MADRID, Spain November www.cubanet.org That the Cuban government was elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council has made headlines these days. However, it should not be news, because the first 47 members joined the organization established in March 2006 to supplant the Commission, whose ineffectiveness needed to be addressed. Cuba remained during the allowed two three-year terms, and waited for another opportunity to rejoin the eight representatives from Latin America and the Caribbean.
On this occasion, China and Russia also make up the 14 countries added, with the corresponding international criticism for their flagrant human rights violations. However, it is not strange event, considering member countries like Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Nigeria. Ghadafi’s Libya was part of it until 2011, and Chancellor Treki chaired the 64 sessions of the UN General Assembly in 2009. All UN member countries have the right to be elected.
Venezuela is a member of the Council for the period 2013-2015, which began earlier this year. On 14 November, President Maduro achieves special powers through the Enabling Act approving the National Assembly, saving the voting hurdle necessary. His party has 98 seats and the opposition 67, but to govern at will he needs 99 votes. In an imitation of the full power of Chavez, he revived the accusation of corruption filed against the deputy Maria Mercedes Aranguren, defector from Chavezism, with the intention of lifting parliamentary immunity, he quickly published it in the Official Gazette and replaced her with Carlos Flores, who would have no choice but to give the vote necessary because, as discussed in Caracas, he would be compelled to resolve their dispute with the power that had even expropriated part of his estate.
To the highly-gifted Maduro, Chavez in the form of a little bird recently appeared in an image that was blur for the rest of us, but with his skills as a copyist and the advice of his first lady counsel, he launched an assault for absolute power. However, he lacks the charisma of the caudillo-commander-President, or the unconditional support within the Chavistas. More dangerous still is this man with his threatening supernatural harangues, his disastrous and interventionist economic measures against private property that deepen the shortages, the economic crisis despite the flood of petrodollars, the estrangement of private and foreign investment, and the inflation and massive corruption .
The game with the mechanisms of democracy of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez did not turn out equally with an heir unsure of himself and completely lacking in talent. But President Maduro will be on the Human Rights Council as Ghadafi was, proof that the agency has not achieved its main tasks and shows that truth can not be covered with votes of friends and violators. In Geneva, they wrapped their representatives with the islanders, while in Cuba went from being frustrated by the mistakes of the heir to intensifying the search for promising economic support, which urgently leads to Brazil.
HAVANA, Cuba, November www.cubanet.org – The Cuban government’s recent ruling outlawing the sale of imported clothing and shoes, as well as private rooms exhibiting 3D films and offering video games, will not cause mass protests or anything like it.
The 20,000 people who dedicated themselves to this business will comply with the measure, grumbling or silently, but without confrontations that complicate their lives. That is the mentality that is imposed by the fear of beatings, confiscations or prison, depending on how one defies the order that will come into force on January 1, 2014.
The work of the political police and other agencies responsible for repression is not the same as 20 years ago, but obviously it still remains effective.
Organizing themselves to stage a massive public protest in response to what lies ahead is unthinkable. Most are convinced that it is best to abide by the resolution and seek alternatives.
“I will continue selling. The issue is to adapt to the circumstances. We will have to take more care. At first they will be rigorous, but over time it will decrease. It’s always been that way. They do not realize that absurd prohibitions generate greater lack of control,” said a young woman who just over a year opened a small boutique with the help of her sister based in France.
“I’m not looking for problems. What am I going to do? Even though you’re against it, they’re going to impose it. You can imagine, they have the power,” said Fernando, a resident in the Havana municipality of Plaza, who set up a video game room just 8 months ago.
Although there are overflowing reasons to protest, in the end fear prevails. A popular revolt to throw off the yoke of the dictatorship does not seem likely in Cuba. The regime aborts every attempt in this direction. And so the average Cuban prefers to take refuge in the black market, or temporarily or permanently leave the country.
