Translating Cuba

The Cubans of 9/11 / 14ymedio

Born in Havana in 1945, Marco Motroni emigrated with his family at age 11. In 1963 he graduated from George Washington High School in Manhattan. He started playing in la Típica Novel, one of the most successful Latin orchestras in New York. Years later he began working as a broker at Carr Futures, whose offices, in 2001, were on the 92nd floor of the North Tower.

Born in 1940 in Cuba, Juan LaFuente emigrated to the United States to attend university. In 1964 he married Colette Merical, who was the mayor of Poughkeepsie between 1996 and 2003. LaFuente worked at IBM for 31 years and at the time of the events was working for Citibank. On September 11 he was attending a meeting at a restaurant North Tower.

Niurka Davila was 47-years-old when she died in the attacks. Her real name was Rosa, but she changed it when she was naturalized as an American citizen. She worked for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Born in Cuba in 1965, Nancy Peréz emigrated with her family five years later and settled in New York, She was a supervisor at the Port Authority at One World Trade Center at the time of the attacks.

Born in Matanzas in 1961, George Merino emigrated with his family when he was only 7 and settled in New York He lived in Bayside, Queens, and was a securities analyst at Fiduciary Trust, located in the World Trade Center.

The son of Cuban emigrants, Carlos Domínguez was born in New York in 1967 and lived in Nassau County, New York. In 2001 he was in charge of computer system security for Marsh & McLennan, on the 95th floor of the North Tower.

Michael Díaz Piedra III was born in Cuba in 1952. His family, plantation owners, emigrated to the United States in 1960. They settled in Florida and later, in New Jersey. He was 49-years-old in 2001 and was a vice president for the Bank of New York in charge of disaster recovery planning. His family said his desire was to return to Cuba the day it became a democracy.

From 14ymedio, 11 September 2014

Exclusive Sale of Honey / Juan Juan Almeida

In the city of Santiago de Cuba, they just opened a trading house specializing in honey which, according to its publicity, is one of the foods permanently present in the east of the country. The Beehive, as it’s called locally, offers customers an exclusive range of nutritional product that can be purchased in different types of bottles, making it accessible to all Santiaguans. That’s fine, but there are more important things to resolve and they are fully visible.

I marvel when I hear and read all this craziness. Honey is not a remedy for the bile accumulated over so many years of heartache. Molasses will not sweeten the national decline.

9 September 2014

A New Women’s Opposition Group is Born in the East: Citizens for Democracy / 14ymedio

Citizens for Democracy on the feast of Our Lady of Charity (UNPACU)

14YMEDIO, Havana, 10 September 2014 – A schism with the Ladies in White has given birth to a new women’s group called “Citizens for Democracy.” Last Monday, during the feast of the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, the recently created movement held it’s first public activity with a pilgrimage of seventy women to the Sanctuary of Cobre in Santiago de Cuba.

Citizens for Democracy is led by Belkis Cantillo and consists mostly of women from Palma Soriano, Palmarito del Cauto and the city of Santiago de Cuba itself. At least thirty of them come from the Ladies in White group, from which they separated some days ago because of disagreements between Berta Soler and Cantillo herself.

The reason for this separation was explained as “gross indiscipline” allegedly committed by several members of the Ladies in White in the eastern area of the country, which provoked the removal of Cantillo as local representative of the movement. Soler, for her part, declared that “every person can join or found a party or a group if they feel badly in another and if they are not able to abide by the rules of the Ladies in White.”

Belkis Cantillo was a member of the Ladies in White from its origins in 2003 after the imprisonment of 75 dissidents in the so-called “Black Spring.” Her ex-husband is the opponent Jose Daniel Ferrer, who heads the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU).

Berta Soler hopes that the Citizens for Democracy will “succeed as human rights activists.”

Castro Versus Castro / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

"Que Ché, Que Pinga!" "When I grow up I want to be Fidel Castro!" Alen Lauzán. (ALEN-LAUZAN.BLOGSPOT) — “Fuck Che! When I grow up I am going to be Fidel Castro!*” Alen Lauzán. (ALEN-LAUZAN.BLOGSPOT)

As long as the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) exists in Cuba, this secret and murderous organization, but in its turn legitimized by all the secret and murderous organizations in the world, regardless of ideologies or political rivalry in public (in private power always supports power); as long as the life of every Cuban depends on the vile will of another anonymous Cuban; as long as nobody questions this complicity by a returning and cheerful exile, businessmen avid to be ministers tomorrow, clergy blackmailed by their own flesh, and even by an opposition without pressure platforms and much less urge for power; as long as we just continue denouncing these clandestine citations from G-2, instead of recognizing that it is an incessant civil war of the State against its citizens, the Cuban nation has no chance of regenerating itself.

The Transition Program, agreed by the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL in Spanish) chaired by Oswaldo Payá, touched on the issue very early on. There would be no decent dialog as long as they didn’t open the archives of Evil and its agents confessed their crimes before the democratic justice that should come. As a consequence, State Security, by an order that could have only come from the Castro family, touched Oswaldo Payá, probably summarily processed in a Cuban place and executed in situ parajudicially.

