Dis Tortue, Dors-Tu Nue? / Lia Villares

Fog in the mornings, hunger for clarity,
coffee and bread with sour plum jam.
Numbness of soul in placid neighborhoods.
Lives ticking on as if.
Adrienne Rich

B gets up and goes to the shower. Doesn’t close doors or draw curtains. The water runs vaporously, terrifyingly. Bends to open the blinds, the gown open.

—Dis-moi, what is the best?

—The best and the worst, like the Bukowski poem?

—For him, it was the whores, the beer. The worst: The work, the police stations, the terminals.

—Let’s see, the best is to bathe together. And your mother’s rice pudding.

—For me, the best is the light. Your skin, the hues, what I can’t manage to see, what I see too much of. Before and after, the nights at the Cinemateque, with Helmut Kautner. The photography course only-for-aficionados. The watery and hot cappuccinos on the little table beneath the fly trap: Electric trap for bugs, shaking us with each capture, zapping sound included. Without changing places, reading the tired, almost-never-happy faces of the regulars. We’re dying with disgust. More. The couples stopped by the window pane, faces of hand-holders looking for a place, some empty table for two. The estrangement always evoked by the discredit or that childish surprise over everything that at some point was drawn on its own face. Youthful exhibitors of daily stupidity, an expanded emptiness. The crazy guy with his Walkman moving his head, or paying attention in the dark hall to the fleeting hand that slides along the peeled walls of the stairways of Wong Kar-Wai. The waitresses vomiting their boredom into cups. A vomit of sorrow. Of lack of desire and insignificance.

—And what else?

—The alcohol burner and the saltpeter, one guitar-playing friend used to say. Linen clothes, sans doute. To read Bukowski on the toilet. To write dirty poems.

—Bob Dylan in halves: Midnight and half a bottle of whisky for two.

—Tim Burton poems in the Inbox.

—The best, j’insiste, does not include me?

—Let me see… What’s missing are new books, to hibernate under the blankets, the slippers from Quito…

—Count Basie. Your bedroom at three in the afternoon, if it was possible to isolate it from the telephone-streets-buses.

—Black tea, chocolate with cinnamon. Milord at the accordion, Edith on the speakers.

—Now you’re starting to include me.

After and before on the night buses, fuller than the moon and the bellies. The windows open, stained with collective sweat. To linger, watching a fat woman leaning on a grey, dirty wall. A tiny dress the color of skin, the bare skin coming out of the scanty, tight silk. The girl(s) of thirteen, the downy hair behind the neck, the back, the bony shoulders. Straps fallen from a blouse that holds in the hint of all-too noticeable areolas. (Just looking at her you get goose bumps. When a seat is free you take it, and fast, to be direct: Come, don’t you want to sit on me? And she does not hesitate: She leans back, her lightness taking your breath away.) The loose hairs the color of chamomile, or our braided knots. Both of our hairs messing up with the wind on our faces at the speed of the night. Her glances, lost inside the walls that remained, from rubble to rubble, searching for some color that does not exist, for some hue alive in appearance.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY AT SAMPSONIA WAY, HERE.

Translated by Juan O. Tamayo

The publication of this story is part of Sampsonia Way Magazine’s “CUBAN NEWRRATIVE: e-MERGING LITERATURE FROM GENERATION ZERO” project, in collaboration with Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, and a collection of authors writing from Cuba. You can read this story in Spanish here, and other stories from the project, here.

17 September 2013

Selective Ignorance: The Women Writers of UNEAC / Luis Cino Alvarez, Angel Santiesteban

To the wall! To the wall!*

HAVANA, Cuba, March, www.cubanet.org  – Luis Cino Alvarez –   A worthy poet who has known how to confront decades of ostracism, Rafael Alcides, wrote, “Regrets and hopes for a new jailed writer.”  After the letter by Alcides, email notes of support signed by various writers in favor of Santiesteban began to circulate.

It was then when the official counterattack was launched.  It was a ploy wrapped in political correctness: eight female writers and journalists signed an appeal against gender violence, in which the case of Santiesteban seems to be the epitome of masculine abuse against women, and the Cuban justice system is pristine, free of suspicion except in falling short by only giving five years of jail time.

It even appears to hear the screams from the women of the Cuban Writers and Artists Union (UNEAC) against the writer-machista**-abuser: To the wall! To the wall!

The document signed by Sandra Álvarez, Marilyn Bobes, Zaida Capote, Luisa Campuzano, Danae Diéguez, Lirian Gordillo, Helen Hernández and Laidi Fernández de Juan demonstrates solidarity with Santiesteban’s ex-wife; whose name — Kenia Rodriguez — curiously, is never been mentioned; and it calls “for the Cuban institutions and organizations to speak up about this case in particular and about the violence against women in our society.”

So, after so much effort to clarify that the judicial process that sent the writer to prison for a fight that occurred almost four years ago had no political motivation nor the intention to punish him for being a dissident, all those who have doubts will be marked as machista and misogynist.  Amen to being identified as prone to being manipulated by “the Counter-Revolution.” And you already know what that means at UNEAC!

Would the signers know of the frequent beatings, outrages and sexist insults that the Ladies in White and other dissidents receive from the hands of State Security and rapid response brigades at the frequent repudiation rallies?

