Cuban State Security Agents Arrest Berta Soler at the Airport / Ladies in White

31-300x163This afternoon, on her return from the Netherlands, Lady in White Berta Soler was arrested in Terminal 3 of José Martí International Airport in Havana.

Her husband, Ángel Moya, a former prisoner from the Group of 75 from the 2003 Black Spring, was waiting for her at the airport along with other family members and Ladies in White, who were not able to see her, because Berta was taken out through a back door and put in a State Security car, where they kept her for close to half an hour, and then later took her to her house where she arrived around 6:00 in the evening.

Cubanet spoke with Soler via telephone, and she related the incident which started when State Security agents, dressed as Customs Agents, started to provoke her. Berta responded to the provocations with shouts of “Down with Fidel, Down with Raul,” in the presence of foreign tourists. The agents then violently dragged her from the area.

Berta told Cubanet that she wasn’t afraid to say the same things in Cuba that she says in Holland or any other place in the world.

Cubanet, 7 December 2013

Closed Doors / Fernando Damaso

Photo: Rebeca

In Havana in the 1950s stores, cinemas, theaters, clinics and hospitals had great open doors. (With the advent of air conditioning they were alternately opened and closed to maintain the pleasant indoor temperature.) This allowed citizens to easily come and go without unnecessary crowding and inconvenience. Back then, which according to the current official propaganda were “the bad old days,” doormen (who were to be found only in places like hotels, cinemas, theaters and the like) were there to welcome you and invite you to come it, or to take your ticket if it was a cinema or theater. You could go in with wallets and handbags and you did not have to check them or suffer the humiliation of having to hand them over to someone else as though you were a criminal.

Over time things changed. The grand doors were closed, leaving only small openings through which to enter and exit, which is now done under the watchful eye of a doorman, whose job it was to keep you from entering with wallets or handbags, and to check your purchases to make sure they matched your sales receipt. The smile has disappeared, replaced with a disinterested “Come back soon,” said perhaps in hope of a tip that never comes. Now that everything is so great — again, according to official propaganda — everything is behind metal bars. Even glass doors have matching metal ones, the kind that sometimes extend across the display windows, unless they have been replaced with concrete block walls or metal pull-down shutters that seal them off entirely.

This is an example of the secrecy syndrome applied to businesses and other public spaces, one in which the first concern is to hide and then later complicate access. An innovation of tropical socialism! Let us hope that new private businesses will do away with this ridiculous custom so that once again these great doorways — open to all or repeatedly opening and closing to retain all the air-conditioning — might once again return to the city.

7 December 2013

A Tour through My Neighborhood / Rebeca Monzo





My neighborhood, Nuevo Vedado, was one of the last to be developed in the 1950s. It promised to be among the most modern and beautiful, with well-designed two and three-story single-family homes and large rental properties. Along with these beautiful residences were some more modest ones as well as others which displayed an outpouring of good taste and architectural distinction, designed by architects such as Porro, Cristófol, Miguel Gutierrez and Frank Martínez to name but a few. It also boasted the magnificent Acapulco park as well as wide sidewalks, streets and avenues.

On 26th Avenue and Kohly Avenue there were some lovely planting areas filled with pink and white oleander. The beautiful Acapulco cinema, one of the most comfortable in the city, screened the latest foreign films every week.

Today, during a brief tour from the 26th and 41st to 26th and 17th in search of hair dye, which unfortunately I did not find in any of the area’s understocked stores, the images I observed left me only with worry and sadness.

6 December 2013

Comrades and Factors / Regina Coyula

I was convinced that my former G2 comrades wouldn’t trouble themselves with me. A little poking around in this blog is enough to convince them that I’m a hopeless case. But it wasn’t the blog that made the comrades who “serve me,” pay me a “prophylactic visit” yesterday morning. It was to advise and warn m  not to participate in the Estado de SATS program on December 10 and 11.

They were emphatic: they would not allow us to hold the event. Arguments that banning it would just give it more visibility were useless, with the consequences that would result from bringing the power of State Security down on a group of people who are holding meeting and who are not going to overthrow the government.

I reminded them of the truth expressed by Esteban Morales when he said that the cancer that would defeat the government would be corruption and not the dissidence. It was a civilized conversation because I believe in dialog and not confrontation; indeed, I made clear my interest as a citizen and activist in the ratification of the United Nations Covenants.

I don’t know if they believed me when I assured them I do it for free. On their part there was respect, but also a very clear message: If you go, we will arrest you.

That was interesting. What happened in the afternoon I don’t know how to describe. In the midst of a late lunch, five neighbors showed up at my house, four of them from right by my house and the fifth a stranger. The stranger spoke on behalf of the group which she presented as “the factors of the community.”