All Cuban workers and unemployed Cubans, when they show themselves to be intelligent people, with desires for an active biography, have been, are, and will be interviewed by the political police of my country. It seems an exaggeration. Pardo’s paranoia. But you in your cowardly heart know well it’s not so. You know well that you were also called by them (whether you live on the Island or in its antipodes).

During my year and a half visiting the United States, I’ve been in contact with all the generations of exiles or emigrants or whatever they want to call themselves. A captive people that is no longer Cuban, since they can’t reside or participate in the social life of their previous country. Recognized stars of the stage and visual arts have confessed it to me. Geniuses of science have confessed it to me. Athletes or, to be exact, high-performance ex-athletes, have confessed it to me. The signature names of our music and literature also confessed it to me. G-2 frequents them all.

In principle, none of them has had any problem in Cuba. I knew many of them from Cuba and none told me anything about this facet of interlocutors of a Castroism of the catacombs, underground. My friends live there (perhaps they’ve ceased to be so from now on), happy to be almost protestors, while giving dozens of controversial interviews outside, provided they accept the annual interview with the official who looks after them, provided they follow the suggestions of their respective agents. Low profile perverse Fidel-ity, that ranges from threats thrown just as jokes, to the donation of a leg of mutton on the part of the authority when one of our loved ones fall into bed and is declared (gratis) as a terminal patient.

It’s much worse than this. In a single family I have found vedettes and executioners, poets and political experts, essayists and abusers. And beware of naming us, you asshole, because I could even kill when it comes to keep my family at peace. Castroism constitutes us today, is ubiquitous and for that very reason, it’s impossible to be located. Castroism concerns us all, except for the original Castros, who are about to die and their descendants will run away with their millions elsewhere.

In these blackmails we are all the complicit of all. It’s happening right now. They tell me new examples through the social networks from Havana. They ask me for advice and to remain silent. It’d be worse if I ever mention their names and situations. Moreover, those who reside abroad would sue me and put me to jail for moral damages and defamation if I dare to speak.

We are infamous up to this point. We have lived our whole lives in the times of Castro. We shall die, then, with the honors which correspond to the horror of being us (and not the Castros) the true Castro’s decrepit but yet demonic clan.

*Translator’s note: A reference to the chant children must repeat during school morning assembly: “Pioneers for Communism, we will be like Ché!”

From Diario de Cuba

4 September 2014

Accessories and Sandwiches / Regina Coyula

The school year has just begun, the first for many children. Filled with enthusiasm and wonder, these little ones are unaware of the disruption their new status as students creates for many Cuban families.

Along with the canasta basica,* the school uniform is the last holdout of the ration book as far as manufactured goods are concerned. It is provided to each student upon enrollment in the form of a ticket to buy subsidized uniforms, which he or she must treat with great care since there won’t be any more given out until the fourth grade.

As everyone knows, education in Cuba is free but other expenses related to a child’s schooling come directly out of the family budget. I am not referring only to shoes, a backpack or a lunchbox. The first parents’ meeting will confirm what families already know from their own experiences or those of others.

There are always parents who offer to buy paint and others who offer to paint. There are always collection drives for cleaning supplies and sign-up sheets for mothers to clean bathrooms. It is now standard practice to start the school term every year by collecting five CUC per child to purchase fans.

Teachers and administrators adopt a stance of giving in to these family initiatives in a game of role playing in which it is assumed that the Ministry of Education will provide everything that is needed to do the work and that the family wants what is best for its children.

All this and other things that follow are part of an unwritten but demonstrably effective methodology, which only gets better from one school term to the next The youngest children must not bring backpacks, only luncheras (lunch boxes). If they bring soft drinks, they must be in plastic containers, even if they are in cans. Everything must be able to be kept at room temperature.

Special emphasis is given to the lunchtime sandwich. No roast beef, ground meat or fish. Chicken must be shredded, ham sliced. Even better if it is the ever popular perrito (or hot dog).

Every pre-schooler must bring a sturdy shoebox to store all his or her projects for the entire school term. They must also bring scissors for cutting paper, crayons, an eraser — all items available only in hard currency.

The classroom is a place where the disparities that have become entrenched in society are there to be seen. Every student has a right to education but equality ends there.

From the moment they arrive at school, even before morning classes begin, their footwear and accessories tell a story of which the students themselves are ignorant protagonists and about which their parents will speak in private with cynicism or shame, depending on their personal ideas about what constitutes success.

Translator’s note: The “basic basket” is an allotment of foodstuffs intended to provide Cubans with a minimum of 3,100 of calories per day. The items include beans, rice, sugar, cooking oil and coffee. There is also a monthly allotment of meat, chicken, and eggs. Prices for these goods are heavily subsidized but the items themselves are often in short supply.

5 September 2014

New Organized Robbery / Rebeca Monzo

The great problem created by the government of my planet itself with the dual currency, now, with the new authorization of being able to buy things in some TRD (hard currency collection) stores with either currency, is that it has become more complicated for both the customers and the employees, who work at each cash register in these establishments.