To openly oppose the government remains a minority thing. The fate of the political prisoners, the recurring beatings of the Ladies in White in the public street, and the acts of vandalism against the most belligerent opponents, pass under the radar among a population that doesn’t hide its fear and opts for the double standard.
The sad reality forces them to be skeptical or pessimistic, when speaking of the end of this government.
The result of the recent vote that gave Cuba a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council, again puts into question the credibility of this institution, which has also given seats on the Council to countries such as China and Russia, constantly denounced for their lack of respect for fundamental human rights. China and Russia are two international powers that have to be considered on any international stage, so although questionable, there is a certain logic to their selection. Cuba, on the other hand, is a small bankrupt island without resources, but its regime has toiled intensely in the field of diplomacy for all these years, generating a network of influence and allies who respond only to their interests, ignoring any element of ethics.
After 54 years of almost total isolation, the Cuban opposition has had the opportunity to participate in international forums and to denounce the systematic violations of human rights on the island, as well as to express its needs for international solidarity and support. However, it is important to recognize that while our message has been heard with more volume and we have achieved greater prominence, we still have neither the strength nor the articulation to achieve a greater impact on international actors and organizations and, thus, to exercise more pressure on the totalitarian regime.
The reelection of Cuba to the Human Rights Council highlights the urgent need on the part of Cuban opposition groups — both inside and outside the island — to articulate more effective efforts at diplomacy in the international arena.
The Cuban opposition must begin to see itself as a political force, which means that it cannot simply be a source of complaints. This leap requires a drastic change that obliges us to analyze, deeply and honestly, our strengths and weaknesses.
One of our main shortcomings is the lack of professionalism and political vision, something we must begin to overcome despite living under the longest and most devastating dictatorship in the hemisphere. Without this projection, it will be impossible to reach broader sectors of society which, although tired of the outrages, sit on the sidelines waiting for more favorable scenarios that will permit them to express their political preferences and to identify themselves with a specific group.
The role of the exile should be very active as they are an essential part of the nation. Above all, the exile must open their senses to objectively perceive the reality in which we live on the island. Without a clear diagnosis and vision, and lacking an anchor in today’s reality, the result will be failure. The Cuba of 2013 is not even the Cuba of three years ago.
To maintain that a social explosion will lead us magically to democracy has been counterproductive for decades and diminishes the prominence and support for projects that could generate the dynamics for a democratic future for the nation.
The exile is fundamental for transmitting to us a vision of contemporary societies and encouraging our growth toward a modern and dynamic opposition. If, instead, it encourages complacency and conditional or manipulated support for specific groups that respond to sectarian interests or visions, we will then, to a large extent, continue to repeat the same stagnant pattern of the regime.
To generate false expectation with manipulated figures and unconvincing scenarios could be very damaging, not only for our internal dynamics, but for the credibility of the opposition movement abroad.
That someone should call themselves the spokesperson for the entire opposition, or promote a certain group as the most important or active, shows a political immaturity and only helps to generate friction and sterile competition. No one in Cuba today has the authority, nor the reach to the opposition, nor to society, to call themselves the spokesperson of the opposition. No group has the reach to proclaim themselves as the essential actor of change. Whoever sends such a signal, is simply wrong or lying.
Cuban society has begun to shake off a disastrous regime, but we find ourselves in a still emerging moment, which is never a sign of weakness. Many of the actors in the transition are about to appear, and it will be a great surprise when some Cubans who are currently on the border of the so-called “gray zone,” break out on the political scene and play more significant roles than many of us who today work from the opposition.
The opposition must go through a process of professionalization, reach a sharper sense of politics, and have the human capital capable of competing and projecting governance options distinct from the regime which has caused the national disaster, but which has all the means and power to transmute to an authoritarian capitalism.
