ETECSA, Internet and Cuban Society / Anddy Sierra Alvarez
Posted on June 3, 2013
Some 0.004% of the Cuban population will connect to the Web.
Starting on June 4, 2013, 472 people (maximum) will be the daily human
traffic going to a NAUTA Internet cafe, approximately 0.004% of the
Cuban population.
The state-owned telephone company, ETECSA, is expanding its Internet
services to the "population" — 472 is the maximum that can be served
daily. The navigation speed will be 2 Mbps (megabytes per second) which
is equivalent to 2 mil, 48 Kbps (Kilobytes per second), a speed faster
than the 50 Kb on telephone connections and better than the satellite
connections can reach speeds on the Island of up to 300 Kbps.
According to the article published in the newspaper Granma, 118 rooms
will be opened, more than the 99 previously. The internet rooms will be
identified with the NAUTA stamp with which ETECSA is commercializing its
navigation services in the country.
All this has arisen with of the activation of the fiber optic cable
obtained from the Cuba-Venezuela economic agreements. Which brings a
space of freedom to the "supervised" world wide web. Where the majority
of users will be human rights defenders on the Island. Thus the
government is certain to control the population's use of this technology.
One measure that has come to light is the prohibition on voice traffic.
But it reflects the free navigation as well as the ups and downloads
with equal status. The cost will drop to 3 CUC (over $3 U.S.) equivalent
to 75 Cuban pesos.
The Cuban population has unreasonably delayed access to technology,
where all these technological changes itself bring social blockade. The
aging of the population will be a critical factor, as older people will
show little interest to the coming changes as reflected the inability of
people to navigate cyberspace.
3 June 2013
http://translatingcuba.com/etecsa-internet-and-cuban-society-anddy-sierra-alvarez/
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Tampa business and political leaders return from trip to Cuba
Tampa business and political leaders return from trip to Cuba
By Dalia Dangerfield, Reporter
Last Updated: Monday, June 03, 2013
TAMPA --
A group with the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce returned Sunday from
a five-day trip to Cuba.
The group, made up of 38 business and political representatives, focused
on learning about Cuba's culture and economic structure. They had a full
itinerary that included a visit to Old Havana and speaking with
representatives from Cuba's Chamber of Commerce.
Those who traveled to Cuba said the visit was essential to forging a
relationship.
"As Cuba is being discussed in Washington, we want to be there so we can
understand the best way for Tampa to proceed as a community," said Bob
Rohrlack, the president of the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce.
Rohrlack said the embargo makes a business relationship between Tampa
and Cuba impossible. Still, he saw potential when he went there.
"There are limited trade things that can go on, medical trade can go on,
there are some humanitarian missions that go on, cultural exchanges can
happen, how can we help make that happen," Rohrlack said.
Rohrlack said promoting the direct flights that are offered between Cuba
and Tampa are key to future opportunities.
The Chamber's treasurer, Ronald Christaldi, agreed.
"I see tourism potential," Christaldi said after visiting Cuba. "At its
core level, they're people just like us and they're hungry for
interaction with the United States."
This is the first international trip the Greater Tampa Chamber of
Commerce has made. They hope to return to Cuba and visit other countries
that could benefit Tampa.
The group that traveled to Cuba will meet later this month to share
their thoughts on the trip.
http://www.baynews9.com/content/news/baynews9/news/article.html/content/news/articles/bn9/2013/6/3/tampa_business_and_p.html
By Dalia Dangerfield, Reporter
Last Updated: Monday, June 03, 2013
TAMPA --
A group with the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce returned Sunday from
a five-day trip to Cuba.
The group, made up of 38 business and political representatives, focused
on learning about Cuba's culture and economic structure. They had a full
itinerary that included a visit to Old Havana and speaking with
representatives from Cuba's Chamber of Commerce.
Those who traveled to Cuba said the visit was essential to forging a
relationship.
"As Cuba is being discussed in Washington, we want to be there so we can
understand the best way for Tampa to proceed as a community," said Bob
Rohrlack, the president of the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce.
Rohrlack said the embargo makes a business relationship between Tampa
and Cuba impossible. Still, he saw potential when he went there.
"There are limited trade things that can go on, medical trade can go on,
there are some humanitarian missions that go on, cultural exchanges can
happen, how can we help make that happen," Rohrlack said.
Rohrlack said promoting the direct flights that are offered between Cuba
and Tampa are key to future opportunities.
