As has been my custom, yesterday I went to “Last Thursday,” the space of the magazine Temas (Themes). The theme of Temas was quite attractive to me: Internet, social networks, culture. I arrive late so I missed the presentation of the invited guests, among whom I recognized Iroel Sanchez, former president of the Cuban Book Institute, and Rosa Miriam Elizade, director of the portal Cubadebate. Those I didn’t know turned out to be the blogger Paquito from De Cuba; Milena, I believe from Cubarte; and Juan, professor at UCI (University of Information Sciences); they didn’t say their last names. I concentrated on those I didn’t know, because those I did know couldn’t surprise me.
Paquito and Milena struck me as interesting and inclusive. Paquito loosened up quite a bit to improve the image of the press, which everyone there knew to be horrible. Juan, the professor at UCI, very informative, but his opinions were a tribute to the Cold War. I listened to him reiterate the premise of the political character of the internet representing special interests, but mostly about its creators, and I could not stop thinking of the political activism in official cyber pages and blogs, and all the cyber activity against capitalism that’s posted worldwide. He concluded with the endorsement of the status quo, somewhat out of tune with the mostly young audience which he tried to convince that the intranet was as good as the internet; so much so, that Rafael Hernández, who functioned as moderator, issued menacing words to stop the ensuing harassment.
As often happens in venues where the public has the opportunity to use the microphone, a few like to show off their wisdom, (or what some might interpret as wisdom). Others are happy to hear themselves talk, since they were not paying attention and asked questions that had already been answered.
Not everyone asked to speak in order to waste the two hours scheduled for the venue. Enrique Vega, student of Pedagogy explained that our society is technologically outdated and out of touch, and how can the gap be addressed; Antonio Rodiles from “Estado de SATS” approached the topic of freedom in terms of our poor connectivity and discouragement of usage; Luis Rondón LGBT activist, asked how we can pretend to prepare our society for the internet without the use of the internet; Harold Cárdenas, one of the administrators of the retired blog Cuban Youth (La Joven Cuba), asked when will the debates are going to move from the virtual to the real.
When it was about to get truly interesting, the time expired. While the topic was social networks and culture, the question of the twenty-four thousand pesos surfaced: And what about the Cable?
From girlhood, the happiest time of year for me was Christmas. Maybe because the general atmosphere that surrounded that date was happiness and relaxation. All the adults became friendlier, maybe because they received their “bonuses,” which generally equaled another month’s salary,making them more tolerant of the smallest and youngest of the family and of the neighborhood, who back then were like an extension of this.
I always observed with curiosity, but also with the naiveté of a girl, that my aunts and my mother, days before the key dates — Christmas and the day of the Three Kings — would restore old toys and dolls, cleaning them and making them new clothes, so that everything was shiny. I remember that one of my aunts made tin soldiers, which my grandfather later took charge of painting suitably. All this process of pouring the melted tin in the molds fascinated me, and I watched with delight. I never associated this busy workshop with anything but another chore, in a home where everyone was very hard-working. It was not until my cousin Ignacito, the most mischievous of us, approached me in secret and told me: “Cousin, the parents are the Kings. If you want to prove it, the night before stay awake like me to see my father dressed as a King, placing the toys around the Christmas tree.”
After he made this confession to me, I realized that these restored dolls and toys had become the property of other children in the neighborhood from families with fewer resources than ours.
I adored my cousin, he was my hero, and tried to follow him in all his antics. I joined him the night before the anticipated day. Trying to fight sleep, finally Morpheus overcame me before I could see my fantasy shattered. But now things would not bethe same, and in later years, I did not feel like leaving water and straw for the camels. Nevertheless, I do not know for what hidden reason, I continued believing and feeding that illusion for several more years.
I grew, and with my adolescence came the year fifty-nine. The first thing that I saw vanish was that pretty family that I had always so much enjoyed: my aunts and uncles and with them my cousins. That was a strange pain that I had never before felt, as if something was broken inside of me. Later my friends left. No more walks to window shop, no more scent of fresh pine in the doorways of the stores, no more garlands or toys. All that disappeared. I never again heard those Christmas carols and songs, not in the streets or on the radio, much less on television: they were replaced by marches or anthems.
For more than fifty years I longed to again hear a Christmas carol or song. This never happened. Nevertheless, this year, with the new boom in the small businesses and the ingenuity of the self-employed, we have spent the whole summer, until today, listening to the improvised ice cream carts, announcing themselves with music of carols, which evidently (because everyone has the same) have been incorporated, possibly with the music that comes with the garlands, which are sold at the currency raising shops — as we call the hard currency stores.
This has become something like that “you did not want soup, but you drink three bowls.” Nothing, that for more than half a century was a shortage, now has become an overdose. The only signs that it’s Christmas are those little carts and the paladares, the private restaurants.
Our adolescence was fertilized with novels and TV series that marked our aesthetics and personalities.
How many times did we read the novels, “Here the Sands are Cleaner,” “If I Die Tomorrow,” or the series “It Had to Be in Silence,” with most of us enjoying those fantasies of socialist heroes who, guided by Cuban “Counterintelligence” managed to outwit their enemies.
Over time they have become socialist fantasy trash and the young people of today consider them terrible literary works because of their insubstantial content and their unbelievability.
On Thursday, November 8, we went to present our respects to the parents of Antonio Rodiles, elderly people around 90 years old, and of course his closest accomplices and companions in their ideological ideas. We also wanted to demand the release of the unjustly detained lawyers Laritza Diversent, Yaremis Flores, and Veizant Boloy. We arrived at the Acosta police station and met up with the independent attorney Wilfredo Vallín in the offices there.
They refused to let us see them, from which I inferred they had beaten one or more of them and so they hid them from us.
We could not be fainthearted before the abuse
We stood in front of the police station, coming to be, if I’m not mistaken, seven human rights activists, or bloggers, or opponents, or whatever you want to call us, among them Yoani Sanchez of course, Claudio Fuentes, the professional photographer, Eugenio Leal, the activist Arabel Villafuerte, among others. The truth is that we found ourselves there because it pained us to know that there was an innocent suffering in Castro’s dungeons.
The operation was already closing in. Around us we found a group of “civilians,” military whom we know aim to repress. We were aware that our abusers were just three yards from us. At times I stared at them fixedly to unmask their intentions, dreams, fantasies, but their criminal visage prevented me from doing it. I assure you we were laughing, or perhaps it was a laugh of pity for them.
Someone warned that at the corner they were arresting those who wanted to join the group. They started to force them into the patrol cars and began beating them as usual. We were about a hundred yards away, and in the distance, perhaps out of fear and love, we thought it was Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo. It wouldn’t be a lie if we said we were still for a few seconds, we all knew what approaching them would mean, but without any starting pistol we ran as one, I remember that Yoani went like a mother when one of her pups is stolen and she had already forgotten the words of Reinaldo Escobar, her husband, when he said before saying goodbye to be careful, and also the caresses of her son, whom perhaps she would not be there to hug when he got home from school.
The truth was that she went asking for an explanation of why he was being arrested and beaten. In the midst of the siege I watched her unchecked bravery and in a second the door of the patrol car where they had two arrested activists opened and they wanted to put her body into the car. There was a moment where I was frightened because her feet were under the back tires and the car started to move. But they pulled and pushed her. Yoani faced the police and her bravery made them small. Then a boorish official came wanting to provoke her, challenge her. And the brilliance of Yoani was to ask her from which tenement she’d emerged, and to say to her that she was showing no composure at all with her display of trashiness
I was right next to Yoani and I could see the eyes of the officer, and see she was disarmed, as if an iota of shame had escaped against her will because she saw that he was knocked out before the round even began. And to Yoani, whom she knew wasn’t in her weight class ideologically or in principles, she turned her back.
