30 August 2013
Truth / Luzbely Escobar
Petition To the National Assembly of People’s Power of the Republic of Cuba / Wendy Iriepa and Ignacio Estrada
Havana, 26 June 2013
To the National Assembly of People’s Power of the Republic of Cuba:
The Constitution of the Republic of Cuba in its Article 63, reads verbatim:
All citizens have the right to lodge complaints and petitions to the authorities and to receive attention or pertinent responses within a reasonable time, in accordance with the law.
And in accordance with its letter and spirit, we the undersigned are addressing that maximum level of government in the nation with the following.
CITIZEN PETITION
According to principles reflected in the Preamble to the Yogyakarta Principles with regards to the application of international law of human rights in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity, and establishing that:
“RECALLING that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, and that everyone is entitled to the enjoyment of human rights without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status;
“DISTURBED that violence, harassment, discrimination, exclusion, stigmatisation and prejudice are directed against persons in all regions of the world because of their sexual orientation or gender identity…
“NOTING that international human rights law imposes an absolute prohibition of discrimination in regard to the full enjoyment of all human rights, civil, cultural, economic, political and social, that respect for sexual rights, sexual orientation and gender identity is integral to the realization of equality between men and women and that States must take measures to seek to eliminate prejudices and customs based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of one sex or on stereotyped roles for men and women…”
Considering that in our country such conceptions are still very far from being met within Cuban society and are not reflected in the legislation, we believe it appropriate to REQUEST:
- The official acceptance and compliance with the Agreements of Yogyakarta.
- That national authorities undertake a wide investigation of everything related to that negative event in our history known as Military Units to Aid Production (UMAP) and the results be published in the national media .
- That those responsible for these adverse events are brought to justice for the repeated and massive violation of human rights violation of an indefinite number of Cuban citizens.
- That the use and arbitrary application of the concept “state of dangerousnous” in the existing Criminal Code against persons for the sole “crime” of sexual orientation be publicly explained.
- That a public debate is opened on the forced exile many homosexual citizens were subjected to.
- That the violent deaths of some homosexuals on the streets or other locations be explained.
And, for your information, we are are submitting this issue to the People’s Power at that same time we open this document for signature by citizens who want to do so.
Wendy Iriepa Díaz
Ignacio Estrada Cepero
8 July 2013
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The Same Dream, for Cuba / Mario Lleonart
Text of the poster: Christian Cubans also have received all the divine means Martin Luther King had at his disposition to combat evil. God willing we make use of them.
This Wednesday, August 28 marks 50 years since the famous march on Washington lead by Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) demanding the recognition of rights of African-Americans. From Cuba, I follow the example of this hero of faith. To these oppressors who constantly threaten and stalk beneath the taboo that Christians should not get involved in politics today I return to give the example of the life, work and homily of this pastor baptised as I am. And I warn you; watch out for me if God gives me the opportunity, as he had, some day to participate, too, in a march on Havana where I will express that I also have a dream, similar to that of Reverend King, “With all and for all Cubans.”
27 August 2013
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Father Conrado: Evangelist or Politico? / CID
By Karel Becerra *
The compatriot José Conrado Rodríguez Alegre, known as Father Conrado, Catholic but above all Cuban, visited Argentina and among his activities he met in Buenos Aires with a group of Cubans and Argentinians who carry Cuba in their hearts.
I went to the meeting with great interest because the Father Conrado — who has been free to come and go from Cuba for years — knows the Cuban problem from different perspectives. The meeting lasted several hours, during which we talked about the Cuban Catholic Church, the opposition and the regime.
Father Conrado expressed “concern about the current situation of the Cuban people, social pressure has been increasing,” and he does not rule out the possibility of an explosion. According to what he said, this concerns the government, given the question of changes. On lifting the embargo the Father Conrad said, “we need some preconditions .”
On the role of the Catholic Church, he said that Francisco, “is a Pope we have been waiting for, the church removes the superfluous and comes down from the altar, the church is needed in Cuba. It is the church I want because I’m a priest of the people.”
He said Bishop Jaime Ortega and the Church have always been on the side of the Cuban people and that,”Bishop Jaime is really worried.” Father Conrado also referred to Jaime’s forthcoming retirement and his confidence that the Pope will bless us with the election of a new Cuban bishop; it seems that this is a question of months.
In his opinion, the place for the Cuban opposition is on the island where the people will have the last word. He highlighted the “opposition groups and leaders who today are making a move with perspectives of the future, members of UNPACU and opponents such as Jose Daniel Ferrer, Coco Guillermo Fariñas, Antonio Rodiles and the talented young Eliezer Avila.
He made a special mention of Yoani Sanchez for whom he “keeps a personal affection, along with her husband Reinaldo.” He spoke of the talent and dedication shown by Yoani, whom he considers a charismatic leader with a future within the island.
He didn’t address the potential for the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) nor a mulatto doctor that one of those identified as Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, nor did he mention the extensive organization of the Independent and Democratic Cuba (CID) in Cuba. I left that memorable meeting with the impression that the Father Conrado has already chosen his political activism.
