Human Rights in Cuba

The Beaches Belong to the People (But the People Have an Owner) / Henry Constantín

2012-02-19T09:43:00.001-08:00

The Beaches Belong to the People (But the People Have an Owner) / Henry
Constantín
Henry Constantín, Translator: Unstated

In Cuba, contrary to what one might think, even the beaches are places
where the Cubans who live here can suffer. Ask the people of Santa Lucia
beach in Camaguey. Recently, people from the government told them they
would all have to leave. And still there are those who fantasize about
the soft changes of our self-elected government. Some media closed the
year by putting their faith in the slow pace, when the slow pace is the
same test used by those who do not want fundamental change. But when
Cubans are most sunk into reverie, the booming voice of the foreman
reminds us that the surface moves while the depths are undisturbed, from
the time of the Spaniards, it's useless. The foreman, even as he puts on
his suit and reads speeches, keeps looking at us through his foreman's eyes.

This is what the hundreds of inhabitants of Santa Lucia beach are coming
to understand. House by house, indifferent functionaries advise them
that their lives there must end: a tourist development plan, talked over
with everyone but the people of the place, is going to rise on the
bulldozed ruins of their homes. The irony is that there are hotels in
other less bright areas of the beach than the sands of Residencial, and
even in the high season they're not filled with foreign tourists.

I don't own a single inch of that place. But an earthquake of impotence
shakes me every time I hear the story of another family that they try to
force — through economic pressure — to abandon their home and the land
they own. They closed down the state enterprises and basic services —
the pharmacy, the grocery store — and deny construction permits on
private lands, and they closed almost without pretext the businesses of
those who don't work for the state, which I write — and think of — in
lower case letters, because it hurts less.

So, one confirms an earlier opinion: And these people's delegate? What
of him who should defend them with the last drop of whatever it is that
runs through his veins, because that is his reason for being? And the
unions of the businesses and institutions that will be closed? And the
neighborhood committees, effective in monitoring the isolated
individual? And the elected officials of Camaguey, with the hundreds of
thousands they supposedly represent, whose favorite spot for the summer
is about to be a place they can no longer enjoy? And the institutions
charged with protecting nature, because the plan will affect natural
areas? And the provincial media of the press, vanguards in the attacks
on some individual worker they charge a peso extra, but mute before the
daily kicks — down and out — that both they and the people receive from
the senior leadership of the state? And the youth organizations, who
will lose the nearby Punta De Ganado camp, the only recreation facility
on the coast within reach of the whole province's pockets? Where are
they all, to defend us? Looking on, in silence.

And what is offered in exchange, to the subtly dispossessed inhabitants
of Santa Lucia? A mediocre chance for mediocre housing in mediocre
conditions in the settlement of Las Ochenta, twelve miles from the
beach, in an area cloudy with mosquitoes and gnats surrounded by a dense
coastal forest.

The opening or closing of beaches is a tradition in Cuban social
history. In 1944, Eduardo Chibas tore down the illegal walls some
powerful people had raised to create private beaches. But if our country
had the crab-like ability to walk backwards, we would now be looking at
the same phenomenon repeated in different ways on all the white beaches
of the country. These are examples from my own experience:

When Chibas's evil disciple triumphed, he gave himself the gift of a
completely virgin beach, Maria La Gorda, at the far end of Pinar del
Rio. Others were forbidden access there for years. Today, since he can
no longer swim, his people charge Cubans half a month's average salary —
five convertible pesos — to bathe in these waters.

A similar thing happened in Varadero. To turn it into a haven for
foreigners, they put obstacles in front of every possible Cuban
presence; until recently, to move into a house there you had to jump
endless bureaucratic barriers. With the keys to the north of Camaguey it
was worse: Cayo Coco has so many hotels with cops at the entrance, that
no Cuban can pass without state permission.

On the Guardalavaca beach in Holguin, the best in the eastern region,
Cubans who don't bring hard currency or their own food from home, go
hungry. I and a group of journalism students who once dared to go there
found out: the inhabitants of the place are prohibited from engaging in
the culinary trade. The Covarrubias beach in Las Tunas is almost
inaccessible, because state transport is only for the tourist business
that exploits the place. And the deserted beaches dotted around the
keys, without any contact by land, require that you come with an
accumulation of justifications and permits that have nothing to do with
free entry.

In short, it seems as if, at the same moment that the Cuban archipelago
retreated from the world in 1959, it's best beaches were receding from
the island due to some telluric cause.

Now they want to take, by bulldozer, and without asking permission from
its owners and users, what they lacked of the Santa Lucia beach. It is
obvious that the word "take" is an euphemism: there is a simpler and
more accurate one, for trying to grant representatives of the state the
properties and rights of individuals.

By the way, are there foreign investors planned in this business? What
might they think? And the tourists who will be able to visit these
planned hotels, would they like to know that their pleasure was built on
such conditions? I, at least, will not go to these hotels.

Finally, in Santa Lucia there are Cubans who are resigned to losing what
they had. And some keep their little souvenir of sand, because their
impotence or sadness pushes them to look for other beaches, far away and
for some few years. Never mind that the new place does not have sand as
white as that of their island: it's enough to feel respected as people.
I understand them. Along with their houses, their jobs and their beach,
they are going to take away their faith in Cuba.

Henry Constantin
Havana

Note: This article was included at number 13 of the independent magazine
Voices.

17 February 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15335

Disobedience / Miriam Celaya

2012-02-19T07:43:00.001-08:00

Disobedience / Miriam Celaya
Miriam Celaya, Translator: Unstated

Observing daily life in Cuba is becoming increasingly misleading. Under
the supposed calm of a society where nothing seems to happen, the forces
of different and often conflicting trends are moving. And these
movements could potentially generate conflicts of different types and
magnitudes. A brief and no doubt incomplete analysis reveals an
undeniable reality: nothing is immutable, nothing is eternal, not even —
who would have believed it — the totalitarian regime camouflaged under
the generic euphemism of "revolution."

In recent weeks the unwillingness of the government to search for
political solutions has become clear. The misguided declaration of the
General-President telling us that no one should "have illusions" with
regards to eventual political changes was terse, but it has the
advantage of eliminating the prolonged wait for some negotiation with
the regime. Then, a negotiated solution with the miniscule power group
excludes possible scenarios, precisely because the will of that group.

That is, the dictatorship has clearly exposed its reluctance, not only
toward changes and inclusions, but even the pretense of a fictitious
social pact. To put it briefly and bluntly, the gerontocracy and the
acolytes of the generalship have barricaded themselves in their
trenches. And that's from a positive point of view, thus simplifying the
march and justifying the search for alternative solutions in pursuit of
democracy. Unwittingly, they have passed us the baton.

At the same time, the picture is getting bleaker. Economic figures show
an unstoppable increase in the cost of living, rampant impoverishment of
large sectors of society, the inefficiency and inadequacy of government
measures aimed at the so-called "renewal" of a model that remains on
life support — that is, because of the existence of an also precarious
Hugo Chavez in Venezuela — and the inability to overcome the crisis
under current political conditions.

Socially, the soaring delinquency and crime rate, the deterioration of
the systems of health and education — practically on the verge of
collapse — widespread discontent, frustration, lack of prospects,
despair, the decapitalization of confidence in the system and
despondency, are all components that could lead, in the relatively short
term, to a crisis of governance, the implementation of large-scale
repression, or a combination of both.

On the other hand, never has there been a larger sector of dissatisfied
protesters and the public will to exercise rights. The political
challenge is manifested, beyond ideological tendencies, in resistance
and the growth of larger and larger groups of independent civil society;
in the rebellious attitude of new and old generations of dissidents; and
in the speed with which these groups have been consolidating and linking
to each other, despite the repression and surveillance of the servants
of the regime.

The strength of these independent groups lies mainly in their open and
inclusive character and their stepping back from ideology, which makes
them immune to penetration by agents of the regime. At the same time,
access to new technologies has been a catalyst to allow the diffusion of
ideas in a medium that is beyond the absolute control of the government,
despite the low connectivity of Cubans to the Internet.

The weakness of the regime lies in exactly the opposite characteristics:
its closed and unchanging character, its secret and conspiratorial
nature, its exclusions, its urgent need to control information and to
hinder the free flow of ideas and opinions, and its need to appeal to
repression as a desperate measure to slow its own inevitable end. An
untenable position in the midst of a world ever more globalized and plural.

The Cuba of today has the same government it had 53 years ago; however,
is quite different from that of just five years ago. And this is not a
conceptual blunder. Five years ago we were not even aware of the
existence of so many outraged among us; we had not thoroughly understood
that we are heirs to over half a century of repressed dissent and that
it's not required to fight guerrillas in a fratricidal struggle: it is
enough just to disobey.

Now Cubans increasingly understand that our bad leaders are there
because we have allowed them to be, that political capital belongs to
citizens, not governments, that a regime cannot sustain itself, and that
the hope for our future lies precisely in the fact that this government
has no future. As the civil resistance begins to move beyond its
survival phase, the government adopts strategies to survive. The roles
are changing imperceptibly. Now the most imminent danger is the expected
response from the government. An escalation of repression from the base
to try to prevent the dissidence from gaining strength.

Today, the political apathy of a large mass of the population might seem
an obstacle to achieving democracy. However, this apathy is also the
prelude to the denial of support for the regime: something like the
wisps of an old myth that has died. The revolution ended decades ago,
Cuban socialism has never existed, false social achievements did not
survive the spurious grants from foreign governments, and the corrupt
regime has no moral capital to demand greater sacrifices. Without its
permission and without its liking transformations have been building
steadily from within the island, and the regime's stubbornness only
tends to accelerate its end: Cuba is changing and the future no longer
depends on them, but on all of us.

(Article originally published in Diario de Cuba on Monday, 13 February 2012)

February 17 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15363

Social Epidemic / Anddy Sierra Alvarez

2012-02-19T06:25:00.001-08:00

Social Epidemic / Anddy Sierra Alvarez
Anddy Sierra Alvarez, Translator: Unstated

The surge was inevitable, an outbreak of the Aedes Aegipty mosquito in
the crowded capitol neighborhood of El Cerro, where one could say
there's a quarantine for lack of control of this deadly epidemic.

One wonders how, in spite of having the birthrate of a first world
country with a "quality" public health system with experts, Master's,
PhDs, there could be an aggravated situation with such dangerous
ramifications as this disease — Dengue Fever — transmitted by the same
mosquito that spreads Yellow Fever from infected human to healthy human.

The answer is multiple reasons:
- It may be through ignorance of the citizen.
- It may be because of poor vector control because of the poor
organization of sanitation at the regional, municipal and provincial levels.
- It may be the poor hygiene of public places like streets with pipe and
sewer leaks or the waste of the population.
- It may be projects that get started and then get forgotten and in the
end the entities leave everything as they found it upon arrival.

In the end everything is related, and we can throw the blame on the
citizen, undertake television campaigns telling people what they have to
do to keep the mosquito larvae from breeding.

And where does that leave those who set the example and then demand that
from others?

Well if they demand people do this and not some other thing, what's the
role of the government in keeping things clean, dealing with the leaks
in the pipes and the sewers, the accumulation of public waste. And then
sometimes sending the local delegate to get the community started on the
so-called "piece-of-junk plan" (which is really the "do-it-yourself
plan"), which sometimes takes months and in desolate places even years,
in the meantime making it a great place for larvae hatcheries.

What happens is that the people see what's going on, the filthiness of
the streets, the abandonment of the city on the part of the government,
which makes people give up on controlling the epidemic if, in the end,
whatever they do is in vain because the most guilty, and the greatest
hatchery creators are them, the leaders.

January 16 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15351

Tampa Looks to Cuba for Trade Opportunities

2012-02-19T02:38:00.001-08:00

Tampa Looks to Cuba for Trade Opportunities
Written By Phil Keating
Published February 16, 2012
Fox News Latino

It is something you just don't hear anywhere else in the United States,
especially Florida: Tampa wants to trade with Cuba.

Irrespective of the antagonistic politics involved between the United
States and Havana, this is all about economics.

"It is about jobs, and it is about money," says Tampa City Council
Chairman Charlie Miranda.

"I can tell you, the Cuban people are warm and friendly," says Stephen
Michelini, of the World Trade Center Tampa Bay. Michelini just returned
from another trade mission to Cuba, meeting with Communist government
leaders and Cuba's Chamber of Commerce President.

Budget Travel: Discovering San Juan

Michelini and others are aggressively setting up Tampa Bay to be "The
Gateway to Cuba" -- the kind of talk that is politically forbidden in
anti-Castro Miami.

"We're actively marketing in the Cuban governmental agencies to position
Tampa so that when the U.S. side changes the regulations, we'll be in a
principal position," says Michelini.

Under the U.S. embargo rules that apply to Cuba, the only trade that is
currently legal is agriculture and medical. Much of those shipments
south leave the U.S. through the Port of Tampa.

But Tampa Bay leaders are establishing an economic pipeline to the
communist island, primarily important person-to-person contacts, which
they hope will soon be tapped into a gusher of millions of dollars.

U.S. Embargo on Cuba Turns 50

Tampa's Council, Chamber of Commerce, Port of Tampa leaders, U.S.
Representative and substantial Cuban-American population are closely
following Raúl Castro's recent liberalizations of Cuban society and the
explosion of travel to Cuba under the Obama Administration.

Where under President Bush, Cuban-Americans could only visit relatives
in Cuba once every 3 years, today Cuban-Americans can visit the island
as often as they can.

And the demand for seats on charter planes to Havana is surging.

Miami leads the country, with about 60 Cuba-bound charter flights a
week. Tampa is now the No. 2 U.S. city for Cuban charter flights, with
four a week.

Demand in Tampa has been so great, the President of the Chamber says
airlines have had to stagger the number of people per flight to make
room for all of the gifts and goods they are taking with them.

The only ways for Americans without family connections to travel to Cuba
right now are either via universities and museums offering "cultural
exchange trips," or illegally sneaking into Cuba through a third country.

But Tampa's Council Chairman believes things are going to change within
five years.

The Tampa City Council has sent a friendly greeting to the President of
Cuba's National Assembly and invited Cuban diplomats to visit Tampa
businesses.

The Port Authority recently held a business seminar on potential trade
opportunities. And Tampa-based Democratic Congresswoman Kathy Castor now
champions lifting most if not all restrictions.

In a statement released to Fox News, "Our aim is to create jobs for our
small-business owners in historic Ybor City, West Tampa and throughout
our community."

Ybor City, northeast of downtown Tampa, was rolling cigars with Cuban
tobacco and trading with Cuba long before South Florida and Miami was
drained of swamp and developed.

It was in Ybor City that Cuba's José Martí championed independence for
the island, and a statue of Martí still stands.

Arthur Savage, President of AR Savage, a longtime family shipping
business, not only hopes to tap into Tampa's historic relationship with
Cuba, but like other business and political leaders, make Cubans in the
near future think of Tampa first, not Miami, or any other U.S. port.

"We think that it would be an economic boom to the region if we could
once again help Cuba, in rebuilding it and supplying it, with the
material and everything that it needs to get its country back," Savage
says. "With the economic downturn that it is, I think everybody ought to
be looking at every trade opportunity that there is."

The question of when, exactly, those Cuba trade opportunities open up,
depends almost entirely on the Cuban dictatorship, unless U.S. policy
unexpectedly changes.

According to the supporters of the U.S. Cuba Embargo, it stays in place
until Cuba holds legitimate free and open elections, frees political
prisoners and prioritizes human rights.

In the meantime, Tampa Bay is more than delicately getting ready.

Phil Keating is national correspondent for Fox News Channel out of the
Miami bureau.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/02/16/tampa-looks-to-cuba-for-trade-opportunities/

Pope wants to see Fidel Castro on Cuba trip: source

2012-02-19T02:34:00.001-08:00

Pope wants to see Fidel Castro on Cuba trip: source
ReutersBy Philip Pullella | Reuters

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict wants to see Fidel Castro on his
trip to Cuba next month but the meeting will depend on the health of the
communist country's revolutionary leader, a senior Vatican official told
Reuters on Saturday.

The official, speaking of the sidelines of a ceremony after the pope
elevated new cardinals, said the status of the meeting was still pending.

"It will depend on his health," the prelate said.

At present, the pope is only scheduled to meet Fidel Castro's younger
brother, President Raul Castro, 80, whose formal title is president of
the Council of State and president of the Council of Ministers.

Raul Castro is due to welcome the pope at Santiago de Cuba on March 26,
hold private talks with him in Havana on March 27, and see the pontiff
off when he leaves Havana for Rome on March 28.

There is no mention of Fidel Castro on the official program.

Fidel Castro, 85, ruled Cuba for 49 years before his brother succeeded
him in 2008.

The elder Castro now seldom appears in public, but occasionally meets in
private with visiting foreign leaders and writes columns about
international affairs.

One purpose of the papal visit is to celebrate the 400th anniversary of
the discovery of Cuba's most famous religious icon, the statue of the
Virgin of Charity.

Last month a replica of the statue completed a 16-month pilgrimage
around the island that was the first such religious display since the 1950s.

It was another signal of improved relations between the government and
the Catholic Church, which were at odds for many years following the
1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro.

Relations began to warm in the 1990s, a process that was aided by a 1998
visit by Pope John Paul II, and intensified in 2010 when the Church
brokered a deal with Castro to release political prisoners.

The late John Paul met Fidel Castro twice, once at the Vatican and then
during his 1998 trip to Cuba

Benedict's visit to Cuba is part of a March 23-28 trip that will take
him first to Mexico.

(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Alison Williams)

http://news.yahoo.com/pope-wants-see-fidel-castro-cuba-trip-source-203621299.html;_ylt=ArxBOjCFFRMHONaPmEbtYwb9SpZ4

Legal travel by Americans to Cuba comes at high price

2012-02-19T02:32:00.001-08:00

Originally published Saturday, February 18, 2012 at 7:02 PM

Legal travel by Americans to Cuba comes at high price

Tours for legal travel to Cuba are selling out quickly. Travel companies
are planning for 2013, but the outcome of the November presidential
election makes next year uncertain.

By Carol Pucci

Seattle Times travel writer

For more information on government-authorized travel to Cuba, see
www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/cuba.pdf

Anyone who's looked into a legal way to visit Cuba under the Obama
administration's new "people-to-people" provisions will relate to this
Seattle Times reader's concerns.

"The only legal way I have found is to join some grossly overpriced tour
group, and be herded around to very select sights," he said in an email
to me. "The prices for these trips ($4,000 plus for a week) appear to be
two or three times what they should be."

He's partially right, at least about the costs.

With a 50-year-old U.S. financial and trade embargo still in place, most
Americans legally can't book a flight on a discount airline and reserve
a $20 room in a family home as many Canadians and Europeans do.

With a few exceptions for students, journalists, aid workers and some
others, going to Communist-run Cuba means joining one of the new
cultural and educational tours licensed by the U.S. Treasury Department.

Many trips sold out quickly. Tour companies are planning more for 2013,
but the outcome of the November presidential election makes next year
uncertain.

"It's certainly very much on our radar," says Justin Brown program
director for National Geographic Expeditions, whose trips average $500
per person per day, not including airfare to and from Cuba. "If
(President) Obama is not re-elected, there's a decent chance these might
go away."

The result: "Cuba is being inundated right now," says Malia Everette of
San Francisco's Global Exchange, and Cuban government tour operators
charge U.S. groups a premium.

Global Exchange, a nonprofit human-rights organization, runs a variety
of "Reality Tours" under a different type of license geared toward
professionals doing research in fields such as architecture, dance,
agriculture and health care.

Not everyone can qualify, but those who do go for about $260 a day,
including airfare to and from Havana. That's much less than most of the
"people-to-people" tours, but still more than you'd spend traveling on
your own.

No beach time

Whatever the tour, examine the itinerary carefully. If your dream is to
explore Cuba's beaches or bike its back roads, these trips are not for you.

"You're going to be interacting with Cuban people where they live and
work," says Stacie Fasola of Road Scholar (formerly Elderhostel) "You're
going to learn about the country. Not just see it, but learn about it."

I traveled to Cuba with Global Exchange in November, then spent five
days touring on my own. Some advice:

• Consider cutting costs by traveling with a nonprofit group, museum,
university or professional group. Road Scholar programs are open to
anyone, and Global Exchange took 700 Americans to Cuba last year.
Locally, Dr. Sarah Reichard, director of the University of Washington
Botanic Gardens, is leading a group on a 12-day trip in late February.

• Ask for details on how your tour operator plans to provide you with
authentic interactions with Cuban people, a challenge when it comes to
group travel. Many of the tours include the same stops, such as a visit
to Callejón de Hammel — an Afro-Cuban community project known for its
street art and lively rumba performances, but overrun with tourists and
people selling CDs and asking for money.

• Expect comfortable government-owned hotels with pools, but don't be
disappointed if your group stays in a modern high-rise. Canadian and
European groups tend to get first crack at historic Havana Vieja's (Old
Havana's) classic hotels favored by writers such as Ernest Hemingway and
Graham Greene.

• Familiarize yourself with Cuba's dual currency system. You'll be
exchanging dollars for convertible pesos (CUCs), a "hard currency" worth
$1 each, minus a 10 percent exchange tax, a tit-for-tat for the U.S.
embargo against Cuba. I avoided the 10-percent tax by bringing Canadian
dollars.

One of the hardest concepts for outsiders to grasp is that most Cubans
are paid a government salary of about $20 per month, earned in the local
currency, called pesos Cubanos or CUPs (worth about 4 cents each).
Education, housing and health care are free. CUPs buy the basics:
cooking oil, cheap meals, coffee cut with pea flour.

But much of what the average Cuban wants and needs — drinkable coffee,
washing machines, materials to fix up their homes — is only available to
those who can pay in hard currency. (Tourism and money sent by relatives
in the U.S. are the main sources).

To get a sense of everyday Cuban life:

• Tip in convertibles, but for a truly local experience, change $5 into
pesos Cubanos, and enter government-subsidized Cuba. Buy a 4-cent
ice-cream cone. Or patronize one of the fledgling entrepreneurs selling
ice cream and pastries for pennies or pizza from their kitchen windows.

• Use your free time to get out on your own. Walk through a neighborhood
like Havana Centro, where kids play ball in the crumbling streets. Stop
for a 50-cent beer at the makeshift bar set up in John Lennon Park, then
walk across the street and have a $10 dinner (hard currency) on the
terrace of a restored mansion, home to the French friendship association.

• One of my best experiences was hiring a bicycle taxi one warm evening
in Cienfuegos for dinner at a privately run restaurant in the family
home of a local nurse and her chef husband. Four of us ate for $30,
mojitos included.

• Learn about Cuba's changing economy and differing views about life
under Fidel Castro (Cuba's revolutionary leader, who stepped down
because of ill health) and Raul Castro (the current president). Follow
blogs by Cuban activists on www.translatingcuba.com. Among the writers
is Yoani Sanchez, author of Havana Real, whose blog is translated into
English by Mary Jo Porter of Seattle.

Contact Carol Pucci: cpucci@seattletimes.com.

On Twitter @carolpucci.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/travelwise/2017513201_trpucci19.html?syndication=rss

Fresno Chamber of Commerce plans trip to Cuba

2012-02-19T02:29:00.001-08:00

Fresno Chamber of Commerce plans trip to Cuba
By Ron Orozco - The Fresno Bee
Sunday, Feb. 19, 2012 | 12:00 AM

Shrouded in mystery and off-limits to U.S. travelers for decades, Cuba
has become an appealing destination for many Americans, including
Fresnans, who now have the opportunity to visit the Caribbean island.

The Fresno Chamber of Commerce is planning a trip to Cuba for nine days
in June. A dozen people are signed up, but officials expect the number
to reach 20 or more.

"Where it used to be one of the great destinations for most Americans,
it's been a country that got sealed up," says Al Smith, president and
CEO of the Fresno Chamber of Commerce. "It's always been kind of a taboo
location, where we haven't been allowed there."

In 1961, the southwest coast of Cuba was the site of a failed Bay of
Pigs invasion by U.S.-backed exiles to bring down Fidel Castro's
Communist government. It escalated into the Cuban Missile Crisis when
Soviet missiles in Cuba pushed the world close to nuclear war.

American policy toward Cuba has been frozen since 1962, when President
John F. Kennedy's administration broadened a U.S. trade embargo. Since
2009, however, President Obama has begun easing travel restrictions for
U.S. residents wanting to visit family members in Cuba and for students
wanting to study there. Last year, he began allowing people-to-people
organizations to visit after being restricted for seven years.
Fresno Chamber of Commerce plans trip to Cuba
ASSOCIATED PRESS

Only international travel agencies that are issued a specific license by
the U.S. Department of Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control, can
arrange trips to visit Cuba legally.

Chamber Explorations, based in Redondo Beach, has a license and asked
the Fresno Chamber of Commerce to be among the first people-to-people
groups to go because of its history in international travel. The local
chamber has hosted trips to China, Ireland, Spain and Portugal.

"A window of opportunity has presented itself," Smith says. "Who knows
what tomorrow can bring, so you grab it now."

He says there remains a lot of appeal about Cuba.

"I just think sometimes a new vista opens up -- one you've heard about,
one with historical relevance, one with a lot of mystery surrounding it,
like Cuba -- and it gets you excited," he says. "It's a new and unique
experience."

The Fresno group will visit:

-- Havana, the capital city where streets are filled with automobiles
dating to the 1950s.

-- Trinidad, one of the country's oldest cities, founded by the
Spaniards in 1514.

-- Partagas Cigar Factory, one of the oldest cigar brands in the world,
established in 1845.

-- Pinar del Rio, known for its stunning scenery with mogotes,
prehistoric-looking flat-top mountains and tobacco plantations.

-- Ernest Hemingway's farm, Finca La Vigia, property that includes the
home where he and his wife, Martha, lived for 21 years.

-- Cojimer Fishing Village, made famous by Hemingway's novel, "The Old
Man and the Sea," which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1953.

The trip begins June 12.

The Fresno Chamber of Commerce's mission is to promote business and
enhance the economic and cultural well-being of Fresno County residents.

"Obviously, when you go to some of these destinations, there's the
business-to-business component, at least to meet someone in business,
and you enjoy the economy and the sites," Smith says.

You don't have to be a Fresno Chamber of Commerce member to go on the
Cuba trip, which costs just under $4,000. There is no limit on the
number of people who can sign up. For details, call (559) 495-4801.

The Fresno Chamber of Commerce trip is not the only way to visit Cuba.
You can go through people-to-people arrangements, but it can be
complicated.

Joanne Lippert, an independent contractor who works at Lewis Travel in
Fresno, says she would work through Tauck, an international travel
company headquartered in Norwalk, Conn., that is licensed to offer trips
to Cuba. The company isn't allowed to publicize information.

"It's sort of secret," she says. "It's also expensive -- several
thousand dollars for a week. You're not allowed to go wandering all over."

Despite the hurdles, Lippert says Cuba has appeal to many travelers.

"Curiosity is one thing; we were not allowed to go there for so long,"
she says. "It's fascinating because nobody has been there. People are
looking for a destination where they haven't been. They want to have a
personal experience -- and not just stand there and look."

Keith Johnson, owner of Bulldog Travel in Fresno, says he has concerns
about recommending Cuba to travelers for leisure.
Fresno Chamber of Commerce plans trip to Cuba

"It wouldn't be at the top of my list for us," he says, adding that Cuba
is without a U.S. embassy. U.S. citizens needing assistance in Cuba, he
says, work through the Swiss Embassy.

"The Swiss working on our behalf isn't so great," he says. "You want to
have your government representative in the country you're visiting."

Johnson says he hopes the Fresno Chamber of Commerce group fares well
with its business connections in Cuba.

"If they could pave the way with some mutual commerce interest, it would
be more welcoming for U.S. travelers to go there," he says.

Dan Ronquillo, who was a Fresno City Council member representing
District 3 from 1995-2003, is going on the Fresno chamber's trip with
his wife, Margarette. The couple has visited Argentina, Peru, Costa Rica
and Mexico. He says Cuba appeals to them.

"It has been off-limits for so many years," he says. "I thought,
'Wouldn't this be great?' where everything has been okayed, instead of
trying to go through the back door.

"It is an interesting culture, and I like Cuban music. I thought it
would be great to see Cuba traditionally."

As pope visit nears, spotlight on Cuba's cardinal

2012-02-19T02:08:00.001-08:00

Posted on Saturday, 02.18.12

As pope visit nears, spotlight on Cuba's cardinal
By PAUL HAVEN
Associated Press

HAVANA -- When a young parish priest named Jaime Ortega stepped out of a
Cuban detention camp in the spring of 1967, at the height of the
Communist revolution's attempt to stamp out religion, his father handed
him a one-way ticket to Spain and urged his son not to look back.

But Ortega refused to go.

Forty-five years later and now a cardinal, Ortega heads the island's
Roman Catholic church, which has returned from the wilderness to become
the most influential independent institution in the country. In recent
years, the 75-year-old clergyman has negotiated with President Raul
Castro for the release of political prisoners, given the government
advice on economic policy and allowed church magazines to publish
increasingly frank articles about the need for change.

And after Pope Benedict XVI pays a pre-Easter visit, Ortega will have
played a part in getting two consecutive pontiffs to turn their
spotlight on one of the most secular countries in Latin America.

"My impression of Jaime Ortega is that he's just the right man at the
right time over these years," said Tom Quigley, a former Latin America
policy adviser at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "It seems to
me the events of the last couple of years have proved his quiet
leadership to have been very effective, and the church is in a much
better position today than it has been at any time since 1960."

Ortega has used his pulpit to criticize Cuba's Marxist political system
and call for greater economic and political freedom, but also to steer
the island's young people away from what he warned in a 1998 speech was
"a type of United States subculture which invades everything."

Ortega's tenure has not been without controversy.

Dissidents, U.S. diplomats and even some Vatican power brokers have
disparaged the cardinal's cautious approach, saying he often seems more
concerned with church renovations than with human and political rights.
Some even see him as an apologist for the government that once
imprisoned him.

"He has a very tough job," said Miami Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski, an
Ortega supporter who acknowledged that many Cuban exiles view the
cardinal warily. "For those who are Monday-morning-quarterbacking from
Miami and don't have on-the-ground experience, it's going to take more
time for them to change their opinion of him."

Ortega, a plump, jovial man often spotted on the cobblestone streets of
Old Havana wearing a simple priest's collar, became archbishop of the
capital in 1981, and cardinal in 1994, just as the Communist government
was easing up on religion. It had excised the last references to atheism
from its laws and regulations, and removed prohibitions on worship by
party members. Following Pope John Paul II's historic 1998 tour, which
Ortega helped organize, Fidel Castro declared Christmas a national
holiday for the first time since that status was abolished following the
1959 revolution.

Still, the island remains the least overtly religious country in Latin
America, with less than 10 percent of the population practicing. Despite
years of lobbying, the church has virtually no access to state-run radio
or television, is not allowed to administer schools and has not been
granted permission to build new places of worship. The island of 11.2
million has just 300 priests. Before 1959, by comparison, there were 700
priests for a population of 6 million.

For many years, Ortega rarely spoke out against the government or opined
on policy. He has confided privately to diplomats and others about his
tumultuous relationship with Fidel Castro, saying the two were often not
on speaking terms.

By all accounts, his interaction with Raul, Fidel's less doctrinaire
brother who took over in 2006, has been better. Ortega has said he meets
regularly with the younger Castro, sometimes giving him advice on the
economic reforms the president is pushing. And even if the pews are not
packed, that interaction at the highest level gives the church a unique
role in a country with no legal opposition or independent press.

In 2010, the cardinal sat down with Castro and a Spanish diplomat in a
meeting that cleared the way for the release of dozens of intellectuals,
social commentators and opposition activists imprisoned by Fidel in a
notorious 2003 crackdown.

Church publications also have begun pushing for more sweeping economic
and political change, and Ortega himself publicly urged Castro to speed
up the changes.

"I think this feeling has become a kind of national consensus, and its
delay is producing impatience and unease among the people," Ortega told
the Catholic magazine Palabra Nueva (New Word) in 2010.

Castro credited the church with helping the prisoner releases go
"harmoniously," portraying Ortega as unafraid to fight his side.

But many dissidents have been less charitable, particularly about
Ortega's tacit acceptance of the government's insistence that most freed
political prisoners go into exile.

"I don't think the Catholic church was fundamental or influential in our
liberation," said Julio Cesar Galvez, a prisoner sent into exile in
Spain in July 2010. "The Cuban Catholic Church ... simply served as a
front for the totalitarian Cuban regime."

It is not the first time Ortega has been accused of not doing enough.

In 2007, the cardinal tried to close the church magazine, Vitral
(Stained Glass), which was becoming more aggressive in criticizing the
government. Publication was ultimately allowed to continue, but its
editor was removed and became an open dissident.

The affair caused anger even at the Vatican, according to classified
U.S. diplomatic cables leaked to WikiLeaks and separately obtained by
The Associated Press.

A May 14, 2007 dispatch written by Washington's mission to the Holy See
quotes the chief of staff to Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone
as complaining that Cuba's government must have been happy with Ortega
because "the Church did its dirty work."

The cable added: "Vatican officials have hinted in the past that Ortega
had become too cozy with Castro."

"From Cardinal Ortega all the way down to provincial nuns, the Church
mostly avoids challenging the GOC (government of Cuba)," said another
dispatch, this one written by U.S. diplomats in Havana in 2008. "On
issues large and small, Catholic Church strategy is to capitulate to GOC
positions, preemptively if possible."

Since those cables were written, Ortega's role in freeing the dissidents
has become known, critical articles are reappearing in church magazines
and the cardinal is more publicly supportive of the Ladies in White
opposition group. A Western diplomat told AP Ortega is viewed
positively, but should use his pulpit more effectively and be less cautious.

"We think he has more power than perhaps he realizes and wish he would
use it," said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because
he was not authorized to discuss the cardinal publicly.

Ortega declined to be interviewed, but the criticism must sting for a
man who has ridden out the tempestuous tides of Cuba's revolution from
his earliest days in the church.