When the order came to grab us
Then we heard when they gave the order to grab us. They pushed us, separated us. I looked around while they were grabbing me and saw Claudio in a patrol car, they took Eugenio off in handcuffs and Yoani as well, and even put her in a patrol car.
When the patrol car came I gave in. I think we were not a force of resistance but of conscience, of justice, of the disorder that we had not originated. When they took me to sit in the car someone behind me said “get in, go,” and I was punched in the neck, without thinking I returned the blow, and they were devastating, as if they had suffered the greatest offense, or it was only that this horde of abnormals had been waiting for a tiny spark to explode into cowardly and abnormal violence. It was like they were waiting for the sound of a whistle to begin their cowardice.
I never imagined that this might be recorded, you already saw the beating they gave me. Although I have not seen the video, you know that watching YouTube from Cuba like everything else is impossible. The blows that hurt most were when they opened the back door on the right: they were like the kicks from a beast, and for a moment I thought they had fractured my skull, there were so many of them and they were so hard that the blows others were giving me on the ribs, back and legs weren’t important. I don’t know if they were beating me with a ring or brass knuckles, but the blows were so forceful they broke my head, my lip, and like an urgent warning of personal salvation, in my semi-conscious state, I decided to get up and get out of the car.
I will not describe more what you can see in the video. But one details that perhaps you can’t see is that, on leaving an officer who was at my back was bragging, he said, “You’ll see if he straightens up now,” and he squeezed me with his arm around my neck until I started to feel faint from lack of air, he did it with such force I thought he’d separated my head from my body.
They led me to another patrol car to take us to the back yard of the police station. I looked at the other cars and they were sitting there, like me, waiting. Next to Yoani there was a woman dressed in civilian clothes. Then they changed the car I was in and I sat beside Eugenio. The voice coming out of the station said, “Let’s get out of here, we have to get out of here,” but it was said with terror. I think they feared more activists would come or that the people who had watched were starting to move towards the entrance to the station.
The journey begins
There was a line of patrol cars led by the Chief of the Operation who traveled in a green Lada with yellow license plates. At the end there was a red van with more hired assassins. They drove around aimlessly, talking on cell phones, from which I infer that the operation had gotten out their hands. The whole time Yoani was making signs of freedom, of Victory, and the bystanders were watching her without understanding much, this severe lack of consciousness that most of the Cuban people have, covered with a mask of innocence and fear. We arrived at the Monumental — the highway surrounding Havana — an ideal place to massacre us and leave us in the gutter. There were no witnesses present.
They stopped the line of cars, there were about nine. Immediately two uniformed women who were so huge they barely left any space sat down next to Yoani. They were searching us, taking our documents. When it was my turn the Chief of the Operation pulled me to my feet by the handcuffs, and despite being able to feel the metal of the handcuffs in my bones, every time I looked at Yoani with that nobility, my strength multiplied
The Chief of the Operation started to kick me with his boot to make me open my legs for the frisk, but he did it with rage, I shouted that this was the best they knew how to do, beat a handcuffed man, defenseless, that they always did the same. Eugenio shouted for them to stop hitting me, that violence wasn’t necessary. While he searched me I took the opportunity to tell him that the dictatorships of the seventies in America had to wait thirty years to be judged, that now they were old men and they were being tried. That the violation of human rights doesn’t expire and that some day he would have to pay for his excesses. He shouted at me, “When I pay you already will have.” I suppose he was saying I would suffer first before him. He told me, “It seems that the five years you’re going to get in court soon isn’t enough.” I told him, of course, the judges are you, that it was all theater and you already decided the penalties before the trial. But I told him it doesn’t matter, here there is a body and courage to face it. “Yes, I know you’re brave,” he told me sarcastically. I’m not brave but neither are you cowards who beat people as a group because you are afraid to do it alone.
When they received the order we now had destinations. They divided us among the city. Eugenio and I were sent to Santiago de las Vegas. There they took me to the hospital because the jailer wouldn’t receive me in such a precarious state. The pains in my ribs were like stabbing needles, and blood was all over my body, coming out of my mouth and my head frightened them, plus the swelling in my lip and cheek.
There I took advantage, thanks to their oversight, to let friends know we were being held in Santiago de las Vegas. On returning to the station they took me to a cell. Before entering I saw Eugenio through the bars and Veizant. The lawyer who set off this chain of injustice when, like an attorney and a husband, he went to inquire about his wife, the attorney Yaremis Flores. We greeted each other with a nod of the head and I assured them that for me it was an honor to share those cells with them. Then he said he was worried about his daughter, because they didn’t know who had taken charge of the girl, he was very worried and like everyone, they had refused to grant him the telephone call which, by law, everyone arrested is allowed in the first 24 hours.
Between Kafka and Virgilio Piñera
Around midnight they took me out of the cell. I thought it would be for an interview. Then they returned my clothes and announced to me that I was being released. For me it was a humiliation, to let me go, to distance me from the fate of my companions was the worst thing they could have done to me. I begged the jailer to let me go back and inform them but he refused. I asked him several times and he said it was impossible. I was very sad, I didn’t know how to face that disdain, at least that’s how I saw it.
At the station door the Duty Officer gave me my ID card. The street was desolate, as is customary in country towns. I asked a passerby how I could rent a car and he pointed to the place. I walked 200 yards and saw a telephone. I called two people, while talking I saw emerge from the darkness two officials who told me I had to go back, “You didn’t want to leave? We’re going to make you happy.”
I hung up the phone but not before reporting what was happening. My interlocutors didn’t understand anything about what was happening. To Kafka and Virgilio Piñera it would have been difficult to imagine. In my daze even I didn’t understand, but I was happy they were taking me back to my brothers.
At the entrance to the cells, after taking my shoelaces and belongings, they took me to a small room where the Operation Official hit me in the ankles. After I sat down he handcuffed me and calmly took out his pistol, cocked it and put it to my head. I felt the weight of the metal on my skull which accentuated the pain from the blows I’d received before. Those seconds were the longest of my life. I don’t know how I got out the words, “At some point you are going to have to pay me.” More seconds passed in silence and he answered, “This is true, I’d better wait until you’re on the street and I can hit you in the head with a hammer and leave you like someone assaulted you to rob you.” He took off the handcuffs and pushed me outside to the jailer to take me to the cells. Outside there was an activist who they’d also arrested whom they were letting go, and he told me, with regards to the pistol to the head and the hammer that they had played out that scene of terror on him too, in the style of Alfred Hitchcock.
I told the others what had happened and no one understood clearly why they had let me go out to the street. Eugenio said they were sick, it was an aberration, and they did it to destabilize me psychologically.
Soon they called Veizant for an interview and told him he would be released, then that his wife Yaremis was being processed by State Security at 100th and Aldabo for a blog post that she had written in which, according to them, she had lied.
Eugenio and I were happy because there were two less in that injustice and this way Veizant could take care of his daughter, who was surely worried about her parents. The body aches were exacerbated to the extent that the nerves were relaxing. Eugenio and I passed the night talking about justice, history and freemasonry.
In the morning they released Eugenio. We hugged and loneliness is the worst enemy, although I preferred seclusion to my friends being detained. At midday four military came for me. They told me to come out of the cell. I asked them where they were taking me. “Wherever we want,” they answered.
When, slowly, because of the pains, especially in my ribs, they made a move to get me up, they wanted to panic me, I refused, and told them not to touch me, but they didn’t wait, they pulled me out by the hair while kicking me some more. They pounced on my as if it was the “pile” game we played as kids, only I was the one underneath; they put a boot in my chest, then my knee, another beat me on the same injured side, with a vengeance. I shouted to give it to me on the other side because those ribs were already broken, and that made him more eager, “Who told you not to obey,” he said, and continued. They tightened the handcuffs with this mania they have to tighten them around the skin until they cut off your circulation.
I was taken at full speed to the middle of the city, they ran the lights and even went zigzagging between the buses and cars. In a few minutes we were at the Aguilera barracks.
