Bitter November / Rafael Leon Rodriguez #Cuba

Noviembre de 2012The 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.

December 4 2012

Cuba: An Economy Does Not Rise Selling Croquettes / Ivan Garcia #Cuba

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.

Translated by mlk

December 1 2012

A Comment and a Controversial Article / Miriam Celaya #Cuba

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!

Translated by Norma Whiting

November 30 2012

Our Great Challenge / Antonio Rodiles #Cuba

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.

Translated by: Boston College CASA

December 5 2012

December Film Festival / Yoani Sanchez #Cuba

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.

5 December 2012

End of the Year and Beginning of Problems / Rosa Maria Rodriguez Torrado #Cuba

Manos esposadas
Image downloaded from: “w-75.com”

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.

Translated by mlk

December 4 2012

Violence Against Women / Yoani Sanchez #Cuba

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.

Campaign for Another Cuba: Video #Cuba

This video is less than 4 minutes long.

December 3rd: Requiem for Cuban Medicine? / Miriam Celaya

The picture illustrating this post, which I downloaded from an official site, relates to one of many that exist on the intervention of Cuban doctors in Haiti after the earthquake that struck that country in 2010, and also about the cholera epidemic. Interestingly, on this December 3rd, Latin American Medicine Day, I failed to find any photograph of our doctors caring for victims of cholera in Cuba.

Of course, some might say that you cannot photograph what does not exist. Judging by the official press, and in the absence of convincing medical reports, it appears that what is circulating in Cuba -especially in the eastern region of the Island- is not cholera, but an outbreak of acute diarrhea. Another euphemistic phrase that a few months ago defined cholera in the official media was intestinal infection from water contamination, which in turn was also reported as being under control and eliminated.

Today we woke up with a phony media celebration. The TV morning news was pleased with the doctors’ day, and once again listed the countless achievements and sacrifices of health professionals, while Cubans on the Island continue to be exposed to the dangers of cholera and dengue fever, two epidemics that have already claimed many lives and remain hidden, concealed under the government triumphalist speeches and the accomplice silence of health authorities.

There is nothing to be celebrated this December 3rd. In actuality, we should be mourning the lack of freedom that keeps Calixto Ramón locked up in a government prison. He is the freelance journalist who first made mention of the presence of cholera in the province of Granma and other regions of Cuba, who has been on a hunger strike for 22 days, so far. We should be mourning the loss of human lives due to the criminal lack of responsibility of the government and healthcare officials. We should be mourning the helplessness of the people against the rampant lack of hygiene and the death of medical ethics.

What good is so much professional talent, so many hours sacrificed, working in appalling conditions, or the internationalists’ absence from country and family, if our doctors are unable to comply with the ethical obligation to disclose the risk faced by the population? When did the sacred duty of those who once swore to protect us become subordinate to the commitment of political ideology?

At present, only a few doctors dare to overcome their fear and compromise their personal and professional interests to alert patients about epidemics silenced by government policies. Most remain silent.

This December 3rd reminds us that there are very few doctors with dignity in this country, once such an example of medical care, that for so long had such a great primary care health system. So far, the silent docility of those who one day took the Hippocratic Oath constitutes a desecration to the memory of the illustrious Cuban doctor, Carlos Juan Finlay, born on this day in long ago 1833.

Translated by Norma Whiting

December 3 2012

Declaration from the Christian Liberation Movement Regarding the European Union’s Common Position / Rosa Maria Paya Acevedo #Cuba #MCL

The reasons behind the position held by the European Union (EU) concerning human rights in Cuba have not changed in the last 16 years. The Cuban Government has not recognized the fundamental rights of Cubans. With the imminent and necessary revision of the current Common Position and the possibility of future pacts with the Cuban governments, the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) has a duty to remind the EU that the Cuban people will not have the opportunity to participate and freely interact with EU states until Cuban authorities decide to make real internal changes to promote an open society.

