Punishment / Yoani Sánchez

Punishment / Yoani Sánchez
Translator: Unstated, Yoani Sánchez
ruinas-habana

After the storm, may also come the storm, the hurricane, the tornado. A
few days ago we thought the punishment would be concentrated between
Monday and Wednesday of last week, that it would last only as long as
Benedict XVI was on Cuban soil. We lived those intense days between
prayers and screams, with full plazas and packed dungeons. Our mobile
phones, instead of bringing us communications, were turned into little
boxes of silence, useless gadgets. Only when the Pope's plane took off,
did they begin the releases from the cells and reconnect some of the
mobile phones that had been "out of service." It seemed that by Saturday
or Sunday the exhaustion of the forces of repression would give us a break.

However, every authoritarian father knows that after the punishment, the
child chooses total submission or greater disobedience. In some parts of
Eastern Cuba there have been street protests against the arrests of
activists and this has triggered a subsequent wave of the police
deciding to "teach them a lesson." Yesterday a group of officials and
agents from State Security raided the home of the opponent Jose Daniel
Ferrer and took him, his wife and other colleagues. The also took
possession of any object they considered destabilizing: books, magazine,
photos, computers. None of the witnesses recall having been shown a
search-and-seizure warrant, much less any document with the reasons for
the arrests.

The despotic patriarch knows when he should clench his fist, when
kneeling on rice, whips across the back, and shutting in the dark are no
longer working. He is confident that the increasing severity of the
corrective will make the nonconforming offspring see reason, but in
reality it just makes his rebellion grow. Even those who have never
dared to oppose the government, feel that these punishments — ever more
frequent — generate sympathy for the attacked, not the attacker.
Witnessing the repression thus accelerates the process of complicity
among citizens against totalitarianism. Every beating they give to one,
can awaken another who is pretending to sleep peacefully at his side.
Together, they have the chance to find a window to escape the
confinement or, instead, to come closer to the moment when they will
throw Dad out of the house.

3 April 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=17267

Scorn for Prices / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado

Scorn for Prices / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado
Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado, Translator: Unstated

Like the increase in spending — which did not correspond to income —
what bothers the population is the scorn of their leaders. On what basis
are prices established? Why don't they inform people about the
increases? The lack of transparency and disregard for the real problems
of society, coupled with the high cost of living and the unproductive
and gigantic state apparatus appear to impose an up-to-no-good behavior
of the authorities in this matter.

Years ago my valve exploded, but thanks to the resources to escape to
anywhere in the world, the ruling class continues arrogantly putting
pressure on the pot. They have always fought publicly for the
administrations in the United States to respect the annual quota of
emigrants, twenty thousand, which are assigned to Cuba, instead of
fostering a climate of national coexistence in which people develop
their potential in accordance the law and contribute to the welfare and
happiness of the Cubans.

They have not shown any shame over the sustained emigration of our
countrymen, who have multiplied the countries to which they flee, as
they apply the cold math of material dividends, among others, that they
report in a Cuban community abroad with financial solvency and financial
support .

"The damned money" swelled the coffers of the government, while it
showed reluctance to enter the dwindling pockets of the workers and
solve their simple shortcomings. The officials did not lack titles of
nobility or bank accounts, in Cuba, it's enough to carry on with the
performance of their duties, to get the resources of millionaires.

The 'little story' of socialist collectivism has been reduced to strings
of exhausted slogans and many of the bureaucrats in applauding in
public, while in their comfortable air-conditioned homes they count on
the riches their perks procure for them under the banner of their
unconditional support.

It's shameful and intolerable that they continue to progressively
impoverish the people with the added silence to sticking us with the
bills. I don't know how much exploitation and ignominy Cubans will be
able to withstand, having paid in advance the highest price of all: freedom.

April 3 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=17246

They Kidnapped Me Again / El Sexto

They Kidnapped Me Again / El Sexto – Danilo Maldonado Machado
El Sexto - Danilo Maldonado Machado, Translator: Unstated

In these days of waiting for the Pope, everything around me is tense.

I start to leave my phone at home.

They followed me from before the presentation of Voices Magazine Number 14.

But it is only persecution, at least they want you to think.

I thought it wouldn't be for some graffiti artist.

Occasionally I can slip out among my friends and shake off the guard.

Although it is a super uncomfortable situation and full of stress, it's
already so common for me to be followed by them they I'm not afraid and
can shout at them, things like dogs, snitches, pawns, and so on.

I got used to it and, as my ex says, what doesn't kill you makes you
stronger.

It was Sunday, March 26, my sister Indira's birthday, and seeing State
Security was barely 20 yards from my door, I didn't want to leave the
house. I took it as a threat not to leave. But they slept outside all
night and that worried me a lot and I felt some fear.

The next day, March 27 at 1:00 pm I saw them at the corner of my house
with cardboard in the windows of the car, so that the sun doesn't bother
them, I think. It was the same red car as the day before. I had to go
out to make a phone call, I did, in shorts, a shirt and sandals, heading
away from them. I'd barely walked 15 yards when I could sense them
starting up the car around the corner.

They came up behind me, grabbed me by force and shoved me inside the car
between two guys dressed in civilian clothes. Car rules: Hands between
the feet and eyes forward! They snatched the phone out of my hands.

DO NOT TURN IT OFF! they said.

The car with three officers took me to Vedado, 26th and 17th, where they
stopped, made calls on their cell phones, and in 5 minutes a Suzuki
motorcycle and the usual "persecution car" showed up (a green Lada make
with private license plates): with that Camilo. On the way he told me,
"Today you're playing Capablanca [the grandmaster] at chess." Driving
down Boyeros Avenue you could see all the "makeup" they'd applied, for
obvious reasons.

I thought why are they doing this to me if they don't want to damage the
Pope, and I'm not some trash you can sweep under the carpet. When we got
to the station at Santiago de las Vegas Camilo got out and when he
returned they took me in through the back. As they were leaving me there
a policeman told Camilo he was needed for another arrest. Camilo
disappeared.

When they transferred me to the cells I saw a man dressed in black, a
gentleman I would come to know later, it was Julio, the husband of Sara
Marta, Lady in White, opponents from Rio Verde. As we were not in the
same cell we were talking from a distance. He told me that he had seen
me on the Estado de Sats program, and that he'd been there since Friday
with eating or drinking water (a hunger strike). I was just starting my
time and I felt bad already, but being locked up there for no reason
gave me strength. Julio told me this his wife had also been kidnapped
and he thought they had taken her to Cotorro incommunicado.

The next day opponents became to arrive from the Santiago de las Vegas
police station, all on hunger strike: 14 in total, including 3 women
whom I only sensed and heard their voices. Those of us there had
opinions in common. The chorus of "Freedom!" became so strong we were
encouraged to also shout "Down with the Dictatorship," "Down with Raul,"
"Long Live Human Rights"…

The police asked up please, if we wanted we could shout, but not to go
near the bars. For us they were invisible. I met Bartolo, El Deje, all
very affable and I felt find, because we talked as if we'd known each
other all our lives.

The registered me as a criminal: many photos of my body and finger
prints and something odd: the shoe size.

The next day I felt dizzy. I asked Julio how he felt and he said fine. I
was taken to the doctor who tested my sugar, which was low as was my
blood pressure. The doctors were worried, telling me, "You don't have
the physical strength to do this. Eat!" Nor am I a murderer, but I am
here because you want me to be, I answered. On returning from the exam I
gave to alcohol swab to Julio, he shook my hand but I felt he was sick.

In the evening I left the dungeon. There were about 20 patrol cars
outside the station. Coincidentally Julio andI were put in the same car
and they transported us. The order was to leave us a few blocks from our
respective houses. He got out at Boyeros, near Mazorra, and I at Arroyo
Arenas.

They gave me my phone and there were no texts or missed calls. When it
rang it was the wife of Ismael de Diego, I told her I was already out.
She told me that when she called my phone, an officer answered.

This is my humble testimony. I don't people who had it a lot worse. The
government should avoid and fear these hunger strikes in chains… Lest
they kill more innocents and fall into the muck once and for all. I hope
the world learns of all the kidnappings and sees behind the false image
this tyranny wants to give to the Pope and the foreign press.

Down with the Castros! Down with Communism!

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=17252

Cuba could be key to Caribbean basin

April 4, 2012, 12:01 a.m. EDT

Cuba could be key to Caribbean basin
By Patrick Burnson

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — With the Panama Canal expansion on
schedule for completion in 2014, supply chain specialists are
anticipating a logistical hub to surface in the Caribbean Basin.

For those investors and traders eyeing opportunities in Cuba, the timing
couldn't be better. As noted in the Wall Street Journal recently, money
managers are "optimistic" when it comes to finally eliminating this
nation's 50-year-old trade embargo. And initial barriers to entry should
not include logistics, say industry experts.

Furthermore, Cuba may not need outside expertise to cope with immediate
supply chain problems. According to some leading scholars and
practitioners, Cuba is a sterling example of how to manage "scarcity."
They note that operating under resource scarcity already exists there,
with businesses facing daily lack of food, medicine, electricity, and
raw materials. View MarketWatch slide show, "The revealing faces of
today's Cuba."