I was surprised. The visit of the factors seemed to me to be a neural short-circuit after the morning’s visit. For my neighbors I’ve been either with “the Human Rights People” or a Lady in White, but on this opportunity I had been promoted to a counterrevolutionary leader organizing an activity.

When the others spoke they talked about martyrs, about the revolution and the imperialist threat, and topped it all off with they couldn’t allow me to carry out this activity. They felt a little disconcerted when I told them they’d been lied to, that I wasn’t a member of any organization nor did I organize anything, but I was in favor of democracy, free expression, freedom of association and information, and that’s why I strongly believe in the need to ratify the UN Covenants.

I had the very strong impression that my neighbors didn’t know what I was talking about. They retired in silence, only the unknown neighbor repeated, “Know that we won’t allow it.”

I have lived in this neighborhood all my life, if one day we they organized a repudiation rally against us they would have to import the repudiators. Except for the unknown neighbor who lives in the next block and received the “orientation” to call together “the factors,” the rest were uncomfortable, and I even reassured one who apologized later for the position she had taken as a Party member.

To my visitors of the morning and the afternoon: we are on opposite sides, but let everyone think and act according to their conscience, I don’t engage in the fame of hatred and revenge that I detest from both sides. As said Nicolás Guillén said: the master should be ashamed.

6 December 2013

First International Meeting on Human Rights and UN Covenants / Estado de Sats, For Another Cuba

w1iwThe independent Estado de SATS project in collaboration with New Country Forum and the Cuban Human Rights Observatory (OCDH), invites invites artists, intellectuals, activists and defenders of human rights to participate in the First International Meeting on Human Rights and the UN Covenants as a part of the Campaign for Another Cuba and the 65th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Our projects have worked in recent years on the creation and growth of public spaces where different perspectives on the reality and future of our nation can be discussed.

Since August 2012, along with diverse groups and activists committed to the social situation of our nation, we began the Campaign for Another Cuba. This initiative has involved an ever growing number of Cubans within and outside the island in a civic demand that the Cuban government ratify and implement the United Nations Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

At a time when Cuban civil society is growing, it is essential that there be direct exchanges among different actors within and outside the island. Holding this meeting will allow an approach through art and thought to the vital subject of human rights. Activists, artists, intellectuals and professionals — Cubans and the international community — will spend two days sharing views and experiences, in a country where such guarantees and rights are not a part of everyday reality.

The meeting will begin on 10 December 2013. The event will include subject panels, audiovisual displays, an exhibition with the theme Art and Human Rights (painting, graphics, photography, installations), performances, and a closing concert.

All are invited!

Live hashtags:
#DDHHCuba2013
#UN65
#RatificaPactos
#AbreCuba
#PorOtraCuba
You can write to info@porotracuba.org

Thematic Panels
Audiovisual Exhibition; Art and Human Rights (photography, painting, graphics, installations)
Experimental Theater and Concert Playback
Dates: December 10-11, 2013
Location : Calle 1ra 4606 between 46 and 60, Miramar, Playa .

Admission is free and open to the public.

CUBA IN FOCUS – New Book in English from “Our” Bloggers and Independent Journalists

CUBA IN FOCUS – New book edited by Ted A. Henken, Miriam Celaya, and Dimas Castellanos

Article by Ted Henken, from his blog, El Yuma

Those of you who follow me on Twitter @ElYuma will already know that just over a month ago ABC-CLIO published a new book about Cuba, called Cuba in Focus, that I am proud to have co-edited with Miriam Celaya and Dimas Castellanos. In 2008, I wrote a book entitled Cuba: A Global Studies Handbook, also published by ABC-CLIO.  However, when they approached me three years ago wanting to do a new edition, I responded that I had already said my piece on Cuba but that I would be interested in recruiting and collaborating with a group of Cubans from the island to do a new volume that would give voice to their own analysis of the Cuban Revolution and the heady changes (from above as well as from below) that have taken place there in the last five years.

This volume is the result!

Starting young with Uncle Ted!

We benefitted from the collaboration of a host of perceptive and pioneering authors and activists, most of whom actually live on the island today.  A full list is below in the table of contents, but some of the more notable writers included in the volume are the late Óscar Espinosa Chepe, his wife Miriam Leiva, Yoani Sánchez, her husband Reinaldo Escobar, Armando Chaguaceda, Regina Coyula, Henry Constantín, Marlene Azor Hernández, Rogelio Fabio Hurtado, Miguel Iturria Savón, and Wilfredo Vallín.

Of course, Dimas and Miriam did their share of stellar writing as well.