How unjust to use the name of our vice president of the Government in Arms!*
*Translator’s note: Francisco Vicente Aguilera was vice president of the Cuban “Government in Arms” formed during an early war of independence fought against Spain in the 1860-70s.
It is a secret to no one that the Cuban government has fixed its attention on the possibility of negotiations with the United States that could be advantageous to them. To divide a part of that society and its US investors who want to trade with Cuba seems to be the strategy designed to keep them entrenched at the head of the Antillean country without the threat of politically binding commitments.
They have outlined a plan of selective commercial bites that permit them to have lucrative benefits with capitalist associates, who worry about the enlargement of their bank accounts and are not interested in other matters that could affect their ties with Cuba. That is why they silence we Cuban dissidents who are committed to a process of normalization of relations with the giant from the north.
It is like the irony of asking the United States to lift the embargo, but only that part that impedes their obtaining earnings, not in a complete way. Sometimes it even seems to me that they are thinking of doing the same thing with respect to the Common Position of the European Union, where they prefer to take care with its dividends so that “they do not risk their businesses with inappropriate petitions for rights and freedoms for Cubans.”
It is possible that the planned and “shiny” package, also includes the intention of creating controversy and debate within the US and European societies, in which it is an advantage to them to be treated as an underdeveloped, small, blockaded country, that “fights strenuously to move forward.”
That seems to be the motto they have been repeating for years to the rest of the world, including fundamentally to Washington and Brussels. No one mentions the dictatorship or the embargo on civil and political rights and liberties that the government imposes on its people: whatever does not suit them does not exist. They are victims before the foreigners, victimizers with their fellow citizens; they are humanitarians with others, but with us they have been a barbed whip in almost all aspects of society.
In the almost 54 years of this model, we have learned that they are only effective at militarization, political discourse — not always well founded — strategies for permanent command and control. The militarism established in the early years made it possible for them to be rapacious with their compatriots in the exercise of power and facilitated their systematic violation of the fundamental rights of Cubans.
In the present, they are taking steps in issuing, revising and repealing some laws, and although they are not making all the progress that we need, at least it means a small advance in dismantling old structures and procedures that anchored and formed mentalities with which they cannot advance towards a model a little more human, which seems to be the objective of the leadership of Raul Castro.
They want to reestablish relations with the United States — clearly with conditions — and they were working to pierce the nest that they publicly despised and verbally attacked so many times — and still do — by which they trampled their rights — as well as with those of many Cubans — by confiscating their property without compensation.
It seems that so many years in power have deluded them so much that they believe they can fool their opponents with some few moves on the bilateral political chess board, like easily defeating an opponent with a bishop check. Today they present themselves to US society as innocents and tempting prey, but they only offer bird seed to the rich descendants of the bald eagle, which as everyone knows, are also carnivores.
Usually, when the death of some figure addicted to “the model” is announced, whether it be someone from the sciences, the arts, sports or some other field, among the relative merits mentioned are his having been faithful (sometimes unconditionally) to the nation’s top leaders.
As I recall, when notable figures from the struggle for independence or the era of the Republic died, I never read nor heard anyone mention that he had been faithful to Céspedes, Agramonte, Maceo, Gómez or Martí. Or more recently to Mella, Villena or Chibás, to name but a few, much less to Estrada Palma, Zayas, Menocal, Machado, Batista, Grau or Prío. Perhaps it was because they were never considered occupants of Mount Olympus and, therefore, simply did not warrant further mention. Having been faithful to one’s principals was more than enough.
This exotic custom, imported from some far-off place (it never existed in Cuba), has spread like the marabou weed (as happens with everything bad), and today is an obligatory feature in official obituaries. The problem is that it is foreign to us, like embalming or tea at five, to name but two extreme examples. Besides, it has an unpleasant whiff of the cult of personality, something that, at least officially, is said not exist in our country.
I feel that, with all the “updating” that is going on, it would be convenient to be aware of this situation, not to update it, but to uproot it.
The attorney and independent blogger, Laritza Diversent, responds to questions by readers of Diaro de Cuba regarding emigration reform.
Ricardo E. Trelles: In your professional life you have to deal with the country’s existing legal system in which laws are formulated and established in an illegitimate way, without citizen participation, and in which the appointment of judges as well as their legal decisions are made arbitrarily. Don’t you think that your knowledge could be useful in helping to define and develop a political movement that could help provide us with a government, legislative body and legal system that is legitimate and respectable? Do you have hopes that the current legal system will continue to become a little more flexible and tolerant, one where there are more opportunities for respectful criticism that does not threaten its hegemony?
Hello, Ricardo. Yes, that is precisely what I am doing — putting my knowledge at the disposal of Cuban civil society, or whoever might have need of it. And it is not only me. There are also other young attorneys with whom I intend to work to identify the problems of the legal system, which puts us in an indefensible position by making us look for ways to oppose it, so that, when democracy does arrive, these problems will not be repeated. Along with attorneys such as Yaremis Flores, Veizant Boloy and Barbara Estrabao, we are taking the time to identify those problems and to help dissidents as well as citizens who do not seem to have political motivations.
In regards to your second question, I do not think the system is becoming more flexible and tolerant, much less allowing for citizen participation from its critics. The situation in Cuba today demands change, and even then this is not enough. My hope is that Cubans will stop engaging in self-censorship and will realize that they are the masters of their destinies and their lives, that free education and health care are not “victories of the revolution” but an obligation of the state, that they are people with rights and those rights are there to be exercised since they are the foundation of liberty. In my opinion, self-censorship is a stronger force in today’s Cuba than repression. In other words it is clear that physical repression is used against those who exercise their rights, but most people do not exercise their rights out of fear of repression.
Ernesto Gutiérrez Tamargo: It is always good to have the perspective of a colleague in Cuba. What do you consider to be the positive and negative aspects of Legal Decree 302/2012? Considering that it regulates some basic human rights, don’t you think it would have been more fitting and consistent, legally speaking, if it had been approved as a normal law by the National Assembly of People Power (ANPP) rather than being issued as a legal decree by the Council of State?
In regards to your first question about what I consider to be positive and negative in Legal Decree 302/2022, in my opinion the new regulations are positive in that they allow Cubans living abroad to regain residency status in Cuba. Before this law the only possibility of obtaining permission to repatriate (a permanent return to Cuba) was if it was for “humanitarian reasons.” Permission was granted to those were were terminally or gravely ill, women over sixty, men over sixty-five and children under sixteen, and only if they could demonstrate that they had family members in Cuba capable of supporting them financially.
On the negative side it does not solve the problem of dual citizenship, which the constitution does not allow. The government does not prohibit its nationals from changing citizenship, but neither does it allow them to renounce their Cuban one. In practice it ignores the fact that a Cuban living overseas might be a citizen of the other country.
With respect to the suitability of approving a law in the ANPP instead of doing so in a legal decree by the Council of State, hopes for emigration reform certainly grew each time a session of the National Assembly was announced. However, it was the offices presided over by the Head of State and Head of Government, the Council of State and Council of Ministers who unexpectedly put the reforms into effect by decree.
Good judicial practice dictates that normally a law should be modified or overturned by the body that created it. This is one of the principal and logical outcomes of the principal of regulatory hierarchy. In other words it is not appropriate for a lower body to modify a legal statute established by a higher one. But in Cuba we are the exception to the rule.
Here it is quite normal for the Council of State to modify a law created by parliament. We saw this, for example, in the new regulations that allowed for the sale of private homes in which the Council of State modified the General Housing Law, a statute created by the National Assembly. The same thing happened with the new modifications, although it was not the Cuban parliament that issued Law 1312 on September 20,1978. Instead it was approved by the President of the Republic, a position that does not exist within the Cuban legal structure. It is the Council of State that modifies or overturns statutes approved by parliament based on the premise that it is a branch of the National Assembly, which it represents when the Assembly is not in session.