Karel Becerra is the Deputy Secretary of International Relations and Coordinator of the blog CID Cuba Advisory
24 August 2013
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Celebrating the Third Anniversary of the Founding of Free Peasants Committee of CID / CID
On the morning of Sunday August 25, 2013, members of different organizations met at the home of Rolando Pupo Carralero, President of the Committee of Free Peasants of the Independent and Democratic Cuba Party (CID), at the headquarters of this organization home to celebrate the third anniversary of its founding.Several days earlier, it had already been decided by the members of the Committee of Farmers that celebrating this date was very important to them. Then the preparations began. Everyone was invited, with the news passing by word of mouth and with great care, so that it would not filter out to the repressive dictatorship.
With much work they managed to get everything they needed for a great celebration and finally the day arrived for everyone. From early in the morning, the dictatorship’s dogs were already circling, but the guests were smarter, they all came with muddy shoes and pants rolled up to the knee, as they had to leave the main road guarded by the henchmen, to take to the verges, ditches and rice fields and even crossing mountains, but in the end, all together as God intended.
The meeting began with the singing of the notes of our National Anthem, Rolando Pupo Carralero then spoke and said that the Free Peasants Committee is an organization which was founded on August 20, 2010, with the aim of bringing together all those peasants who one way or another do not want to remain under the yoke imposed by the Castro regime and who are willing to break the chains that binds them to a production model that has enslaved them for over 50 years.
He also listed the complaints and the needs of tobacco industry and the abuses of the farmers in the area. Also, Roberto Blanco Gil, Chairman of the CID Steering Committee Against Abuse took the opportunity to distribute 20 copies of the weekly The New Republic.
At the meeting Noralys Martin Hernández, provincial delegate to the Federation of Rural Latin AmericanWomen (FLAMUR) in Pinar del Rio, congratulated the members of the Committee of Peasants for all the work they’ve done in this time and urged them to continue fighting for a free and Democratic Cuba .José Rolando Cáceres Soto, provincial director of the Cuban Revolutionary Party (PRC) congratulated all the farmers with a big hug and said he felt proud to know that there are peasants fighting for a Cuba of all and for the good of all. The meeting ended with cries of Down with Fidel! Down with Raul! LongLive the United Opposition!
Present at the meeting, all from CID, were Rolando Pupo Carralero, Yuliet Rivas Lugo, Yamilys Valdés Rodríguez, Yusniel Pupo Carralero, Luis A Ruiz Calderón, Orleans Bentos González, Berta Irene González, Yordan Pupo Carralero, Islei Bentos Gonzáles, Pedro L Hernanz Rodríguez, Edisbel Forteza, Wibi Alvares Gonzalez, Domingo Hernández, Yoandris Hernández Ceballos, Andy González Hernández, Belkis Pérez Pérez, Víctor Pérez Martínez, Roberto Blanco Gil, Rogelio Loases Fuentes, Hermes Rodríguez and Vidal Barrios Pérez.
Guests from the People’s Revolutionary Party (PRC) were: José Rolando Cáceres Soto, Idalberto Abascal Quintana, Osnier Reyes Jaime, Pedro A Padrón Amor, Esteban Ajete Abascal, Luis A Hernández Arencibia, Danés Benítez, Rasbel Espinosa Caraballo, Lázaro León Alvares.
From FLAMUR Noralys Martin Hernández, Olga Lidia Torres Iglesia, Ana Maris Mérida Serra, Irina C León Valladares.
From the Pedro Luis Boitel Party, Eliosbel Garriga Cabrera, Pedro L Sabat Valdés, Maikel A Hernández Perdigón, Aramis Hernández Perdigón, Yamirka Ledesma Santana, Yancarlos Hernández Perdigón.
From 10 de Octubre, freelance journalist José Martinez and Luis A. Hernández Marrero.
29 August 2013
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Yelky Puig Released in Pinar del Rio After Eight Months in Prison / CID
In December 2012 the CID Provincial Coordinator in Pinar del Rio was sentenced to one year in prison in a trial that was a travesty. Yelky Puig was a member of the State Security who, after leaving their ranks, joined the CID and joined other former employees of the repressive apparatus of the organization.
The regime saw in Yelky Puig’s opposition activism a very dangerous precedent and decided to punish him no matter what.
Yelky Puig named Provincial Coordinator for the Ricardo Medina National Executive Committee (CEN).
This past week Yelky was released on parole. Yelky expressed thanks for the support his family received during his time in prison and said that his faith in the CID is unwavering and that during his imprisonment he was about to mature ideas and projects.
After his conviction the CID responded with more delegations and further growth of activists in the organization.The response exceeded expectations. So far in 2013 three successful projects have been implemented: The weekly The New Republic (LNR), the Ombudsman of the People of Cuba and the Cuba Advisor blog.