Each of the book’s seven chapters is made much more vivid and memorable by the breathtaking photojournalism of Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, supplemented by photos by Tracey Eaton, Luzbely Escobar, and Uva de Aragón (all provided complementary).

Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

You can learn more about the book and purchase your very own copy here and here.

What follows are the book’s PREFACE, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, and TABLE OF CONTENTS.

***

Writing and coediting a comprehensive reference book on a country with such an intricate history and rich culture as Cuba has been both a challenge and a pleasure. Cuba is literally bursting with a diversity of voices and competing perspectives. However, the internal media monopoly and rigid ideological parameters regulating the island’s writers, artists, intellectuals, and scholars often make it difficult for outsiders to hear or make sense of these many voices. Moreover, outside coverage of Cuba often deals in shallow stereotypes and wishful thinking, uninformed by serious, sustained examination of how life is actually lived on the island itself.

Fortunately, this study has been prepared as the island undergoes an unprecedented period of change—coming both from above and below—challenging traditional limits on critical expression and creating more space for independent analysis. In an effort to seize this special moment, the editors of this book (two of whom, Miriam Celaya and Dimas Castellanos, currently live in Cuba) recruited more than a dozen others to give their independent, internal voice to the many topics examined here.

Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

Apart from the three co-editors, the authors include the historian and political scientist Armando Chaguaceda, the late independent economist Óscar Espinosa Chepe, the independent blogger and photographer Henry Constantín, blogger Regina Coyula, Fernando Dámaso, the independent journalist Reinaldo Escobar, Dayrom Gil, the sociologist Marlene Azor Hernández, the historian Maritza de los Ángeles Hidalgo-Gato Lima, the poet Rogelio Fabio Hurtado, the artist César Leal Jiménez, the activist and independent journalist Miriam Leiva, the photographer Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, the blogger and independent journalist Yoani Sánchez, the historian Miguel Iturria Savón, and the lawyer Wilfredo Vallín.

All of these authors are Cuban and nearly all continue to live and work on the island today. Most are also both experts and hands-on practitioners in the fields about which they write, including history, anthropology, law, politics, economics, migration, religion, racial and ethnic relations, class structure, literature, dance and music, theater, film, civil society, human rights, the media, and the Internet.

The editors would like to recognize these authors who—each from his or her particular point of view—took the risk of making their knowledge and analyses public. Given that their analyses are often at odds with both the “official story” promoted by the Cuban government and the often ill-informed one coming from abroad, their effort to show this other, often hidden face of Cuba while continuing to reside there is particularly valuable and commendable.

Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

Writing a balanced, accurate, and original overview of this unique and fascinating island-nation has been a daunting task. How does one describe the innumerable ways in which Cubans have embraced and, indeed, internalized much of U.S. culture during the island’s century of independent existence, while at the same time recognizing the fact that the United States has often wielded its power and influence in a manner ultimately harmful to Cuban sovereignty?

Likewise, how does one do justice to the enormous initial popularity and impressive social achievements of the Cuban revolution, without ignoring the suffering endured by the Cuban people both on the island and in exile as a result of the Cuban government’s internal rigidity, intolerance, and paternalism?

As Cubans like to say, No es fácil (It ain’t easy)!

Luzbely Escobar

Although writing and teaching about Cuba can be a political minefi eld of sorts, even for the most enterprising and sensitive of scholars, the country of Cuba, with its unique culture, and the people of Cuba, with their contagious charisma, passionate convictions, and gracious generosity of spirit, make the never-ending task of understanding the country and its people inestimably rewarding and enriching.

Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

This book is the fruit of more than five years of collaboration among its three coeditors and many authors, often thanks to our strategic use of the Internet and social media to share, edit, and translate the book’s various chapters. Thanks are due to the Swedish, Dutch, and Swiss Embassies in Cuba for opening their doors to the Cuban coeditors, enabling the free flow of uncensored information back and forth between Havana and New York necessary to make this book a reality. We even managed to convince a few brave (and happily anonymous) souls to help us by spiriting author contracts and payments back and forth between Cuban and the United States. We thank them here as well.

Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

The volume provides an up-to-date overview of historical, political, economic, and sociocultural development of Cuba from the pre-Columbian period to the present, with an emphasis on the Cuban revolution, U.S.-Cuban relations, Cuba’s impressive cultural achievements, and the country’s current socioeconomic reality. The book contains seven narrative chapters, on (1) geography, (2) history, (3) politics and government, (4) economy, (5) society, (6) culture, and (7) contemporary issues.