With regards to the hasty approval in a plenary session of the National Assembly in December, the strategic and intelligent decision was conveniently put into effect before Cubans could exercise their right to vote in elections. One of the promises made by Raul Castro when he took office in 2008 was to eliminate “excessive and unnecessary” restrictions. It was also to his advantage to modify his emigration policy before the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) by the UN Council on Human Rights, scheduled to take place between April 22 and May 3, 2013.
One of the recommendations made by the council in the previous UPR in 2009, which has still not been accepted, was to eliminate restrictions on freedom of movement of its citizens. On this occasion the government used a similar strategy when, before submitting to the review, it signed the conventions on human rights on February 28, 2008, which it still has not ratified, even though at the time the signing led to recognition and congratulations from the international community.
Saavedra: I have two questions for you. First, I have been working outside Cuba for a year and a half. To come here, I had to apply for a release (a letter of non-objection) in February of 2011 at the university where I used to work as a professor. I retain Cuban residency and have travelled twice during this time. I am thinking of going in December of this year and returning on January 10. Do I run the risk that they will retain my passport based on fact that I worked at the university more than a year ago and am a university graduate? Or could they ask me for a new letter of release that the university rector could delay giving me for up to five years?
In response to your first question, they are required to update your passport and you would not be running a risk of having to apply for a new letter of release. You have already been released. The guidelines dealing with professionals who require authorization to travel overseas for personal reasons pertain to those who are currently employed on the island, whose names and permanent identity information is in an automated system organized and controlled by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security according to the new regulations (articles 5 and 6 of the decree). However, I recall that there are various articles that could apply here and that the final decision is subject to the discretion of the Minister of the Interior.
Saavedra: My second question pertains to my wife, who is in Cuba. She is also a university graduate and has a job as a specialist for ETECSA (Telecommunications Company of Cuba). I would like to take her with me early next year, in March or April. Obviously, they could delay giving her authorization to travel for up to five years. If we begin the process of applying for the non-objection letter before January 14 (when the new law goes into effect), can they keep her there for five years based on the new law or some other existing law, or would they release her from her job reasonably quickly? Our intention is to work outside of Cuba without losing our residency status there, or to travel at least every two years. Thank you for your answer, and I apologize for the length of my questions.
Your wife does run the risk that they could keep her passport for five years if she is still working. The automated system contains the names and permanent personal information of professionals who require authorization to travel overseas for personal reasons and must be ready in two months counting from October 16 of last year, the date of publication of the new regulations.
Bryan: Is there some legal mechanism for Cuban youths who have dual nationality to be excused from active military service?
Unfortunately, there is no legal ruling that exempts a young Cuban from fulfilling the requirement of military service because of dual nationality or citizenship. In fact this is one of the quirks that prevents Cubans from obtaining a passport and, therefore, from leaving Cuba. The government does not recognize that any of its citizens has any citizenship other than the Cuban one, even if he or she holds citizenship from one or more other countries. In other words, you can have several nationalities, legally speaking however, within Cuba you are a Cuban citizen and there is no formula or procedure by which you can renounce this citizenship, even if it infringes on constitutional law. Legally, even the National Assembly has not determined who has the authority to decree loss of citizenship. It is one of the factors used to control the flow of emigration.
Lila: I have been in Spain for ten months. I have a residency permit for five years. I am not thinking of going back to Cuba because I would lose my job. Would I have to get an extension or is there no need under the new law? How much would I have to pay for my stay here?
Yes, you have to get an extension for each month you stay overseas after the time period for which you received permission, if it is before January 14, 2013. After that date a fee is charged for each month after the first 24 months you are a permanent resident outside the country, according to rulings from the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The name of the consular contribution will change from “Extension for Overseas Stay” to “Extension of Permanent Overseas Residency.” They will be priced the same. In your case, since Spain is a member of the euro zone, that would be 40 euros if you pay it through the Cuban consulate. It you pay electronically, it is 25 euros more. You could even ask them to give you multiple extensions in the same application for the number of months authorized.
Orosmer Rodríguez: In the case of Yoani Sánchez what would happen if next February she were to decide to visit New York or Miami? Could she be detained even if there are no pending legal charges against her?
Under new regulations Yoani Sánchez should get a new passport or have it renewed, if she already has one. As long as she is not violating any laws in Cuba’s current Penal Code, no one can detain her. And if they did, we would be dealing with an arbitrary detention.
It is another matter if they do not allow her to leave the country. That would constitute a violation of freedom of movement, which is a recognized right under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as under the International Convention for Civil and Political Rights which the state, by signing, has made clear its intention to respect.
However, under the new emigration regulations the government can prevent Yoani Sánchez from leaving the country by denying her the possibility of obtaining a valid passport or by officially declaring that she may not leave the country for reasons of national or military security, or if the Minister of the Interior so determines.
International human rights institutions are concerned about the practice by some states of hindering their own nationals from leaving their country. One of the tactics that they mention is the refusal to issue a passport under the pretext that the applicant would harm the country’s reputation.
Tenores Jomenor: I would like to know what you consider to be the main points of “the pending emigration law,” assuming it is inadequate.
The pending emigration law should not be called an emigration law since the regulation of the right to citizenship would be outside its scope. This is closely tied to freedom of movement, specifically to the right of each individual to enter his or her own country, which recognizes the special connection that one has to the other.
The pending emigration law should regulate and protect the right to move freely and to choose one’s residency within the nation’s boundaries. Nevertheless, Havana has special regulations that violate freedom of movement and freedom to freely choose one’s residency.
The restrictions that the anticipated emigration law contain should be specific and provide for legal recourse to limit the ability of Minister of the Interior to limit entry or exit from the country.
The restrictions contained in the pending emigration law should be compatible with all other universally recognized rights and fundamental principles of equality and non-discrimination. It should make no distinctions because of a citizen’s political views. Nor should it invalidate any right or compromise its essence. In other words it should not be the general rule and the exercise of the right the exception.
Mario Martínez: I live in Cuba, but have worked for several years in the Cayman Islands. Until now I have had to return to the island every eight or nine months. I would like to ask you if in the future, before going to Cuba, I will still have to pay $40 per month extension with a bank draft to the Cuban embassy in Jamaica as well as the $25 for not doing it in person.
Your question is very similar to Lila’s. After January 14, 2013, based on the new regulations, specifically those from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, you should continue to pay the same currently established rates for extending your stay overseas for more than 24 months, which is the time limit for Cubans living overseas who have permanent residence on the island and who travel on personal business.
Phillip: What does the constitution say about the right of citizens to request a passport? In other countries it is a right that no one is denied except in certain cases in which it can be confiscated from the passport holder to prevent him from leaving the country when it being shown that he has been involved in a serious crime. Otherwise, by law it cannot be denied to anyone.
If the Cuban constitution ignores freedom of movement — widely recognized as one of the principal judicial instruments of human rights — then it pays even less attention to the right to obtain a passport. The new emigration legislation certainly eliminates the entry and exit visa, but it establishes a new prohibition, which in my opinion is even worse. It prevents someone from obtaining a necessary travel document not only for having committed a crime, but for reasons political or otherwise. The right to leave the country also includes the right to obtain the necessary travel documents. The refusal of the government to issue a passport (or to renew an existing one) to a Cuban living or not living on the island is to deny his legitimate right to enter or leave the country.
Miguel Cervantes: Doesn’t the emigration reform law contain something about persons deported from the United States that Cuba refuses to receive?
After January 14, 2013 Cuban emigrants will be able to reclaim their residency status within the nation’s boundaries — an option that did not exist prior to the new regulations. Although the new emigration statute does not expressly mention people deported from the United States, their status as emigrants allows them them file an application.
One of the advantages of the new emigration statute is that one does not have to physically reside in the country to regain residency status on the island. People will be allowed to exercise rights denied them until now, such as their rights to vote, work, to education and to acquire property.
