Translating Cuba

During this month the island is celebrating the sixth edition of the Cuban Day Against Homophobia. The LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community on the island, in their eternal struggle against rejection and exclusion, joins in an apparent cultural celebration organized by the government.

The smiling faces of several LGBT people, marking the day, suggests a satisfied community.

However, the government has not taken any firm steps with regard to respect for sexual rights. The island does not recognize same-sex couples let alone allow their adoption of children. No accusations of gender discrimination may be brought in the Cuban courts.

Under slogans like “Socialism yes, homophobia, no,” Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro and director of the National Sexual Education Center (and also a Deputy to the National Assembly), leads the activities of the day. Unofficial sources reported that some detractors of the Deputy were prevented from attending some events.

On the night of Saturday May 11, the Cuban Gala Against Homophobia was being held with the presence of Cuban agent Rene Gonzalez, who was officially recognized, as was reported in Granma, the Communist Party mouthpiece newspaper. Also, the Gala was chaired by the First Vice President of the Councils of State and Ministers, Miguel Diaz-Canel, and the President of the Cuban Union of Writers and Artists, Miguel Barnet.

“More than a cultural gala it appeared to be a political act,” said one gay college student attending the event. “There was a great presence of uniformed and plainclothes police. The performances of the transvestites (men who dress as women’s clothing as an art form) took place in front of photos of “The Five,” the student said in reference to the five spies sentenced in the United States.

According to this observer, the speakers of the evening repeated, “Long live diversity and freedom for the Cuban Five!” He questioned, “I do not understand what one thing has to do with the other, why do they flood our few spaces flooded political slogans?”

Lissy, an LGBT member, confessed her discomfort in one part of the gala in which a transvestite speaker, paraphrasing the famous gay expression (“Out of the way, Mirtha Medina*, Annia Linares* has arrived”), replaced it with “Out of the way, Obama, Mariela has arrived.”

“The worst thing is that many at the joke, I don’t know, but the most culture they had was the closing song by Los Van Van,” he said.

A gay intellectual who requested anonymity criticized that spaces for debate are only granted to discuss the issue of homosexuality in the context of the day. “There hasn’t been a lot of outreach about the activities and in many of the events there is little gay presence.”

According to this year’s report to the UN Universal Periodic Review, by the Cuban government, on the island they are “promoting respect for freedom of sexual orientation and gender identity.” Brazil recommended to the Cuban delegation that they expand the opportunities for dialogue and interaction on these issues. However, beyond dialogue, the Cuban LGBT community needs laws to protect their sexual rights.

May 17 is World Day Against Homophobia. In over 50 countries homosexuals are persecuted and in at least 8 they are sentenced to death. In other countries there is cause for celebration because of the advances with respect to their rights. We hope that this event will be held in Cuba without ideological manipulation and a common message: non-discrimination.

*Translator’s note: Both are Cuban singers.

Text taken from Cubanet and posted in Wendy and Ignacio’s blog

17 May 2013

A few days ago it was suggested to me in a letter that someday, in another government of course, I could be Minister of Culture, which I doubt because I think politics is not my thing. But if being a politician is saying what you think and going against the interests of the current president, then I am a politician, or a romantic risking that I don’t get tired of suffering until the coming of the happiness to this country that it has deserved for so many years.

In this future government I don’t doubt that there will be the same people who now support the dictatorship.

Unfortunately they are corks*, intellectuals without honor, allying themselves for their personal benefit to communism and fascism.

We see them there, and they, as usual, extend a greeting to me that if I escape they will label me spiteful and say that I cannot adjust to the new national force for a better country.

Those of us who were born to suffer, those of us who do not accept gifts from wherever they come, those of us who think first of Martí, we never enter into these political alliances.

For me, a president is nothing more than a good administrator, and if we get one, then we will see our economy and our culture flourish. What more can we ask for? With that I will be deeply happy. I want a participatory democracy, a country without a secret police that persecutes the opposition and a culture that is not censored for expressing ideas contrary to the State.