The Chamber's treasurer, Ronald Christaldi, agreed.
"I see tourism potential," Christaldi said after visiting Cuba. "At its
core level, they're people just like us and they're hungry for
interaction with the United States."
This is the first international trip the Greater Tampa Chamber of
Commerce has made. They hope to return to Cuba and visit other countries
that could benefit Tampa.
The group that traveled to Cuba will meet later this month to share
their thoughts on the trip.
http://www.baynews9.com/content/news/baynews9/news/article.html/content/news/articles/bn9/2013/6/3/tampa_business_and_p.html
Federation mission visits a changed Cuba
Federation mission visits a changed Cuba
by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer
June 3, 2013
Andrew Frank's recent trip to Cuba was for him more than "fascinating"
and "exotic." The four days the executive director of Jewish Federation
of Princeton Mercer Bucks spent in Havana last month showed him "a great
example of where federation dollars created a clear and lasting change
for the better. "
Frank and 33 other people from New York and New Jersey traveled to the
island nation April 18-21 on a mission sponsored by the federation.
Participants met with members of Cuba's Jewish community and viewed
projects supported by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
with allocations from Jewish federations across North America.
That support, said Frank in a May 24 phone interview, "transformed the
Jewish community in Cuba from where it was in 1991," when the collapse
of Soviet subsidies led to widespread poverty and the JDC was allowed to
reenter the community.
"We made a difference — not only Princeton Mercer Bucks but 156
federations throughout the country, as well as individual synagogues and
communities from the United States and Canada. We all contributed to the
Cuban Jewish community, providing it with resources to the point where
that community is a fully engaged Jewish community," he added.
To aid the locals, group members brought along such needed items as
clothes and medical supplies that had been donated.
Among the mission stops was the Patronato, Havana's Masorti, or
Conservative, congregation, where the visitors attended a Shabbat service.
"I don't know how many people sitting in the congregation were 100
percent Jewish or 10 percent Jewish or 5 percent Jewish, but it was
well-attended, and they were involved in the Jewish community in a way
that was meaningful to them," said Karen Anderson, a Lawrenceville
resident who is vice president of the federation's UJA Campaign.
"The question of who is Jewish is not important to them," said Frank.
"There are many people who identify with the Jewish community who are
probably intermarried, but that is not important. They interact on a
regular basis with non-Jews."
"We really got to know people in our community, to see where federation
dollars go, and to see young Cuban Jews leading a service," said Gary
Smotrich of Hopewell, a member of the PMB federation's executive
committee who cochaired the mission with Anderson.
The group learned that there is a stable population of about 1,000 Jews
in Havana and another 500 outside the city.
"There are no rabbis, but people take it upon themselves to run the
services," Smotrich told NJJN. "The young people are leaving by getting
Israeli passports.
"It is nonetheless a very vibrant community," and, he added, "nobody
talked about anti-Semitism."
Anderson was impressed by "how sharp the people we interacted with were.
Most of them have never been out of Cuba, but they seem to know what is
going on in the rest of the world. They are not living in a bubble."
Frank found the Cubans to be "a warm and friendly people."
Smotrich called the experience "tremendous. Just seeing the country —
getting off the plane and seeing the billboards of Che Guevara and the
'56 Chevys in the parking lot. It's a time warp."
http://www.njjewishnews.com/article/17596/federation-mission-visits-a-changed-cuba#.Ua27q5yKzTo
by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer
June 3, 2013
Andrew Frank's recent trip to Cuba was for him more than "fascinating"
and "exotic." The four days the executive director of Jewish Federation
of Princeton Mercer Bucks spent in Havana last month showed him "a great
example of where federation dollars created a clear and lasting change
for the better. "
Frank and 33 other people from New York and New Jersey traveled to the
island nation April 18-21 on a mission sponsored by the federation.
Participants met with members of Cuba's Jewish community and viewed
projects supported by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
with allocations from Jewish federations across North America.
That support, said Frank in a May 24 phone interview, "transformed the
Jewish community in Cuba from where it was in 1991," when the collapse
of Soviet subsidies led to widespread poverty and the JDC was allowed to
reenter the community.
"We made a difference — not only Princeton Mercer Bucks but 156
federations throughout the country, as well as individual synagogues and
communities from the United States and Canada. We all contributed to the
Cuban Jewish community, providing it with resources to the point where
that community is a fully engaged Jewish community," he added.