The request can be filed through overseas consulates or through the Processing Office of the Ministry of the Interior to the Department of Immigration, which subsequently approves or denies residency requests within three months.
The regulation also requires an applicant to disclose the means used to emigrate and does not provide for an appeals process in the event a request is denied. This means that recognition of one’s right is subject to the discretion of the Minister of the Interior. This also means that emigration law itself establishes the conditions under which someone — either a national or a foreigner — can be denied entry into the country.
Ramón: I left for Argentina in 1998 after obtaining a letter of invitation and have not been back since. I was denied entry into the country because I am a doctor. On numerous occasions over the last 15 years I filed appeals to the Cuban authorities, explaining that I was authorized to leave, that I have my release card, and that I did not leave during an official mission but rather on a visit to Argentina. However, I have never received a reply. With this new law can I file an appeal to return since I am an emigrant who left for personal reasons? My father is still in Cuba. My mother died a month ago and I was not able to even attend her funeral. I also have a sister and niece there. They told me at the Cuban embassy in Argentina that everything remains the same for people like me.
Unfortunately, the government’s policy with respect to doctors, artists and athletes is very inflexible and is not written into law. Although changes have been made to emigration laws, certain practices remain in place, such as the discretionary power of the Minister of the Interior to decide which Cubans may enter or leave the country. You could read through any number of legal statutes, and nowhere will you find mention of any process by which a citizen can file an appeal in the event he or she is denied the right to enter or leave the country.
The Civil, Administrative and Labor Procedural Law provides an avenue for appealing administrative decisions by the Central State Administrative Boards (OACE) and its domestic branches which violate legally established rights.
However, denials by officials from the Ministry of the Interior (MININT), a OACE, with respect to entry and exit applications cannot be brought before a court since they emanate from the exercise of discretionary legal authority. The law itself prevents judicial bodies from analyzing the decisions arising from this authority. This is precisely one of the concerns of international human rights organizations.
Supposedly, the laws which authorize the imposition of restrictions must not confer discretionary powers without constraints on officials who exercise them. There is only one conclusion that we can draw from this: The discretionary freedom that the government grants to its Minister of the Interior places citizens in a defenseless position when faced with administrative actions which are detrimental to their legitimate rights.
Cubans are being denied “an effective recourse before competent national courts charged with protecting them against actions which violate their fundamental rights as recognized by the constitution or by law” by the preventing them from appealing decisions of MININT officials before courts of justice. Every Cuban “has the right, under conditions of full equality, to be publicly and justly heard by an independent and impartial court to determine their rights…”
Ramón, you should not allow them to continue punishing you for having made the decision to exercise your rights. If the Cuban government does not respond to you, contact the UN High Commission’s special rapporteur on the independence of judges and attorneys — a recommendation that I strongly make to all Cubans who have been denied the right to enter or leave their own country by the Ministry of the Interior.
Many thanks to the readers of Diario de Cuba for their questions.
AIDS-related deaths have fallen by a quarter since 2005 and half of the reductions in new HIV infections worldwide occur in newborns, according to the 2012 report of the UN-AIDS organization.
Ban Ki-moon warned against outdated laws, mistaken judicial systems and punitive police practices based on fear and prejudice, as factors that fuel the spread of the epidemic.
We must make available all information, testing and treatment for men, women and children so that they can enjoy their fundamental right to health care and basic services that will end this devastating epidemic, he said.
The penultimate month of the year ended passing on to December, the final one, the most important inheritance received from October: the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in the eastern provinces of the country. This weather phenomenon, whose final forecast of wind speeds offered by the Institute of Meteorology at the time it entered the province of Santiago de Cuba from the south, was on the order of 119-130 km/h, registered winds exceeding 175 km/h in the city, and recorded gusts of up to 240 km/h at the Antonio Maceo airport in that locality.
Obviously something did not work in terms of predictions. In this same vein with regards to the reports of total damage, fatalities and injuries, the official reports have been scattered and confused. But, the disaster must have been so great, because the authorities permitted the organization of collecting material assistance in the country’s capital,always through the political and mass organizations. They have also been receiving donations from several countries and as is seen, the government will encourage and accept these, leaving aside earlier and inconsistent positions with regards to foreign aid.
November already brought its own agenda for its short 30 days. The U.S. presidential election, won by Obama, to the relief of the Cuban authorities. The vote in the General Assembly of the United Nations on embargo against Cuba by the United States, which favored the islands for the twentieth time. The proposal to revise the European Union Common Position on Cuba by Brussels. The XXII Latin American Summit in Cadiz, Spain, which had a modest media coverage. The constitution of the 168 municipal assemblies of People’s Power, which are neither the people’s nor do they have real power, nor will they as long as there is a National Commission on Candidacy shaped and directed by the authorities with the power to promote up to 50% of the candidates de facto to the municipal, provincial and National Assembly levels the elections will continue to be a fraud. Adding to this the Machiavellian and undemocratic one-party rule.
Also on the November agenda was the new Law on the Tax System, which is considered general and special by the State; the planned law does not apply on remittances from family assistance received from abroad, so it seems that, when it comes into force next January , stop penalizing those with the abusive 10% to which they are now subject. And the changes of ministries and agencies, extinguishing some and creating others, even recreating some, such as the Ministry of Industries which already existed at the beginning of this long process. This approach is reminiscent of the former Soviet Union, where they spent the entire lifetime of the Marxist regime centralizing and decentralizing the economy to finally conclude that the problem is the system itself: it does not work.
Among the new laws passed this month is the Decree-Law 300 which replaces number 259 on the issue of the ownership of land in usufruct by private producers and State entities. Now you can own up to 105 acres of land but they must, on a mandatory basis, be linked to State agricultural enterprises like the UBPC, CPA, and State and Cooperative Farms Credit Union. A step backwards in favor of agrarian bureaucracy. The issue is continuing to exercise state control over independent farmers.
The fear of freedom and the need to control everything impede the progress of any positive economic development plan. The same thing happens with politics; if we don’t recognize it and pluralize the alternatives we are doomed, sooner or later, to failure. That is our fate.
December started with a new nod to U.S. companies, with the Cuban government repealing a decree-law of 2000 on communications between the United States and Cuba. Now it will be about 24 cents cheaper per minute; still it will remain the most expensive in the world, sending a nice message at the end of this 2012, one of the most unfortunate leap years that we Cubans will remember for a long time.
Some years ago, when the Politburo headed by General Raul Castro was studying alternative ways to apply reforms capable of reactivating the moribund island economy, Marino Murillo, fattened ex-colonel converted to the “czar of transformations” said that Cuba was gambling by using unproven methods in its transformations. It is not bad to think for yourself.
The only thing that the proposal from the same group pompously in power for five decades has demonstrated is the failure of its management. I do not call into question the capability of Cuban economists and technocrats. Although their pioneering theories have never resulted or drawn attention in western academies or on a jury for the Nobel Prize, audacity and experimentation are preferable to the habitual inertia in closed and totalitarian systems.
Something had to be done. The economy had fallen by some35% of GDP, if we compare it with 1989. After crossing a desert, where the mission was to survive, with thousands of people desiring to emigrate, sparse and very bad food, 12-hour power outages and factories turned into museums of idle machinery, Fidel Castro applied some of the advice that Carlos Solchaga — sent urgently by the Spanish president Felipe Gonzalez in order to advise tepid reforms on the island — whispered in his ear.
The patches permitted opening some individual work initiatives and pockets of mixed economy. It was a stream of oxygen. Always with a lone scowling commander watching the car’s advance. When in Caracas there appeared a loquacious anti-Yankee skydiver, declaimer of poems and singer of Venezuelan dance tunes, Fidel Castro understood that the era of facing those insolent gringos was back.