In short, I want a free country and that’s why I wake up every morning in this prison completely sure that José Martí’s dream is coming. I am happy in the place that I am. I am at the side of the suffered with Bishop Espada, Father Jos” Agustín Caballero and Félix Varela; I am where I am because I am continuing along the path laid for us by Martí, Céspedes, Agramonte, Maceo. And accompanying me on this path are hundreds of Cubans like Antonio Rodiles, Jose Daniel Ferrer, Guillermo Fariñas, Berta Soler, Hector Maseda, Angel Moya, Cuesta Morúa, Antunez, Manzano and Palacio, among many, who risk their lives and those of their families to achieve our longed for freedom, not to mention the community of bloggers and independent journalists.

I am going to be this: a citizen in the service of good causes, and I’ll be with the rest of the noble and honest intellectuals creating our works which is the best omen.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats
Prison 1580. May 2013

*Translator’s note: “Corks” in the sense that they keep bobbing to the surface.

17 May 2013

The “International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia” (International Day Against Homophobia) is celebrated every year on May 17. A date that serves as a reminder that different sexual orientations and gender identities are still cause for discrimination in some countries.

During this day different activities are undertaken to promote respect for sexual diversity worldwide. Its objective is to articulate actions and reflection to combat physical, moral or symbolic violence linked to sexual orientation or gender identity. Homophobia takes different forms depending on the geographical and social space, so that responses to it must also be different.

On May 17, 1990 the General Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) removed homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses.

17 May 2013

The German PEN Center for Writers in Prison has pronounced its satisfaction with the release of Calixto Martinez Arias but is now asking for a review of the trials of Jose Antonio Torres, journalist, and of writer and blogger Angel Santiesteban Prats. We call on the authorities to provide legal guarantees that have not been respected and this is why the sentences are not related to the crimes they are accuse us. We also call for the evidence to be proceedings be made public.

Posted on 13 April 2013 by Writers in Prison

Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias

[The following is in English in the original]

The Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of PEN International welcomes the 9 April 2013 release of the independent journalist Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias, who had been detained without charge since September 2012. However, PEN notes that two other writers remain imprisoned in the country – state journalist José Antonio Torres and author and blogger Ángel Santiesteban Prats – and continues to call on the authorities to provide assurances that their sentences are not related to their reporting, and to make public details of their trials.

Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias, journalist for the independent news agency Hablemos Press, was released from prison on 9 April 2013, after being detained without charge for almost seven months. Arrested on 16 September 2012 after covering a cholera outbreak which the Cuban authorities had reportedly been trying to downplay, he faced a sentence of up to three years in prison for ‘disrespect’ towards the head of state under Article 144 of the Cuban Criminal Code. The charges were never officially confirmed, his lawyer was not allowed access to his case file and he was never put on trial.

Martínez’ release eventually came amid growing pressure from Cuban civil society and international organisations and the day after he began his third hunger strike. He had called off his previous hunger strike on 28 March after the authorities indicated that he would be moved from Combinado del Este prison to Valle Grande prison and subsequently released. However, although Martínez was transferred he was not freed. As a result, he resumed his hunger strike on 8 April. A number of his colleagues and fellow dissidents joined the hunger strike, including Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez, director of Hablemos Press, which had launched a campaign on social media to push for Martínez’ release.

According to colleagues at Hablemos Press, Martínez has lost two teeth and has cuts on his lips and tongue. Previous reports indicate that he suffered ill treatment in prison, including assault, a ban on using the telephone, being placed in solitary confinement and denied medical attention.

Two other writers remain in Cuban prisons: José Antonio Torres, former correspondent for the government newspaper Granma, and Ángel Santiesteban Prats, award-winning writer and author of the blog ‘The Children Who Nobody Loved’ (‘Los Hijos que Nadie Quiso’). Little is known about the trial of either writer.

