English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
During May, a Spanish friend of mine brought me three books. One was from Xavier Rubert de Ventos about the book of Aung Suu Kyi (leader of the Burmese opposition), and two others were published by Cubanet in 2006; the first was about the essay The Power of the Powerless from the Czech writer and … Continue reading “Free From Fear / Miguel Iturría Savón”
Placetas, July 19th 2010. When, in April 2007, I was released after 17 very long and difficult years of captivity, I did not know that I was to face a much more difficult battle than the one I was in before. Assimilating into civil protest would mean dealing with numerous different personalities, temperaments, points of … Continue reading “The Same People as Always and With Identical Methods”
Commentary by Carmen Zampallo in the forum of the article “Martí and his Myth,” by José Gabriel Barrenechea, published at 14:30m on the 17 May 2015. Thanks, Carmen, wherever you may be! Where are you Martí? What have you become? In your name have been created tyranny, torture camps, and forced labor. Yes, Marti, we … Continue reading “Jose Marti, Tell the Tyrant… / Jeovany Jimenez Vega”
By Jeovany Jimenez Vega “Here rests a man who died millions of times” should be the epitaph engraved on the marble that finally covers him. By then, some will feel despondent, as if the earth were caving in on them; while others, no doubt, will receive the news with terrestrial joy. But absolutely everyone will … Continue reading “Personal Epitaph to Fidel Castro / Jeovany Jimenez Vega”
GUANTÁNAMO, Cuba, October, www.cubanet.org — Today there were commemorations marking the 145th anniversary of the beginning of our first war of independence. At a celebration on October 10, 1968, the centenary of this historic event, Fidel Castro gave a speech in which he suggested that — faced with the same conditions experienced by those who took up … Continue reading “Would They Have Been Like Us? / Roberto Jesus Quinones”
For the first time I feel like a target of attack by the State dictatorship in the Statement of the Minister of Foreign Affairs published last Friday the 2nd of November. I am a student, since a little less than a month ago, in a journalism course offered by the International University of Florida through the United … Continue reading “The Need for Light / Lilianne Ruiz”
It has not been on any national news. No newspaper has echoed the demand of the 27 Cubans across the island who are on a hunger strike demanding that the Castro clan’s government release Jorge Vázquez Chaviano. Six of the 27 people on strike are in Havana, at the home of Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello, … Continue reading “The Shadow of Death / Lilianne Ruiz”
In one of those programs that State Security shows on Cuban television, I have seen one of the men I most admire for his courage in this saga for the freedom of Cuba. But State Security did not really present Antúnez, nor speak of his years as a political prisoner, of the horrors of Cuban … Continue reading “May being brave not be so costly, and being a coward not so worthwhile* / Lilianne Ruíz”
A friend called to ask me an important question about criminality in Cuba. Is Cuba a safe country with a crime rate lower than other countries in Latin America? In my haste to answer I overlooked a point which, in my judgement, is fundamental, so I want to explore it in my blog. When I was … Continue reading “Who Are The Criminals in Cuba? / Lilianne Ruíz”
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”
“The Little Email War,” “Little Glasnost,” “Rebellion of the Intellectuals” or “The Created Situation,” have been some of the names used to baptize this phenomenon which I prefer to call, “words of the intellectuals” (with the “of” in bold and underlined). Evidently a hole has been opened in this Pandora’s box (which was a gift … Continue reading “The Journalist Reinaldo Escobar Enters the Debate / Polemica, The 2007 Intellectual Debate”