The honest debate on fundamental issues cannot wait any longer, we must open an exchange from the civility that stimulates the growth of diverse ideas and visions of another Cuba that we want to construct. To remain silent for the sake of an archaic and hidebound vision of unity is too damaging. Any process of democratic maturity implies questioning political capabilities, legitimacy and effectiveness in thought and action, because many of the strategies offered as engines of change are nothing more than old desires, fantasies and fetishes.
The challenge today is for a new thinking to take hold among the Cuban opposition, a thinking born in the current century, within a world of networks with novel hierarchical and dynamic structures, where creativity, knowledge and information set the standard, leaving aside personalities and epics.
Those who do not recognize, within certain sectors of Cuban society — such as professionals, artists, intellectuals and activists — the principal actors of the changes, are simply dreaming within the same formula of a “triumphant Revolution” with thousands of citizens welcoming the coming of a new Messiah.
If we want concrete results, our reading of reality should be as accurate as possible. If we do not develop acuity and effectiveness in the field of politics, we will remain complainers.
The democratization of Cuba will cease to be a chimera when we systematically uproot the spaces of a power that insists on not thinking of us as political actors.
HAVANA, Cuba, November 2013, www.cubanet.org – It is known that cynicism is one of the handiest tools for dictatorial regimes, where democracy and demagoguery become synonymous terms to legitimize the interests of the authorities. It is a policy that could well be defined as “State cynicism”. While this aberration tends to increase towards the final stages of the system in question, in truth it becomes progressively ineffective when it appeals excessively to the feelings and emotions of the masses, even when it is evident that that leaders have lost the popular support.
The deep dichotomy between the official doctrine, the intentions of the ruling class, the social environs, the lack of rights and the alienation of ordinary people regarding politics emphasize the absurd, as evidenced by the words of Miguel Díaz-Canel, First Vice President of the Councils of State and Ministers, during his recent visit to the province of Las Tunas on Friday November 1st, where he met with members of the Associación Hermanos Saiz, university students and media workers.
An article published in the libel Granma (“Diaz-Canel Appeals for Promoting Dialogue,” Saturday November 2nd, 2013, front page), sketches Castro’s emissary in his visit to the province as something that led to “deep reflection as to how much can and should be done even in the whole country, in order to defend the true Cuban culture, confront social indiscipline, alien to the values of the Revolution, and productively address the best experiences…”
Diaz-Canel urged his audience to work together to “end the banality, vulgarity and indecency present in certain items as the expression of the pseudo-culture that the enemy is looking to impose through their programs of political and ideological subversion against Cuba”.
The government’s favorite ventriloquist did not offer any examples in this regard, but they can be inferred: There is concern and fear on the part of the upper echelons of power about new cultural trends being manifested in Cuba, especially in the capital, such as recent and spontaneous Halloween celebrations with costumes and candy, and the proliferation of 3-D movies and videogame screenings, which have spread among private businesses, escaping government censorship controls. Up until their recent direct ban and shutdowns, they were among the most accepted recreational options by Cubans.
The government, creator of vulgar repudiation rallies and the most indecent slogans, is repulsed by any influence of U.S. origin that filters through to Cubans, including holiday celebrations, which are difficult to avoid, given the steadily increasing number of Cubans living in that country with family ties in Cuba, as well as the taste of these peoples for that nation’s cultural goods, such as music, TV shows, movies, etc.
Since society’s growing discontent is known, in the presence of the permanent general crisis and the government’s inability to deliver solutions, Díaz-Canel seems to have been commissioned by the conclave of olive-green caste of elders to provide an image of democracy, strength and control. To that end, “he called on to generate an ongoing dialogue that will generate proposals” (a redundancy of Granma’s writer) and — something worthy of occupying the place of honor among the phrases generated by State cynicism — he urged to further tap “the broad potential of social networks and new technology to bring the Cuban reality to the world from all social and productive sectors”. All this was stated in one of the most backward provinces, and with the least connectivity, in a country already sharply disconnected from the world.
