English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Havana, 7 August 2014 – Health authorities in Cuba are facing one of the most serious epidemiological situations in recent years, seeking curb the spread of cholera, dengue fever and the chikungunya viruses which are spreading to much of the country. In Camagüey province the cholera outbreak has claimed the lives of at least … Continue reading “Cholera Spreading in All Cuban Provinces / 14ymedio”
The director of the independent project Estado de Sats, Antonio Rodiles, delivered documents for the Campaña por Otra Cuba (Campaign for Another Cuba) to the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this Wednesday in Costa Rica. The Campaign demands that the Cuban regime ratify and implement the Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, … Continue reading “Campaign for Another Cuba Delivers Request to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon”
My husband has dengue fever. Or chikunguya, what the difference is can only be known after a long-awaited test. We needed to find our family doctor because he kept going from house to house inquiring of people with fever or other suspicious symptoms. The doctor, after a physical examination and posing a series of questions, … Continue reading “What We Don’t Talk About / Regina Coyula”
14YMEDIO, Havana, 28 July 2014 – Since July 23 Angel Santiesteban’s family has denounced his disappearance from the Lawton Prison Settlement. That day the prize-winning author was taken from the place where he was serving a five-year sentence for an alleged crime of violation of domicile and injury. Until this morning his whereabouts were unknown. This … Continue reading “Angel Santiesteban is Being Held at the Acosta and Diez de Octubre Police Station / 14ymedio”
During the summer of 1994, death ruled with impunity in my country. During that period, Cuba, which had been a civilian graveyard for decades, more closely resembled the gallows. In the early hours of July 13, the whirlwind of violence to which the Cuban state was subjecting its citizens came to its criminal climax. The … Continue reading “Remembering the Tugboat Massacre of 1994 / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
On September 1, 2014 the Customs Service of the Republic of Cuba will begin enforcing new regulations intended to combat illegal trafficking of merchandise by relatives, friends and “mules”* through airports and port facilities. It’s one more turn of the screw. Every year since 2011 new regulations have been put in place designed to halt … Continue reading “New Measures by Cuban Customs Service Coming in September / Ivan Garcia”
14YMEDIO, 22 July 2014 – On 22 July 2014, the opposition leader Oswaldo Payá and the activist Harld Cepero died. Payá led the Christian Liberation Movement and promoted the Varela Project, which managed to collect some 25,000 signatures to demand a national referendum. Freedom of expression, of association, freedom of the press and of business, … Continue reading “The Political Legacy of Oswaldo Paya / 14ymedio”
For several days now I have not published a post, despite my desires to do so and the nagging thought that it wasn’t getting done. It is true that the World Cup robbed part of my attention, but that was not what impeded my writing. Rather, it was all the tasks that were piling up … Continue reading “There Is None So Blind As He Who Refuses to See / Rebeca Monzo”
The writer Mario Vargas Llosa discusses literature, democracy and Latin America in the second part of an interview with 14ymedio. First part of the interview: “The myth of Cuba has been cut to shreds” Yoani Sánchez, Madrid, 15 July 2014 – During my conversation with the writer and Nobel Prize Winner in Literature Mario Vargas … Continue reading ““I owe to my father the hatred of authoritarianism that he embodied” / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Mario Varga Llosa”
In the recently concluded sessions of the National Assembly in which, according to the government-run press, the overall state of the country was discussed, several issues attracted attention. To review all the country’s problems in only five days (two devoted to work by commissions, one listening to reports by heads of various departments and one … Continue reading “Some Doubts / Fernando Damaso”
By Enrisco Today, July 6th, is the 34th anniversary of what is regarded as (only by a few certainly) as “The Massacre in Canimar River” because 14 years before the sinking of the “March 13th” tugboat there was an almost identical event in which the Cuban regime was left further unscathed than in the crime … Continue reading “The Massacre in Canimar River: 34th Anniversary / By Enrisco in the Blog of Luis Felipe Rojas”
Young Oscar Casanella is threatened in the public roadway by “factors” of the revolution. State Security wants him fired from his work. HAVANA, Cuba. — Someone must have heard the telephone conversations of Oscar Casanella. Those days he was organizing a party with his friends to welcome back Ciro, the guitarist for the punk rock … Continue reading “They Direct the Machinery of Harassment Against a Cancer Researcher / Lilianne Ruiz”
Under a brightly colored umbrella, a representative of Gaviota, a tourism chain, the property of businessmen in the Cuban military, offers an inclusive leisure package for the summer. The bureau of reservations is nestled in an old parking lot of a strip mall in 5th Avenue and 42nd, Miramar, to the west of Havana. It … Continue reading “Cuba: Is Varadero for People of Another Social Class? / Ivan Garcia”
Yoani Sánchez, Madrid, 9 July 2014 – Right now I am taking part, along with several Cuban activists, in a seminar on the Spanish transition being held in Madrid. Organized by the Association of Ibero-Americans for Freedom and the Spanish Transition Foundation at the Casa de America, the event includes the participation of nine activists … Continue reading “Are We In Transition? / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”
Speaking at the Atlantic Forum, Yoani Sánchez tells Mario Vargas Llosa that help is needed to move the center of the discussion to the island. 14ymedio, Madrid, 8 July 2014 — “Cuba’s problem is within Cuba. The locus of the discussion needs to be moved to the island.” This was the powerful message from Yoani … Continue reading ““Cuba’s problem is within Cuba” / 14ymedio”