With high taxes, he locked and blocked the work on his own account. He no longer needed that legion of “hucksters.” People who demonstrated that they could live better without the shelter of the State. While the licenses of the self-employed expired, Castro I resumed the discourse of Father State, he unsheathed the saber and anti-imperialist oratory. Thanks to the Venezuelan Santa Claus there was light.
The bearded one was thinking big. Economic alliances with Latin American insurgents that only worked in theory, energetic plans for revolution and discussions about the properties of chocolate bars and baby cereal. Suddenly he got sick. Cuba is like a family farm: after me, my brother. Decided beforehand, it fell to Raul Castro to administer. So it was.
Castro II has his rules. He knows that in order to govern a long time or to cede the dynasty to a son, relative or other trusted person, he needed to ignite the economic plan. He had to make changes.
When one decides to make economic reforms, one must make them. For one overwhelming reason: if the parallel utopia keeps living on news loaded with optimism, inflated macro-economic figures and cheap nationalism, the citizenry might lose fear and furiously explode on the streets.
The General’s theory resumes the popular refrain of “full belly, content heart.” For the official technocrats, the Cuban is happy with rum, women, reggaeton and hot food in the pot, as if we were modern slaves.
With enough food and options for making money, the crowd would ignore that “foolishness about human rights” and not demand democracy or a multi-party system. That is why the sacred premise of Raul Castro is “beans are more important than cannons.”
The native reforms suffer from authentic reformers. It’s the same breed. Another weak point is the incompleteness of those reforms. Except for the authorization to buy or sell a home, where an owner has the right to do what he wants with his property, the other hyped liberalizations have flaws. It is like a house over a swamp.
When Castro II gave the green light for Cubans to have mobile telephones, he wanted to demonstrate that the regime was “democratic.” And he did away with “tourism apartheid” when he permitted citizens to lodge in hotels. On eliminating the two prohibitions, it was discovered that under the command of Fidel Castro we had been third class citizens.
The Lease Law of the land has suffered several amendments in four years. At the beginning land was rented for only ten years and the peasant had no right to construct his home on the parcel. Later it was corrected. I ask myself if it would not have been more viable to start from the beginning with the option of renting the land for 99 years and license to raise a house.
So it happens with the sale of cars. One can buy an old American car 40 or 50 years of age or a ramshackle car from the Soviet era. Now in order to get oneat an agency requires permission from the State. It would be simpler if anyone, money in hand, could buy a new car. It would end price speculation and the framework of corruption that has been created around the sale of cars.
Immigration reform also has deficiencies. To have to pay for a passport in foreign currency is an anomaly. And an absurd law that the regime grants itself, by maintaining a blacklist of professionals, athletes and dissidents.
Another big problem, not approached by the General’s reforms, is the double currency. It has been talked about and debated, but the first thing that should have been done is to implement a single currency. Cuban workers pay the equivalent of 52 pesos for a liter of oil, 235 pesos for a kilo of Gouda cheese and from 360 to 1,200 pesos for a pair of jeans. And they may only earn an average salary of 450 pesos. The honorable worker, who does not steal on the job, lives the worst.
The government says that in order to raise salaries productivity must increase. But the workers think that for so little money, it is not worth the effort to labor with quality and efficacy. A vicious cycle that the regime has not learned or wanted to cut. In four years of reforms and six of Raul Castro’s government, ostensible improvements in the country are unseen. Cafes and trinkets have increased. More than 380 thousand people work on their own account and do not depend on the State to raise their quality of life. That is something good.
But an integrated economy is not built selling bread and cakes. In great measure, the government is to blame for the high prices of many products,by not creating a wholesale market intended for private work and maintaining quotas of 80% of agricultural production that a farmer must sell at laughable prices to the State.
In 2006, when Castro II was designated President, a pizza cost 7 pesos, now the cheapest costs 12. A haircut was worth 10 pesos, now it is worth 20. The list is long. In this rainy fall of 2012, the price of each article and service is higher. Salaries have stayed the same for six years.
There is a crunch in the pockets. The segment of the population that receives hard currency can keep paying for food and products of a certain quality. But their money continues to lose value. 100 dollars in 2004 are worth 60 currently. Due to the 13% state tax on the dollar and the rising prices, currency in the hands of those who receive remittances has devalued.
Nor do people have much confidence in the reform managers. They are the same ones who in one way or another brought the country to the edge of the precipice. Cuba needs reforms. Serious, urgent and profound reforms. According to Mart Laar, who was prime minister of Estonia and was at the head of structural reforms in the ’90’s, the simpler the reforms, the more successful they will be. Laar points out that in politics there is only one sure thing: sooner or later you will be out of power. If fear of reforming deeply is too great, you will leave sooner. And most importantly, you will be out without have done anything.
These are not hollow words. Estonia is one of the nations that took a giant leap, from a communist economy adrift to a functional national project. Another case is Taiwan, where their own citizens initiated changes knowing that they would lose power. Now they have returned it to the government with a fresh start.
It is good think for yourself. But also you should learn from those nations that have triumphed in their reform processes. It is worth it to take account of experience. And logic.
I originally published the article that follows on the website Penúltimos Días last November 26th. Since there are several and conflicting opinions about the post, I will submit it to the regular readers of this blog for their consideration. I just want to make a preliminary clarification: what some may consider inadequate demands of the Spanish government, which, according to them I should also make of the Cuban government, I will remind that my words are based on words of the Consul of that country in relation to Cubans who have obtained Spanish citizenship, which includes me, and which gives me the right to review the decisions and actions of that government’s policies. On the other hand, readers have witnessed my habit of demanding the rights that are due me as a Cuban.
Here goes:
Ravings of a Cuban-Spaniard
A few days ago, I read a note published by the editors of Cubaencuentro, dated in Madrid on October 30th under the title “Spanish Consul in Havana asks Island Hispanic societies to welcome new Cuban-Spaniards”, which seemed a bit perplexing to me. Besides offering some interesting facts, the article deserves careful reading: often, the essence is in the details, especially when it is a diplomatic discourse, full of omissions and half-truths.
The issue of the Cubans who have crowded the headquarters of the Spanish Consulate in Havana in order to qualify for the nationality of their ancestors under the Law of Historical Memory is an eloquent sign of how depreciated the condition of native-born Cubans is. Suffice it to check the figures to get an approximate idea of the mobilization unleashed by hundreds of thousands of Spanish descendants who in the last three years have sought to restore the citizenship of their grandparents.
According to that note, admissions by the Consul General of Spain himself, Tomás Rodríguez Pantoja, at the end of 2011, 65,000 new Spanish citizenships have been granted, and 70,000 have been obtained to date, while 140,000 requests still remain. If we add to that the 28,000 Spanish nationals who were living in Cuba before the application of that law, you can easily conclude that the number of citizens of this country (i.e. neo-Spanish Caribbeans) that have emerged in a few years almost exceeds the total Spanish immigrants who arrived in Cuba in the first third of the last century. These figures do not include the tens of thousands of Cubans of Spanish descent who, for various reasons, have been unable to obtain the necessary documentation required for requesting Spanish citizenship -as, for example, the grandparents’ birth certificates- and, consequently, have not even submitted their applications to the Consulate.
In a meeting held with the leaders of Spanish associations in Cuba, the Spanish Consul stated that “one of the biggest challenges we have, and I ask you to take this with the deepest affection, is to integrate into our societies the vast number of new or old renovated Spaniards, Spanish-Cubans who, through the Law of Historical Memory, will recover their ancestors’ nationality” and he asked that the Spanish communities assume “the responsibility of integrating them into the spirit of Spain” since some of the nationalized [Spanish] Cubans “can’t even tell the difference between communities”. He had previously stated, in another instance, that these people “don’t yet have the Spanish sense (…), don’t feel for our country or are united onto our reality, though they are as Spanish as we are”.