Ortega is only the second cardinal in Cuba's history, succeeding Manuel
Arteaga Betancourt, who died in the first years after the revolution. He
was born in 1936 near the central city of Matanzas and began studying
for the priesthood when he was 19, training for some time at a seminary
in Montreal. He returned to Cuba and was ordained in 1964.

At the time, many priests were expelled from the country or became
marked men. Communist party members were banned from worship and
churches were left to decay. Catholic hospitals and schools, including
the Jesuit high school in Havana where Fidel Castro studied, were
nationalized and secularized.

In turn, many priests actively supported groups opposed to the new
Communist government, even hiding weapons in some cases. In 1963, Cuba
passed a law requiring all men between the ages of 17 and 45 to make
themselves available for military service, including priests.

Ortega's name came up for military service in 1966, but as with other
religious men, the government considered him untrustworthy to join the
force, sending him instead to a military work camp in Camaguey that
interned intellectuals, homosexuals, dissidents, clergymen and others
who ran afoul of the government.

While Ortega has not spoken publicly about his eight months at the camp,
other inmates describe 4 a.m. wake-up calls, screaming guards, dirty
water and atrocious food; days spent doubled over cutting sugar cane and
nights grabbing restless sleep in uncomfortable hammocks.

Many fled Cuba the moment they got out, joining a burgeoning diaspora in
South Florida, Spain and elsewhere. But Ortega has said leaving was not
an option.

"I never dreamed in all my time (in the camp) of leaving Cuba," he said
in a 2011 speech, explaining why he turned down his father's ticket out.
"Cuba, for me, is my homeland ... I feel it in the smells in the air,
the threatening skies of a hurricane, the sweet afternoons of a false
winter, the way people speak, and their music."

Ortega's supporters point to his past as evidence of his quiet courage,
and say his ability to work with the government despite his personal
suffering is a sign of his deep religious conviction.

"National forgiveness must begin with personal forgiveness," said
Elizardo Sanchez, a human rights activist and de facto spokesman for
many island dissidents, who has known the cardinal since the 1980s.
"That is the first prayer of all Christians, and Ortega believes in it."

---

Associated Press reporters Laura Wides-Munoz in Miami, Jorge Sainz in
Madrid and Andrea Rodriguez and Peter Orsi in Havana contributed to this
report.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/18/v-fullstory/2648167/as-pope-visit-nears-spotlight.html

Coast Guard repatriates 108 Haitian migrants, 14 Cuban migrants

2012-02-18T12:53:00.000-08:00

Coast Guard repatriates 108 Haitian migrants, 14 Cuban migrants
By: MMD Press Releases
Posted on February 16, 2012 at 15:47 PM EST

MIAMI (MMD Newswire) February 16, 2012 -- The Coast Guard repatriated
108 Haitian migrants to Cap Haitien, Haiti, Thursday, and 14 Cuban
migrants to Bahia de Cabañas, Cuba, Tuesday.

The Haitian and Cuban migrants were interdicted at sea during two
separate events.

The crew of the Boston-based, 270-foot Coast Guard Cutter Spencer
assisted the Royal Bahamas Defence Force Monday in the interdiction of
108 Haitian migrants. The Haitian migrants were repatriated Thursday.

A Coast Guard Air Station Miami aircrew spotted 14 Cuban migrants Friday
in the Florida Straits. The crew of the 110-foot Coast Guard Cutter
Kodiak Island, homeported in Key West, Fla., repatriated the migrants
Tuesday.

For more information on how to legally immigrate to the United States,
call U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) at 1-800-375-5283
or visit the USCIS website at www.uscis.gov.

All migrants interdicted were provided with food, water, shelter and
basic medical attention.

http://finance.sfgate.com/hearst.sfgate/news/read?GUID=20657309

False Paradigms / Fernando Dámaso

2012-02-18T12:18:00.001-08:00

False Paradigms / Fernando Dámaso
Fernando Dámaso, Translator: Unstated

Print encountered on a street in Havana.*

The five spies serving sentences in the United States, four in prisons
and one on parole (for two years he can't leave the country), together
with their families, have been converted, at least officially, as a
result of a massive media campaign, into paradigms of the politically
correct citizen.

When one speaks of courage and sacrifice, they constitute the supreme
examples. On Father's Day, they are proclaimed fathers par excellence.
On Mother's Day, their offspring emulate Mariana Grajales, Maceo's
mother. And on Valentine's Day (here the "Day of Love and Friendship"),
they and their partners rival Romeo and Juliet or Tristan and Isolde. A
real soup of sentiment! To see for yourself, just follow the propaganda
— written, on the radio, and on TV.

A neighbor of mine — one of those few who still believe unconditionally
in "the model", who perform surveillance duty for and attend the
meetings of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution,
unconditional model, participate in the Delegate Accountability meetings
of their district, and even vote in the so-called elections — told me
the other day, "It seems to me that The Five, instead of being in
prison, are enjoying holidays with pay in the United States, paid for by
U.S. taxpayers. In addition, their family members travel at our expense,
and even receive a few dollars to stock up on odds and ends."

At first I was shocked and didn't know how to answer. Was he being
serious, or provoking me? When I realized it was the former, I totally
agreed with him.

These characters live better and eat better than most Cubans, play chess
with the children here, enjoy Internet and telephone communication,
offer interviews to be broadcast and published, are visited by Hollywood
stars and other personalities, develop their artistic skills, publish
books of poetry and put on art exhibitions and, perhaps, one of them
might even be writing a book, sure to win the Casa de las Americas
Prize. In addition, they enjoy first world medical care and receive
regular visits from their families (for those who don't receive visas to
do so, it is because they were deported for espionage activities). As
you can see, my neighbor is not very confused in his judgment.

Anyone who knows anything about publicity knows that a campaign, when it
reaches the degree of saturation, should be discontinued as it may
obtain results diametrically opposed to those expected: people begin to
reject what is offered so insistently, as a mechanism self-defense.

And so it has happened with The Five: Cubans, weary of such absurd and
cloying propaganda, they get the joke. As usual, the authorities have
gone too far, without observing the effect. Again, Maximo Gomez proves
to be absolutely right when he said, "Cubans: either they go too far or
they fall short." The most common is that we fall short.

February 17 2012

Tag: CDR

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15323

Cuba Always Skimps on Resources for Education and Teachers / Dora Leonor Mesa

2012-02-18T12:15:00.001-08:00

Cuba Always Skimps on Resources for Education and Teachers / Dora Leonor
Mesa
Dora Leonor Mesa, Translator: Unstated

It is my duty to refute the following public statements: "Cuba does not
spare resources for Education" (Juventud Rebelde, August 26, 2011. Print
Edition), "… is an education (Cuban) that has been developed in constant
conflict with the aggressive policy of the United States …" (Juventud
Rebelde, October 19, 2011. Print edition). I just want to point out some
ways to not make too long a list where the keywords are lack and scarcity:

1. 45% of Cuban schools have no telephones. Cuban firms and companies
that have abundant hard currency, such as ETECSA, the phone company, do
not have plans to support the Ministry of Education.

2. Most Cuban teachers and professors do not have media technologies
such as flash drives and computers, which in addition were banned for
years, with private purchase prohibited.

3. Much of the current Cuban teacher technology training suffers from
the need to share knowledge successfully with education professionals
from other countries.

4. As officials from the Ministry of Education(MINED) have publicly
stated on Cubaeduca websites and online Cuban newspapers Cuban, the
schools have computers at a ratio of 1 to 20 students.

5. The school technology available is obsolete and scarce.

6. Schools do not have internet access and those that have it, have a
very narrow bandwidth, controlled by censorship.

Some seek to attribute the educational disaster to the U.S. embargo and
the Ministry of Education. Something like the famous phrase: "The fault
of all lies with all." Maybe I should say "the alls" …

Although the current Cuban education is going through a crisis,
defending the criteria that give Cuba a prestigious reputation for its
education system. However, it doesn't merit it, I believe, the
availability of resources for many years have been insufficient. The
real perpetrators and promoters of the successes have been, in large
part, the Cuban teachers have done wonders out of nothing.

We must also mention the ex-president Fidel Castro, with his charismatic
and populist leadership… and unquestionably highlight the contribution
of books and consultants who come from countries like East Germany and
the Soviet Union, possessing a vast cultural and scientific culture,
both formed by world-class names as Mendeleyev, Pavlov, Koch … This
influence benefited, there is no reason to deny it, Cuban pedagogy,
which in all ages, has always been attentive to the progress and
pedagogical innovations.

In this small island, a notable Cuban personality says with good reason:
Here prosperity is demonized. When a teacher or teacher have several
resources for their classes, they will face, first of all, questions
about how they come to have them.

Research confirms that talented teachers give more importance to good
working conditions than to salary (Protheroe, N., Principal's Research
review, vol. 6 Issue 1, 2011). Surveys show the unquestionable impact of
good working conditions in the high retention and recruitment of new
teachers.

Just 50 years ago any Latin American country was much richer than South
Korea. According to the UN today South Korea has higher income per
capita than any of them. The secret lies in a high quality education system.

Cuba has been living in the XXI century for a decade. You can not go
back to prehistory, dinosaurs disappeared, Cuba was declared more than
four decades ago "Territory Free of Illiteracy". Am I wrong?

October 28 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15310

Cardinal Rivera encourages greater religious freedom in Cuba

2012-02-18T11:52:00.001-08:00

Cardinal Rivera encourages greater religious freedom in Cuba
Mexico City, Mexico, Feb 14, 2012 / 06:06 pm (EWTN News)

Weeks before Pope Benedict's visit to Latin America, Cardinal Norberto
Rivera of Mexico City encouraged Cuban Ambassador Manuel Aguilera de la
Paz to work for greater religious freedom in his country.

During a Mass at the Cathedral of Mexico City on Feb. 12, Cardinal
Rivera said Mexico welcomed the Cuban ambassador "with affection, and we
rejoice that you are exercising your religious freedom," reported
Vatican-based Fides news agency.

"We know with certainty that the commander (Fidel Castro) and President
Raul (Castro) are taking care of each detail of Pope Benedict XVI's
visit," the cardinal said.

Ambassador Aguilera told the Archdiocese of Mexico City's News Service
that his meeting with Cardinal Rivera was "very cordial."

"We spoke about the upcoming visit of His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI,
to Cuba. I told the cardinal that the Cuban people are going to receive
His Holiness with great unity, much affection and respect, just as we
received Pope John Paul II in 1998."

He also said Cardinal Rivera told him that he went to Cuba with Pope
John Paul II "and that he was sure that this new visit would be a great
success."

"My best wishes for a successful visit to Mexico for His Holiness, Pope
Benedict XVI, and of course I hope for great success for the visit he
will make to our country," Aguilera said.

http://www.ewtnnews.com/catholic-news/Americas.php?id=4875#ixzz1mZFjJvVU

Cuba Medicine and an Offended Doctor / Miriam Celaya

2012-02-18T11:05:00.001-08:00

Cuba Medicine and an Offended Doctor / Miriam Celaya
Miriam Celaya, Translator: Unstated

Following the publication of the post "The Broken Showcase" in this
blog, in which I noted several criticisms of the Cuban health system and
the loss of professional ethics by not a few doctors, a reader was kind
enough to send me the letter of a doctor with the surnames Alemán
Matías, which circulated on the web, not in response to my post but in
response to a note which was published some time ago in the Letters
section, a feature that appears every Friday in the Granma newspaper.

However, as somehow the topic is related, and as I have opposing views
to those wielded by the aforementioned doctor, today I propose to my
readers to comment on the letter, transcribed in full below, and whose
writing, spelling and style I have respected without altering them in
the slightest. I do not cite the web source because I'm transcribing
directly from the message of my reader. I urge readers, in order to
avoid misunderstandings, to bear in mind that Dr. Alemán refers to a
letter published in Granma and not to my post of last Monday, February 6:

And the patience of the doctors?!

On Friday, November 4, 2011 was published another letter of the many
that have already been published, constantly criticizing the medical
staff that still has the dignity of working in the National Health
System. The letter in this case, entitled "Patience of patients,"
doesn't speak about the myriad difficulties faced daily by health
workers, but superficially criticized and, in a way that has become a
tradition, in a non-constructive way.

In other words, the doctor has no right to speak, amid all her
difficulties must remain stoic, and can not comment to her partner over
a breakfast she can't eat that morning because if she did she would miss
the bus and not arrive early to attend to the patient who would later
feel every right to criticize her, and so this is one of what are
countless examples of what doctors could talk about that would not fit
in all the pages of a newspaper.

That doctor has to have all the patience to sit and wait for a bus, to
arrive at the school of her child where they tell her there is no
teacher or they do not have lunch, to arrive to buy detergent for the
month in CUC, a currency in which she does not receive her wages, and to
wait for the clerk to finish gossiping with the one next to her, to
deign to check out everything she would buy.

Patience to come and pick up the garbage cans, overflowing outside her
home and on every corner, the community workers, who surely have the
right and time to have pleasant conversations so that they forget they
have to clean up the city trash.

I speak as a doctor, because it is because of this that I arrive at ten
o'clock in the morning in the operating room without having been able to
have breakfast and having to tell my co-worker next to me how hungry I
am! And knowing that there is no snack and that lunch will arrive at
2:00 pm and at that hour I will be able to have lunch although it will
be a taste of what they give the doctors and the rest of the workers in
this section.

But the physician continues standing there, giving the best care to the
patient she is operating on, and who will later have "every right to
criticize all doctors" who although conversing, gave him quality medical
care, which all Cuban doctors continue doing, and all which all the
people of Cuba should be proud of, yet they continue to judge us without
having the least idea of the inhuman conditions in which we work and how
much we contribute to society.

I will end with the same question: Should we get used to this?

Dra. A. Alemán Matías

Specialist 1st grade of Anesthesiology and Reanimation.

So much for the letter-catharsis of the doctor. Now, from my personal
perspective it is obvious that the evil is deeper than many thought. For
starters, it would seem that Dr.Alemán understands that doctors are some
particular kind of breed to be placed above the rest of humanity.That
is, the vast majority of Cubans of any profession, occupation or trade
pass through identical material deprivation and problems, they have to
wait for the bus for long hours, often have nothing to eat breakfast,
are paid in local currency and need products that are sold only in hard
currency and, to round it off, they get sick. Therein lies our greatest
disadvantage.

I believe that every patient is within his rights to demand better
treatment and better care from the doctors, regardless of whether or not
they have eaten, particularly because the patients are not responsible
for the material privations and the personal problems of the physicians.
Health is the most precious of treasures, which explains the concern and
anxiety of the patients when they are forced to go to consultations from
which they often emerge without a diagnosis, in hospitals where
frequently the necessary equipment to perform complete exams doesn't
exist, or where there are no reagents for the lab tests. We have
experienced going to the labs where, in addition, "they don't have"
intravenous needles, which rapidly appear when we open our wallets. It's
an irrefutable reality that happens with such regularity it's become a
tradition. Not to mention the shortage of medicines.

If the patient requires hospitalization, then his concern and that of
his family members increases exponentially. You are almost always
admitted using your own resources, your own bedding and personal effects
in every detail, generally you must bring your medications from home and
your family must guarantee your food to avoid your consuming the
gastronomic offal that is hospital food. The conditions of the rooms and
bathrooms are another chapter of horror: lack of water, blocked drains,
cockroaches, filth, are a constant in most hospitals. And I am referring
only to the hospitals in the capital, with two or three honorable and
rare exceptions. I urge Dr. Alemán to disprove something of what I've
asserted here.

Another feature of the Cuban health system is the absolute impunity with
regard to medical patients. Cubans do not have the slightest opportunity
to challenge a diagnosis or to sue doctors and hospitals for
mismanagement or fatal errors. The examples of silencing them abound.
About two years ago a cousin of mine died in the Naval Hospital in East
Havana. Unknowingly she had an ectopic pregnancy and in the face of
severe abdominal pain that came on suddenly she was rushed into surgery.
From there, shortly afterwards, she emerged dead. She was 40, a healthy
and beautiful wife, mother of two children, and in the matter of a few
hours she was dead. It was the consequences of the effect of the
anesthesia, whether this was fatal or there were other complications we
will never know. She, Ana Margarita Celaya, was cremated, a family left
devastated, but the doctors of that unfortunate surgical intervention
continued practicing. At best, what happened that day, is that they had
not eaten breakfast, go figure.

My father was diagnosed with a metastatic brain tumor just five days
before his death, although for more than six months we had been
frequenting consultations and specialists in various branches of
medicine. The scanner could not detect his illness and only the MRI,
that my older brother and I managed to "resolve" — that is, arrange for
— through some friends, discovered too late his impending death. Up to
that moment we were wandering around hospitals, trying to figure out
what strange illness was making my father lose his balance, be so
confused, forget even my phone number, become more and more melancholy,
suffer sleep disorders and lose control of his legs and even speech. The
doctors said it was "stress," that he had "anxiety," and prescribed one
psychotropic after another for months. Perhaps knowing earlier what he
was suffering from would not have changed the outcome, but at least he
would have had a better quality of life in his last months. I will never
forgive the health care system — the political system, a source of many
evils — for my father's terrible agony.

For me, personally, on January 28 they diagnosed me at Calixto Garcia
hospital with a kidney infection I never had. They did no analysis of
any kind and prescribed me oral antibiotics. I, who was vomiting, almost
dehydrated. Of course, it was my fault for coming to a consultation
without "sponsors," knowing as I do what the system is.

Dr. Alemán should convince Yoani Sanchez of the ethics of the doctor who
attended her after she experienced the beating given to her in a closed
car by various minions of the political police. I saw the bruises from
the blows and helped my friend through her painful convalescence. The
doctor, who initially recognized the marks of the blows and the bruises
on Yoani's body, soon retracted under pressure from the agents of the
repressive forces. A monument to Cuban medical ethics, I think.

If I were to list here all the personal anecdotes of my friends and
acquaintances in their experiences as Cuban patients, I couldn't do it
in a single blog nor in my entire lifetime. So I cannot accept that a
doctor feels particularly offended by the criticisms leveled against the
Cuban public health system and some doctors. It's very bold of her to
speak on behalf of all doctors when she says that patients are given
"quality medical care, which all the Cuban doctors still offer." Not
true. I know that there are still doctors who provide excellent
treatment to their patients with a professional zeal that is
increasingly deficient in half of them, but far from "all." Recently I
heard of a doctor of Centro Habana who does not even take the blood
pressure of pregnant women in his consultation "because he has to attend
to many" and ultimately they even stopped paying him the 25 CUC a month
that he received for having completed an international "mission." If
that is ethical I prefer to "die in my own bed" before going to a doc
like that.

For the rest, I suggest to Dr. Alemán that she properly focus her anger.
The best would be that she complain to her superiors about the bad
working conditions, the low salary, and the dreadful food offered her
during her workday. That she protest and focus her outrage upward, not
downward. The patients shouldn't have to resolve her problems, much less
suffer the consequences. In any case, all doctors who ever decided to
study for such a humane career and to take their Hippocratic oath, know
what the Cuban conditions are. It doesn't seem to disgust many of them
to go and sacrifice themselves in Haiti or in the most remote village of
some obscure country, amid the filth and disease at the risk of losing
their own health, to be able to acquire household appliances, other
trashy little things and a little more money. With all due respect, I am
not convinced that they do if from a stroke of pure altruism. When a
doctor is mobilized to some remote destination outside of Cuba, he
doesn't say, "No, I mustn't abandon the patients of my clinic." But if
they send him to some lost village in Las Tunas or the Sierra Maestra,
he howls to the heavens. And it's that in Cuba spiritual values have
deteriorated almost irreparably, faced with the material miseries of life.

No, we Cubans really don't have much reason to feel the pride the doctor
asks of us. Much less the appreciation. Instead, we feel helpless,
abused and often humiliated. We feel powerless because we have no choice
other than to seek the services of doctors of dubious quality. To go to
a clinic at random in Cuba has now become a kind of Russian roulette:
only if you're lucky do you save yourself. I don't play.

February 13 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15294

Catholic Church in Cuba Looks to Reconciliation in Year of Papal Visit

2012-02-18T09:46:00.001-08:00

Catholic Church in Cuba Looks to Reconciliation in Year of Papal Visit
By Anett Rios

SANTIAGO, Cuba – The Catholic Church of Cuba is setting reconciliation
among Cubans as its priority in the year of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to
the Communist-ruled island.

In an interview with Efe, the president of Cuba's Catholic bishops
conference, Dionisio Garcia, said that Cubans need a "far-reaching"
reconciliation, though he admits there are still "people who reject it"
both on the island and elsewhere.

Garcia, the archbishop of the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba, believes
that division is detrimental both to families and to Cubans' social,
cultural and political life, and for that reason recommends promoting an
attitude of "accepting the other, accepting what they think, what they
say, what they are, and how they view the reality of things."

Cuban Catholic authorities will emphasize a strengthening of this
conciliatory attitude during their pastoral labors of 2012, the Jubilee
Year celebrating the 400th anniversary of the finding of the statue of
Our Lady of Charity, patroness of Cuba.

Garcia recalls that this celebration and the pope's visit are taking
place after the country's transition "from a rigid Marxist state to a
state in which religious freedom...is accepted."

The visit of Pope John Paul II to Cuba in 1998 signified a "point of
change" after years of work in which the church sought a greater
presence on an island where relations between prelates and the
revolutionary government were generally fraught with tension.

In that sense, the archbishop said that John Paul II's visit and the
upcoming trip of Benedict XVI represent entirely "different situations."

"There were international changes that moved Cuba. There were also
changes in the way the government saw the role of faith and the clergy,
there was the fall of the socialist bloc with Cuba turning more and more
toward Latin America," Garcia said.

The March 26-28 trip of Benedict XVI comes during the celebrations of
the Jubilee Year, and the pontiff will arrive as a "pilgrim" on a visit
to the National Sanctuary of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre in Santiago
de Cuba.

Nonetheless, Garcia acknowledges that it is "inevitable" that "political
effects" are being sought through this visit to Cuba, where President
Raul Castro is promoting economic adjustments and the church and
government opened an unprecedented dialogue in 2010 that ended with the
release of more than 100 political prisoners.

"The Holy Father's visit during this time of changes, which are as yet
very timid but they are changes, encourages us to interpret these
changes from a perspective of respect for each and every other person,
in his dignity as a person," Garcia said.

For the 67-year-old archbishop, the reforms being developed by the
government "could be bolder," though he said that the transformations
being promoted "could really help."

He also said that church and state maintain "fluid" communications.

He added that the church can now "offer its opinions more easily," its
points of view "are listened to" and often receive a reply.

"I believe that it all comes from the continued presence of the church
in Cuba all this time, from the widespread work of the church during all
this time, and also from a changed attitude on the part of the
government," he said.

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=471387&CategoryId=14510

Letter to the Minister of Public Health / Jeovany J. Vega

2012-02-18T09:14:00.001-08:00

Letter to the Minister of Public Health / Jeovany J. Vega
Jeovany J. Vega, Translator: Unstated

Artemisa, 10 February 2012.
"Year 54 of the Revolution"
To: Roberto Morales Ojeda.
Minister of Public Health

Five years and four months since we were disqualified from the practice
of Medicine for an indefinite time, through Resolutions 248 and 249, of
September 27, 2006. All the details of our case have been repeatedly
sent to the Directorate of the Ministry of Public Health through almost
twenty documents that have been delivered to your home from us, since we
first addressed the then Minister Dr. José Ramón Balaguer Cabrera in
March 2007.

Now, two months after our last letter addressed to you, which, as usual,
once again received no response, we send a tenth letter that, being
nothing less, equals the record of its predecessor. At least you should
know that we will persist in the view that the only way to do justice in
this case is the following:

Revoke the Ministerial Resolutions 248 and 249, issued by Dr. Jose Ramon
Balaguer, and return us both to the original jobs we occupied in April
2006. This would would imply a moral public redress and economic
compensation consisting of the full amount of wages forgone during these
more than five years we have not worked against our will.

Repeal Resolution 14-06 issued by the then Dean of the West Branch of
the Institute of Medical Sciences of Havana, and return to Dr. Jeovany
Gimenez Vega the Residency regime allowing him to finish the specialty
in Internal Medicine which was arbitrarily suspended in his final year.

Minister: We hold today all points raised in the previous letter, dated
December 10, 2011 – indeed, on this World Day of Human Rights, the same
that you violate when we are deprived of the right to free exercise of
our profession – and we repeat, for the tenth time, we will rejoin our
work as soon as soon as you decide to repeal this injustice.

Thank you for your inattention:

Jeovany Giménez Vega. Rodolfo Martínez Vigoa.
Especialista M.G.I Especialista M.G.I

February 13 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15274

Raúl Castro’s train of ‘change’ to nowhere

2012-02-18T07:45:00.001-08:00

Posted on Friday, 02.17.12
CUBA

Raúl Castro's train of 'change' to nowhere
BY PEDRO ROIG
proig@miami.edu

Delusion is riding high in the utopian train of change in Cuba. The
problem is that the railroad station is empty with a sign that states:
"The Communist Party is the soul of the Nation." Tenaciously holding to
power, Raúl Castro stated at the recently held party conference in
Havana, that the socialist system is untouchable and the supreme guiding
force of the Marxist State.

Standing on the ruins of a failed revolution, he did not mention
significant changes, downplaying any expectation that some mild economic
reforms could entail an opening of individual rights. It is obvious that
Raúl Castro is not interested in a Cuban political spring of freedom. He
is perfectly reconciled to the darkest night of a dogmatic fossil.

The Old Guard is in full control, completely oblivious to the universal
discredit of the Marxist ideology. A corrupted inner power ring, the
Cuban Communist Party is presided by the 80-year-old Raúl Castro, his 81
year-old deputy, José Machado Ventura, the 79-year-old Ramiro Valdés, a
most feared executioner and the 85-year-old sick and delirious Fidel,
who in his few moments of lucidity interferes in his brother's
decision-making process. A difficult task for Raúl who worships the
"Maximum Leader" as a father figure.

It is evident that the Cuban gerontocracy is concerned with the growing
unrest and discontent that is sweeping the island. They have been forced
to make inconsistent economic concessions. They are performing a
cosmetic show for the gallery while launching a savage and systematic
campaign of repression against the courageous resistance leadership,
where Cubans of African descent and women are singled out for brutal
punishment. Evidence of this cruelty is vividly documented on several
website videos.

The Old Guard is holding their grip on power. They have gotten used to
being the privileged class. They like the good life, comfortably settled
with their families and comrades in the sheltered bunkers of their
enduring Jurassic park. They seem to be unconcerned to the fact that
Cuba remains without a back bench of young communist leaders. The former
vice president, Carlos Lage, and the ex-secretary of state, Felipe Pérez
Roque, both young heirs apparent, were thrown out from Raúl's train,
without hesitation, accused of being disloyal to the revolution.

Is this the train of change to be taken by Cuban exiles for an illusory
trip to nowhere?

The island nation is a moral and economic catastrophe, where over 75
percent of the people's food has to be brought from foreign suppliers
and the people's hopes for a better life is to escape in a raft or get
married to a foreigner. The situation is worse now than it ever was. The
malformed communist state is rotten to the core by corruption,
inefficiency and greed. The youth behave with the sadness of
hopelessness. The system is rapidly degenerating. It is a moral sickness
that's destroying the remaining healthy tissues. A convulse, almost
grotesque spectacle of a dream that ended as a crime.

Raúl Castro is fully committed to survive clinging to power. But he is
not good at the stage. Ill-trained by Fidel, the supreme showman, Raúl
is putting up a poor performance. He has precluded the possibility of a
national discussion on individual rights. The fundamental freedom to
publicly dissent and criticize the government without fear of reprisal
is not traveling in the utopian train. His octogenarian legion stand
ready to fight against any threat to their total control of power, but
they cannot fight off the inexorable revenge of time and growing rebellion.

Where did the idea that Raúl Castro is looking to negotiate a formula to
change the system originate? In over 50 years, there is not a single
piece of evidence to validate this premise. Raúl's train of change is a
fake assumption. A restless delusion feeding an ill-advised script, a
make-believe train that runs in a fertile imagination.

But the tragic show must go on. It is obvious that we Cubans have
difficulties for profound meditation and logical analysis. As a
collective entity, we tend to turn politics into a farce of inordinate
protagonism and elaborated fantasies. The facts are there to be seen.
The revolution is an unburied corpse. The catastrophe provoked by Fidel
and Raúl Castro leaves the Cuban nation a legacy of an immense moral
emptiness, infinitely worse than its economic ruin.

Pedro Roig, former director of Radio and TV Martí and teaches at the
Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/17/2647446/raul-castros-train-of-change-to.html

S.O.S. / Jeovany J. Vega

2012-02-18T07:12:00.001-08:00

S.O.S. / Jeovany J. Vega
Jeovany J. Vega, Translator: Unstated

Do not be alarmed, my brother, it is not I who is asking for your help,
but the Minister of Health. The powerful are accustomed to see that when
someone is punished very hard, they are generally reduced to obedience,
and so they don't understand by what strange way this sometimes does not
succeed. Just put yourself in the place of our new minister, and think
about how you would feel about this hot potato left to you by your
predecessor, Dr. Joseph R. Balaguer Cabrera, a participant in the lie
when they disqualified, in 2006, Dr. Rodolfo Martinez and me. Balaguer
disqualified us never knowing that we never harmed any patient, nor
lacked anything in medical ethics, despite which they applied to us a
Resolution issued 35 years ago, designed to punish such offenses.

The current minister will recall that we went to Dr. Balaguer on 10
occasions and that this gentleman never deigned to answer us. All these
details are already well known to Dr. Morales, since August 3, 2010,
when he was given the first of the ten letters we have sent that he,
too, following the example of his predecessor, also ignored by
completely. Thus both took an unconstitutional position in violation,
for more than five years, a dozen times each, Article 63 of the current
Socialist Constitution, which establishes an obligation to respond to
requests from the people.

To crush us, to reduce our bones to dust, to not leave an inch of our
skin uncovered with their manure, so thoroughly that no one will ever
again dare to "challenge them was the strategy of the executioners. No
matter if by this they buried their last vestige of scruple or shame, if
any was left. They allied themselves with the lie and are now up to
their necks in the shit of this history, while I — hatred makes me
transcendental — would repeat every word in this blog in front of a
firing squad or at the foot of the gallows.

The truth always finds it way, and if it is so with me today, then, who
can be against me? The minister should know it well: I will not be
defeated as long as it is in my own hands.

February 14 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15279

Tax lessons as private sector grows

2012-02-18T04:05:00.001-08:00

Cuba economy: Tax lessons as private sector grows
18 February 2012 Last updated at 09:11 GMT
By Sarah Rainsford BBC News, Havana

It is a process that fills many in the capitalist world with dread every
year.

Now, for the first time, many in Communist-run Cuba are facing the same
chore: filing a tax return.

It is more than a year since the government increased the number of
licences available for privately-run business on the island.

In Havana, myriad DVD dealers and watch repairers, fritter sellers and
cafes now jostle for custom on the roadside.

Cuba's new entrepreneurs are free to earn more than the small state
salary most workers take home of under $20 (£13) a month. But unlike
state employees, they now have to pay taxes.

"It'll take a bit of work for people to understand they have to pay,"
says Maritza Ramos, a housewife-turned-seamstress who sells her
colourful creations on a street stall.

"We haven't had that concept here for years, so it will take a bit of
getting used to."

Cuba's revolutionary leaders abolished personal income tax in the late
1960s.

It was reinstated in a limited form in the 1990s when the government
allowed some private businesses to operate, softening the blow as Soviet
subsidies to the island disappeared along with the USSR.
Money counts

Now more than 358,000 people - 9% of the workforce - are registered as
cuenta-propistas, or self-employed.

In the leafy garden of a Havana tax office, some of them queue to
consult an adviser. A noticeboard is covered with cartoons explaining
the new system; posters remind first-time payers that they're making a
valuable contribution to the state.

"It's all strange," says retired military man Carlos Taquechel, 75.

State pensions do not go far, so he works in a supermarket car park. He
and his wife also rent out a room to make ends meet.

Mr Taquechel says the difficulty is paying the monthly fixed-rate tax
for their business. Income tax is calculated on top.

Recently the couple have been unable to rent out the room, as a previous
lodger caused damage that they are still repairing.

Even so, they are still having to pay tax, they say.

"The system is new and needs polishing," Mr Taquechel says. "It's like
when a child learns to walk. It will fall over many times, but get up
again, more experienced. I think we're in that process now."

The government has made some adjustments, though talk of doubling the
annual threshold for income tax to 10,000 pesos (£265; $416) has not yet
become reality.

Currently, more than 90 activities qualify for a "simplified" tax
system, a fixed monthly sum regardless of earnings. Palm-tree trimmers
are the lowest contributors at 20 pesos a month.

Those with higher earning potential, including restaurant-owners and cab
drivers, pay sales and income tax on top. There is a sliding scale of up
to 50% for earnings over 50,000 pesos a year.

"We needed to update the economic model," says economist Joaquin
Infante, who says Cuba is in a "critical" situation.
Give and take

Squeezed by a US trade embargo for five decades, the island was battered
by the 2008 financial crisis and multiple, damaging hurricanes in the
same year.

Cuba still has to fund its system of subsidised products and free
universal education and health care.

"The revolution was very paternalistic. So [the reforms] being taken are
to see more efficiency, more productivity," Mr Infante says.

"People also have to start paying taxes: contributing to the state, not
just receiving."

The government plans to cut tens of thousands of state jobs in the
coming years to reduce costs.

So Cuba's accountants are bracing themselves. Across the country, they
are attending state-run courses in the new tax system.

Many are becoming cuenta propistas themselves: fathoming out other
people's tax returns and making payments is now a good business.

The classes also teach the ethics of taxation. But that is where one
student in Havana spots a hitch. His clients say high taxes risk
strangling their businesses.

"Many feel they have to lie about the income they should pay tax on,"
Yordanis Avila says. "I think for the average Cuban, with his little
street cafe, it's too expensive to tell the taxman the truth."

In an economy which functions largely in cash, with few receipts, tax
evasion will be hard to tackle.

Still, Joaquin Infante estimates the expansion of small businesses has
already netted the state 1bn pesos ($400m). It has also brought many
workers at least partially out of the shadow economy.