The cooperation of the European Union with the Cuban government, without signs of a democratization process in the island, encourages and helps sustain a system that denies freedom and opportunity to its own citizens. Oswaldo Payá denounced this nine years ago with the following words: “The denial of hope.”

Change in Cuba is unavoidable and urgent, but it has not taken place. The response of the Cuban democracy movement to the attempt of fraudulent change” that the regime seeks in order to stay in power and oppress the people can be found in “The People’s Path,” which has been signed by over 70 organizations and 1,200 leaders, activists and citizens inside and outside the island.

This document contains basic claims that members of the opposition articulate through various strategies and styles. The MCL draws attention once again to the danger that lurks, disguised as legal reforms carried out by the Government; none of the which are democratic because they do not guarantee human rights to the people.

To establish a dialogue with a single part of our society, those who silence and oppress the majority of Cubans, is to participate in the exclusions to which the Cuban oligarchy subjects the people. The MCL does not support the isolation of Cuba, nor an external embargo, but it is also important to denounce the isolation that the people are subjected to by the Regime. We understand that the interests of organizations, businesses and citizens of the European Community need to be defended, but we hope that we can fight in parallel for equal rights for Cubans.

Our civil society, which is part of the people, has flourished in a range of initiatives and trends whose primary objective is attaining respect for human rights. More than 25,000 Cubans have legally joined a plebiscite that demands fundamental rights for citizens. We continue demanding and awaiting the government’s response, in the same way that we expect the international community to demand that the Cuban authorities complies with their own laws.

More than 17,000 people inside and outside the island have expressed their concerns, proposals and dreams by joining a National Dialogue to which all were invited. The result of this fraternal dialogue is the Transitional Program, which is not set in stone, but which is a concrete platform to build on in an orderly and peaceful fashion to bring democracy to our country.

The lack of freedom of association, expression, choice and mobility blocks any real and effective participation of the people in the construction of their present and future.

Free elections should be conducted, they must include every political current in our nation. That is the message that Cubans expect the democracies of the world to send to those who are trying to perpetuate the Dictatorship in Cuba. We cannot speak of real change because we Cubans still cannot freely enter and leave the island, we cannot decide what kind of education to give our children, we do not have sovereignty of our private property, many of us are imprisoned for expressing our ideas or proposing our social and political projects; real change will come with our human rights.

The repression and aggressiveness with which the Cuban Government, through the organs of State Security, oppresses those who peacefully oppose, have intensified in recent times. This fact has been sadly demonstrated in the violent – and still unexplained – car crash, which took the life of our general coordinator Oswaldo Payá Sardinas, who was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2002, and one of our younger leaders, Harold Cepero Escalante. There has been a complete lack of information about what occurred.

Other examples are the many and frequent death threats that were made to Oswaldo Payá by the political police, the current intimidation of his family and the abuses that members of our movement are subjected to, as well as the constant beatings and arbitrary arrests of many other members of the Cuban democracy movement.

Those who participate and work on the Path of the People and the legal democratic initiatives that we promote, suffer constant harassment. In addition, many independent journalists, bloggers, dissidents and democracy activists across the Island are also harassed and mistreated daily.

We urge the international community, the European Union and its High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security, Catherine Ashton, to work in solidarity with us, to be consistent and coherent with the democratic traditions of their own nations, and to demand a respectful, honest and direct dialogue to promote the interests of all Cubans.

This is only possible if the law and practice guarantee fundamental freedoms, which are not respected today. We hope the European Union will join the Cuban democracy movement in support of the demands expressed in The Path of the People, in our demand for transparency for Cuba, and in the beginning of the real changes that our people want and need.

ALL CUBANS, ALL BROTHERS AND SISTERS, AND NOW OUR FREEDOM!

Christian Liberation Movement
Havana, November 20, 2012

Loss of Values in Cuban Civil Society Officially Recognized / Anddy Sierra Alvarez #Cuba

imagesThe prime time news on Cuban television provides an account of the loss of values of Cuban civil society.

