News from Cuban television, with Rafael Serrano at the front
14ymedio, Eliecer Avila, Havana/November 5, 2014 — In recent months, an attempt to renovate the look of Television National News has been noted. They have changed the set, adding colors and trying to infuse dynamism and spontaneity into the reading.
It is clear that the directors of that news program have been inspired by the style of TeleSur, their only “competitor,” which combines the visual quality of the big television companies with its spokesman mission for the governments of Cuba and Venezuela. In order to carry out their political influence and consolidation of power, TeleSur has created a broad platform of opinion.
Faced with the effectiveness of TeleSur, the “cable” news programs and the packets, the directors of National News have no option but to put on a little makeup or they won’t even watch themselves. Nevertheless, we see how the newscasters fail to adapt to the new format: They feign dialogue, and it comes out wooden; they try to be spontaneous, but fear of making a mistake makes them rigid and stuttering; they want to give the impression of analysis but they wind up reading the raw, pre-conceived note.
They do not have a single journalist who really knows what he speaks of or can form intelligent questions or comments about events. Let’s see about today: They talked about the plenary session of Popular Power in Havana, where Esteban Lazo called for taking measures; about a national meeting of Protestant churches, where its president asserted that “in other places, no, but here we live in a society of dialogue;” and finally, about the president of the European Parliament who leaves his post when “the terrible social situation that exists in Europe” worsens following austerity policies.
With that news, lacking all objectivity, disconnected from reality and useless for any member of the public, they will never be credible even if they dress the newscasters in Halloween style or give Rafael Serrano an Afro.
Mara Góngora, Eduardo Mora and Yisel Filiu on the set of the Buenos Dias program. (Source: Facebook)
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, 3 November 2014 – We are consumers more than citizens. That is the conclusion to be drawn after having seen the “Con sentido” segment on the Buenos Días TV program. In the introduction they announced to us that the topic would be the rights we know, our rights they violate, knowledge of and compliance with the Constitution of the Republic.
But imagine our frustration to find that, during the entire time the screen was filled with specialists, legislators and people in general, interviewed on the street and in the studio, not a single word was said about how the police treat citizens, the wrongful retention of items in Customs, the time a person can be jailed without trial, the innumerable violations that derive from the lack of freedom of expression and association and long string that doesn’t fit in this space. continue reading
Instead the commentator, in the first minutes, the commentator offered what would be a litany of what set off the subsequent “protests,” among them falsifying the weights of products, not giving the correct change, or receipts not being entered into accounts. The most serious criticism referred to the absence or scarcity of copies of our Constitution and limited disclosure that is given to the law.
Appealing to the trick of mentioning the important to later anchor it to the less important details, we could hear statements such as these: “Our fundamental problem is that we don’t know our rights or we barely know them. We aren’t brought up with a judicial culture. Now they violate our rights and we don’t know what to do; worse, they violate rights we don’t even know we have.”
Two young women, the deputy Dayama Fundora and the specialist Maidelis Riguero, both on the National Assembly of People’s Power Commission on Constitutional and Judicial Matters, concentrated on the rights enjoyed by Cubans, such as education, health care, and jobs, and alluded to the fact that at that time they were working on the creation of a Consumer Protection Law.
The man-on-the-street interviews had their most daring moment when they asked a woman if it seemed right that they search a purse in the street, and she answered that if she hadn’t committed any crime there was no need to search her. But the majority of the selected interviewees spoke about the weight of the merchandise or the quality of the products. Also prevalent was the uselessness of complaining because in most cases no reply is received.
But the jewel in the crown was the voiceover saying, “To the extent that people know the mechanisms to make complaints, encounter receptive ears, find solutions to their complaints and feel that denouncing a negative act is not creating conflict but a contribution to bettering things, then they will break some of the chains of complicity that have their origin in the failure of citizens to do their du
That equality is still a concern in our society is yet another sign of failure in our society, no matter that organizations are created or laws promulgated to promote it. For the 77% of the population — born after 1959 — formal measures have been one thing and practical applications something else.