"Seventy-five per cent of the new self-employed were either retired, not
working or working illegally before," he says. "Those people are now
contributing to the development of the country."

Many businesses have struggled this first year and a quarter have folded.

But those who have survived say they are better off now, even with high
taxes.

"Of course!" says Maria Julia, a former transport ministry employee who
now sells costume jewellery at a street stall.

"I can go a day or even two without a sale and the taxes are high... I'm
never going to be a millionaire but there's always money to be made here."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-16809185

Why the U.S. should work with Cuba on oil drilling

2012-02-18T04:04:00.001-08:00

Why the U.S. should work with Cuba on oil drilling
By William K. Reilly and Megan Reilly Cayten, Saturday, February 18, 2:33 AM

Cuba's first deepwater oil rig, Scarabeo 9, began drilling last month 70
miles south of Key West, Fla. Cuban officials believe the rig may tap as
much as 20 billion barrels of oil. (U.S. officials estimate a quarter to
half that amount.) If Cuba's estimates bear out, this would bring the
country's oil reserves to roughly equal those of the United States. The
Spanish oil company Repsol, as well as other international companies
with offshore leases from Havana, will drill at depths up to 6,000 feet,
as the Cuban government pursues an era of energy independence.

It is vital to the environmental and economic interests of the United
States that Cuba get this right.

The Cuban government is overseeing drilling deeper than BP's Deepwater
Horizon well and almost as close to U.S. shores, but without access to
most of the resources, technology, equipment and expertise essential to
prevent and, if needed, to respond to spills. We are deeply familiar
with the two largest oil spills in U.S. history, from the Exxon Valdez
in 1989 and following the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010. In
each case, containing and remediating the spill required the
mobilization of vast resources from the federal government, the private
sector and local communities.

The Deepwater Horizon spill, 5,000 feet below the ocean's surface,
occurred under the watch of experienced U.S. regulators, at a well
drilled by one of the world's largest, most experienced oil companies on
one of the world's most sophisticated drilling rigs. The response effort
involved more than 5,000 vessels and is estimated by BP to have cost $42
billion. The International Association of Drilling Contractors estimates
that Cuba has access to less than 5 percent of the resources used in
combating the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

It is fortunate that a company with a good track record is the first to
drill off the Cuba coast. Repsol regularly communicates with U.S.
regulators, providing them access to Scarabeo 9 when it was moored in
Trinidad, on its way to Cuba. But Repsol is also hampered by this
country's embargo on business with Cuba.

The blowout preventer on Scarabeo, for example, was built in the United
States — it constitutes the rig's maximum 10 percent U.S. content
permitted by law. But the company that made it will not commission or
maintain it, nor will it supply replacement parts because it does not
have a license to operate in Cuba. One hopes that Cuban engineers are as
ingenious at jury-rigging a blowout preventer as they are with their old
American cars.

Cuban regulators are preparing themselves for the challenge ahead. They
have sought guidance from Norwegian counterparts on the implementation
of a regulatory regime known as the safety case, where risks are
rigorously identified and factored into drilling protocols, and they
have sent engineers to Brazil to learn about the deepwater oil industry.
They also studied in detail the findings of the Deepwater Horizon
commission and its companion technical report, and they have prepared
action responses to each of the report's key recommendations, as we
learned on a September visit with these officials.

But these regulators are severely hampered by the embargo. They cannot
engage in dialogue or share expertise with their U.S. counterparts.
Their engineers can be trained by international companies but cannot
attend training in the United States or be certified by any U.S.
organization. The Cuban government and Repsol have stated their
intention to comply with U.S. rules to the best of their abilities, even
though the Cuban government can have no direct contact with our
regulators to learn more about those rules.

The U.S. government can, and should, make available the resources that
the organizations involved with Scarabeo need to do their job well. It
should also be prepared, should something go wrong, to protect the
waters and beaches of Florida and the southeast United States from a
potential disaster. In the event of an emergency, the U.S. government
would likely do that. But the help might well come too late.

The private sector needs considerable time to ready an effective
response. Engineers need to understand the rig, well characteristics and
marine environment. Companies need to prepare detailed contingency plans
and to allocate appropriate equipment. The only capping stack licensed
for use in Cuba in the event of a blowout on the ocean floor, for
instance, is in Scotland, a week's trip away, and has no licensed vessel
or crew. Certain resources may not be available if summoned at the last
minute.

The Commerce and Treasury departments have issued some licenses to
spill-response providers and are reviewing others. As welcome as that
is, it is not sufficient. The application process and the threat of very
significant fines deter many companies from even considering the
prospect. The private sector needs a clear signal from the executive
branch in order to move forward.

Precedents exist for communication between the U.S. and Cuban
governments on common interests. The Coast Guard kept Havana apprised of
developments with the Deepwater Horizon spill, at a time when some
feared the gushing oil could foul Cuban waters. Cuban and U.S. officials
have shared information on drug interdiction, immigration and weather,
and the United States exports grain and medical supplies to Cuba. All of
this has taken place without an official change in policy since the
embargo was imposed in 1962. The Obama administration has the authority
— now, without a change in law or regulation — to provide a general
license to all qualified U.S. companies that express an interest in
helping prevent and respond to a Cuban oil spill.

This is a charged issue, one that many officials might want to avoid in
an election year. Some have proposed further restricting access to U.S.
technology for companies working with Cuba, in the hopes that this might
prevent the Cubans from accessing their oil. It is, however, time to
face reality. Providing Repsol and Cuban regulators with access to
resources for spill prevention and response will not further the
development of Cuba's oil and gas industry. That's already under way.
What it will do is help protect Key West. It is profoundly in the
interest of the United States that we get this right.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-the-us-should-work-with-cuba-on-oil-drilling/2012/02/14/gIQAGLFiKR_story.html

Daily Racism / Fernando Dámaso

2012-02-17T17:28:00.001-08:00

Daily Racism / Fernando Dámaso
Fernando Dámaso, Translator: Unstated

Some time ago, in the euphoria of Triumphalism, it was constantly
declared that in Cuba the scourge of racism had been resolved, and it
had been eliminated. It is true that, institutionally, in the current
laws and decrees this is so, but the reality is quite the contrary. The
phenomenon was such that they came to to the point of establishing a
percentage of black citizens (30%) that must be taken into the Party,
other political and mass organizations, and even the government bodies.

The bureaucratic, absurd and unnatural measure, instead of resolving the
problem, complicated it still further: many responsible people asked:
Why 30 and not 50 or 70 percent? In its own origin the measure was also
discriminatory. To try to solve such a complex problem in this was was a
childish delusion.

The Cuban nation, forged in a melting pot, began from the original
aboriginal presence before the discovery, rather underdeveloped and
primitive, which had only cassava as food, made crude pictographs in
caves and some pottery as art, daub and wattle housing, and some few words.

The Spanish brought European culture, developing then, the Catholic
religion and something very important: their language. Other
nationalities, the first African slaves captured by Africans themselves
and sold to traffickers, brought their rhythms, some foods and words and
their beliefs, never developed as they did not possess it. The Chinese,
Lebanese, Hebrew, French, Caribbean and South American and even North
Americans, expanded the components of what would be, first the creoles
and then the Cubans. This is the historical reality.

Currently, in a new attempt to fight the existing racial discrimination,
accepted even officially, until it becomes a wandering course, trying to
overestimate the role of the African component to the detriment of the
Spanish and the others remaining, when the right thing would be to
empower people without further discrimination. To suggest that all
Cubans have African roots, is as absurd as to suggest that we all have
Spanish roots. We exist, both one and the other, and also those that are
the result of multiple mixtures.

I have white friends and black and even Chinese, who are doctors,
engineers, lawyers, architects, scientists, etc., as I have also known
whites and blacks who are criminals and marginal. All had the same
opportunities, which is important, but some took advantage of them and
others did not.

Although data are not published, it is common knowledge that the prison
population in Cuban prisons is mostly black. The same happens in other
countries. I will not analyze the causes, it is not the subject of my
writing, but it forces us to think and delve into the reason for this
situation.

The scourge of racism must continue to be fought, but to move this way
and that (to which we are too accustomed), convinced that it is not
eliminated from one day to another, requires time and education on both
sides. Sometimes there are blacks more racist than whites: it is racism
in reverse. I think a prerequisite is to ensure that all citizens have a
decent standard of living, which has nothing to do with false
egalitarianism. Today, unfortunately, as many whites as blacks do not
have it. This makes it difficult.

February 14 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15252

Top 10 paladares in Havana

2012-02-17T14:29:00.001-08:00

Top 10 paladares in Havana

There's more to Cuban food than rice and beans. A new wave of private
restaurants has swept the Cuban capital, offering exciting cuisine in
atmospheric surroundings

One of the most overt signs of the effect of Raul Castro's economic
reform programme (which started to gather steam in late 2010) has been
the opening of a wave of new private restaurants (paladares) around the
country, especially in Havana, as well as the expansion and
refurbishment of existing places. These vary from mom and pop operations
to stylish new slick restaurants. This has radically altered the food
landscape (in Havana at least) to such an extent that going to dinner is
now a pleasure and not a chore, with a wealth of options serving decent
food with buckets of ambience and good service.
San Cristóbal

This paladar is named after its owner, chef and driving inspiration,
Carlos Cristóbal Márquez Valdés. Cluttered and eclectic, this is a
lived-in space on the bottom floor of an early 20th-century mansion.
Piles of old books are stacked atop beautiful old furniture; black and
white photos jostle for space with antique record covers and
bullfighting posters, while a selection of clocks, religious artefacts
and, even a full-size zebra pelt, add to the mix.

The food is Cuban-Creole: malanga, yucca, cerdo asado (roast pork),
lobster, fresh fish, shrimp and other traditional fare. This is not,
however, the bland standard cuisine found in many state restaurants. The
dessert menu is expansive: pudding San Cristóbal (eggs, fruit, milk and
almonds) is excellent while the fruit tart and rice puddings are pretty
passable, as well as the omnipresent flan. The wine list is broad enough
and reasonably priced.
• Calle San Rafael No 469, between Lealtad and Campanario, central
Havana, +537 860 1705

Le Chansonnier

Le Chansonnier used to be a French-themed private restaurant cluttered
with antiques, a solid if not spectacular place to eat. Reopened by
Hector Higueras in October 2011, its reinvention has left little trace
of the old interior of the house, which dates back to 1860. Le
Chansonnier is now a haven of contemporary chic that integrates all of
Havana's coolest elements: beautiful young staff, great music, sensitive
lighting and décor, as well as what must be the coolest toilet facade in
Cuba (created by artist Damián Alquiles).

This is quality nouveau cuisine – without the silly small portions – put
together by experienced chef Enrique. For starters, try pulpo en tinta
de calamar (octopus in squid ink), caviar de berenjena (aubergine
caviar) or sopa de cangrejo (crab soup). The best main courses include
pato le Chansonnier (duck le Chansonnier), pechuga de pollo con salsa de
tamarindo, (chicken breast with tamarind) and pescado a la provenzal
(fish provencal). Desserts are reasonable, the coffee is good and our
only complaint would be the limited and overpriced wine men.
• Calle J No 257, between Calles 13 and 15, Vedado, +537 832 1576

Café Laurent

The entrance to Café Laurent gives little away. Although it is just
around the corner from the famous Hotel Nacional, you have to be guided
into the apartment building, where a small antique elevator takes you up
to the penthouse. This is not a charming family-run paladar, but a
stylish and professional restaurant, foremost in the new wave of private
eating establishments in Havana.

The paladar has an updated 1950s feel. Old newspapers with 1950s adverts
cover the back wall. Billowing white awnings outside provide shade and a
touch of modern Miami.

Dayron Aviles Alfonso is the Cuban chef who, having worked in San
Sebastián as well as in Buenos Aires, is comfortable with the Spanish
Basque-based menu. The food is excellent. Red snapper with clams and
shrimp in green sauce (pargo con almejas y gambas en salsa verde) is
fabulous. Shrimps, steak, meatballs and salads are all well done, while
the biscotti de chocolate is irresistible. On Sundays, try the lunch
special: tasty paella or risotto.
• Calle M No 257, between Calles 19 and 21, Vedado, +537 831 2090

Atelier

Atelier is a contemporary space in an idiosyncratic Havana mansion, with
a large main room and two balconies with boundless cushions. An antique
hob outside and old sewing and adding machines inside give the place a
retro feel.

Atelier is run by Niuris Higueras, who has long nutured her passion for
exciting food: the menu changes every day. While Niuris is the
inspiration, Enrique is the experienced chef and together they create an
eclectic range of dishes, including falafels, pato confitado (duck
confit), lomito de res con camarones y espuma de apio al olivo (sirloin
steak with shrimp and celery mousse), conejo al vino (rabbit in wine) to
cerdo asado (roast pork). Desserts are standard (flan, tarts, ice cream)
but good. The food is consistently excellent, if a little unpredictable,
as is the service.
• Calle 5, between Paseo y Calle 2, Vedado, +537 836 2025

Doña Eutemia

It would take a hard heart to be immune to the charms of Leticia, the
diminutive elderly owner of Doña Eutemia. She wants so much to offer an
intimate relaxing place that she hopes you'll linger – even when she has
a queue outside. This paladar is opposite an artist's workshop a few
metres from state restaurant El Patio, on Cathedral Square. The contrast
could not be greater.

Leticia had no formal training but has developed a traditional Cuban
menu based on her mother's dishes. She doesn't like to invent new dishes
or add a modern touch. So look for tamal, ropa vieja (literally, old
clothes, a dish of shredded steak in tomato sauce), and pork, rice and
beans. Don't underestimate how well these dishes can be prepared. We
loved everything, including an excellent filet mignon and octopus with
garlic. If the paladar is full you'll have a long wait: just take your
newspaper and a healthy dose of patience.
• Callejón del Chorro No 60c, Plaza de la Catedral,+535 270 6433

La Carboncita

This paladar is run by an Italian, Walter. There is a menu, with pizzas
and pastas, as well as some meat dishes, but most regulars simply have
whatever Walter suggests. His recommendation is invariably
uncomplicated, but this is undeniably the best place for pizza and pasta
in Havana. I am not really sure what the secret ingredient is, but I do
know that it includes a large dash of Walter's charm, mixed with the
freshest ingredients and a newly installed stone pizza oven.

The place is unspectacular in decor and ambience. Pleasant, comfortable,
unpretentious with lightning-quick service, this is simply a good place
to eat within a 200-year-old former monastery. People in the know return
again and again because one hit is never enough.
• Calle 3a No 3804 between Calles 38 and 40, Miramar, +537 203 0261

La Galería

Opened in mid-2011, La Galería is another welcome addition to the city's
paladares. Located on the corner of Calles 19 and 12, it has an outdoor
terrace as well as a nice indoor, air-conditioned space. This is a place
of ambient charm, which would be entirely normal in most cities, but
somehow appears notable in Havana. The food really is excellent and the
menu is varied and well presented. La Galería is as good for garlic
prawns as for filet mignon or fresh fish. The staff are experienced and
apparently feel neither an intense need to chat nor abandon you when it
gets quiet. I like this place.
• Calle 19 No 1010, Esquina 12, Vedado, +537 836 3603

El Carruaje

El Carruaje (The Carriage) is in the leafy suburb of Siboney. The
mansion has an elegant pool and large ranchón. The owners/managers are
Mirka and Raúl. Raúl is a builder who has supervised and managed the
construction. Mirka trained as a chemical engineer but somehow found her
way into tourism, working for 16 years at the Habana Libre Hotel. The
restaurant is her dream, with her ideas and menu. The lighting on the
terrace may be a little bright, the pictures a little kitsch and the
indoor area too pink, but the staff are young, attentive and quick.

Mirka describes the food as Cuban with fusion international. Starters
are especially good. Normally, I dislike tamal – ground maize – but the
tamal en hoja grille relleno de tomate confitado y envuelto en jamón
serrano (grilled tamal filled with candied tomato wrapped in cured ham)
is great. There are a lot of good main courses, including excellent lamb
with red wine. A range of pizzas is also available. The quality of the
place is shown by its popularity: as you leave, you are asked to ring a
bell if you enjoyed your meal, and it sounds regularly.
• Calle 200 No 2104, between Calles 21 and 23, Siboney, +537 271 4347,
restaurantelcarruaje.com
Castas y Tal

Castas y Tal is on the 11th floor of a large apartment building in
Vedado, just around the corner from Hotel Presidente. The restaurant has
three areas, a main dining room that can seat eight, an indoor terrace
with glass windows and a side area where you can have an excellent
caipirinha prepared with eau de vie (fruit brandy), and caipiroska (with
vodka). This is not a slick mega-paladar but a homely lounge.

Jonathan Reyes is a young Cuban entrepreneur and chef Ransys Valdés
knows and loves her food. With a German grandmother, Chinese uncle and
various Spanish relatives, she has plenty of influences.

The food is light, fresh and healthy. Croquettes, tapas and Spanish
omelettes are delicious but do not sit like a lead balloon in your
stomach. Everything possible is made in house. Several dishes are
special recipes of Ransys: cordero casto is boned lamb cooked with
masala spices; pollo y tal (boned chicken with vegetables in pineapple
juice and ginger); shrimps in rosemary sauce; and roast beef in mushroom
sauce. You have to try the Piso 11 dessert – French bread with eggs, red
wine, vanilla ice-cream, hot chocolate and ginger. Standard Spanish and
Chilean wines should be available.
• Calle E No 158 B, between Calles 9a and Calzada, Vedado +537 833 1425

La Campana

At first glance, chill-out bar and grill La Campana seems more like an
upmarket finca (farm) than anything else. This is a swish ranchón beside
a nice pool. Depending on the night, you may be able to combine dinner
with a concert. Kelvis Ochoa, December Bueno and David Torrens have all
played poolside recently. On these nights, starting around 11pm, the
place gets packed to the rafters with a trendy young crowd. Sunday lunch
is more a family time. The menu, which has received mixed reviews, is
extensive and includes tapas (ceviche, carpaccio, papas bravas, gazpacho
and so on) and sushi, pizzas and pastas (gnocchi are a speciality),
Chateaubriand steak, fish and paella. Everything except traditional
Cuban-Creole fare.
• Calle 212 No 2904, between Calles 29 and 31, La Lisa, +537 271 1073

This list was compiled by Cuba Absolutely, an online lifestyle magazine
about Cuba

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2012/feb/15/top-10-paladares-restaurants-havana

U.S. should speak up for democracy in the region

2012-02-17T14:25:00.001-08:00

Posted on Thursday, 02.16.12

WESTERN HEMISPHERE
U.S. should speak up for democracy in the region
BY ERIC FARNSWORTH
efarnsworth@as-coa.org

Democracy is not a fragile flower, as Ronald Reagan told the British
Parliament 30 years ago, but it does require tending. What was true in
Eastern Europe in the 1980's and also the Middle East in the aftermath
of the Arab Spring is equally true in the Americas, where democracy has
been the norm for a generation.

Despite this, leaders of countries including Venezuela, Ecuador,
Bolivia, and Nicaragua are working to have Cuba's Raúl Castro invited to
the next Summit of the Americas in Colombia. If he is not, they are
threatening to boycott the summit.

Now is when the steady voice of the United States in conjunction with
other like-minded hemispheric nations is critically needed to tend the
democratic garden in the Americas. Washington should embrace this
manufactured crisis in order to stand for the fundamental point —
enshrined by the Inter-American Democratic Charter signed by all
hemispheric governments attending the 2001 summit — that representative
democracy is an expectation for full participation in hemispheric
affairs and that true democracy requires more than an election from time
to time; it also includes respect for fundamental freedoms.

Aspects of regional democracy have arguably deteriorated in the 10 years
that the democracy charter has been in force. The charter was conceived
to respond to earlier threats to democracy in the region, primarily
military coups. But now the principal threat comes from leaders who seek
to concentrate power in their own hands by weakening democratic
institutions.

In some nations, press freedoms are under attack. Electoral manipulation
is re-emerging as a problem and independent, impartial election monitors
are the targets of abuse and obfuscation. Corruption continues to
challenge state institutions. Rule of law is uncertain. Even the
inter-American human rights apparatus is under assault.

The United States has largely muted the concerns it has had about
threats to regional democracy for some time, fearing not without reason
that overtly raising these issues serves only to isolate Washington in
the hemisphere. Without the United States taking the lead, however,
other nations are disinclined to raise their own voices, to the extent
they even view these issues in the same way.

Having just traveled to Cuba where she reviewed a Cuban honor guard, for
example, Brazil's president spoke only of democracy and human rights in
the context of the U.S. presence at Guantánamo. For its part, the
Organization of American States is subject to the consensus of its
member states which sharply disagree on these issues.

The countries attempting to make Cuba the issue at the summit are
working to undercut the key pillar upholding the hemispheric agenda,
simultaneously diverting attention from their own deficits of democracy,
while complicating the politics surrounding a summit hosted by a close
friend of the United States. They should be called out. If they decide
to protest by boycotting the summit, that is their prerogative.
Voluntarily staying away from the summit would remove rejectionists,
allowing the remaining nations to get on with the business at hand.

At the same time, the announcement of economic reforms by Raúl Castro's
government is changing the narrative, slowly but surely, and this is
likely to increase calls from the region for changes to U.S. policy.
Much like the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev, Castro is engaged in
his own perestroika not to end the revolution but to save it. Creative
diplomacy including the upcoming papal trip to Cuba in March would put
the onus back where it belongs — on Havana not Washington, on true
political freedoms not tepid economic reforms.

The United States should be clear well in advance of the summit:
Economic reforms may be underway, but until Castro is willing to tear
down the wall of oppression by releasing political prisoners, allowing
Cuban citizens including blogger Yoani Sánchez to leave the island
voluntarily, releasing American Alan Gross, freeing the practice of
religion, and taking other measures consistent with broader democratic
values and personal freedoms, there can be no seat at the table set for
democratically-elected leaders.

Democratic principles may sometimes be difficult or unpopular to defend,
but in Latin America, as elsewhere, they are precious and well worth the
fight.

Eric Farnsworth is vice president of the Americas Society/Council of the
Americas.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/16/2645660/us-should-speak-up-for-democracy.html#storylink=misearch

Cuba’s Student Food Services: An Unfinished Agenda

2012-02-17T13:40:00.001-08:00

Cuba's Student Food Services: An Unfinished Agenda
February 16, 2012
Yanelys Nuñez Leyva

HAVANA TIMES, Feb 16 — The issue of food has been one of my greatest
concerns ever since I was admitted to the College of Arts and Letters
here at the University of Havana.

In my first years of school there wasn't a place to buy inexpensive
food, and we were cut off from places that offered those services. At
least we had a canteen though, which did more good than harm in
providing us with something to eat to get us through our afternoon classes.

At the meetings of the FEU (the Federation of University Students), we
continually fought for the establishment of a regular cafeteria, and
after a lot of dawdling we finally won our demand, but the
administration also took steps that effectively eliminated lunches for
off-campus students from the capital.

Their solution was simple: they implemented a single class session — in
the mornings only — justifying this as being due to the country's
precarious economic situation.

But the issue was more complicated.

If a student who didn't live in the dorms and needed to go to the
library after classes, they had no choice but to make a long trip home
for lunch and then come back here again, though knowing that by the time
they got here, the place might be closed.

As everyone here knows, public transportation doesn't meet the heavy
demands of our society, just as the schedules of educational
institutions don't meet the real needs of students.

The other solution was to buy something light to eat at our "stupendous"
cafeteria, whose prices were too high — and still are — and the food
second rate.

This second option of using the cafeteria is still the most widely used
since the system for studying is too rushed and you can't waste a lot of
time.

This began the current phase of the food problem, one in which our
parents' pockets have taken the biggest hit.

At no time was a meeting held to discuss whether this was the correct
decision or not. Its unsuitability could be seen in the faces of the
students, but — as almost always — we resigned ourselves to the
situation and remained quiet.

After two years of these transformations, everything seems calm. We
students are accustomed to spending our little school stipends on bad
and expensive food while at the same time trying to feed our spirits.

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=62272

Cuba’s Press: Dodging the Big Issues

2012-02-17T13:27:00.001-08:00

Cuba's Press: Dodging the Big Issues
February 16, 2012
Fernando Ravsberg

Granma newspaper constantly blames the people for the country's
problems. Photo: Raquel Pérez

HAVANA TIMES, Feb 16 — Would you trust a doctor who diagnosed you with a
serious case of cancer and then, immediately afterwards, told you that
you also had acne, and urgently prescribed only face cream to eliminate
those nasty little pimples on your face?

That's the feeling I got from a recent article in the Granma newspaper
concerning the crisis in public transportation here. Only once did it
mention the lack of spare parts, devoting the rest of the report to the
lack of bus cleanliness, graffiti on the walls and the volume of the music.

As always, the criticisms were directed at ordinary people, those who
work for the bus company and the passengers.

Not a single direct reference was made to the managers and
administrators who fail to guarantee the supply of parts on time and
thus cause the artificial shortage of vital transportation services.

No one would ever question the ban on smoking in buses, but that's not
the main problem. When one reads Granma (the "official organ" of the
Central Committee of Communist Party of Cuba, PCC), they would hope to
find the nation's problems treated in greater depth.

It's true that transportation officials refuse to grant interviews. I
spent months trying to talk to them and I saw for myself what lengths
they would go to in avoiding meetings where they figured they would have
to respond to difficult questions.

But such refusals don't warrant journalists dedicating themselves to
delivering tirades against "acne." That's precisely what those who try
to chase away the press want; they hope to avoid public scrutiny of
their mismanagement and errors.

Granma doesn't explain why there is a shortage of buses. Photo: Raquel Pérez

As journalists, it's our responsibility to pursue investigations in a
parallel manner, furthering a diagnosis that will enable the country to
discover the type of cancer it has, what caused it and the steps
necessary for finding an effective treatment.

Instead, Granma prefers to use the average Cuban as the scapegoat, which
seems an inconsistency for a newspaper whose spokesmen proclaim a
"revolution of the downtrodden, for the downtrodden and by the downtrodden."

They write about how people — like wide-mouth nestlings — expect the
government to feed them, but they don't explain that the Cuban model of
socialism hasn't allowed everyday people to fly. They blast individuals
for cutting down trees, while remaining silent about there being no
where to buy a miserable board.

The country expects full information about corruption in the area of
telecommunications — where million-dollar scams have occurred with phone
cards and the new underwater telephone cable — yet the official
journalists prioritize the story about some guys stealing a couple of
cellphones.

They blame wagon drivers for shortages but don't dare to mention the
gross inefficiencies of the Ministry of Agriculture. Now we have an
entire article devoted to transportation problems without them having
the guts to investigate why hundreds of brand new buses are sitting
around idle.

They have the confidence that people won't be able to respond, they even
silence outraged revolutionaries. Journalist and university professor
Elaine Diaz shows in her blog that the censorship of letters from
readers is what works best at that newspaper.

Hundreds of new buses are inoperative without Granma daring to explain
why. Photo: Raquel Pérez

Nobody in Cuba is so naive as to ask for ideological impartiality or
political neutrality from a newspaper which defines itself as the
"official organ" of the ruling party, but that doesn't exempt it from
complying with professional and ethical standards.

One would expect to find serious and deep reports in its pages, ones
that were analytical and provided a multifaceted treatment of the issues
– addressing these with honesty and courage so as to at least confront
those who sabotage the policies of the PCC.

One would hope they would follow the directives of their own
organization's top leaders, who have already explained that the
journalism they do doesn't work and have urged them to fight against the
cloak of silence that protects corruption.

However, it's unlikely that progress will be made by begging Raul Castro
to force officials to provide information or using the PCC National
Conference as a Wailing Wall. As Jose Marti once said, "The great rights
are not acquired through tears."

Instead of continuing to wait for the good will of officials to supply
the needed information, journalists could turn to average citizens,
workers and even conscious leaders who are willing to speak off the record.

This year's class of journalism students will soon be climbing Mount
Turquino (the highest peak in the Sierra Maestra mountain range and a
symbol of Fidel Castro's guerrilla army). It might be pleasurable to
dramatize the feats of former guerrillas, but if the new generation
wants to play a leading role it must be able to fight its own battles.

For such an adventure, it's not necessary to risk one's life – like some
of our colleagues are doing elsewhere. One does, however, have to be
willing to lose their official job and work in the attempt to do
professional, honorable, ethical and courageous journalism.

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=62244

Leading Cuban dissident asks pope to press Castro regime on human rights

2012-02-17T13:26:00.001-08:00

Posted on Thursday, 02.16.12

Leading Cuban dissident asks pope to press Castro regime on human rights
By ERIKA BOLSTAD
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- With a visit from Pope Benedict XVI scheduled next month,
one of Cuba's best-known political dissidents on Thursday called on the
Roman Catholic leader to use his power and visibility to shine a light
on human rights abuses and political oppression under the Castro regime.

If he has an opportunity to meet with the pope, he will ask him to be an
advocate for the oppressed, Oscar Elias Biscet told a House Foreign
Affairs subcommittee. He spoke through a translator, in testimony
telephoned from Cuba.

"I would say to him that I would love for him to lobby for our freedom
of speech and for a multi-party system, so that everyone can participate
and be represented," Biscet said. "We hope that his coming will bring
great change to our country."

President George W. Bush awarded Biscet the Medal of Freedom in 2007
while he was still imprisoned for his opposition to Fidel Castro's
regime. Biscet accused the Cuban government in the mid-1990s of allowing
and covering up botched abortions, and he was imprisoned from 1999 to
late 2002. He had been free for 37 days when he was arrested again.

Biscet, 50, was one of 125 political prisoners ordered released last
March by the government of President Raul Castro. Some congressional
leaders, including Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., have nominated him
for a Nobel Prize.

His testimony Thursday came at considerable personal risk and could lead
to his rearrest, he acknowledged. "Everything is possible," Biscet said.
"We're under constant supervision."

The committee did not announce Biscet's name before the hearing, out of
concern that Cuban authorities would detain him before he was able to
testify from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. During the hearing,
Biscet's photo was projected on two separate video screens. His image
was on several posters propped up along the wall in the hearing room.

Reps. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., and Albio Sires, D-N.J., said they
would write to the pope asking him to meet with Biscet. Rep. David
Rivera, R-Fla., said the message to the church couldn't be more clear.

"Now it is up to the Catholic Church to respond to Dr. Biscet," Rivera
said. "It is up to the pope himself to respond to Dr. Biscet. I would
hope they would be responsive to Dr. Biscet's hope and aspirations and
his request of the pope and the Catholic Church."

Biscet told the committee that the police in Cuba beat him, disfigured
his face and broke his foot in an effort to "stop through torture, stop
me from defending human rights."

He also described conditions in the prison where he was held. Some
prisoners were undressed collectively, disregarding "any respect for
human dignity," he said. They were handcuffed at their ankles and hands
for more than 12 and as many as 24 hours. Some were hanged by their
hands, with their feet barely touching the ground.

Cuban journalist Normando Hernandez Gonzalez, a recently freed political
prisoner who lives in Miami, told the committee that women are treated
with particular brutality by police. Some women have reported that their
captors undressed them, screamed obscenities at them, touched their
genitals and threatened them with rape, he said. "I still have fresh in
my mind the screams of prisoners who were being freshly tortured," he
said. "I don't know if I'll be able to ever forget that."

Sires said Biscet's testimony was untainted by the politics of the Miami
exile community. That should give the Castro regime pause, Sires said,
because Biscet is one of their own.

"He's not a product of Miami Beach, he's not a product of Miami, he's
not a product of Cubans in exile," he said. "This is a man that was
educated in Cuba, and he sees that this is a dictator, that this a
country that oppresses human rights. That this is a country that allows
no one the freedom to express themselves. And he's personally seen what
they do to people who are seeking freedom of expression."

Biscet on Thursday vowed to continue what he described as a nonviolent
movement to change Cuba. Biscet said Cubans expect little to improve
while the Castro brothers remain alive, but that they cannot wait for
their deaths to agitate for change.

"So we will create change on our own," he said. "We are hoping that we
will have the capacity to create nonviolent coercion and pressure in
order to actually install that political change ourselves."

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/16/2645755/leading-cuban-dissident-asks-pope.html#storylink=misearch

The Party…Up for Debate? / Luis Felipe Rojas

2012-02-16T22:00:00.001-08:00

The Party…Up for Debate? / Luis Felipe Rojas
Luis Felipe Rojas, Translator: Raul G.

The following post was written by Luis Felipe Rojas for "Diario de Cuba"
and published on Wednesday, February 15th:

During the past few days, fragments of the recently concluded sessions
of the Communist Party of Cuba National Conference have been televised.
And the first thing that jumps out at one's eyes is the lack of
confrontation. The Cuban communists pay no attention to their best
mirror: in each corner of any town of the island it constantly turns on
the most substantial of discussions. About baseball or the quality of
bread. Of the neglect of public functionaries or of the frequency with
which eggs or beans are distributed in rations. Still lacking any glints
of democracy, a debate – which the deputies of the National Assembly
wish they had- surges anywhere.

During the discussion about a possible constitutional reformulation of
Article 42, one could see how Mariela Castro Espin (daughter of Raul
Castro) was the subject of timid pleas. Her intention was that they add
"reasons of gender indentification" to the mentioned article which lists
that no one should be discriminated based on race, gender, nationality,
or religion.

The responses from Alarcon and Eusebio Leal refused the necessity to
cite these terms in the constitution. They cited Marti and spoke of
unity. The quick intervention of Esteban Lazo as moderator cut the
debate, the television also cut the running time of the event, and as a
product of digital magic, we could see when "everyone" raised their
hands to unanimously approve something.

There is a contradiction which asks for special attention. Commission
No. 1, according to an article published by Granma newspaper on
Wednesday, February 1st, debated the internal functioning of the
communist organization. The intention was to finish with the ruling and
meddling of the Party instructors when it comes to productive decisions,
while they stated that they would "strengthen the role and faculties of
the Party Committees in the work place". Any Cuban knows very well about
the arrogance of the municipal Party functionaries, and not to mention
the visiting officials from provincial committees. The sole announcement
of their visits puts any municipality on guard: checking work plans,
painting sidewalks and once gain reviving gastronomy.