Augmented by a total of 76 brief vignettes on various historical, political, cultural, or biographical topics of special interest or importance such as the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, the Platt Amendment, the U.S. Embargo, the writer Reinaldo Arenas, the film director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, the artist Wifredo Lam, or the human rights activists The Ladies in White. While the history chapter focuses almost exclusively on prerevolutionary Cuba, the bulk of the other chapters are dedicated to chronicling the economic, political, social, and cultural changes that have taken place in Cuban society since 1959 under the revolution.

Tracey Eaton

The editors would like to give special thanks to our two intrepid student translators, Michael Prada Krakow and Natalia Pardo Becerra—both natives of Colombia. With key financial support from Baruch College’s Weissman School of Arts and Sciences, Mike and Natalia worked together with the book’s lead editor and translator—Ted A. Henken—for over a year rendering the various authors’ original Spanish-language chapters into an English that would preserve the content of their ideas and the beauty of their language. We also thank Regina Anavy for stepping in at a key moment with her own expert, emergency, volunteer translation of a few sections of this book. Its readers will judge how well we succeeded.

The editors would also like to thank Archibald Ritter, Yoani Sánchez, and Reinaldo Escobar who first introduced us to one another physically. We also acknowledge M. J. Porter, Karen Chun, and Aurora Morera, whose intrepid, behind-the-scenes work setting up portals to host their blogs allowed us to more easily collaborate virtually. Baruch College professor and top-flight literary translator Esther Allen also deserves nuestros más sinceros agradecimientos (our most sincere thanks) as she was a key link in the translation chain at an early stage of this project.

El Yuma with El Chagua & OLPL.

The writer, blogger, and photographer Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo also deserves our gratitude for graciously allowing us to raid his stunning trove of digital images of today’s Cuba, 15 of which illustrate the book’s pages. Queens-based graphic designer Rolando Pulido assisted with getting these photos camera-ready. Also, journalist Tracey Eaton, poet Uva de Aragón, and Cuban photographer Luzbely Escobar each generously contributed a wonderful photo of their own to the book.

Kaitlin Ciarmiello, ABC-CLIO’s acquisitions editor for the Geography and World Cultures series was especially instrumental in shepherding what unexpectedly became an unwieldy coedited, dual-language, and multi-author project through various stages of completion. Likewise, both James Dare, the book’s illustrations editor, and Valavil Lydia Shinoj, the book’s project manager were exemplars of resourcefulness and professionalism.

Finally, we would like to acknowledge the assistance of Cuban scholars Samuel Farber, Domingo Amuchástegui, and Eusebio Mujal-León, each of whom provided extensive comments on Chapter 3 “Politics and Government.” Likewise, Dafnis Prieto, the virtuoso Cuban percussionist and MacArthur “Genius” grantee, performed a similar service by thoroughly reviewing the section on Cuban music. Arch Ritter kindly did the same for Chapter 4 “Economy.”

We hope the published book reflects some of their extensive knowledge and editorial care. Of course, all errors, omissions, and oversights are our own.

Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 GEOGRAPHY, Ted A. Henken and Miriam Celaya

2 HISTORY, Dimas Castellanos, Ted A. Henken, and Miriam Celaya

3 POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT, Wilfredo Vallín and Ted A. Henken

4 ECONOMY, Óscar Espinosa Chepe and Ted A. Henken

5 SOCIETY
Religion and Thought, by Rogelio Fabio Hurtado and Ted A. Henken
Ethnicity and Race, Class Structure, and Inequality, by Dimas Castellanos and Ted A. Henken
Family, Gender, and Sexuality, by Miriam Celaya and Ted A. Henken
Education, by Miriam Celaya
Migration and Diaspora, by Dimas Castellanos and Ted A. Henken
The Media, by Reinaldo Escobar
Internet, Social Media, and the Cuban Blogosphere, by Yoani Sánchez

6 CULTURE
Language and Literature, by Miguel Iturria Savón and Ted A. Henken
Dance, Music, and Theater, by Regina Coyula and Ted A. Henken
Cinema and Photography, by Henry Constantín and Miriam Celaya
Cuisine, by Maritza de los Ángeles Hidalgo-Gato Lima and Ted A. Henken
Art and Architecture , by César Leal Jiménez
Popular Recreation and Sports, by Rogelio Fabio Hurtado
Popular Culture, Customs, and Traditions, by Regina Coyula and Fernando Dámaso

7 CONTEMPORARY ISSUES
Raúl Castro’s Reforms: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back, by Dimas Castellanos
Agricultural Reforms, by Dimas Castellanos
Political Reforms and Rising Corruption, by Marlene Azor Hernández
Recent Cuban Elections , by Armando Chaguaceda and Dayrom Gil
Cuba’s Demographic Crisis, by Dimas Castellanos
Recent Migration Reforms, by Ted A. Henken
Cuba’s International Relations, by Miriam Leiva
The Catholic Church, Dissidence, Civil Society, and Human Rights, by Dimas Castellanos and Miriam Celaya