As a recent Spanish-Cuban, I must admit that, to a certain extent, the Consul is right: around here, we don’t even have the vaguest idea of how “having a Spanish sense” might feel, at least not in the same way as the diplomat might regard it. We are, simply, and purely, Cubans, regardless of the number and variety of citizenships or passports that we might come to cherish if we could. It is no secret, even to the consul, that the overwhelming majority of those who have benefited from Spanish citizenship has done so in the hope of emigrating, and, by the way, a Spanish passport is not in as much high demand as an American visa.
And at this point I want to emphasize that I am the exception to the rule: I have no interest in escaping from Cuba, or settling in Spain (or any other country) and if I decided to take my grandfather’s citizenship, a Basque born in Busturia, is because I have the right, and if one day I have the possibility of visiting Spain, it would be better to do so as a citizen of that country, with a passport that would open the doors that my Cuban passport closes for me. I’m definitely an incurable addict when it comes to rights. I’m not interested in “asking for help” to be a parasite on the public purse sustained on the taxes of the Spanish, to which they contribute with their work and effort. I have neither a lazy nor a beggar’s soul.
Personally, I have no idea what the consul means by “a Spanish sense” I don’t think that a nationalist feeling is necessary to experience deep emotion in the presence of the Spanish history and culture. The great masters of the art of Spain, her artists and the numerous geniuses of her literature, especially her poetry, with Antonio Machado as my favorite, the force and uniqueness of her music and dance, the richness and variety of her traditions, the fascination of her rich history, full of light and shadow, which largely holds the key to the very course of the history of my country, Cuba, and also explains the idiosyncrasies of my own nation and identity, are sufficient elements to understand the singular empathy between Cubans and Spaniards.
Spain is closer to me, in addition, since a reverse migration began to take place: decades of dictatorship have contributed to the displacement of thousands of Cubans who have made Spain their adopted country. Many of them do not have Spanish citizenship, and a considerable portion hasn’t even obtained legal residence, but they do their best to survive from a disadvantaged position in the midst of a prolonged and severe economic crisis. I love Spain more since it has become home to so many of my countrymen, and since, for the past five years, I have received the support and affection of Spaniards who write to me and follow my digital blog, because, though this may not be important to Mr. Consul, I understand that the Spanish government might not have made a good investment when it gave me my citizenship: I am an unrepentant dissident, and I oppose any authority abridging my rights. As a Cuban, I oppose the Cuban government, and as a Spaniard, condescending speeches aside, I would love for the Consul, representative in Cuba of my other nation’s government, to clarify some of my doubts.
I would be interested to know, let’s say, how the Consulate is going to help those Cubans who are recovering the nationality of their ancestors “have a sense for the country (Spain)” or “join” the Spanish state of affairs. Let’s say, for instance, that the Spanish diplomatic seat in Havana could start by introducing practices that recognize the rights of Cuban-Spanish as the same ones of Spanish-born citizens, since, so far, treatment given to the former and the latter is markedly different, as evidenced by the detail that native-born Spanish need only present their passports or their Spanish identity cards to gain access to the embassy, while Cuban-Spanish are required to use their Cuban identity card to do so, though they have Spanish passports. Are we second-class citizens without pedigree, amateur Spanish?
The passport is another fundamental point. It is almost as cumbersome to obtain a Spanish passport as to get a Cuban one. In my case, I was given notice of having been granted my citizenship in October, 2011, and over one year later, I have yet to procure a passport, and I don’t know why. A lot of Cubans who got their citizenship after I did already have theirs. For lack of answers, I have applied several times, without success. I am registered in the Havana consulate, but I am an “undocumented Spaniard”, without knowing what bureaucratic ineptitude (if only that were the case!) prevents me from accessing the document that identifies me as a citizen of Spain. Could it be that the Spanish passport is as selective as its Cuban counterpart and certain people have no right to it?
I know of no new Spanish-Cuban who has been invited to the Columbus Day celebrations held each October 12th, and haven’t heard any news that the consulate has given any attention to this sector of its “nationals”. For example, despite the known limitations of Cubans to access the Internet, all consular procedures require prior appointments to be requested by e-mail, however, the consulate has not seen fit to enable a location with access to the web, even for the use of Cubans who have already obtained their documentation as Spanish citizens. The service is likewise not offered in cultural Spanish associations. Wouldn’t this be an effective way for the Madrid government to demonstrate its good will and a way for the new Spanish citizens to be better informed about their adopted nation? Aren’t the new computer and informational technologies the most expeditious means to the free cultural exchange in the so-called global village?
Nor do I know of Spanish-Cubans who are freely contracted and considered as such by Spanish companies that have invested capital in Cuba. What prevents them to be hired as overseas Spaniards and enjoy the same benefits and labor rights? Similar exclusions extend to those who have decided to become independent from the official employer –the Cuban government- after obtaining their Spanish citizenship. I know of Cuban cases that, while they were contracted through an official Cuban employment purse, they could practice their profession in Spain without the need to be re-qualified in that country, however, when they tried to get employed as Spanish citizens doing the same work, now they demand Spanish education credentials. Could it be that there is an agreement with the Cuban government to limit the rights of Spanish abroad? How can the “Spanish feeling” be consolidated this way? How would the consul explain such discrimination and how does he suppose these neo-Spaniards will be able to “penetrate” the economy of their companies when in principle they are marginalized?
I don’t think Mr. Consul is very clear in that integration cannot be sustained only on “trade and cultural activities.” That is, tambourines, castanets and bagpipes seem all well and good, but as “rights”, they are insufficient. Spain’s government could do much more for the Spaniards on this Island and also for its own nation if it conceived effective policies that stimulated them [Cuban-Spanish] to remain in Cuba while benefitting the Spanish economy. In fact, that is just what men like my Basque grandfather and hundreds of thousands of Spaniards did. Like him, they arrived on this Island hopeful to work, prosper, and help their relatives in the distant homeland. We are not talking about offering handouts, but drawing mutually beneficial strategies. If only Spanish policy makers in Cuba today were so determined, creative and authentic as those immigrants, who long ago left their beaches to make landfall on ours!
The arbitrary arrest of the lawyer Yaremis Flores on November 7 was followed by two waves, one repressive, taken to the extreme by the regime against numerous activists of civil society, and the other, impressive and appreciated by us, of solidarity with the victims. Personally, what happened reaffirmed my vision of the fundamental challenge that we face as a country: the articulation of all of its parts in order to transition into a democracy in which the entire nation participates.
Visualizing and working in support of a transition towards democracy in the convoluted scenario in which we live is a process that implies, above all, political and intellectual maturity, honesty, and a high level of civic awareness. We need to understand that such dynamics would not involve just one axis, just one angle. It is impossible to imagine a transition that does not take into account Cubans in Cuba today who hold different points of view. And a transition without full participation of those Cubans outside the Island, who constitute an essential part of our nation, is also inconceivable. It is not possible to outline a transition without the workers, intellectuals, professionals and entrepreneurs both inside and outside the country.
To think that change in our country will happen magically, that in the blink of an eye we will generate a modern society, a state of rights, is too simple and deceitful a fantasy. We, the totalitarian regime’s opposition, have the duty and responsibility to show all segments of society the nature of the plural and inclusive country we are advocating and what we expect of democracy.
The strategy of the regime has always been the same. It has systematically tried to prevent by all possible means the growth of a civil society. Intimidation, repression, imprisonment, bleeding the country, generating mistrust within the opposition, creating internal conflict to undermine our work, “distracting” us so as to leave us little time to effectively advocate in society, is a strategy that has always borne fruit and should be dismantled now. We have to fix our ethics, our suppositions, our rhythm.
To responsibly work on a transition implies a true knowledge of the scenario confronting us in which are manifested the particularities of groups and individuals from a global perspective. To guarantee this range of interests and visions it is necessary they every Cuban enjoy his or her fundamental rights, thus the importance of the campaign “For Another Cuba” and our request for support from all Cubans and international public opinion.