A televised fragment in which the Ministry of Culture and the President
of the Cuban Radio and Television Institute bragged about the bad taste
provided signals of the stagnant thought within the structures of power.

Minister Prieto alluded to the careerists which sustained themselves by
making jokes and parodies, and informed about the juicy gains and the
corruption in the provincial centers of music through the evaluation and
hiring of artists and artistic projects of low quality and of the worst
aesthetic taste. The dichotomy between what artistic talent offers and
what people want continues to be the source of discord which has not
been resolved in a commission of Stalinists. The contemporary television
dynamic goes one way while the indoctrination which tries to spread
throughout Cuba through soap operas and TV series for adolescents goes
the other way.

It is something which is completely evil. The imposition of stagnant
communist ideas as the sole source of political citizen participation
does not, after all, result in the ever concealed unity of "all" Cubans.

Debates behind closed doors to later show them edited and served like
recipes are the buttons of proof of the single Party. Regardless, what
was not debated or televised must have been more interesting than the
gabbles published during these days. The fact that Raul Castro initiated
the closing discourse with his position about the possibilities of a
multi-party system made it barely visible, according to some, that the
matter was at least in the debate of the work commissions.

The Communist Party of Cuba is a rigid and exclusive option which
attempts to perpetuate a system condemned to failure.

Translated by: Raul G.

15 February 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15225

Concerns Without Surprises / Anddy Sierra Alvarez

2012-02-16T20:02:00.001-08:00

Concerns Without Surprises / Anddy Sierra Alvarez
Anddy Sierra Alvarez, Translator: Unstated

On February 13, 2012, the sky was clear with temperatures lower than
normal. The awakening of the citizens of the "Rosario" neighborhood in
the municipality of Arroyo Naranjo of the Cuban capital, is stunning, as
the bakery and pastry shop in the town suddenly stopped working, leaving
no supply for the population. Alfredo one of the neighbors who lives
adjacent to the bakery, said, "It's possible it was the noise that I
felt at dawn, like a short circuit." The administrator, alias "Chiqui,"
explains that with the rainfall in the evening, the water leaking
through the roof because of the poor condition of the roof of masonry
caused a short circuit on a large-scale, as the oven and kneading
machine, the only ones on the premises, were seriously affected.

A nearby source, a worker in the place, commented that conditions were
bad and that what happened was not a surprise at all; it's true that the
ceiling was one of the causes, but the real one was a common water leak
within the room where the machines are working and this created a
constant humidity and where there is electricity, water is fatal. Those
responsible for reviewing the machinery, gave the news that electrical
wires from the oven and the motor of the mixer had burned and they were
taking them to the workshop to re-encase them and that could take a week
to 20 days.

Some other person murmured, "Then until they repair the engine there
won't be any bread!" and a great tumult was heard loudly from the crowd
of people, so whoever said it remains anonymous. After several hours,
the delegate arrives and explains that they were not going to run out of
bread, for he had already spoken to the manager of the central bakery
(who is responsible for meeting the demands of a bakery out of service)
and that they will supply the demand of the affected population until
they solve the problem in up to 20 days …

At 5:00 pm, the horses began arriving with carts full of plastic boxes
with bread — the journey from the bakery to the central bakery and
confectionery of "Rosario" is about 6 miles away — so they started from
6:00 pm until 8:00 pm to give bread to the population and all were
comfortable with the idea that this discomfort would be ended by the
time promised by the workers in the maintenance shop.

15 February 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15231

A Visit to Reality / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

2012-02-16T18:54:00.001-08:00

A Visit to Reality / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo
Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, Translating Cuba, Translator: Unstated

You never know which is worse. The debacle of a hospital in ruins, like
most in the city of Havana or perhaps in the whole country, or the no
less deadly accuracy of a luxury therapy room, one of the science
fiction hangars that come out in First World movies, and suddenly, a Day
of Love you stumble upon, but in a corner of Vedado.

29th and E approximately.

Oncology and radiology it says on the facade in a creepy font. In the
lobby, a monstrous masterpiece of modernity dedicated to "hope." It's
obvious that we are entering a terrain where materialism and God share
the same isotropical homeland (like radioactive isotopes).

I tried to get in and out with blinders on. Without noticing the
details. Without humanizing the faces of those who come toward me in
wheelchairs. Without hearing the moans from the next bed. Without
understanding the maternal tongue that says right out in the hall the
age of this boy (the undermined maxilla) or of that bald teenager (the
blood liquified).

I greeted my family as if they had returned from a long exile. I looked
through the fogged glass. I swear I didn't know what city that was, much
less what date it was. The night was so beautiful and I didn't want to
think I was still breathing. I came not from abroad, but from among the
dead. Dead for now without a diagnosis of cancer, like my country
cousin, but still ready to go to pieces in operation after operation.
Pieces of memory cut for free. Dizziness. Feeling absolutely nothing.
Not recognizing the ancient faces of other cousins younger than I. When
you wake up, suddenly I'll be like a hundred.

They sedated her in a luxurious private room. Full of tubes. Partial
glossectomy, I thought I understood, or at least I reconstructed the
word thanks to its etymology. My cousin would have to learn to speak
again. Would have to, also, cling to that amateur monument of hope. This
is not her first surgical intervention. And so much cut-and-paste on the
body wears us out.

The medical report was gentle. Each nurse with the demeanor of a
professional reggaetoner, so full of vitality and humor. We looked
through a window to the intensive care room. Quite swollen by the
invasive manipulation she slept with a grimace of pain. Nightmares for
sure. Nightmares and no ability nor did she want to wake up.

In half an hour I was free again. A drunk spewed curses on the
government over the curb (from what I saw, I knew this detail would not
be tellable: too literary, too much allegory of a good final contrast
for a chronicle, but there you are). He said he himself had lived in
capitalism and so he knew what it was to live. I don't think so. You
could tell he was still young amid the stinking filth in the faded
light. Cuban capitalism day by day leaves too much in the past. I don't
believe him. Too much repetition of the words life and living. At best
someone will die in there and no one would dare to pass. We're trapped.

The teams looked so neat. The floor of some synthetic material, gleaming
under the neon lights. An air conditioner on full blast. And yes a
certain overwhelming sense of loneliness. Dying would be easiest.
Outside on 23rd street definitely no one's missing. They're all there,
including me. Those who are in bed at 8:00 at night have nothing to do
here. It's as if they never existed. As if we had never existed. Nausea.

I remember my studies in Biochemistry in the last century not far from
there: at about 25th and K. We read about the thousand and one molecular
mechanisms of cancer (I have classmates who got doctorates in the
subject). Almost beautiful. An out of control clock. A mischief of
evolution, viruses included. But there are a thousand and one
developable strategies to make fun of cancer tomorrow. Man has a pretty
good idea of what to do about it. We just lack time and money. And the
planet will not give us the mercy of such an opportunity. Nor will
history, with its crises and perennial revolutions. For now, we cut
little pieces of meat. Inject this or that monoclonal antibody or
radioactive serum. And derive encouraging statistics, as we impose a
priori the mausoleum that welcomes you to this hospital resuscitated
from among its ruins, at 29th and F.

I a couple of hours the sun will come out. I'm not afraid. I'm
terrified. Without the arm waving panic. With cynical equanimity. I
thought I would be a child. I was wrong. I grew up some time ago. I'm
more adult than anyone. I have no references to continue forward.
Please. Now.

February 16 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15243

Forget About Sending Love Notes by Cell Phone in Cuba / Yoani Sánchez

2012-02-16T16:52:00.001-08:00

Forget About Sending Love Notes by Cell Phone in Cuba / Yoani Sánchez
Translator: Unstated, Yoani Sánchez

Already in the early hours of February 14 we noticed that something was
happening with our mobile phones. Any attempt to send and receive a
message or make a call, ended in failure. It was Valentine's Day and
many of the mobile phone users in the country came up with the same
idea: send a greeting to the contacts in their phonebook. It did not
work. The only cellular phone company in Cuba did not pass the test of
such high demand and, come noon, its 1.3 million subscribers were simply
"out of service."

Cuba lags behind all Latin American countries, including Haiti, in the
number of mobile phones. Although the figure has grown since 2008, when
the government of Raul Castro finally allowed Cubans to contract for
cell phone service, it still insufficient. Despite the high prices of
calls and text messages, the cellular provider, Cubacel, has not
invested a share of its profits in improving its infrastructure. Hence,
the service collapses with increasing frequency. Holidays, celebrations
and Christmas are dates on which the use of this this little gadget with
a screen and keyboard is almost impossible.

But this logjam of messages is also a good sign, because it means that
every day cell phones are becoming a more and more popular method of
communication among us. Although nearly twenty years behind the rest of
the world, the mobile phone has entered our lives. For people reserve
their use for urgent issues or occasional greeting on the Day of Love.
But at some not too distant future it will also be a mechanism by which
we can call for social action, a channel to unite us and express
ourselves civilly.

16 February 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15218

The Death Certificate / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado

2012-02-16T14:51:00.002-08:00

The Death Certificate / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado
Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado, Translator: Hank Hardisty
The historical and honorary President of Cuba signed a death certificate
on Twitter last week. Our country has been known for years for the
practice of "illness and burial" of the Cuban historical leader, more or
less regularly in the unofficial voice of the people, to serve as the
pretext of his proud reappearance, in the media, in order to deny the
rumours. I think it is an over-exploited resource for "oficialistas" to
refloat the anointing of the phoenix of Cuban politics.
I always found it suspicious, that battered history. I think it has been
closely linked among the 638 terrorist attacks that government spokesmen
have claimed occurred against the former president. A figure also
suspect, if we consider the published writings and audiovisual material
made and disseminated on Cuban television, with the assistance of the
Ministry of the Interior; stories of aggression told and retold that
fall short of twenty. It is likely that the number and continuing
rumours of his disappearance, have been aimed at denigrating his
opponents, by consecutive refutations, in the diaspora.
I know not whether this was spontaneous, that year, and resulted from a
rumour which took root in Cuba that became routine. It is possible that
when some emigres gathered together to play dominoes, drinking to the
death of the "Guinness Records Hoarder" of Cuba, authorities added it to
the long list of attacks he claims. Perhaps they reacted now to the
prevalence of the social networks and intend to use the chirping of the
free bird that is Twitter to their advantage. I'd rather use those
"cyber-comments", often the fruit of social lethargy or the state
mind-trap, and see how they add the most recent funeral to fabricate the
number 639 in the long list of attacks on former President Castro.
Translated by: Hank Hardisty
January 26 2012
http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15174

Harsh realities of life in Cuba

2012-02-16T13:14:00.001-08:00

February 16, 2012 2:11 am

Harsh realities of life in Cuba
From Mr Paul Nabavi.

Sir, Having lived in Cuba for more than six years to 2007, I take issue
with Michael Redwood's romantic vision of life in contemporary Cuba
(Letters, February 13) and his assertion that it provides pointers to
"the more sustainable society" our world needs.

Like an impressionable tourist, Mr Redwood cites the use of "bicycle
rickshaws" for getting round narrow streets and says the stock of
pre-1959 private cars is perhaps no worse than our own "over-extended
car ownership". He makes the unsubstantiated claim that Cuba is
"realising its potential to create a transport infrastructure which does
not follow the errors of the west". I recommend he joins ordinary Cubans
as they stand for hours in the tropical sun waiting for scarce buses or
simply for someone to stop and give them a lift just so they can get to
work.

I agree that Cuba provides its citizens with valuable public goods
(healthcare, education and basic nutrition) absent in many countries of
similar income levels, but surely Mr Redwood goes too far in saying that
in education and health (and organic market gardening!) the Cubans "beat
most of the rest of the world hands down". People have commented on
original research in Cuban medicine, and I am great admirer of the
skills and dedication of Cuban doctors. However, if you talk privately
to Cubans who actually use public services, they will tell you of
slipping standards in basic care in hospitals and in schools. Most
shockingly, I was told of the need for Cubans to give presents and make
payments under the table to get many of the basic services they require.

I share Mr Redwood's regard for the resilience and creativity of the
Cuban people. They are admirable in surviving in a dysfunctional system
in which many manage against the odds to live with decency and dignity.
However, one must acknowledge the darker side of Cuban society, namely
the widespread petty corruption and pilfering. If Mr Redwood spent some
time talking with Cuban people, he would understand some of the daily
realities they face in making ends meet, getting access to basic
services and in putting food on the table (what they call resolver).

Mr Redwood describes a people "who appear amazingly content despite
their many deprivations". It is, of course, hard to judge other people's
happiness but I would point out that many Cuban families are split
between those members who live in Cuba and those whose frustrations have
led them to emigrate in search of better opportunities elsewhere. The
resulting family separations cause much heartache and distress.

After decades of underinvestment in physical infrastructure, Cuba
requires significant capital and significant institutional reforms. Mr
Redwood warns against a rush to globalisation, which he trivialises as
having "German luxury goods and American fast food outlets". He
underestimates the challenges faced by Cuba as much as he presents a
romantic view of the present reality.

Paul Nabavi, Stonegate, E Sussex, UK

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9f08dcb2-5739-11e1-be25-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1mZ9CANvE

Cuban dissident Fariñas says police to punish agent who threatened him

2012-02-16T11:11:00.001-08:00

Posted on Thursday, 02.16.12

CUBA

Cuban dissident Fariñas says police to punish agent who threatened him

Police tell Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas that the government agent
who threatened to kill him will be punished.
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com

Cuban police have told dissident Guillermo Fariñas they will punish a
former officer who threatened to kill him, an unprecedented move that
Fariñas said should embolden other dissidents attacked by security agents.

"This is a blow against impunity," said Fariñas. "Peaceful opposition
activists can now file lawsuits for injuries, for threats, for attempted
murders, against those who pummel them constantly."

Fariñas said National Revolutionary Police officials told him Monday he
will be allowed to witness the session next week where the man who
threatened him, former Interior Ministry Maj. Miguel Morejó Padrón, will
be sanctioned.

Morejó will be hit with a restraining order to stay away from Fariñas, a
warning that he will go to jail if he threatens the dissident again and
a 300 peso fine, just high enough to trigger a criminal record, the
dissident said.

Fariñas, winner of the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize in 2010 for
his peaceful opposition activism, said it was the first known incident
in which a government agent is punished for acting against dissidents.

Facing his many public complaints against Morejó, "the authorities
didn't want this grinding, demoralizing media show and decided to
sacrifice one of its officers," he told El Nuevo Herald by telephone.

Cuban dissidents regularly complain of beatings, harassments and threats
at the hands of security forces and government-organized mobs when they
attempt to stage public protests. Some have been rushed to hospitals for
treatment of injuries.

Fariñas said the death threat came on Nov. 2, when he went to the
Arnaldo Milian Castro Hospital in his hometown of Santa Clara to visit
dissidents Alcides Rivera and Roland Ferrer, who had been admitted amid
lengthy hunger strikes.

Morejó, who had left the Interior Ministry with the rank of major and
was second in command of the hospital's security, intercepted him, hit
him and threatened to kill him, he added. Morejó's job in the ministry,
in charge of domestic security, and the reasons for his departure were
not known.

Fariñas was detained and when he was released on the 4th he went to the
National Revolutionary Police to file a complaint. Morejó was summoned
and boasted "that he threatened to kill me, and that he would kill me if
he had to," the dissident added.

The police initially told him they would do nothing, but he returned to
the police station three times and stood in front of the building in
protest. He was arrested each time, and released hours or days later.

Fariñas said police told him a "multidisciplinary" team had examined the
case and decided on the warning and fine because Morejó had no previous
criminal record.

Cuban authorities regularly deny allegations of abuses by the island's
security forces and boast that its National Revolutionary Police and
State Security agents at the Interior Ministry are superbly trained.

There have been reports that some security agents were privately
disciplined after committing abuses. But there are no known cases in
which the victims were informed of the punishments, or were allowed to
witness them.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/16/2643403/cuban-dissident-farinas-says.html

Cuba Unleashes the Pent-Up Energy of Real Estate Dreams

2012-02-16T09:18:00.000-08:00

Cuba Unleashes the Pent-Up Energy of Real Estate Dreams
Jose Goitia for The New York Times
By VICTORIA BURNETT
Published: February 15, 2012

HAVANA — As fixer-uppers go, Carmen Martínez's derelict shotgun house is
no cakewalk. The living-room roof collapsed 15 years ago, and the porch
soon followed suit, leaving two teetering columns with nothing to hold
up. The bathroom is a squalid privy, and the kitchen consists of a sink
with no taps and two oil drums full of water.
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Jose Goitia for The New York Times

A new property law that took effect on Nov. 10. allows Cubans to buy and
sell their houses and even own a second home outside the cities.

But roofs — even half-missing ones — are a hot commodity these days in
Havana, which has been swept by a bout of real estate fever. So Yoél
Bacallao, a 35-year-old entrepreneur, offered to repair Ms. Martínez's
dilapidated house for free on one condition: that she let him build an
apartment of his own on top of it.

"It was as if a ray of light had come down from the sky," said Ms.
Martínez, 41, who would hang laundry in the roofless living room and
sweep furiously during rainstorms to keep the rest of the house from
flooding. "I have been watching this house fall apart around me for years."

All over the capital and in many provincial towns, Cubans are beginning
to inject money into the island's ragged real estate, spurred by
government measures to stimulate construction and a new law that allows
them to trade property for the first time in 50 years.

The measures are President Raúl Castro's biggest maneuver yet as he
strives to get capital flowing on the island, encourage private
enterprise and take pressure off the economically crippled state.

For decades, the government banned real estate sales and kept a jealous
grip on construction. Materials were scarce, red tape endless and
inspectors meddlesome. Black marketeers would deliver cinder blocks by
cover of darkness, and purchasing a bag of sand was a furtive process
akin to buying drugs.

But during the past two months the state has reduced paperwork, stocked
construction stores, legalized private contractors and begun offering
homeowners subsidies and credits.

On many streets, the chip of hammers and gritty slosh of cement mixing
rises above the sparse traffic as Cubans paint facades, build extensions
or gut old houses. Still, it is generally small-scale stuff: Mr.
Bacallao, who has savings from his business repairing mobile phones,
expects to spend about $10,000 on his project.

"Before, you had to sneak a bag of cement here, a bag of cement there,"
he said. Mr. Bacallao, who rents a tiny apartment with his girlfriend,
built a rooftop house three years ago, but the state confiscated it
because he could not explain how he came by the materials. If this house
works out, he will move his daughters to Havana from the provinces.

"Now I can explain where I got the materials," he said. "I can explain
where I got the money. No problem."

Behind scruffy porticos and walls of bougainvillea, the wheels of the
property trade are turning. Unofficial brokers — who are still outlawed
in Cuba — say they have never been so busy, trawling the streets and the
Internet for leads and fielding calls from prospective buyers.

Cubisima, an online classified service, said the number of hits on its
real estate page tripled to an average of 900 per day after the new
property law took effect on Nov. 10. The law allows Cubans to buy and
sell their houses, and even own a second home outside the cities, though
it still bars most foreigners from buying.

It is a crude market, where househunters rely on word of mouth and
prices are based as much on excitement as on any clear sense of property
values, according to interviews with homeowners, brokers and experts.
Buyers, who at the top end are mainly Cuban émigrés and Cubans married
to foreigners, often declare a fraction of what they pay, and money
sometimes changes hands overseas, suggesting that the government's hope
of reaping significant tax revenues may be at least partly thwarted.

On a recent day, a stylish flight attendant showed a viewer around the
pretty three-bedroom home she hopes will fetch $150,000; a mile away, an
elderly widow held out for an offer of $500,000 for her big, unkempt
1950s house — to be deposited in Spain, please.

Many sellers plan to downsize, so they can live better or leave.
Victoria Pérez, a retired doctor, put her spacious house and two-bedroom
annex on sale last month for $80,000. She hopes to buy something smaller
and put aside about $20,000 to live on and visit her daughter in the
United States.

"To earn $20,000 would take 20 years," she said. "This opens up a whole
world of opportunities."

Statistics are few, and brokers admit that the curious outnumber the
serious. The National Housing Institute processed just 364 sales in the
three weeks after the new law took effect.

"Prices are very inflated," complained a Cuban-Canadian who was viewing
a mint-colored four-bedroom house priced at $240,000 one recent
afternoon. He said he would watch the market for a month or two to see
how things shook out.

Steep price tags notwithstanding, experts and brokers say there are
signs that the better-off are starting to migrate to areas like Miramar,
Havana's embassy district, and build vacation homes on the coast.

"There is definitely a rearrangement going on," said Carlos García
Pleyan, a sociologist who worked for decades for the Cuban government's
urban planning department.

Other than Cuban émigrés, he said, the gentrifiers were "the winners of
the Cuba of recent years."

"People who have made money legally, and people who have made money
illegally," he said. "Businesspeople, maybe a restaurant owner, maybe
someone who owns taxis, maybe someone who has made money through
corruption."

"We shouldn't be worrying so much about how people rearrange
themselves," he added. "We should be asking ourselves how such large
social inequalities have happened."

While the new market dynamics helped Ms. Martínez, some worry they will
do little to solve the housing problems faced by many Cubans, whose
wallets would not stretch even to buy a $3,000 one-bedroom apartment.

"It's all very well for those who have money or who have a relative
abroad; but if not, forget it," said Luis Martínez, a construction
worker (who is not related to Carmen). "My son is 18. The only way he'll
ever leave home is if he marries a girl who has a house."

If anyone needed a reminder of Cuba's critical housing problem, they got
one in January, when a building collapsed in central Havana, killing
four people. Miguel Coyula, an architect who specializes in urban
planning, said an average of three buildings collapsed in Havana each
day, victims of neglect, overcrowding and improvised construction. Well
over 100,000 people are waiting to move to government hostels.

Mr. Pleyan estimated that it would cost about $3.6 billion to build the
600,000 houses Cuba needs, according to the government. Independent
estimates are more than double that. The creation of construction and
housing cooperatives is one step being discussed: such arrangements
would reduce building costs and allow groups of individuals to build,
say, a small apartment block.

But Mr. Pleyan said Cuba would also have to open wider to foreign
investment and look for models that would balance public interests and
private profit, by, for example, encouraging developers to build local
infrastructure.

Such projects will not happen quickly — if at all — and Ms. Martínez
feels lucky that she salvaged her home before she and her family had to
abandon it. Once the roof is on, she said, she would like to get running
water in her kitchen, replace the toilet and finish building a bedroom
for her teenage son.

"I need taps, doors, windows, tiles; everything needs fixing," she said,
looking at the stained walls and rotten shutters of her bedroom.

"Little by little," she added. "Little by little."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/world/americas/real-estate-fever-spreads-in-cuba.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Obama should take the offensive on Cuba

2012-02-16T09:08:00.001-08:00

Posted on Wednesday, 02.15.12

In My Opinion

Obama should take the offensive on Cuba
By Andres Oppenheimer
aoppenheimer@MiamiHerald.com

BOGOTA, Colombia -- miamiherald.com/andres_oppenheimer/

The U.S. State Department wasn't terribly smart when it rejected a
demand by Latin American populist leaders that Cuba be invited to an
April 14 summit of President Barack Obama with 33 hemispheric leaders in
Colombia. It should have accepted the petition, and used it to grill
Cuba's military dictatorship in front of a world audience.

The diplomatic ruckus started at a meeting of leftist presidents in
Venezuela earlier this month, when Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa
proposed that members of the Venezuelan-led ALBA bloc boycott the 5th
Summit of the Americas to be held in Cartagena, Colombia, unless Cuba —
the only country in the hemisphere excluded from the meeting — was
allowed to participate. Venezuela and other countries immediately
approved the motion.

U.S. officials responded — sticking to their policy guidelines — that
Cuba cannot be invited because under the summit's rules only
democratically elected leaders who are committed to the 34-country
Organization of American States' rules can attend.

Colombia — the host country, which is trying to avoid defections that
would mar the summit — sent Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin to
Havana to try to solve the problem, but she came back empty-handed. She
told reporters after the visit that Cuba indeed wants to attend the summit.

The diplomatic impasse is making big headlines in the region. During a
visit here, almost everybody I talked to referred to the issue. Not
surprisingly, the prevailing narrative in the Colombian press is that
the United States is once again punishing a small and proud Caribbean
island for its independent foreign policy — the old David vs. Goliath
tale, which Cuba has played so often over the years.

So what should Washington do? Instead of rejecting Cuba's presence, the
State Department should have put out a statement saying that Cuban ruler
Gen. Raúl Castro is more than welcome to attend the summit as an outside
guest to answer several questions, starting with for how long Cuba plans
to remain the last military dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere.

More specifically, and given diplomats' penchant for legal formalities,
Gen. Castro should be asked:

Why is Cuba not complying with former President Fidel Castro Ruz's
commitment at the 1996 Sixth Ibero-American Summit in Viña del Mar,
Chile, to respect "political pluralism," "human rights," and "political
freedoms?" At that Summit, Castro signed the Vina del Mar Declaration,
which specifically calls for "the freedoms of expression, association
and assembly."

Needless to say, Cuba still has hundreds of political prisoners — two of
whom have recently died from hunger strikes — and allows no opposition
parties.

Why is Cuba still violating Article 13 of the United Nations Declaration
of Human Rights, which states that "Everyone has the right to leave any
country, including his own, and to return to his country"? To this day,
Cubans need a government permit to be able to leave the island.

Prominent Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, who has denied a permit to visit
Brazil earlier this month, wrote in her Twitter account Feb. 3 that
"It's the 19th time that they violate my right to enter and leave my
country... I am a prisoner."

If Gen. Castro responds, as he surely would, that the U.S. "empire" and
its allies are attacking his island because it has become a model
society, Obama's answer should be very simple: "If the Cuban people were
so happy, and love you so much, why don't you allow free elections?"

My Opinion: The ALBA threat to boycott the Summit of the Americas over
Cuba's attendance is pure political theater. Venezuelan President Hugo
Chávez and his Ecuadoran apprentice, President Rafael Correa, won't miss
the summit: They are demagogues who need to make constant headlines, and
who won't miss a chance to do that at a mega-summit with Obama.

Most likely, they are creating this fuss to place themselves at
center-stage at the summit. Rather than staying out, they will probably
settle for a vague statement in the summit's final declaration that they
can interpret as an invitation for Cuba to the next summit.

Obama — who, by the way, has just given a red carpet welcome to China's
likely future president Xi Jinping, a leader of another dictatorship —
should turn the tables and invite Cuba to the summit provided that Gen.
Castro is willing to answer some uncomfortable questions. Cuba won't
accept, and the United States will look much better than it does now.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/15/2643434/obama-should-take-the-offensive.html#storylink=misearch

Forbidden Books / Lilianne Ruíz

2012-02-15T16:25:00.001-08:00

Forbidden Books / Lilianne Ruíz
Lilianne Ruíz, Translating Cuba, Translator: William Fitzhugh

Well now I am in my house, just returned from the sixth birthday of
Ada's twins; Ada is the sister of my friend Agustín. I love going with
my daughter, all very simple, just great in the way that she knows how
to share this family whose roots are in Villa Clara. There is nothing
warmer than a home of Cuban peasants. And Agustín; he administers the
Dakaisone blog.

The girls have played, the adults have chatted. When a person lives in
a country with laws that limit what one can eat, what books you can
read, what you are permitted to do and what you risk when your
conscience wants to take you beyond that, you go over and over the same
things, but it is left to the rest to talk about their experience and
why it is a good thing to find other similar people who repeat to each
other with their own voice what you already know. Nobody has a
solution, only to speak about resistance. The resistance of conscience
that knows to plant itself on free ground and which can face the winds
that the constipated entrails of the Revolution spew, not without
holding our noses. A beautiful and tragic image of the awoken conscience
in the middle of a sewer.

At the party, I met Omaida and her daughter Jennifer. Omaida is the
source for a network of independent libraries. The term "independent
library" could sound strange but in communist countries, in
dictatorships of the extreme left, such libraries are the only oases of
good literature. In the case of Cuba, the history of literature is not
even totally complete for the twentieth century. All that was saved was
what the magazine Orígenes collected. The second half of the twentieth
century is empty in the piles of shelving or repeated in others, such
that it seems like no-one writes poetry that is worth the trouble in the
contemporary world, or novels, or essays that are not indigestible in
the realm of the Americas.

As for myself, I'm getting sick and tired of Saramago and the Castro's
personal Columbian friend (Gabriel Garcia Márquez ) because I'm
convinced that enough better literature has been written in the world
than to have to forgive the creator of the town of Macondo of his mortal
sin. I have books that are dearer to me but they continue to be back
issues to which I can return as is only possible when so few books are
known.

In Cuba, only the friends of the Revolution get published. Because the
Revolution; apocalyptic beast with the number of man that "very few have
understood" is a beast with few friends. It can't survive when it is
compared to the free expression of the mirror that has found its nature
in the vacuum between the freedom of the glass and the quicksilver, the
absoluteness of the death of ideologies, the easing of the mind before
the serenity of a lake that perfectly reflects a mountain, the silence
of haiku.

It is rare to find a book from Octavio Paz, Vaclav Havel, M. Kundera,
Vargas Llosa, absolutely impossible to find a book from Carlos Alberto
Montaner. It is easier to be badgered by Italo Calvino who was a
communist or Eduardo Galeano who has remained as the only one that state
misanthropy can resort to. Calvino wrote very very well, but Galeano
did it terribly terribly badly, and used the case of Cuba as a symbol,
I'm not sure of what, but he behaves for the world like no Cuban
resident of the island does.

In this Cuban experiment, that is about how submissive human nature can
become when it submits to the absolute control of government political
and economic totalitarianism, it has been seen that the first recourse
has been the education of "the people" that are thought of like
livestock. The example of that unglamorous little library where the ex
president of the island made the curatorship of the University's books
for everyone without universality. The information that the conscience
would be subjected to was selected carefully, it was repeated, it was
threatened and the result is this will to survive in an autophagic way,
to not protest save a few exceptions. On of the ways to produce
consciousness to open up the bandwidth of information, providing news,
evangelizing with the literature of liberty, and for this reason it is a
crime to administer a separate library.

That's how I learned, with horror, about the harassment to which Omaida
has been subjected by state security. They sent an agent she describes
as having crawled out of a dumpster who has the nerve to sit uninvited
in her living room and threaten her. And although it seems like
something out of a bad Bukowski novel, he dares to call on her birthday
to remind her that an evil shadow lurks where only her guardian angel
should dwell.

But these guys have no fear of God. She also told me that the chief
agent made a visit too, a man who can cite books and authors.
Undoubtedly he is autistic, because agents do not understand what they
read. Their core value is the constipated revolution. These thugs do not
know the potential Delphic curse Lezama invented having to do with the
famous inscription "gnothi seauton" (displaying my complete ignorance of
Greek), which means "Know thyself." That is what literature is for: to
illuminate, to transport, to change the adornments of the soul until its
final form is found, released by the image.

My Christian charity is not sufficient to pity them.

Translated by William Fitzhugh

January 30 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15186

On the Same Side / Miriam Celaya

2012-02-15T16:24:00.001-08:00

On the Same Side / Miriam Celaya
Miriam Celaya, Translator: Norma Whiting

These days of rest, when I have not even had the nerve to open my
machine and write, have instead been used to think about the Cuban
reality, present, future and my own assumptions. Friends and enemies
have branded me as inflexible on more than one occasion, or at least as
excessively caustic. And they're right. Not in terms of my usual
bitterness about the government: I reiterate every invective and
criticism I have dedicated to the autocracy, and multiply my bitterness
towards it exponentially. I do not like it, do not approve of it at all,
and will fight against it in my surly style as long as I am alive; I
have a deep contempt for this and other dictatorships, and I refuse to
serve or obey the regime.

But I've also been a bit unfair in my judgmental ratings towards my
countrymen, especially when I attack what I consider to be the people's
excessive passivity and docility. Permanent helplessness has a dulling
effect on the senses that prevents any clearly formulated proposal. In
conversations with some friends that I've been nursing these days, I
have been pleased to see that people are neither so weak nor so blind;
they just have not found the way. Many are not permissive, but fearful.
The characteristics of dictatorships are magnified in the people's
imagination; they look larger and more powerful than they really are.
Now that image is beginning to crack.

One example is a friend of mine, who, without my suspecting it, is a
regular reader of blogs on the Voces Cubanas platform. I did not even
realize that, for years, she has known what I do, and is a regular fan
who urges her son, — a twenty-something young man — to put everything in
digital form that is published in the independent web, including sites
of Estado de SATS and recordings of Razones Ciudadanas, among others.
For my part, I had not spoken to her about my political views or of my
dissident activities, though my opinions are well known and are even
shared among all my friends. I do not like to scare people, but the
opposite effect was evident in her: "since I've read your posts, since I
found out all about and what you do, I'm less afraid. Each time I'm more
convinced that the only way to fight this government is to stop playing
its game. I want my children to know something besides this, a Cuba
different from ours".

So, I made a mistake too. I have underestimated the power of freely
expressed opinions, I have underrated the scope –- limited, yet
inexorable — of the independent press and the individual will of the
disobedient, and I have overestimated the fear of Cubans. This friend is
a member of the Communist Party, one additional faker, but she has also
been, for a long time, a silent activist who has taken to her workplace,
her friends and family nucleus, recorded on disks and flash drives, the
whole spectrum of opinions currently stirring in Cuba, especially
anti-government views.

Additionally, I have recently become convinced of the power of believing
in our own strength. We, the disobedient, are not an "underground"
phenomenon. We walk with our heads held high, and make public our
meetings, aspirations and opinions. The government is the one
underground, locked away in its palaces, plotting its own conferences
and laws. Hidden are the power lords, fearful that people might find out
what they are scheming, terrified in the presence of the effects of
whatever measure they might propose, disconcerted at the slightest
possibility that Cubans might have access to information. It is true
that people are afraid, but the masses are generally more ignorant than
cowardly. The ruling Cubans are actually the real pack of cowards who
hide behind the force that gives them absolute power to suppress and
prevail. However, they survive in a permanent state of shock,
mistrusting even their own followers. Therefore, I ask Cubans, at least
those whom I misjudged, to forgive me. You are in hiding, we are in the
open, but, at the end of the day, we are all on the same side.