They must know something about those repudiation rallies.  At least one of the signers, Laidi Fernandez de Juan, a few years ago in the Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth) newspaper, called these pogroms “repudiable.”

Would they know that only a few weeks ago, in Santa Clara, the dissident Iris Tamara Aguilera, head of the “Rosa Parks” Feminine Movement received forceful blows to her head when she was thrown to the sidewalk by a henchman and was mistreated at the hospital where they took her for being a “counterrevolutionary”?

Would they know about the case of Sonia Garro, another dissident who was jailed more than year ago, without trial, and who was arrested at her house in Marianao during a loud and violent police operation and was hurt by a rubber bullet in her leg?

Would they have taken all these facts into consideration when they drafted their petition and procured an email address to collect the signatures against gender abuse?

Would they be willing to fight against violence against all women in absolutely all instances?

If that is the case, independently from the Santiesteban situation, surely they will collect many more signatures.

Published by Cubanet

The Always Disconcerting Writers of UNEAC

By Luis Cino Álvarez

The writers of UNEAC can’t but disconcert me with their liberal poses when it comes to believe in the openings of the regime and the hoops they are willing to jump through so that they don’t jeopardize their awards, travels and publications.

With the imprisonment of Angel Santiesteban, under such doubtful circumstances, I was not expecting a protest from the writers at the UNEAC, not even from the more outspoken ones.  That would have been asking too much of them.  However, I did suppose that at least his friends, like Eduardo Heras Leon, who a few years ago boasted with pride that Santiesteban was one of “his boys” from the Onelio Jorge Cardoso Cardoso Narrative Workshop, and Laidi Fernandez de Juan, who considered him one of her most dear friends, even if they didn’t publicly protest, at least would feel sorry for him.

But, oh surprises, miracles and hocus-pocus from the official culture! Here is a letter from the poet Rafael Alcides  — one of the few dignified — and with notes of support in favor of Santiesteban; and then it was precisely Laidi Fernandez de Juan, one of the eight intellectuals who signed the letter against the violence of women in which the case of Santiesteban seems to be the epitome of masculine against women, and the Cuban judicial system is completely exonerated from wrong doing, with exception of falling short in its sentence of five years in jail.

In different time we would have heard chants of ”To the wall! To the wall!”

The document signed by Sandra Álvarez, Marilyn Bobes, Zaida Capote, Luisa Campuzano, Danae Diéguez, Lirian Gordillo, Helen Hernández and Laidi Fernández de Juan idemostrates solidarity with Santiesteban’s ex-wife and calls on “Cuban institutions and organizations to speak up about this case in particular and against the violence against women in our society.”

So, everyone who dares to doubt that this process was free of political motivations, or who thinks it was a vendetta to send this writer-abuser to jail, will be categorized as stubbornly machista and misogynist.

And me, silly me, who thought that at least with her daddy Roberto Fernández Retamar, the poet-commissary-president, with his Bolshevik cap of the Casa de las Americas, and in the privacy of their home, Laidi Fernandez would complain and regret that Santiesteban was in jail to see if daddy would cease to play the Caliban and sympathize, and make use of his influence “up there”!

Does he know Laidi Fernandez de Juan claims to be “as devoted to the Revolution as acid in her critiques” of the frequent beatings that the Ladies in White and other dissidents receive from the hands of State Security and the cheerleaders of the rapid response brigades in those also frequent repudiation rallies that she herself, on occasion, has called “repudiable”?

Do she and the rest of the signers of the petition know that only a week ago in Santa Clara, dissident Iris Tamara Aguilera received strong blows to her head when she was thrown to the sidewalk by a henchman of the Ministry of the Interior (MININT)?

Would they have taken all these facts into consideration when they drafted their petition and established an email address to collect signatures against the abuser?

Years ago, in an interview with Angel Santiesteban himself (in the magazine El Cuentero, No. 6, 2008), Laidi Fernandez de Juan said that she didn’t share the view that no friendship could exist among writers. “What happens is that sometimes we believe someone (being a writer or not) belongs in this circle of friends and then we discover that he is a miserable, repugnant son of a bitch; but this has nothing to do with literature,” she clarified.

Would this be what happened to Angel Santiesteban?  Nothing’s worse than the fear of having a connection with a dissident.

Santiesteban’s case is confusing and contradictory, to say the least.  Many consider that State Security used the four year old incident with his ex-wife — whose name is Kenia Rodriguez, in case that the authors of the manifest supporting her without mentioning her name didn’t know — as an excuse to punish Santiesteban for his affiliation with Estado de Sats.

If that’s the case, one can’t help but wonder: Why him? Is he one the biggest critics of all the bloggers? Are they trying to send a message to UNEAC? Was it really worth it for the regime, precisely now that they are trying to fake a certain opening, to pay the costly price of sending to jail a writer who, a few years ago, won the distinguished Casa de las Americas prize for the book entitled “Blessed are those who mourn”?