Despite this, the resourcefulness of Cuba's people has triumphed to some
extent. Reverse logistics experts observe that Cuba has created supply
chains that re-use and recycle almost everything, despite the lack of
government-mandated recycling programs. Indeed, such adaptation may
augur the type of closed loop supply chains needed by other emerging
nations in the future.

The long-term challenges around opening trade with Cuba would revolve
around the issues of customs and export compliance, in particular the
infrastructure to support the safe and fully documented movement of
those goods.

With a drive to increase levels of electronic clearance and export
documentation, the lack of investment in computerized systems — and the
integration of those systems into the U.S. import/export world — would
represent a complication, albeit a surmountable one, say compliance experts.

This could be ameliorated, however, by leveraging systems already in
place through Cuba's trade with the EU and Latin America, since our
trade embargo with Cuba is increasingly unique.

To the extent that it has the hard currency to support trade at all,
Cuba gets most of its imports from the EU and its neighbors to the
south. But this can change in a hurry. Automotive parts, technology and
manufacturing materials, as well as luxury items particular to the U.S.
market are likely to be in high demand.

That said, it is likely that over the long term, U.S.-based producers
would seek to build their own infrastructure within Cuba's boundaries in
order to better embed their business into the U.S. market.

According to the World Bank's Logistics Performance Index, Cuba already
performs in the median range. Cuba's economy is mostly state-controlled,
meaning most of the means of production are owned and run by the government.

The London-based Economist Intelligence, meanwhile, ranks the Cuban
business environment as one of the world's worst. In recent years, it
was placed as number 80 of 82 nations surveyed, with only Iran and
Angola rated lower. However, some forms of foreign investments and
private enterprise are allowed. The main sectors of the Cuban economy
are industrial production and sugar cultivation. In recent years,
tourism, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry are also gaining
importance.

Finally, U.S. investors might wish to look to another hemispheric
partner as a model for doing business with this tiny island nation:
Canada. Our northern neighbors figured out Cuba's supply chain long ago.

Canada's investment, trade and cultural links with Cuba are substantial.
In fact, Canada is the second-largest foreign investor in Cuba (after
Venezuela) and the third-ranking country in terms of joint ventures.
Canada is also Cuba's fourth-largest merchandise trade partner, behind
Venezuela, China, and Spain.

Analysts in Toronto report that a discernible pattern in Canada-Cuba
commercial relations to date is that trade has tended to follow
investment. In other words, a significant share of Canadian exports to
Cuba targets sectors with notable Canadian investments. This is
typically the result of an existing synergy between traders and
investors that provides clear advantages in the home country and makes
commercial sense, not necessarily because of a particular preference for
Canadian suppliers.

"Have a Havana?" The supply chain seems ready to oblige. But while rum
supplies are likely to meet U.S. demand, tobacco growers and cigar
manufacturers are likely to be overwhelmed with orders. As a
consequence, industry experts are forecasting a surge in that other
great Cuban export: counterfeit Figurados.

Patrick Burnson is executive editor of Supply Chain Management Review
and Logistics Management .

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/cuba-could-be-key-to-caribbean-basin-2012-04-04

Cuba cuts opponents' comms during pope's visit

Cuba cuts opponents' comms during pope's visit
Tuesday 3 April 2012 | 12:06 CET

Cuban dissidents and human rights activists lost fixed voice, internet
and mobile service during the papal visit of the last week of March,
reports US newspaper El Nuevo Herald. Some calls were interrupted
abruptly and incoming callers heard a message saying the number was
misdialled. Martha Beatriz Roque of the Cuban network of community
communicators (RCCC) said her service was cut early on Monday and
coincided with 24-hour police surveillance during the pope's visit to
Havana. In addition to leaving opponents without communications for up
to four days, the government also arrested 300 people ahead of the event.

http://www.telecompaper.com/news/cuba-cuts-opponents-comms-during-popes-visit

Cuba's witty blogger Yoani Sanchez won't be silenced

Cuba's witty blogger Yoani Sanchez won't be silenced
From: The Times
April 03, 2012 12:00AM

Blogger Yoani Sanchez arrives as maid of honour at Cuba's first
transsexual wedding. Picture: AP Source: news.com.au

YOANI Sanchez offers a one-woman free press in a country that enjoys
only the most slavish kind of state media.

The outspoken Cuban blogger, who wittily recounts the struggles of daily
life in the communist country, has become the voice of a new generation
of dissent in the island.

Millions around the world follow her Generacion Y blog; Time magazine
named her one of the World's 100 Most Influential People; and US
President Barack Obama has posted on her page.

Yet Ms Sanchez, a 36-year-old mother of a teenage son, does not even
have internet access in her flat at the top of a Soviet-style block
behind the Ministry of Agriculture in Havana.

She goes to a hotel and pays $7.70 - almost two weeks' pay for the
average Cuban - for an hour's internet access. Or she visits an embassy
that provides internet access.
Top 50 Tech Rec Coverage

She has an iPhone, given by a foreign reader, but it does not have data
access. She can send text messages, though. She has 238,000 followers on
Twitter and each of her blog posts gets a thousand comments or more.

"Using the internet is not a choice. It was the only option in a country
where you cannot even get a fragment of a minute on state TV," she said.

"The access of my countrymen to my blog is very limited, but they read
it," she said. "I know all the officials read me. That is very
important. It influences them."

Ms Sanchez, the daughter of a railway worker, studied philology at
Havana University but her academic career ended when she wrote her
thesis on Dictatorships in Latin American literature.

She wrote her first post on April 9, 2007, while making an unofficial
living teaching Spanish to German tourists.

It reads like an interior monologue on the perversities of life in the
communist system. She knows of what she speaks. She has been detained
and roughed up, repeatedly banned from travelling abroad and regularly
has her phones jammed.

Although she planned to make a 13-hour drive to Santiago de Cuba to hear
the Pope speak during his visit last week, she had to cancel the trip
when her driver was arrested. It was typical of what she calls the
"Raulista" style.

"When Raul Castro came in, there was a change in the modus operandi.
You're walking along the street, a private car stops, four men get out
and take you to a police station. There is no legal process. Then after
48 to 72 hours they bring you back to your home," she said.

Ms Sanchez says that the government is slowly losing its grip but that
it would be wrong to expect a "Cuban Spring".

"I don't think it's the moment," she said. "In North Africa, there is a
young population. In Cuba, we have an old population.

"But I have some hope. The incorporation of technology into everyday
life is going very fast.

"I have the impression that if the Cuban government does not open up the
web, Cubans are going to find a way to connect to the internet."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/cubas-witty-blogger-yoani-sanchez-wont-be-silenced/story-fnb64oi6-1226316862870

Cuba's Private Sector Booms

April 03, 2012 14:28 PM

Cuba's Private Sector Booms

HAVANA, April 3 (Bernama) -- Cuba is expected to see more self-employed
workers this year, as the country is embracing a private sector boom,
China's Xinhua news agency reported.

Around 240,000 workers are likely to join the private sector in 2012,
whereas 362,000 people have already registered in December 2011,
according to the statistics published on Monday by official media.

Meanwhile, the number of workers at state-run companies is expected to
drop by 170,000, Cuban Deputy Labor and Social Security Minister, Jose
Barreiro said.

Cuban leader Raul Castro launched the economic renovation programme
three years ago to encourage the expansion of the private sector to make
the island's economy more efficient and productive.

In 2011, some 1.5 million employees were laid off from the public sector
as part of the modernisation campaign. Under the government's 2012 plan,
170,000 Cubans will turn to the private sector.

"Besides, 70,000 first job finders would also work in the sector,"
Barreiro said, adding Cuba was advancing step by step in reorganising
its labour force.

In an effort to stimulate local private investment, the Cuban Central
Bank announced last November it would start granting credits and loans
to develop private-sector economy.

In an unprecedented move, the government also made it possible for
private workers and farmers to provide services and products to
state-owned companies, without placing financial limits on contracts.

These economic reforms, however, should not be seen as a signal of
political reforms, local officials stressed.

"There will be no political changes in Cuba," said Marino Murillo,deputy
president of Cuba's Council of Ministers, "But we will update the
economic model as much as necessary."

Cuba's economic model resembles the Soviet because of the strong
commercial ties between the two countries in the past, Murillo noted.

"We have studied what different countries have done in terms of
modifying their economic model such as China, Vietnam, Russia and other
European countries," he said. "However it does not mean that we will
automatically copy foreign models."

Murillo said Cuba's new economic model "will ensure equality in human
development, so no one will remain unprotected."

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v6/newsworld.php?id=656710

Hunger Striker Dr. Jeovany Jimenez Survives, and Wins, in Cuba

Yoani Sanchez - Award-winning Cuban blogger

Hunger Striker Dr. Jeovany Jimenez Survives, and Wins, in Cuba
Posted: 04/ 2/2012 4:28 pm

Guanajay has a central park that looks like one of a larger town and a
gazebo with the majesty of an entire capital. Right there, for 28 days,
Jeovany Jimenez staged a hunger strike demanding his right to return to
his practice as a physician. He had been expelled from his profession in
2006 when he protested a miserable wage increase for public health
personnel. He complained about the meager 48 Cuban pesos ($2 USD), to be
added -- with great fanfare -- to the salaries of surgeons,
anesthetists, nurses and other health care professionals. Along with the
administrative action applied to him, he was also expelled from the
Communist Party in which he was active. In late 2010 and in the absence
of any institutional response to his complaints, he opened the blog
Citizen Zero on the Cuban Voices platform.