Translated by Norma Whiting

February 10 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15180

Another Irreplaceable Loss / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado

2012-02-15T16:23:00.001-08:00

Another Irreplaceable Loss / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado
Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado, Translator: Jackie Isaksen

Once again Cuban society darkens from the avoidable death of another of
its members. The peaceful protestor Wilman Villar Mendoza was detained
in a police offensive carried out in Contramaestre, a province of
Santiago of Cuba, unjustly and quickly condemned to 4 years in jail for
working with a free conscience, in a trial behind closed doors, and they
argue that this attracted his naked protest, his hunger strike and the
resultant pneumonia — that was attended to too late — costing him his
life. The outrage and official teaching toward those who think
politically different are the moral rubric and the behavior of the Cuban
dictatorship that have become tradition. The impunity with which the
state works, the judge, who is part of and owner of all power, forsakes
those citizens of the alternative political society who face the
oppression of the state. For action and omission, the authorities are
responsible for the death of this young man of 30 years.

Wilman was the victim of the abuse of power and the police who appeared
to be directed by the high leadership of the country. Accustomed to vex
and judge roughly the peaceful political dissidents and independent
journalists in order to plant the seeds of terror in the citizenship, to
avoid with intolerance what the independent civil society grows, and to
maintain unharmed their cabinet and perks. To blackmail Maritza
Pelegrino –now widow of Villar Mendoza — threatening to take away her
daughters if she didn't abandon the ranks of the Ladies in White, is an
act lacking in ethics. Facts like these do not serve to "defend their
Revolution" but to sully it. When they use violence, when they publicly
denigrate and have paramilitary men hit women and defenseless people,
they are serving a shameful, unspeakable and arbitrary order. They don't
change the mentality with slogans or through a decree, but with an
appropriate government code of ethics and and in the just exercise of power.

This tragedy happened within just in a few days of the awaited visit of
the president of Brazil, an ex-political prisoner who was tortured, and
the visit of Pope Benedict XVI scheduled in March. In this hostile
environment that has propitiated the intolerance, the Cuban government
hides behind "convenient" criminal offenses in order to sanction
political activism while awaiting these dignitaries. You can't reform a
country destroyed by the same people who pretend to fix it with
ideological propaganda, but must do so with humane ideas and logical
ethics and by including people who contribute to the respect of justice
in all orders of national life. The new Cuba which inevitably will be
reborn from this rubble of ignominy, should erect itself humanely with
the respect and the harmony of all of its children inside and outside
our borders, where there exists plurality of parties and ideas and where
there is not mistreatment or oppression toward its children who defend
their differing opinions from the official ones.

I sympathize with the pain of the families and I join the "outraged"
members of Cuban society to condemn this death which could have been
avoided. It is left to us to continue working to honor the example and
the valiant souls of Pedro L. Boitel, Orlando Zapata, Laura Pollán and
Wilmar Villar, rest in peace.

Translated by Jackie Isaksen

January 24 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15213

Global Insider: Brazil's Rousseff is Positioned to Push for Change in Cuba

2012-02-15T14:14:00.001-08:00

Global Insider: Brazil's Rousseff is Positioned to Push for Change in Cuba
By The Editors | 15 Feb 2012

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff made her first official visit to Cuba
last month. In an email interview, David Herrero, a research associate
at the Council on Foreign Relations, discussed Brazil-Cuba relations.

WPR: How did Brazil-Cuba relations evolve under former Brazilian
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and what were Brazil's priorities?

David Herrero: Lula significantly expanded political engagement and
commercial ties with Cuba. He visited the country four times as
president and helped launch a $950 million modernization project --
financed mostly by Brazil's development bank, BNDES -- at the Cuban port
of Mariel. On the issue of human rights, however, he was at times
criticized. In February 2010, for instance, after a Cuban prisoner named
Orlando Zapata Tamayo died while on hunger strike, Lula was taken to
task for his offhand comment, "Imagine if all the criminals in Sao Paulo
went on hunger strike to demand freedom." Nonetheless, Lula's legacy was
marked more by the blossoming cooperation his government fostered with
Cuba: on agriculture, housing, oil and minerals, transportation
equipment, tobacco, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and other sectors.

WPR: What does President Dilma Rousseff's first year in office and
recent visit indicate about any shifts in emphasis, including in the
area of human rights?

Herrero: With the spotlights trained on Brazilian investment and
economic cooperation, there were no surprises during Rousseff's first
visit to Cuba. She toured the port of Mariel and announced $600 million
in new credits for Cuban food and agriculture. Rousseff proceeded
gingerly on human rights, framing the issue as one that should be
addressed multilaterally. "He who throws the first stone has a roof made
of glass," she remarked, acknowledging that Brazil has its own human
rights issues, and lamenting the U.S. embargo and ongoing operation of
the prison at Guantanamo. Rousseff understands the sensitivity of human
rights issues in the context of relations with Cuba -- and the strategic
importance of being kept inside the tent with the Castro government.
Should she so chose, though, she is better positioned than her
predecessor to advance the dialogue on human rights. Rousseff survived
torture as a political prisoner during Brazil's military dictatorship.
She authorized Brazil's vote in favor of a U.N. special investigator on
human rights in Iran and decried the case of an Iranian woman sentenced
to death by stoning -- even as Brazil enjoys robust trade with Iran.
Rousseff has also been tough on corruption, which resonates with the
Cuban public and politburo. Cuban President Raul Castro recently called
corruption "the principal enemy of the revolution."

WPR: What role can Brazil play in Cuba's opening, and what is the value
of enhanced ties for Brazil?

Herrero: Castro has made economic productivity the focus of reforms in
Cuba, with new laws targeting housing, private enterprise, agriculture
and sugar -- all areas in which Brazil has a role to play. Rousseff is
wise to cultivate strong diplomatic ties with her Cuban counterparts if
Brazil is to continue having a positive impact on Cuban infrastructure
and food security. Brazil is Cuba's second-largest trading partner.
Commerce between the two countries swelled to $642 million in 2011. And
while the trade balance is uneven -- Brazilian exports consume the
lion's share of bilateral commerce -- Brazilian demand has grown for
Cuban medicines, chemicals and minerals. These economic ties are
significant in a time of changing regional dynamics in Latin America and
the Caribbean, with Cuba pursuing the most transformative economic and
political reforms in decades, while the United States remains on the
sidelines.

http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/trend-lines/11481/global-insider-brazils-rousseff-is-positioned-to-push-for-change-in-cuba

La Iglesia edifica obras en el Santuario de El Cobre para recibir al Papa

2012-02-15T13:51:00.000-08:00

Religión

La Iglesia edifica obras en el Santuario de El Cobre para recibir al Papa
Agencias
Santiago de Cuba 15-02-2012 - 7:13 pm.

La residencia que alojará a Benedicto XVI es una edificación moderna de
una sola planta y a prueba de sismos.

Aspecto exterior de la casa donde se alojará el Papa, a unos metros del
Santuario del Cobre. (EFE)

Los preparativos para recibir al papa Benedicto XVI en el Santuario de
El Cobre, durante su viaje a Cuba, avanzan con obras de remodelación,
ampliación y construcción en los alrededores de ese templo, que incluyen
la casa que hospedará al Pontífice en su primera noche en la Isla,
informó EFE.

La residencia, que alojará al Papa y cinco acompañantes, es una
edificación moderna de una sola planta y a prueba de sismos, que cuenta
con seis habitaciones climatizadas y tantos baños, cocina, comedor y
sala, y se ubica a pocos metros del Santuario Nacional de la Virgen de
la Caridad del Cobre.

La casa está prácticamente terminada y solo restan la pavimentación de
la calle de acceso, así como muros, aceras y jardines, obras que deben
estar listas para el 28 de febrero, según dijo a EFE el ingeniero Fausto
Veloz, a cargo de los trabajos.

Veloz, quien es jefe del Grupo de Construcción e Inversiones del
Arzobispado de Santiago de Cuba, afirmó que entre los pendientes está la
construcción de algunos "elementos de barrera" que exigieron como
requerimiento de seguridad integrantes de la Guardia Suiza que visitaron
las obras hace una semana.

El ingeniero explicó que la vivienda debe quedar "constreñida" entre un
muro ya existente, las nuevas barreras que se levantarán y el antiguo
seminario San Basilio Magno, donde se hospedará el resto del séquito de
11 personas que acompañará al papa al Santuario.

Benedicto XVI visitará la Isla en marzo, donde permanecerá entre los
días 26 y 28 de ese mes y oficiará dos misas en las ciudades de Santiago
de Cuba y La Habana.

Su llegada será por Santiago de Cuba y allí oficiará su primera misa
pública.

De acuerdo con el programa previsto, esa noche el Papa dormirá en El
Cobre y al día siguiente realizará una visita privada al Santuario,
ubicado a unos 20 kilómetros de Santiago de Cuba y dedicado a la Virgen
de la Caridad del Cobre, patrona de la Isla.

El viaje papal coincidirá con el Año Jubilar en Cuba por el IV
Centenario del hallazgo de la imagen de la Virgen de la Caridad.

Las obras para remodelar y restaurar la edificación del Santuario fueron
terminadas oficialmente en enero pasado, a pocos días de comenzar el Año
Jubilar el 7 de enero.

Otras remodelaciones

Además del templo, el complejo del Santuario incluye una hospedería para
peregrinos, aún en reparación, y la casa de retiro y convivencia, que es
como se denomina al antiguo seminario que acogerá al séquito del Papa y
en cuya capilla el Pontífice oficiará una misa privada el 27 de marzo.

El sacerdote Eugenio Castellanos, al frente de la atención de los
peregrinos y del Santuario, indicó a EFE que todas las obras mencionadas
estaban en planes por motivo del Año Jubilar y antes de confirmarse la
visita papal.

"Pero al venir el Santo Padre a pasar una noche aquí, las condiciones de
la casa tenían que tenerse listas y ha habido que adelantar la fecha de
terminación", precisó Castellanos.

De hecho, la residencia que hospedará a Benedicto XVI, ya conocida por
los habitantes de El Cobre como "la casa del Papa", lleva un año y medio
en ejecución y fue concebida inicialmente como vivienda para una orden
de religiosas.

Castellanos apuntó que también "se está haciendo nueva" una plazoleta
junto al templo que se convertirá en una "plaza mariana" y en un futuro
podrá acoger misas exteriores y otras celebraciones del Santuario al
aire libre.

http://www.diariodecuba.com/cuba/9620-la-iglesia-edifica-obras-en-el-santuario-de-el-cobre-para-recibir-al-papa

They don’t know everything, my love, they don’t know… / Yoani Sánchez

2012-02-14T14:08:00.001-08:00

They don't know everything, my love, they don't know… / Yoani Sánchez
Translator: Unstated, Yoani Sánchez

Will there be microphones here? You ask me while poking your head into
every corner of the room. Don't worry, I say, my life goes on with my
guts on display, letting it all hang out. There is no place dark,
closed, private… because I live as if walking through a gigantic X-ray
machine. Here is the clavicle I broke as a child, the fight we had
yesterday over a domestic trifle, the yellowing letter I keep in the
back of a drawer. Nothing saves us from scrutiny, my love, nothing saves
us. But today — at least for a few hours — don't think about the police
on the other end of the phone, nor the rounded eye of the camera that
captures us. Tonight we are going to believe that only we are curious
about each other. Turn off the light and for a moment send them to the
devil, disarm their eavesdropping strategies.

With so many resources spent on watching us, we have conjured away from
them the primordial facet of our lives. They don't know, for example,
even a single word of that language made for twenty years together, that
we can use without parting our lips. They would score a zero on any test
to decipher the complex code with which we say the trivial or urgent,
the everyday or the extraordinary. Surely none of the psychological
profiles they've done on us tell how you comb my eyebrows and jokingly
warn that I'm going to end up looking like Brezhnev. Our watchers, poor
guys, have never read the first song you sang me, much less that poem
where you said one day we would go to Sydney or Baghdad. Nor will they
forgive us every time we escape from them — without a trace — on the
diastole of a spasm.

Like Agent Wiesler in the film The Lives of Others, someone will listen
to us now, and not understand us. Not understand why, after arguing for
an hour, we come together and share a kiss. The astonished police who
follow our steps can't classify our embraces, and they wonder how
dangerous to "national security" are those phrases you say only in my
ear. So I propose, my love, that tonight we scandalize them or convert
them. Let's take the ear off the wall and in its place oblige them to
scribble on a sheet: "1:30 am, the subjects are making love."

14 February 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15142

The Right to Know / Cuban Law Association – Wilfredo Vallin Almeida

2012-02-14T14:07:00.001-08:00

The Right to Know / Cuban Law Association – Wilfredo Vallin Almeida
Cuban Law Association, Translator: Unstated
by Wilfredo Vallin Almeida

The Conference of the Communist Party of Cuba is over. From it, what we
have left is a single phrase: "no illusions."

This is equivalent to saying — in good Cuban — that things will continue
as they are, we should not expect changes and future rosy prospects and
must resign ourselves to our fate for any number of years.

It also means that anyone who thinks differently, who dares to protest,
to questioning the higher ups about their performance, or to engage in a
hunger strike will be, unquestionably, "an employee of imperialism, a
traitor to his country, a scum criminal who already had problems";
finally, someone totally disqualified to question anything, even at the
cost of his life.

A sad fate that we live as a country.

But I think that the constraints are limited and what seems to be coming
in Cuba, though it doesn't appear so, is that things are changing and
one of those changes is what happens with information.

Information used to be exclusive to the State until a few years ago. Now
the technology (although we are still far from the INTERNET), along with
the bravery of a group of independent journalists (despite the Black
Spring), have broken the monopoly and the public finds out things they
previously would not have known.

Of the Ladies in White there is no need even to speak: its very
existence and the release of the 75 political prisoners — first and
foremost, the credit for this is theirs — speak for themselves.

In this context, we will continue doing what we believe is our duty as
Cuban lawyers, namely: Let our countrymen know their rights under the
law of the country and ways to exercise them accordingly.

Let them know the Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights signed by the Cuban government for
the people of Cuba, but never published for the information of citizens.

Continue to help Cubans who can not afford it to pay for services from
the Law Collective, the transport of these firms' lawyers to prisons or
other places, or what is often asked for "under the table." and any
other advice requested from civil society.

The eternal heroes of this nation, who unfortunately are no longer with
us, long ago gave us the rights "we don't have to beg for," many of
which are inalienable because they derive from our essential human
condition.

And this, which we note here, is in that category, because it is a
question of the Right for Cubans to know.

Translator's note: This is the first translated post from the Cuban Law
Association blog — an outstanding blog about the law and human rights in
Cuba. The original blog in Spanish is here.

13 February 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15096

U.S. Watches Closely As Oil Drilling Begins Off Cuba

2012-02-14T13:49:00.001-08:00

U.S. Watches Closely As Oil Drilling Begins Off Cuba
by Greg Allen

There are big plans for oil exploration in the Caribbean, not far off
the coast of Florida. A Spanish company recently began drilling in Cuban
waters — just 55 miles from Key West.

The well is the first of several exploratory wells planned in Cuba and
the Bahamas. The drilling has officials and researchers in Florida
scrambling to make plans for how they'll respond in case of a spill.

The U.S. currently doesn't allow any drilling for oil off its Atlantic
coast or in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. One reason is what's at stake.
Florida's tourism-based economy depends on its beaches, fishing and
clear Caribbean water.

Environmental Concerns

The U.S. ban on drilling off of Florida, however, doesn't affect
America's Caribbean neighbors. The exploratory well being drilled off of
Cuba has many here concerned, including people like Richard Dodge. Dodge
is the dean of Nova Southeastern University's Oceanographic Center in
Dania Beach, near Fort Lauderdale, and what he's really concerned about
is coral.

At the school, Dodge and his graduate students raise staghorn coral in
outdoor saltwater tanks. Live coral grow in the crystal-clear water,
some just finger length.

"These are relatively new ones that we're starting out," Dodge says.
"But over here, these are ones we'll be transplanting to the wild."

In another tank, large branches of coral will soon be used to help
restore damaged reefs.

Florida is home to more than three-quarters of the nation's coral reefs
— and they haven't been doing so well. Development and warming oceans
have already weakened many.

On a map, Dodge points out the location of what he believes is an even
bigger potential threat — the spot where Cuba has approved offshore oil
drilling. "The site that will be drilled," he says, "is only about 50
miles from Key West."

The rig drilling off Cuba's northern coast is operating in water that is
more than a mile deep. But it's not the depth that concerns Dodge. In
the case of a blowout, it's the operation's proximity to the Gulf Stream.

"We're worried that it could get into that stream fast and therefore,
within days, impact our coastal ecosystem and coastline," Dodge says. A
spill could potentially affect hundreds of miles of beaches, mangroves
and estuaries from the Keys to Palm Beach.
At the organization Clean Caribbean and Americas, 30,000 feet of
floating boom is ready for immediate shipping in the case of an oil spill.
Enlarge Greg Allen

At the organization Clean Caribbean and Americas, 30,000 feet of
floating boom is ready for immediate shipping in the case of an oil spill.

Dodge and other marine scientists in Florida are asking the federal
government to fund research that would help identify the resources most
at risk, and develop guidelines to protect them.

Embargo Could Complicate Cleanup

Complicating matters is the fact that this new well is being drilled in
the waters of a country that's under a strict U.S. embargo. Unless they
apply for and receive special permission from the government, U.S.
companies are banned from doing any work on the well — even if there's a
spill.

Jorge Pinon, a former oil company executive and now a research fellow at
the University of Texas, says if there's a blowout, the U.S. president
is sure to immediately lift the embargo for companies that respond.

Pinon also says the Spanish company doing the drilling, Repsol, has a
lot of experience with deep-water drilling in the Gulf. And, he says,
the company has upgraded its procedures to incorporate lessons learned
in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill.

But Pinon sees another problem. Because of the 50-year-old embargo, the
U.S. and Cuban governments have almost no contact. "There is no
agreement of cooperation of who's going to do what during an incident
like this," he says.

After the Deepwater Horizon blowout, Pinon notes Coast Guard Adm. Thad
Allen was put in charge of the cleanup — coordinating industry and
government efforts.

"That's not going to be the case here," Pinon says. "And here
particularly, it's between two countries that have not spoken to each
other in 50 years."

Cooperation Progressing — So Far

But there are people working on developing contingency plans.

At the Clean Caribbean and Americas cooperative in Fort Lauderdale, a
warehouse is full of oil skimmers, floating boom and tanks of chemical
dispersant. The organization is funded by oil companies with one
mission: to respond to big oil spills. Company personnel are now working
with Cuban officials on the international response to a spill in Cuban
waters.
Related NPR Stories
Magnetic Soap May Help Clean Up Spilled Oil Jan. 27, 2012
Revolutionary Oil Skimmer Nets $1 Million X Prize Oct. 19, 2011
Cuban Offshore Drilling Plans Raise U.S. Concerns Sept. 12, 2011

Clean Caribbean and Americas technical adviser Mike Gass says that in a
meeting recently in Havana, Cuban authorities agreed to cooperate on
customs, immigration and air space control. And Cuba has already
approved some cleanup procedures, such as burning large patches of oil.

Gass says Cuba has also agreed, if there's a spill, to use chemical
dispersant. "They have their own agriculture spray aircraft that would
be their first line of defense to apply these things," he says.

Gass says Cuban officials are offering good cooperation so far. "People
are talking," he says, "people are listening, people are motivated."

There is a chance that after drilling, energy companies may not find
enough oil off of Cuba to merit further exploration. Pinon, the former
oil company executive, says the rig off of Cuba is scheduled to drill
three wells — at a cost of $100 million each.

The fact that international oil companies are investing $300 million
shows the industry's confidence that its next big oil field may be just
50 miles off the coast of Florida.

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/13/146635957/u-s-watches-closely-as-oil-drilling-begins-off-cuba

Cuba and its Ongoing Engagement in Espionage in the Americas

2012-02-14T13:44:00.001-08:00

Monday, February 13, 2012

Cuba and its Ongoing Engagement in Espionage in the Americas
By Jerry Brewer

Despite many pro-Cuba chants for economic aid and the lifting of the 50
year old Cuban Embargo placed via President John F. Kennedy's
Proclamation 3447, there appears to be no shortage of funding by Cuba
for that nation's energetic spy apparatchik.

The original U.S. Cuba manifesto, in 1962, expressed the necessity for
the embargo until such time that Cuba would demonstrate respect for
human rights and liberty. And today, there certainly cannot be much of
an argument that the continuing Castro regime has complied with any
aspect of that mandate. In fact, Castro's revolution has arrogantly
continued to force horrific sacrifices on Cubans in their homeland, as
well as the suffering by those that fled the murdering regime over the
decades and left families behind.

Neither of the Castro brothers ever, even remotely, disguised their
venomous hatred for the U.S., democracy, or the U.S. way of life - even
prior to the embargo. Their anti-U.S. rhetoric echoes loudly throughout
the world. And they continue to extol radical leftist and communist
governments.

As simply partial evidence of continuing human rights abuses, and as
recent as last month, the independent Cuban Commission for Human Rights
and National Reconciliation said that the government was "using
temporary detentions to disrupt events organized by the opposition." The
Cuban regime made "brief arrests of 631 opponents in January" alone.

Cuba's security officials also continue to deny the holding of political
prisoners, while saying that "Cuban dissidents are tools of the United
States."

Do not underestimate Cuba's vast intelligence and espionage network.
Their security and intelligence apparatus are on a scale perceived to be
"many times larger than that of the United States." And even with
Cuba's poverty, depressed economic situation and weak prognosis for
future windfalls, their clandestine operational acts continue and extend
throughout the Americas and the world.

The Cuban espionage budget is not generally known outside of most major
competent intelligence services globally. However, much of their modus
operandi is. Essentially the DI (Dirección de Inteligencia) never had
to be reinvented, other than by moniker, from the former DGI (Dirección
General de Inteligencia) with original training by the former Soviet KGB.

Cuba maintains one of its largest intelligence networks within
Venezuela, with President Hugo Chavez preferring direct access to the
service, as indicated by cables unscrupulously released and sent from
the U.S. Embassy in Caracas to the State Department. This cozy
relationship, between Cuba and Venezuela, reeks of potential massive
funding hidden by obscure secret decrees.

Cuba's intelligence network has long been focused on the U.S. as its
primary adversary. As the U.S. is perceived to be the number one threat
to the Castro and Chavez regimes, intelligence acquisition is a high
priority to the dictatorial-like leftist regimes throughout Latin
America. It seems as though every calamity from weather, cancer or
related maladies are blamed on the U.S. and the CIA.

Hugo Chavez has used this hysteria of convenience in his attempt to
justify to a savvy Venezuelan people the need for the massive purchasing
of military armaments, and to amass Cuban intelligence experts on
Venezuelan soil thought to be in excess of 3,000 people.

Chavez has been accused by neighboring nation's officials of spreading
instability within the region. In a memo released from the U.S. Embassy
in Brasilia, in February 2008, Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim
"all but acknowledged the presence of the FARC guerrillas in Venezuela."
Other released U.S. intelligence documents also cited "leftist rebels in
Cuba belonging to the FARC."

Using diplomatic cover to disguise intelligence operational acts in
Panama, Peru, Mexico City, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and other Central
American areas, Cuba has historically spread insurgence. Operatives
supervised the airlift of an estimated 30 planeloads of Cuban arms to
Nicaragua's Sandinistas during their revolution in 1978-79.

Former Cuban official Pedro Riera Escalante, who was summarily deported
by Mexico and who served undercover as a Cuban consul in Mexico City
from 1986 through 1991, has described Cuban espionage operations against
the CIA station in Mexico City and other operations he ran in Europe and
Africa.

Cuba has reluctantly acknowledged that in the case of the infamous Cuban
Five spies, from 1998, that the five men were intelligence agents, but
says "they were spying on Miami's Cuban exile community, not the U.S.
government."

In the case of Cuban spy Ana Belen Montes (a former senior analyst at
the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency), she was arrested on September 21,
2001, pleaded guilty to spying, and was eventually sentenced to a
25-year prison term.

Cuba continues to maintain a large intelligence-gathering hub in Mexico
City.

With Castro and Chavez's close relationship to Iran, and the history of
hostile Cuban espionage throughout the hemisphere, it is important not
to assume that "poverty-driven" Cuba is sleeping.

----------

Jerry Brewer is C.E.O. of Criminal Justice International Associates, a
global threat mitigation firm headquartered in northern Virginia. His
website is located at http://www.cjiausa.org/.

http://www.mexidata.info/id3268.html

Cuba encouraging trade and investments

2012-02-14T13:43:00.001-08:00

Cuba encouraging trade and investments
By ARTHUR CYR
Syndicated columnist
Published: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 at 6:44 a.m.

Yet another intimate portrait has just emerged about one of the most
prominent and pivotal world leaders of the early 1960s, arguably the
most dangerous and highly charged years of the Cold War.

An iconic hero for many, thanks to his charismatic personality and
demonstrated courage, this former head of state is also controversial
thanks to personal behavior, which can only be described as reckless.

This reference of course is to Fidel Castro, who at age 85 has published
an appropriately lengthy autobiography in two volumes and numbering
approximately 1,000 pages. According to Havana's state television,
Castro described his literary work in detail over six straight hours
before a convention center audience.

Age and illness led Castro to retire from Cuba's presidency in 2008; the
country since then has been led by Raul Castro, by all accounts firmly
in charge but lacking his older brother's appeal. Enemies join with
admirers in agreeing that Fidel Castro possessed a unique leadership style.

After Havana was captured and despised dictator Fulgencio Batista fled
in early 1959, Raul Castro handled bloody mass executions with efficient
dispatch, and since has effectively led the military and a pervasive
domestic security apparatus.

Soon after taking power, the brothers Castro ended hopes for
representative democracy.

They nationalized major industries, including U.S. corporate assets.

Fidel Castro highlighted Cuba's alliance with the Soviet Union by
joining Nikita Khrushchev in a remarkably raucous 1960 visit to the
United Nations in New York, punctuated by the Soviet leader publicly
pounding a shoe on a desk.

The Eisenhower administration began a clandestine effort to overthrow
the increasingly radical regime.

The successor Kennedy administration drastically escalated such efforts.

The Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 stands out as especially
dangerous among Cold War confrontations.

In recent years, the evolution of the Americas toward democratic
governments has been striking.

As a result, Cuba is more isolated than ever.

The Soviet Union, the main source of subsidy, collapsed nearly two
decades ago. Venezuela provides much more limited aid.

When Fidel Castro stepped down, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a
formal public statement endorsed the desirability of "peaceful,
democratic change" in Cuba and also suggested that the international
community work with the people there.

The Bush administration had been pursuing a particularly restrictive
hard line toward Cuba.

President Barack Obama early in his administration loosened extremely
tight restrictions on interchange with Cuba. Cuban-Americans are now
allowed to travel and send financial remittances to relatives still
living there.

Additionally, telecommunications companies may pursue licensing
agreements in Cuba.

As part of such efforts, we should work to expand cultural as well as
personal family exchanges with the island.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower initiated comparable programs with the
Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War, to great benefit.

The punitive Helms-Burton Act, passed during the Clinton administration
in an effort to court the fiercely anti-Castro Cuban population of
Florida, does not prohibit these exchanges.

For Raul Castro, encouraging trade and investment are priorities, along
with loosening restrictions.

At the end of January, he presided over a national conference of the
Cuba Communist Party, which emphasized these goals.

This represents remarkable acceptance of reality. Everyone favoring
democracy and competitive market economies should be encouraged.

Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College.
Email him at acyr@carthage.edu.

http://www.newschief.com/article/20120214/NEWS/202145005/1013/opinion?p=all&tc=pgall

Reversal of Fortune: Venezuela Could Be Biggest Beneficiary of New Cuban Oil

2012-02-14T13:40:00.000-08:00

Reversal of Fortune: Venezuela Could Be Biggest Beneficiary of New Cuban Oil
By Pierre Bertrand: Subscribe to Pierre's RSS feed

February 14, 2012 7:30 PM GMT

Which OPEC member could benefit hugely from Cuba's nascent offshore oil
industry?
Venezuela.

As Cuba starts its first offshore drilling and foreign companies eye
more prospects, the Latin American republic led by President Hugo Chavez
may be among the biggest winners.

The reason is that after years of subsidizing the island nation of
former president Fidel Castro and now his brother Raul, a Cuba that
starts making money from oil might slowly wean itself off Venezuelan aid.

Cuba now refines about 50,000 barrels of oil a day, about a third of its
requirements. Venezuela makes up the difference for free, said Jorge
Pinon, the former president of Amoco Oil Latin America and an expert on
the Cuban oil industry. Pinon now is a research fellow at the Center for
International Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Texas.

Instead of cash, Cuba pays back its Latin American neighbor by sending
doctors, teachers and other skilled labor in a sort of international
bartering system, Pinon said in an interview.

Cuba may have vast oil reserves, mostly offshore. The U.S. Geological
Survey estimates the island has reserves equivalent to 941 million
barrels of oil.

Oil-hungry China has extended a line of credit to Cuba for the purpose
of expanding the country's refining capacity to 150,000 barrels a day.
That expansion should be completed by 2015, Pinon said. That would be
just in time, Cuban authorities hope, for the Spanish-contracted
Scarabeo-9 oil rig to find and start producing oil offshore.

Repsol, Spain's biggest oil company, is using that rig to drill only 56
miles from the Florida coast. The rig itself was built in China.

An expanded and improved Soviet-era refinery in Cienfuegos on Cuba's
southern coast, previously refurbished by Venezuela, is expected to
enable the country to meet its domestic demand. That would immediately
benefit the Chavez regime because the oil would be sent to Venezuela for
sale on world markets.

With the extra revenue, Venezuela could start paying the Cuban
government in cash for the skilled labor exchanges between the two
countries, Pinon said.

Despite its resources, Cuba will be unable to export much of its refined
or crude oil because most of the world's refineries have some form of
business relationship with U.S. oil companies, Pinon explained. To
maintain those working relationships, the U.S. embargo against the
communist regime extends well beyond the Western Hemisphere.

"On the assumption that Cuba produces more oil than it actually needs,
that will become a challenge," Pinon said. He added that Cuba could
likely find markets for its excess crude in Venezuela and China.

Being far away from markets, however, such trading wouldn't be
economical, considering a country's oil refining infrastructure is set
up in such a way that oil is designed to flow out of the country -- not
back in.

In Tuesday trading the price of crude was up a nickel to $104.05 a barrel.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/298579/20120214/cuba-oil-drilling-refining-barrels-offshore.htm

Democratizing Cuba? (Part II)

2012-02-14T13:38:00.001-08:00

Democratizing Cuba? (Part II)
February 14, 2012
Isbel Diaz Torres

HAVANA TIMES, Feb 14 — My previous post, "Democratizing Cuba (I),"
concluded with the expression "behind closed doors." As this is so
closely related to the topic I'm dealing with, I'd like to make some
comments about the discussions that took place during the recent
National Conference of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC).

The first is that — unlike what happened with last year's famous
"Guidelines" document, around which mass national debate was promoted
beforehand — such discussions didn't happen this time.

Even though discussion of the "Guidelines" wasn't structured so that
rank-and-file assemblies could actually change its content (nothing of
what was raised at my job was later reflected in the final version), at
least people could vent.

This time was it worse. The discussions were excluded from the majority
of the Cuban population, who aren't members of the PCC or the Young
Communist League (UJC) – though we're subordinate to the party by virtue
of Article 5 of the Cuban Constitution.

That was the first closed door.

Next, the changes made to the conference's draft document were reported
numerically [i.e. "…16 guidelines had been moved to other points, 94
remained unchanged, 181 were modified in content and 36 new guidelines
were incorporated"], however no mention was made of the contents that
were moved, modified or added.

In other words, if 300 commas were changed and 200 adjectives replaced,
for those people who didn't participate in the conference it was the
same as them having changed the single-party system to a multi-party
one. We simply didn't know what the members changed in the discussions.

That was another locked door.

Finally, the discussions in plenary sessions were televised days after
these took place to allow time for any necessary editing. I learned
about some comments made in some critical discussions that occurred
there, but apparently our people aren't prepared to see such things.

They did, however, allow us to see a few snippets of Mariela Castro, who
they certainly didn't allow in as a delegate; she was a guest, which
isn't the same.

Mariela argued for people not to be discriminated against because of
their gender identity, an issue that's not reflected in the laws, nor in
the constitution, and still not in the goals of PCC either.

Their rights were left "pending," just like what occurred in last year's
party congress concerning the issue of workers' control of state
enterprises.

Added to all this was our not being able to see the full debate. Rather,
we had to suffer through unfortunate, uninformed, unsupportive, and
insensitive addresses by City Historian Eusebio Leal and
writer/ethnographer Miguel Barnet.

Nonetheless, a brief phrase by Politburo member Esteban Lazo made me
raise an eyebrow.

The party leader said he "did in fact know" the number of suggestions
made on the point concerning discrimination.

That revelation made me wonder: How was it that he knew but the rest of
us didn't? Him having the privilege to the key to that door didn't seem
either fair or democratic.

Days later I read an article saying there were 11,285 suggestions, but
they didn't even say how many were for or against discrimination based
on sexual orientation.

This indicated yet another one of the problems of democratic practices
here: if this involves the power of the majority over the minority, then
they shouldn't have approved a point with so much opposition. Yet
fortunately that didn't occur.

Rights are important, even those of one man or one woman, and this
includes those who have a gender identity that's different from the one
arbitrarily assigned by society.

It's obvious that there's a long way to go for democracy to flourish
here. It just seems that neither last year's 6th Communist Party
Congress nor the recent National Conference of the Party are suitable
places for it. They have too many closed doors.

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=62079

Internet for Cubans: A Permanently Impossible Dream?

2012-02-14T13:37:00.001-08:00

Yoani Sanchez - Award-winning Cuban blogger

Internet for Cubans: A Permanently Impossible Dream?
Posted: 02/13/2012 6:27 pm

It's 10:00 a.m. at the Plaza Hotel a few yards from Havana's Capitol
building. A smell of moisturizer wafts from the bodies of tourists
rushing through their coffee so they can go out and explore the city. On
one side of the lobby several people line up at the entrance to a small
office where there are six computers connected to Internet. Inside the
room, anchored to the wall, a security camera focuses directly on
keyboards and the faces of people who use the service. No one speaks.
Everyone seems very focused. Any web page can take several minutes to
open and some give up after an hour without being able to read their email.