That which is supposed to function for preventing discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexual preference and religion, should also be valid for avoiding political discrimination.
Equality is not decreed — it occurs. Respect for differences should be inculcated as a value. As part of such an education, when making a promotion to a higher position or job, the important thing is the candidate’s ability and not meeting some quota of supposed equality that results in the selection of the most “correct” candidate, rather than the best one for the job.
Nobody says this is easy to accomplish, but it is imperative.
The fall of the Berlin Wall or the birth of a new era (Archive Photo)
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 9 November 2014 – My life up to then had always been lived between walls. The wall of the Malecon that separated me from a world of which I’d only heard the horror. The wall of the school where I studied when Germany was reunified. The long wall behind which the illegal sellers of sweets and treats hid themselves. Almost six feet of some overlapping bricks that some classmates jumped over to get out of classes, as indoctrinating as they were boring. To this was added the wall of silence and fear. At home, my parents put their fingers to their lips, speaking in whispers… something happened, but they didn’t tell me what.
In November of 1989 the Berlin Will fell. In reality, it was knocked down with a sledgehammer and a chisel. Those who threw themselves against it were the same people who, weeks earlier, appeared to obey the Communist Party and believe in the paradise of the proletariat. The news came to us slowly and fragmented. Cuba’s ruling party tried to distract attention and minimize the matter; but the details leaked out little by little. That year my adolescence ended. I was only fourteen and everything that came afterwards left me no space for naivety.
Berliners awoke to the noise of the hammers and we Cubans discovered that the promised future was a complete lie
The masks fell on by one. Berliners awoke to the noise of hammers and we Cubans discovered that the promised future was a complete lie. While Eastern Europe shrugged off the long embrace of the Kremlin, Fidel Castro screamed from the dais, promising in the name of everybody that we would never give up. Few had the insight to realize that that political delusion would condemn us to the most difficult years to confront several generations of Cubans. The wall fell far away, while another parapet was raised around us, that of ideological blindness, irresponsibility and voluntarism.
A quarter century has passed. Today Germans and the whole world are celebrating the end of an absurdity. They are taking stock of the achievements since that November and enjoying the freedom to complain about what hasn’t gone well. We, in Cuba, have missed out on twenty-five years of climbing aboard history’s bandwagon. For our country, the wall is still standing, although right now few are propping up a bulwark erected more at the whim of one man than by the decision of a people.
Some years ago Alejo Carpentier wrote a column which he called “Havana, A City of Columns.” The proliferation of colonnades along our major streets once caught the attention of anyone who visited the city, though they seem perfectly normal to those of us living here.
They protected us from the scorching sun and the torrential rains. You could walk under them almost uninterrupted along major thoroughfares such as Monte, Reina, Galiano, Belascoaín, Jesús del Monte and Jesús del Cerro except when you had to cross the street.
Today everything has changed. The columns have collapsed and with them many of the colonnades. Others have been closed to pedestrian traffic by residential and business occupants, who set up walls and metal fences as they see fit, in violation of regulations governing public ornamentation and city planning.
While this is troubling, what is even worse is that Havana is no longer the city of columns but rather the city of burglar bars. They are like marabou weed in the countryside, spreading everywhere. Bars of all types can found on residences, shops, businesses, schools, parks, fountains, cafes, restaurants and kiosks, disfiguring the city and making it seem like one big jail.
Paradoxically, when we were uneducated and poor — according to authorities — property was respected and there was no need for bars. Now that we are civilized and there is no poverty — again according to authorities — there is no respect for property and bars are everywhere.
As the saying goes, it seems the violin is for one thing and the guitar for quite another. The concept that everything belongs both to everyone and to no one is as complicated and difficult to understand as the mystery of the Holy Trinity. For your enjoyment, I have interspersed some photos of various types of metal bars.