I have heard some intellectuals who wonder if State Security might not be creating a legend, with Angel Santiesteban as a “super dissident,” with this jail sentence?  “Here you don’t know who’s who,” they murmur.  And so, aside from being wise-asses, they justify their fears of getting into this mess and end up like machistas. And maybe they are right. You never know…

Published in  Primavera Digital |Email luicino2012@gmail.com

Translated by: LYD

Translator’s notes:
*”Paredón” literally means “wall” and is shorthand for “to the wall” as in: “put him up against the wall and shoot him.”  Immediately after the Revolution it was the word shouted by the mobs at the show trials.
** Machista is related to the words macho and misogynist and is similar to the term “male chauvenist”

30 March 2013

Remember That I Always Want / Regina Coyula

Image from eCured

What Robertico Carcasses improvised during a demonstration at the Protestodome[1] last week, has been added to our folklore.  The accompanying refrain is now a sort of musical password that identifies the supporters of the musician and/or supporters of what he asked for.  I have only talked to one person who watched in disbelief on live TV the much talked about improvisation by the talented director of the band Interactivo.  The rest get the story through seconds or thirds who add to or take away from it, but on the streets people are talking a lot about it, mostly because it is so unusual.

Everyone had pondered the gesture.  It was not until yesterday that a young man of less than thirty confirmed to me that unanimity is not true the other way around either.  Concise and serious, he told me that he disliked what happened across from the United States Interest Section in Havana.  He said more. He finds dangerous that desire “of yours” (we were five, six counting him) of electing the president by direct vote.  Although skepticism seemed to form his objection, he considers any change negative based on the always useful argument that we are in bad shape, but others are worse. I did not have to reply, the others, all who are much younger than me, did so with arguments that I fully support.  I did tell them, because in that group no one knew, that Robertico had been separated from his band, a measure that undermines the entire transparency and “shirts removed”[2] of the Raulista reforms even if there was a subsequent rectification.

At home, this early morning event was the topic of after dinner conversation.  Alcides, old and wise, pointed out something obvious that I had missed: The dissonant voice belonged to a private employee of a private business with a permanent location.  The conversation took place there.  The rest of us were casual customers protected by anonymity.

–It seems incredible, Regina, that you hadn’t realized that the young man thought the same as the rest, but sought to protect his business from potential accusations.

I remembered the yellow ribbons that many tie without conviction these days, and I remembered General Resóplez[3] when he said:

–What a country!

[1] Protestódromo in Spanish is the slang name for Tribuna Antiimperialista.  It is a large stage set up in front of the United States Interest Section in Havana to show state-sanctioned protests against a number of actions by the US.

[2]“Camisa quitada”:  Spanish expression that means something done in the open for all to see.

[3] Character from Cuban popular cartoon Elpidio Valdes.

Translated by Ernesto Ariel Suarez

18 September 2013

A Call for a Meeting on Human Rights and UN Covenants, 10 December 2013 / Estado de Sats

1ero-224x300Estado de Sats
At the confluence of Art and Thought
A Call for a Meeting on Human Rights and UN Covenants

The independent Estado de SATS project invites artists, intellectuals, activists and defenders of human rights to participate in the First International Meeting on Human Rights and the UN Covenants as part of the Campaign for Another Cuba and the 65th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Estado de SATS has worked, for the past three years, in the creation and growth of a public space 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 a 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 on 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 inaugural meeting will be held 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.

For more information those interested can email estadodesats@gmail.com or telephone (535) 371-6460 in Havana.

Estado de SATS Team

– See more HERE

Letter Sent to Pope Francisco About the Hospitalization of Angel Santiesteban / Angel Santiesteban

francisco-palomaFragment of a long letter faxed to Pope Francisco today, following the hospitalization of Angel Santiestaban, with a diagnosis of “supposed” dengue, and it will be delivered directly into the hands of His Holiness, on Monday, through the mediation of a supportive person.

(…)

Your Holiness, as I said at the beginning of this letter, this morning I received the sad news that Angel was admitted to a hospital in Havana with a diagnosis of “supposed” dengue. I’m the one who takes care of his blog and many of his efforts outside the island prison, along with his literary agent, the exiled Cuban writer and journalist in Berlin, Amir Valle.

Our concern for Angel is immense because we know well the methods they use to get opponents they find uncomfortable out of the way. They have done it with Laura Pollán, infected with a fatal virus, they have done it with Oswaldo Payá, ramming his car to simulate an accident, just to mention two of the most notorious  and brazen cases.

Angel began to feel ill and have a fever on Friday the 13th, precisely the day when his novel “The Summer God Was Sleeping” was presented at the Cervantes Institute in Berlin, having just won the International Franz Kafka Novels From the Drawer Prize in the Czech Republic. It took five days for his jailers to take him to the doctor, and he was admitted to the hospital with the erratic diagnosis of “suspected dengue.”

Your Holiness, I pray to you for Angel, the brave opponent, the tireless fighter for human rights, the great man, the loving father, the great patriot, my beloved friend.

His entire struggle for Cuba is an act of love, boundless dedication, the only way he knows to do things. He does not deserve the plan the dictatorship has designed for him. We need Your Holiness to raise your voice clamoring for Justice for Angel and for all the political prisoners who are dying in the Castro concentration camps.

I am at your disposal to collaborate with you in this task, that of helping to raise the cry for all of them, which to date number more than 120, many of them on hunger strike, seriously endangering their lives.

I say goodbye to you with the hope that you receive my plea for Angel and pray for him and for his speedy recovery.