Facing this peaceful citizen initiative, the government has responded by intensifying the repression and excessive use of violence, slamming the door on yet another civic proposal. Nevertheless, this violent scenario begins to profile factions in society; on the one hand there are those who, although inside the system, believe a prosperous nation is possible, one where political and ideological differences are part of everyday life, where respect and decency are paramount; on the other there is a rarefied segment, formed by mixed interests, cynicism, and low ethical morals, which tries, with its irresponsible and arrogant acts, to lead us down a bruised path at the hands of violence and brutality. It is time for Cubans to decide which side we are on, from which perspective we wish to advocate and act.
Every December, like a returning friend, the Havana International Festival of New Latin America Cinema returns. A film event that this year will bring more than 500 movies from 46 countries. A true delight for our senses, the Festival includes a visit to the country of actors and directors from all latitudes, thematic film showings, and even concerts. From Fito Paez’s massively-attended presentation, through the American actress Annette Bening, to the filmmaker Eliseo Subiela.
Tributes to the leading figures of celluloid are also part of the offerings of the two weeks that the greater part of the activities last. This time the honorees are French filmmaker Chris Marker (1921-2012), the Italian Michel Angelo Antonioni (1912-2007) and the Czech master of animation Jan Svankmajer (1934).
This year 21 feature-length films, as well in the other categories of documentaries, shorts, animation, scripts, posters and debut films. There will be a retrospective for the centennial year of film production in Puerto Rico, with more than 20 titles and the usual showings dedicated to Spain, Italy, Canada and Poland.
Among the big surprises on this occasion is a series of films grouped under the title “From Hollywood to Havana,” which will be presented by the president of the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences himself, Hawk Koch.
However, beyond the high quality of the films and collateral programs, the Festival is surrounded by a magical aura. It is something that can’t be described, neither with the number of titles in the catalog, nor with the significance of the international stars who are coming. It’s something deeper in our skin, closer to the personal biographies of those of us who have come of age looking forward to every December.
For example, my adolescence is inextricably linked the very long lines to see an Argentine or Mexican film. Still vivid is the sense of wonder when one night the glass in the doors of the Acapulco cinema where shattered before my eyes by the push of people eager to enter. The furtive kiss in the darkness of the room, while the a brilliant tropical rainforest shimmered on the screen and a horse whinnied from the speakers. Days also that I sat in the seats through so many films I’d seen in a few hours. We were so young and at that time the film festival was as well.
After 34 years of the inauguration of the Havana Latin American Film Festival, the social reality in which is operates has changed dramatically. I could list endless transformations that happened in Latin American film, but I prefer to concentrate on the changes within us, on this side of the screen. Among the major differences that I perceive relative to the Film Festivals of the ‘70s, notable are the new forms of access to popular films. Before, we were totally dependent on the schedules in the State-owned projection rooms. So if a particular movie was not programmed for these public spaces, there was no chance that we would see it.
This happened very often, either because of censorship, disinterest, or the lack of rights to show a film on the national circuit. Very timidly, in the mid-eighties, the first VCR players appeared in homes. And this began to totally change our relationship to the audio-visual world.
Now, proliferating all over the city are video rooms operated by the self-employed, and many families have at least one DVD-player to watch documentaries, movies and television shows that never become part of the official programs. A wave of commercial films, but also documentaries censored for their ideology, have made their way to us thanks to modern technology.
And that is now the great challenge and main competition for the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema. Getting people to leave their home screens and return to the projection rooms, to motivate them with an event that up until a few years ago was the only window we had to get a peek at a fresh and different cinema.
In the area where I live we have a shopping center called Monaco that in my childhood was an important and pretty place. Even today, in spite of its ugliness and general neglect, it has a certain importance because multiple private merchants that sell even coffins gather there, and all around are establishments like the theater, ice cream shop, a semblance of an amusement park, pizzeria, farmer’s market, bank, bakery, store and several state kiosks that make it a frequented area in this part of Vibora.
In the dollarized store of that complex,where my husband and I sometimes buy groceries and other basic necessities, they stole the mobile phone of the jam seller barely a week ago. The man, between indignant and surprised, did not explain how they had gotten it from under the counter where he is accustomed to putting it, far, as he believed, from the view and reach of the shoppers. “It’s that the end of the year is approaching and things are tight,” he commented.
This December 1, in the same business they surprised a woman categorized as “good looking,” who on exiting they discovered was stealing two packages of chicken and two tubes of hash. That tropical Aladdin with agile hands and bad fortune, spent, possibly, the worst time of her life, because the store workers called the police. My husband and Ileft without knowing how that ended, but we think they exaggerated in soliciting the presence of the policemen,as everyone imagines how much the people who work in those centers lift daily, like almost all of Cuban society,which is compelled to be on the edge of the law in order to survive.
The last month of the year began and, like every December, thefts are increasing in the capital. There are those who offend because they have chosen that parasitic occupation for obtaining easy money and objects at everyone else’s expense, but there are those who do it because they are tempted by opportunity, generalized poverty, low salaries and the hard currency products displayed like insults in the windows. Also because they are hungry or simply because they want to draw the look of satisfaction that a good lunch brings to the faces of their children or maybe they long to have something to put on the family table on the so-symbolic dates of Christmas and New Year’s. Many of us may celebrate the birth of Jesus or the advent of a new year with some spaghetti or simple bread with ingenuity, but within our families we pray together to strengthen ourselves in faith and honor, which must be two of the fundamental petitions that we believers raise with our pleas on those dates.
Julieta Venegas’s voice echoes in the large room of the National Theater. She scales the heights, she dives into the soul. I am in a seat, in the dark, when the first notes sound. My eyes fixed on the stage. I have traversed the La Timba neighborhood from my house to get here, with dogs barking at me from the corners, and women in raggedy clothes watching out the windows. I have come to this place with my doubts, by progesterone, my fingernails so short they would be those on the hands of a teenager, dressed in my lack of femininity, my hair that resists the comb, my motherhood, my fierceness. I am I, with these ovaries that mark my biological clock and a son who any day now will make me a grandmother… I’d better prepare myself for the speed of life.
So I try to capture the rhythm of Venegas’ songs, repeating a refrain and snapping my fingers to mark the beat. The fight against domestic violence that she has taken up touches me closely, although I’ve never experienced family or matrimonial abuse first hand. But I know well the sullen, bruised, crestfallen faces that I see at every turn. In the elevator, in line for the bus, in this city where, despite its size, you bump into the same people again and again. I look at her eyes, which no longer meet mine out of shame and fear that her abuser will discover her call for help. But every inch of her skin, every scrap of her clothes say “Save me! Get me out of this situation!” I see the young girl in a tight dress, whose pimp follows her every step. A big woman with breasts grown larger from multiple births whose husband throws the plate from the table at her while shouting, “And is this all there is to eat?!” The secretary who makes up her face in front of the mirror thinking that if she pleases her boss at the end of the month she will get a bag with two pounds of chicken and some soap. The ballerina who converts a grimace into a gesture of pleasure after a kiss from some decrepit high mucketymuck, who promises her a better life.
And I look, between the end of one song by Julieta Venegas and the beginning of another, at the president of the University Students Federation (FEU) from the Economics Faculty. The same person who, last Saturday, in the Manuel Sanguily amphitheater at the University of Havana welcomed potential new students. To convince them to enroll in his specialty this boy said, “We have a lot of activities, Caribbean sports games, parties at the FEU beach club, and of course… the activities against the Ladies in White.” And I have been there in that auditorium, feeling an incredible sadness for this young man for whom going to insult women, preventing them from leaving their homes, screaming every kind of insult at them, is almost an entertainment. Two days later I found myself in the overstuffed seat at the National Theater confirming how the official discourse itself can incite and condone barbarism, inviting a talented artist to denounce domestic violence and – at the same time – crushing the song of freedom of so many women.
.jpg)