Oscar Haza during the interview in the studios of ‘Mega TV’. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, 7 November 2014 – Of all the faces that circulate on the illegal information networks, there is a very serene and well-known one that has been with us for decades. This well-spoken man who never seems to get upset has received the worst insults in the official media and the stealthy applause of those who never miss his programs. Oscar Haza spoke to 14ymedio this week at the MegaTV studios in Florida, with a baseball cap, a telephone that never stopped ringing, and many interesting stories about his life, journalism and his other adoptive island.
Yoani Sanchez: People in Cuba know you as a television presenter, but help us to complete the person behind this sober man in suit and tie who asks incisive questions. Who are you, besides a face on the screen?
Oscar Haza: I’m an ordinary person, a child from a village in the district of San Carlos, in the center of the capital city of Santo Domingo
Sanchez: Here is where many of my compatriots interrupt you and exclaim in astonishment, AH!… because you’re not Cuban!
Haza: I am the grandson of Cubans. My grandfather was Luis Felipe Haza, a Cuban who moved to Santo Domingo to work in the sugar mills. From there comes my Dominican side, but my other side is from the province of Matanzas. continue reading
Sanchez: If you were not born in Cuba where does so much passion for our country come from? Just a genetic inheritance?
Haza: In the genes, but also because I grew up in a household of fufu, ropa vieja and mangú. That special fusion that the Caribbean has produced. So the Greater Antilles has always been present in my life because of this exchange between families. The person for whom I decided to come to Miami was a Cuban-Dominican of very illustrious lineage, Henríquez Ureña. My friend Hernán Henríquez Lora got me excited and so I came here. So I’ve always had in my heart and in my baggage this interwoven history of Cuba and the Dominican Republic.
Sanchez: And journalism? Does that also come from your family tree?
Haza: My father was the first face that appeared on television, when television arrived in the Dominican Republic in 1952. Of course, to introduce, in turn, the boss.
Sanchez: Trujillo?
“I have trauma with dictatorships. (…) Trujillo removed seven members of the family of my father”
Haza: Yes, and that’s why I have a trauma with dictatorships. Although many people think I’m against the Cuban government out of convenience, because I live in Miami. It’s not that. It’s out of conviction. The Trujillo dictatorship eliminated seven members of my father’s family. So I grew up with the trauma of Latin American militarism. To the point that I don’t even have friends who know how to march. Everything it martial, everything is strict orders, I reject it. In this sense I’m a species in permanent opposition to all dictatorships
Sanchez: I have also heard you have a great music collection. Is that true?
Haza: Music is my psychiatrist. Instead of paying a psychotherapist, I buy discs … or I bought discs in another era, now no, because everything is on the internet. The music determines the mood. I listen to everything. I am a great admirer of Beethoven and Claude Debussy. The other day I had the opportunity to enjoy one of the best pianists I’ve ever heard and it was a Cuban, Jorge Luis Prats and he was playing Brahms.
But I also like dance music … I’m Caribbean! Imagine our islands: Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico have inspired the public to dance, the whole world.
Sanchez: And you also like reggaeton?
Haza: Reggaeton is great! No matter the genre, music is divided into good music or bad music.
Sanchez: This long involvement in the topic of Cuba, has it included a visit to the island?
Haza: I’ve been twice. The first was in 1988 and I went with the delegation of Cardinal O’Connor from New York. I went to see my father who was in Santo Domingo and I told him I was going to Cuba. So he asked me, “And that won’t cause problems for you in Miami?” “Well, I hope not because I’m going with the church,” I answered. He said, “Ah… that soothes me, because two thousand years knows more than thirty,” which was how long the system had been in power at that time.
Sanchez: You came at an interesting time, because shortly afterwards the scandal of the Ochoa case broke.
Haza: I enjoyed that trip, because I had finally come to Cuba after having heard all the versions of my grandparents, my aunts and the versions of Cuba that are here in Florida. I had a personal list to go to the neighborhoods that interested me. I did a lot of things, I interviewed Ricardo Bofill for television in the Mañana neighborhood in Guanabacoa. Then I interviewed Elizardo Sanchez in the Vibora neighborhood. It was a difficult time when there was a rupture in the Cuban opposition movement, so I interviewed the two of them.