I firmly believe that whoever saves one life, saves humanity. I act accordingly.

With all my affection,

(The Editor)

18 September 2013

The Great News / Enrique del Risco

madagascar—Did you hear?

—What? About the robbery of the giraffe from Havana’s zoo?

—Yeah, a giraffe, four monkeys and a pony, but I’m not talking about that…

—Those guys must have been ninjas.  A Cuban version of “Madagascar,” “Calabazar[1]: The Story of How a Group of Zoo Animals Trying to Prevent their Friends from Becoming Giraffe Sandwich”

—No, I am talking about Robertico Carcasses, who was banned from playing music the other day.

—Why?

—For singing…

—The truth is that he’s never been very good, but a ban seems excessive to me…

—Well, it was more for demanding direct elections, freedom of information and equal rights. You know, and it happened at a concert for the release of The Five[2].

—Listen, can’t you count?  A giraffe, four monkeys and a pony are six, no five.  Well, I guess what’s important is the solidarity with the poor little animals.

—No, dude, I’m talking about the five spies jailed in the Yuma[3].

—What do the five spies have to do with the giraffe?

—Nothing, you made that up. The deal is that Robertico Carcasses said all those things at the Anti-Imperialist Stage[4] and on live television.

—Ah, I see.  When did they shoot him?

—That’s the interesting part: they only thing they dared to do was to ban him from any state-owned stage in Cuba, indefinitely.

—In my time, for less than that Robertico would end up worse than the zoo’s giraffe.

—What? They already know what happened to the giraffe?

—That’s exactly what used to happen, you’d never hear of them.  Now, they only beat you up, and if you resist, they’ll throw you in jail for five years charged with contempt. Times change.

—Well, this time there was a commotion and even a member of Calle 13[5] protested the ban.

—Which one?  The one that looks retarded?

—No, the other one, the one that doesn’t sing.  The deal is that even they didn’t know how solve the imbroglio when Silvio Rodriguez[6] himself stepped in.

—Jeez! I thought it was the blue unicorn[7]. I was afraid that on top of the giraffe we would now have to deal with Silvio’s little animal.

—So, Silvio showed up saying that what Robertico had done was a great faux pas, but that the punishment should be something else.

—I see, like King Solomon…

—Wise?

—Nah, just spreading the blame equally.

—Or like Cardinal Ortega, who intervened when the government had run out of things to do against the Ladies in White.

—Well, the Cardinal Ortega of UNEAC[8] got the penalty lifted.  He had to announce it himself because for the official media Robertico has never sung.

—See, we agree on something. The Comandante[9]’s words to the intellectuals[10]have been transformed into “With Silvio, everything, without Silvio, nothing.”

—Bueno, ya eso es un cambio importante. Ahora todo radica en que Robertico no deje que lo confundan con la jirafa.

—Why? Because they are going to eat him?

—No, it’s just that he’s not good at taking care of animals.  Look at what happened to the unicorn.

Translated by Ernesto Ariel Suarez

18 September 2013

[1] Calabazar is a town south of Havana.

[2] Also known as the Cuban Five.  These are five convicted Cuban spies serving sentences in the United States since 2001.  They were part of a large group called The Wasp Network (Red Avispa).  Twelve were arrested, only 5 pleaded non-guilty.  These are the only ones that the Cuban regime defends.  One of them was released in 2012 after serving his sentence. He renounced his US citizenship, and moved to Cuba. So, The Five are really The Four now, but the Cuban regime has never been good at Math.

[3] The Yuma (el Yuma or la Yuma) is a Cuban slang term for the United States. The origin is murky, but some trace it, unlikely, to the 1957 movie 3:10 to Yuma.

[4] Tribuna Antiimperialista in Spanish.  It is a large stage set up in front of the United States Interest Section in Havana to show state-sanctioned protests against a number of actions by the US.

[5] Puerto Rican hip-hop group and a darling of the dictatorships in Cuba and Venezuela.  They have performed at the Anti-Imperialist Stage.

[6] Silvio Rodriguez is a famous Cuban singer-songwriter who after a brief period of rebellion in the 1960s, became one of the regime’s official troubadours and later on even a delegate to the National Assembly.  He wrote among many songs, one titled “My Blue Unicorn” dedicated, according to many, to a lost trophy in the shape of a blue unicorn.  It has become his avatar.

[7] See previous.

[8] UNEAC is the official Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba.

[9] Fidel Castro.

[10]“…within the Revolution, everything goes; against the Revolution, nothing.”http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1961/19610630.html

The Party Responsible / Cuban Law Association, Wilfredo Vallin Almeida

Wilfredo Vallín Almeida

Cuba has been a topic of discussion by The United Nations Council on Human Rights in Geneva, which has concluded its most recent Universal Periodic Assessment.

The report, signed by 132 countries, included 293 recommendations made to the government in Havana for correcting deficiencies in the area of human rights.

There is an interesting contrast between what the current Cuban leadership has to say about its own performance in this area and the latest speech by the General-President to the National Assembly of People’s Power.