On the other hand, in Cuba, where there are only two completely unrelated parallel monologues – that of the elitist in power and the other one of the millions of dispossessed Cubans — dialogue has always been notably absent in the relations among both extremes, and recent events around countermeasures applied to the emerging private sector indicate that there is no real intention of dialogue by the authorities, not even with those sectors making financial contributions to the State.
In the midst of the transition to state capitalism XXI century style – a true sign of Raulism — official discourse distorts the image of the real Cuba. The un-government and the un-governed continue marching in opposite directions: the one, to the absolute monopoly of all the wealth and power; the other, to the greatest poverty and hopelessness with fewer rights. What about the “dialogue”? Just another euphemism in a channel of control that only works in one direction… forever downward.
HAVANA, Cuba, November 13, 2013, Judith Muñiz Peraza / Cuban Network of Community Communicators / www.cubanet.org.- On October 23 I went to the Julio Antonio Mella Polyclinic in Guanabacoa, to be seen by the gynecologist. I had been sent by the clinician, Dr. Mandina, as a result of two fibroids that cause abundant bleeding. After waiting more than three hours for my turn, the specialist would not see me, because she said I had to be seen at the Medical Clinic in my area. I returned home with severe pain in my lower abdomen.
The next day, I went to the office she’d directed me to, but I had no luck there, either, because three days ago the doctor who was assigned there had gone on a medical mission to Venezuela. After having no doctor there for several days, they put another doctor there, but she had to leave because her son was sick.
Looking for a solution, I talked to the nurse and she said that the gynecologist had eight offices she didn’t go to and along them was the one I belonged to. She didn’t say why they hadn’t seen me in the polyclinic; meanwhile, I continued to bleed without their being able to operate in the two fibroids that I have.
HAVANA, Cuba, November 2013, www.cubanet.org.- Do you remember when in the past decade Gadaffi’s Libya chaired the Human Rights Commission of the UN?
Because of such scandalous contradictions, the 2006 announcement that a new body would be created to replace the ineffective and too politicized Commission seemed encouraging.
Seven years later it is extremely frustrating to see that nothing has changed, or it’s gotten worse. China, Russia, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam have just been elected in a vote that was direct, secret and by regional blocs, to membership on the Human Rights Council.
Can we expect something positive from a Council with such illustrious members?
With the history of the governments of these countries in terms of human rights, their election seems like a bad joke. It’s like designating a gang of constitutional perverts and rapists to ensure the virginity of the pupils of a girls’ school.
With no disrespect to the present miscreants, too bad they don’t also have the Iranian ayatollahs and the regimes of Syria and North Korea!
Cuba will take a seat on the UN Human Rights Council despite its intensifying repression against the Ladies in White, the beatings and arrests of opponents (there were 909 in October alone), the harassment of independent journalists, and the repudiation rallies and other outrages of the paramilitary Rapid Response Brigades in pure fascist-style.
The vote in Geneva, which will be interpreted by the Cuban regime as another triumph of its thug diplomacy, will encourage its arrogance and pride. We Cubans will confirm the worsening repression firsthand. They are prepared to let opposition prisoners on hunger strike die!
For those who look for all the saints to help them, now that the dictatorship is taking a nose-dive, the honest and decent thing would be for the world to exert even a little power in favor of those who are fighting for democratic change in Cuba. Just that. But instead of saying no to suffocate the regime, or even a pinch to force them to cede spaces, they give them a complicit wink and inflate the scarecrow, to prolong the agony of its victims.
It happens that in the world today decency does not exactly reign.
Today the Council, like the Human Rights Commission before it, remains a patronage club of cronies and accomplices who cheerfully and shamelessly reciprocate favors. The Cuban people can expect little from such a circus.