The other day I was at La Mariposa in Nuevo Vedada to buy some soft drinks–those that cost 0.50 Cuban convertible pesos (CUC) whose equivalent in Cuban pesos (CUP) is 12.50. I offered 13.00 CUP in payment for which they owed me 0.50 CUP in change, but as the cash boxes don’t have this currency but only CUCs, they couldn’t give me 0.05 CUC because this would be the equivalent of 1.00 CUP, and so I would get 0.50 CUP over. Their not having change in smaller values means that the client loses the difference. I decided to return the soft drink.

Today my friend Mirta came over and brought me the receipt for a purchase she’d made of a liter of oil in the same store. She, indignant, told me exactly what I’ve told you. Well, I told her, if the famous character Cantinflas lived in Cuba today he would be totally nondescript.

These new headaches and “wallet-aches” that we customers and even the employees of these stores have to suffer are, in my modest opinion, nothing more than a new way of organized robbery.

6 September 2014

The Day the People of Havana Protested in the Streets / Ivan Garcia

1994 was an amazing year. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of the USSR had been the trigger for the beginning in Cuba of the “Special Period in Times of Peace,” an economic crisis which lasted for 25 years.

We returned to a subsistence economy. The factories shut down as they had no fuel or supplies. Tractors were replaced by oxen. And the power cuts lasted 12 hours a day.

The island entered completely into an era of inflation, shortages and hunger. To eat twice a day was a luxury. Meat, chicken and fish disappeared off the menu. People ate little, and poorly. Malnutrition caused exotic illnesses like beri-beri and optic neuritis. continue reading

The olive green government put contingency plans into action. Research institutes patented garbage food such as meat mass, soya soup, and oca paste, which were used to fool the stomach.

The government considered an extreme project called “zero option,” against the time when the people would start to collapse in the street due to hunger. It was a red alert, when military trucks would hand out rations neighbourhood by neighbourhood.

“Zero option” did not get implemented. The dollar ended up worth 150 Cuban Pesos, and a pound of rice, if you could get one, cost you 140 pesos, the same as an avocado.

That’s how we Cubans lived in 1994. A hot year. Many people launched themselves into the sea in little rubber boats, driven by desperation and hardship, trying to get to the United States.

I was 28 and four out of every five of my friends or people I knew were making plans to build boats good enough to get them to Florida. We talked of nothing else. Only about getting out.

In the morning of 5th August it was still a crime to be a boat person. If they caught you, it meant up to 4 years behind bars. In spite of the informers, the blackouts helped people build boats of all shapes and sizes. Havana looked like a shipyard.

In my area, an ex-sailer offered his services as a pilot to anyone setting out on a marine adventure. “It’s a difficult crossing. You could be a shark’s dinner if you don’t organise your expedition properly,” he said.

At that time there were red beret soldiers carrying AK-47s patrolling the streets in jeeps. The capital was like a tinderbox.Any friction could touch off a fire. Hardly a month and a half before, on 13th July, the fateful sinking of the tugboat 13 de Marzo had occurred.

In order to teach would-be illegal escapees a lesson, the authorities deliberately sunk an old tug 7 miles out from the bay of Havana.

72 people were on board. 37 of them died, among them, 10 children. According to the survivors’ testimony, two government tugs refused to help them. It was a crime.

At eleven in the morning of Friday August 5th, a friend of mine came up to a group of us kids who were sitting on a corner in the neighbourhood, and, stumbling over his words, said: “My relatives in Miami have phoned up. They say four large boats have left for Havana, to pick up anyone who wants to leave. There are lots of people in the Malecon, waiting for them.”

A route 15 bus driver, who now lives in Spain, invited us to ride in his bus, to get there faster. He turned off his route. And as he went along, he he picked up anyone who stuck out his hand.

“I’m going to the Malecon” he told people. Every passenger who got on had new information about what was happening. “They’ve broken shop windows and they’re stealing food, toiletries, clothes and shoes. They’ve overturned police cars. Looks like the government’s fucked.”

There was a party atmosphere. The bus was stopped by the combined forces of the police, soldiers and State security people, near the old Presidential Palace.

A group of government supporters was trying to control the antigovernment protesters and the disturbances that were breaking out. It was bedlam.

We got off the bus and we walked down some side streets going towards the Avenida del Puerto. There were lots of anxious people in the avenue with their eyes on the horizon.

There was a police car which had been smashed up by having stones thrown at it near the Hotel Deauville. Paramilitaries were arriving in trucks, armed with tubes and iron bars. They were casual construction workers hired by Fidel Castro who had been rapidly mobilised.

For the first time in my life I heard people shouting Down with Fidel, and Down with the Dictatorship. What had started off as a lot of people trying to escape to Florida had turned into a popular uprising.

The epicenter of what came to be called the Maleconazo were the poor mainly black neighbourhoods of San Leopoldo, Colón and Cayo Hueso. Places where people live in tumbledown houses and with an uncertain future.