According to the official report issued in Geneva, the Cuban government’s compliance with its commitments in this area has been exemplary. The current head-of-state, however, has publicly acknowledged problematic domestic issues, stating that “we are at the edge of an abyss” and “we would be responsible should the Revolution fail.” He had also indicated that state institutions are not fulfilling their responsibilities as called for under Cuban law.

While there have been reports of economic growth, it has been acknowledged that this growth has not had any positive impact on the lives of average Cubans. Meanwhile, the cost of living continues to rise while salaries remain stagnant.

The life of a nation, in all its many manifestations, is a complex apparatus in which any action taken in one area (the political, for example) inevitably has repercussions in other areas (such as the economic and social).

I believe it is a good thing that we can air these issues — which concern everyone — openly, without secrecy and with ever greater transparency.

But there is a question we never hear, at least publicly, about this topic: Who is responsible for all this chaos?

15 September 2013

The First Step / Rosa Maria Rodriguez

As part of the Multilateral ’Cuba 360’ Program I taught the course “The technologies of information and communication for the socialization of ideas. Cyber-activism and citizen journalism in Cuba,” which began on August 12, had enrollment of eight tenacious and restless young people, eager for training, and concluded on Friday, September 6. The course abducted me for more than a month in the interest of the quality of the methodological preparation, the domestic chores and the vicissitudes of summer in search “of the potato of the day” with lines everywhere and the systemic scarcities.

Of these eight students, seven graduated “with diplomas” of knowledge, which are the most valuable titles, but without the paper. They remain for the next cycle of education, several points that originated in the practice and others that impelled by circumstances, in short… we will continue working for ever greater quality classes and that such relationships provide more in the way of the training of democratic-minded people who know their rights.

We also hope that in the next course we will have a computer to teach the lessons of some branches of technological knowledge and that in the future we will be able to graph all the efforts and perseverance of a month in a historic “family” photo and publish it without fear for its participants. We thank everyone who contributed their modest logistical support, but rich in disposition and goodwill, so we could undertake this effort to convey our experiences. We will continue to open the doors to literacy and democratic praxis to all those Cubans who want to travel with us in new workshops. We have now started one more machine of freedom: we took the first step!

16 September 2013

A Palestinian in Havana: Why am I illegal, isn’t it the capital of all Cubans? / Víctor Manuel Domínguez

A "Palestinian" with his residence permit.
A “Palestinian” with his residence permit.

HAVANA, Cuba , September, ww.cubanet.org – Héctor Pulgar Fernández has a temporary residence permit for Havana, but not the right to sell chiviricos (thin strips of cake batter, fried and dusted with sugar), because he has no license to trade. A native of the town Bartolomé Masó, in Granma province, he decided to return to the capital to make a living at anything.

Today he flees from the police, hides, and sells chiviricos to survive and to ensure that if caught will he will not be sent back to the East.

He earned a teaching credential in the Camilo Cienfuegos School in his area, and he taught mathematics to 7th grades in the municipality for 236 Cuban pesos a month, during the 2001-2002 school year. With expectations of success, he accepted a job here for 425 pesos a month.

Dazzled by the promise of good food, shelter and other possibilities among which he could continue to live in the capital, he taught the same subject and grade level, Nené Traviesa, Hermanas Giral and other schools in Havana from 2003-2008. Disappointed, the teacher returned to Bartolome Maso .

“Nothing was as promised. The food was slop, the housing conditions were a shack, and I didn’t stay because when there were enough capital graduates to fill the jobs, I would have to return home. In addition, 400 pesos here don’t last even half as long as 200 there. And what of the 21st Century Mambises,” it’s just a daily battle.

At 28-years-old, married with a young woman who also graduated as a teacher, although working in his native town, Héctor Pulgar Hernández, according to his expression, “had to invent it in the air to survive.”

Determined to get out of what he considers the medieval backwardness there in the mountains of Bartolome Maso, he thought that as a citizen of the country he had the right to seek better employment in “Havana, the capital of all Cubans,” as the official slogan says.

“Everything was a mess. Having no change of direction they did not give me work, and worse, when I went out and the police stopped me, seeing on my ID card where I lived, they told me I was illegal and had to return to my place of origin, or I would get a fine the first time, and the second, I would end up in a cell until they could deport me,” he said.

Back in Granma province he worked in whatever came up, not returning to teaching because of the low wages, the lack of consideration, and great number of activities and other extracurricular work that, more than a teacher, were the work of a member of the Young Communist Union, or what’s worse, a labor union or Party militant.

In 2012 he returned and started selling whatever came up illegally. He was captured by the police and as he was a repeat offender they gave him an official warning that he couldn’t return to the capital for five years, and he was taken to the police station Zapata and C, and from there to the Blanquita detention center, until they filled the train car and he was deported.

On arriving in Bartolome Maso, he fined 350 pesos for illegal movement, and warned that if he returned to Havana, he could expect to go to prison at El Tipico de Manzanillo or Las Mangas , in Bayamo, both in Granma province.

But through bribes he is here, with a temporary residence permit for six months (May 29 – November 29, 2013 ), and as he can’t get work, he sells chiviricos illegally, fleeing the police, hiding, and ensuring that if they don’t catch him he won’t be sent back.

“I’m like a Palestinian in the Gaza Strip or Israel. Without rights. That’s what some people in Havana pejoratively call us. We can not live in the capital of our own nation.”