To aid the locals, group members brought along such needed items as
clothes and medical supplies that had been donated.
Among the mission stops was the Patronato, Havana's Masorti, or
Conservative, congregation, where the visitors attended a Shabbat service.
"I don't know how many people sitting in the congregation were 100
percent Jewish or 10 percent Jewish or 5 percent Jewish, but it was
well-attended, and they were involved in the Jewish community in a way
that was meaningful to them," said Karen Anderson, a Lawrenceville
resident who is vice president of the federation's UJA Campaign.
"The question of who is Jewish is not important to them," said Frank.
"There are many people who identify with the Jewish community who are
probably intermarried, but that is not important. They interact on a
regular basis with non-Jews."
"We really got to know people in our community, to see where federation
dollars go, and to see young Cuban Jews leading a service," said Gary
Smotrich of Hopewell, a member of the PMB federation's executive
committee who cochaired the mission with Anderson.
The group learned that there is a stable population of about 1,000 Jews
in Havana and another 500 outside the city.
"There are no rabbis, but people take it upon themselves to run the
services," Smotrich told NJJN. "The young people are leaving by getting
Israeli passports.
"It is nonetheless a very vibrant community," and, he added, "nobody
talked about anti-Semitism."
Anderson was impressed by "how sharp the people we interacted with were.
Most of them have never been out of Cuba, but they seem to know what is
going on in the rest of the world. They are not living in a bubble."
Frank found the Cubans to be "a warm and friendly people."
Smotrich called the experience "tremendous. Just seeing the country —
getting off the plane and seeing the billboards of Che Guevara and the
'56 Chevys in the parking lot. It's a time warp."
http://www.njjewishnews.com/article/17596/federation-mission-visits-a-changed-cuba#.Ua27q5yKzTo
Back in Cuba With the Gift of Solidarity
Yoani Sanchez - Award-winning Cuban blogger
Back in Cuba With the Gift of Solidarity
Posted: 06/03/2013 3:12 pm
My suitcase is parked in a corner, the tiny gifts that traveled inside
it already in the hands of friends and relatives. The anecdotes -- for
their part -- will need more time, because there are so many I could
spend the rest of my life parsing their details. I'm back now. Beginning
to feel the peculiarities of a Cuba that in my three-month absence has
barely changed. The number of uniforms was the first thing that jumped
out at me: soldiers, customs, police... why do you see so many uniforms
simply on landing at José Martí Airport? Why is there this feeling of so
few civilians and so many soldiers? After the dimmed lights of the
halls, the none too friendly question of a supposed doctor interested to
know if I had been in Africa. Where are you coming from, honey? She
jerked her head around noticing my blue passport with the shield of the
republic on its cover.
Outside, a group of colleagues and family waited for me. The embrace of
my son, the most cherished. Then having again entered my own space and
the unique pace at which life transpires here. Catching up with the
stories, events in the neighborhood, the city and the country. I'm back.
With an energy that the daily stumbling blocks try to cut short, but
with enough left over to undertake new projects. One stage of my life is
ending and another is emerging. I have seen the solidarity, I have felt
it and now I also have the duty to tell my compatriots on the Island
that we are not alone.
I have brought so many good memories: the sea in Lima, the Templo Mayor
in Mexico City, the Freedom Tower in Miami, the beauty of Rio de
Janeiro, the affection of so many friends in Italy, Madrid with its
Museo del Prado and its Cibeles Plaza, Amsterdam and the canals running
through it, Stockholm and the cyber-activists from the whole world I met
there, Berlin and the graffiti that covers what was once a wall dividing
Germany, Oslo surrounded by green, New York that never sleeps, Geneva
with its diplomats and the United Nations headquarters, Gdansk laden
with recent history, and Prague, beautiful, unique. All these places,
with their lights and shadows, their grave problems and their moments
for leisure and laughter, I have brought with me to Havana.
I am back and I am not the same person. Something of each place where I
was stayed with me, and the hugs and words of encouragement I received
are here today, with me.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/back-in-cuba-with-the-gif_b_3379818.html
Back in Cuba With the Gift of Solidarity
Posted: 06/03/2013 3:12 pm
My suitcase is parked in a corner, the tiny gifts that traveled inside
it already in the hands of friends and relatives. The anecdotes -- for
their part -- will need more time, because there are so many I could
spend the rest of my life parsing their details. I'm back now. Beginning
to feel the peculiarities of a Cuba that in my three-month absence has
barely changed. The number of uniforms was the first thing that jumped
out at me: soldiers, customs, police... why do you see so many uniforms
simply on landing at José Martí Airport? Why is there this feeling of so
few civilians and so many soldiers? After the dimmed lights of the
halls, the none too friendly question of a supposed doctor interested to
know if I had been in Africa. Where are you coming from, honey? She
jerked her head around noticing my blue passport with the shield of the
republic on its cover.
