English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
In less than a year the Cuban opposition has lost two of its most important leaders. On October 14 of last year life of Laura Pollán, the principal coordinator of the Ladies in White and the key figure in the release of the Black Spring prisoners, was cut short. A week ago a car crash, … Continue reading “The Death of Oswaldo Payá and the Opposition in Cuba / Yoani Sánchez”
Since the release of latest political prisoners from the repressive crackdown known as the Black Spring of 2003, foreign correspondents in Cuba cling to a mythical number twelve, referring to those who refused exile and stayed on the island, which is a half truth. There were 52 remaining of the 75 convicted under the Gag … Continue reading “Not Twelve, Seventeen / Miguel Iturria Savón”
In tune with the new airs of delayed economic reforms that General Raul Castro aims to promote, under one of the measures made public on Monday 9th May, Cubans on the island can take holidays abroad. On the street it has been the story of the year. It displaced the Brazilian soap opera, the gossip … Continue reading “Will Cubans Be Able to Holiday Abroad? / Iván García”
Tuesday 9 May, on listening to the reading, on the National Television News, of the official daily press note from Granma, the official organ of the Communist Party of Cuba, I remembered the old joke about Napoleon, Granma and the Battle of Waterloo: “If Napoleon had had a newspaper like Granma nobody would know, yet, … Continue reading “Granma, Napoleon and the Insurgents / Miguel Iturria Savón”
DEATH IN MAY Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo It begins happening more every day. First as an accident, then as business-as-usual. The despicable childishness of the police beating innocents (in the street and in prison) is also a sinister little game, eventually an assassination. As the pyramid of governability disintegrates in Cuba, as the budget for … Continue reading “DEATH, DEATH AND MORE DEATH / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
An event of such magnitude always leaves its mark. The death of Orlanado Zapata Tamayo, at the age of 42, is indelibly engraved on my memory. In the afternoon of 23 February 2010 I was at the home of the independent lawyer and journalist Laritza Diversent, reviewing some legal cases which might be of journalistic … Continue reading “The Day Orlando Zapata Died / Iván García”
Enemy Campaigns and The Politics of Confrontation with Counterrevolutionary Groups Download a PDF of this transcript here. La ciber policia en Cuba from Coral Negro on Vimeo. Presenter: Eduardo Fontes Suárez Introduction The title more or less says it all, we can adjust [the talk to meet] your interests, comrades, when it’s time for discussion. … Continue reading “MININT Cyber Lecture Video – English Transcript”
“Not even by paying 10 CUC (12 dollars) can a family get a pipa (water truck) in order to fill buckets, tanks and containers,” says Liudmila, a resident of El Calvario, a desolate hamlet south of Havana. Although there have been deliveries of water lately, shortages continue. In the first week of January, in El … Continue reading “Havana Without Water, Another Headache for the Regime / Iván García”
More than 50 dissidents and activists were arrested on December 10 in Cuba by the combined forces of the National Police and State Security for attempting to mark the International Day of Human Rights, according to the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation led by Elizardo Sánchez Santacruz. The Universal Declaration of Human … Continue reading “Cuba: More than 50 Opponents Arrested on Human Rights Day / Iván García”
There is no doubt the dissidence on the island is looking for a space. The document: A Future for Cuba. Issued on December 2, it is counter-proposals to the government’s measures — a balanced document that fits this time in Cuba — from a group of ten people, among them the economist Martha Beatriz Roque … Continue reading “The Time of the Cuban Opposition / Iván García”
He arrived home on Saturday. After 7 years and 8 months behind the bars of a cell and the creaking of locks, the dissident economist Arnaldo Ramos Lauzurique, 68, at 6:30 in the morning of his first Sunday in freedom, sat in the park facing the modest apartment where he lives in the neighborhood of … Continue reading “Who is Arnaldo Ramos? / Iván García”
Perhaps as a punishment for their decision not to leave Cuba, the prisoners of conscience from the Black Spring of 2003 who have chosen to remain in their country will be the last batch to come out of prison. This was announced by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla in an exchange with the New … Continue reading “Those Who Don’t Want to Leave Will be the Last to Get Out / Iván García”
A tragic fashion. Objectionable to many. The only option the opponents have. They believe that in this way they can force the regime. It is their war cry. But it is not a new weapon. Already in 1972 a 53-day hunger strike took the life of opponent Pedro Luis Boitel. It was before the era … Continue reading “Hunger Strikes, Weapon of Cuban Dissidents”
When I first went to his home, what struck me most was an old glass cabinet. Inside, sorted by date, were national newspapers from at least ten years before. Lacking a computer and Internet, this had been the main source of information for Arnaldo Ramos Lauzurique (b. Havana, 1942), an economist who believed in the revolution while he worked in … Continue reading “An Economist Behind Bars”
While some prisoners of the Black Spring of 2003, like Pablo Pacheco and Adolfo Fernandez Sainz, have their optimism levels up in the clouds, there is much more caution amongst the feelings of the Ladies in White. In fact, there is much pessimism. The doctor Lidia Lima, wife of the prisoner of conscience Arnaldo Ramos … Continue reading “More Doubts than Optimism”