In it they highlight a complaint by a doctor who is bothered by the loud music at night recreation center near his house. The victim in this case, the doctor, complained for several days without getting any response.

Several people are victims of lack of education! Where do they put the churches and underground gay shows?

These two in recent years have expanded throughout the whole island. The activity with microphones or loud music or building a very musical church! They do not consider the place that is always surrounded by neighbors.

The Cuban Revolution with its more than 50 years of existence has brought many irreparable customs that in their promoters’ eyes are good.

What did the Revolution teach us?

In a bus today today, a person with a small child, be it a man or a woman, should be given a seat, but men and women both, many of them turn away to show they’re not looking, but sometimes you see someone chivalrous, but you don’t see it every day.

Formal presentations by the TV is a waste of time, the practice has always been the best way but since even that has fruit, a society destroyed by a revolution of equality where some work and others who work live. “This is what we will continue to develop.”

The Revolution taught us to organize a line of people has already failed, no one lines up to catch a bus (the word “last person” does not exist*).

Formal educational presentations on the TV are a waste of time, the practice has always been the best way but it no longer bears fruit, a society destroyed by a revolution of equality where some work and others live on their work. “This is what we will continue to develop.”

*Translator’s note: In Cuba, it’s customary for new people arriving at a line or a waiting room or area to ask “who is the last person?” and to organize themselves in that way, versus standing for long hours in line.

December 3 2012

Those Black People / Luis Felipe Rojas

Logo reads:
Logo reads: “In Cuba, being black is a problem. But being a black dissidents is a tragedy. Freedom for all Now!”

Who threw the chalk? The black guy! You have the nose of a negro. But, honey, you’re not that black. Why don’t you smooth down those “curls” so you won’t look so black? Hey, mulatto, you really made those kids of yours ahead of time. Big-lipped negro. We black people are only good as musicians or boxers. Do you remember that Santisteban was the only white boxer of the national team for a long time?

Hey, lower your voice, this sounds like a house full of niggers. Man, today I’ve worked more than a slave (black, of course). Come here, what’s your name? The police approach me and says: “Look, nigger, if it weren’t for the Revolution you’d still be cutting sugar cane in San German”.

And in that neighborhood there are a lot of black people. Oh, they’re black, but they are good people. These, and thousands of other comments also cast a shadow over being Cuban. We are patriots, we fight in “a quarter of land”, but we stay quiet before such grotesque and racist expressions such as these, and more… sometimes we repeat them as if nothing happened inside. We should think about this sometime.

And, about that…who threw the chalk? That black guy.

Translated by Raul G.

2 December 2012

Programs / Regina Coyula #Cuba

guerra fría

Meanwhile at my unsuspecting neighbor Tomás’s house, the DVD overheats with the Pequeño Gigante program (Latin American TV can be just as bad as Cuban TV), and others are anesthetized by the Brazilian telenovela (they say today’s Cubans are worse than the worst of the Mexicans); I find my neurons peeling with the episodes of The Cold War, produced by Ted Turner. The series has me hooked with so much information to me on that era in recent history. Even my son is infected, and of course asks a ton of questions.

We Cubans continue in the inertia of that era, or if not, tell me… doesn’t the the case of Alan Gross seem like an episode that escaped from the Ted Turner series?

December 3 2012

Cuba: The Time to Fill the Jails Came Again / Ivan Garcia #Cuba

Trying to analyze the strategy of the Castro brothers is an exercise in pure abstraction. Their way of moving tokens on the political board tends to go against logic. The incarceration of 75 dissidents ordered by Fidel Castro in the spring of 2003 was a miscalculation.Foreign pressure led General Raul Castro to correct the error.

In February 2010, the death of peaceful opponent Orlando Zapata Tamayo after a prolonged hunger strike was the trigger for the government to initiate tripartite negotiations with the national church and the Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos.

Committed to tepid economic reforms, the Castro II regime needed international recognition and to attract foreign investment. The liberation and subsequent exile of almost a hundred political prisoners permitted the olive green autocracy to ease pressure, buying time and a little political oxygen.