By Víctor Manuel Domínguez, vicmadomingues55@gmail.com

From Cubanet

Good and Bad Words / Fernando Damaso

Archive Photo

Words, by the tens of thousands, are an integral part of languages. They serve to define and differentiate objects, natural elements, people, feelings, actions…. in other words, everything material as well as immaterial. They are constantly undergoing a process of change. Although some fall out of use, other new ones arise as humankind develops. As such, there are neither good nor bad words. The difference depends merely on how, where and when they are used.

Over the last half-century Cuba has lost many material things (agriculture, industry, transportation, housing and other things) as well as many immaterial things (values, morals, civility, respect, good education, good habits, social discipline, tolerance and so on).

In an attempt to “rescue” (a fashionable verb these days) some of the latter, there has been a “clarion call” or a “call to arms” to restore them as quickly as possible. We have a tendency to either “fall short” or “over-react.”

This worries me because after “falling short” for decades — allowing things to be lost while doing absolutely anything to prevent it in spite of warnings by many citizens — we are now “over-reacting” by trying to solve the problem with slogans, promises and repression (as evidenced, for example, by demands for fines and sanctions in agriculture and roadway construction).

These only address the superficial symptoms. They do not get to the root cause, which lies in the breakdown of family life and the educational system. This stems from educating and training generations that in large part were blinded and preoccupied by Pharaonic schemes and messianic ideas which demanded the total commitment of one’s time to the promise of a bright future that we can now see was never to be achieved.

As the old saying goes, “You pay for education over the long-term.” We now have evidence of its validity: Without education at home and with inadequate education in the schools, the consequences were unavoidable. We all agree on the need to confront and resolve this issue since it poses a direct threat to healthy social coexistence. Education and training are necessary but be careful of excesses! They have never yielded good results.

16 September 2013

Cuba: Verbal and Physical Violence Increases / Ivan Garcia

cuba-bronca
From Cubanet

Any place, public transportation, school, workplace or even in a family environment is prone to rudeness.  Many times start with insults and finishes like a boxing ring.

People with short fuses are abundant in Cuba.  Guys who use body language and verbal speech as guns.  Jose Carlos, 41 years old, thinks that the smallest thing can trigger a battlefield.

“If you are going to the store you have to be careful with your words and have patience.  The store clerks are always in a bad mood. They look like jail keepers.  The most scary ones are the receptionists. If they are not painting their nails, they are gossiping on the phone; they tell you to come back the next day because is lunch time. We are living in an epidemic of bad manners. Bad manners have nothing to do with the economic crisis or poverty, I think they are a consequence of the revolution; and now flourish like a bad weed,” says Jose Carlos.

Verbal and physical abuse usually start as young as the day care centers and progresses from elementary through high school; at least that is what Hilda, a 72-year-old retired school teacher thinks.

“In the four decades that I worked as a teacher, I realized that the verbal and physical abuse at the schools had increased during the last twenty years.  Upon the beginning of the “Special Period” around the early 90’s the loss of values, bullying among students, the usage of dirty words and vulgarities is present in ages as early as 5 to 6 years old.  I saw children whose parents had to transfer them from the schools because of the bullying and the violence from other children.  Usually kids duplicate the attitudes that they see at home and on occasions parents can behave worse than the kids.  They can act as irrational human beings.  If their kid got punished an earthquake could be unleashed; that coupled with low salaries are two of the reasons why young people elect not to be teachers.  Nobody wants to work in a place where aside from making little money it can bring you other issues”, says the experienced teacher.

The smallest touch in a public transportation vehicle can trigger an exchange of loud insults; and in the heat of the moment a physical altercation can occur.  Some managers, Arnaldo comments, behave with their subordinates as feudal bosses.  “I work in an food preparation plant for the tourism business. The superiors treat us as if we are dogs.  When we try to defend our rights they show you the front door.  It is the majority of them who behave as if they are God’s chosen or belong to a different social casts.”

A sociologist from Havana made it very clear, “The increase of verbal and physical abuse is part of a rude language filled with testosterone which Fidel Castro’s government started implementing.  Vulgarity became the watchword.  From insults used at public political speeches up to the jingles massively created around 1962 after the October Crisis.  For example:  “Nikita, faggot, what you give you can’t take back,” or “Ae, Ae, Ae the lollipop, Nixon doesn’t have a mother because a monkey gave birth to him.”  Another example was the unethical note published in the official newspaper Granma the day that Ronald Reagan past away, it said “Today died one who should have never have been born.”  This antisocial and aggressive conduct from the Cuban social leadership, who often have converted the landscape of diplomacy into a cock fight ring, has been reproduced among the people for the last 54 years.  You can not expect good manners when the ones in charge do not have them,” said the sociologist.

In some families, eating an egg or a piece of bread that does not belong to the person can start a small war.  In Cuba is not unusual to find three generations living together.  In a home, is not unusual to find family members that do not talk to each other or cook and maintain their domestic life separately.  The children have as common occurrence the fights and verbal insults among family members.

Reggaeton music is another source of dirty language and incitement to violence.  A musician from Havana is convinced of that.  “The lyrics of that music style and the bands who play them are “chabacanas” which means low class and in poor taste.  Young people attempt to copy the way those artists dress; they attempt to copy their “macho” message which usually propagates violence, frivolity and drugs.”