After sending the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) a score of letters
over these last five years, the proscribed Dr. Jiménez resorted to a
desperate strategy, to stop ingesting food until reinstated in his
position. Amidst the sadness of his friends and the curiosity of
passersby in Guanajay Park, he started to lose both pounds and hope.
From March 5, he refused to eat and saw only two options: abandoning
his strike without achieving his goals, or ending up in a coffin. The
most unlikely scenario was his legal reinstatement as a doctor, given
the stubbornness of our institutions when it comes time to rectify an
injustice. And yet, the miracle happened.

On Sunday, two officials from the Ministry of Public Health brought
Jeovany Resolution 185, which allows him to return to work in his
profession. It even reinstates the monthly salary that he was not paid
over those six years of unemployment. To achieve this "happy ending" Dr.
Jimenez came armed primarily with his tenacity, this constant that many
of his acquaintances cataloged as almost an obsession. This protest
didn't have a political slant, it was work, relying on the magnificent
tool of the Internet to give it visibility, along with the microphones
of journalists from foreign radio and television stations who shed light
on such a disproportionate administrative punishment. But the final
touch was his own body. That body that he was sworn to care for in
others and that he put at risk in himself to return to the right to
heal. A doctor who has struggled so as to return to the clinic,
stethoscope around his neck, in whitest coat, with his prescription pad,
deserves more, he deserves a diploma in gold.

Yoani's blog, Generation Y, can be read here in English translation.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/cuba-hunger-strike_b_1397775.html

Cuba must go beyond Good Friday gesture

Cuba must go beyond Good Friday gesture
Story Created: Apr 2, 2012 at 10:50 PM ECT

That Cuba will join the Caribbean and the Americas in officially marking
the Christian Holy Week climax of Good Friday marks an historic
evolution for the still Communist but no longer rhetorically atheist
republic. The decision to make Good Friday this week a public holiday
responds to the three-day visit to Cuba last week by Pope Benedict XVI.

Until the 1959 revolution, Christian influence, and officially
sanctioned religious observances, had been part of the Cuban life and
culture, in common with much of the Americas. The revolution, bringing
Fidel and Raul Castro to power, so exalted Communist and anti-religious
sentiment as to remove such reverences at least formally from the Cuban
experience.

Religion was never extinguished in revolutionary Cuba. By 1998, the
visit of Pope John Paul II stirred the wellsprings of a lingering
religiosity in the republic, amid a worldwide resurgence of interest in
entrenching and respecting political and other freedoms.

Pope John Paul appealed for the restoration of recognition of Christmas
with a public holiday. In response to a similar call by his successor,
the Cuban authorities conceded the Good Friday holiday. In this, the
leadership may be a step ahead of popular understanding, for news
reports profiled some ordinary Cubans as hardly knowing what Good Friday
is all about.

Even without the proximity of Easter, the central commemoration of
Christianity, last week's papal visit brought renewed attention to the
standing of Cuba in the Caribbean and in the world. In T&T, the Cuba
question came to the fore when President Raul Castro, here to attend an
international meeting last December, had been sensationally denied
accommodation by the American managers of the Hilton Trinidad.

Over that episode, T&T suffered the collateral damage of at least
national embarrassment. But at the Summit of the Americas here in 2009,
Cuba had also been pointedly excluded, also at the behest of the US.

The same pattern is set to apply at the next Summit scheduled for this
month for Cartagena, Colombia. That Cuba will not be among the 34 heads
of state and government attending the sixth Summit will remain a sore
point at the meeting which Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar will
presumably attend.

This month's summit will be another reminder of the need for T&T to take
its position among those demanding the proper accommodation of Cuba
within regional structures and activities such as the Americas Summits.
This country should also frontally denounce the continuing US trade embargo.

In doing so, T&T will find enlightened company calling for more
extensive guarantees of freedom within Cuba. Going beyond the Good
Friday gesture, Cuba should, as the Pope for one advocated, further
"open itself up to the world"… so that the world "may open itself up to
Cuba."

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/commentaries/Cuba_must_go_beyond_Good_Friday_gesture-145866565.html

Despite visits by popes, ministering to Cuba's Catholics remains difficult

Posted on Sunday, 04.01.12

Despite visits by popes, ministering to Cuba's Catholics remains difficult
By KEVIN G. HALL
McClatchy Newspapers

GUAIMARO, Cuba -- After two papal visits, support is growing for the
Roman Catholic Church among long-suffering Cubans, yet support from the
Communist Party that rules this island nation can be described as
reluctant at best.

Priests from Cuban interior, far from the large cities of Havana and
Santiago, say it remains nearly impossible to operate with a semblance
of normalcy. They cannot approximate the kind of church services or
evangelical outreach that is common in the rest of Latin America.

There is a strain on what elsewhere in the Americas is taken for granted
- whether it's being forced to celebrate Mass in someone's crumbling
home, or having government agents sit in on sermons to keep a leash on
what is said from the pulpit.

"This place is at zero as far as I'm concerned," said the Rev. Alberto
Reyes, a 44-year-old parish priest in the central Cuban town of
Guaimaro, 250 miles east of Havana.

While Pope Benedict XVI's three-day visit to Cuba last week highlighted
what is considered the improvement in church-state relations in the
years since Pope John Paul II made his trip to Cuba in 1998, a visit to
Cuba's rural parishes shows the limits of that rapprochement.

The Cuban government still won't let the Catholics build churches. Only
the restoration of churches that predate the 1959 revolution is
permitted. There are newer hotels, but in most cities across the
country, buildings generally either predate the revolution or were
constructed before the collapse of the Soviet Union - the Cuba's
economic benefactor.

Churches in the interior are largely in the same crumbling state as the
rest of Cuba's buildings. In Reyes' church, the ceiling has been
repaired but many of the cross-shaped windows cut delicately into brick
years ago for ventilation no longer have storm covers. They're now just
open spaces through which water pours when it rains. Birds and insects
enter at will.

Reyes hopes Benedict's trip will allow for new churches to be built in
Cuba and that he can spread the church's message on a wider scale. But
he isn't holding his breath.

"The church can teach what it wants to teach, but within the church," he
said, noting that without new churches, the task is made much more
difficult.

With Cuba's priest shortage, Reyes, 44, ministers to several towns in an
area with a population of about 47,000. There are one or two old
churches where he can hold services and where volunteers can do charity
work such as providing breakfasts for the aged.

But in most of the towns, Reyes celebrates Mass in someone's home.

Often, he says, it's the only place that also has a television and a DVD
player. Reyes sometimes shows up to find a large crowd of people in the
middle of a movie.

"If I try to give Mass it means they'll have to stop the movie. They'll
hate the priest," Reyes said. "If I had a small church, it would put an
end to that."

The Rev. Jose Santana can relate to that. He is a Colombian from outside
Bogota who has led a small Catholic Church for the past two years on the
outskirts of Pinar del Rio, a mid-size Cuban city a couple of hours west
of Havana. Upon arriving in Cuba, he learned that he would tend to
communities spread out in the countryside but with no church where the
faithful can congregate.

"It's distinct because ... it's not a neutral place," he said of the
homes in which Mass is offered. "The place is small, there is no silence
(for reflection). People get distracted. The neighbor plays music, or
they are talking. And there's the unpleasant smell of pigs."

The worshipper who offered up a home for Mass raises swine, and that
isn't a clean or quiet task.

Then, there are the secret agents who attend services, Santana said,
citing word from his followers.

"They view us as a threat," he said. Of particular concern, he said, is
any message against abortion, a central tenet of the church.

Cuba officially was an atheist state until a constitutional change in
1992 that declared the nation secular. Abortion is a state-provided
service, along with inexpensive birth control offered at state
companies. It's an issue that government officials do not welcome
discussion on, and Santana said he has twice been the subject of
complaints to his superiors from government minders.

The long history of official state atheism led many Cubans to reject
religion or practice it in hiding since it could cost them their
livelihood. Today the state tolerates more expression of religion,but
people are still nervously flirting with a formal relationship with the
church.

"It's like we are starting over," said Santana, who noted that last year
was the first in 53 years that the church was allowed to send the statue
of Our Lady of Charity of Cobre - Cuba's patron saint - to parishes
across all of Cuba

"People want to express their religiosity but have not been sufficiently
able," he said.

Cuba's Roman Catholic leaders say being allowed to build new churches,
rather than just restore ones that are in varying degrees of ruin, would
be a start. So would be allowing the church to offer education in
parallel with public schools, or having some exposure to religious
tenets in schools.

But Benedict's recent visit, while raising the profile of the church
through huge outdoor church services, did not conclude with any promises
of further liberalization. Relations between church and state have
improved, but for the operational side of church activities, not much.

Will that change after the death of Fidel Castro, 85, or his brother
Raul, who will turn 81 in June?

"That's the million-dollar question," said Alfredo, 47, a Jehovah's
Witness in Havana who practiced his faith clandestinely for most of his
life but now is more public about his beliefs.