1) Ten CEN branches nationwide are given the responsibility of defending people with regards to on their most pressing problems, for which they have appointed ten regional ombudsmen. Work has been intense, consistent and successful.
2 ) Another ten delegations were made responsible for the weekly work party: The New Republic and this effort have been successful. Week after week this has been published weekly with news of interest to Cubans on the island.
LNR has been reinforced by the supplement by the Information Blockade to the Cuban People, which consists of a critical analysis of the censored news published by the regime and others.
Simultaneous to this work another 10 delegations were held responsible for increasing the number of activists in their areas of influence and creating new delegations. We could not be more pleased with the results.3) The Cuba Advisory blog is a website where information is published weekly in English addressed to Canadians who may be interested in traveling to Cuba. This was a project carefully planned and has been a success since it was made public. Before the end of this season, and according to conservative estimates, the blog must have will have caused a loss to the Castro regime of two million dollars in four months.
If the dictatorship believed the Yelky Puig’s unjust sentence would weaken the CID organization they made a serious error in judgment. The CID has been consolidated in the westernmost province of Cuba through the efforts of delegates and activists and the dedication of the Ombudsman Onelsy Díaz Becerra and National Executive Committee member and Chairman of the Free Peasants of the CID Rolando Pupo Carralero.
1 September 2013
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Orange Juice Runs Through My Veins / Mario Lleonart
Not even I understand how much those nearly eight months — from 30 November 1993 to 28 July 1994 — affected the rest of my life. I was used as cheap and reliable labor, exposed to hard labor in the citrus harvest, to the substantial economic benefit of the Cuban regime and the Grupo B.M. y Waknine & Berezovsky Co. Ltd. Over the years now I hve come to understand that it was a chapter God had for me. The experiences I went through had to do with things far beyond what I imagine, given all that I have been and done since then.
My friend Omar Lopez Montenegro whom I met last June on my trip to Poland excitedly tells his experience at the famous Pre-University of de la Víbora, a site which has also been immortalized thanks to another of its graduates, the writer Leonardo Padura Fuentes, who turned this mythical place into the origin of the backstory of his character detective Mario Conde.
The joint non-violent resistence of Omar and other friends prevented some gatekeepers from cutting their long hair during a period of mobilization in the field. I lived something similar in Boom 400 of the EJT (Ejercito de Trabajo Juvenil, or the Youth Labor Army) and above all the vivid outrages will stay with me forever.
After walking for three months among the concentration camps adjacent to the towns of San Jose Torriente and San José de Marcos, they made us return to that of Socorro en Pedro Betancourt. Supposedly from this Boom 400, which was our original camp, the suppliies assigned to us should have arrived, but we received nothing during those three months during which we wandered on some supposed mission whose high work goals were never met.
During those three months we didn’t even get a pass to go to our homes. We felt sorry for ourselves. Our clothes were dirty and ragged as could be. Most of us were walking barefoot, a few with broken boots. One of the generals named Acebedos came by for inspections and called us “the shirtless”, and a relaxed captain in the camp next to Torrientes, seemingly moved by compassion, told us — pointing at his massive gut: “Don’t be discouraged boys, I lost this belly in the army”.
On returning to our original camp, we held out the hope that things might change, but on arrival, a new unit chief met us: a Navy captain whose punishment was being sent to the EJT. And I became aware of another characterisic of this invincible army: it was the punishment site for MININT, Armed Forces, and even Navy officers.
For us, the officer’s reception was to inform us that we’d just arrived at Boom 400, and we had to earn all we asked for. An additional answer to our worries was the delivery of immense Chinese machetes, and after a miserable lunch, he made us go to some place infested with the invasive marabú weed that we had to pull up and prepare for the planting of citrus.
That was more than a humiliation. Supposedly, in those conditions we didn’t cut even one marabú, our patience having completely dripped away, so even better we organized and so it was like that night in May 1994 when, in protest, the complete squad deserted and we agreed that nobody would return for at least a week. The silent exit from the camp and the trip, one by one, through the orange orchards towards the national highway where in a matter of minutes we undertook a course towards Las Villas, were the most glorious moments of those eight months of abuse.
On our return, at least those who returned — some never did — we were subject to trial in the camp’s ampitheater, seeking an answer: “Who had been the leader?” The end of the trial consisted in the delivery of the supplies they’d deprived us of for the last eight months, our manner of nonviolent protest showed the vulnerability of those who thought they had power and made us discover that power was really in our hands.
The en masse desertion of an EJT squad had made the news all over the island and uncovered corruption in high places. Although I was liberated, that unforgettable July 28, 1994, I can’t deny that since then, orange juice runs through my veins.
Translated by: JT
12 August 2013
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To Live in a Tenement, Without Hope / Leon Padron Azcuy
Havana , August, www.cubanet.org – Over a year ago, the Havana news channel reporter, Graciela Resquejo, tried to report the terrible living conditions, life-threatening, in which many families live in the solar — tenement — at No. 12 Jesus Maria between San Ignacio and Inquisidor, in Old Havana.