Those areas breed hustlers, illegal gambling and drug trafficking. And the Castro brothers are not welcome there.

After 6:00 in the evening of 5th August 1994, it seemed that the government forces had taken control of the extensive area where the people had filled the streets to protest, rob, or just sit on the Malecon wall to see what happened.

Anti-riot trucks picked up hundreds of young men, nearly all of them mixed race or black. A rumour went round that Fidel Castro was having a look round the area. The soldiers had released the safety catches on their AK47s, ready to use them.

By the time it began to get dark, the disturbances were already under control. We walked back, talking about what had happened. That night, because they were afraid another revolt might break out, there was no power cut in Havana.

Iván García

Translated by GH

6 August 2014

All Exiles Are Possible / Luis Felipe Rojas

When I say exile, I only think of the word life. That was what happened to me at the meeting “Fight for Liberation against Castro-communism,” which the writer Julio M. Shiling generously coordinated and which was held at the West Dade Regional Library of Coral Way, Miami, last July 10.

Attending the discussion were no more and no less than the well-known former political prisoners Angel de Fana, Agapito “El Guapo” Rivera, Jorge Gutierrez “El Sherif” and others who presented an overview of the insurrectional struggle from 1959 to the present.

De Fana’s words and his hopes for a future Cuba moved me. Twenty years in jail did not seem to have put a dent in the energy of this man who confronted the torture and prison horror of the Castro regime. “We must fight, not for the Cuba that we lost but for the one that awaits us ahead,” I heard him say. continue reading

Agapito, a peasant known for having fought in the central plains of the island against the militias and formal army, spoke of the bravery of those who accompanied him in that feat (there is no other name for this action). The loss of 11 relatives has not made him a resentful man, although pain emerges with each word for a country that could not be.

“No one knows the pain that is felt on learning of the death of the youngest of the brothers that you have taken to war,” says the man who earned the nickname “Handsome” in the prisons where they tried to break him for the 25 long years that he spent without tasting freedom. His liberation in 1988 must have been a relief for his jailers, according to the anecdotes that are told by those who shared galley, hallway and punishment cells with Agapito.

We live likewise through the story by Jorge Gutierrez, who landed in one of the infilitration teams days before the Cuban expedition in the Bay of Pigs. The loss of friends that had sent him off days before, the bitter flavor of the disappointment of promised help that never arrived, were related in detail by Gutierrez with a dynamic that left no room for doubts.

The other fight, the same country

Roberto Luque Escalona like Normando Hernandez related experiences of what is known as the peaceful resistance struggle, which although it has its detractors on both sides of the island, gave rise to one of the samples of respect that Cuba deserves.

Those who preceded Luque and Hernandez recognized the co-existence of both methods without sidestepping one or the other. Luque as well as Hernandez explored anecdotes that illustrated the advocacy of human rights, the confrontation of a more sophisticated military, which although assisted by Moscow, since its beginning was refining methods of repression from physical to psychological torture: to the point that at the beginning of 1980 many countries ignored what was happening on Dr. Castro’s island. So far the majority of nations ignore the lack of liberty in Cuba.

It has been a good opportunity, a landscape portrait of thousands of Cubans who do not fit in a single photo. Thanks to the labor of Shiling and his insistence on learning more of the untold history of the resistance against communism in Cuba.

Translated by mlk.

17 July 2014

Alert Sounded in the Informal Market / 14ymedio, Rosa Lopez

Photo: Exterior of Terminal 2 of José Martí International Airport

Unauthorized vendors welcome new customs regulation with caution as they prepare to redefine strategies

14ymedio, Rosa Lopez, Havana, 3 September 2014 — “Call me from a land line” instructs the classified ad placed by Mauro Izquierdo, vendor of electrical household appliances. He has a wide range of items on offer, from air conditioning units to toasters, but his specialty is flat-screen TVs. This morning, his cautious response to all callers was: “Right now I’m in the midst of redefining my pricing structure until everything settles down with the new customs regulations.”

Mauro is but one strand in the complex tapestry of unauthorized vendors who are living through anxious moments with the new restrictions imposed by the General Customs of the Republic. Price increases are imminent in the black market, given that a good part of the merchandise offered through its networks enters the country via the flight baggage of so-called “mules.” “I have ceased all operations for the time being, because I don’t know if I will get the accounts with new prices that have been imposed on the airports,” the able merchant confirms.

His clients also have been preparing for the increase.”I’m finishing construction on my house and I had to run to buy lamps, bulbs and bathtub plumbing for the bathroom, because all of that might become unavailable very soon,” said Georgina M., looking to the future, as she concludes construction on a new residence in the western township of Candelaria.

14ymedio contacted approximately 20 vendors offering merchandise on classifieds sites such as Revolico and Cubisima. Although previously-listed products remained at their advertised prices, any orders going forward would come “with with new tariffs added to the price,” according to various distributors. Last week, Leticia was offering hair dryers, massage machines, and hair removers. However, now she is planning to raise prices by about 20 or 25 per cent on each product so as to be able to “finance the payments that those who bring the items into the country must make at Customs.”