But most surprising is that most of those sitting there are not
foreigners, but Cubans seeking the oxygen of information and
communication. They seem willing to sacrifice even one-third the average
monthly salary for 60 minutes of surfing on the great World Wide Web.

While outside our borders there is increasing debate between
permissibility versus control on the web, 11 million Cuban citizens
wonder if 2012 will be the year that we will finally become Internet
users. We feel as if we're abandoned and motionless by the side of the
expressway, with ever faster and unattainable kilobytes speeding by us.
Again and again the announced deadline for providing us with mass access
to cyberspace has failed, leaving us isolated from and behind the rest
of the world.

July 2011 was the last official date for the fiber optic cable laid
between Cuba and Venezuela began to function, and to multiply by 3,000
times the Island's scant connectivity. But for now, the status of
implementation is one of the country's best kept secrets, second only to
reports of the health of former President Fidel Castro.

Some say corruption, technical incompetence and mismanagement have left
the modern cable -- laid at a cost of $70 million -- not functioning.
Others murmur that is already operational but only available to "very
reliable" agencies and institutions, such as the Ministry of Interior.
The most credible version, however, appears to be that the Cuban
government has stopped its implementation for fear of the flow of
information it would bring to the nation. A fear, it seems, that the
house of cards of government power -- held up at the expense of secrecy
and censored news -- would come tumbling down.

Official journalists have been warned not to touch the subject of the
cable, and prices for access from the hotels continue to vary between 6
and 12 dollars an hour, or more. Having a home connection is a privilege
given only to the most politically reliable, or the result of the
audacity of those who pirate a state account.

Instead of opening up to social networking and other interactive tools,
the authorities have offered in vitro versions of Facebook or Wikipedia
style sites to schools and workplaces. They spend thousands of dollars
from the national budget to create highly controlled programs and
interfaces -- for local use only -- that will keep local readers far
from the hubbub of the democratic Internet.

Each day they postpone our entry into the virtual village, the country's
academic and professional capital plummets a little more. In addition,
they thereby delay our development as citizens, and keep us oblivious to
the debates and trends that are occurring in the world today.

Right now the controversy between intellectual property and free
exchange of files across the network gains strength far from our ears.
While news headlines all over the planet announce the arrest of several
directors of the Megaupload site, it's embarrassing to know that the
vast majority of Cubans do not even know the existence of this portal.

Echoes of the criticisms over the new content controls on services like
Twitter reach us, but lacking any framework, we can't decipher their
real implications. When we do manage to read the critical analysis of
the so-called SOPA Law (the Stop Online Piracy Act), or of Spain's
controversial Sinde Law (that country's version of an online anti-piracy
act), we wonder what the name of the ministerial -- or presidential --
directive is that keeps us far from the great World Wide Web. Worst of
all is that we can't even complain about such limitations by filling the
forums with texts or images of protest, or decreeing a blackout day on
the social networks.

They have reasons to suspect web surfers and many motives to remain
vigilant and active before what is happening. Because not only the times
of sharing music, movies and software may be coming to an end. The fight
against piracy has become the fight against the Web 2.0 itself, putting
at risk the most public and dynamic part of this advance. But the doubt
that assaults Cubans is whether the Internet -- as it is known today --
is going to die before we ever experience it, if it will become a cage
before we could have used it as wings.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/cuba-internet-_b_1274140.html

Younger Castro steers Cuba to a new revolution

2012-02-14T13:36:00.001-08:00

Younger Castro steers Cuba to a new revolution
Oil, foreign investment, free enterprise, and golf courses are on their way
Hugh O'Shaughnessy

Sunday 12 February 2012

Fifty years ago this month, the United States began the embargo on Cuba
which continues to this day. But the country against which it was aimed
is rapidly becoming a very different one to the alleged communist menace
just 90 miles off the coast of Florida. Under Fidel Castro's brother,
Raul, it is in the throes of a second Cuban revolution.

For a sign of the change which is turning life on their island on its
head, the people of Havana have only to peer into the night at the
northern horizon. This month, Repsol, the Spanish energy company started
drilling the first oil well from a massive and brightly lit rig, the
lumbering Scarabeo 9, built in China for ENI of Italy. This morning it
will still be grinding away seeking the billions of barrels of oil and
the trillions of cubic feet of gas that the US government, among others,
says lie under Cuba's offshore waters.

The Spanish oilmen working on the structure, which has been towed
halfway around the world amid US efforts to delay its progress, will be
followed aboard by a succession of Norwegians, Russians, Indians and
Malaysians.

Optimistic geologists reckon that within a few years the island – long
cursed by a lack of oil supplies, half of which it has had to import –
will actually be exporting the stuff. And it will be able to do so
without the aid of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela who has kept the
island's motors, power and air-conditioning going with his subsidised crude.

Also, at the fine harbour in Mariel, a few miles to the west of the
Cuban capital, is another pointer to the future, the big island-changing
harbour that Odebrecht, the Brazilian construction giant, is building
with a large wodge of money provided by the booming South American nation.

The end of the first national conference of the Cuban Communist Party
set the seal last month on changes that President Raul Castro had been
building up to. Since he took over from his ailing elder brother, Fidel,
in 2006, the new president, himself an octogenarian, has pushed ahead
with measures which are turning the traditional Cuban lifestyle upside
down by decreeing that the party will henceforward cease micro-managing
daily life and confine itself to strategic matters.

Landscapers are working hard on matters of equally urgent national
strategy. Fifteen more golf courses and new marinas are being laid out
in Cuba and they can't be finished quickly enough: golfers from abroad
will even be able to lease chalets and timeshares. The island's hotels
are packed. European visitors are pouring in. After decades of
US-imposed isolation from high-speed internet, Cubans and their visitors
are finally beginning to receive it via a new cable laid from Venezuela.

Yet Raul's strategies are not confined to big infrastructure projects;
they reach down deeper into an effort to keep Cuban society together.
Senior Cuban figures make no secret of the fact that even more important
work has to be done to improve Cubans' ideological outlook and the
economic conditions.

"Whole generations have long since grown up with no personal knowledge
of the heroic days before and after what we call 'the Triumph of the
Revolution'," says one. New Year's Day 1959 was when General Fulgencio
Batista, a dictator armed and honoured by the West, fled with suitcases
of banknotes and valuables as Castro's forces got their hands on Havana.
Few remember the abortive 1961 Bay of Pigs operation, the tragi-comic
fiasco of Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy to conquer the
country.

The US embargo, introduced on 7 February 1962, is a constant talking
point for island authorities, who blame it for shortages of everything
from medical equipment to the concrete needed to complete an eight-lane
highway running the length of the island. Cuba frequently fulminates
against the "blockade" at the United Nations and demands the US end its
"genocidal" policy. Every autumn, like clockwork, the vast majority of
nations agree, and overwhelmingly back a resolution condemning the
embargo. Last November, 186 countries supported the measure, with only
Israel joining the US.

Wayne Smith was a young US diplomat in Havana in 1961 when relations
were severed. He returned as the chief American diplomat after they were
partially re-established under President Jimmy Carter. "We talk to the
Russians, we talk to the Chinese, we have normal relations even with
Vietnam. We trade with all of them," Smith said. "So why not with Cuba?"

The United States actually does have significant trade with Cuba under a
clause allowing the sale of food products and some pharmaceuticals.
According to the most recent information available from Cuba's National
Statistics Office, the US was the island's seventh-largest trading
partner in 2010, selling $410m (£260m) in mostly food products. However,
that was down from nearly $1bn in 2008, as the island increasingly
turned to other countries that don't force it to pay cash up front.

As Raul gave his closing speech at the party's first national congress,
it was announced that new laws would allow people to sell their
crumbling houses and wheezing cars. With the lonely support of only one
ally, Israel, Washington has insisted on continuing six decades of
crippling boycott on trade with Cuba despite overwhelming condemnation
of it in the UN for the past 19 years.

But no longer will Cubans be obliged to leave their homes or their
vehicles to their children, or do dodgy swaps with strangers. More than
one million of the 4.3 million state employees will be encouraged to
form co-operatives or start private businesses in a mass of trades and
professions up to now reserved to the state.

"China is an example. No other country has lifted so many people out of
poverty. This is something of which the Chinese people and government
should be proud, and which the rest of the world admires," official
daily Granma said in October 2009, echoing Fidel's words. Like China, or
more likely Vietnam, the island will remain a one-party state.

"To renounce the principle of only one party would simply mean
legalising the party or parties of imperialism on Cuban soil and
sacrifice the strategic weapon of one party," Raul declared last Sunday.
The president added that he would be merciless in punishing corruption,
especially if the culprits were party members.

Next month the Pope, Benedict XVI, arrives on the island at the end of
an unprecedented religious act. In 2010 Raul allowed the public
veneration of a statue of the Virgin of Charity, the island's patroness,
which was driven for 425 days from one end of Cuba to the other on top
of a van.

Oil, mass tourism, private enterprise, broadband internet, organised
religion – the brakes are coming off a society which today looks less
towards Marx and Lenin and more toward its native-born 19th century
hero, José Martí, who died in the battle for Cuban independence from
Spain in 1895. God alone knows what's coming next.

Hugh O'Shaughnessy is writing a biography of Fidel Castro for Signal
Books and Macmillan Caribbean

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/younger-castro-steers-cuba-to-a-new-revolution-6792209.html

The Long Arm of Zorro / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado

2012-02-13T14:29:00.001-08:00

The Long Arm of Zorro / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado
Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado, Translator: Unstated

Foreign and domestic news pours forth in Cuba with extensive coverage of
the international and national press; academic, intellectual, social,
and cultural events, contests, speeches and appearances: all
manipulated, at the convenience of the powers-that-be with a huge media
coverage.

Almost simultaneously the authorities unleash a wave of repression that
stirs concern and solidarity. So new information arises that will take
prominence and displace other no less important news. Wilman Villar died
without having been morally vindicated by those who caused his death and
later, as an aggravation, they reviled him.

Hmmm! It is a strategy repeated endlessly with one arm so long that it
extends beyond our borders. Some might think that luck accompanies the
Cuban totalitarian government and safeguards the aftermath of world
opinion, but I think that traditionally and historically they have
pulled the strings of the Creole political puppet and will continue to
do so, with the reins firmly attached behind the scenes and from time to
time the scriptwriter-in-chief comes to light. I watch and comment,
because it is my duty and right to freely express my opinion.

February 12 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15069

First Season / Fernando Dámaso

2012-02-13T13:28:00.001-08:00

First Season / Fernando Dámaso
Fernando Dámaso, Translator: Unstated

Flipping through various economic and social information, for the
Republican era in Cuba, in newspapers, magazines, yearbooks and other
documents of the time, I note, again, the actual development reached by
the country, and the prominent place it held in many important
indicators, a measure of the effectiveness of policies implemented by
the different governments. Not everything was resolved, of course, but
the path of solutions in process for fifty-six years, with undeniable
results, allowed confidence that what was still lacking was only a
matter of resources and time, because the forms and methods to achieve
it were more than proven by years of successful application. That was
the country that existed on 31 December 1958.

The new regime introduced from 1 January 1959, overturned the whole
economic, political and social structure, engaged in the execution of
willful experiments, with no serious scientific basis or citizen
control, which converted the normal evolutionary process of the
development of a nation into an artificial accelerated involution, with
increasingly absurd decisions and actions.

The result: a country in ruins. We can put forward thousands of reasons
and justifications to try to validate the hundreds of costly mistakes,
but the harsh reality of generations sacrificed, resources wasted,
destroyed wealth and talents lost, will not allow it. It has been over
fifty years of continued decline, promising an uncertain and
unattainable future, at the expense of the daily misery of the majority
of the population.

Now they try to attack the evil with pills, bandages and some ointment,
but it is an impossible mission: to bring about healing of the nation
surgical actions are essential sooner rather than later. Everything else
is the waste of time to save time.

The measures implemented, greatly limited and in drips and drabs, remain
far below the expectations of citizens. Many more and deeper measures
are needed in virtually all areas, and must be applied in the near term,
if we are to begin to undo many wrongs, although it will by no means
solve all the complex problems accumulated.

We can not ask for calm and wait for the Greek calends — that is a time
that never comes — until the many committees set up complete their work.

On the street people are saying we are now in the early chapters of the
first season of the guidelines — those created to "update" the model.
These opening chapters aroused some interest but with the passage of
time, they have been losing their following.

If the script of this drama is not improved, viewers will stop paying
attention, as has happened with other earlier serials. But all kidding
aside, this is not actually a soap opera, but something much more
momentous and important to the nation.

I hope the authorities are aware of this situation and act with
responsibility and restraint, but also with depth and speed. Despite all
the many signs to the contrary, this is what the average citizen really
expects, being so bored and tired of government inefficiency.

Photos: Rebeca

February 11 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15068

Another Pope / Yoani Sánchez

2012-02-13T12:27:00.001-08:00

Another Pope / Yoani Sánchez
Translator: Unstated, Yoani Sánchez

In just a few weeks Pope Joseph Ratzinger will arrive in Cuba but we are
already breathing something of his incense from a distance. In a country
where many of those who pray in the churches by day light candles at
night to an African deity, the visit from His Holiness awakens
enthusiasm, but also curiosity. The Catholics are preparing their
liturgies and their pomp to receive Benedict XVI, while others wonder if
his arrival will bring some significant transformation in the political
or social situation of the nation. People want to believe that the Holy
Father will push the reform process of Raul's regime, driving it toward
greater speed and depth. The most imaginative even dream that the
highest figure of the Vatican will achieve what the popular rebellion
should achieve: real change.

There are too many differences between this month of March in which his
Holiness will land at the Havana airport and that January of 1998 when
John Paul II did so. He, who was also known as the "Traveling Pope,"
came preceded by stories relating to the fall of the regimes of Eastern
Europe. Ratzinger, for his part, will arrive at a time when there is an
entire generation of Cubans born after the fall of the Berlin Wall who
don't even know the significance of the initials USSR. At the end of the
nineties Karol Wojtyla lit up our hearts – including those of agnostics
like myself – saying the word "freedom" more than a dozens times in the
Plaza of the Revolution. But now the apathy and discouragement will make
it more difficult for the phrases of Ratzinger to inspire the same
emotion. His visit will be but a pallid reflection of that other,
because we are no longer the same, nor is it the same Pope.

12 February 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15051

Oh, Pablo / Miguel Iturria Savón

2012-02-13T12:26:00.001-08:00

Oh, Pablo / Miguel Iturria Savón
Miguel Iturria Savón, Translator: Unstated

The Pablo Milanes concert, announced for August 27 at American Airlines
Arena in Miami, unleashes opposing views in capital of the Cuban exile,
where the promoters of Fuego Entertainment fill their lit billboards,
their posters at bus stops and their TV ads, with what goes unnoticed by
some while angering hundreds of critics who consider the author of the
songs "Yolanda", "To Live" and "The brief space where you are not" as
"the Castro government's emissary disguised as a musician."

At the other extreme is the impresario Hugo Cancio, the alleged
organizer of cultural exchanges between artists from Cuba and the United
States, who says that "Pablo Milanes is undoubtedly a musical icon
followed by millions of fans around the world. We are extremely excited
and proud to have the opportunity to produce his first U.S. tour in
almost a decade. "

To make matters worse, Hugo Cancio announces on the Internet that the
appearance in Miami of the Cuban singer "is a historic event, unique,
iconic, powerful evidence that our city has changed, we've matured, we
are more tolerant, wise, that we are more united, a new generation
blooms, blossoms, spreads … "

Beyond the hype of the president of Fuego Entertainment and the reasons
of the exiles who see in Pablo Milanes the musical spokesman of the
Cuban dictatorship, it is clear that the dilemma is the result of the
traditional ideological positioning imposed on the island for half a
century.

It is true that Pablo Milanes, like Silvio Rodriguez, was a singer
committed to the Revolution and socialism. In founding the Nueva Trova
Movement in the late sixties both trumpeted the official chimeras and
received much support in their "missions" inside and outside the island.
Silvio is still subject to the circles of power, but Pablo has two
decades of estrangement; in his case, to classify him as on the
"official" side, is to ignore his criticism of the regime and his
personal honesty.

Consider also the right of art impresarios to contract with figures
consistent with their spectacles, and the rights of artists to perform
where they want. They should not have to be on their guard because Pablo
Milanes sings in Miami or Puerto Rico. Pablo, like Silvio, Chucho Valdes
and Juan Formell are also children of the marketplace, and thanks to the
international market they have hard money and the freedom to travel.

These singers have nothing new to offer because the theme and variables
of the "Nueva Trova" is ancient history, like the "revolutionary magic"
that holds them in the past. In the case of Pablo, this is an artist who
crosses the threshold of the past and criticizes the Gods of the
shipwrecked island; more than an official singer he seems like a
dissident limited by certain beliefs and commitments. Although Miami is
the reverse of Havana, why demand from them other political positioning?

August 19 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15028

A Petaluman reflects on Cuba

2012-02-13T09:47:00.001-08:00

A Petaluman reflects on Cuba
By MARY STOMPE
Published: Monday, February 13, 2012 at 3:00 a.m.

Cuba has been on my bucket list for many years. I can't exactly tell you
why but visiting a socialist country sparked my interest. When an
opportunity to join a Historical Society tour from Bellport, New York
presented itself, I jumped at the chance.

My tour was supposed to be Arts and Architecture but I was determined to
provide some humanitarian work along the way. I packed half my suitcase
with gifts for the locals (who only earn about $12 a month which can buy
them enough basic food for only 17 days). What I didn't count on was the
number of starving animals I would encounter and feed along the way.

Arriving in Cuba was like a walk back in time with many classic cars
from the 1940s and 50s racing down the street amongst the horse drawn
carriages and bike powered taxis. The century-old architecture was
stunning while poverty was clearly present throughout the country.

I never saw a dog that was spayed or neutered. Several emaciated dogs
were in the square, but one caught my eye in particular. He could barely
walk and was grotesquely thin. On my way to meet up with the group, I
ran into another dog who was about to give birth. She climbed into my
lap and didn't want to get down. At that point, I decided to save my
meals for the dogs. When I returned to the square a few days later, I
couldn't find the starving dog. I wanted to find a way to end his suffering.

Throughout my trip, I encountered many emaciated dogs, donkeys and
horses, none as bad as the dog in the square. I'd slip away from my
group to feed as many of the dogs and people as possible. Chicken was
out of reach for most Cubans and they were grateful to have my leftovers.

My gifts to the locals were well received. However, many were extremely
aggressive about tips, even bursting into a hotel room demanding a tip.
This is understandable because life is hard in Cuba with little
opportunity to improve your situation.

Our tour guide, a bright young woman, was open and honest about all the
questions we asked her. In Cuba, health care and education are free.
When you graduate from college, you are given a job in your field. The
higher your ranking in the class, the better job you can select. Any job
with an opportunity to receive tips from foreigners is highly coveted.
She chose a tour guide job and is required to stay in the job for three
years. If she quits before the three years is up, the government will
take back her college degree.

I wondered what motivates an employee in a socialist society to perform
well when the job doesn't include tips. Money is a powerful motivator in
Cuba.

What impressed me about Cuba was the cleanliness of the country.

What disappointed me most was the poverty – hungry dogs and people. No
animals were spayed or neutered only compounding the problem.

One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to the Old Havana Senior
Center. When we walked through the door, we were greeted with smiles,
waves and clapping.

Is Cuba worth the trip? Definitely! I have high hopes that life will
improve for the Cubans as their government begins to allow some private
enterprise. Lifting the US embargo could further help the people of Cuba
through tourism and commerce.

Visit www.youtube.com and search for "Street Dogs of Cuba" and "Cuba
2012" to see videos of my trip.

(Mary Stompe is executive director of PEP Housing and a former Petaluma
city councilmember)

http://www.petaluma360.com/article/20120213/COMMUNITY/120209534/1362/community01?Title=A-Petaluman-reflects-on-Cuba-

Cuban blogger riles with her weapon of words

2012-02-13T09:42:00.001-08:00

Cuban blogger riles with her weapon of words
Last updated: February 7, 2012 7:02 pm
By John Paul Rathbone in Havana

Yoani Sánchez is Cuba's best-known blogger and, for many outside the
island, also its opposition's most important voice. She is also,
however, a philologist whose refusal to mangle the Spanish language is
matched only by her love of 140-character tweets.

Resolving that contradiction is one of the lesser challenges Ms Sánchez
faces as an internet-based activist in a country that, by some metrics,
has less internet connectivity than even Haiti.

"I try to tweet with the brevity and elegance of classical Spanish,
while only using whole words," she jokes of herself on a recent evening
in Havana.

Such humour is characteristic of the 36-year-old, whose mordant and
highly personal vignettes of Cuba's quotidian drabness have long angered
the regime – even as her writings' literary and political merits have
turned her into an international star.

Her blog Generation Y, begun on a whim in 2007 but now visited up to 14m
times a month, ranges from piquant observations about lemon shortages to
the human rights implications of the visit to Havana by Brazilian
president Dilma Rousseff last week. She has 200,000 followers on
Twitter. Last year, Foreign Policy magazine voted her one of the world's
Top 100 Thinkers.

Cuba's state-run media meanwhile accuses Ms Sánchez of conducting
cyberwar. Fidel Castro has called her the leader of a group of "special
envoys of neo-colonialism, sent to undermine" the Castro brothers' rule.

Sitting in a Havana state-run restaurant with independent journalist
Reinaldo Escobar, her longtime partner and collaborator, Ms Sánchez,
with her slight frame and toothy grin, hardly cuts a typical figure of a
counter-revolutionary agent.
Tale of the tweets

Jan 29 Detained: Ladies in White and other activists in Guantánamo when
they went to mass in Cathedral. Call this # for more info.

Jan 31 Brazilian journalists all over Havana today. Contrast their bold
professionalism with Cuba's docile official press.

Feb 3 No surprises. They've denied me a visa to leave and return to my
country – the 19th time. Breathe, count to ten. Don't respond to an
insult with an insult, I tell myself. Better a hug! Dilma: what's the
point of having a port as big and modern as Mariel if we can't use it to
come and go?

Feb 2 Hearing, but can't confirm, that Abel Prieto, culture minister,
has been freed from his post.

Feb 4 Fidel Castro presented the first two volumes of his memoirs.
Threats of m-m-many more to follow ... Abel Prieto has reappeared in
public, although rumours growing in Havana's streets he's been fired
from culture ministry.

Feb 5 I ask myself: what advantages does my denied exit bring? There is
so much to do here!

Feb 6 Amnesty International has released an announcement about my denied
exit visa [www.amnesty.org].

Feb 7 Very little information about Syria, and Cuban official TV seems
partial and in favour of Bashar al-Assad. What's going on? It has been
raining all afternoon in Havana – happy trees, but collapsing sewers :-0

"I consider myself an independent citizen," she says, pointing out that
in Cuba's one-party system there are "no crimes against thinking or
opinion – only against the state".

Precise attention to language is a hallmark of her conversation. Ms
Sánchez puns that Cuba's irregular Communist party congresses are "less
a parley-ment than a listening-ment: there's not been a single "No" vote
in 50 years".

But perhaps the greatest puzzle about her work is technology. How does
social media operate in Cuba given the state's information monopoly,
only 2 per cent of people have access to the internet and sending a
single Tweet can cost up to $1 – a fifth of the average weekly state wage?

Critics say that explains why Cuba's fragmented opposition movement is
better known outside the island than inside. Even a copybook Facebook
site is a government-run intranet.

Ms Sánchez, who earns her living from a bi-weekly column in El País, the
highest-circulation newspaper in Spain, says mobile phone technology,
and the "echo chamber of abroad", amplify social media's local impact.

"I send an SMS text to 70 people, they send to 70 more, and so on. Texts
can also be uploaded directly on to the internet. It is tweeting blind,
but the tweets get mentioned in news stories abroad, which are broadcast
by Hispanic TV and watched by Cubans on illegal satellite dishes here.
The echo chamber is crucial."

She writes the blog only once a week, she adds, "to let myself breathe".

This ingenious network works both for incoming and outgoing news. "We
were the first to learn of Gaddafi's death," she says. "My phone was
red-hot with texts." As Etecsa, the state telephone company, has just
cut phone charges, she adds her "text newspaper" may get more effective
still.

Even so, the system has limits. Ms Sánchez rolls her eyes at suggestions
made by Republican party candidates campaigning in the Florida primaries
last month that they wanted to reverse President Barack Obama's
loosening of travel restrictions, tighten the US embargo and promote a
"Cuban spring".

"It is far too early for that," she says. The Arab world "spent years
integrating technology into their lives. We are still in an embryonic
state". About 10 per cent of Cubans use a mobile phone; in Tunisia, it
is more than 75 per cent.

"I've also learnt that the more restrictions there are, the less people
have and the more subservient they become to who dispenses it – the
state," she adds. "We are a long way from the banality of internet
ubiquity – although I am all for a bit more frivolity."

Pope Benedict XVI's scheduled visit in March, Havana's recent freeing of
political prisoners and her own international profile help protect Ms
Sánchez. Pluck and a sense of humour meanwhile seem to keep her spirits up.

She says she was not realistically expecting Ms Rousseff to voice any
human rights concerns while in Cuba – or for Havana to allow her an exit
visa to visit Brazil, the 19th time permission has been denied.

"I never want to become bitter," says Ms Sánchez. "I tweet, I blog, I
write. I wake happier than most. Everyday is a new scenario."

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/478caf9e-5181-11e1-a9d7-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1mHdItPMa

2-year effort to set up ferry service to Cuba runs aground

2012-02-13T09:35:00.001-08:00

Feb 13, 2012

2-year effort to set up ferry service to Cuba runs aground
By H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY

Although charter fights to Cuba have now been approved from a dozen U.S.
airports, an effort to set up cheaper ferry service between the two
countries appears to have run aground, the Sun-Sentinel reports.

About 400,000 Cuban Americans, who are allowed to visit family on the
island whenever they wish under more relaxed policies by the Obama
administration, went to the island on authorized charter flights last
year from Miami, Fort Lauderdale and a handful of other U.S. cities.

But Havana Ferry Partners's application for ferry service out of Port
Everglades, Fla., has languished for two years, the newspaper says. The
company, which would use a 600-passenger ferry to the island, proposes
to charge $50 less than the $400 roundtrip airfare.

At least three other companies are eyeing a similar service, the
newspaper says.

Progress seems unlikely during an election year, the newspaper says,
because it could alienate conservative Cuban-American voters who want to
tighten, not loosen, the 50-year-old U.S. economic embargo on the
Caribbean island.

"In an election year, that company has a better chance of joining Newt
Gingrich's colony on the moon," John Kavulich, senior adviser to the
U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, tells the Sun-Sentinel. The New
York-based group helps companies interested in business with Cuba.

Havana Ferry partners is so frustrated that it is now pushing for
one-time permission to carry passengers to Cuba for Pope Benedict XVI's
visit scheduled for March 26-28, the newspaper says.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/02/ferry-service-cuba-us/1

Lessons for Cuban business

2012-02-13T09:27:00.001-08:00

Lessons for Cuban business
January 30, 2012 8:19 am by John Paul Rathbone

President Raúl Castro wants the recent liberalisation of small
businesses to bolster Cuba's sagging economy and absorb the 1m state
workers he says will eventually be laid off.

But Cuba's budding micro-entrepreneurs – over 350,000 had registered as
of November 2011 – lack almost everything that start-ups need, from
premises and relevant skills to capital. Will they ever really get off
the ground?

A bustling restaurant in Havana's colonial centre – which opened in
January 2011, is appropriately called "La Moneda Cubana", the Cuban
coin, and is run by Miguel Ángel, a 37-year old entrepreneur - suggests
some answers.

First, the premises. The three-storey restaurant, which once belonged to
Ángel's grandfather, was nationalised in the 1960s. But the family has
lived continuously at the premises since then – indeed, ever since 1924.
As a result, Ángel was able to set up operations immediately.

And what a location it enjoys: La Moneda Cubana lies just a few steps
from the cathedral, has a sweeping view of the Havana bay from its roof
terrace, and enjoys a regular stream of tourists. Few are so fortunate.
Indeed, the process of leasing state properties remains incipient.

Second, necessary skills. Ángel worked for several years in the state
tourist sector, first at the Floridita, where Ernest Hemmingway once
drank daiquiris; then in the kitchens of the nearby Hotel Sevilla. "I
learnt there everything I needed to run my kitchen," Ángel told beyondbrics.

However, similar backward linkages are rarer elsewhere. "A good
restaurant also needs a manager and an accountant," he adds. Such skills
are hard to come by in Cuba's Soviet-style economy – hence the business
skills training program the Catholic church set up last year.

Third, funds. The usual supposition is that Cubans turn to their émigré
relatives for start-up capital. This is entirely legal under Castro's
new rules – indeed, it is tacitly encouraged.

Be that as it may, the cagey habits of under-the-table informality that
Cubans developed over decades socialism remain deeply engrained.

Ángel, for example, insists he restored the three-story building "all
with my own resources".

Be that as it may, Ángel says his operation is now self-financing. La
Moneda Cubana's intense footfall suggests this may indeed be so. That is
just as well, as the notion of Cuba's creaking banking system offering
credit is entirely novel – although there is government talk it will do so.

Fourth, inputs. Cubans can now buy construction materials directly from
the state. As for food, Ángel still buys from the state rather than
private farmers. "They can't ensure a steady and reliable supply," he says.

That is changing fast, however. According to state media, 71 contracts
have been executed between private farmers and state-run hotels – a huge
change that will strip out the inefficient state-distribution system.

Cuba's small business sector is still fragile and Ángel's success will
not be replicated everywhere. Business generally remains very small
scale. Most entrepreneurs sell out of their homes, or from makeshift
street stalls. Havana is far from becoming a neon-wrapped landscape.

But the popularity of the reforms and Castro's mantra that they will be
implemented "slowly, but without pause" also means they are
irreversible. Ahead of the Communist Party's conference over the
weekend, even state newspaper Granma talked of the need "to leave behind
prejudices against the non-state sector" and to overcome the
"psychological barrier" of "obsolete dogmas".

One of these is work habits. Ángel, for one, has already turned on its
head the old socialist rubric of "everyone pretends to work and the
state pretends to pay." Compared to state wages worth around $20 a month
but paid in Cuban pesos, his staff get a percentage of profits in hard
currency. "They like that, very much," he says.

As for his own workday: "I get here early in the morning and usually
leave around 3am." Does he mind? "One has to do what one has to or wants
to do – and I do. This is as much an emotional adventure as a financial
one," he says, with a smile.

http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2012/01/30/lessons-for-cuban-business/#axzz1mHeihRK2

Apathy among Cubans

2012-02-13T09:23:00.001-08:00

Apathy among Cubans
February 13, 2012
Osmel Almaguer

HAVANA TIMES, Feb 13 — They say that Cuba is the best place in the world
to live. I'm sure, though, that this affirmation is merely a rumor
spread by those in power. In addition to the rumors that hatch on the
street (from the right, left or center), there are also the ones planted
by our officials.

Later they like to feign innocence when it better suits them to shirk
their responsibility for the social chaos we face. Instead, they'll
point to safe streets, equitable distribution, free services, low
prices, health care, education and culture – benefits that are almost
absolutely verifiable.

Yet what's more subtle and damaging is the apathetic spirit that has
taken over Cuban society. We see generalized apathy for work, study,
being responsible, showing respect and finally for all actions in life
that are related to virtue.

However, what's most shocking is the lack of interest we suffer when it
comes to receiving. I find it amazing since selfishness is present in
human nature, as well as in the animal kingdom.

I'm not saying that selfishness has been lost. Rather, apathy has
reached the point to where people who receive benefits want them without
lifting a finger. In other words, to many people the slightest sacrifice
to improve themselves or to get ahead isn't worth the effort.

Examples abound: my pupils at school don't want me to teach them their
lessons. Residents who are required by housing inspectors to comply with
certain code requirements hurry to find fault with their professional
judgment. Vendors collude among themselves on prices so they don't have
to compete.

At my house, we don't answer the door when the crews come to spray for
mosquitoes. The buses that usually charge five pesos don't want to stop
outside the bus stops to pick up passengers. Collective taxi drivers
prefer an empty taxi to lowering their rates.

Kiosk vendors don't work on Sundays. At six in the evening of weekdays
no businesses are open. Sellers prefer not to sell to you if your bill
is too large. The majority of bus drivers don't care about collecting
the fares.

To most men, a "thank you" or a "please" seems gay.

I could go on with the list — it's endless — but I prefer to conclude by
pointing out the root cause of all these actions. People have begun to
disregard those little favors and courtesies because they now consider
them useless or alien.

These are the vices of a socialist society hit by the Special Period crisis.

Admittedly, I don't have the answer. In fact, I can't imagine any change
that could fix the majority of these problems.

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=61960

Awaiting pope: New Castro, same mess of an economy

2012-02-13T09:18:00.001-08:00

Posted on Monday, 02.13.12

Awaiting pope: New Castro, same mess of an economy

Fourteen years after the last papal visit, some reforms have taken root
in Cuba, but the economy is still an unmitigated mess.
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@elNuevoHerald.com

Two years before Pope John Paul II visited Cuba in 1998, then-Defense
Minister Raúl Castro cracked down on a half-dozen young academics who
had dared propose market reforms for the island's Soviet-styled economy.

The Center for the Study of the Americas was ordered to stop studying
Cuban issues. One of the academics suffered a fatal heart attack, blamed
on the government pressures. Another fled into exile, and two others now
live mostly abroad.

Today, it is President Raúl Castro who is championing even more daring
reforms, including deep cuts in state spending and the largest expansion
of private economic activity allowed in the communist-ruled island.

When Pope Benedict XVI lands in Santiago next month to start a three-day
visit to the island, he will find a Cuba very different yet in many ways
very similar, to what his predecessor encountered during his visit 14
years ago.

A different Castro is in charge. Church-state relations are warmer. Talk
of economic reforms is now acceptable. Dissidents are more combative.
But the economy is still in deep trouble. And a Castro is still in power.

