatings, arrests, and restrictions on movement of various pro-democracy activists throughout the entire island who were trying to … Continue reading “Marti for Everyone? / Luis Felipe Rojas”
What a surprise his Holiness Pope Benedict XVI will find when he visits the two main cities of Cuba. To kick off the Year of Jubilee, the repressive machinery unleashed a wave of aggression in nearly all the cities in the country against dissidents who were simply trying to assist religious mass on Saturday in … Continue reading “January 8th in Cuba: Jubilee and Repression / Luis Felipe Rojas”
The socialist labyrinth consists of so much injustice that even the functionaries joke about being trapped in it. The beauracratic skeins of the tropical Cuban creature have been designed to hinder citizens, to make their daily lives harder, but it is not always possible to demarcate the frontier between the most common of passer-bys and … Continue reading “Who Will Kill the Commander? / Luis Felipe Rojas”
In the long list of the words forbidden in my childhood, there were two in particular that were censored: “Christmas” and “Human Rights.” The first I heard from time to time, in a whisper, from the lips of a grandmother who had known the trees with garlands, the traditional nougat candy and turkey. But the … Continue reading “Reduced Vocabulary / Yoani Sánchez”
In the same days when Laura Pollán lay dying in intensive care, Cuban television rebroadcast a dogmatic serial where they insulted the leader of the Ladies in White. Among the most notable signs of the Cuban government’s pettiness is its failure to respect a political adversary, even when she is dying. A system that so … Continue reading “Laura is gone, Laura is no more / Yoani Sánchez”
The Archbishopric of Havana has issued a press release dated September 5th, 2011 which is, at the very least, surprising. I am not referring to the somewhat sallow terms describing the wave of repression unleashed with renewed vigor by government forces against various civil society groups. We know that this is the usual discourse of … Continue reading “Cuba: Did Anarchy Arrive? / Miriam Celaya”
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”
This article was written by Luis Felipe Rojas and published on the digital newspaper, Cubaencuentro. Little time has passed since the conclusion of the VI Cuban Communist Party Congress, and now very few have faith in those promises. In the spectrum known as Social Political, the government does nothing to truly set these reforms in … Continue reading “Cuba, the Same Ration of Hate / Luis Felipe Rojas”
Photo by Jose W. Camejo *This report was born here, where the accredited Cuban agencies never visit and where the orders of the General (‘the streets belonging to the revolutionaries‘) are upheld through beatings, detainments, and prison bars. With the political and economic crisis plaguing the country, the Cuban government has implemented new measures which … Continue reading “Synopsis of a Report Detailing the first Semester of 2011 in 5 Cuban Provinces / Luis Felipe Rojas”
Human Damage in an Environment of Punishment Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo Talking with Henry Constantin, expelled for life from the country’s universities. The worst of a prolonged war, is not the hunger of the siege, nor the exhaustion, nor the despair, nor the dead left in the dust of no man’s land. The atrocious, the … Continue reading “Constantin Answers in Diario de Cuba / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
What Jimmy Carter can’t change in Cuba Thirty years after he left the White House and nine years since his only previous visit to Cuba, Jimmy Carter arrived in Havana last week, wearing the white guayabera that would serve as his uniform during a three-day visit to our island. Watching on television, I recalled how … Continue reading “Yoani’s Op-Ed in the Washington Post / Yoani Sánchez”
In July of this year, a humble Cuban priest received a prize of international scope which, although it never appeared in the national press, became known to us with suspicious speed. Father José Conrado Rodríguez Alegría, pastor of the church “Saint Therese of the Child Jesus,” in Santiago de Cuba, was awarded the Prize of … Continue reading “Padre Jose Conrado: The Enormous Importance of Our Not Remaining Silent / Ernesto Morales Licea”