The advance notice given of the new rules has allowed many people to be prepared. Rogelio, a Panataxi driver who makes trips from Terminal 2 of José Martí International Airport, refers to how even “two days before the new restrictions went into effect, what people brought was incredible — suitcases upon suitcases.” Even so, he noted that since yesterday, “travelers seem more cautious and, among those I have transported, I have seen a decrease in the amount of baggage they’re carrying.” Another taxi driver joined the conversation, saying that “people have now been made to jump through hoops.”

Even so, for other alternative vendors, the new measures barely affect their supply chain. “I buy space in the ‘containers’ of people who are on official missions, working in the embassies and consulates throughout the world, and that is how I bring in my merchandise — therefore the new rules don’t touch me,” boasted a seller of lawnmowers and commercial refrigerators, who enhances his ads with attractive photos of each unit and the guarantee that it’s “all done with proper documentation.”

It is still too early to measure the true impact on the informal market of the new customs rules, but sellers as well as merchants are preparing for the worst.

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

Have You Tried Cyanide… General? / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 1 September 2014 – Today is Zero Day, the fateful date, the day the General Customs of the Republic enacts its new restrictions for non-commercial imports. The measure called to mind an old joke that circulated in the nineties and is still heard today. In this humorous story, a foreign journalist interviewed Fidel Castro and he listed all the obstacles we had faced. “The Cuban people have survived the collapse of transportation, the food crisis and power cuts,” the delusional politician said proudly. The reporter interrupted him and asked: “And you haven’t tried cyanide, Comandante?”

Nearly two decades have passed and they are still imposing limits and prohibitions incompatible with development and with life. As if in this social laboratory they want to test what they can do to get the guinea pigs—which are us—to keep breathing, clapping, accepting. The new experiment doesn’t come in the form of a syringe, but through customs rules governing the luggage of every traveler. Measures that were taken without previously allowing commercial imports that favor the private sector. As if in the closed glass box in which we are trapped, they are cutting off the oxygen… and watching from the other side of the glass to see how much we can stand.

And you haven’t tried cyanide, Comandante? echoed in my head while I read “The Green Book” with the new prices and limits applied to imports from electric razors to disposable diapers. We lab rats, however, have not remained calm and quiet, like so often in the past. People are complaining, and with good reason, that these restrictions are suffocating self-employed labor and the domestic economy. Everyone is upset. Those who receive parcels from abroad as well as those who don’t, because some of those bouillon cubes or rheumatism creams end up reaching their hands through the black market or the solidarity of a friend.

The reason is not an altered chromosome, but a system that has failed to maintain a stable and high-quality supply of almost any product … except canned ideology and the insipid porridge of the cult of personality

It’s not that we Cubans have a specific gene to accumulate things and—out of pure neurosis—throw stuff into our suitcases from toilet paper and toothpaste to lightbulbs. The reason is not an altered chromosome, but a system that has failed to maintain a stable and high-quality supply of almost any product… except canned ideology and the insipid porridge of the cult of personality. While the shelves of the stores are empty, or filled with the worse quality merchandise at stratospheric prices, we have to bring from outside what we don’t have here. A law on commercial imports was not what we needed and the knife of customs restrictions falls very heavily upon us.

That the measures have come into force is still more evidence of the divorce between the Cuban ruling class and the people’s reality. In their mansions there is no lack of resources, food, nor imported products! They, of course, have no need to bring them home in their luggage. To stock up they reach out to the Ministry of Foreign Commerce, to the official containers that arrive at our ports, and a network of transport that brings chlorine for their swimming pools and French cheese right to their doors. The customs rules do not affect them, because they don’t pay excess luggage fees on their luxuries, which are not considered sundries, household items or food. They live outside the law and watch us locked behind the thick glass of the laboratory they’ve built for us.

Have you tried cyanide… General? Perhaps it would be faster and less painful.

From Digital Pages to Paper Books / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Regina Coyula

Note from Translating Cuba: Regina Coyula turns to the crowdfunding site INDIEGOGO to bring books by Cuban writers from a warehouse in Spain to the Miami Book Fair. PLEASE HELP HER. No donation is too small! (And you get a book or books! Or artwork by Rebeca Monzo! Or a handmade case for your glasses!)

14ymedio, Havana, Reinaldo Escobar, 2 September 2014 — Regina Coyula combines her work on the blog La Mala Letra (Bad Handwriting) with collaboration on various digital media. She is not determined to bring a mountain of books by Cuban authors from a warehouse in Spain to the Book Fair in Miami. Among the maelstrom of tasks involved in coordinating such an initiative from Cuba, she found a few minutes to chat with the readers of 14ymedio.

Question: Your name is associated with blogs, daily vignettes, and social criticism. We’ve learned that you’re now involved in a publishing project. Do you find it a very different scenario from independent Cuban blogs?