But to no avail. That report was censored by political commissars of Cuban television.
Resquejo apologized days later to neighbors and urged them to relentlessly pressure the institutions responsible for housing, so that one day they might get out of this hell.
The solar at No. 12 Jesus Maria is a disaster. Its tenants live in fear of a collapse, or the spread of disease, because when it rains, the water penetrates the roofs and walls, leading to a steady drip, even hours after the sky clears. Nor do they have drinking water, which comes through a pipe installed between sewer pipes, and rats and cockroaches swarm everywhere.
Neighbors have appealed, time and again, to the government. But the problem persists in every session of the Popular Power. Finally they went to the Department of Citizens Support of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, who toss the ball back to the municipality.
One of the biggest frustrations of tenants, was in 2007, when they were assigned to some old offices in a four-story building near the tenement. They only had to wait until the bathrooms and kitchens were put in. But while waiting for the arrangements, the government itself gave these offices to other victims who had lost their homes because of a cyclone. Back to square one.
Year after year, this miserable citadel of San Ignacio Street waits for the fulfillment of the promises of the authorities. But promises are always empty .
One of the neighbors of the tenement, whose husband recently had a heart operation, said, “The authorities remember us every time a hurricane comes,” adding, “their cynicism knows no bounds, at times we’ve been asked to find our own shelters, on others they’ve taken us to a multipurpose room at Avenida del Puerto, and as soon as the weather improves, we returned to our citadel, ignoring the building collapses that happen when the sun comes out.”
A young woman who works as a waitress at the pizzeria at 264 Prado and who has lived in the tenement for seventeen years said, “We are not asking for a palace in Miramar or Vedado, we want at least a roof with better conditions, but we are always victims of deceit and manipulation.”
The nine families the No 12 Jesús María tenement, living without hope, victims of government neglect .
Leonpadron10@gmail.com
FLASH GALLERY photos Leon Padron Azcuy
29 August 2013
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Some Uncertainties / Fernando Damaso
Though it has no leading role in socialism as it is practiced in this country, the self-described “new Cuban left” is trying to find its place in the current economic, political and social debate, one in which no one is participating. Perhaps it is inertia that leads it to simply repeat certain well-worn arguments put forth by the government, which are far removed from historical reality.
When referring to the Cuban Republic, the “new left” accepts as fact that it was a neo-colonial and subjugated pseudo-state, constrained by the Platt Amendment and subject to foreign interference. It assumes that only a tiny minority lived well while the rest of the population suffered in misery without education, health services or employment opportunities. It also believes that discrimination against racial minorities and women was rampant. The current authorities have been incessant in their demonization of past eras, facts and historical figures, while some have accepted these claims as absolute truths and go on repeating them.
The reality is that the situation was not quite so gloomy. Cuba was one of the most advanced countries in the world in terms of agricultural and industrial production, health services, education, salary levels and labor rights. Its gross domestic product was also one of the highest in the region, making it an attractive destination for immigrants from other countries. It had an established and thriving middle class, and both its population and cities were continually growing, both from an economic and urban standpoint as well as in terms of infrastructure.
In fact, most of what we still have of value we owe to the republican era. To ignore this truth — even keeping in mind the political situation as well as other shortcomings and problems that existed at the time, and that still have not been resolved — is like listening to only half the story.
When referring to the disastrous years of socialism, however, the new Cuban left characterizes it as true, authoritarian, statist and Stalinist. It focuses attention only on its distorted features, blaming them for all its failures, as though it were not the system itself — independent of its atrocities and its leaders — which has failed wherever it has been tried.
When discussing the future, the “new left” rejects a return to the past, presuming it might lead to something as ridiculous as a return to pre-1959 capitalism. It accuses those who propose abandoning Raul Castro’s model of being responsible for a possible loss of independence and sovereignty (language which daily falls further out of use in a globalized world) or for subjugation by the neighbor to the north. It is a perhaps unintentional reprise of an official rhetorical phrase: “You are either with me or against me.”
The only thing that Cuban socialism has distributed equally throughout the population — which does not include of the tiny elite which hangs onto wealth and power — is poverty. This is the equality that its domestic and foreign supporters applaud. Cuban socialism has enjoyed fifty-four years of missed opportunities, which makes it highly unlikely that the population will be inclined to give it further opportunities either in the present or in the future.
As the popular saying goes, the Castro model’s “last fifteen minutes are up.” Therefore, new opportunities present themselves to other political, economic and social initiatives which can and must include all citizens who care about Cuba. They cannot, however, impose narrow concepts, whether or not they are what we call socialists, democrats, participatives, critics, conservatives, liberals, capitalists, anarchists, rationalists, centrists, decentralists, pluralists, reformers, etc.
It is only natural that this political opening would occur after years of living under a single economic, political and social ideological mindset. The wide variety of new ingredients should produce a dish capable of satisfying the palates of most of our citizens. But this dish cannot be prepared by one single chef. It has to take into account the opinions and participation of those who will consume it, and must include economic development, freedom and social justice.