My second trip was when the Pope went to Cuba in 1998. The experience was different, it was more irregular. Then I went to my family’s house in Matanzas, which was behind the Cathedral. It was unforgettable.
Sanchez: What has been your most difficult interview?
“What would you say if a Cuban went to Argentina to shoot and kill Argentinians?”
Haza:Mercedes Sosa. I did not know that she was suffering from depression. I had a one-hour program with her. She came, sat looking at the floor and when I asked her a question she answered only in monosyllables. I looked at the clock and it was five past eight. The program ended at nine. What do I do, I asked myself. So I said, I have to say something to get a reaction from her; then it occurred to me: “What would you say if a Cuban went to Argentina to shoot and kill Argentinians?” That woke her up and we began the interview.
I also interviewed Fidel Castro in Bogota at the Tequendama hotel, during the inauguration of Ernesto Samper. It was something sui generis because it was the day after the Maleconazo. The Air Force refused to give him military honors when he arrived for the tribute because he had been supporting the FARC and the Colombian Left. I heard about the situation, so during the interview I asked several questions about the Maleconazo and the embargo but left to end the question, “And is this your first time in Bogota after the Bogotazo?” He quickly responded to me, “Yes, and if they tell me I’m in New York I would believe it… it’s changed so much,” so he went with the tourist line.
I was also a war correspondent in Central America and lived terrible moments, like the day they killed a colleague right next to me.
‘Mega TV’ Studios in Miami. (14ymedio)
Sanchez: When you do interviews with Cuban dissidents and question them about internal issues in front of the cameras, do you have a dilemma between giving arms to the government, versus not touching on these sensitive issues?
Haza: I always have that dilemma. But as a journalist it’s my job to report. We journalists are the witnesses to history. We are here to tell it. We can’t control the consequences. To opt for self-censorship would be to choose our worst enemy. Things have to be said, but with the social responsibility that we have. Our job is to reveal the truth.
Sanchez: Suppose now you’re in a TV studio in Havana, who would you like to interview there?
Haza: The job surprises me when I’ve been with people in the villages, those who have no voice, they’ve given me spectacular stories. One of the interviews I would like is with a boy or girl to know how they see the world of the adults and the Cuban reality. Children are very authentic and very honest. I would also like to interview a great poet.
Sanchez: Do you think you’ll soon be doing these interviews in Cuba?
Haza: I think so, because now those who don’t want change call themselves revolutionaries. There is nothing more anti-revolutionary and anti-dialectical than to say everything is already changed and there’s nothing to do. That is the main enemy of those who today defend the status quo. I think so, because despite the will of the ruling class changes in Cuba are close.
14ymedio, Victor Ariel Gonzalez, Havana / 6 November 2014 — It’s ten in the morning, and the Golden Pig is packed with customers. On entering, one detects the intense odor of smoked meat mixed with the aroma of ripe guavas. Two salesmen work behind the counter, and a third places fruits in their boxes.
They almost have no time to assist the journalist who is interested in knowing how they have managed to start this business. This is not just any market; there are electronic scales, vertical refrigerators, air conditioning and — most surprising – the cleanliness and organization are infinitely superior to those of the typical farmers’ markets of Havana, those built hurriedly under zinc plates where flies swarm and mud has stained everything.
Here it is different. This is a small shop inside a building at the corner of Linea and 10 in Vedado. They threw cement on the floor and oiled it, installed dark windows and put an attractive label over the glass. “We took two months to prepare this,” says one of the workers when he can finally answer some questions. “You already saw that it is full,” the man continues. “In December I imagine that we are going to even need a doorman!” Success has come to them quickly since they have only been open a few weeks.
The Golden Pig functions as a cooperative. On one of the walls, over the counter, hangs the license that the State grants for this form of private activity that is gaining momentum and opening new businesses at several locations in the city.