Answer: I’ve found myself in this project, #Desevillamiami (From Seville to Miami). This is me, I like books and editorial work, especially after coming to know the Renacimiento publishing house. Most companies in the book business turn unsold books into pulp, but Abelardo Linares, who runs this publishing house, saves them and has two warehouses full of them. In some cases he has ten or a hundred copies left, but he doesn’t destroy them. And from there the idea of this project arose, basically to retrieve the books. continue reading

Q: To those who believe the virtual world is divorced from paper literature, how do you explain that you are using these digital tools to get physical books into the hands of readers?

A: I am a reader of digital books, but for me that way of reading doesn’t provide the pleasure of having a book in my hand, not even with a tablet. I think many readers feel the same, so I’m taking advantage of these digital tools to save physical books.

Q: And what books are these?

A: In particular, books by Cuban writers living wherever they live. There are 43 authors, some of them with several titles, but it’s fewer than 100 titles altogether. There are living writers, deceased, in exile, living on the island… there is everything.

Q: Why did you choose the crowdfunding option to raise the necessary funds? And why Indiegogo?

A: Doing this project from Cuba has been a challenge for me. Indiegogo is the first platform of this type that emerged on the web. It has the advantage of working in the United States, Europe and the rest of Latin America, and a lot of cultural and technology projects have been run through it and collected a lot of money. It was recommended to me not to use Kickstarter, despite it being the largest of them all, because having “Cuba” in the project name could affect it because of the restrictions imposed by the American embargo.

Q: What will be the journey of the books” At what stage is the process?

A: The books are packaged and awaiting a response from the shipper to determine if they’re sent to Valencia or Barcelona and from there they will leave on a ship for Miami, where there are already people waiting for them, for the Book Fair that is held in November every year in that city.

Q. Why not send them to Cuba?

A. Because it would be impractical, first because of the restrictions imposed by the embargo and also because of the new Cuban customs measures which would classify them as commercial shipments, which are not allowed in our country from independent shippers.

Q: There is little time left to collect the money necessary to pay for the freight and other project needs. Do you think you will succeed?

A: I am short on time to raise the $7,000 I aspire to. I’ve only managed to raise $500 so far, but I requested an “open fund” and this means that I will get whatever is collected. In any event, we have the site. I have faith that there are people who will be sympathetic to this project. I don’t doubt I will find them among the readers of 14ymedio.

August 1994: Safeguarding the Physical Well-Being of the ”Leaders of the Revolution” / Juan Juan Almeida

1994 began with uncertainty and ended in despair. A number of astrologers were in agreement: there was reason to believe something unusual would happen later that year. This was partly due, they said, to increased solar activity. In early August large solar flares occurred.

Aside from the considered opinion of those who can see everything in the stars, it was the year in which Cuba reached the low-point in the economic decline that had begun with the fall of the Soviet bloc in 1989. The crisis was exacerbated by several factors including a sugar harvest that barely amounted to four million tons and an unfortunate but predictable outbreak of polyneuritis, which forced authorities to make vast financial expenditures.

The underground economy saw record numbers of transactions, comparable to state retail sales but with prices that were twenty times lower. As a result of financial imbalance, budget deficits and excessive monetary liquidity in the hands of consumers, life in Cuba became a continuing drama, making novel attempts to flee the island illegally — the “13 de Marzo” tugboat incident and the launches from Regla and Casablanca being two examples — quite common. continue reading

The government realized this was a time bomb on the verge of detonating, leading either to a new stampede from the island or a widespread revolt. Therefore, to increase morale within the military, a series of promotions was announced on June 6 of that year.

But by August Havana had become a sweltering city, with the sea breeze serving as the poor man’s fan. On August 5 around twenty young men were sitting on the sea wall along the Malecon at Puerto Avenue near Cuba and Chacon streets. Perhaps because they were poor or perhaps because some of them were black, the men aroused suspicion.

Trucks carrying members of the special brigade appeared and began harassing the youths. Exhaustion, hardship, rage and even longstanding grievances led to an explosion of civil disobedience. The men gathered there responded by marching down the street en masse and shouting, “We’ve had enough” and “Down with Fidel.”

Others joined them, and then many more joined those. It was not an anti-social riot carried out by criminals; it was a spontaneous popular reaction to circumstances, which was repressed with perverse excess. The reaction by the Cuban government was brutal. It counter-attacked from all sides.

Using force, trickery and bloodshed, it confronted groups of Cubans, quashed the protest and infiltrated the demonstrators’ ranks, casting a chill over libertarian bravado.

The police made a public show of force. Helmeted riot squads with shields and combat vehicles patrolled the streets of Havana, especially those in the Old Havana, Guanabacoa and Tenth of October neighborhoods. The assassins of law used the technology of enforcement to threaten everyone, leaving the city’s population with a somber, frightening and discouraging vision.

In the national media everyone was forced to publicly repudiate what was being called “the events of August 5.” They had to cheer even when there was no reason to do so. But what few of them realized was that a plan had been put in place to “safeguard the physical well-being of the leaders of the revolution.”