Glossary
Facts and Figures
Major Cuban Holidays and Festivals
Country-Related Organizations
Annotated Bibliography
Thematic Index
Index
About the Authors and Contributors

 

Mandela: Learning to Forgive / Yoani Sanchez

ss-120601-mandela-tease.photoblog600Of all the things that have been said and will be said about Nelson Mandela, it is his small stories that move me most. His long days in the prison on Robben Island, where resentment gave way to clarity. A fence running around it, a tiny window letting in a sliver of daylight, a bird singing outside. In that place, Madiba overcame his own demons and managed to renounce the violence he had been a part of. He traveled the long road between developing the armed wing of the African National Congress, “Umkhonto we Sizwe” — Spear of the Nation — to transforming himself into a paradigm of peaceful struggle. This conversion was neither from convenience nor political opportunism, but authentic and from every cell of his being, as his later political actions would demonstrate.

Born in 1918, Mandela lived in a tumultuous century of cold war and leaders seeking prominence, even at the expense of their own people. He touched an era of big names and small citizens, where at times the “who” was more important than the “what.” He was defined as a “terrorist” not only by the racist South African regime of his time, but also by the United Nations itself. Once in prison, inmate number 466 dedicated his time to meditating about what he had done and what would be the best path for his country to emerge from exclusion and hatred. His personal transformation was a dominant influence in how he managed to dismantle Apartheid.

Amid so many statesmen who clung to power for several terms or several decades, Mandela was president of South Africa for only five years. The man from the village of Mvezo also had the wisdom to realize that negotiation and dialog were key for such a damaged nation. So, among all the snapshots of his life, all the smiles and all the shared hugs, I prefer the image of a prisoner who, among the bars, found himself. The Nobel Peace Prize being placed in his hands is not as striking to me as to imagine him starving, sore, cornered, and yet, thinking of forgiveness, peace and reconciliation.

To your memory, Madiba!

Cuba: Drawing Room Dissidents / Ivan Garcia

ucraniaNever before have Cuban dissidents had it so easy. Fifteen or twenty years ago publishing a political document was a sure path to jail.

If you were an intellectual — I can recall professor Ricardo Boffill, the writer and poet Raul Rivero and the poet María Elena Cruz Valera — it was not enough for them just to disparage you with an editorial in the newspaper Granma.

You would lose your job. Your friends would not even say hello to you. You would begin to live clandestinely. Harassment by cowboys from State Security would make you paranoid. It was unbearable. They would disturb you at all hours, you would receive nasty calls in the middle of the night and, since they had absolute power, they could detain you as often as they saw fit.

Certainly, we still live under the Republic’s absurd “Gag Law,” a legal tool that allows the government to sentence you to twenty or more years in prison just for writing a newspaper article without state approval. However, from 2010 until now, 95% of arrests have been of short duration, lasting hours or days.

Of course, dissidents are still subject to karate kicks from plainclothes policemen dressed as peasants, beatings and verbal assaults in front of their homes.

Being a dissident in an autocracy while supporting democracy and political freedom carries a cost. Being subject to insults and death threats is never pleasant, but Cuban dissidents accept them.

But even if the repressors’ behavior seems savage and intimidating — which it is — fifty years ago you would have gotten the death penalty for the same things they are doing now. It isn’t much, but it’s something. The island’s dissident movement now enjoys recognition by democratic nations.

Outside the island they are more visible today. They communicate using blogs, websites, Twitter, Facebook and other digital tools. Some have received awards for their activism, and as of January 2013 they can travel and lobby American and international institutions. They chat with and take have their pictures taken with politicians.

They can also take classes that increase their knowledge. This is all positive but current circumstances in Cuban society require something more than speeches, periodic reports on human rights violations and drawing room meetings among dissidents.

The local opposition should try to reach agreement among themselves and devise a coherent political program that is inclusive and modern. Disagreements, egos and posturing should be set aside.

All dissidents agree on one point: Cuba must change. We must then work towards a common goal. It seems to me that this is the moment to be of one mind and to focus our efforts within the country.

Eight out of ten people with whom I spoke disagree with the regime. Even in official blogs by such writers such as Alejo, Gay Paquito and Elaine Díaz the complaints against previously sacred institutions reveal unhappiness within the society.

The things on which the opposition and a wide segment of the population agree are significant. Dissidents, whether they be workers or professionals, all suffer from the same material shortages caused by poor management by the government.