Jehovah's Witnesses, known for going door-to-door to preach their faith,
have been allowed large temporary assemblies in Cuba, but like the
Catholics are prohibited from building new churches. They must conduct
services in makeshift fashion. Concerned about retribution, Alfredo
spoke on the condition that his surname not be used.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/01/v-fullstory/2726420/despite-visits-by-popes-ministering.html

Cuba: What Do We Mean By Revolution?

Cuba: What Do We Mean By Revolution?
April 2, 2012
Yusimi Rodriguez

HAVANA TIMES, April 2 — The question of what do we really mean by
revolution came to me recently while I was reading the official Granma
newspaper. It talked about how a group of self-employed workers had
reaffirmed their commitment to the "revolution."

I don't know how many times I've heard and read the word revolution
throughout my life. I don't know how many slogans with the word
"revolution" are batted around in school. But never until now have I
wondered what exactly the revolution really is.

I just hope no one tries to clarify my questioning by suggesting that I
again listen to or read the famous concept of Revolution stated by the
eternal leader of the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro. It wouldn't
surprise me if I found that concept in some encyclopedia or a dictionary
after even having heard it even in the Coubre Terminal. It was read over
the same screeching microphone that announces the arrivals and
departures of the buses and trains.

However, when our leader — displaying his usual brilliance (let's recall
the planting of Carturra coffee and the Ten Million Ton Harvest) —
announced the concept, there had already been talk of Revolution (with a
capital letter) to refer to the process that took place, has taken place
and supposedly is taking and will continue (?) to take place in Cuba.

It amazes me the ease with which people say the word "revolution,"
apparently with full knowledge of what they are talking about.

I remember the years of the Special Period crisis when the slogan became
"Save the Nation, the Revolution and Socialism." The Revolution that we
were being asked to save was the one that had triumphed in 1959, and
afterwards we saw the elimination of even the smallest private
businesses (corner groceries, cafes, food stands and sales carts) as the
last remnants of the bourgeoisie.

It was within this same Revolution, without there being a change of
government, that it later proved necessary to issue licenses to re-open
small businesses in the nineties. Twenty years since then, the
government has had to again start issuing licenses to save that same
nation, Revolution and our so-called "socialism."

It was within this same Revolution that we saw the creation of UMAP
(Military Units to Aid Production), which were types of labor camps for
homosexuals, hippies, rockers, religious believers, criminals and anyone
who would fit into the bag of showing "improper" behavior.

A Seventh-Day Adventist cousin of mine was unable to get into the
university after having expressed her religious affiliation. She lost
several jobs for the same reason, and on several occasions her family
was encouraged to leave the country.

The Revolution brought us an atheist state in which no practitioners of
any religion could be members of the Communist Party of Cuba.

Then, without speaking of another revolution, religious believers were
suddenly allowed into the party, and we began to receive the visits in
solidarity by the group Pastors for Peace. We even had a visit from Pope
John Paul II in 1998.

And who greeted him in person? …excommunicated Commander-in-Chief Fidel
Castro, the same one who declared this an atheist state. And where did
the Pope officiate his Mass? …in Revolution Square. And there they were
with him, all of the party members (Catholic or not) following the
directive to welcome the Pope with "affection and respect."

Now, not only have we decorated the city to receive a second Pope, but
Masses and religious messages are being broadcast on television.

Now we also have the annual Day Against Homophobia, though homophobia
remains in the minds of police officers and leaders. Nevertheless, the
issue of homosexuality is addressed on the radio and television and
there is at least talk about tolerance.

Those within the Revolution itself who had the idea instilled in them
that homosexuality was an aberration, immoral and inconsistent with the
concept of the new man, can only look at this with their jaws hanging open.

Yet all of this happened without the government having felt the need to
apologize for the host of outrages committed against homosexuals,
religious believers or against anyone who dared to be different or
demonstrate their differences.

It would be at least a little coherent if the government were able, in
one fell swoop, to respect all differences, and not just those of sexual
orientation or religious beliefs, but also political ones.

At some point during this same Revolution, the government decided that
it was illegal to possess dollars, and many people went to jail for that
crime. During the Special Period crisis of the '90s the government
decriminalized that currency of consumerism and imperialism as one of
the measures to save the nation, the Revolution and Socialism.

But those who were in jail at the time they undertook that patriotic
measure, remained in jail.

In 1994, I met a man who had been arrested for the possession of dollars
just weeks prior to their decriminalization. I met him after he had just
completed his two-year sentence.

I never knew if the Nation, the Revolution and Socialism were saved.
Those who were saved were people fortunate enough to have some relative
living abroad. Those former betrayers were now the bringers of dollars,
clothes, shoes and food.

The patriots (including my parents) remained as self-sacrificing workers
loyal to the government while existing on their paltry state salaries
paid in worthless national currency.

Yet they witnessed how the better future that they believed themselves
to be constructing was vanishing. Now they know that this will be forever.

All these contradictions belong in the same film, which has now lasted
fifty-three years, shot entirely under the label of "socialism" – a
system that, according to the eternal leader himself, no one knows how
to build (apparently not even him).

He said this without blushing after more than fifty years of experiments
with the lives of the Cuban people.

I know that someone might tell me that everything has been consistent
with the concept of the revolution expressed by the eternal leader:
"Revolution means changing everything that must be changed."

This is the phrase that I like most in his concept. But what it doesn't
say is who decides what changes should be carried out or who decides
when to carry them out.

So far in Cuba, what changes to make and when to perform them have been
decided by an elite, desperate to hold onto power.

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=66355

Cuba, the Pope, and the Ladies in White

Cuba, the Pope, and the Ladies in White

Pope Benedict's visit to Cuba revealed the intransigence of the
Castroite regime. Even so, the Ladies in White - the wives, mothers,
and sisters of political prisoners - continue their demands for human
rights on the Caribbean island.
Monday, April 02, 2012
By Faisaan Sami

The Cuban government, the Roman Catholic Church and the Cuban
humanitarian group, the Ladies in White (Las Damas de Blanco), all
formidable entities in their own right, found themselves thrust upon
the world stage together this week as a result of Pope Benedict XVI's
first trip to Latin America in five years. Ahead of the papal's
three-day visit to Cuba,many of the Ladies in White were held by Cuban
officials; a series of detainments that were initially prompted by the
occupation of a local church in Cuba by members of the Republican
Party of Cuba. The anti-Castro demonstrators were attempting to
influence the Pope before his impending arrival to directly address
the human rights abuses leveled against the Castro regime.

The United States, a long time advocate of the Ladies in White,
naturally glommed onto the public protest and, unsurprisingly, Havana
was quick to accuse Washington of propping up the "subversive"
movement. Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council
said the detainments revealed "the disdain of the Cuban authorities"
for civilian rights and critiqued "the acts of those who are standing
in the way of the basic aspirations of the Cuban people."

For breaching the strict, state-administered regulations of their
weekly protest, the Cuban government has prohibited the Ladies of
White from future protests, revoking what was already a narrowed
platform to express their views. In light of their suppression, it was
expected that Pope Benedict XVI would emulate his predecessor John
Paul II in publicly denouncing the Cuban administration as well as
meet with the religious dissidents. However, the pope showed a
reluctance to be drawn into alliance with either the Cuban
administration or the anti-Castro dissidents, even those that are
directly affiliated with the Church, demonstrating the Catholic
institution's principal intent to become reconnected with Cuban
society at large and avoid intervention on domestic matters.

The Ladies in White March On

Back in October 16th 2011, the Ladies in White marched in somber
stride through the streets of Havana holding white gladiolas just as
they had done for eight years after every Sunday mass at the Santa
Rita de Casia Catholic Church. However, there was a special
significance attached to that day; it was the first silent protest
without their founding member, sixty-three year old Laura Pollán, who
succumbed to cardiac arrest while under hospital care.

Pollán founded the Ladies in White after her husband, Héctor Maseda,
an independent journalist, was arrested during the three day 'Black
Spring' raid in March 2003, along with seventy four other Cuban
dissidents. The journalists were accused of "subverting the internal
order of the nation" and received sentences ranging from six to
twenty-eight years incarceration. Gradually, Pollán mobilized the
wives of other dissidents and held routine marches to push for their
release, even under conditions of adversity, when pro-government
protestors would harangue the group during their marches.

In March 2011 the remaining dissidents were released, largely due to
the efforts of the Spanish government and the Catholic Church in
reaching an agreement with Raúl Castro for the prisoners to flee into
exile; a condition that was not entirely adhered by those that were
released. In spite of certain developments, such as the release of
those incarcerated during the Black Spring, the subsequent
fragmentation of membership resulting from the emigration of reunited
families as well as the regrettable death of their leader, the Ladies
in White have continued to demonstrate after every Sunday mass. The
impending arrival of his Holiness was viewed as an opportunity for
their claims to be finally heard by the leader of the very institution
that helped them form an unbreakable solidarity. However, compromised
by the government's authority, the Ladies in White and the Catholic
Church were unable to establish a direct connection on this particular
trip.

The Prospect of Conciliation Mediated by the Pope Benedict XVI

Received by Raúl Castro at the Santiago airport on March 26th, the
papal's visit to Cuba is meant to commemorate the 400thanniversary of
the El Cobre sanctuary of the country's patroness, our Lady of Cobre,
but there were certain other elements that comprised his visit. Of
course, the primary agenda was to reach out to the Cuban majority and
reinstitute the Catholic faith at a time when the country has been
incorporating certain minimalist civil liberties and opportunities to
its citizenry. Most of the Cuban faithful fled to the United States
after the 1959 Cuban revolution, the vast majority of which now reside
in Miami, but an estimated 800 Cuban Americans made the voyage to
attend the Pope's mass in Havana.