After musical gatherings, either reggaeton or other types of music and regardless of the police presence, it has become the norm for those activities to end with fights using knives.  At the Red Plaza at La Vibora, in Diez de Octubre town, at certain Revolutionary marked dates, they often offer dances and parties.

They erect portable bathrooms made of wood in each corner and until 2 in the morning the music is blasting with those dirty lyrics that do not let the neighbors sleep.

At the end of the concerts is when the party really begins.  The fights among the marginal individuals, the stairs and halls are converted into public bathrooms or people smoking marijuana.  Sex is practiced in any small and dark space; all a spectacle of violence and disrespect.

Ivan Garcia

Translated by LYD

15 September 2013

A Platform That Honors and Involves Us / Rosa Maria Rodriguez

Christian Democrat Organization of America

My husband Rafael León Rodríguez, who is the Coordinator of the Cuban Democratic Project (Prodecu), was invited months in advance to participate in the 20th Congress of the Christian Democrat Organization of America (ODCA) held in Mexico August 23-24. It was the first time that there was a real chance to attend an event of the institution we have belonged to for more than fifteen years along with three others — two in the diaspora and one, like us, in Cuba — in which we have always been represented by good friends who live in Miami and who have attended regularly and with solidarity on our behalf.

On July 22 we initiated the process at the Mexican embassy and for this left the formal invitation sent by Senator Jorge Ocejo, president of this hemispheric organization and his personal data. From that point we started the anxious rush-rush with a great number of comings and going to the embassy with growing concern that the Cuban authorities would “pass the buck” to the obstacles in the Aztec consulate to block the trip out of exhaustion or helplessness, and they themselves would remain blameless.

From there, there were lost papers and even disparate conditions for the awarding of permission, but finally they granted it a month later, thanks the tenacity of the ODCA board and our representatives in Miami, which managed to overcome the different and several obstacles that arose. On 22 August in the morning, after great uncertainty and agitation, they put the visa in the passport and at night, almost with our “tongues hanging out” we left for Mexico.

It was just four days — two of the Congress — that let us escape a cold discourse on paper with a signature, to present ourselves there and interact with the delegations of other parties, NGOS and institutions of our American Social Christian family. Respectful and effusive handshakes, expressions of solidarity and big hugs were eloquent recognition for the work of 17 years within Prodecu Cuba, despite the political cannibalism sustained by the dictatorial Cuban government for more than fifty years.

The board of the ODCA was reelected for another term, including its executive secretary, Mr. Francisco Javier Jara — and the most notorious jump for the two Democratic Christian organizations located in Cuba that belong to this regional organization, was that as of this year we are honorary vice-presidents in this prestigious continental organization.

Now what is left to us is the journey consistent to honoring this continued recognition with a sustained and viable work in support of achieving the two dearest longings urgent for Cuba: the completion of our nation and the final democratization of our country.

17 September 2013

Official Communication: Angel Santiesteban Admitted to Salvador Allende Hospital with Dengue Fever / Angel Santiesteban

Headline in Official Newspaper: There is no dengue epidemic in Cuba

From Friday the 13th, Angel Santiesteban Prats presented with sporadic fever spikes, without the prison authorities responding to his requests for medical attention.

Just yesterday afternoon, Tuesday the 17th, they decided to send him “just as a routine” to the doctor, and after the results of the clinical test were back, they allowed him to be admitted with “suspected” dengue fever, into Salvador Allende hospital in the Cerro municipality. According to how things go, he will be discharged.

The mosquito that carried dengue fever, common in Cuba

They invented crimes he did not commit to imprison him and to silence his uncomfortable voice, critical of the dictatorship, refusing to listed to their own witness at his rigged trial, and all the witnesses to his innocence.

Imprisoned unjustly, they also refused to listen when he said he felt ill and needed medical attention, he had to endure five days with a fever for them to, finally, take him to a doctor.

Today he is admitted with “suspected” dengue fever.

Exiled Cuban writer Amir Valle presents Angel’s book in Berlin

How far does the regime intend to go? Angel spoke the truth when he said that he was innocent, Angel spoke the truth when he said, beginning on Friday, that he felt sick and had a fever. And here we have new proof that Angel always tells the truth: Angel has dengue fever.

In Cuba there are epidemics of dengue fever and cholera. In Cuba there is a complete lack of freedom and an abundance of cholera, dengue fever and official lies. These are truths that they can no longer hide though they keep trying. Every effort will be useless.

Angel at Estado de Sats before him imprisonment

Raul Castro Ruz, you and your cliques are absolutely responsible for the integrity of Angel Santiesteban-Prats, recently awarded the International Frank Kafka Novels of the Drawer Prize, and whose prize-winning novel, “The Summer God Was Sleeping,” was presented with great success at the Cervantes Institute in Berlin on that same Friday the 13th — when he was already demanding medical attention — despite the futile attempts of the government to rain on the parade through “Netxwerk Cuba.” The world is watching, the world is waking up. Just yesterday, in Geneva, once again the painful and shameful attempts of your representatives to silence Ofelia Acevedo, widow of Oswaldo Payá, failed before the Human Rights Council of the UN.

