English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
On Thursday November 10 Decree-Law 288 on the legalization of the sale of homes took effect. Complemented with six ministerial resolutions, the decree significantly changes the legislation in effect in this area since the 60′s of last century. With the new provisions Cubans, formal owners of property, become actual owners. Now they can not only … Continue reading “A First Step / Dimas Castellanos”
The Ministry of the Interior (MINIT) has detained 6 people for alleged murder while releasing the potential witness and main suspect of the case. Leonardo Rodriguez, Pedro Valerine, Jesus Daniel Forcade, Ramon Hechavarria, Leonardo Limonta and Juan Enrique Galindo, were arrested between October and November 2010 for the murder of the jeweler, Humberto Gonzalez, on … Continue reading “Cuban Ministry of Interior Authorizes Murder Suspect to Leave the Country / Laritza Diversent”
[I have decided to publish, before this blog is closed down, some texts that I didn’t publish at the time because it was practically impossible to do it because of obvious difficulties or because as time passed I doubted that it would be the best idea. Due to recent events, I think it is best … Continue reading “Closed by Demolition / Francis Sánchez”
He arrived home on Saturday. After 7 years and 8 months behind the bars of a cell and the creaking of locks, the dissident economist Arnaldo Ramos Lauzurique, 68, at 6:30 in the morning of his first Sunday in freedom, sat in the park facing the modest apartment where he lives in the neighborhood of … Continue reading “Who is Arnaldo Ramos? / Iván García”
Despite the fence and police surveillance that I’ve won by being a disobedient Twitterer, I was able to go to Guantánamo on November 8. I knew that Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina, José Cano Fuentes and Yober Sevila were already back home after their arrests and beatings from October 31 in Banes, and their confinement in the … Continue reading “Making Them Value Citizen’s Rights / Luis Felipe Rojas”
Havana, October 15, 1999 Your Excellency: Respectfully I salute you and express my admiration to you and your people, and join this celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Velvet Revolution in which your country became free from the communist yoke through a peaceful revolution. The example of Czechoslovakia has left a deep impression in … Continue reading “Letter to Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic / Oscar Elías Biscet”
The official Cuban press insists on justifying a single-party system. Some of the arguments are based on the fact that Martí created a single party, how lack of unity led to revolutionary failures, how the very existence of the nation depends on preserving unity, and how a multiparty system would be co-opted by imperialism. The … Continue reading “What Does Martí Have to Do with a Single Party? / Dimas Castellanos”
CUBA: DR. OSCAR E. BISCET CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER AND PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE January 2010 “I say to my brothers in exile, the international community and the Cuban people that I feel kidnapped only for defending the right to life and the right of all Cubans to live in freedom. REMEMBER I WILL NEVER BETRAY A … Continue reading “Oscar Elías Biscet”
Yoani Sánchez, born in Havana, 1975. I studied for two terms at the Pedagogical Institute, majoring in Spanish Literature. In 1995, I moved to the Faculty of Arts of Letters, and after five years finished a degree in Hispanic Philology. I majored in contemporary Latin American Literature, presenting an incendiary thesis entitled, “Words Under Pressure: … Continue reading “Yoani Sánchez”
On February 11th, they left a comment in the blog: Sorry for the bother. I am a Spanish professor at a French school and in our classes we our studying the subject of free press in Latin America and, more specifically, in Cuba. We have studied an article about the Cuban bloggers, taken from the … Continue reading “The Students of Delphine”
It spread like wildfire all over Cuba. Beginning November 1st, potatoes and split peas would be available without rationing. They would now be sold at higher prices than what they cost through the rationing system since the State would no longer subsidize their cost. A pound of potatoes that costs 0.40 cents in Cuban pesos … Continue reading “Potatoes for free”