The goal is to enter the current global jet stream and advance along with it in ways to be determined by citizens exercising their full democratic rights, with participation by everyone but without new and ridiculous political, economic and social experiments or the kind of one-party nationalism that has left us light years behind the world’s democracies.
29 August 2013
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Shoal Philosophy / Miriam Celaya
HAVANA, Cuba , August, www.cubanet.org – Every Cuban must have heard countless times a compilation of phrases that try to encompass all the Island’s popular wisdom: “don’t bother”, “you’re not going to solve anything”, “what the heck, you are not going to change anything”, “don’t look for trouble” , or this next one, which is the paradigm of evading commitment: “I don’t care about politics”, though the ones who utter it ignore that mere membership in the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution implies a direct relationship with the politics of government.
All of them, without exception, could be part of a manual on how to better serve the interests of the dictatorship because they appeal to passivity, to limitless waiting, to subordination, and to complicit subterfuge. But, without a doubt, the crown jewel and the one most frequently used is “don’t call attention to yourself”. It is the quintessential advice, and it serves to brake the spontaneous impulses of any dissatisfied individual in any circumstance, because “to call attention to yourself” in Cuba is to leave the flock, to rebel against absolute power, to fault at the most elementary prudence, and it can manifest itself even in the smallest sign that could set the individual apart from the rest.
It is interesting that such a no-nonsense phrase should be the currency in a country where people don’t think twice about hurling themselves into the sea and crossing the Florida Straits on board any artifact buoyant enough to take them to the other shore, to another realm, where calling attention to yourself isn’t necessarily an imprudence, but just the opposite, most of the time.
But let someone express his intention to stop paying the syndicate, the MTT (Territorial Troops Militia), not attending the May Day parade or the assembly of accountability for the well-known phrase “don’t call attention to yourself” to make its appearance.
Recently, a young man working in a private restaurant told me about a visit an official of the national union made to his place of employment, to educate employees about the importance of “creating” a union, affiliated to what she called” the national union movement”, to “defend the workers’ interests.”
It’s beyond the absurd, only possible in Cuba, that a State official will interrupt the work of a private business to encourage employees to organize to make a stand against management – the prime and essential reason for unionizing — with the complacent consent of that same management, and with the independence that a true syndicate must have as its premise the freedom to associate, which doesn’t exist in Cuba. The strangest thing of the matter is that the vast majority of workers in those private businesses have joined the “syndicates” created from and by the same power that has unleashed a wave of layoffs at State workplaces.
My young friend insists that, initially, some workers were reluctant or undecided, and there were those who naively asked if membership was compulsory, but, here and there, an infiltrated delegate would drop the little phrase “don’t call attention to yourself” and the stirrings of rebellion were diluted, wrapped in the protective anonymity of the collective.
“It is the philosophy of the shoal, the school of fish,” says my friend, a definition that is based on the tactics of the sardine or anchovy in which the individual is diluted in the group so he’ll have a better chance at survival, which, however, does not prevent predators from feeding on them.
I acknowledge that my friend is somewhat cynical, but this does not negate the gist of his remark. And the civic abandonment and the lack of rights in Cuba is such that it has developed a kind of slavery syndrome of thought, so that when some people have a modicum of freedom, they refuse to make use of it and continue to be subjected to the snare and the master.
Nevertheless, the emergence of private initiative could mark a major turning point in the resurgence of sectors that might strengthen the weak fabric of civil society, a reality which the independent unions that exist in Cuba cannot ignore. This requires implementing a program, or at least for these groups to make specific proposals which are attractive to this new labor force. It would be an essential step to achieve union autonomy.
Government’s interest in keeping this labor force subjugated indicates the recognition of the risk implied by the potential autonomy of the sector; an opportunity that activists could well take advantage of in order to fight that widespread social evil, the shoal philosophy.
From Cubanet
Translated by Norma Whiting
29 August 2013
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The Golden Age / Regina Coyula
In a very short video lasting less than a minute and a half, Javier Castro (about whom I have found no additional information) discusses one of Cuba’s social icebergs. Boys (and girls, to be politically correct) of primary and secondary school age reply on camera to an often-asked question. In the style of Cuban television news, their responses were narrowed down to match only what the producer wanted to show. Furthermore, the boys (and girls) were interviewed in what appeared to be a poor neighborhood; in Miramar or Vedado the responses would likely have been different. Nevertheless, the answers were still disturbing.
Hustlers (and hookers) or moving overseas, some said. Others aspired to be a DJ or a singer, a hotel manager, to own a money-making business, to be a flight attendant, a sailor, an economist, a chef, a restaurateur, a baseball or soccer player.
Except for the boy who wanted to be an astronaut, all the responses pointed to an overwhelming economic need that supersedes any ethical concerns. Policemen don’t count because they are very well paid, even without the money they make from extortion or bribes. And there was one that was particularly unsettling. It was the boy who would take everything for himself as he has already seen happen, the boy who wanted to be a dictator.