While the nature of the Pope's visit was claimed to be "pastoral," in
light of the recent demonstrations in Havana, comparisons were
inevitably drawn to Pope John Paul II's visit to Cuba in 1998, which
had marked inferences regarding the protection of civil rights and
releasing incarcerated dissidents. Apart from the expected
denouncement of the U.S. embargo on Cuba, as previously iterated by
Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI was unlikely to be drawn into the
current political skirmish. Not only would intervention threaten the
Catholic Church's mending relationship with the Cuban administration
and thus its long-term goals in the country, but because it wouldn't
correspond with the Church's current emphasis on counteracting its
dwindling supporter base.

The Pope, however, did give a frank assessment of Cuba'sMarxist
political and economic framework, claiming it "no longer corresponds
to reality." But far from advocating outright economic liberalization,
he also criticized the West's capitalist model for leaving "humanity
devoid of values" and "defenseless" against predatory powers.

The Resurgence of Catholicism in Cuba?

In some ways, there hasn't been a better time for the Catholic Church
to reestablish itself into the social fabric of this Caribbean island
state, due in part to the efforts of Cuba's Cardinal Jaime Ortega, who
has been able to position the church increasingly as an intermediary
force on the island. Under Ortega, the Church has offered care centers
and limited training programs and pushed for church administered
education, not to mention it was the Cardinal who helped to negotiate
the release of the Black Spring political dissidents.

With various external forces trickling into the socialist state, the
combination of light economic and social reforms under Raúl Castro's
government has highlighted a degree of adaptation of the stringent
style of governance that his brother practiced. Raúl's burgeoning
relationship with the Cardinal is indicative of the leader's
acknowledgement of the Church as a positive influence in not only
uniting the population but also providing them it with a
semi-autonomous authority capable of adequately nurturing the
population. As it seeks to gain legitimacy outside of its
U.S.-inflicted seclusion, the promotion of religious freedom will
deliver the benefit of reinforcing Cuba's association with that of the
Latin American region in which Catholicism plays a prominent role.

On the other hand, with the backing of the Cuban administration, the
Catholic Church now has the capacity to influence public discourse in
Cuba over the long term, a prospect that would have been vulnerable if
it visibly sided with the Ladies in White. As he stood before several
hundred thousand Cubans at the open-air Mass in Havana, Pope Benedict
XVI used the opportunity to directly connect with the public, ticking
all the right boxes. In his speech, the papal urged for the
recalibration of Cuban society characterized by greater civil
liberties and material resources for Cubans, going on to denounce the
U.S. embargo, all of which reinforced the papal's indifference to
government influence.

Cuba's Minister of Planning and Economy, Marino Murillo, responded
promptly and succinctly, confirming that in Cuba, "there would be no
political reform." The various initiatives of the Church, such as
instituting Catholic teaching in schools, gaining access to broadcast
networks, declaring Good Friday a public holiday and building new
churches have been proposed to the Cuban administration but the
general consensus is that the status quo will remain. However, as
marginal reform occurs under Raúl Castro's administration and as both
the president and Cardinal Ortega form a deeper relationship, it is
the sense of timing that could ensure that the pope's visit will act
as a catalyst for change in the hearts in minds of the Cuban public.

http://www.speroforum.com/a/VNOMMASGQQ33/70605-Cuba-the-Pope-and-the-Ladies-in-White?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+speroforum%2Fnroq+%28Spero+News%29

Cuba's Christians struggle, even after papal visit

Cuba's Christians struggle, even after papal visit
By Kevin G. Hall
McClatchy Newspapers
Published: Monday, Apr. 2, 2012

GUAIMARO, Cuba – After two papal visits, support is growing for the
Roman Catholic Church among long-suffering Cubans. Yet support from
the Communist Party that rules the island nation can be described as
reluctant at best.

Priests from the Cuban interior, far from the large cities of Havana
and Santiago, say it remains nearly impossible to operate with a
semblance of normalcy. They cannot approximate the kind of church
services or evangelical outreach that is common in the rest of Latin
America.

There is a strain on what elsewhere in the Americas is taken for
granted – whether it's being forced to celebrate Mass in someone's
crumbling home, or having government agents sit in on sermons to keep
a leash on what is said from the pulpit.

"This place is at zero as far as I'm concerned," said the Rev. Alberto
Reyes, a 44-year-old parish priest in the central Cuban town of
Guaimaro, 250 miles east of Havana.

While Pope Benedict XVI's three-day visit to Cuba last week
highlighted what is considered the improvement in church-state
relations in the years since Pope John Paul II made his trip to Cuba
in 1998, a visit to Cuba's rural parishes shows the limits of that
rapprochement.

The Cuban government still won't let the Catholics build churches.
Only the restoration of churches that predate the 1959 revolution is
permitted.

Churches in the interior are largely in the same crumbling state as
the rest of Cuba's buildings. In Reyes' church, the ceiling has been
repaired but many of the cross-shaped windows cut delicately into
brick years ago for ventilation no longer have storm covers. They're
now just open spaces through which water pours when it rains. Birds
and insects enter at will.

Reyes hopes Benedict's trip will allow for new churches to be built in
Cuba and that he can spread the church's message on a wider scale. But
he isn't holding his breath.

With Cuba's priest shortage, Reyes ministers to several towns in an
area with a population of about 47,000. There are one or two old
churches where he can hold services and where volunteers can do
charity work such as providing breakfasts for the aged.

But in most of the towns, Reyes celebrates Mass in someone's home.

Often, he says, it's the only place that also has a television and a
DVD player. Reyes sometimes shows up to find a large crowd of people
in the middle of a movie.

"If I try to give Mass it means they'll have to stop the movie.
They'll hate the priest," Reyes said. "If I had a small church, it
would put an end to that."

Benedict's recent visit, while raising the profile of the church
through huge outdoor services, did not conclude with any promises of
further liberalization.

Will that change after the death of Fidel Castro, 85, or his brother
Raúl, who will turn 81 in June?

"That's the million-dollar question," said Alfredo, 47, a Jehovah's
Witness in Havana who practiced his faith clandestinely for most of
his life.

Jehovah's Witnesses, known for going door-to-door to preach their
faith, have been allowed large temporary assemblies in Cuba, but like
the Catholics are prohibited from building new churches. They must
conduct services in makeshift fashion.

And while Alfredo is now more public about his beliefs, he is still
cautious. Concerned about retribution, he spoke on the condition that
his surname not be used.

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/02/4383397/cubas-christians-struggle-even.html

104 Hours in the Darkness / Luis Felipe Rojas

104 Hours in the Darkness / Luis Felipe Rojas
Luis Felipe Rojas, Translator: Raul G.

This post was written by Luis Felipe Rojas as soon as he was released
from his 4 day detention on Wednesday, March 28th, as Pope Benedict XVI
was heading out of Cuba.

I was detained on Saturday, March 24th at 8 AM. I had just left my house
to buy bread for my children, and since I disobeyed the orders of a
paramilitary guard from the Rapid Response Brigades of not leaving my
home, a jeep of the Operational Guards, along with G2 (State Security)
agents, showed up to arrest me.

They have imposed a judicial accusation on me for public disorder.
According to them, I committed that crime because I left my house. As a
protest, I declared myself on hunger and thirst strike until Tuesday,
when I awoke bleeding from my throat. Because of this, I decided to
drink water three times a day until I was released. I slept on the floor
of the San German Police Unit. I did not shower, nor did I carry out my
physiological necessities.

As a member of the Marriage Pastoral Group, my wife Exilda Arjona and I
were impeded from carrying out a pilgrimage to Santiago de Cuba. They
surrounded her in our house with dozens of officers during those days
and they told her she would be immediately detained if she stepped out.

In a few days I will write in regards to the Papal visit and the
discourses on both sides- that is if they even repeat them on Cuban TV
and I manage to hear them. Today, I only have strength to think of the
hundreds of Catholics and believers who were detained by the Cuban
political police to keep them from receiving papal blessings.

I also reflect upon what happened to the family of Delmides Fidalgo in
Buenaventura, Holguin,where mobs under the direction of the political
police beat his daughters, shattered things in his house, and detained
him, a man who professes his Christian faith in a denomination which is
not Catholic and who was trying to travel to Havana to solve a personal
issue, not to assist the Pope's Mass.

In radio stations which transmit into Cuba from the outside, I am still
hearing of cases of people being injured and threatened by the
paramilitary-police apparatus which intends to carry out genocide in
Cuba in the near future. I just hope that the silence of the people and
of the Cuban Catholic Church has been shattered by then.

Translated by Raul G.

28 March 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=17202

Church makes dangerous bargain with Castro

Posted on Monday, 04.02.12

Church makes dangerous bargain with Castro
BY JOSE AZEL
jazel@miami.edu

The malevolence of the Castro brothers during their five decades regime
is well documented: 3,615 executions by firing squad, 1,253
extrajudicial killings, the imprisonment of thousands of political
prisoners in subhuman conditions, the 1994 tugboat massacre, the
depravation of basic freedoms and the impoverishment of the country's
entire population, countless violations of human rights and much more.