Torres, who has been detained since February 2011, is serving a 14-year prison sentence for alleged espionage. His arrest followed the publication of articles in 2010 detailing the mismanagement of an aqueduct project and the installation of fibre-optic cable between Venezuela and Cuba, in which Vice President Ramiro Valdés was named as responsible for supervising both projects. Torres was convicted in mid-June 2012 following a closed trial. Cuba’s state-run media has made only a few brief references to Torres’ case and little is known about the espionage charge, although there are rumours that he may have offered or given confidential information to the US diplomatic mission in Havana.

Santiesteban was imprisoned on 28 February 2013 after being sentenced to five years in prison for alleged assault and trespassing in a case involving his ex-wife. The writer maintains that the charges are fabricated and politically motivated, retribution for his blog which is critical of the Cuban situation and government. He also claims that he was informed of what the outcome of the trial would be on 8 November 2012, one month before the sentencing took place. Details of the case against Santiesteban have not been made public in state media, but according to the appeal lodged by his lawyer there were a number of serious irregularities in the trial and sentencing.

PEN holds no position on Santiesteban’s guilt or innocence. However, it is concerned that his trial appears to have fallen short of international human rights standards.

A post on Santiesteban’s blog dated 9 April 2013 said that the writer had taken from La Lima prison to an unknown destination, and suggested that the reason for his removal was that the ‘Human Rights Commission’ (possibly the Comisión Cubana de Derechos Humanos) had been due to visit the prison that day. Santiesteban had previously reported in a statement published on his blog on 5 April that he had been told that he would be taken to the Salvador Allende military hospital for a check-up in relation to suspected skin cancer. He said that he would refuse to go as it was a military hospital.

For further details on Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias, José Antonio Torres and Ángel Santiesteban Prats, see previous alert.

Please send appeals:

Welcoming the release of Hablemos Press journalist Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias on 9 April 2013;

Noting, however, that two other writers remain in prison in Cuba, former Granma correspondent José Antonio Torres and writer and blogger Ángel Santiesteban Prats, and that their trials apparently failed to meet international human rights standards for fair trials, outlined in Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;

Calling on the Cuban authorities to provide assurances that Torres’ and Santiesteban’s sentences are not related to their reporting, and to make public details of their trials;

Urging the Cuban authorities to remove unlawful restrictions on freedom of expression, association and assembly in Cuba.

Appeals to:

Head of State and Government
Raúl Castro Ruz
Presidente de la República de Cuba
La Habana, Cuba
Fax: +41 22 758 9431 (Cuba office in Geneva);
+1 212 779 1697 (via Cuban Mission to UN)
Email: cuba@un.int (c/o Cuban Mission to UN)
Salutation: Your Excellency
Attorney General

Dr. Darío Delgado Cura
Fiscal General de la República
Fiscalía General de la República
Amistad 552, e/Monte y Estrella, Centro Habana, La Habana, Cuba
Salutation: Dear Attorney General
Interior Minister

General Abelardo Coloma Ibarra
Ministro del Interior y Prisiones
Ministerio del Interior, Plaza de la Revolución, La Habana, Cuba
Fax: +1 212 779 1697 (via Cuban Mission to UN)
Email: correominint@mn.mn.co.cu
Salutation: Your Excellency

Please send also appeals to diplomatic representatives of Cuba in your country.

***Please send appeals immediately. Check with the WiPC if sending appeals after 11 June 2013***

Published by PEN Zentrum Deuschtland

19 April 2013

At the end of a row of makeshift kiosks a colorful poster highlights Communist Party propaganda based on the economic reforms and new forms of production, its assertion inviting me to reflect, not like the usual reflections of Cuba’s ex-president Fidel Castro based in the imperial ideology, I don’t want to turn the reflection into a pollution, seeking the pragmatism that declared the history of the Revolution.