Not much. Enough to tiptoe across the world stage and mitigate the criticism by western governments for the repeated violations of human and political rights.

Political prisoners constitute a formidable weapon in the Castro regime. They are exchange currency. A valuable piece in any negotiation. It has always been so. After the Bay of Pigs victory in April 1961, Fidel Castro swapped enemy soldiers for stewed fruits and powdered mashed potatoes.

It was common, passing through the Palace of the Revolution, that foreign dignitaries would bring in their pockets lists of prisoners to free in exchange for credit, economic help or support for the regime. A frowning comandante denied or authorized the liberation of an opponent. Not everyone has the same value for local leaders: it depends on the media interest that they have outside of the island.

They are like hunting targets. Armando Valladares, Huber Matos, Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo or the poet Raul Rivero were valued prisoners. Their liberty was measured in greater concessions by European governments and favorable votes in international tribunes. Facts and figures are not known about the quantity of money or long term loans that the release of a dissident has meant in these 54 years.

With a view to negotiate with a favorable wind, the Cuban jails have always been full of dissidents. In the ’70’s there were thousands. Hundreds in the 21st century. These days there is a problem. The jails are empty. Harassment, repression, arbitrary detention of peaceful democrats by special services continue. But behind bars there are no heavyweight dissidents that serve to establish an advantageous deal.

The old and sick gringo Alan Gross is thought to be the one they can get the most for. Obama and Hillary Clinton demand his freedom without conceding anything in exchange. Then they decided to incarcerate an “A-list” dissident. There had to be others on the waiting list from whom the regime thinks it could get better yields. It is here that Antonio Rodiles comes into play.

Miriam Celaya, journalist and alternative blogger, considers that the probable prosecution of Rodiles as a resistance figure encompasses several possible readings. And it could be a trial balloon to measure the international brouhaha.

Also, Celaya thinks, after the presidential election victories by Hugo Chavez and Barack Obama, guaranteed petroleum for six years and the remittance greenbacks from the United States thanks to the measures towards family reunification approved by President Obama, the military mandarins feel strong.

The reporter also analyzes the trajectory reached by Rodiles in his free debates about national issues or his Demand for another Cuba that has put the Havana government on the defensive.

Antonio Rodiles is a liberal dissident, open and modern. Nephew of General Samuel Rodiles Plana, at the front of a legion of combat veterans usually convened to verbally lynch and hand out blows to the Ladies in White and peaceful opponents.

The legal charge brought against Rodiles is a mockery of human intelligence. In what way can a man resist a violent detention surrounded by dozens of guys trained in personal defense techniques? The only manner of resistance that the Cuban opposition has is to scream quite loudly its disagreements and to condemn the abuses. The ration of beatings always comes from the opposite sidewalk.

The presumed conviction of Antonio Rodiles creates a new and bad precedent on the national map. It is a message of coming and going by opponents, independent journalists and bloggers. No one is safe. The regime offers two exits: you either shut up or you buy a one-way airline ticket. Whoever does not accept the rules of the game can go behind bars for some years.

The era of fear returns. The screech of cars with tinted windows outside of the house. The loud knock on the door. The uncertainty of your personal and family life. It is the nature of the regime. Crushing and censuring you with the use of force. The essence of the doctrine based on prison for those who think differently. It was always so.

The time to fill the jails has arrived. Bad times have returned.

Photo: EFE, taken by the Bolivian daily, El Dia. According to information published in the newspaper Granma May 22, 2012, the penal population of Cuba exceeds 57,337 prisoners, of which 31,494 are under closed detention and 25,843 in open installations. From December 2011 to May 2012, through different benefits, some 10,129 inmates have left jail, among them 2,900 pardoned.

Translator’s note: Antonio Rodiles has now been released with a small fine and the charge of resisting arrest dropped.