In our neighborhoods plumbing lines are broken and streets are full of potholes. The buildings where we live are in need of repair, the hospitals were we are treated are decrepit and in our children’s schools the poor quality of education is palpable.

It is necessary, however, to prioritize work within communities and neighborhoods. Although a high percentage of the population is in agreement with the dissidents, the divide between the population and the opposition is clearly evident.

Because of negative government propaganda directed against dissidents, many ordinary Cubans do not trust opposition figures. They see them as opportunists and demagogues.

Political proselytizing by dissident activists must be directed to the Cuban on the street. There is no point in publishing an article in a foreign newspaper, making statements on Radio Martí or giving a seminar at an American university when the audience we must convince is at our doorstep or on the sidewalk in front.

Another issue on which the dissident movement must focus is the subject of money and aid provided by foreign institutions. Transparency is paramount. It would be beneficial if they were to account for every centavo spent or resource received.

On official US government websites you can find out about contributions made by American agencies to the Cuban opposition. I am in support of this aid but not of the silence from dissidents who accept it without providing information on how it is being used.

The Cuban dissident movement should also try to find its own means of financial support. For example, it might start small, legally approved businesses that could subsidize its efforts as well as help others by providing employment.

Sometimes dependence on foreign institutions leads to undesirable compromises. A drawing room dissident movement is necessary but, I believe, now is the time to go out and look for followers in the streets.

Iván García

Photo: Unlike Cubans, Ukrainians took to the streets of Kiev to protest a political decision by their government. A majority of Ukrainians want to join the European Union rather than be affiliated with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. From La Jornada de México.

4 December 2013

Dreaming of Steak in Cuba / Tania Diaz Castro

Pedro-Yanez-Foto-de-Tania-Diaz-Castro-300x224HAVANA, Cuba , December, www.cubanet.org – Pedro Yánez, an honest and decent man, led a quiet life with his wife and two small sons in a humble house built almost completely by him, on 19th Street in Santa Fe. Like almost all the residents of this seaside neighborhood to the west of Havana, he raised pigs to sell to the neighbors. He had a she-goat that gave milk and poultry for birthdays.

But one day his life changed. He began to dream of eating a steak with french fries, with their spectacular taste and smell. The dream seemed so real that one night he shot out of bed and raced the kitchen, followed by his wife, puzzled by the behavior of her husband.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Pedro answered, “I just dreamt that I ate a steak.”

“C’mon, don’t dream the impossible.” She went back to bed, trying to calm him down.

But the story does not end there. The next night, Pedro had the same dream, a dream that began to repeat when he least expected it, until it became a nightmare.

When he confided his problem to a friend, the friend told him, “This is serious Pedrito. In this country you can’t eat beef, because there isn’t any, dreaming of a steak is almost a crime. Forget about it.  Imagine if you kill a cow… You’re going to rot in jail, bro. Look, better to kill the goat, or a chicken.”

“No, it’s not the same,” said the good man, “I can’t get the smell of beef steak out of my mind.”

So obsessed was he with the idea of eating a good steak with fries, that one night, back in the nineties, without giving it much thought, he went to the countryside and helped an old friend kill a cow that was wandering loose on the road.

The end of his story is the same as for thousands of Cubans who have been sentenced to prison for committing the crime of “Theft and Slaughter of Cattle,” punishable under Cuban law with eight years in prison, or more is the beef is stolen from a State corral.

Today, Pedro is a sad and bitter man. He laments having been from home for eight years, imprisoned like a criminal, and not being able to watch his sons, Yadiel and Anyi, grow up.

For two years Yadiel, his oldest son — a robust and happy boy — threw himself on rudimentary rafts to get to Florida, despite the shark-infested sea. On the seventh attempt he managed to get to the United States.

Today, Yadiel Yanez lives and works in Houston, Texas, as a home builder. Surely his friends there have heard him tell this story.

Tania Diaz Castro

Cubanet, 6 December 2013

Karina Aspires to be a Successful Prostitute / Orlando Freire Santana

jinetera-cara-borrosa-300x215HAVANA, Cuba , November www.cubanet.org – Karina laments having come rather late to Havana from her native Santiago de Cuba. According to her, if her arrival in the capital had happened five or six years ago, the job of becoming a successful prostitute would have been much less work.

Because the competition here is huge, and the clients increasingly prefer younger girls. However, at 25, Karina still has hopes of being able to find her way through the intricacies of this craft to reach her great objective: hooking up with a “yuma,” as foreigners are called here, and getting out of this hell.