So, for example, there is also El Barrio market, close to the embassy of the Czech Republic. It is easy to pass by if you are not familiar with it because, seen from outside, the closed garage does not have much paint for being a business. Inside, the presentation of products is even more attractive than the previous place. They possess a big refrigerated counter with all the offers in view, already packaged and with labels printed in Cuban pesos. They have a shiny machine for making slices at the customer’s request and an area in back where they prepare the packages. There are not those so disagreeable odors that one usually smells in the state butcher shops that sell in CUC (hard currency).
There are not those so disagreeable odors that one usually smells in the state butcher shops that sell in CUC
In El Barrio a saleslady explains how a business of this type can be pulled off. The required license is “retail seller of agricultural products” and is sought in the municipal offices of the Ministry of Work and Social Security. “It took us five months to take the necessary steps for the permit, but the advantage of this activity is that we do not need a health certificate like our suppliers,” she says before assisting another recently-arrived customer.
“Although we have to pay a lot in taxes, we manage to profit,” says a staff member at the Golden Pig. The prices on the boards are well above what the pocketbook of the common man can pay, although similar to those found elsewhere. “Our advantage is that we have made a different presentation, and people like that,” say the workers of the other store.
Mind you, it will never be possible to find beef in any of these businesses. Not even cow’s milk or its derivatives. The yogurt they offer in one of these butcher shops, where they sell several types of foods, is made with goat’s milk. Neither are they permitted to trade in imported products.
In spite of the administrative tethers and the enormous limitations that the government places on the offer of products, private initiative little by little paves the way in this economy that insists on calling itself “socialist” and “planned.” Nevertheless, the paltry purchasing power of the population means few Cubans can give themselves the luxury of entertaining their families with a pork leg – a month’s average salary – and some mouthwatering fresh lettuce leaves wrapped in clear plastic.
14ymedio, Orlando Palma, Havana, 6 November 2014 – A meeting that was meant to sum up achievements turned into a flood of complaints and demands. The Review Assembly of the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP) in Cienfuegos was the scene where some of the impediments faced by the peasantry of the region were heard.
The Assembly was held at the Martyrs of the Barbados Agricultural Production Cooperative in Rancho Luna, and the officials had to placate the attitudes of the angry farmers in the area. “They came to convince us to make a greater sacrifice, but the truth is I’m already tired of this,” explained a vegetable farmer in the region who participated in the meeting and requested anonymity.
The exodus of workers to other sectors was identified as one of the causes that have led to farm production not meeting the annual plans. The cooperative currently has 108 members, but the workforce is “unstable,” according to the local newspaper 5th of September in it digital edition this Thursday.
“The guys don’t stay with us because we don’t have housing. And they get married, have kids… create families. Then it’s logical that they seek work that can gratify their interests,” Mileydis Terencio Ramírez said at the ANAP meeting.
The official media, however, only reports a part of the anger expressed by the farmers who attended the meeting, according to what several in attendance told 14ymedio. “The working conditions here are bad, so people leave because they can’t progress,” said Lazarus, who works cultivating beans and yucca in the Rancho Luna area.
According to the official press, “nearly 75% of Cuba’s food program depends on how much the farmers can produce.” However the southern cooperative itself hasn’t been able to “satisfy the people’s real needs.” The Martyrs of Barbados has been proposed to conclude this year with 7 million pounds of product, well below the more than 22 million pounds of 1988.
Difficulties with inputs also negatively influence the fieldwork. Farmers complain of ‘high price, low quality’, and also the lack of administrative management to ensure a stable supply of products like footwear to work in agriculture.
“Now they send us 20 pairs of boots. What does that mean for 108 workers? Sometimes we have to work barefoot,” Wilfredo Arias Arias said at the meeting.
The official report in the 5th of September newspaper didn’t escape pessimism concluding that “while the debate resolved nothing, at least it hinted at the problems facing an industry, the peasantry, the job of feeing the people.”
14ymedio, Havana, 5 November 2014 — The documentation that the Cuban government has distributed among potential foreign investors for the purpose of capturing some 8.7 billion dollars for development projects on the Island highlights the country’s “favorable business environment.”