Every day there is less room for impunity and we hold you directly responsible, Raul Castro Ruz, for the life of Angel Santiesteban-Prats.

The Editor

18 September 2013

Novel by Imprisoned Cuban Writer Wins Prize / Luis Felipe Rojas

 C218162E-DBBC-40CA-BC59-CE6E82DB56BB_w640_r1_s“He deserves it twice over, for suffering an unjust imprisonment for his gifts, as status as a narrator,” said the writer Jorge Olivera Castillo in celebration of the news that his colleague Angel Santiesteban-Prats received the Franz Kafka Novels From the Drawer International Prize, awarded to censored writers by the Czech Republic.

The Summer When God Was Sleeping, focused on Cuban rafters trying to escape the country, is the winning work and will be presented this Friday in Berlin at the Cervantes Institute in the German capital

At the event José Manuel Prieto, Jorge Luis Arzola and Amir Valle, Cuban writers in exile, will take part in a discussion moderated by the German editor Michi Strausfeld, where they will talk about issues of Freedom and Creation in Cuba.

The Franz Kafka Novels From the Drawer International Prize was first awarded in 2008 in the city of Prague to the writer Orlando Freire Cuban writer Santana for his novel The Blood of Freedom, and its name “Novels from the Drawer” is from the need to promote those authors that are censored by the authorities.

Olivera Castillo, former Cuban television editor and author of several books of short stories and poetry, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the Black Spring of 2003, believes that Santiesteban’s award shows “his caliber as a writer.”

Santiesteban-Prats is serving five years in prison after a trial full of irregularities which has been denounced by his colleagues and several independent media within the island, as well as relevant international organizations.

His literary work won important awards from Cuban institutions such as the House of the Americas, the Prize of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) and the “Alejo Carpentier” prize granted by the Cuban Book Institute of the Ministry of Culture, until he decided to publish his blog, The Children Nobody Wanted, openly critical of the situation in Cuba today.

“Previously he won the three main awards for stories, which is something unheard of, for someone who is barely 50 years old,” says Olivera who chairs the Cuba PEN Writers.

Other Cubans writers who have been awarded the Franz Kafka Novels From the Drawer International Prize are Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, for the novel Boring Home; Frank Correa, with The Night is Long; Ernesto Santana, for The Carnival and the Dead; and Amel Hechavarría for Training Days.

The Czech library Forbidden Books Czech, dedicated to documenting the literature of the anti-communist Czechoslovak dissidence, and initially the Independent Libraries of Cuba (Founded by Ramon Colas and Berta Mexidor) are responsible for editing and promoting award-winning books inside and outside Cuba.

12 September 2013

Sonia Garro’s Husband Speaks From Prison about the Accusation of Murder / Augusto Cesar San Martin

Sonia Garro and Ramón Alejandro Muñoz
Sonia Garro and Ramón Alejandro Muñoz

HAVANA, Cuba , September 17, 2013 , www.cubanet.org.- In a phone call this morning, from the Combinado del Este prison, political prisoner Ramón Muñoz described as embarrassing the prosecutor’s request for a sentence between 10 and 14 years in prison for his wife, the Lady in White Sonia Garro.

“We are being accused of something we did not do,” said Ramón. “We will prove that this is a lie, there are videos that show the opposite,” he added.

The prosecution asked for 14 years for Muñoz for the crimes of Public Disorder and Attempted Murder. It also asks for 10 years for Sonia Garro on charges of Assault, Public Disorder and Attempted Murder. The trial date has not yet been set.

In this regard, Ramón said, “If there is someone here guilty of attempted murder, it’s them, who come in shooting and throwing stones. At no time did we attack them.”

He said the government document does not mention that Sonia Garro was shot in the leg and the beatings she received.

According to the prosecutor’s request, read by Ramón, the government has 16 witnesses, all members of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR), who accuse the couple of Attempted Murder.

Ramón said that Sonia was arrested because she was one of 17 women who would meet with the Pope Francisco in the Bishopric, during the prelate’s visit to Havana during the prelate’s visit to Havana.

“We do not deny the arrest, just ask that Sonia’s arrest be legally documented, something that they never showed.”

The prosecutor’s report describes the Lady in White as socially “undesirable,” with family life issues . The document also lists Garro as a person who “openly demonstrated against the revolutionary process,” the reason why, they say, she “is rejected by the residents of the neighborhood.”

“Sonia was studying for a university degree in clinical laboratory and was never unemployed,” said her husband. “It’s another big lie in the request,” he added.

Ramón Muñoz wrote a public document for all Cubans where he accuses the government of carrying out acts of terrorism to come to power. Also, he denounces beatings of the Ladies in White and the defenders of human rights in Cuba.

He recalls in his statement the executions of the young people trying to leave the country hijacked vessel, comparing it with the assault on a military barracks — the Moncada attack — by those who are still the rulers.

The statement ends with the exhortation to the people to save Cuba from the dictatorial regime prevailing since 1959.

The couple was violently arrested in 2012. Initially accused of Terrorism, until the government changed the accusation for the current one.

A home video with the image of Ramón entrenched on the roof of his house went viral on the internet then. He simply demanded that the his wife be released.

From Cubanet

17 September 2013