Outside, a group of colleagues and family waited for me. The embrace of
my son, the most cherished. Then having again entered my own space and
the unique pace at which life transpires here. Catching up with the
stories, events in the neighborhood, the city and the country. I'm back.
With an energy that the daily stumbling blocks try to cut short, but
with enough left over to undertake new projects. One stage of my life is
ending and another is emerging. I have seen the solidarity, I have felt
it and now I also have the duty to tell my compatriots on the Island
that we are not alone.
I have brought so many good memories: the sea in Lima, the Templo Mayor
in Mexico City, the Freedom Tower in Miami, the beauty of Rio de
Janeiro, the affection of so many friends in Italy, Madrid with its
Museo del Prado and its Cibeles Plaza, Amsterdam and the canals running
through it, Stockholm and the cyber-activists from the whole world I met
there, Berlin and the graffiti that covers what was once a wall dividing
Germany, Oslo surrounded by green, New York that never sleeps, Geneva
with its diplomats and the United Nations headquarters, Gdansk laden
with recent history, and Prague, beautiful, unique. All these places,
with their lights and shadows, their grave problems and their moments
for leisure and laughter, I have brought with me to Havana.
I am back and I am not the same person. Something of each place where I
was stayed with me, and the hugs and words of encouragement I received
are here today, with me.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/back-in-cuba-with-the-gif_b_3379818.html
22 percent of water received at home is wasted
Posted on Tuesday, 06.04.13
Cuba: 22 percent of water received at home is wasted
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
The Cuban government's past agricultural policies blocked the needed
growth in production, and 22 percent of the water that reaches the
country's homes is wasted because of leaks, according to an official
report released Monday.
The 2,700-word report in the newspaper Granma, summing up information
disseminated during a meeting of the ruling Council of Ministers on
Friday, indicated the myriad problems that Cuba faces in exports and
imports, labor, prices and other sectors.
On agriculture, Vice President Marino Murillo, in charge of the economic
reforms ordered by ruler Raúl Castro, told the Council that the country
needs to "rectify the distortions that have impacted the economic results."
"The measures that have been put in use for managing the land for
decades have not led to the necessary increase in production," Murillo
declared. "It is necessary to put all producers on the same level,
unleash the productive forces and boost their efficiency."
He added that all agricultural producers will soon be allowed to sell
their goods to anyone — after they have met their obligations for
deliveries to state enterprises — but gave no further details on the
coming changes.
The Cuban government owns 80 percent of the country's agricultural
lands, and has been importing around $1.5 billion per year in food
products to cover shortfalls in domestic production.
Castro has ordered reforms in the agricultural sector to increase
production, such as leasing fallow state lands to private farmers. Yet,
the production of some food items has been dropping and prices have been
rising.
On the water leaks, Inés María Chapman, head of the National Institute
for Hydraulic Resources, acknowledged that the plumbing in Cuba homes is
so deteriorated that 22 percent of the water that reaches them is wasted.
The main sources of the waste, Chapman said, are leaks in the homes'
pipes and rooftop water tanks — which most families have installed to
capture water when it is available and save it for the many other times
when the supply is cut off.
Chapman said the government has budgeted money to update the only island
enterprise that manufactures plumbing supplies, 30 years old and
producing only 40 percent of the country's needs because of its "high
level of deterioration and obsolescence."
The government will price the supplies at close to cost, she added, and
will subsidize the prices for poor families.
Chapman's description of the problems, including the illegal tapping
into main water distribution lines for private use and the hoarding and
illegal re-sale of plumbing supplies, drew a strong statement from Castro.
"We must be intransigent in confronting these violations, which almost
always occur in plain sight," Castro was quoted as saying. "In order to
have order and discipline, we must be demanding."