Knowing I’ve been in Spain for one year, a friend from Valencia asks me what I lost since leaving the island. As I know she is trapped in the tapestry of her circumstances, I try to be brief. I tell her I came in search of lost time, to connect with my origins, wrapped in the arms of my wife and her family — my new family — eager for new experiences, places, friends and acquaintances. I clarify that, for me, exile, rather than a loss is an alternative, synonymous with freedom instead of tragedy. In many places in the world people live day to day without thinking about everyday challenges, immersed in work, children, problems; happy or sad, embarrassed, proud, hopeful.
Changing countries does not rewrite the script of our lives nor fix the balance of gains and losses. Life is a challenge anywhere, but we mark the place and customs, the language and cultural expressions, climate and geography, love and luck, the gods and biased concepts like country and nation. We humans are nomads despite borders and laws, governments and their dictates, ethnic, political and theological prejudices.
In the case of Cuba, there is the romantic whining of homeland from exile, mourning for what is lost, enlarging what is “ours” as something exclusive; incapable of inserting ourselves into another environment and feeling that the floor moves under us before new challenges and problems. But what do we lose? Is it worth clinging to the past cursing mistakes, living sunk in nostalgia?
I know there are millions of people trapped in poverty and hopelessness in dozens of countries, including Cuba. What do I miss of Cuba ? What did I lose? I may still not know. I stay in contact with my children and I remember fondly colleagues and friends with whom I interacted in Havana; I read the digital pages they write – Cubanet, Diario de Cuba, Semanario Primavera, Voces Cubanas. I feel no nostalgia for the dirty streets, the screaming of the neighborhoods, crowded buses, excessive heat, collective misery, herds of police nor the one-party rule and exclusive decisions.
My country passes through family, art and literature, the sea, freedom … In that sense, I can tell my friend from Valencia that sometimes, just sometimes, traveling along the coast of some Mediterranean cities it brings to mind the beach in Varadero or the Malecon in Havana. But without tears or tropical longings. I did not leave Paradise nor do I seek it in Europe. Paradise Lost is within us.
Mayabeque, Cuba, November 13, 2013, Misael Aguilar Hernandez / Cuban Network of Community Communicators / www.cubanet.org.- The Grandparents’ house in the town of Bejucal, located on 20th Street between Zanja and 1st in the recently created province of Mayabeque, closed its doors because of a blockage and unhygienic conditions, a situation that already spans several months.
The elderly are surprised, as for them it doesn’t fit with the traditional axiom that the guest is always right. With this decision they’ve been left without the attention they received and have seen their lunchtime chats on the couches go up in smoke in the blink of an eye, along with their schedule of snack, lunch and dinner. Some say that it’s as if these things sprouted wings and flew off to Neverneverland.
They have written to the State Council, with the hopes that the center will be reopened, because the times they have addressed themselves to the municipal authorities they’ve been told it’s out of their hands to do anything. The reality is that the grandparents have been abandoned to their fate and the official response if a silent sphinx. It appears that the municipal government has other priorities.
HAVANA, Cuba, November 2013, www.cubanet.org – The ban was issued by the Director of Farmers Markets just a month ago, because the vendors were making excessive use of chemicals (fordimed and carbide) to advance the ripening process in fruits, which in turn brought several complaints by customers who claimed that the uncontrolled use of these chemical altered the taste and texture of the fruits and was bad for one’s health.
Although the intention is to “protect the population,” it’s contradictory that this measure has only been applied to farmers markets, when the practice is a common one among most vendors operating in almost all points of sale, whether its one belonging to the Ministry of Agriculture, or a roving vendor.
The prohibition on the sale of bananas and papayas in the farmers markets in the capital, has only been strictly maintained in the market at 160th and 51st in La Lisa.
Julio Castillo Martínez, a vendor at one of the stands at the La Lisa market, and the source of this information, offered ripe bananas and papaya there, and said, “I was selling around 2,200 pounds of papaya a week and the same amount of bananas, and never had any customer complaints,” and he added, “the use of flordimed in small quantities diluted in water has been used for years by all the papaya producers at the time the fruit is picked and sold. In the case of bananas, I don’t use the chemical because they ripen quickly. This ban has affected my income.”