Back in Santiago, Karina left her mother and a five-year-old daughter. As a mid-level food technician, she held a job as an assistant in a seedy State snack bar, with a salary that wasn’t enough to feed her daughter. So Karina, and two other single mothers like herself, decided one day to take a train to Havana, without even knowing anyone in this city that could pave the way for them.

jinetera-carroThe first few days in the capital were difficult for the three girls, sometimes eating only once a day, and sleeping on benches at the train station. They continued that way until they met a man who sheltered them in his house. And at the end of several weeks, after earning the first fruits of her trade, Karina managed independence. Now she lives along in a rented room in Old Havana that she pays 50 CUC (about 50 dollars) for, and has already been able to send some money to help her family.

And what is more important, Karina has come to understand that she has several steps to reaching her goal. These days, still devoid of the material attributes that make it easier to trap the big game, Karina roams the areas of Havana where the cheapest prostitution is practiced, such as the doorways of stores on Monte Street, or the area around Fraternity Park. In these places almost all the customers are Cuba, and they generally pay five CUC for half an hour of rented love. Still, sometimes she’s lucky, hooking up with guys who offer as much as 10 or 15 CUC. Of course in these cases she has to really put herself into providing the service.

But, clearly, Karina believes this “poverty” will be transitory. She gives up certain comforts in order to save money so she can purchase elegant clothes, nice shoes and expensive perfumes. Then she will be in shape to launch herself on the Paseo del Prado or Obispo Street, the busiest in Old Havana, where there are lots of foreign tourists.

jineteras-carte-renta-cuartosA good presence increases the probability that some yuma will focus on her — especially it he’s middle-aged, and already written off sexually in his own country — fall in love with her, marry her, and take her to live abroad. In addition, even if a marriage doesn’t materialize, every transaction that originates on Obispo or El Prado is very lucrative for a prostitute, because it’s customary in those places to charge no less than 30 CUC.

When Karina is asked why she moved to Havana instead of undertaking her work in Santiago, especially if we take into account the police repression against prostitutes here in the capital, she replied that she faces the risks for both practical and family reasons. Back in Santiago there’s less chance of meeting a yuma, perhaps only at Cespedes Park, across from the terrace of the Casa Granda Hotel.

Furthermore, she doesn’t want her mom and daughter to find out how she’s earning a living in Havana. She’s lied to them, saying she works as a cleaning lady in the residence of some foreigners. And this young woman who is a “fighter” concludes, “I’ll let them know the truth after I get out, and I can also sponsor them to get the out of this agony.” Karina didn’t want her portrait on Cubanet. And we understand.

Orlando Freire Santana

Cubanet, 5 December 2013

War-Time Opportunists / Pablo Pascual Mendez Pina

Raúl Castro.

In Cuba the practice of wasting time is a daily phenomenon. It evaporates in conversations on the street corner, in workplaces, while waiting for buses, resolving bureaucratic problems, reading the newspaper Granma, looking for bargains in the farmers’ markets and “building socialism,” which is like a long road from one form of capitalism to another.

Ninety percent of those questioned on this topic agree that the island’s biggest waste of time and resources has been preparing to confront “Yankee imperialism,” which has been threatening us with invasion for fifty-four years.

Because of this “imminent threat” the Ministry of Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR) and its General Staff maintains a headquarters with 500 offices housing more than 4,000 officials and civilian workers, an illusory comfort obtained through exorbitant expenditures of energy and fuel.

According to anonymous sources the Sierra Maestra Building, formerly the Havana City Hall or INRA Building, contains three dining halls as well as coffee shops, a gymnasium, stores, a logistical center, a medical clinic and a restaurant-bar reserved for high-ranking officials. At least 400 employees provide service and maintenance, among them an elite battalion in charge of security.

Inside one will find the Universal Hall of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) — a smaller scale replica of a similar room in the Kremlin’s Palace of Congresses —which is used for official celebrations. There are also vast areas set aside for parking lots, repair shops, corps of engineers, a firefighting brigade and a sizable fleet of cars and buses used to ferry officials from the General Staff offices to their housing compounds.

It is worth noting that all of the Castro brothers’ highest ranking officers live in mansions that once belonged to Cuba’s former upper-class, all of which are located in affluent residential districts: Nuevo Vedado, Kholy, Miramar and Biltmore. There is even a special brigade in charge of maintaining and remodeling them.

Throughout the length and breadth of the island, MINFAR maintains an endless number of underground military units, clubs, hospitals, weapon repair facilities, hangars, airfields, naval bases, ammunition supplies, spare parts stores, fuel, food and and underground command centers. A high percentage of these rely on obsolete WWII-era equipment, while the rest of the technology dates from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

Engineers have had to modify much of the military’s machinery because it is now difficult to get supplies of spare parts from Russia and Ukraine.