Rivals. This is a word that denoted opposition, conflict, attack, enemy and so it always was. They educate us creating a rival. The most powerful of the rivals in general terms is capitalism represented by the United States. Then there were the individual rivals, fabricated within the people. Christians, peasants, intellectuals, professionals, a friend, brother, cousin, neighbor, anyone who had the means and their own ideas and before obeying the the patrons of the politics implanted by the Revolution they obey the patrons of justice.

Most of these rivals were dispossessed of all their property and expelled to the United States, where they learned to make the land productive. Our rivals created a dignified and prosperous Cuban outside of the socialized Cuba of misery and corruption. Amazing and ironic. Now we must cultivate our lands like our rivals cultivate theirs, referring of course to the inventions of the great leader of the misery, his dynasty and his Communist Party, not the real rivals who were born with the Revolution, nourished on the Revolution, cultured within the Revolution, and crowned in the direction of the Revolution and today they are updating the Machiavellian model of socialism.

What are they? The cult of personality and power, the political fanaticism, inefficiency, negligence, incapacity, fraud, the double standard that is worse than the amorality, the hypocrisy, the like, the ideology based on a loathsome sense of hatred, the incapacity of the mediocre ruling over the talented. Those rivals were not imported from capitalism, nor the consequence of the blockade, most were created by power and the rest were imported from Russia based on Stalinism and some of Leninism.

The content is the imperceptible little sign outside the circle of the government demagoguery and the fraudulent politics of the party and those who placed it and it clarifies many doubts with regards to the official effectiveness of the system over 53 years.

Today I find on a poster the reality that we must cultivate our land like our rivals cultivate theirs, perhaps tomorrow I will come across another urging that we educate our children like our rivals educate theirs, and then another urging commerce like our rivals’, and another urging we reap freedom and rights like our rivals have and even find many everywhere expressing that our rivals teach us how to do things how they do because they’re right. But the most likely is that the reformist propaganda at the end of the kiosks, after this reflection is taken down they punish whoever posted it. Notwithstanding the resignation and lack of communication, like me, people can also reflect and discover that our rivals are enjoying the honey of power*.

*Translator’s note: When Felipe Pérez Roque, former foreign minister, and Carlos Lage, former vice president, were ousted, Fidel Castro commented that they had been seduced by “the honey of power.”

17 May 2013

For World Telecommunication and Information Society Day

They look the same as everyone else: small, restless, ready to play and joke, like any child. But something distinguishes them beyond the neighborhood where they live or the family they belong to. They are part of a generation that is escaping the indoctrination of the official media because they have taken refuge in illegal television programming. They are “the children of the satellite dish,” the direct consumers of the programming on these satellite dishes, as widespread as they are persecuted. When the teacher asks them, in the classroom, what they saw on the news the day before, they are the ones who look at the ceiling and invent some response. But when they interact among themselves, they all know the name of the trendy host in Florida or who won the latest Nuestra Belleza Latina contest.

There are no clear studies of how many people on the Island access these banned channels. It is difficult to calculate because it is a topic little spoken of in public, for fear of confiscations and fines; but also because it’s enough for one family to have one of these satellite dishes to pass the signal via cable to a dozen, a score, or fifty neighboring homes. The most daring have installed the cable under the streets, pretending they were making an authorized repair because of some broken pipe. The principle owner of the persecuted artifact is the one who decides the programming that all subscribers then see on their respective screens. The monthly price is around ten dollars, although some can have the service for free, especially the neighborhood informers, to buy their silence.

However, beyond these technical details of how such an illegality is committed, the most interesting thing is the sociological phenomenon it is generating. Many Cubans of the younger generations — particularly in the capital — barely watch national television. They have escaped the ideological dose of this portal and have replaced it with a more frivolous but less politicized assortment. Among this TV audience are many children, for whom the effect of the slogans and official campaigns is detrimental. They are the children of the satellite dish, breastfed with the illicit and used to the other side of information or misinformation. They have grown up with the remote control in their hands and, with a simple click, they access the prohibited every day.