A truck driver who refused to identify himself, transports these fruits from the rural village of San Antonio in Mayabeque Province, to 114th Street in Marianao, where almost all the vendors of agricultural products get their supplies, said, “The fruits can’t be transported ripe because they get crushed and the measured or exact use of flordimed is not harmful, it facilitates the sale and has always been used.”
At the markets at 19th and B in Vedado and at Elgido in Old Havana, they’ve stopped selling papayas and bananas for more than 15 days, but they’ve started to offer them again in the last few days. One of the vendors at the market at 19th and D said, “Now we have to have papers that support the phytosanitary control of bananas and papayas in order to have them at our stands, although my products have always been high quality and no one has ever complained.”
The truth is that the absence of these products in the markets can’t be justified by the inefficiency of phytosanitary controls which the State itself should guarantee, or at least create conditions for others to guarantee it. And that must necessarily start from the same field the fruits come from.
Beyond this, the problem lies in the lack of reviews of some irresponsible sellers who, eager to sell, sprayed the precious products with chemicals. This nebulous situation is annoying both the serious sellers, as is the case of Castillo, who have nothing to do with this, and who are now unable to sell their most popular products — papayas and bananas — as well as consumers who like these precious fruits and have to look for them in far off places.
For some, the measure taken by the director of the farmers markets, and so far maintained at the establishment at 160th and 51stin La Lisa, is not appropriate. A solution other than prohibition — so abundant on the island — should be demanded. Especially when we know that papayas and bananas are the only fruits Cubans can count on year-round. Don’t even talk about canistel, cherimoya, soursop, cashews, mandarins, star apples, and much less about good quality oranges.
HAVANA, Cuba, November www.cubanet.org- Today no one doubts that much of the knowledge (still rare) that people in Cuba have about the people and projects of civil society, opposed to the political system, has been possible thanks to the dissemination of alternative materials in all formats, but especially in video. Thousands of discs, flash memories and other digital media have circulated from hand to hand in recent years, spontaneously creating the largest truly citizen network covering every corner of the island.
That’s why today we proudly present to Claudio, someone who has long been in the shadows, working tirelessly in the editing of the majority of the programs such as Estado de SATS, Citizens’ Reasons and many other initiatives.
Until yesterday Claudio had to be divided into little pieces, often using the wee hours of the morning to dedicate to us some time for each one us who lined up looking for his help to conceive, film and edit some material. This noble and intelligent young man deserves a gold medal for patiently enduring the demands of ao many friends who tried to be “Directors” of videos.
But he does not want to be irreplaceable, on the contrary, he is promoting a project that will give voice to more people and raise the quality of what is generated within the heart of a society that takes on, from the independent side, the tasks that State media should be developing to sustain us and instead deceive us.
His project is to provide digital editing workshops in several provinces. So far 11 students have passed the course in Havana and Santa Clara; in a few days four more will be ready.
“I’m doing nothing more than making a small contribution to democratize access to audiovisual media, technologically empowering citizens to develop their civic activism or sometimes, simply, so they can make a living without depending on the State, which always asks for something in return … says the Prof.
In my experience, I can say that in learning to edit I have learned to observe, to decipher and therefore to understand the intentionality of what we Cubans are shown daily and what I see now on Telesur, the Venezuelan TV station that is now broadcast in Cuba.
In the case of Cuba, I can now affirm that the Revolution has not been well done, but it has been excellently edited.
HAVANA, Cuba, November 12, 2013, Veizant Boloy / www.cubanet.org.- On November 4, at 10:30 PM, at the University of Information Sciences (UCI), located in the capital municipality of La Lisa, a group of more than several people, armed with a knife, threatened and beat a student, determined to take his laptop, according to information from workers there.
“A friend who was with the student at the time, had to give his cell phone to the criminals, in the face of their threats,” they said.