Yes, those khaki-clad men who grew old repeating the spurious slogan “To defend the revolution to our last drop of blood” had an evacuation plan for such contingencies. It involved gathering their families together and heading not for the frontline but for the front of the plane where, instead of trenches, there were comfortable seats and flight attendants serving champagne.

I know this because on August 5, 1994 — even before the sun had fully risen in the sky — I received a short phone call from a security officer asking me not to leave the house. Five minutes later my father’s chief bodyguard, Raul Romero Torreblanca, showed up and told me gather essential items because they would be coming by to pick me up. There was no explanation.

Doing otherwise was not an option. For many years Cuban officials (the most high-ranking) were asked to identity key family members and, even though I was no longer to the liking of the top leadership, my name still appeared on the list my father had drawn up.

Torreblanca left. Three hours later the phone rang again. “All clear,” I heard someone say. “Situation under control.”

Asking around, I discovered that not all the leaders or their family members had gotten the same call, or comparable instructions. As my grandmother used to say, “Those who steal always lie.”

11 August 2014

What Purpose Did the Dual Currency System Serve? / 14ymedio, Miriam Celaya

"This commercial site accepts payment in national currency" — “This commercial site accepts payment in national currency”

14ymedio, Havana, Miriam Celaya, 27 August 2014–The information that the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC) published on August 19th in the paper edition of the newspaper Granma about “the next issuance of high denomination bank notes (100, 50 and 20 pesos, CUP) with new security measures” brings back to the forefront the issue of the dual currency and its unification, as announced by the same official press, a change which will take place in the near future.

Security measures that will begin to appear in the above currency issues starting in 2014 consist of the placement of a watermark with each patriot’s image corresponding to each denomination placed in the upper left corner of the front face of such bills. In addition, another watermark will repeat the bill’s denomination on the upper left portion of said image. Meanwhile, lesser denomination bills will continue to carry the watermark with the image of Celia Sánchez, to the right of which will be added the corresponding denomination of the bill.

Some believe that such measures respond primarily to the large amount of counterfeit currency that, according to some, is currently circulating, which should gradually start to disappear as the new notes start to replace the existing ones in circulation. However, most of the random 50 people surveyed in Havana felt that this is a preliminary step to the announced monetary unification, which may be imminent.

This second view seems to be reinforced by the fact that just two weeks before the information of the BCC, Granma had published an article that addressed the issue of the dual currency and the need to eliminate the “distortion of the economy”, especially in the government sector. continue reading

The media’s insistence on the issue of the monetary system in such a short period of time must not be by chance, and it’s in line with the “baseball-informative” style to hit the ball before it’s pitched. This allows for people to assimilate more resignedly (more like passively) the effects that such a step might have on the common pocket. In that experiment is included the recent permission for payment in national currency at the stores that up until recently only accepted CUC (Cuban convertible pesos). So far, no information has leaked as to exactly when the unification process will begin which has already been announced; it will begin at the government level and will gradually extend to all sectors.

Solving a problem and creating another

Dual currency was created only in the interest of the government to collect all circulating currency in the country following the decriminalization of the American dollar.

Economist Joaquín Infante, of the Union of Economists of Cuba, said in a statement to Agence France Presse that eliminating the dual currency “is one of the most important steps” of economic reforms being implemented by President Raul Castro. He also felt that “monetary and exchange rate unification is an urgent, strategic decision” that “should have been made long ago.”

It probably would have been a tall order for him to express a more obvious truth: The dual currency was only created in the interest of the Government to collect all the circulating currency in the country after the decriminalization of the dollar, announced by Fidel Castro in his speech of July 26 1993, and then approved in the Official Gazette of August 13th of that year, dates that show that the then Cuban President took the “enemy” currency issue very personally.

So, the convertible peso (CUC) began circulating in 1994. Comparable to the US dollar, CUCs and dollars began to circulate simultaneously until 2004, when the dollar was finally withdrawn from circulation, though the penalty for its possession was not reinstated. Thus, for at least for 10 years there were not only two, but three currencies in circulation: The two Cuban currencies: the CUC, nicknamed “chavito” or “carnavalito” (little carnival because of its coloring); the CUP or non-convertible peso; and the US dollar. This had not happened since the national currency was created in 1914 during the presidency of Mario Garcia Menocal, when the Cuban peso made its debut as a legitimate currency in the country, with legal value and as the unlimited legal tender for payment of any obligation within Cuba.

More questions than answers

Cuban-style government, and, as a consequence, its monopoly on information too, are based on an unrestrictive conspiring principle: everything is a secret, supposedly “for security reasons, because we are besieged by a powerful enemy”, but on the issue of the much heralded and long-delayed monetary unification, reality points toward more plausible causes, such as a lack of liquidity and the economic and financial crisis that the system–and with it, the country–is going through where monetary duality creates a distortion that hinders the government’s interests in attracting foreign investors.