Unquestionably, Fidel Castro's 1962 Armageddon letter to Khrushchev
advocating a Soviet preemptive nuclear attack on the United States is an
expression of unmitigated evil.

Also known is the gentility and heroism of the Ladies in White,
recognized by the European Parliament in 2005 with the Sakharov Prize
for Freedom of Thought. This group of incredibly brave and devout women
attends Mass each Sunday and then silently stands up to the regime by
walking through the streets wearing white clothing to symbolize peace.

Both Fidel Castro and the Ladies in White requested an audience with
Pope Benedict XVI during his Cuba visit. The Ladies in White requested
only a minute of his Holiness' time. In Joseph Ratzinger's seemingly
chauvinistic calculus, the Ladies in White did not merit his time, and
Ratzinger elected to disown his most loyal flock on the island and chose
instead to meet with Mephistopheles.

The church leadership's obsequiousness in accommodating the Cuban
government and its concern with sparing the Castros any political
discomfort responds to a church strategy of gaining space in society for
its ecumenical and humanitarian work. The bargain is a dangerous one as
the church has, in fact, made a deal with the devil.

It may very well discover, as did Faust, the protagonist of the
classical German legend, that it has surrendered its moral integrity
and, that at the end of the term, Mephistopheles will claim his due.

Biology dictates that the end-game for Castroism is not too far in the
future. When Castroism ends, the Cuban economy and society will be in
deep crisis and in total disarray. These objective conditions will
constitute the Cuban collective memory of communism and its leadership,
including the memory of the recent sycophancy and closeness of the
church leadership with the communist leadership.

Behavioral economists speak of the "peak-end rule" which states that we
judge the past almost entirely on the basis of how the experience was at
its peak and at its end. In other words, it is the positive or negative
experience at the end of a process that stays with us rather than some
net average for the entire duration of the event. In the years to come,
when Cubans look into their political rearview mirror they will see the
Communist Party and the Catholic Church as effete institutions,
collaborators to their misery.

At the end of Castroism, prior fondness for Catholicism may be negated
and what will be remembered will be inglorious events such as Cardinal
Jaime Ortega's betrayal of the church's sanctuary tradition by
requesting that the Cuban government evict activists who had taken
refuge in the church, or Pope Benedict's failure to condemn
energetically the human-rights abuses of the Castro regime, and to meet
with the Ladies in White.

In aligning itself with the Cuban government and not with the Cuban
people, the Catholic Church's leadership has miscalculated and entered
into a Faustian bargain exchanging its soul for political favors. I long
for the courage of the Marist brothers of my youth in Cuba's Catholic
schools. They taught us by day and led us daringly in the anticommunist
resistance underground by night. Cuba's Catholic Church will have
limited opportunities in the future to extricate itself from its pact
with the devil. Let us pray it chooses to do so.

José Azel is a senior scholar at the Institute for Cuban and
Cuban-American Studies, University of Miami.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/02/2723711/church-makes-dangerous-bargain.html

Selling Violence vs. Selling Its Absence

Selling Violence vs. Selling Its Absence
April 1, 2012
Osmel Almaguer

HAVANA TIMES, April 1 — On the news, here in Cuba, it was reported that
an American student used a machine gun to shoot five of his classmates –
two of whom later died. Though the incident was unfortunate, so too is
what lies behind the apparent "humanity" of its reporting.

Using tragedies for political ends is disgusting. Overall, violence is
not something endemic in the United States, though it is a highly
marketable product featured in documentaries, films and cartoons there.

However I'm Cuban, so I'm more interested in what's happening here. Yet
never, or almost never, do we see or hear about any violent events that
take place here in Cuba.

I can talk about this from direct experience, since a few weeks ago a
student at my school was stabbed in the head, though fortunately his
injuries weren't life threatening.

The student was trying to defend an underclassman from badgering and
harassment by a bunch of bullies. The knife penetrated his skull half an
inch, but miraculously it didn't reach his brain.

The assailant was expelled from school, but only because this was his
third felony assault against another pupil. The two previous incidents
consisted of hitting one student in the head with a rock and stabbing
another one in the stomach.

Despite all this, no one reported him either of those times. I don't
know if this was out of fear of possible retaliation or simply to avoid
attracting the authorities and thereby affecting "business" (by this I'm
referring to acts of corruption that I've referred to in other diary
entries).

And this isn't an isolated event. Near my house, one or two people die
from stabbing every year. That's still a fairly low rate, but it's
increasing, which is why I consider it essential for our media to give
more in-depth coverage of these issues.

If violence sells abroad, here they're trying to sell its non-existence.

It's time these opportunists stop profiting at the expense of innocent
lives…innocent people who, nevertheless, are fully aware of this problem
when they see blood flowing in the street.

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=66231

Cuba, An Island of Euphemisms

Cuba, An Island of Euphemisms
March 30, 2012
Dariela Aquique

People who were the "maggots," "worms," "traitors" and "scum" are now
called "community members" or "Cuban-Americans" or "those living outside
of Cuba."

HAVANA TIMES, March 30 — Euphemisms (which are of course words and
expressions used for replacing other ones that are considered bad
sounding, distasteful or inappropriate), are commonly used in Cuba,
especially by those seeking to avoid "annoying interpretations."

An annoying interpretation, in turn, can be a word that describes a
possible reprimand from a superior, boss or colleague who thinks your
term is inappropriate. Let me give you some examples:

The words "maid," "housekeeper," "servant" and "service employee"
disappeared from the national lexicon as they were considered bourgeois
expressions, and all vestiges of the bourgeoisie needed to be eliminated
from the lives of Cubans.

With the passage of time and the incontrovertible existence of class
differences in the country, these types of words have reappeared among
those who need to pay other people for domestic services and those who
need to get paid for those services.

The circumstances have returned, but with new designations. Now these
people are called "the woman who does the cleaning" or "the man who runs
errands"; or — more amicably — they might be referred to as "the person
who helps us at home," thus creating some degree of ambiguity. One might
even get the impression that this person is not bound by money in
providing this "aid or assistance."

People who were the "maggots," "worms," "traitors" and "scum" of the
mass exoduses (from the port at Camarioca in 1960 and Mariel in 1980),
after certain social and political conjunctures began to be referred to
using gentler terms like "community members" or "Cuban-Americans" or
"those living outside of Cuba."

This is why it's not at all uncommon for people who are "fired" or "laid
off" to be described as having experienced "employment reorganization."
Likewise "evictions" become the "distrainment of real property."

And anyone who provides information about other people to the police or
to the Ministry of the Interior — rather than being labeled as
"informants," "snitches" or chivatos — they are described as
"auxiliaries" or "civilian collaborators."

A "prostitute" is now called a jinetera (escort), and theft (on a large
scale by certain officials) has been dubbed "the mismanagement of
resources."

But there are some terms that are completely exempt from the possibility
of receiving any softer kinder euphemisms. These include "independent
journalist" or "blogger," which are smeared with words like
"cyber-dissident" or even "mercenary" in the worst cases.

In other words, euphemisms are employed to a degree directly
proportional to the level of the commitment they have for the
implantation or ordering by the system, in accordance with the period
and the context.

These are the reasons my writings are never published in official media.
Don't imagine, my friends, that the cause of this is "censorship" or a
lack of "freedom of expression" its that I'm very apt to use amplified
phraseology and opinions that are "exaggerated," "distorted,"
"imprudent" or "inconsistent" with our reality.

Please, I'm not asking for anyone to describe me as being "sardonic"
with this. I'm only being "funny."

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=66052

An Anticlimactic Mass

An Anticlimactic Mass
March 30, 2012
Isbel Diaz Torres

HAVANA TIMES, March 29 — "Who had the idea that people would be able
hold out here from as early as 6:00 am?" rhetorically asked a man as he
was leaving. He was one of those who, by the hundreds, walked away from
Revolution Square just as Pope Ratzinger began his Mass on Wednesday.

I had just arrived after having made a wide detour to get into the
square, since almost all of the access streets were inexplicably
blocked. "You can't tell if these people want the plaza filled or not,"
said one woman to her daughter, who in turn demanded the older woman to
stop complaining so much and keep on walking.

The square wasn't filled. In fact there weren't enough people to even
cover the central area, which was the reserved section that had been
fenced off for workers from various workplaces, those who had been
diligently "summoned" by the government to show up early.

One might think that they were trying to position them so that their
presence would prevent others from occupying that site, but these people
were the first ones to escape from the sides.

The truth is that even with workers who signed their pledges to attend
on their jobs, the students who had been invited and the plain clothes
security agents mixed in with the people, they couldn't hide the large
gaps in the area.

"If I were sitting in the shade, maybe I'd be able to see. But with this
sun you can't see anything; and with that sound system, you can't hear
anything either," said one young guy to his girlfriend while they were
leaving.

Another more disciplined fellow speaking more to himself said: "As soon
as they say "amen," I'm outta here like an arrow," while watching one
other unrepentant individual collecting soda cans.

Picking up aluminum cans. Foto: Jimmy Roque Martínez

The thousands of printed programs that were left in a big pile at the
end of the Mass were evidence that the attendance was below the
organizer's estimates.