“They threw one of the guards on shift to the ground and were arguing with each other whether or not to kill him threatening him with a gun,” said a nurse who asked not to be identified. “Eventually they let him live,” she added.
Also, in UCI complex 1, a robber threatened a 4th year student of the faculty, named Manuel Ruiz Aguilera, a native of Marianao. He sustained injuries for not giving up his laptop and is recovering favorably.
There was a police operation, involving senior managers of the UCI and the Chief of the guards.
They managed to catch 8 suspects, in El Cano, a nearby neighborhood, which were located through a telephone call to the phone they had stolen. These citizens were armed and two of them wore shirts that said “UCI.” They had taken some laptops but the exact number could not be specified by any source.
According to some statements made by workers and neighbors of the place, the UCI is the target of numerous and constant thefts because of security weaknesses.
As a result, they’ve gone back to posting policemen to guard the surrounding area and promised that they will fence the perimeter.
In June last year, a theft of equipment theft occurred in the same place .
Veizant Boloy, veizant@gmail.com Cubanet, 12 November 2013
My TV is more than 20 years old and still looks like a movie theater. I don’t have a convenient remote control but we’ve found some pliers that are very useful for changing channels. It’s annoying because in the era of zapping I sometimes resign myself to see myself whatever they’re showing so I don’t have to get off the couch. I hope someday to have this little gadget in my hands to be able to change channels without inconveniencing myself.
Things always come to us with a huge delay and almost always after they’re out of date, or the government has prohibited them before we can enjoy them. The list is long but the most recent case is 3D movies. Suddenly these little rooms started to pop up everything, operated by private hands and I always tell myself, “next weekend.” As I was always slower than the fast hand of censorship, I never managed to try one of these.
If we continue like this the world will be unreachable and after a while we won’t even understand new developments. Of course it might sound exotic to some, but it’s very sad that we’re living in the 20th century. If it’s very nice to see how the clotheslines of Cuban women are full of blindingly white diapers when a woman in the house has given birth, and it’s very sweet that we inherit many things from our cousins or aunts. What doesn’t excite me is that we do it out of obligation and not out of love of this treasure. We all would like to buy new things for our children and we would also love to enjoy the magic of disposable diapers.
Luckily I found a piece of the 21st century that has changed my life. The possibility of having the internet for at least two hours a week is a milestone in my reality. Posting my photos in the blog and tweeting gives me a chance to enter the century that is showing on the calendar. But when I go and put my feet on the ground I’m back where it all becomes unreachable.
SANTA CLARA, Cuba , November 12, 2013, Ada Olimpia / www.cubanet.org.- Alberto Pérez Oliva, an inmate in Moron prison in Ciego de Avila, said by telephone that in the past 10 days an injured inmate did not receive medical attention due to negligence of the prison management.
Laine Sanchez Toledo was injured during the course of the night in a settling of accounts; in the morning he was taken to the medical station and later they sent him to the hospital in Morón, where he was admitted in prison ward, given the severity of his injuries, Perez Oliva said.
Alberto, who is serving a sentence of five years in prison, said that he too is a victim of inadequate medical care in that prison, because he has gastric problems and they have not taken him to see a specialist.
He added that “Papito,” a prisoner who died of respiratory failure at Camp Trust, known as Pitajones, did not receive medical care at the right time.
This reporter, in verifying the report via telephone with Morón prison, was attended by the duty officer, who declined to give their data and information.
Before this refusal, the Sánchez Toledo family was contacted, in the person of Leonardo Sanchez Roman, and so it was possible to learn, with certainty, about the events.
MADRID, Spain November www.cubanet.org That the Cuban government was elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council has made headlines these days. However, it should not be news, because the first 47 members joined the organization established in March 2006 to supplant the Commission, whose ineffectiveness needed to be addressed. Cuba remained during the allowed two three-year terms, and waited for another opportunity to rejoin the eight representatives from Latin America and the Caribbean.