A Cuban television report in September noted that the island loses up to
58 percent of the water pumped into its nearly 13,000 miles of
distribution pipes, largely because of broken pipes and illegal taps.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/04/3431320/cuba-22-percent-of-water-received.html
Cuba: 22 percent of water received at home is wasted
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
The Cuban government's past agricultural policies blocked the needed
growth in production, and 22 percent of the water that reaches the
country's homes is wasted because of leaks, according to an official
report released Monday.
The 2,700-word report in the newspaper Granma, summing up information
disseminated during a meeting of the ruling Council of Ministers on
Friday, indicated the myriad problems that Cuba faces in exports and
imports, labor, prices and other sectors.
On agriculture, Vice President Marino Murillo, in charge of the economic
reforms ordered by ruler Raúl Castro, told the Council that the country
needs to "rectify the distortions that have impacted the economic results."
"The measures that have been put in use for managing the land for
decades have not led to the necessary increase in production," Murillo
declared. "It is necessary to put all producers on the same level,
unleash the productive forces and boost their efficiency."
He added that all agricultural producers will soon be allowed to sell
their goods to anyone — after they have met their obligations for
deliveries to state enterprises — but gave no further details on the
coming changes.
The Cuban government owns 80 percent of the country's agricultural
lands, and has been importing around $1.5 billion per year in food
products to cover shortfalls in domestic production.
Castro has ordered reforms in the agricultural sector to increase
production, such as leasing fallow state lands to private farmers. Yet,
the production of some food items has been dropping and prices have been
rising.
On the water leaks, Inés María Chapman, head of the National Institute
for Hydraulic Resources, acknowledged that the plumbing in Cuba homes is
so deteriorated that 22 percent of the water that reaches them is wasted.
The main sources of the waste, Chapman said, are leaks in the homes'
pipes and rooftop water tanks — which most families have installed to
capture water when it is available and save it for the many other times
when the supply is cut off.
Chapman said the government has budgeted money to update the only island
enterprise that manufactures plumbing supplies, 30 years old and
producing only 40 percent of the country's needs because of its "high
level of deterioration and obsolescence."
The government will price the supplies at close to cost, she added, and
will subsidize the prices for poor families.
Chapman's description of the problems, including the illegal tapping
into main water distribution lines for private use and the hoarding and
illegal re-sale of plumbing supplies, drew a strong statement from Castro.
"We must be intransigent in confronting these violations, which almost
always occur in plain sight," Castro was quoted as saying. "In order to
have order and discipline, we must be demanding."
A Cuban television report in September noted that the island loses up to
58 percent of the water pumped into its nearly 13,000 miles of
distribution pipes, largely because of broken pipes and illegal taps.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/04/3431320/cuba-22-percent-of-water-received.html
Raul Castro turns 82, with heir-apparent on deck
Posted on Monday, 06.03.13
Raul Castro turns 82, with heir-apparent on deck
The Associated Press
HAVANA -- Cuba's Raul Castro marked his 82nd birthday Monday in another
reminder that time is running out for the aging generation that has led
the country since the 1959 revolution.
Castro has been in power since a life-threatening intestinal disease
forced his brother Fidel to step aside in 2006. Since then he has
embarked on a program of social and economic reforms, while vowing that
Cuba will remain socialist.
"Raul has done much of what I hoped he would," said Roberto Roman, a
54-year-old resident of the capital. "I agree with what he said about
this being his last term. ... Raul should finish what he started."
Earlier this year Castro announced that his current presidential term,
which ends in 2018, will be his last, for the first time since the 1959
revolution naming a date beyond which Cuba will not be led by him or his
brother.
In a sign of the inevitable generational leadership change, Castro named
as his new vice president and heir-apparent Miguel Diaz-Canel, who at 53
is relatively young compared to the octogenarians who occupy many top
positions.
Castro's reforms have been gradually taking effect especially since
2010, including the legalization of many non-government jobs and private
businesses, the private cultivation of fallow state land, the relaxation
of limitations on overseas travel, and the legitimization of used car
and real estate markets.
His critics, however, say change has been slow to come and lament the
lack of political reform like multiparty elections.
Castro's birthday was not mentioned in state-run newspapers and no
public celebrations were announced, but some people wished him well on
social media and on the streets of Havana.
"I wish him success in his work," said Frank Gonzalez, 45.
Raul Castro was born June 3, 1931, in the eastern town of Biran.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/03/3430895/raul-castro-turns-82-with-heir.html
Raul Castro turns 82, with heir-apparent on deck
The Associated Press
HAVANA -- Cuba's Raul Castro marked his 82nd birthday Monday in another
reminder that time is running out for the aging generation that has led
the country since the 1959 revolution.