PS: “It makes no sense to prohibit” the circulation of news, because it is “an almost impossible chimera,” because people “know it.” “Today the news is everywhere, the good, the bad, the manipulated and the true, the half-truths, circulating on the networks, reaching the people, people know it, and the worse thing is silence,” the official told a conference of educators — according to a television report from a few days ago about the words of Miguel Diaz-Canel, first vice president of Cuba.

Another post on this topic: Satellite vs. TELEsur

17 May 2013

Holding on to my patience I managed to watch the National TV News (NTV) for a while. I had to make sure I kept calm in order to avoid getting a heart attack watching the images and listening to the scripted nonsense repeated by our announcers, as if it were a program intended for idiots.

It turned out that they announce that they are “gradually” bringing the streetlights back into action in the areas affected by Hurricane Sandy which devastated the province of Santiago de Cuba, leaving things in a terrible state — as if it was a great event. More than that, what insulted me even more was that they were saying that they were commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the attack on the Moncada barracks, as opposed to the hundreds of unfortunate victims, who still haven’t recovered the losses occasioned by the hurricane, fundamentally due to the accumulated misery of decades, which made it impossible for them to carry out proper maintenance to their houses.

It’s an embarrassment that after so many months they are saying that they are “gradually” restoring street lighting to the streets and avenues, knowing that crime and danger are directly supported by darkness. What’s more, they appear to be avoiding the dietary deficiencies confronting the people of Santiago de Cuba, whose poor income doesn’t permit them to feed themselves properly, and to recover from the damage caused by the atmospheric phenomenon. All of that, without even mentioning that much of the donations sent from different countries were not distributed without charge, as might be expected by the people sending them, but were sold at high prices.

I was even more insulted when recently the representative of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in our country had the nerve and lack of seriousness to publicly announce that we were one of the best fed people not only in America but in the world. It seems that this man forgot that here, when kids get to three years of age they lose their compotes, and at seven their milk, quite apart from the major sacrifices their parents have to make from when they are born, simply because of the lack of material resources.

Now, furthermore, a psychologist, whom I thought up to today was a reasonable person, has volunteered to sign in the Granma daily an article in which he completely justifies our country’s misery, calling it “The Cuban Model of Wellbeing”. What’s more he puts forward as a great example to be followed the fact that in Cuba everybody knows exactly who their neighbors are and what they are doing, when in reality it is no more than meddling in someone else’s life, and not “socializing,” which is what ll of us, one way or another, have had to suffer.

Translated by GH

16 May 2013

On May 1 the government of Cuba was the subject for the second time of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a tool of the Human Rights Council (HRC) of the United Nations responsible for reviewing the obligations and commitments made by the members States in this area.

When this function was exercised by the former Commission on Human Rights, under the UN Economic and Social Council, the dispute between the governments of Cuba and the United States led to a growing politicization of the issue until if became a total bottleneck. Each year the same script is repeated: lobbying before and during the sessions, offensive debates, exchange of accusations, voting on a resolution and finally the Cuban government’s announcement of the defeat of imperialism. From that time until the next session nothing changed in Cuba, because when dealing with “false” and “gross” accusations of the enemy, there was nothing to change.

For Cubans what happened in Geneva had no effect on their lives, because conflicts between states tend to the underhanded and therefore to demobilize conflicts within states, and much more so when the external contradiction is brought to the fore. This situation was used by the Cuban authorities to support ideological nationalism and to “prove” to the world that in Cuba there were no human rights violations, it was all lies told by enemies. continue reading

A few days ago I read that within the vast and complicated machinery of the Cuban Ministry of the Food Industry (MINAL), the meat company nationwide scored higher sales volume during the past fiscal year.

It surprised me, in that ministry there are several companies with more administrative staff than workers; but happy or alarmed was my “to be or not to be.”