These boys (and girls) are quite used to hearing money being discussed at home. And although they are not included in the conversation, having to get by without it affects them. They learned very quickly that it couldn’t be helped, that wishes had to be postponed, lessons more valuable than any to be found in a book.
At this point anyone should be able to realize that not only education and health care are free, that there are other things that are also free and also worthwhile that were lost in the process of forging the New Man. They will not be recovered over the short term in the headlong rush to rebuild this odious variant of capitalism without democracy.
30 August 2013
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Every Night, The Night / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo
People without God and the State, after the incessant media deaths of Fidel Castro, as in a classroom-cage that’s been left without their despotic teacher, our society is doomed to becoming unhinged overnight. Even in a single night, without having to wait for the morning, our little lives can experiment the one thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine anecdotes and extract from them a single significance.
In effect, Cuba is beginning to resemble a tele-play, class Z revolutionary themed. An uncaptioned series. Pasture for foreign productions. Scenario where all the characters are extras: scraps of the script floating in the wind of an unbearable island dullness.
Nothing is old under the same post-socialist sun. Ecclesiastical guidelines. Newspeak, newhistory, New. Cuba is not the tedium of a cinematic Moebius strip with no inside, no outside, but rather it is an empty adventure in the style of The Matrix, where the despotic power is unseen but present. And where all that still shines in the middle of the barbarity are the glasses of the General President, whose clapperboard controls not the fraud change but the unchangeable fraud. Ad islinitum.
Much of this televised velocity is included in the copy-and-paste of a New York film, One Night, from the director Lucy Molloy, a film made in Manhattabana that even its actors mistook for a reality-show, using it as a springboard to escape the Castro catacombs of our Caribbean North Korea.
Here in the beginning and at the end it is the verb: the action, the persecution whose only purpose is to take away from Death a few minutes of film, cut to Che. Poetics of the video-clip, of the ephemeral gimmick, of the superficial that almost always is a symptom much more sincere than so-called profundity.
The rush-rush of faked sequences, anger and haste, sometimes with hints of a fake police documentary. Words like kicks. Free, crazy and loquacious language, as befits a professionally amateur cast. And, in the background, in addition to the redundant Cuban music, it’s not even necessary to voice-over Desnoes’ rudeness that our capital “looks like Tegucigalpa.” And it doesn’t seem so at this point in the story. The ironies of Memories of Underdevelopment confronting the illusions of the Left, at half a century of totalitarianism, is already an inevitable background, spontaneously occupying even the worst of tourist photographs of official propaganda.
One Night is not a bad story-board for when Lucy Molloy returns to Havana one night, not only to recreate but to create the tragedy. We need that, a culture without capitalist guilt resulting in an “unjust” dessert for the Cuban people. Or “inappropriate” before the altar of American academia (without the Revolution there would be no PhD theses nor copyrighted textbooks). I fear that we need a reactionary filmography. From the indecent Right. Neocon. Movies disposed to precipitate the debacle not from art, but from the disaster.
The other would be another half century of kitsch.
Cubansummatum est!
From Diario de Cuba
27 August 2013
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A Thousand and One Cuban Hexes to Enchant Arabs / Juan Juan Almeida
When my great grandfather was born, there was an Arab presence in Cuba. It is impossible to exclude from national history the Lebanese Antonio Farah, who arrived on the Island in 1879 and achieved the position of city councilor in the local government of Pinar del Rio. Likewise, there is an ample list of Syrians, Palestinians and inhabitants of the southeast zone of the Arabian peninsula in the Gulf of Persia (today the United Arab Emirates) who with the force of their bravery and talent rose to important positions in our Liberating Army.
And it is curious, because unlike many other groups of migrants, the arrival of the Arabs on the island had a very individual form, they did it in small groups that could freely choose their destiny.
All this, plus the enchanting stories depicting camels, turbans, sultans, deserts, castles with golden domes and thieves with thick eyebrows who with their sensual coffee looks made carpets fly, made the nationals offer them a Caribbean refuge.
For the current Cuban government, calculated by nature and pragmatic by necessity, Arab is synonymous with riches. So it demonstrated a few days ago, when after carrying out a campaign last July in Qatar to attract investors, Havana paid respect and lent its newly bought fleet of Teutonic cars to a discrete group of multimillionaire Saracens who made landfall on the island in an airplane where all the unthinkable eccentricity escaped from fantasy and became reality.
A palace of luxury in the sky–that’s how the flying vessel was described by the workers of ECASA (Cuban Company of Airports and Aeronautical Services SA, the only company that operates within Cuban airports)–where an entourage of investors traveled showing off their opulence and, to flatter their vanity and by orders of the General, received special attention. Explainable, power is a venom that carries the challenge of losing a lot to gain everything.