Castro has been in power since a life-threatening intestinal disease
forced his brother Fidel to step aside in 2006. Since then he has
embarked on a program of social and economic reforms, while vowing that
Cuba will remain socialist.
"Raul has done much of what I hoped he would," said Roberto Roman, a
54-year-old resident of the capital. "I agree with what he said about
this being his last term. ... Raul should finish what he started."
Earlier this year Castro announced that his current presidential term,
which ends in 2018, will be his last, for the first time since the 1959
revolution naming a date beyond which Cuba will not be led by him or his
brother.
In a sign of the inevitable generational leadership change, Castro named
as his new vice president and heir-apparent Miguel Diaz-Canel, who at 53
is relatively young compared to the octogenarians who occupy many top
positions.
Castro's reforms have been gradually taking effect especially since
2010, including the legalization of many non-government jobs and private
businesses, the private cultivation of fallow state land, the relaxation
of limitations on overseas travel, and the legitimization of used car
and real estate markets.
His critics, however, say change has been slow to come and lament the
lack of political reform like multiparty elections.
Castro's birthday was not mentioned in state-run newspapers and no
public celebrations were announced, but some people wished him well on
social media and on the streets of Havana.
"I wish him success in his work," said Frank Gonzalez, 45.
Raul Castro was born June 3, 1931, in the eastern town of Biran.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/03/3430895/raul-castro-turns-82-with-heir.html
Monday, June 3, 2013
In Cuba "You Will Learn, but not Too Much"
In Cuba: "You Will Learn, but not Too Much"
June 3, 2013
Alfredo Fernández
HAVANA TIMES — "You will learn, but not too much" – this was the maxim
that a number of martial arts masters in ancient China stuck to, fearing
that, one day, their disciples could outdo them.
It would appear that the Cuban government, whose most recent and
predictably timid reform has afforded Cubans a bit more access to the
Internet, is founded on precisely that idea.
How else could we explain the creation of new cybercafés, which will
offer Internet services in several municipalities across the country at
the "affordable" price of US $5 the hour?
Never before have we seen such clear proof that the Cuban government
isn't interested in providing its citizens with Internet access.
The same generation of revolutionaries who, on taking power, shut down
all dissenting newspapers and forced citizens to break ties with
relatives living in the capitalist "outside", now shows itself incapable
of making possible the free access to information available to those of
whom it "asked" for so much sacrifice.
By the looks of it, this was too much to ask, and Raul continues to
implement reforms as he promised he would, "slowly but surely", showing
a particularly firm commitment to the first half of the formula.
In a world with increasingly less expensive web services, where
countries like the United States and Argentina envisage providing all
citizens with Wi-Fi services by 2020, the opening of a few cybercafés
offering limited Internet access (with many blocked pages) is a
laughably insignificant step.
The Cuban State continues to act like a strict father who disciplines
his children with antiquated methods, who uses medieval punishments like
forcing a kid to kneel on a grater, out in the hot sun, for misbehaving.
This, at least, is what the penalty of closing down a user's account,
for accessing forbidden sites or using an e-mail account to send out
anti-government information, recalls.
To top things off, the cute fellas responsible for the blog "La joven
Cuba" ("Young Cuba") called for measures that punish those who they
consider are making "inappropriate" use of the Internet. Do these young
men actually know the Internet as much as they claim? If so, why do they
insist on forgetting that it is as free as the wind?
I feel sorry for them and for anyone opposed to the unrestricted use of
the Internet. The World Wide Web is here to stay, and, if it's here to
stay, this is precisely because of its libertarian nature and not
because of any restriction that may be imposed on its use.
Whoever attempts to control, evade or ignore the Internet will only
discover, after wasting their time miserably, that they have shot
themselves in the foot.
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=94039
June 3, 2013
Alfredo Fernández
HAVANA TIMES — "You will learn, but not too much" – this was the maxim
that a number of martial arts masters in ancient China stuck to, fearing
that, one day, their disciples could outdo them.
It would appear that the Cuban government, whose most recent and
predictably timid reform has afforded Cubans a bit more access to the
Internet, is founded on precisely that idea.
How else could we explain the creation of new cybercafés, which will
offer Internet services in several municipalities across the country at
the "affordable" price of US $5 the hour?