The Opportunities Portfolio and Guide, to which 14ymedio has had access, highlights the “restructuring of the country’s policies since the updating of the economic model,” even though the reforms promoted by President Raul Castro since 2007 have not solved the many problems that strangle the system.
The so-called Raulist reforms have not prevented the economy from growing at a slower pace than officially forecasted. According to government calculations, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will close the year with an increase of 1.4%. Nevertheless, independent analysts think that this figure does not reflect the real state of the economy.
Throughout 168 pages, the Opportunities Portfolio insists on the presence of a “regulatory framework and an updated foreign investment policy and incentives for investors.”
The document mentions the existence of a “secure and transparent body of law” and “promotional institutions at the service of investors” as well as a “climate of security for foreign personnel,” when a little more than a month ago the severe sentence imposed on Canadian entrepreneur Vahe Cy Tokmakjian was made known.
This case, often considered a test for those who plan to invest on the Island, concluded with the 15-year prison sentence for the President of Tomakjian Group for various corruption crimes. Along with him, another 14 Cubans were condemned to sentences of between six and 20 years in jail.
The Portfolio also praises the “high indicators in matters of education, social security and health of the population,” even though the island is going through a delicate situation from the epidemiological point of view. In recent months, the spread of dengue fever, cholera and chikungunya may have caused dozens of deaths throughout the country, although health authorities have not supplied reliable figures.
The document also celebrates the presence of basic infrastructure throughout the whole country, including railways and roadways, in spite of the fact that the bad state of the highways has caused more than 5,600 accidents in the first half of this year, with a balance of 347 deaths and more than 4,300 injuries.
When I hear some of our nation’s leaders talk about the Republican era — and many of officials repeat what they say — I get the impression the country was one vast wasteland, without an education or public health system, without highways, aqueducts, sewers, water mains, electricity, telephones, hospitals, schools, factories, businesses, cinemas, theaters or many other things.
Could it be that our towns and cities were a highly developed virtual reality? Does what we see today, now all quite dilapidated, not exist before 1959?
In reality it all existed. Furthermore, it was in even better condition than today and was continually getting better. When you have no important accomplishments to your credit but rather only a series of failures, you must deny the existence of everything that came before, which allows you to pretend you were starting from scratch. Then whatever you have done, good or bad, becomes the sole reality. That is what we have tried to convince the younger generation, who have no firsthand experience of the Republican years.
When we ourselves were young, we were proud of our country. We respected the national anthem, the flag and the coat of arms. We were aware that not everything was perfect or even worked well, but we tried to improve things and, most importantly, we did not leave Cuba. The only aspiration of today’s younger generations is to emigrate to some other part of the world where they can realize their personal goals. They have lost any hope of being able to solve all the many problems which have accumulated over the years. This is the reality, and not the virtual kind.
I remember a scandal from the Republican era that involved an intoxicated US Navy seaman desecrating the statue of José Martí in Havana’s Central Park. Today, some Cubans use this site and the doorways of the surrounding buildings as a public urinal, mainly at night, in the face of widespread public indifference. Anyone wishing to verify this need only take a stroll through the area in the early hours of the morning. In reality there is much that has been lost, and not just material things.
When historical continuity is severed and whole eras are distorted or swept aside, you get the situation we have in Cuba today. The country is no longer of interest to most of its citizens. Everyone carves out his own little personal corner and adapts it to meet his needs, forgetting about everyone else.
In its Friday edition, the newspaper Granma has asked readers to fill out a questionnaire with the laudable goal of improving its quality. I’ve had some great times with Granma, but this survey marks one of the highpoints.
Among the questions is whether the news presented is timely, if the way it is presented is original, if articles create an information vacuum because they lack insufficient (I assume they mean sufficient) data, if topics are repetitive and if there is follow-up. This is a joke; the first thing readers who get their news exclusively from Granma or any other national news outlet need is references.
People more serious than I will take the time to analytically answer the survey in question, but if one were to ask how the newspaper is doing, there are several possible answers: 1) Very good, 2) Good but could use improvement, 3) Bad — certainly one that would have to be included — and 4) Very bad.
