English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Havana, 8 April 2016 – On Friday, State Security prevented attorney Wilfredo Vallin from leaving home to participate in a discussion on the Electoral Law. The meeting, to be held at the home of Eliecer Avila, leader of the independent movement Somos+ (We Are More), was hindered by the police who only allowed two of … Continue reading “Police Prevent Attorney Wilfredo Vallin From Leaving Home / 14ymedio”
14ymedio, Madrid, 31 Mach 2016 – Like “a small crack in the Cuban political system” from which an opening coming. Thus did the attorney and activist Rolando Ferrer define the Otro18 (Another 2018) project during a meeting with journalists this Thursday at the Madrid Press Association. Four of the promoters of this process travelled from … Continue reading ““Otro18” Elections Project Presented in Madrid / 14ymedio”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Madrid, 29 March 2016 — Literature, politics and love were the three main protagonists on Monday evening for the 80th birthday of Mario Vargas Llosa. The winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature attended a dinner in his honor with politicians, journalists, presidents and activists, in a central Madrid hotel. Before 400 guests, … Continue reading “Vargas Llosa: “Cuba will become a capitalist dictatorship and then a democracy” / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”
Ivan Garcia, Havana, 24 March 2016 — On any given day, getting to the residence of the press attaché for the United States public affairs office in Cuba, located at 7th Avenue and 24th Street in the Havana suburb of Miramar, never takes more than twenty minutes by taxi from the center of Havana. But Obama’s … Continue reading “Ben Rhodes: "I Am Optimistic About Obama’s Policy Towards Cuba" / Iván García”
EFE (14ymedio), Havana, 22 March 2016 – Several dissidents who met with President Barack Obama in Havana this Tuesday, assessed the meeting as “positive” and “frank,” and one of them delivered a list of 89 political prisoners recorded by the group he leads. Elizardo Sanchez, spokesman for the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National … Continue reading “Dissidents Call Meeting With Obama Positive And Give Him A List Of Political Prisoners / EFE, 14ymedio”
EFE (14ymedio), Havana, 22 March 2016 — The president of the United States, Barack Obama, praised the “courage” of the dissidents and representatives of independent civil society Cuba at the beginning of the meeting held with them at the headquarters of the United States Embassy in Havana this Tuesday. In brief remarks, Obama stressed that … Continue reading “Obama Praises The Courage Of Dissidents In An Unprecedented Meeting / EFE, 14ymedio”
14ymedio, Havana, 15 March 2016 — It was an open secret that the United States would approve a new package of relaxations before Barack Obama’s official visit to Cuba. However, the new measures that widen Cubans’ access to the dollar and the ability of Americans to visit the island have taken some by surprise, among them the … Continue reading “Cuba’s ‘Super Tuesday’: US Dollar ‘Freed’ and Havana Plants a Ceiba Tree / 14ymedio”
14ymedio, Havana, 9 March 2016 – On Wednesday, the Civic Platform #Otro18 (Another 2018) held a press conference and its first forum in the Vedado neighborhood of Havana under the theme “For Freedom of Choice” with twenty people in attendance. The initiative promotes several proposals to influence the elections in 2018 for a democratic opening in … Continue reading “Campaign #Otro18 Holds First Forum in Cuba / 14ymedio”
14ymedio, Havana, 7 December 2015 – Satisfaction in the triumph of the opposition, words of encouragement to the great loser of the contest, Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro: these, respectively, were the reactions in Cuba among democracy activists and the ruling party. While Cuban activists celebrated the absolute majority of the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), Raul … Continue reading “Cuban Activists Celebrate The Victory Of The Venezuelan Opposition / 14ymedio”
Ivan Garcia, 26 September 2015 — Let’s climb aboard a time machine. Into the future, of course. By now, Raul Castro has given up the throne. His son Alejandro has been tried for abuse of power, financial corruption and violations of human rights. Luis Alberto Rodriguez Lopez-Callejas, the Cuban Martin Borman, has fled with a … Continue reading “Cuba 2019 / Ivan Garcia”
Lilianne Ruiz, 8 September 2015 — I have already written this before in my blog. I want to live in my country and to know that my power as a citizen is intact, that with my vote I participate in the legal architecture that governs the small details of our lives. Never more than now. Because … Continue reading “Several Reasons to Support #Otro18* / Lilianne Ruiz”
Ivan Garcia, 16 August 2015 — Twenty-three-year-old Liudmila spent the evening of August 13 dancing the guanicheo —Cuba’s latest dance craze — at a discotheque in the quiet neighborhood of Miramar in western Havana with her latest romantic conquest: a tall young man from Kansas with a wispy red beard who came to Cuba to collect information for a … Continue reading “Reporting from Havana, without Press Credentials / Ivan Garcia”
Ivan Garcia, 15 August 2015 — In Luis García Berlanga’s impressive 1953 film, Welcome Mr. Marshall, the mayor, priest and townspeople of Villar del Río await the visit of George Marshall, the American secretary of state from 1947 to 1949. In the film, Marshall is believed to be carrying in his briefcase a blank check, drawn on … Continue reading “Welcome, Mr. Kerry / Ivan Garcia”
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, 15 August 2015 — Six hours after the hoisting of the Stars and Stripes at the US embassy along the Malecon, a similar ceremony occurred on 150th Street in the Cubanacan neighborhood where the official residence of Jeffrey DeLaurentis, charge d’affaires of that country, is located. All of the heads of the … Continue reading “The Other Flag / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar”
14ymedio, 12 August 2015 — The U.S. embassy in Havana will not be inviting the opposition to its official inauguration, which will take place this coming Friday, August 14th, in Havana, with the attendance of John Kerry. Nevertheless, another flag raising ceremony has been planned at the ambassador’s residence where there will be a meeting … Continue reading “US Invites Cuban Opponents To An Event At The Official Residence, But Not To The Embassy / 14ymedio”