I don't know what impression was projected on TV, but my perception was
that there was very little enthusiasm for the event. People were
sleeping on the ground while the Pope spoke about "the truth," while
others laughed loudly or talked about more mundane issues than
"salvation" or "virtue."

The only people who seemed to be aware of what was going were those who
were closest to the main stage (which was actually quite far off since
it is always separated from people by a wide avenue).

None of this surprises me. I think the Catholic Church failed by putting
the organization of the event in the hands of the government. What's
more, to be fair, the whole thing should have been aimed primarily at
the audience of practicing Catholics, while leaving it free for whoever
else wished to attend.

The excessive and abusive control measures, the closing of businesses
(since Tuesday afternoon there was no bread in most of the bakeries in
the Vedado centrally located neighborhood), and the suspension of the
capital's public transportation while the Pope was still in Santiago,
did nothing to help create a relaxed or enthusiastic atmosphere.

Though the Pope was flying back to Europe in the afternoon, at 6:00 p.m.
public transport still hadn't reappeared on the streets of Havana, which
were wet from the rain.

Another oddity: Can anyone explain what the purpose was of covering the
bottles of alcohol in stores with dark sheets of plastic? Was this
supposed to prevent sales on the day before Mass in Havana?

In short, the desire for total control — masked behind alleged security
measures (protection for whom?) — generated a rather macabre design of
what is supposed to be a fraternal and ecumenical service.

The only show of genuinely happiness was in one woman I found, in a very
picturesque scene I should add. As she walked away at the end of the
proceedings, she was telling everyone: "I took crucifixes and a rosary.
They were giving them away in all colors on the corner. Mine is purple,
the color of Saint Lazarus."

However, she moved away from a place from where angelic voices were
emerging singing the most beautiful songs (by Esteban Salas?). She had
already done her part. But there's no reason to exaggerate – after all,
who really understood what was going on there?

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=66032

Catholic Church stifles Cuba’s freedom

Posted on Sunday, 04.01.12

The readers' forum

Catholic Church stifles Cuba's freedom

Pope Benedict XVI should never have accepted the terms and conditions
insisted upon by the Cuban dictatorship for his trip to Cuba. By
strictly following the dictatorship's conditions, the trip ended up
constituting a sad demonstration of lack of solidarity toward the
oppression of the Cuban people.

It was inappropriate for the pope not to visit with the devoutly
Catholic Ladies in White. It was inappropriate for him not to mention
the sacrifice of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Wilman Villar and Laura Pollán,
recent martyrs of Cuba's struggle for freedom.

It is common knowledge that the church's marriage of convenience with
the dictatorship was planned and guided by the collaborationist Cuban
Cardinal Ortega. But the fact that the cardinal may have been the
wedding planner does not justify the marriage.

It seems as though history has repeated itself in Cuba. I recently
re-read Jesuit scholar Manuel Maza Miguel's masterful account of Vatican
policy toward Cuba in the 19th century, Entre la Ideología y la
Compasión. Leo XIII, an erudite, respected pontiff, was an ally of many
just causes in his time, but he was no friend of Cuba's freedom.

Maza Miguel describes how Catholic churches were used as forts by the
army of colonial Spain in Cuba. "How can it be explained," he asks,
"that the extraordinary Leo XIII, who showed such solidarity toward the
working class, could not understand the justice of the Cuban struggle
for independence?" The Jesuit scholar continues, "The measures taken by
the Spanish ecclesiastical and civil authorities against those who
sought a new direction for Cuba decisively limited the presence and
vigor of Catholicism in the Cuban ethos."

Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Miami

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/01/2723702/catholic-church-stifles-cubas.html

The Streets Belong to Cubans / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado

The Streets Belong to Cubans / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado
Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado, Translator: Unstated

Cuba's leaders and their acolytes have warned for years and without the
least reserve, that the streets belong to the Revolutionaries. This
amounts to the segregation that only government sympathizers can march
and protest peacefully and publicly, but always in favor of the only
party legally recognized which has been in power for 53 years. It is
another example of intolerance and the violation of the rights of a society.

It's true that all totalitarian regimes — of the right and left — like
children of the same dictatorial sperm, converge in these aspects and
maintain an iron control that enables their gigantic police apparatus.

The firing pins of the monitoring, information, immobility, lack of
sociopolitical and economic freedoms, and the fakery have exploded, for
decades, the cork of the exodus, which has driven citizens to multiple
points around the globe; and our country, which was a receiver of
immigrants, became a producer of them beginning in 1959. We how have a
population living abroad of two million people.

Today it seems that there is no leadership crisis, but a relaxation of
the same or the mythologized personification that imprints the figure of
the Cuban maximum leader. The former president and his work and
propaganda team — which took a break starting in 2006 — keeping society
suffocated and repressed — in endless marches, events and political
acts, and making people used to his persistent presence and keeping the
first president in the Cuban media.

His successor and brother — I don't know if voluntarily or conditions —
doesn't have the same importance, and this combined with the systemic
crisis, the corruption, and the long stay in power of the primal
guerrillas, the lack of perspectives and the accumulation of unresolved
problems, makes people restless and it begins to show more and more in
visible signs of being fed up.

The Ladies in White, humiliated, harassed, insulted and beaten by
pro-government mobs for years, never ceased to demand freedom for
political prisoners, and with constancy and courage demanded rights for
everyone and exercised their peaceful protest in our streets. With
perseverance, bravery and at a high price, they won, despite historical
discrimination and intimidation, that not only the president's daughter
may demonstrate in our streets with people of similar interests. The
street belongs to all Cubans who travel through them in search of
sustenance, the food of the day, public transport that never comes or is
over-crowded after so much waiting, or what they do every day in long
lines of despair.

After decades of harassing peaceful citizens with the intent to
terrorize them — as well as all of society — many Cubans, who know the
occupiers who protest today in different countries, whom our media
supports, and embedded in the example of the Ladies in White, they begin
to shred, publicly and spontaneously, the rags of fear, and are
beginning to show their disagreement in various ways. Society has begun
to "scale the fence" of dissent and to demand their rights as an
intrinsic part of the personal and community freedom of the Cuban nation.

March 27 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=17197

In Cuba, a shout for freedom brings beating instead

Posted on Saturday, 03.31.12
Papal visit

In Cuba, a shout for freedom brings beating instead

A memorable sidelight from the papal festivities in Cuba — a man calls
for 'Libertad!' then gets pummeled and hauled away.
By Juan Carlos Chavez
ElNuevoHerald.com

He is the man who stood up amid the crowd before a papal Mass in Cuba
and shouted "Freedom!"

If his intention was to point out the lack of it, the message was
underscored. Security personnel hauled him away, beating him up in the
process. Because it happened near a nest of cameras, images were
captured and transmitted around the world, a sour sidelight to the
pope's visit last week.

Internal dissident sources have identified the man as Andrés Carrión
Alvarez, 38. Along with "Libertad!" (Freedom) he also yelled "Down
with Communism!" in Spanish.

The incident took place before the papal Mass at the Antonio Maceo
Square in Santiago de Cuba, in an area close to the platform set up
for photographers.

As he was removed from the square, Carrión was slapped and beaten
violently with a folded gurney by a group of at least three men,
including one wearing a Cuban Red Cross uniform.

Carrión's personal information was confirmed by dissident Alfonso
Chaviano Peláez and by José Daniel Ferrer García, a spokesman for
Cuba's Patriotic Union. In the early hours of Friday, Ferrer reported
through the digital site Háblalo sin Miedo (Say It Without Fear) that
Chaviano had recognized Carrión "but had not been able to report it,
first because he did not have means of communication and because his
house was under severe police vigilance."

Until Thursday the telephones of Ferrer and Chaviano had been blocked.
The interruption of the phone service was part of a 24-hour police
watch.

Chaviano said he confirmed that it was Carrión after exchanging
information with a friend and former co-worker. The woman told
Chaviano that she received a phone call from her husband, who lives in
the United States, telling her that he thought he had recognized
"Andresito" on a television newscast.

Carrión is married to a doctor. The couple have no children.

"I've known him for about 10 years. We live in the same neighborhood,"
Chaviano said in a telephone interview with El Nuevo Herald.

"He supports the opposition but never had gone public about it,"
Chaviano said. "He was always looked as the typical professional, a
very reserved man."

He also said that Carrión has a degree in social and occupational
rehabilitation. However, he has been unemployed for months and he
looked worried, Chaviano said.

He used to work at the Carlos J. Finlay Clinic.

Chaviano said that the last time he saw Carrión they were in a barber
shop. They talked briefly and Chaviano asked him if he had plans to
attend the papal Mass. Carrión responded: "I'm going to the Mass and I
know what I have to do."

Next thing Chaviano knew, Carrión was being hauled away.

Carrión was in custody at a State Security operation unit and as of
Friday no one had been able to get information about the conditions of
his imprisonment or the state of his health.

Carrión's detention prompted concerns inside and outside the island.
Elizardo Sánchez, spokesman of the Havana-based Cuban Human Rights and
National Reconciliation Commission, demanded the government guarantee
Carrión's safety.

In Miami, Republican U.S. Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Díaz-Balart
and David Rivera, as well as New Jersey Democrat Albio Sires joined
demands for Carrión's immediate release in a news release sent to El
Nuevo Herald.