All options were made possible in an attempt to curry favor with a heap of petrodollars who seemed disposed to buy the world. And the Cuban civil servants, determined to end their old autobiography of failures, during the negotiation avoided the debate of sovereignty and the familiar old tensions that constantly stimulate pyrotechnic politics between Cuba and the United States.
They saw the mine and they offered to let the visitors drill in favorable conditions in strategic sectors of the national economy; participate in the development of the metallurgic industry, invest in tourism, agriculture, medicine, education, and the financial system and banks of the nation; in the generation, transmission and supplying of energy; in transportation, in construction, in buying or running luxury hotel chains, exuberant marinas or even to make the island one enormous brothel.
I still haven’t discovered the reason behind so much genuflection; I only know that after the two full days of exhausting meetings described as “The thousand and one nights,” the Arabs decided to make it clear that they didn’t want to invest but simply to buy. They paid in advanced an exaggerated sum, even though in reality not so fair, to acquire exclusive rights to the production of Cuban marble for a period of time. Shortly after they said goodbye with a cold handshake and a smile, bland and insipid as a piece of bread without salt; an admirable form of saying, “Don’t even dream about it, Havana is no Beverly Hills.”
30 August 2013
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UPEC and the Freedom of the Press / Dimas Castellanos
The few expectations generated by the Ninth Congress of the Union of Journalists and Writers of Cuba ( UPEC ), held last weekend, ended in frustration. The changes that demand journalism plays an effective role in social transformations were conspicuous by their absence. The conclave ignored the issue of press freedom, a vital issue to delve into the causes of the current crisis and suggest possible solutions, although Cuba has a rich history in this area.
The Camaguey national hero Ignacio Agramonte, in defending his thesis in law said: The right to think freely corresponds to the freedom of discussion, of doubt, of opinion, as phases or directions of that.
The press in Cuba was inaugurated with Papel Periodico (Newsprint) in Havana in 1790; it disseminated the accord reached with the Pact of Zanjón of 1878, thanks to which Juan Gualberto Gomez won the legal process against the colonial authorities which allowed the public disclosure of the ideas of those supporting independence. It was multiplied during the Republic: Diario de La Marina, Bohemia, El País, El Mundo, Alerta, Noticias de Hoy, La Calle, Prensa Libre, Carteles and Vanidades, to cite just ten. In 1930 there were 61 radio stations, a number that placed Cuba 4th worldwide; and as for television, in 1950, almost immediately after the United States, Television Radio Union Channel 4, the third television station in Latin America, followed the same year by Channel 6.
Thanks to the media, from the colony to the Republic , the debate of ideas reached such importance that it is impossible to explain any event in our history without considering the role of press freedom. The best evidence was the allegation of Dr. Fidel Castro, known as History Will Absolve Me, in which he said: Let me tell you a story: Once upon a time there was a Republic. It had its Constitution, its laws, its freedoms, a President, a Congress and Courts of Law. Everyone could assemble, associate, speak and write with complete freedom. The people were not satisfied with the government, but the people could change it… Public opinion was respected and heeded and all problems of common interest were freely discussed. There were political parties, hours of doctrine on radio, debate programs on television, public meetings…”
The Russian historian, sociologist and politician Pavel Milyukov, in an article entitled In defense of the word, defined the press as the finest and most perfect expression of socio-psychological forms of interaction; he explained that the rules of relationship between man and society constitute the core of human rights and freedom of the press is the only civil liberty can guarantee all the others. continue reading
If, from the ideas expressed, we accept that press freedom is an indispensable factor for social development, any action to preclude it, can only be described as an act against the development of the country and the dignity of the people.
Yes, the nation really is everyone, Communists or not, revolutionaries or not, intellectuals or not, everyone has the right to think, express and disseminate their ideas freely, as active subjects in national issues. The opposite is exclusion, totalitarianism or apartheid. So in the age of the newest information technologies and communications, any restrictions on press freedom in a country with such a rich tradition of freedom are inadmissible.
Suffice it to recall that in difficult years like 1947, 1950 and the day after the assault on the Moncada barracks in 1953, Noticias de Hoy (News of Today), organ of the then Communist Party (People’s Socialist Party) was shut down. However, time and again, thanks to the so-called freedom of the “bourgeois” press, the communists, supported by much of the existing press, demanded that they be re-opened and succeeded, even though Noticias de Hoy advocated class struggle to overthrow the ruling system.
However — returning to the Cuban of today — the member of the Politburo, Miguel Diaz-Canel, at the closing ceremony of UPEC, suggested that what is needed to feed the desire to improve the press and make it more virtuous press is dialogue. That is, the official press is virtuous and those virtues, in his words, lie in having denounced the imperialist campaigns of internal and external enemies, so it is able and has as its mission to contribute to the achievement of a prosperous and sustainable socialism. We need to support — said Diaz-Canel — a set of principles for the Cuban press, extracted from the thoughts of José Martí and Fidel.