On the issue of the much heralded and long-delayed monetary unification, reality points to causes such as lack of liquidity and the economic and financial crisis of the system

Indeed, dual currency is not a “Fidel creation”. In China there was also a dual foreign exchange where one of the currencies was hard currency; the other one was not “convertible so it had a much lesser value. However, the reforms that allowed a rising of the economy in that country allowed the unification into one strong currency with internationally recognized value. It’s not the case of Cuba, where after a process of “updating the model” and countless incomplete reforms, the economy shows no signs of recovery and the currency lacks absolutely any value in the international market.

On the other hand, the loss of wages in Cuba by the huge difference in value of two circulating currencies has created uncertainty about the ability for public consumption once unification occurs. The increasing trend of commodity prices in the domestic market, coupled with the many restrictions that hinder the economic empowerment of citizens and the unfair wage regulations that will be applied to workers in foreign companies –onerously taxing hard currency in the change- is not conducive to optimism.

At any rate, the BCC has not yet informed the public about a timetable for unification, much less, the exchange value of the final currency… the humble CUP.

As my colleague Reinaldo Escobar said a while back in an article posted on his blog under the title of ¿Cambio Numismatico? (Currency Change?), “The question we ask ourselves is whether there will be a change in the value of our salaries. How many hours will we have to work–once the currency is unified–to buy 500 grams of spaghetti, a litter of oil or a beer?”

The good news is that from the currency unification on, Cuban workers will have a more clear awareness of what “real salary” is. Perhaps by then the official media will stop informing us about the statistics about poverty levels in other countries, including those “poorer than ours”.

And, at the end of the day, can someone explain what the purpose of the dual currency was for us?

Translated by Norma Whiting

Summer Vacations in Cuba / Ivan Garcia

Raudel and his family have already packed their bags for a six-night stay at a campsite in Mayabeque province near Havana.

They saved some of the money their relatives in Miami send them every month and rented an air-conditioned cabin in Los Cocos along the north shore of Havana.

“It costs us 106 CUC with breakfast. We bring our own food to save money. It’s the best option we could find given our budget,” says Raudel.

Depending on the currency and how much of it you have, there are a variety of vacation options available in Cuba this summer. Having convertible pesos (CUC) — popularly known as chavitos and used by the state to pay monthly bonuses of 10 to 35 CUC to employees in key economic sectors such as tourism, telecommunications and civil aviation — certainly makes a difference.

Others ways of obtaining chavitos include operating a small private business or receiving dollars, euros or other forms of hard currency from relatives overseas.

continue reading

There is also a faction of corrupt bureaucrats and white-collar swindlers on the island who are experts at looting the public coffers. They carry red Communist Party membership cards in their wallets and parrot the harangues of the regime but use financial strategies to embezzle money, food and commodities.

Hugo (a pseudonym) is one of them. He works in a state grocery store and over the course of eighteen years has been careful to cover his tracks. He does not blow thousands of dollars on a quinceniera party or dine at fancy restaurants.

“I fly under the radar,” says Hugo. “There are three types of criminals in Cuba: the thieves who steal from people, the administrators who steal from the state and the consumer, and the high-level officials who through business dealings and illegal activity get hold of anywhere from hundreds of thousands of dollars to a couple of million. The closer they are to the seat of power, the faster the banknotes and the perks pile up. A government minister might spend two weeks at a Varadero resort without paying one cent. His position gives him access to food baskets, a cell phone and a free internet account. These people are the upper class. We — the directors, administrators and business managers — are the middle class,” he says with a straight face.

If you establish good relationships with people in power and are adept at not getting caught, it’s smooth sailing.

“It never pays to show off. But if you know how to walk a tightrope, you can buy a car, a house or a holiday in Cayo Coco or Varadero,” says Hugo.

This summer the wily storekeeper booked a week in a five star hotel. But in Cuba the heads of the “mafia cartels” which control the restaurant industry, foreign trade and tourism are the exceptions.

Much more common are families like Ruben’s, who works eight hours in an office and whose vacations are always more of the same. “A lot of television, a little beach time, dominoes and cheap rum with neighborhood friends,” he says as he cools off in front of a Chinese electric fan.

The military is probably the most privileged caste in Cuba. Joel (a pseudonym) is an official at the Ministry of the Interior. Every year he rents a cabin at a military villa. “I never spend more than a thousand pesos (40 dollars).”

In addition to having their Suzuki motorcycles and mobile phones provided by the state, the security agents who harass dissidents are able to buy clothes and food at modest prices and summer in military-owned villas scattered throughout the island.

While officials like Joel enjoy nice vacations, primary school teacher Elisa looks forward to payday so she can afford the 60 pesos it costs for two seats on the bus to take her eight-year-old daughter to the beach east of the capital.

“Every year a guy who works at a state-owned enterprise gets a bus so those of us from the neighborhood can go to the beach or the aquarium. It costs 30 pesos a person,” notes Elisa. “Teachers are essential to any society but in Cuba educators earn poverty-level wages and we cannot afford to rent a house on the beach or stay in a hotel.”

The problem with summer vacations in Cuba is not a lack of options. It is an issue of hierarchy, influence and hard currency.

Ivan Garcia

16 August 2014

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