The official press lies a little, although regularly, and as an established norm avoids part of reality. So I thought that this note would be published with the only objective of cleaning the stench of corruption that the wave of investigations and arrests that led the former head of this industry, Alejandro Francisco Roca Iglesia, to prison, along with his vice minister, Celio Hernandez and so many other officials. Especially knowing that, although the new minister of the branch is Dr. Maria del Carmen Concepcion Gonzalez, the one who has the upper hand in such a necessary institution in the foolish and never well-thought of engineering specialist in the applied chemistry of human nutrition, Deborah Castro Espín.

Anyway, the irony is liberating and as the old sailor’s saying goes, “When the dolphins leap the storm is coming.” I continued to keep my intellectual apathy busy and communicated with Havana using the overly expensive invention patented in 1876 by the British speech therapist Alexander Graham Bell.

“The Union of the Flesh” — and I quote almost verbatim someone who asked not to be revealed — “is the company that within this large conglomerate sold more last year. Supported, of course, by the Food Corporation SA (a mysterious Cuban capital private entity). continue reading

With the onset of spring the name and the paintings of Salvador Dalí once again resonated in Spain, as the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid located has mounted a retrospective of 200 of his paintings and drawings, visited in less than a month by more than 50,000 people and reviewed by dozens of experts in various communication media in Madrid, Barcelona, Paris and other cities.

The show comes from the Parisian Pompidou Art Museum and had the cooperation of the Dalí Foundation, one of the most profitable in Europe. The “prophet of modernity” includes 104 pieces from the thirties confirming the precocious genius of the enigmatic and provocative “King of Surrealism”, who also dabbled in film, especially with his compatriot Luis Buñuel, with the Walt Disney studios and with Alfred Hitchcock.

According to the media, the “eccentric and immeasurable” character that Dalí built (Figueres, 1904-1989), is knocked out by his creative work. Alongside Picasso and Miró, Dalí made up the luxury triad of visual arts of Spain and is one of the icons of the universal art of the twentieth century.

15 May 2013

From a distance you feel the strokes… bam, bam, bam. The arm raises the thick fat stick and then lets it falls hard on the twisted sheet. The spray of lather explodes with every stroke and white water seeping from dirty fabric mixes with the river. It is very early, the sun barely up, and already the clotheslines are waiting for with damp clothes that must dry in the morning. The woman is exhausted. From the time she was a teenager she has washed her and her family’s clothing in this way. What other choice did she have? In that little village lost in the eastern mountains all her neighbors did the same. At times as she slept her body would move restlessly in the bed and repeat the hint of a movement: up… down… bam… bam… bam.

Lately the discussion of women’s emancipation in Cuba has been focused on persuading us of its extent, showing the numbers of women in parliament. There is also talk — in the official mass media — of how many have managed to climb into administrative positions, or to lead an institution, a scientific center or a business. However, very little is said about the sacrifice involved for them in managing in these positions with their busy domestic schedules and material shortages. You only have to look at the faces of those over forty to note the tense frown common in so many Cuban woman. It is the mark left by a daily life where a good part of the time must be dedicated to burdensome and repetitive tasks. One of these is the laundry, which many of our countrywomen do, at least a couple of times a week, by hand and in very tough conditions. Some do not even have running water in their homes.

In a country where a washing machine costs an entire year’s salary, we can’t talk about women’s emancipation. Facing the washtub and the brush, or the boiler filled with baby diapers bubbling on the firewood, thousands of women pass many hours of their lives. The situation becomes more difficult if we move away from the capital and look at the hands of the women who clean, with the strength of their fingers, the shirts, pants and even the military uniforms of their families. Their hands are knotted, stained white by the soap or detergent in which they’re immersed for hours. Hands belie statistics about emancipation and the fabricated gender quotas, with which they try to convince us otherwise.

Other texts with this theme: With Clitoris and With Rights; Violence Against Woman.

15 May 2013