The question to Diaz-Canel is if what Fidel said about civil society and citizens’ freedoms during the Moncada trial retains its value, and with respect to Martí it is good to remember the central idea that he presented on the Third Anniversary of the Cuban Revolutionary Party: A people is composition of many wills, vile or pure, frank and grim, hindered by shyness or precipitated by ignorance.
Several journalists from the official press praised the subordination of the press for the purpose of PCC, as in the case of Oscar Sánchez Serra, in his article “The Congress of those we see, hear and read,” published in Granma on 15 July, that posited that the journalist is a builder of socialism.
But the person who more clearly summarized the praises of the subordination of the official press to the PCC was Victor Joaquin Ortega, who in a short editorial appeared in the weekly Tribuna de La Habana, Sunday, 14 July, wrote: “We are the weapon of the Communist Party of Cuba, the only one we need for the struggle, the son of the dignity and creative line of the Cuban Revolutionary Party founded and led by the Apostle [José Martí].”
These and other similar proposals demonstrate that the journalism of UPEC is the journalism of a political party and of a specific ideology, so that it cannot define itself as representative of the Cuban press in general, whose natural plurality extends beyond the communist ideas.
The official press sustains itself on the base of restrictions on the freedom of the press, it as not — as Jorge Barata expressed it well in a dossier on the subject published in Lay Space — plural, nor open, so it is prevented from speaking in the name of Cuban society in total. The PCC defines it politics, based on the limits established in the Cultural Congress of 1961: Within the Revolution everything. Against the Revolution nothing, a limit that should begin by defining what a revolution is and then demonstrating that there is a revolution in Cuba.
The exclusion is not only unjust and unacceptable, but unreal, because the new technologies prevent it. Another press has emerged, parallel and coexisting with the official press. Lay Space, Coexistence, Critical Observatory, Voices, the SPD Bulletin, Cuba Spring and dozens of blogs and websites that do not respond to the PCC, whose importance lies in the decision to participate, without permission, from differing views on the problems of the nation. An alternative journalism, independent, citizen and participatory, reflecting realities ignored by the official press and complying with the requirements of traditional journalism and includes others which are possible with the new technologies, despite the obstacles represented by the lack of freedom of the press.
From Diario de Cuba
2 July 2013
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Prison Diary LII: Dear Vilches, Welcome to the Space of Decorum / Angel Santiesteban
Any injustice against a single person, represents a threat to everyone.
Montesquieu
“God makes us, and freedom joins us.”
This post I owe to the brave writer and friend Rafael Vilches Proenza who, by dint of talent, earned the recognition of the intelligentsia of the Island.
Vilches has followed the call of conscience to do his duty, and responding to his feelings, forgot the gifts that the Government gives to those who follow its dictates without opposition; thus, he is about it enter the Cuban insile, his career as a ghost writer beginning, and now many who call themselves friends will distance themselves from him, especially those who were, for a time, advising him to leave this path of freedom and continue to suck on the teat of the State.
They ar already plotting some strategy, so I ask my friend Vilches to walk with firm steps. State Security is on the hunt, searching, trying, how to muddy, at times, without an alibi, the desperation with which they carry out their coarse punishments, as in my case, but they don’t know that the lash of their whip tastes heavenly, giving us another reason for living.
Dear Vilches, welcome to the space of decorum, of transparency, tired of speaking sotto voce, after making sure that nobody will be listening to an honest judgment.
I swear I’ve heard those who called themselves friends, who wrote me extravagant dedications in their books — and then came forward to sign the document of the “eight women against violence” — being more critical of the government than I am; as also happened with my literary masters, hearing their discontent, their pleas for a way out of the crisis and a political change, but then, when it was time for decency, they showed caution and moved the flags, writing odes to the leaders of the dictatorship, and signing whatever open letter is organized against their colleagues.
Vilches, my brother, now it touches me to be in solidarity with you, you have stayed to give me encouragement since the regime launched its filthy thrust. I am experiencing the contradiction of feeling myself happy to know that History will not record you as pusillanimous, that you prefer to remain silent to not exchange your dignity for perks, but in turn it saddens me to know that misery you will receive from many around you, the betrayal, the loneliness; yet I predict for you that in the end you will have the compensation of one who stays by your side, worth more than a hundred, how else would you have discovered false friends, the cowards?
I only ask that you notice that in addition to the fear in their souls, they are acting in a mediocre play, none will go down in literary history, so they do it, because it’s the only way to be valued as writers and receive trips abroad, of those who bring soap to clean the skin because they have soiled their spirit; of those who have been taken over by UNEAC. Do not expect solidarity, nor even bureaucratic protection from what is supposed to the space that represents artists, to defend us; because that place is just another arm of totalitarianism.
In the end history will render its accounts, because history is what matters, it is where you can live forever.
From my captivity I send my thanks to you for joining the fight against the dictatorship.
The embrace of forever, your brother Angel.
Lawton “settlement”*
August 2013
*Translator’s note: “Settlement” is the euphemism for the Ministry of the Interior “special” prison where Angel is now being held.
30 August 2013