Back in 1998, Cuba was "a living memory of the Soviet model of society,"
yet the island's Catholic Church had managed to endure and "give witness
and provide hope against hope," said Orlando Marquez, spokesman for the
archdiocese of Havana.

Cuba was officially atheist from 1962 to 1992, Christmas was restored as
an official holiday only in 1997. And the next year Cardinal Jaime
Ortega became the first church leader to speak on state-owned television
since the early 1960s.

Today, the church has "a more defined place in society," there's a
church-state dialogue and Cuba "is living a process of transformations
and reforms," Marquez told El Nuevo Herald. "That's the Cuba that
Benedict wants to meet when he comes."

After Ortega met with Castro in 2009, the cardinal announced the
government would free more than 100 political prisoners and
pro-government mobs in Havana halted their harassments of the dissident
Ladies in White.

The church also has been permitted to build a new seminary, launch a
business school in conjunction with a Catholic University in Spain and
run a string of independent charity and educational programs that fill
gaps in the government's eroding social security net.

Yet critics say that the improved church-state relations came at the
price of silence on government human rights abuses. All but 12 of the
jailed dissidents were taken directly from prison to airplanes that flew
them to exile in Spain, they noted.

"The church is now the only independent actor recognized by the
government as an ally. Today, there is a quasi-concordat [an official
agreement] that was not there before," said Haroldo Dilla, one of the
Center for the Study of the Americas academics attacked by Raúl Castro
in 1996.

When the Polish-born John Paul visited Cuba Jan. 21-25 of 1998, he was a
fierce opponent of communism and a healthy Fidel Castro had just
addressed a Cuban Communist Party congress from a stage under large
portraits of Marx and Lenin.

John Paul died in 2005 and Fidel Castro, now 85 years old, surrendered
power the following year after emergency surgery. And when brother and
successor Raúl Castro addressed another party congress last year, there
were no portraits at all on the stage.

One constant from one papal visit to another has been the crisis in the
Cuban economy, which shrank by about 35 percent in three years after
Moscow halted its subsidies to the island, estimated at up to $6 billion
a year, in 1992.

Yet the ways in which the more ideological Fidel and the more pragmatic
Raúl dealt with the economic problems were vastly different.

Fidel grudgingly embraced some basic free-market reforms, like allowing
"self-employment" such as family-owned restaurants, party clowns and
manicurists. But as soon as the economy stabilized in 1995, he began
retrenching.

By most accounts, Fidel ordered Raúl to crack down on the Center for the
Study of the Americas' too-eager reformers in 1996. Communist Party
ideologue Raúl Valdés Vivo branded Cubans who favored capitalism as
"piranhas" the following year.

But today Raúl is pushing a string of far more ambitious economic
reforms, including leasing millions of acres of fallow state lands to
private farmers, allowing more and larger private businesses and
offering government loans to support them.

"That is not because he wants to open up, but because he has no other
option" after decades in which the hallmarks of the Cuban economy were
inefficiency, lack of productivity and corruption, Dilla told El Nuevo
Herald.

One clear change between the two papal visits is the way that Cuban
exiles in South Florida view the trips.

In late 1997, the archdiocese of Miami was forced to cancel a cruise
ship charter that would have taken thousands of pilgrims to Cuba to
witness John Paul's visit, because of stiff and highly vocal opposition
from Catholic exiles.

Today, the archdiocese is plowing ahead with arrangements for air
charters to take pilgrims to Cuba for Benedict's visit, and exile
opposition to the charters has not been as strong or as loud.

And while 11 bombings shook Cuban tourist spots in 1997, blamed on exile
Luis Posada Carriles, today the idea of armed struggle against the
communist government has been dropped by all but a handful of the most
recalcitrant exiles.

Cuba's peaceful domestic opposition also has changed and grown
significantly over the past 14 years, while the government has shifted
the ways and means it uses to repress dissent.

In the late 1990s, most of Cuba's top dissidents were older
intellectuals who had initially backed Fidel Castro. The late Gustavo
Arcos participated in Castro's 1953 attack on the Moncada army barracks
before he became a dissident. Elizardo Sánchez taught Marxism before he
became a human-rights activist.

Fidel Castro had little tolerance for dissidents and put many of them in
prison. Arcos served seven years in prison and Sánchez served eight. And
a crackdown in 2003 sentenced 75 dissidents to up to 28 years in prison.
All were freed by last spring.

Dissidents today tend to be younger, more working-class and more
aggressive. They stage street protests and ask tough questions at
pro-government events. One even filed an unprecedented lawsuit against
the Justice Ministry, making some headway before losing.

The Ladies in White now have tacit government approval for their protest
marches after Sunday Mass at a Havana church — unthinkable under Fidel —
although police and pro-government mobs have crushed their efforts to do
the same in eastern Santiago de Cuba.

Scores of Cuban dissidents and othersd now have cell phones and blogs,
like Yoani Sánchez's Generacion Y, that they use regularly to rail
against the communist system and disseminate their complaints in Cuba
and abroad.

"In 1998, the ideological and political controls were much harder than
now," said Dilla. "Today it is evident that the system is more tolerant,
but it can turn tough and even brutal when needed."

Security officials in recent years have largely stopped subjecting
dissidents to trials and lengthy sentences, and instead mostly detained
opposition activists for a few hours or days in order to intimidate and
harass them or block planned activities.

Such "express detentions" totaled 85 in one four-month period in 1997,
according to one news headline. In 2011, according to Elizardo Sanchez's
Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, they
totaled more than 4,000.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/12/v-fullstory/2638823/awaiting-pope-new-castro-same.html

Public Declaration in Self-Defense of Rastafarian Artist Hector Riscar (El Nano) / El Sexto – Danilo Maldonado Machado

2012-02-12T13:07:00.001-08:00

Public Declaration in Self-Defense of Rastafarian Artist Hector Riscar
(El Nano) / El Sexto – Danilo Maldonado Machado
El Sexto - Danilo Maldonado Machado, Translator: Unstated
Share

I, Hector Riscar Mustelier, declare in writing what really happened on
Wednesday 16 November 2011.

We left the National Cabaret, where we were working the Heritage Group,
a reggae band, of which I am director.

We were Adrian (props), Daniel (drummer), Zenén (sound engineer) and I,
crossing the corner of Prado and San Jose, where we were stopped by an
officer with badge number 44777. He asked for our ID cards and tells us
we can't continue, but Zenen didn't have his ID so we explained that
we're musicians who come out of the club every Tuesday we're there. Then
comes another officer, called Duruti, standing behind us.

As I was carrying a bag with a DVD, the officer no 44777 asks to search
us completely, purse, pockets, everything. He tells us that we can
continue and we get ready to do so when another one appears — 45717 —
who wants to check IDs again. We say that we were already searched by
another officer, but he aggressively orders us to put our hands on our
heads and spread out legs.

We began to tell him that our audience was still coming out, and it was
a spectacle in the street, that he could take me to the station in
handcuffs if he wanted, but it was a violation, that he can't search a
citizen against his will by force, because the Constitution protects us,
at which point the officer is still more agitated, and physically
assaults me taking me by the neck and punching me in the back, ripping
my shit, putting me on the ground and putting handcuffs on me.

In the struggle my white turban had fallen to the ground. The officer
stood me up at the same time the patrol car arrived. I was very
insulted, like my colleagues, who could not believe that abuse was
permitted, and they were also grappling with the police, and that is why
they also put Zenén in the car. Inside the car I see Duruti and 44777
outside, speaking separately. The officer 44777 comes up and says
something to the patrol car officer who can not hear because we were
still grappling with 45717.

Upon arriving at the Dragones police station they took my bag and soon
the three officers arrived, talking softly to the guard. We were sitting
on the bench, paying attention and hearing him say to the duty officer,
turning to 45717: "You accuse him because you're in the [Communist]
Party and no one will doubt you." So they're plotting it all in our face.

Then they begin to accuse us of drugs and we argue with them, against
the lie.

They say the drugs were in my turban. Which is a big lie because
everyone saw when my turban fell to the ground, and there was nothing
either on the ground or on my head and everyone saw it. It was a brother
and a witness who handed me the turban in the patrol car, and this can
be clearly be seen recorded in the cameras there and we demand that
these images appear and are displayed, because these films are or should
be in the service of safety and security of citizens. Consulting them,
there can be no confusion: all my clothes were white, easy to see in the
dark, and every movement had to be recorded.

Continuing the story in the police station, they continued with their
offenses while an officer without a badge, in black leather, showed a
ball wrapped in nylon and said it was drugs, directly accusing me of
having it in my belongings. Soon the experts came and took me up. I was
very upset with all the injustice that I was a victim of, I know of
similar stories but had never lived it myself, at all. I decided not to
speak a word. I knew I needed a lawyer. They were mocking and accusing
me as if everything is an absolute truth.

Then a higher level official dressed in dark green says that the proof
was in the promotional papers for Herencia: he's referring to some
invitations related to promotional group that were in my bag, they took
when we entered the station, along with the DVD device. Of course the
invitations had been manipulated long before the arrival of the experts,
down in the folder.

I kept quiet, just said I wanted to speak in the presence of an
attorney. Every passing minute there was more confabulation. Soon an
officer came from narcotics, talked and left. Then comes another
narcotics official from municipality of San Miguel del Padrón, with whom
I had a discussion.

Before, years ago, he worked in Central Havana and wanted me to work for
him and even gave me his phone. I gave him some brochures to learn our
way of life, philosophy and ideology of African culture, where it
becomes clear that our idea is the unification of our race, spiritual
prosperity, peace and love in everything and everyone. But from the
viewpoint of the police and government we are just hairy black drug
addicts, persecuted and repressed by the police elements of this country.

I made it clear to this officer that I would never work for him. He said
that year 2005 that one day I would regret it and he would retaliate. I
didn't make a case of his threats and I never heard from him. Now he got
angry, saying by way of derision (I quote) "So you took drugs! The drug
gives your dick money… " What a phrase worthy of a chief national
anti-drug department.

"Sure you have every luxury at home," he said. Everyone knows how we
live humbly at home with my mom and my wife. This officer wanted to
provoke me. I just opened my mouth to say: "LIAR, you say that because I
never worked with you."

Then they took me to the station where I was assigned an
"instructor"(investigator/interrogator) named Yordanis, who insisted for
days that I make my statement, fooling me saying he would investigate
the matter well. I told him I had evidence to disprove all the police
farce and that was when I stated this in my own hand.

We now know, all that is on file 826/11, they have set a trap, using my
declaration, adapting it to the police, with all their lies so well
organized. The cost of my statement has been the loss of the only visual
evidence in my favor, disappeared.

Now the file is back to the station with the sole intention of "fixing"
pretty much everything, or leaving out details that were inconsistent,
so that they are perfect. They used my mom to sign a record of delivery
of DVD that was never dealt with because they were so busy at the
Dragones station constructing their lie that they had no idea of dealing
with the DVD.

They falsified further investigations of my Committee for the Defense of
the Revolution (CDR): having cards made by the comrades of the CDR,
where they say they haven't gone to check anything, neither in Cerro nor
in Central Havana, and are fully prepared to declare in court.

Only because of the type of people we are, Rastafarians, in the false
investigation they say the worse they say about about a person. I know
no one with cars and motorcycles, only a few who visit us very little.
The bikes that come to visit are for two People's Revolutionary Police
investigators that are our neighbors living in the same hallway.

The comrade who appears declaring now (named Ernesto), after the P4 the
prosecution sent, said that someone in turn says that I used to sell in
the National, but in his opening statement only said that I had seen
"smoking."

Everything has been improved to incriminate me for a traffic offense
that is not mine, committing unjust illegalities that not even a lawyer
has the courage to denounce.

Back in 2003 I did serve an unjust traffic sanction that was reported
but nothing came of it, but now, according to the fabricated record, I
also engaged in the planting of marijuana, that makes us all ask, where
is that seed? What's happening? Can this really be happening here in
Cuba? Or is that the police accept that they invented everything? Or is
it better, rather than to be just and true, to judge someone who has
committed no crime? Someone who in any case they have to help do justice
to the truth, but not harm through abuse of power, because it is not for
this reason that we have the security police of this country.

Or, if this does happen, then there is: injustice, illegality,
corruption, manipulation, deceit, violation of human rights, abuse of
power, ideological discrimination and racism.

No more for now. Hoping for ultimate justice and fair use of my rights,
and rights of the true facts, and to soon recover my liberty,
unconditionally.

Rastafari
PEACE
No more discrimination!

6 February 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15039

Not Twelve, Seventeen / Miguel Iturria Savón

2012-02-12T13:06:00.001-08:00

Not Twelve, Seventeen / Miguel Iturria Savón
Miguel Iturria Savón, Translator: Unstated

Since the release of latest political prisoners from the repressive
crackdown known as the Black Spring of 2003, foreign correspondents in
Cuba cling to a mythical number twelve, referring to those who refused
exile and stayed on the island, which is a half truth.

There were 52 remaining of the 75 convicted under the Gag Law, when the
regime decided to open the gates to launder its image abroad after the
death of striker Orlando Zapata Tamayo and physical deterioration of
another striker, independent journalist Guillermo Fariñas Hernández,
icons of civic resistance.

Of the 53 who left earlier, almost all under the euphemism of parole,
remaining on the island from 2004 to 2006 were the independent
journalists Jorge Olivera Castillo and Oscar Espinosa Chepe,
Assemblywoman Martha B. Roque Cabello, the liberal politician Hector
Palacios Ruiz and Marcelo Lopez Bañobre.

Among those who marched from the prison to exile in this period are the
poets Raúl Rivero and Manuel Vazquez Portal. In 2010 there were 12 who
said no to banishment, 12 of 52 prisoners who waited in prison despite
the pressure of the regime, the mediating efforts of the Archbishop of
Havana and the facilities offered by the Spanish government which was
acting as a screen for the Castros before the European Community.

Among the twelve who chose to live at home instead of seeking freedom
under another flag are Feliz Navarro, Iván Hernández Carrillo, Arnaldo
Ramos Lauzurique, Oscar Elías Bicet, Eduardo Díaz Freitas, Librado
Linares, José D. Ferrer García, Guido Sigler Amaya, whose brother is
being medically treated in the United States; Diosdado González Marrero,
Pedro Arguelles Morán, Héctor Maceda Gutiérrez and Ángel Moya Acosta.

The admiration unleashed by these twelve heroes of civic resistance is a
continuation of the position taken by the five former prisoners released
for health reasons between 2004 and 2006. All remain on the island under
control of the political police.

Everyone deserves respect and affection as the rest of the 58 who went
abroad by choice, family pressure or state pressure. In the Kabbalah and
in historical mythology, twelve is a mythical number. Twelve were the
original tribes of Israel, the Promised Land of antiquity. Twelve
apostles accompanied Jesus at the Last Supper.

Twelve independence fighters remained alive with the Father of the
Nation, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, after the attack on the village of
Yara, on October 10, 1868. And twelve expedition members met with Fidel
Castro in a hamlet in the Sierra Maestra after the failed landing of the
Granma yacht on December 2, 1956.

So twelve is all very well, but please, no more manipulation. There are
not twelve but seventeen prisoners released from the Black Spring who
remain in Cuba. There are also other fighters in prisons, and in the
streets who are serving or served sentences for demanding the freedoms
kidnapped by the "liberators of the Fatherland."

August 22 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15030

Uncertain Execution of Judgment Hurts Civil Society Activist / Dora Leonor Mesa

2012-02-12T13:03:00.001-08:00

Uncertain Execution of Judgment Hurts Civil Society Activist / Dora
Leonor Mesa
Dora Leonor Mesa, Translator: Unstated

Persistent rumors from the ECAL No. 2 state that the entity surrendered
to the police a letter dated September 7 this year which states that …
"as outlined in file No. 174 of 2010, regular process established by
Dora Leanor Mesa Crespo and provision made by the Municipal People's
Court of Diez de Octubre, ordering the demolition of the wall' that
affects the applicant, we have to inform you that in a visit to the
former premises occupied by the Negotiating Group of the Extinction
Movement of State Microbrigades, located in Calzada de Luyanó No. 557
between Manuel Pruna and Juan Alonso, Diez de Octubre municipality, to
date we have been unable to access this location to determine the scope
of work to be executed, because the compañero residing there, named
Adolfo Perez Zenea is serving a sentence of imprisonment in Penitentiary
1580."

Based on information obtained from sources that refused to be
identified, the director of the ECAL Pita No.2 Nelson Córdova Pita his
Legal Advisor Yaquelín Rodríguez allege they are seeking the key from
the defendant's wife, also a local resident, worker at the Municipal
Plaza Microbrigade, part of the construction company that is located at
23rd and 2nd street, in the Vedado neighborhood.

A confirmation of the existence of the letter of ECAL No. 2 was
delivered to the Police, the justifications are related to the complaint
of weeks ago — property infringement — by the civil society activist Ms.
Dora L. Mesa.

First some clarification would be good. The above residence of the
worker and his wife is absolutely illegal, as is confirmed by documents
held by all parties. The place is not even legally registered as state
property, it was part of the house of the complainant. Furthermore, the
ECAL # 2 tries to ignore the judgment of the Municipal Court No. 17 of
Diez de Octubre dated April 29, 2011 which appears verbatim:

Fail: We must declare and we do declare in favor of the complainant, and
in consequence affirm this statement condemning the defendant to respect
the required separation between the two properties adjoining the site,
and the defendant must demolish and create a corridor of approximately
one meter and fifty centimeters between the two properties. Without Costs.

It should be clear that the complainant does not have to demolish a
wall, because the sentence is explicit by clarifying that they have to
demolish the adjacent locale, always taking appropriate action because
the ceiling of the room is used a wall of the house of the applicant.
Lest by chance the property of the activist might also be demolished.

This legal battle has been going on for 45 years. The request for
enforcement of judgment is dated June 30, 2011. From that moment 3
trials have been suspended by the absence of the directors of the ECAL
and other unknown causes. The next citation is Sept. 27 at 10 a. m. and
probably will be suspended by the most unlikely reason: Protection of
breeding animals for profit, slippery keys, busy magistrates…

They are wasting their time if they believe that Ms. Dora Mesa will not
go every day to the Municipal Court of Diez de Octubre to know how to
start the execution of the judgment. They don't know the power of filial
love and the brave old man's voice clamoring for justice.

Regardless of the excitement or otherwise of the case, the applicant can
legally establish another lawsuit but cannot demolish the premises and
request the restitution of his backyard. In short, if your family spends
nearly half a century in these legal chores, should be awarded the
missing part. As the Cuban sociologist Calviño would say: It's worth the
pain.

September 20 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=14999

Efficient Leadership and Organizations for Cuban Civil Society / Dora Leonor Mesa

2012-02-12T13:02:00.001-08:00

Efficient Leadership and Organizations for Cuban Civil Society / Dora
Leonor Mesa
Dora Leonor Mesa, Translator: Unstated

The Cuban Law Association, the Cuban Observatory of LGBT Rights, the
Citizens Committee for Racial Integration … are some examples that serve
to encourage pro-democracy activists and other civil society actors to
continue to create spaces for civic activity and to expand their reach,
because they can help ordinary citizens to take initial steps to raise
the hope for positive change.

To have a vibrant civil society requires successful civil organizations.
Success is possible even in hostile surroundings if promoters are
trained properly in the types of leadership and efficient organizational
structures.

Contingency theories emphasize situational factors, where the
effectiveness of leadership depends on the situation. People become
leaders not only for their personal traits, but because of situational
factors. The motivation and the ability of the followers are among the
factors that affect situational decisions.

Each civil society organization can use certain types of leadership but
contingency theories emphasizing situational factors could be very
useful in the current Cuban atmosphere, characterized by its dynamism
and hostility.

The Fiedler contingency theory has helped develop an educational
organization, the Cuban Association for the Development of Education
(ACDEI), but the transformational theory of Bass and Leithwood allow a
leader-follower relationship more effectively in the current Cuban
environment and in particular in educational settings.

Our small NGO is currently working on a project called "ACDEI supports
Private Nurseries," whose target audience are owners and educators and
the employees who work with them, and parents and families of children.
It prepares teachers and unskilled caregivers, instructing them in
modern educational techniques and the knowledge and use of the
Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In addition to educating the children of the nursery school, we
emphasize in explanations to owners that their businesses provide an
important service, where the initial cost is relatively low, but it is
characterized by certain aspects that require certain skills and staff
training.

In particular we reiterate that the beneficiaries of the service (the
nursery school children) can not be considered as clients but as
learners. Children who receive continuous stimuli in their environment
later develop with better physical, psychosocial and cognitive outcomes
(Umayahara, M., 2003).

The ACDEI NGO strives to provide both children and educators and
caregivers education and training required by the standards of the
Ministry of Education and UNICEF. To continue this line of work it is
hoped that the articulation between preschool and primary education will
more successful and thus improve children's learning.

September 10 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=14997

Yoani Sanchez’s Technical Book / Miguel Iturria Savón

2012-02-12T13:01:00.001-08:00

Yoani Sanchez's Technical Book / Miguel Iturria Savón
Miguel Iturria Savón, Translator: Unstated

Last May I was overwhelmed when browsing in the apartment of Yoani
Sanchez I came across her book Word Press: a blog to talk to the world.
Three years earlier I had noted her famous blog (Generation Y) and,
stimulated by it, I opened my blog, Island Anchor, also hosted on the
platform Cuban Voices. The connection continued with the sessions of the
Blogger Academy, occasional meetings, calls and text messages and my
collaborations in Voices magazine, created by Yoani, Reinaldo Escobar
and Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo.

The volume struck me with its compositional structure, didactic sense,
the effective selection of expository texts, the eloquence of the
illustrations and the overall coherence, both technical and casual, all
of it "so Yoani," whose human warmth cohabits with a scriptural acuity.
The pragmatism of her civic proposals, her passion for new technologies,
her citizen journalism and her commitment to what happens on the island,
always from a personal viewpoint that is no stranger to wonder and the
need to seek.

Word Press: a blog to talk to the world is a compendium of accelerated
learning from Yoani Sanchez, the curious and avid linguist, fascinated
by "the mysteries of cyberspace," and whose banner freedom of
expression. It is also a gift for beginners and an instrumental doorway,
perhaps for the methodical carpenter to test the tools that free — and
release — us from the information banality and dreams of domination of
despots, these young men who damaged the lives of millions of people and
converted the nation into a hacienda that supports them.

The work, of 463 pages, 20 chapters, 2 prologues, Editor's Note,
Glossary, Bibliography and Index, is a reference manual of educational
value, a brick of paper that outlines her own experience with her blog,
interacting with readers and the media and how this universal Cuban
woman — recognized for her talent and dedication to others — learned to
do it all. If anyone thought there were some kind of "maneuvers" around
the prizes Yoani has been awarded from outside the island they can put
that idea to rest. Yoani has succeeded because she convinces with her
writings and computer knowledge.

Written at the request of Eugenio Tuya, editor of the publishing house
Anaya, who rates the outcome as excellent and praised the clarity of
exposition and "charming amiability" of the author, the book is intended
for "all who dream of exposing their life's travels through a blog and
especially those in difficult situations who need to communicate with
the world and be encouraged to express themselves freely."

No wonder the Spaniard Esperanza Aguirre advises in his prologue that
Yoani Sanchez, "In teaching us to use the tools of information
technology, gives us an exciting lesson … about our duty to always open
new windows, whatever the difficulties, a juggernaut for freedom. "

José Luis Orihuela, author of Cuaderno.com, evokes the Internet as the
XXI century printing press and the blog Generation Y as "the
paradigmatic representation of the network as a technology for freedom
and the blog as a personal press," to which he adds that "Yoani has
extended her passion to many others inside and outside the island" and
that she and her blog "are no longer just about technology, not only
about the literature of the everyday, and have become a symbol of
peaceful resistance to oppression, in a tangible demonstration of the
power of words."

"This is a book about the tool that has made possible the Revolution of
Yoani Sánchez, Word Press, written for people like her: those who don't
know technology but have things to say, those who want to communicate
and have no other means than the most simple and powerful: a blog."

Perhaps because of this and because "the network is no longer a space
for consultation and has been converted into a space for participation
in the social environment," Yoani's book can not circulate on the
island, where it is seized by customs officials, recalling those lists
of medieval inquisitors bent on shaping thought and censoring those who
did not assume the prevailing orthodoxy.

The list of contents would be enough to stimulate the search for the
next installment from the best-known blogger in Cuba. Attractive and
suggestive titles such as: The Birth and Consecration of Word Press; The
Map to Install Word Press; The Viscera or the Administration Page;
Appearance and Design of the Blog; Learning to Live with the
Commentators; the Trolls and other Creatures of Cyberspace; Categories
and Labels; URLs and Links, Multiplatform Blogs…

Through these themes lie the road ahead and the liberating door for
those who accompany Yoani on her wanderings, real and virtual. They just
have to dare. Not surprisingly she claims that "the highest purpose of
mankind will not have to wait for someone' who will open a space where
you can show yourself. You will not need a bureaucratic permit. You will
not need to amass a fortune or have a menacing army backing you up … You
would not even need to be under the umbrella of a political party … Here
you have a window, or rather the carpenter to build it … "

July 21 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15019

The New Man Needs Toys / Dora Leonor Mesa

2012-02-12T13:00:00.001-08:00

The New Man Needs Toys / Dora Leonor Mesa
Dora Leonor Mesa, Translator: Unstated

Without detracting from the prestige gained by Cuban education since
1959, in my view the shortage of toys that children in Cuba have
suffered, and do suffer, has been ignored.

While the Russians were sending millions of rubles every day, our
parents gave up sleep to buy three toys a year. In schools and
kindergartens the situation was no better. The toys are few, the variety
and beauty meager. Even the comics (in Cuba we call them muñequitos) for
some time were few and not very fun because of the "socialist realism"
in the art and culture of the now-extinct socialist bloc.

The Cuban Revolution has abolished private property for more than half a
century, and eliminated for-profit education. It attempted to create a
kind of "New Man," with a collectivist outlook and willing to sacrifice
for the common good. It created the educational institutions known as
"scholarships" — which were, in practice, boarding schools — where many
children were kept much of their youth. Along with that came the
state-run organizations such as the Organization of Pioneers, the
Secondary School Student Federation, the Union of Young Communists and
many more.

These plans had a significant impact on Cuban society and dazzled half
the world by their novelty and the success in academics extended to many
citizens. Behind the strategy were successful Cuban educators with
Russian and German advisers of the former socialist camp. This was a
valuable aid in pedagogy given the reputation Russian and German schools
enjoyed for centuries the.

Toys are generally expensive. But in Cuba today I invite my readers to
visit the toy stores at the Hotel Habana Libre or the Carlos III
Complex. A doll or a truck that is worth more than $10 in many parts of
the world, can only be bought in those stores with the monthly salary of
a Cuban surgeon. A remote control SUV can be purchased if desired, with
the salary of two surgeons. Do not mention BMX bikes because I might
have to include the salaries of the entire medical team in the operating
room.

This situation is not new. It's been like this for decades. So when they
say that Cuban children are happy and they do not lack the basics, I
remind the "enthusiasts" that a toy for an infant is like water for
humans, especially in the world of technology and knowledge.

If you ask a girl how much a Playstation is worth, she might doubt her
answer. But ask her what the black market prices are and then she will
give you all the details you need, and she will also to update you on
the exchange rate between the CUC, the euro and the dollar.

Not bad that children know the world around them but I disagree with
those who say that Cuba does not skimp on education resources. On the
facts would be preferable to say that is skimps. The list is long:
Textbooks are unattractive, teachers lack computers or email, 45% of
schools lack telephones, and children lack toys despite the efforts of
their parents and teachers to provide them.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 3, paragraph 1 provides:
"In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or
private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative
authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall
be a primary consideration."

Selling is a legal business, selling toys at exorbitant prices, in my
opinion, is a scam aimed our daughters and sons. They treat us like the
Spanish colonialists treated the Indians: exchanging mirrors for gold.

September 13 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=14996

They deposited a formal request for investigation into the murder of Juan Wilfredo Soto Graca / Ricardo Medina

2012-02-12T12:07:00.001-08:00

They deposited a formal request for investigation into the murder of
Juan Wilfredo Soto Graca / Ricardo Medina
Ricardo Medina, Translator: Hank Hardisty

Abdel Rodriguez Arteaga, Vice Presidentof the Cuba Independent and
Democratic Party, gave to the Attorney General's Office, at noon, July
11th, a document in support of the request for investigation to the
death of Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia. The original request was made by two
priests on June 8th.

Copies of the document, presented by Rodriguez Arteaga, were delivered
to the State Council, Ministry of Interior and Justice, and were
accompanied by a hundred signatures in support of the request for
investigation to the death of Soto Garcia, presented by the priests:
Ricardo Santiago Medina Lleonart Salabarria and Mario Felix Barroso,on
June 8th.

The letter dated July 8, states that the signatories ask the Attorney
General to exercise his powers to:

1) Give a public explanation from the Cuban government of this
lamentable event.

2) Restore the Methodist Pastor Yordi Alberto Toranzo Collado to his
pastoral ministry and to his rectory in the Methodist Church: "The
Trinity" of Santa Clara. Bishop Ricardo Pereira Diaz, (Bishop of the
Methodist Church in Cuba) removed him under pressure from the Department
Religious Affairs, Ministry of Justice, after the minister attended the
funeral of Soto Garcia.

Copies of this document were given, in addition to the Legal Affairs
Committee of Parliament, to His Eminence Cardinal Jaime Ortega,
Archbishop of Havana, and Bishop Ricardo Pereira Diaz, Bishop of the
Methodist Church in Cuba.

Translated by Hank Hardisty

June 11 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=15014

Absolute Cuba: More Cuban Flags and Less Che Guevara / Dora Leonor Mesa

2012-02-12T12:06:00.001-08:00

Absolute Cuba: More Cuban Flags and Less Che Guevara / Dora Leonor Mesa
Dora Leonor Mesa, Translator: Unstated

While in Cuba and almost anything is possible, it produces confusion to
try to buy a flag and the national emblem in your own country and to
find there are none in the shops, nor do the libraries offering
representations or posters or patriotic symbols, nor even the books on
the subject.

Meanwhile the market is saturated with pictures of Che Guevara, even
embedded within the national emblem. The fact remains that Che Guevara
is liked by most of the Cuban people, however the situation, in my
opinion, is outrageous.

Symbols are learned by children from the time they are small. The flag,
the national emblem, the anthem … Together they form part of the
identity of a nation. No wonder the image that is used to represent the
Constitution of the Republic of Cuba is the shield of the royal palm,
the national tree.

It is worth emphasizing the Law of Laws of the Republic of Cuba, Chapter
I, Article 4 where it states:
"The national symbols are those which have presided, for more than a
hundred years, over the Cuban struggles for independence, the people's
rights and social progress:
The lone star flag;
The anthem of Bayamo;
The shield of the royal palm."

I will never tire of repeating that for years UNESCO and UNICEF have
promoted: "The quality of early childhood education is essential for the
development of a country."

Although brochure No. 6 for children of two to three years in the
"Educate Your Child" program don't mention patriotic symbols, the
toddlers become familiar with them inductively, by their constant
presence in the nursery, private or otherwise, which will help to
facilitate their further understanding of their transcendental meaning.
The most important thing is to protect our identity and pass bit by bit
to the smallest.

The pride of being born in Cuba, is not limited only to being generous,
playing baseball and dancing well. To have in a Cuban home the flag and
its shield is not only a right, it is a need in these hard times being
experienced by the country.

The tourist or Cuban who wants photos of Che can buy them. Cubans also
want to buy Cuban flags and shields of all shapes and sizes. I guess my
opinion does not matter … but if you are interested, here it is:

Absolute Cuba: More Cuban flags and shields and many preschoolers who,
before going to school, harmoniously sing the national anthem.

September 15 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=14995

Fort Lauderdale company wants to run Cuba ferry

2012-02-12T11:54:00.001-08:00

Posted on Sunday, 02.12.12

Fort Lauderdale company wants to run Cuba ferry
The Associated Press

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A Fort Lauderdale company is still awaiting
government approval to run a ferry between Port Everglades and Cuba.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel ( http://sunsent.nl/yLLx0m) reports that
Havana Ferry Partners applied for the license nearly two years ago.

The company is one of at least four interested in running ferries to
Cuba through travel licenses allowed as exemptions to the embargo.

A U.S. Treasury Department official told the newspaper in an e-mail the
office cannot comment on specific licenses.

Absent the approval, Havana Ferry is pushing for a one-time permission
to carry passengers to Cuba in March for Pope Benedict XVI's scheduled
visit.

Broward County leaders have backed requests for ferries, which traveled
frequently between Havana and Florida before the communist revolution.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/12/2637870/fort-lauderdale-company-wants.html

USAID contractor work in Cuba detailed

2012-02-12T11:51:00.001-08:00

Posted on Sunday, 02.12.12

AP IMPACT: USAID contractor work in Cuba detailed
By DESMOND BUTLER
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Piece by piece, in backpacks and carry-on bags, American
aid contractor Alan Gross made sure laptops, smartphones, hard drives
and networking equipment were secreted into Cuba. The most sensitive
item, according to official trip reports, was the last one: a
specialized mobile phone chip that experts say is often used by the
Pentagon and the CIA to make satellite signals virtually impossible to
track.

The purpose, according to an Associated Press review of Gross' reports,
was to set up uncensored satellite Internet service for Cuba's small
Jewish community.

The operation was funded as democracy promotion for the U.S. Agency for
International Development, established in 1961 to provide economic,
development and humanitarian assistance around the world in support of
U.S. foreign policy goals. Gross, however, identified himself as a
member of a Jewish humanitarian group, not a representative of the U.S.
government.

Cuban President Raul Castro called him a spy, and Gross was sentenced
last March to 15 years in prison for seeking to "undermine the integrity
and independence" of Cuba. U.S. officials say he did nothing wrong and
was just carrying out the normal mission of USAID.

Gross said at his trial in Cuba that he was a "trusting fool" who was
duped. But his trip reports indicate that he knew his activities were
illegal in Cuba and that he worried about the danger, including possible
expulsion.