Translated by mlk

December 1 2012

For the Freedom of Calixto / Lilianne Ruiz #Cuba

S

My friend Calixto R. Martinez (far left in photo), a reporter for Hablemos Press, is now on the 23rd day of a hunger strike in the punishment cells of the Combinado del Este prison. Prosecutors charged him with the crime of “contempt for the figures of R. and F. Castro.”

According to the Hablemos Press bulletin: “Calixto was violently arrested in mid-September, when he was corroborating confidential information on the handling of a shipment of medicines and medical equipment, which would have spoiled in the warehouses of the José Martí International Airport.”

Some evenings I walked with him back to my house when we ran into each other somewhere. I liked to listen to him because he had a lot of experience in arbitrary detention and forced deportation and explained to me the best way to deal with a situation of this kind, aware of the legal pitfalls contained in the Cuban penal code.

On Saturday night I received a message from Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo: “Calixto Ramón, reporter for Hablemos Press, has been on a hunger strike for 21 days in the punishment cells of the Combinado del Este prison. He has lost a lot of weight and it very frail.”

I would like to organize a vigil for my friend. Days of fasting. How can we make this despotic and violent State listen? What needs to happen?

There is not a shadow of a doubt that what the revolutionaries call “defend their revolution” means a methodology for violating human rights in Cuba. From homes to prisons. From the doctor to the political police. Beginning with the clan of the Council of State, of course. It is a family business.

Let me give an example: in the building where I live they have placed a clipping from the newspaper Granma on one wall.If it weren’t for the tragedy it has signified for so many Cubans, among whom my friend is now; to make use of freedom of expression, what can be read on it can even be funny.

“Newspaper Granma, Friday, November 23, 2012″

Requested:

More people who point out what is correct and fewer who insist on harping on what is incorrect.”

The remaining six sentences that make up the note from Granma and that my neighbors found witty, all say the same thing in different words. It would be too tedious to reproduce it in full. I want to photograph the sign because, in addition to being ridiculous, it exactly reflects what is considered moral in this society.

I couldn’t hide that I took the photo as I was focusing at the moment when one of the two presidents of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) came down the stairs. She’s an elderly person, apparently decent, who said to me, “The Revolutionaries in this building don’t allow you to take photos.” All this is said with a shockingly clear conscience, considering  the degrees of repression to which current Cuban society is disposed.

It reminded me of something I read in Yoani’s post about her arrest in Bayamo. I remember it like this: “Nothing is what it seems. A bed is not a bed. Nor is water for slaking thirst.”

Each of the residents of building 702, for example, would be able to participate in an act of repudiation, imprison and even applaud an execution for political reasons; none of those people, I repeat, seem like bad people. However, they are. They are very dangerous.

Most have relatives in the United States and at some point have traveled to visit them or tried to travel. They cavalierly ignore the suffering of my friend Calixto and his right to demand freedom for Cuba. If someone visits their homes they are much more nicely painted than those of Calixto, Roberto de Jesús Guerra or mine. They eat better. They have nice manners and teach them to their families.

But at some point they will become very dangerous, they are transfigured in the style of the video game “Resident Evil,” and the only way it seems possible to combat them is to be willing to immolate oneself. Otherwise every day the world would be a poorer place and to paraphrase Yoani, “Nothing is what it seems and even names lose their meanings.”

I can’t imagine a worse fate for humanity than the inability to remember the true meaning of words, symbols, signifiers, for having lied for so long, like all dictatorships lie in their discourse, whether it’s the foreign minister or the leader, they speak of justice and solidarity, like they did in 1976 when I was born and in a place called La Cabaña they committed atrocious crimes against the opponents of the damned Revolution of 1959. And they commit them today with the complicity of the clear consciences of Cubans.

I ask of my readers solidarity with Calixto and that you offer me some objectively thought out idea, in accordance with the present circumstances, to get him out of jail where he has been thrown in the most arbitrary and deceitful way, as you sought to do for Antonio Rodiles and as many people have done before.

December 3 2012