Granma is not the worst newspaper in the world. That would have to be Rodong Sinmun.* Remember that we are talking about the official media outlet of the Communist Party, which is almost like saying the only news outlet since all the others parrot its editorial line.
With or without the survey, Granma will continue to be in high-demand for the subsidiary role it plays in personal hygiene and home care.
An anecdote: My son once asked a friend to read the above-mentioned publication and if there was anything interesting in it. Tossing aside the newspaper and dragging out his response for emphasis, the friend gave a very enlightening answer:
“Nothing. It’s all a Granma.”
*Translator’s note: Worker’s Newspaper, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of North Korea.
The uproar from the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Cuba was of considerable proportions. At a presentation of the recent Labiofam* 2014 conference, two new perfumes were introduced which, according to company officials, had been named “Ernesto” and “Hugo” in an attempted tribute to Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Hugo Chavez.
At first I thought it was a logical reaction, given that its creators described Ernesto as having a woodsy and sweet bouquet, and Hugo as having hints of tropical fruits. Some expert “noses,” however, insist that both essences smell more like public restrooms at Carnaval.
The official announcement published in the newspaper Granma left more questions than answers, and was less credible than Alejandro Castro Espín’s mechanical engineering degree. After years of using the names of both men to christen parks, lodges, schools, factories and even cantatas without proper consent, the Cuban Communist Party said through its official news outlet that “initiatives of this nature will never be accepted by our people or the Revolutionary government.”
The collective memory of Cuba’s leaders appears to be failing. They seem to have forgotten that on July 27, 1983 Celia Sánchez Manduley*, described as “the most beloved flower,” became synonymous with a useless textile manufacturer, that an ineffective building contracting business was named after Blas Roca Calderío* or that the name for the unproductive construction company Almest was created out of the last names of Juan Almeida* and Armando Mestre*.
It is worth remembering that in 1994 — the same year Fidel Castro agreed to pose for the magazine Cigar Aficionado sniffing a Cohiba Lancero — Labiofam brought to market three fragrances imported from France: colognes labelled Alejandro, Celia and Havana. As a press statement of the time indicated, “the first two are products with allegorical names for figures of the Revolution.”
José Antonio Fraga Castro — nephew to Fidel and Raul and director of Labiofam — wanted to repeat David’s feat against Goliath and pave the way to their loyalty with the asphalt of this odiferous hypocrisy. But he did not know how to use the sling and ended up with a huge bump on his head. He forgot that the iconic image of Che, which was launched and promoted by his uncles, has its own copyright. Fidel Castro is the product, the pedestal, and the only official model which can promote the Cuba brand, as Raul has decreed
In 2002, the village of Birán* — a hamlet within the municipality of Cueto that is about 45 miles from the city of Holguín and about 19 from Marcané — was declared an open-air museum. It was crowned a National Monument in early 2011 by government decree and became an obligatory overnight stop for tourists to the area looking for a distillery.
In case you didn’t know, the profitable home rum authorized by the Revolutionary government, which according to its official news outlet “does not endorse projects of this kind,” was given the name Comandante Fidel. It is exported by the Cuban firm Tecnoazucar, and bottled and labelled with Fidel’s image by the Spanish firm Abanescu, S.L., located in La Jonquera, Catalonia.
As an old urban prophet author ot Politicaductor, or a new translator of Cuban political thought wrote: “Better I smell Kurdish than perfumed.”
*Translator’s notes: Labiofam is a Cuban veterinary and pharmaceutical products company. Alejandro Castro Espín is Cuban president Raul Castro’s only son. Celia Sánchez Manduley was a leading figure in the Cuban revolution with close personal ties to Fidel Castro. Blas Roca Calderío was a revolutionary figure who later served as head of Cuba’s National Assembly. Juan Almeida andArmando Mestre were also prominent figures in the Cuban revolution and the former was this blogger’s father. Birán is best known as the birthplace of Fidel Castro.