One report says a community leader "made it abundantly clear that we are
all 'playing with fire.'"

Another time Gross said: "This is very risky business in no uncertain
terms."

And finally: "Detection of satellite signals will be catastrophic."

The case has heightened frictions in the decades-long political struggle
between the United States and its communist neighbor to the south, and
raises questions about how far democracy-building programs have gone -
and whether cloak-and-dagger work is better left to intelligence operatives.

Gross' company, JBDC Inc., which specializes in setting up Internet
access in remote locations like Iraq and Afghanistan, had been hired by
Development Associates International Inc. of Bethesda, Maryland, which
had a multimillion-dollar contract with USAID to break Cuba's
information blockade by "technological outreach through phone banks,
satellite Internet and cell phones."

USAID officials reviewed Gross' trip reports and received regular
briefings on his progress, according to DAI spokesman Steven O'Connor.
The reports were made available to the AP by a person familiar with the
case who insisted on anonymity because of the documents' sensitivity.

The reports cover four visits over a five-month period in 2009. Another
report, written by a representative of Gross' company, covered his fifth
and final trip, the one that ended with his arrest on Dec. 3, 2009.

Together, the reports detail the lengths to which Gross went to escape
Cuban authorities' detection.

To avoid airport scrutiny, Gross enlisted the help of other American
Jews to bring in electronic equipment a piece at a time. He instructed
his helpers to pack items, some of them banned in Cuba, in carry-on
luggage, not checked bags.

He once drove seven hours after clearing security and customs rather
than risk airport searches.

On his final trip, he brought in a "discreet" SIM card - or subscriber
identity module card - intended to keep satellite phone transmissions
from being pinpointed within 250 miles (400 kilometers), if they were
detected at all.

The type of SIM card used by Gross is not available on the open market
and is distributed only to governments, according to an official at a
satellite telephone company familiar with the technology and a former
U.S. intelligence official who has used such a chip. The officials, who
spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the
technology, said the chips are provided most frequently to the Defense
Department and the CIA, but also can be obtained by the State
Department, which oversees USAID.

Asked how Gross obtained the card, USAID spokesman Drew Bailey said only
that the agency played no role in helping Gross acquire equipment. "We
are a development agency, not an intelligence agency," he said.

Cuba's communist government considers all USAID democracy promotion
activities to be illegal and a national security threat. USAID denies
that any of its work is covert.

Gross' American lawyer, Peter J. Kahn, declined comment but has said in
the past that Gross' actions were not aimed at subverting the Cuban
government.

Cuban authorities consider Internet access to be a matter of national
security and block some sites that are critical of the government, as
well as pages with content that they deem as counterrevolutionary. Most
Cubans have access only to a severely restricted island-wide Intranet
service.

Proponents of providing Internet access say it can undermine
authoritarian governments that control the flow of information to their
people. Critics say the practice not only endangers contractors like
Gross, but all American aid workers, even those not involved in secret
activities.

"All too often, the outside perception is that these USAID people are
intelligence officers," said Philip Giraldi, an ex-CIA officer. "That
makes it bad for USAID, it makes it bad for the CIA and for any other
intelligence agency who like to fly underneath the radar."

Even before he delivered the special SIM card, Gross noted in a trip
report that use of Internet satellite phones would be "problematic if
exposed." He was aware that authorities were using sophisticated
detection equipment and said he saw workers for the government-owned
telecommunications service provider conduct a radio frequency "sniff"
the day before he was to set up a community's Wi-Fi operation.

---

U.S. diplomats say they believe Gross was arrested to pressure the Obama
administration to roll back its democracy-promotion programs. The Cuban
government has alleged without citing any evidence that the programs,
funded under a 1996 law calling for regime change in Cuba, are run by
the CIA as part of an intelligence plan to topple the government in Havana.

While the U.S. government broadly outlines the goals of its aid programs
in publicly available documents, the work in Cuba could not exist
without secrecy because it is illegal there. Citing security concerns,
U.S. agencies have refused to provide operational details even to
congressional committees overseeing the programs.

"The reason there is less disclosure on these programs in totalitarian
countries is because the people are already risking their lives to
exercise their fundamental rights," said Mauricio Claver-Carone, who
runs the Washington-based Cuba Democracy Advocates.

USAID rejected the notion that its contractors perform covert work.

"Nothing about USAID's Cuba programs is covert or classified in any
way," says Mark Lopes, a deputy assistant administrator. "We simply
carry out activities in a discreet manner to ensure the greatest
possible safety of all those involved."

The U.S. National Security Act defines "covert" as government activities
aimed at influencing conditions abroad "where it is intended that the
role of the United States Government will not be apparent or
acknowledged publicly."

USAID's democracy promotion work in Cuba was spurred by a large boost in
funding under the Bush administration and a new focus on providing
communications technology to Cubans. U.S. funding for Cuban aid
multiplied from $3.5 million in 2000 to $45 million in 2008. It's now
$20 million.

Gross was paid a half-million dollars as a USAID subcontractor,
according to U.S. officials familiar with the contract. They spoke only
on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the
case.

USAID head Raj Shah said democracy promotion is "absolutely central" to
his agency's work. The Obama administration says its Cuba programs aim
to help politically repressed citizens enjoy fundamental rights by
providing humanitarian support, encouraging democratic development and
aiding the free flow of information.

U.S. officials say Gross' work was not subversion because he was setting
up connections for Cuba's Jewish community, not for dissidents. Jewish
leaders have said that they were unaware of Gross' connections to the
U.S. government and that they already were provided limited Internet
access. USAID has not said why it thought the community needed such
sensitive technology.

Asked if such programs are meant to challenge existing leaders, Lopes
said, "For USAID, our democracy programs in Cuba are not about changing
a particular regime. That's for the Cuban people to decide, and we
believe they should be afforded that choice."

Others disagree.

"Of course, this is covert work," said Robert Pastor, President Jimmy
Carter's national security adviser for Latin America and now director of
the Center for Democracy and Election Management at American University
in Washington. "It's about regime change."

---

Gross, of Potomac, Maryland, was a gregarious man, about 6 feet (1.8
meters) and 250 pounds (113 kilograms). He was hard to miss. He had
bought a Rosetta Stone language course to improve his rudimentary
Spanish and had scant knowledge of Cuba. But he knew technology. His
company specialized in installing communications gear in remote parts of
the world.

Gross' first trip for DAI, which ended in early April 2009, focused on
getting equipment in and setting up the first of three facilities with
Wi-Fi hotspots that would give unrestricted Internet access to hundreds
of Cubans, especially the island's small Jewish community of 1,500.

To get the materials in, Gross relied on American Jewish humanitarian
groups doing missions on the island. He traveled with the groups,
relying on individuals to help bring in the equipment, according to the
trip reports.

Three people briefed on Gross' work say he told contacts in Cuba he
represented a Jewish organization, not the U.S. government. USAID says
it now expects people carrying out its programs to disclose their U.S.
government funding to the people they are helping - if asked.

One of Gross' reports suggests he represented himself as a member of one
of the groups and that he traveled with them so he could intercede with
Cuban authorities if questions arose.

The helpers were supposed to pack single pieces of equipment in their
carry-on luggage. That way, Gross wrote, any questions could best be
handled during the X-ray process at security, rather than at a customs
check. The material was delivered to Gross later at a Havana hotel,
according to the trip reports.

USAID has long relied on visitors willing to carry in prohibited
material, such as books and shortwave radios, U.S. officials briefed on
the programs say. And USAID officials have acknowledged in congressional
briefings that they have used contractors to bring in software to send
encrypted messages over the Internet, according to participants in the
briefings.

An alarm sounded on one of Gross' trips when one of his associates tried
to leave the airport terminal; the courier had placed his cargo - a
device that can extend the range of a wireless network - into his
checked bag.

Gross intervened, saying the device was for personal use and was not a
computer hard drive or a radio.

According to the trip reports, customs officials wanted to charge a 100
percent tax on the value of the item, but Gross bargained them down and
was allowed to leave with it.

"On that day, it was better to be lucky than smart," Gross wrote.

Much of the equipment Gross helped bring in is legal in Cuba, but the
volume of the goods could have given Cuban authorities a good idea of
what he was up to.

"Total equipment" listed on his fourth trip included 12 iPods, 11
BlackBerry Curve smartphones, three MacBooks, six 500-gigabyte external
drives, three Internet satellite phones known as BGANs, three routers,
three controllers, 18 wireless access points, 13 memory sticks, three
phones to make calls over the Internet, and networking switches. Some
pieces, such as the networking and satellite equipment, are explicitly
forbidden in Cuba.

Gross wrote that he smuggled the BGANs in a backpack. He had hoped to
fool authorities by taping over the identifying words on the equipment:
"Hughes," the manufacturer, and "Inmarsat," the company providing the
satellite Internet service.

The BGANs were crucial because they provide not only satellite telephone
capacity but an Internet signal that can establish a Wi-Fi hotspot for
multiple users. The appeal of using satellite Internet connections is
that data goes straight up, never passing through government-controlled
servers.

---

There was always the chance of being discovered.

Last year, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee asked about
clandestine methods used to hide the programs and reports that some of
them had been penetrated.

"Possible counterintelligence penetration is a known risk in Cuba," the
State Department said in a written response to AP. "Those who carry out
our assistance are aware of such risks."

Gross' first trip to Cuba ended in early April 2009 with establishment
of a communications site in Havana.

He went back later that month and stayed about 10 days while a site was
set up in Santiago, Cuba's second-largest city.

On his third trip, for two weeks in June 2009, Gross traveled to a city
in the middle of the island identified by a U.S. official as Camaguey.
He rented a car in Havana and drove seven hours rather than risk another
encounter with airport authorities.

Gross wrote that BGANs should not be used outside Havana, where there
were enough radio frequency devices to hide the emissions.

The report for Gross's fourth trip, which ended early that August, was
marked final and summarized his successes: wireless networks established
in three communities; about 325 users; "communications to and from the
U.S. have improved and used on a regular basis." He again concluded the
operation was "very risky business."

---

Gross would have been fine if he had stopped there.

In late November 2009, however, he went back to Cuba for a fifth time.
This time he didn't return. He was arrested 11 days later.

An additional report was written afterward on the letterhead of Gross'
company. It was prepared with assistance from DAI to fulfill a contract
requirement for a summary of his work, and so everyone could get paid,
according to officials familiar with the document.

The report said Gross had planned to improve security of the Havana site
by installing an "alternative sim card" on the satellite equipment.

The card would mask the signal of the BGAN as it transmitted to a
satellite, making it difficult to track where the device was located.

The document concluded that the site's security had been increased.

It is unclear how DAI confirmed Gross' work for the report on the final
trip, though a document, also on Gross' company letterhead, states that
a representative for Gross contacted the Jewish community in Cuba five
times after his arrest.

In a statement at his trial, Gross professed his innocence and apologized.

"I have never, would never and will never purposefully or knowingly do
anything personally or professionally to subvert a government," he said.
"I am deeply sorry for being a trusting fool. I was duped. I was used."

In an interview with AP, his wife, Judy, blamed DAI, the company that
sent him to Cuba, for misleading him on the risks. DAI spokesman
O'Connor said in a statement that Gross "designed, proposed, and
implemented this work" for the company.

Meanwhile, the 62-year-old Gross sits in a military prison hospital. His
family says he has lost about 100 pounds (45 kilograms) and they express
concern about his health. All the U.S. diplomatic attempts to win his
freedom have come up empty and there is no sign that Cuba is prepared to
act on appeals for a humanitarian release.

---

Follow Butler

at http://twitter.com/desmondbutler

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/12/v-fullstory/2637730/usaid-contractor-work-in-cuba.html

More Words’ Less Words / Fernando Dámaso

2012-02-11T13:51:00.001-08:00

More Words' Less Words / Fernando Dámaso
Fernando Dámaso, Translator: Unstated

In the arsenal of leftist parties and governments, there are certain
words that constitute grounds for worship. One of them, here, is the
word cuadro — or cadre in its English form. I do not know where it was
first used in the sense that they give it, but I guess that was in the
Russian Bolshevik party, even long before taking power in 1917 the last
century. In many of its documents they speak of party cadres, referring
to militants holding positions in different instances. From there it
comes to us, brought by the comrades of that time, some of whom headed
for these lands.

For many years the little word of yore is constantly repeated, both in
political and in mass organizations, such as state agencies and
institutions. For many citizens, committed to the model, their highest
aspiration is to become a cadre of something. The cadre, as official
understood, is a highly reliable militant, able to perform any task
assigned to them, regardless of their specific professional training.
For example, a physician may direct a mass organization, a sugar mill or
bakery at different stages of life, and everything is supposed to be
done with efficiency, or to a railway worker can lead a national trade
union center, a chain of stores or a croquette factory.

As is easy to assume, although there may be rare exceptions, usually the
results obtained with these cadres are poor, if you get any at all.
Fifty-three years of failure show that the mechanism does not work very
well. This being who is unique, special, multipurpose, can be used for
everything and does everything well, is quite rare in reality and can
not be manufactured or prepared in any facility.

To stubbornly insist on it, leads to constant mistakes and demotions,
without coming to understand that one little word, pleasing as it may
sound to some ears, is not capable of turning a vision into reality.

Speaking of cadres and the politics of cadres leads nowhere, when the
right thing would be to facilitate putting people at the forefront of
organizations, agencies and institutions and, in their various guises,
the most able people, without questions of an ideological and political
nation, and without the constraints that come with being a cadre:
unconditional above all, proven loyalty, total submission and complete
obedience to their leaders.

Moreover, the little word in popular parlance has so many different
meanings, which have been devalued: to be cuadrado — square — is to be
dogmatic, to cuadrar — square — the matter is to agree, the cuadro — box
— is closed means there it no outlet, and if man is cuadrado — square —
he does not compromise. There are many more, but those shown are sufficient.

These days, when there is constant talk of the loss of values, which is
a reality, to complicate matters further, it is argued that the cadres,
among other things, must be ethical, and handle themselves with agility,
creative and sensitive. Many assumed that these were mandatory
conditions. It seems we were wrong. In short, words more, words less, do
not create wealth, do not improve services, do not raise wages and
pensions, do not eliminate corruption, do not lower product prices, do
not increase production, let alone, solve the multiple social problems
we suffer from. They only form a part of the rhetoric from time to time,
occupy official attention, more to entertain than to solve.

February 5 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=14994

Ethics in the Cuban Schools: Little of Confucius and Much of Puss in Boots / Dora Leonor Mesa

2012-02-11T13:50:00.001-08:00

Ethics in the Cuban Schools: Little of Confucius and Much of Puss in
Boots / Dora Leonor Mesa
Dora Leonor Mesa, Translator: Unstated

Men rarely recognize the shortcomings of those they love, nor are they
accustomed to appreciating the virtues of those they hate.
Confucius

For some years there is painful and frequent news in various
journalistic media, print and digital, which questions the ethics of
teaching professionals in Cuban schools. Some teachers or teachers eat
their students' snacks, others ask for gifts for birthdays, some openly
show preference for particular students, teachers charge for exams …

There is ample justification to talk about ethics in school
organizations in Cuba, a huge challenge for both the state and
citizenry. They go together in ethical and social responsibility,
although the ethics may be considered as "a method, viable assumptions
and conceptual tools to decide what course of action is most
appropriate"(Brown, 1992). A communication process that is efficient and
ethical accepts the equality and authority of managers and members to
identify problems, to think and express ideas with respect and without
risks.

The high academic standards of Asian countries like China and Japan are
globally recognized. Their philosophy is still based on the precepts of
Confucius, philosopher, social theorist and founder of an ethical system
– rather than religious – which has survived to this day.

Kung-tse (Confucius, to the West) lived in feudal China over 2,500 years
ago, between 551 and 479 BC. His origins were humble, but from his youth
showed a fondness for old books and, eventually, he held a high position
as an officer of the state of Lu, in the province of Shang-tung. His
ideas are about justice and harmonious coexistence.

Far from the mystical and religious beliefs, Confucianism is proposed as
a practical philosophy as a system of thought oriented toward life and
for the improvement of oneself. The aim, ultimately, is not "salvation,"
but wisdom and self-knowledge. The basic principles of Confucius are
decency, honesty, loyalty and filial piety.

But Perez Cavarría (Technological Institute of Monterrey, 2003)
recognizes that the implementation of any program of ethics implies a
strong commitment from the managers of any organization; it requires
strategic planning, training and communication plan plus monitoring
results. His proposal involves developing ethics along with new ways of
communication and interaction with members of the organization — in the
present case, the school.

Respect, trust, honesty, to name a few values, necessarily have to
appear in the form of how members of an organization communicate with
each other. In other words, decency is a fundamental principle of the
identity of the organization. The organizational culture, ethics and
communication have similarities to each other but each occupies a
different place.

Another valuable recommendation of Perez Gutierrez refers to the
implementation of mechanisms to protect everyone (the family of the
student or teacher) who reports unethical behavior or exposes their
doubts: Some emails and phone numbers to ensure anonymity, suggestion
boxes, etc.

For organizations communication and the strengthening of ethical values
is essential. The evaluation of professors and teachers should not only
be based on academic results, but also include ethical behavior.

The Ministry of Education of Cuba, with all the difficulties involved in
its meager budget and outdated school technology, also faces serious
institutional conflict. In classrooms a secret battle is being waged
between our Confucius as always, which has given prestige to Cuban
education, and the Puss in Boots, pretending to be teaching
professionals, when in fact, like the famous character in the story,
they lie, simulate, and if we let them, stop trying to be cats to become
minor royalty.

October 13 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=14998

Statistics / Fernando Dámaso

2012-02-11T13:49:00.001-08:00

Statistics / Fernando Dámaso
Fernando Dámaso, Translator: Unstated

A journalist, writing about traffic accidents, said that Cuba has one of
the lowest rates — 6.5 deaths per hundred thousand inhabitants — and
adds that, since 1963 there is a downward trend. I do not question his
statistics but, to better understand them, it is necessary to consider
some factors that are obvious.

In the decade of the fifties Cuba had one (1) automobile for every forty
(40) people. Then, our population was six million five hundred thousand
(6,500,000) inhabitants. You can imagine the traffic density. The
triumph of the insurrection stopped the massive import of cars (they
were brought only for leaders and senior government officials), so it is
natural that from the year 1963 (as the existing fleet aged or broke
down) accidents would diminish.

In the early sixties care almost ceased to move (they became prehistoric
animals), and you could cross any street in slow motion, without danger
of being run over. Some Skodas were imported from Czechoslovakia, mainly
for foreign experts and specialists based in the country, along with VWs
and Alfa Romeos for State Security, and some of the latter, for senior
leaders.

In the decade of the seventies, after the failure of the Ten Million Ton
Harvestt, when the now extinct Soviet Union and the socialist camp
decided to increase the diameter of the "subsidies pipe" to save their
Latin American showcase, a part of the credits not paid, was invested in
importing cars — Ladas, Moscovitches and the so-called Polaquitos — the
first for the Nomenklatura and professionals in charge (who were granted
the right to buy), the latter primarily for personnel in health and
education (same conditions), and the third to less important posts.
There were also some Volgas and Fiats for State use, especially for
college graduates, when it was a national goal to have a college educations.

With the demise of socialism, came the era of Chinese bicycles, which
flooded our cities and towns, ridden by inexperienced people, with total
disregard for traffic regulations, both day and night (without means of
lighting, which were never imported). At that time accidents were the
order of the day. With the creation of joint ventures and a certain
economic revival in the late nineties and early 2000, the bikes
disappeared (which had come to stay), and cars of capitalist origin
began appearing (Tiko, Toyota, Hyundai, etc.) and some Mercedes Benz for
top leaders, and others officially called ostentatious, acquired for by
artists (mostly musicians) and high performance athletes.

In recent years, they have mainly imported China-made vehicles, cars and
buses and trucks, and this has increased traffic some, despite the poor
condition of many roads, which has concentrated traffic on the few
passable roads. Today, more than eleven million inhabitants, although
figures are not published, and we must be very far from the car for
every forty people. Considering all these factors, not addressed by the
journalist, it makes sense that regardless of all regulatory and
organizational measures taken by relevant authorities, accidents have
decreased. It's a simple equation: fewer vehicles traveling equals fewer
accidents. When comparing statistics with other countries, all this must
be considered.

November 10 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=14975

The Face Hidden Behind the Triumphs / Fernando Dámaso

2012-02-11T13:37:00.001-08:00

The Face Hidden Behind the Triumphs / Fernando Dámaso
Fernando Dámaso, Translator: Unstated

The Pan American Games of Guadalajara 2011 ended and our country came
second, preceded by the United States, and followed by Brazil, Mexico,
Canada and others. Our athletes deserve the congratulations of all
citizens. Regardless of what has been achieved, with the goal of being
honest and not erroneously conceited, it is healthy to point out some
features present in these Games.

The fact of the coming Olympics London 2012, influenced many countries
not to send their best athletes and equipment, reserving them for the
Olympics. So it was with the United States, Brazil, Canada, Jamaica and
others, who chose mainly young figures, still in development, with an
eye to the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro 2016. In the case of Cuba this was
not so: they presented their best World Cup and Olympic athletes and
teams, accompanied by some young figures in development. This brought
results that were unbeatable for most athletes and teams of inferior
quality. In many cases it was like a lion fighting a tied up monkey.
Yet, in baseball and volleyball, to name only two sports, we suffered
costly defeats.

The reason for this decision is that, for the Cuban government, athletic
competitions, whatever their level, are considered political battles,
where you must win at any cost, and if the opponents are the United
States, so much the better, as a peasant from Pijirigua would say. This
leads to an over performance of athletes and teams, and places them in
situations of possible injuries and exhaustion. In the scheme of sports,
boxers are rightly considered the flagship of Cuban sports (those who
earn more medals), as they are eternal professionals with extensive
experience, who never "turn professional" like other players, and if
they do decide to do it they leave Cuba and so, to the Cuban government,
stop being Cuban and become traitors to the homeland, losing all their
rights. This absurdity also extends to other athletes. Although in all
sports the slogan appears, "Sport is the right of the people," this is
just a fallacy, as with other rights. Sport in Cuba is not massive but
selective.

I was struck by the pamphlet narrating the events by sports journalists
(some non-sports), saturated with an outdated chauvinism. The use of
adjectives was too much, every time you had a national team athlete or
the valuation of the medals earned (this gold medal is worth double,
this silver is as good as gold, this silver weighs as much as the gold,
this bronze shines like gold), disqualifying the arbitrators and judges
when their decisions were not favorable, and the little attention
devoted to the achievements of the adversaries, dissonant with the
spirit of fraternity and brotherhood that should prevail in these events.

Just around the corner are the 2012 London Olympics. They will bring
together the best athletes and teams in the world. There Cuba will also
be present. Not surprisingly, the results will not approach those
obtained in these Pan American games. There they will fight lion to lion.

November 1 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=14976

A Repressed Sport / Fernando Dámaso

2012-02-11T11:38:00.001-08:00

A Repressed Sport / Fernando Dámaso
Fernando Dámaso, Translator: Unstated

The province of Pinar del Rio, broken off from its original province
(Artemis), more for political interests and to control the citizens, who
by economic necessity, in what is still left to them, possesses natural
wealth that intelligently used, could provide development and wealth to
its people and the nation. I am not referring to the famous tobacco
plantations or mining, but the eco-tourism in its different variants
(hiking, observation and photography of wildlife, climbing natural stone
walls, etc.).

For years in the municipality of Viñales, where the valley that bears
its name is located, climbing has been spontaneously practiced, both by
foreigners and nationals, attracted by it. The National Institute of
Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (INDER) has never been
interested in it (perhaps because it provides no Olympic medals), nor
have the tourist or environment bodies.

For some time now, municipal authorities, with the consent of the
province, have been given the noble task to pursue climbers and expel
them from the territory, threatening them with fines, detention and
other injustices. The reason given for such a course, is that they are
predators in the valley, undermine the environment and could be
conducting espionage in the caves and mountains.

Climbing is practiced worldwide, where there are natural conditions for
it, and climbing walls (artificial walls) are built for this purpose,
and there is evidence that its followers are great ecological activists
and environmentalists, and preserving the environment in its natural
state, without aggressive action against it, which would defeat this
activity, which requires climbing stone walls in their natural state
without artificial alterations.

The suggestion of espionage demonstrates the technological illiteracy of
the authorities and their partners, who know that every inch of the
planet's surface is permanently under observation for the existing
satellite systems without the need for shadowy agents, or film or video
cameras.

It would be desirable that the responsible entities (sports, tourism,
agriculture and environment) regulate these activities, giving them
legal status, thus avoiding the hardships of these brave out-dated witch
hunters, inventors of nonexistent laws and regulations.

A National Park is not a museum with inanimate objects on permanent
display, with a sign that says "Don't touch," but a living organism,
where fauna, flora and humans interact. At least that is what happens in
all National Parks in the world.

To prohibit things, even though it has always been, and is, the most
used measure in this country for over fifty years, has never solved
anything, and has provided only violations, illegal, misery and discomfort.

The real predators in the valley are those who have destroyed the
original caves with dynamite explosions and excavations that have
liquidated its flora and fauna, forcing farmers to go deep into the
forests and clearings to harvest hidden tubers in order survive,
polluting and drying up rivers and streams, attacking the walls with
paintings of artificial haystacks, trying to attribute to our indigenous
people skills they never had, because of their limited development, and
also those who, having to ensure the integrity of the forests, cut down
their trees and sell the wood in the black market.

Once before the authorities banned rock music, pursuing its fans and
putting them in forced work camps. Years later, the same authorities,
erected a statue to its highest figure — John Lennon — in a central park
of El Vedado, and now even organize festivals. Do not make the same
mistake with climbing. These past experiences should serve for
something, even if they were negative.

January 30 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=14986

Cuban gay men are most affected by AIDS

2012-02-11T11:18:00.000-08:00

Cuban gay men are most affected by AIDS
Health and Medicine
02 / 11 / 2012

Unprotected sexual intercourse is the predominant mode of transmission
of HIV / AIDS in Cuba despite the work being done in prevention
campaigns. Specifically, the group of gay men are the greatest incidence
and prevalence of the disease occur.

Nearly nine of every 10 men contracted the disease that way. His
greatest vulnerability the conditions the interaction of biological,
psychological and social, said Dr. Maria Isela Lantero, head of the
department of STI / HIV / AIDS, the Ministry of Public Health.

Over 85 percent of those diagnosed are between 15 and 49, the remaining
are distributed to over 50, with a tendency to increase in men and women
over 60 years, said the newspaper Granma specialist.

Assessed as a priority to increase the scope and effectiveness of
prevention efforts, promote condoms, provide access to this health
product, to promote peer education and continue to increase volunteer
participation in prevention.

While recognizing that in theory it could be argued that advances in the
treatment of AIDS have become a chronic disease, "are still incurable
with treatment entities have a chronic course."

However, he stressed that the diagnosis of HIV has a meaning very
different from diabetes or hypertension, both the person and their
children, other relatives, neighbors, friends, coworkers or study.
Facing that reality can not be reduced only to therapeutic advances.

He argued that only through laboratory studies can confirm the
diagnosis, and the greatest obstacle in the world to increase access to
comprehensive care affected health and prevent transmission in the
population, is that many people who have HIV do not know.

In Cuba, people can easily access health services and our doctors know
the importance of providing basic information on sexually transmitted
infections before proposing and indicate an HIV test to all sexually
active do not use condoms consistently.

Be emphasized that the diagnostic test and know their outcome should be
borne by the population and practice self-care of their health in a time
when AIDS is among us.

Our country has nearly 200 laboratories that perform this test. In the
past year were 2.3 million, the most in the last five years, said the
expert.

"AIDS remains a disease with no cure. Living with HIV not easy for those
affected, their families and friends. Prevent it remains the best
option," summed up the specialist.

http://www.cubaheadlines.com/2012/02/11/34552/cuban_gay_men_are_most_affected_by_aids.html

Support Cuba’s dissidents, commissioners

2012-02-11T11:16:00.001-08:00

Posted on Friday, 02.10.12
The readers' forum

Support Cuba's dissidents, commissioners

Among Cubans and Cuban Americans, a number of foreign companies have
earned a place in the "hall of infamy" for their outright complicity
with the Castro dictatorship. These include Spain's Sol-Melia hotel
chain and Canada's Sherritt mining company for profiting from long years
of the Castros' apartheid brand of tourism and exploitation of Cuba's
natural resources.

However, Brazil's Odebrecht construction conglomerate is now placing
itself in a reprehensible class of its own. Foreign companies that seek
to do business in Cuba generally recognize they must choose either to
profit from the monopoly of the Castro dictatorship or from Cuban
Americans in Florida's free market.

In the 1990s, Sol-Melia and Sherritt shamefully chose the Castro
dictatorship, giving up opportunities in Florida. Odebrecht feels it is
duly entitled to both.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff traveled to Cuba last week to promote
the company's business arrangements with the Castros' dictatorship.
These include enlarging the Port of Mariel, which Raúl Castro considers
the single most important project to ensure the economic survival of his
regime, and a new 10-year agreement to revitalize the island's moribund
sugar industry. During her trip, Rousseff made a point of shunning Cuban
dissidents and even refused opportunities to criticize the Castros'
human-rights record.

Meanwhile, a couple hundred miles to the north, for more than a decade
Odebrecht has been seducing Miami-Dade County commissioners, taking in
more than $4.8 billion in taxpayer dollars — much of it from
Cuban-American victims of its business partners in Havana.

The company has been awarded contracts on projects ranging from the
seemingly interminable reconstruction of Miami International Airport, to
building the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Art and a no-bid
contract to build Florida International University's stadium — complete
with an Odebrecht skybox.

Its seduction has been so effective that Miami-Dade County commissioners
jumped through legal hoops last year to give Odebrecht a $57 million
contract to strengthen the cargo wharves of the Port of Miami.
Commissioners sought to justify the contract by asserting Odebrecht was
the lowest bidder. But it wasn't.

The lowest bidder was actually a U.S. company — American Bridge Company.
It didn't get the contract because of a "local preference" that favored
Odebrecht despite the extra expense. How could that be?

Only in Miami-Dade County can a Brazilian company be given preferential
treatment (at extra cost to taxpayers) over a U.S. company. It was an
award that fuels suspicion and feeds nasty stereotypes. This charade has
gone on long enough.

Rousseff, in support of Odebrecht, didn't hesitate to shun Cuban
dissidents seeking political and economic reform. The time has come for
Miami-Dade County commissioners — a majority are Cuban-American — to
shun Odebrecht in support of those dissidents. As they do so they may
find they're also helping U.S. companies.

Mauricio Claver-Carone, director, U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, Washington, D.C.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/10/2635363/support-cubas-dissidents-commissioners.html#storylink=misearch

A Frenzied Media Campaign / Fernando Dámaso

2012-02-10T22:54:00.001-08:00

A Frenzied Media Campaign / Fernando Dámaso
Fernando Dámaso, Translator: Unstated

Until now I had decided not to write about the five Cuban spies, who are
serving sentences in the United States, mainly out of consideration and
respect for the feelings of their families. However, in the face of the
frenzied media campaign unleashed by the Cuban authorities, with the
obvious complicity of them, I consider it necessary to clarify some
issues, overly manipulated to convince nationals and foreigners of their
supposed innocence, and that the whole thing is simply the aggression of
the Empire against some poor little Cubans.

These five citizens were caught red-handed – after an intense and
thorough investigation to gather evidence — conducting espionage as
Cuban intelligence agents planted in the U.S. as part of the Wasp
Network with seven others, who agreed to testify. Of those, although
Cubans like the others, also with families, not a word has been said,
they have ceased to exist, they have entered the limbo of non-persons.

They all confessed their guilt and were tried by a jury, the composition
of which both the prosecution and defense agreed upon, in the State
where they committed their crimes, and sentenced to various penalties,
depending on their degree of responsibility and cooperation with the
justice, to clarify the facts.

Although they had been detained for nearly three years in the process of
accumulating evidence, we Cubans learned of them only when they were
tried, since the usual secrecy took care to hide it. Despite the
infantile argument that they were spying to protect Cuba from the United
States and from terrorists (like finding an unauthorized alien in our
home who, when discovered, argues he had come to protect us), which no
one with a modicum of intelligence can accept, this has become the
banner of struggle for so-called "Cause of the Five" and they are even
put forward as international personalities, whether from political
opportunism, mental inertia, or true lack of basic reasoning, I don't know.

During these years, besides having at their disposal a team of U.S. and
Cuban lawyers, paid for with money from the Cuban people, their families
have practiced and are practicing international tourism, also at the
Cuban peoples' expense. They have become national celebrities, with a
presence in any public ceremony that takes place.

They talk about terrible and inhumane prison conditions and violation of
rights, when in fact they serve their sentences in appropriate detention
facilities, with medical attention, are well fed and clothed, neat, with
phones and internet access and can receive visitors, study, write
patriotic letters, send messages of solidarity and gratitude, play chess
games with Cuban children and write poems, paint and put on art
exhibitions, conditions very different from those of the prisoners in Cuba.

If that was not enough, they also have at their disposal the President
of the National Assembly, whose main job description seems to be, in the
opinion on the street, to serve them and their family members, and to
call and open and close, with blows of hammer, the two annual sessions
of that body. It has come to the absurd point where in the press the
case of the five is one of the unrenounceable causes of the Cuban
nation. We have always had problems with the just measure of things:
either we miss or we fall short. We regularly miss.

It is human and understandable to appeal and fight for the freedom of
loved ones, even if they committed a crime. I can understand that there
are even people who, by conviction or bigotry, spend years of their
lives, or more, in prison unfairly. What is unacceptable is to
manipulate the truth to raise awareness among citizens and to seek,
through this, what could not be achieved through the courts for justice.
A government paranoia does not have to become a national paranoia. These
five people have had more chances to appeal than did the three* young
Cubans were shot in less than seventy-two hours after being arrested,
prosecuted, tried, sentenced, filed appeals, upheld the convictions,
etc., in a demonstration of efficiency of justice in Cuba.

*Translator's note: Fernando is speaking of the young men who hijacked
the 13 de Marzo tugboat hoping to go to Florida, but never made it out
of Cuban waters.

October 7 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=14972