"We call on human-rights organizations such as International Amnesty
and Human Rights Watch to monitor this case and to create
international awareness of the detention of other activists during the
pope's visit to Cuba," said the release.

Preliminary reports, including one from the Miami-based Center of
Support and Information of the Cuban Resistance Assembly, counted more
than 250 dissidents harassed during the week of the pope's visit.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/31/2725436/in-cuba-a-shout-for-freedom-brings.html

Do We Have Changes? / Fernando Dámaso

Do We Have Changes? / Fernando Dámaso
Fernando Dámaso, Translator: Unstated

Taking into account the time elapsed between the first and the second
papal visit (fourteen years and two months), for most of my generation,
this was the last chance to see a pope at home. The Pope came, bowed,
prayed, celebrated two Masses, talked, met and prayed to God for all
Cubans. In the media the presence of believers and unbelievers was
constantly highlighted, but the correct thing to say would have been
Catholics or non-Catholics, because here everyone is a believer,
including those who don't publicly say so, it's just that some believe
in God or gods and others in the Devil.

Although expecting results from such a short visit (three days) is
absurd, (remember that God needed at least seven), it should be noted
that in Santiago de Cuba neither party said anything new that has not
been repeated to the point of boredom for decades.

The words of welcome: propaganda, repetitive and gray, seemed more like
a summary of some known reflections. The appreciation for the visitor:
poetic, generic and only good wishes. Moreover, the intervention of the
Archbishop of the Diocese, was well below that of his predecessor, Pedro
Meurice Estiu, in 1998 before Pope John Paul II.

In the Mass there was much Gospel and little connection with reality,
despite the flags on high and the chanting religious. It is possible
that the papal intention here was only to honor the Virgin of Charity of
Cobre, to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of her apparition to
Cubans in the waters of the Bay of Nipe, and to give her the Golden
Rose. As a reason, it is valid.

In Havana, where they expected something more important and solid, apart
from the reading of an opportune verse from the Gospel (here was in
connection with reality), everything focused on a call to search for the
truth that will set us free, something many of us have been doing for a
while.

At the official reception some truths, half truths and too many lies
were said, for general consumption and the media, rather ceremonial and
of no great importance.

A friend quite profane, a boxing fan, told me that the meeting between
Church and State had been more of feints and calculated moves inside the
ring, they fight, pretty much disappointing the audience, who expected a
little more action. It seemed that the combat was agreed to in advance
around the table, since no one scored any hits. Sometimes, in the
results from the conference tables, no one wins but both lose.

I think my friend is wrong and that, in addition to what was published,
there were agreements and commitments made under the table, as has
happened throughout history, among the various representatives of divine
power and earthly power.

I hope that the Church has not only raised its interests as an
institution, but has also concerned itself with the interests of Cubans
as a nation. If this is the case it will come to light over time and
through events, touching on the Government, the Church, and principally
on Cubans, so that it doesn't all just end up in words and good
intentions, which we're a little tired of.

In short, the most important is the citizenry, leaving behind the
fanaticism of so many years, introducing into their life plans the
absent and so necessary civic point of view. It imposes on us to act as
responsible citizens, although the task is not easy, as it needs
conviction and practice.

The double standard (which is nothing more than lack of standards, or
morals), the false unanimity, the acceptance of what should be
repudiated, the intolerance, material and moral corruption, lack of
ethical principles and other evils, fully developed and installed in our
country, must be fought against and eradicated.

Citizen will for real economic, political and social changes also needs
to materialize. On then will these three days have some reason to be
remembered.

March 30 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=17175

Total Injustice / Yamil Dominguez

Total Injustice / Yamil Dominguez
Translator: Unstated, Yamil Domínguez

As I mentioned before, that later I would talk about the injustices that
still remain in Cuban prisons, and their systems of torture in the
process of interrogations that are so hidden from the world. A system
designed to establish their totalitarianism and the State terror that
under no circumstances can promote the exercise of law; of course the
criminal violations are so many that this society of terror could not
move against common citizens who understand and know their rights.

First, they could not undertake with impunity their tortures in the
systems of interrogation. they could not pressure or coerce to obtain a
false statement that would be invalid in a court that complies with the
law and not the Inquisition under the interest and terror of the State.

The measure of clemency to the limited number of 3000 prisoners is
entirely inadequate and disrespectful to the people and the thousands
and thousands of families who suffer the consequence of a state that
promotes indiscriminate arrests and pre-determined trialseven when there
is irrefutable proof of innocence the person is still punished.

Then imagine if for those who have not committed a crime or infraction
they are prosecuted and sanctioned in a court no matter how many
elements there are in favor of of the defendant making clear his
innocence, we can imagine then that there are those who did commit a
crime and the inventions that are added on to condemn him to a penalty
greater than that for the crime committed.

So the prisons in Cuba are full. The Cuban government should greatly
increase the number of pardons, but most still see the base of the
problem that has made a great majority of young people prisoners and
every Cuban family is living with the bitter experience of having a
member in prison or knowing of the cruel methods of tortures in the
so-called interrogation centers.

If we talk about those who already take advantage of their conditional
liberty — i.e. parole — and even in this they can delay and postpone it,
not to mention suspend it without justification. Discrimination against
Cubans living abroad whom they take advantage of is another of the
crimes in Cuban prisons, imposing a forced repatriation, making them
renounce their foreign residence which is supposed to make the world
believe that they are sorry they live outside Cuba, or on the contrary
forcing them to serve criminal sentences and complete them without ever
getting parole, which is almost half the sentence, taking into account
that a year in prison is ten months, but they don't even get that
discount, much less of they are residents in the European Union.

Instead they have to comply with Resolution number 9 from the "People's
Supreme Court" of Cuba, approved in December 2009, where it establishes
that deportation for those citizens resident abroad at the midpoint of
their sentences, or it can be for their state of health or other factor.
But it is never met and after speaking about a very particular case
among the many, there is clear evidence of that.

March 25 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=17127

Internet, The Imperialist Enemy / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado

Internet, The Imperialist Enemy / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado
Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado, Translator: Unstated

The Cuban government and its supporters abuse the ballad — they already
made traditional — of the Cyberwar against Cuba. They don't speak about
their own, that floods our media with propaganda, offends those who
disagree with their political model, violates many of our rights — among
others the right to have Internet access from our homes — and speculates
with excessive prices for Internet connectivity offered in the hotels.

If there is something they should recognize in the authorities is their
capacity to improvise arguments and pretexts according to their
convenience. It doesn't matter if they're very convincing or not. Before
the fiber optic cable came from Venezuela, in February 2011, the
argument was that the United States, with its blockade, prevented the
Cuban State — relying on satellite connections — from having the
capacity necessary to allow its own citizens to access the mega-web.
However, foreigners have had the right for years.

Now, thanks the Venezuelan cable expanding the Cuban bandwidth by 3,000
times, it is still the United States with its blockade that is guilty,
"because they are the owners of the Internet and have focused a media
war against our country." You're damned if you do and damned if you
don't! In other words, a raft of excuses for why Cubans can't surf.

We Cubans on the island already have a wide experience over half a
century of audacity against our fundamental freedoms, and for those of
us who have computers in Cuba, they kill our chances of being able to
independently surf in this sea of knowledge, culture, economic,
communication, and globalized information that is cyberspace. We assumed
that with the arrival of the fiber optic cable we should be enjoying
this right, but the "government sharks" ate this cable — all by themselves.

March 28 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=17111

Expert Says Cuba Faces the Challenges of Aging

Expert Says Cuba Faces the Challenges of Aging

HAVANA – The head of the World Health Organization, China's Margaret
Chan, said in Cuba that the island is facing the challenges of an aging
population, an increase in serious illnesses like cancer, and the
maintenance of a sustainable, high quality health-care system.

"To continue with its system, (Cuba) must make it sustainable to fulfill
the expectations of the population and must do it effectively in order
to maintain its high quality," Chan told a press conference Friday in
Havana.

The director-general of the WHO praised the comprehensive, human
perspective of the Cuban health-care system, as well as the national
authorities' "commitment" to the people's health since the 1959 revolution.

She warned that, just like many other countries, the island faces
challenges like that of an aging population and a surging rate of
cardiac disease, cancer and diabetes.

Chan arrived in Cuba on Monday for a meeting of the WHO's Global Policy
Group in Havana, where on Friday she was welcomed by President Raul
Castro, with whom she discussed several collaborative projects,
according to a report on state television.

This Friday Chan signed with Cuba's Public Health Minister Roberto
Morales a document covering the working agreement for the next four
years of the WHO, the Pan American Health Organization and Cuba.

Signed at the same ceremony was a letter of intent between the WHO and
the Inter-American Center of Social Security Studies to create a
University Consortium on Public Health and Aging for Latin America and
the Caribbean.

The consortium is anticipated to involve academic and service
institutions from several countries in the region such as Cuba, Mexico,
Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Costa Rica.

As part of the cooperation between the WHO and Cuba, Chan stressed
Saturday the importance of working on the transfer of technology,
experience and knowledge, so that other countries both inside and
outside the region can produce high quality, affordable generic medicines.

She also said that the WHO has been working for years on a number of
projects with Cuba, many of them in the biotechnology sector.

The director-general also took part in the National Geriatrics and
Gerontology Congress being held this week in the Cuban capital.

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=485998&CategoryId=14510