Military employees are the island’s least productive workers and paradoxically its best paid. Their pay scales are based on military rank, years of service, awards, security clearance, educational level, scientific knowledge and other factors.

They also also receive free clothing and uniforms, cigarettes, housing, and vacations at holiday resorts reserved exclusively for the FAR. They may also purchase home appliances and other consumer items sold at hard currency stores (known in Cuba by the English word “shoppings”), except that for MINFAR personel Cuba’s dual currency system does not exist. In the fiefdom of Raul Castro the CUC (convertible peso) and CUP (Cuban peso) have the same value.*

To finance the expenditures of this military behemoth, the general-president created the MINFAR Business Administration Group (Grupo Administrativo Empresarial or GAE), a conglomerate that absorbed the state phone monopoly ETECSA, the import-export company CIMEX, the retail chain TRD Caribe, the now-defunct CUBALSE, the hotel chains Gaviota and and Horizontes as well as other state-run corporations.

In his report to the First Communist Party Congress, Fidel Castro acknowledged, “As long as imperialism exists, the party, the state and the people will give the defense services its maximum attention. We will never neglect the revolutionary guard.”

General Raul Castro, however, justified MINFAR’s resistance to change and the economic burdens it imposes when he said at the conclusion of the Bastion-2013 military maneuvers on November 24, 2013, “To avoid rivers of blood, rivers of resources are needed.”

In contrast, 95% of those interviewed believed that, in spite of all the exhortations, political speeches, military exercises and multi-million dollar expenditures, Cuba’s defenses remain vulnerable to an American attack.

They’re coming or they’re not coming

Reinaldo Rodriguez, a 58-year-old electrician, alleges that, when Castro was building up his forces in the Sierra Maestra, he plotted a confrontation with an enemy giant like the United States to parody the legend of David and Goliath and to engineer worldwide anti-imperialist solidarity.

“Castro used us,” says Rodríguez. “I was taking classes at a technological institute in the 1970s and year after year we were required to train for forty-five days as anti-aircraft artillery gunners. The cold, the hunger and the rough times that they put us through in the trenches were pointless. And still our generation had to put up with the same harangues about an invasion that never came.”

Javier, a 40-year-old resident of Vedado and bread store employee said that in 2007 the Military Committee called him up for mobilizations on numerous occasions and even threatened him with arrest if he did not show up.

They were taken to a unit in the vicinity of Artemis, where they were given uniforms and boots. They were left there for fifteen day with nothing to do. He recalls that at the end they were given diplomas while a colonel — drunk as a skunk — gave a speech to conclude their training.

An engineering student at the José Antonio Echeverría Polytechnic Institute (ISPJAE) says, “According to military instructors at ISPJAE, in the event of a confrontation, Cuba would be invaded and occupied by the ’Yumas.’”

“Then the ’war of all the people’ would begin,” he says. “A model of terrorist resistance in which every Cuban would have access to an explosive or any weapon necessary to massacre a Yankee soldier. A quota drawn up by the top leadership of the Communist Party would require one invader a week to be killed in every town for a total of 168 murders a day.”

He and one of his classmates ask themselves, “If MINFAR is not capable of deterring an invasion and we are the ones who are supposed to kill the Yankees, then what devils are they painting?”

Paco Echemendía, a 52-year-old accountant, spent his military service in a mechanized troop unit and participated in several maneuvers at Jejenes in Pinar del Rio province. He noted that, in the years in which he participated, fuel costs were in multi-million dollar figures.

“How is it possible,” asks Paco, that they demand more and more sacrifice in public service ads only to spend all the savings on military exercises? Listen, those amphibious tanks drink gas like crazy.”

Chicho, a 72-year-old retiree from Cerro, says, “At this point and with all things the public needs, it is inconceivable that people are still acting stupid and running around with rifles made of straw… For 54 years MINFAR has been the presidential headquarters of both Fidel and Raul Castro and, as long as they are alive, those fat asses in the army will still be the biggest opportunists on the island.”

Pablo Pascual Méndez Piña

From Diario de Cuba, December 3, 2013

*Translator’s note: Cuba has two currencies: the convertible peso (CUC) and the Cuban peso (CUP). The CUC is pegged at roughly one-to-one to the US dollar. Most wages in Cuba, however, are paid in CUP, which amounts to an average monthly salary of US $20. By treating CUC prices as though they were CUP prices (in reality 1 CUC equals 26.5 CUP), hard currency stores offer military personnel a huge discount on consumer purchases.