Never before have we seen such clear proof that the Cuban government
isn't interested in providing its citizens with Internet access.
The same generation of revolutionaries who, on taking power, shut down
all dissenting newspapers and forced citizens to break ties with
relatives living in the capitalist "outside", now shows itself incapable
of making possible the free access to information available to those of
whom it "asked" for so much sacrifice.
By the looks of it, this was too much to ask, and Raul continues to
implement reforms as he promised he would, "slowly but surely", showing
a particularly firm commitment to the first half of the formula.
In a world with increasingly less expensive web services, where
countries like the United States and Argentina envisage providing all
citizens with Wi-Fi services by 2020, the opening of a few cybercafés
offering limited Internet access (with many blocked pages) is a
laughably insignificant step.
The Cuban State continues to act like a strict father who disciplines
his children with antiquated methods, who uses medieval punishments like
forcing a kid to kneel on a grater, out in the hot sun, for misbehaving.
This, at least, is what the penalty of closing down a user's account,
for accessing forbidden sites or using an e-mail account to send out
anti-government information, recalls.
To top things off, the cute fellas responsible for the blog "La joven
Cuba" ("Young Cuba") called for measures that punish those who they
consider are making "inappropriate" use of the Internet. Do these young
men actually know the Internet as much as they claim? If so, why do they
insist on forgetting that it is as free as the wind?
I feel sorry for them and for anyone opposed to the unrestricted use of
the Internet. The World Wide Web is here to stay, and, if it's here to
stay, this is precisely because of its libertarian nature and not
because of any restriction that may be imposed on its use.
Whoever attempts to control, evade or ignore the Internet will only
discover, after wasting their time miserably, that they have shot
themselves in the foot.
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=94039
Cuba razes buildings to fight beach erosion
Cuba razes buildings to fight beach erosion
Source: XINHUA | 2013-6-3 | ONLINE EDITION
HAVANA, June 2 (Xinhua) -- Cuba is demolishing buildings constructed
over the natural dunes of its famed seaside resort of Varadero, in a bid
to fight beach erosion at its top tourist attraction.
So far, some 19 buildings in Varadero have been razed, and another 21
atop dunes along the resort's 22-kilometer coastline are slated to be
knocked down, 10 of them by the end of this year.
Random construction is one of the main causes of erosion at more than
400 beaches around the Caribbean island nation, which is losing sand
beaches at the rate of more than a meter a year, said Ivis Fernandez, an
official with Cuba's Tourism Ministry.
The authorities are also fighting beach erosion by trucking sand to beef
up certain beaches in Varadero, and some 3 million cubic meters of sand
has already been "replanted" in recent years.
"We're spreading the sand through a ... technique that in a short time
restores the natural state of the beaches," said Jose Luis Juanes, chief
of the Department of Coastal Procedures at the Oceanology Institute of
the Environment, Science and Technology Ministry.
Studies show the process of beach erosion at Varadero is irreversible,
forcing officials to regularly refill the beaches with more sand, Juanes
was quoted as saying by state-run daily Juventud Rebelde.
The authorities also were using suction tubes round the clock to dredge
undersea sand and pump it back to shore, he said, adding the method has
been used since the 1920s to expand or rebuild beaches at some of the
world's top resorts.
Like many of the world's most popular beaches, including Cancun in
Mexico, Varadero became the victim of its own success, with a runaway
building boom that put too much stress on its fragile coastal environment.
Prior to l990, Varadero had just three relatively well-known hotels -
the International, Caguama and Oasis - and a handful of converted
million-dollar villas that had been abandoned by their wealthy owners
after the 1959 Cuban Revolution.
More hotels were built since the early 90s and today the number of hotel
rooms in Varadero has quadrupled to 18,742.
Varadero is the crown jewel of Cuba's tourism industry, the country's
second-largest source of foreign revenue, after the exports of technical
and medical services.
Cuba last year hosted some 2.85 million visitors and it hopes to receive
some 3 million this year.
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.asp?id=145254
Source: XINHUA | 2013-6-3 | ONLINE EDITION
HAVANA, June 2 (Xinhua) -- Cuba is demolishing buildings constructed
over the natural dunes of its famed seaside resort of Varadero, in a bid
to fight beach erosion at its top tourist attraction.
So far, some 19 buildings in Varadero have been razed, and another 21
atop dunes along the resort's 22-kilometer coastline are slated to be
knocked down, 10 of them by the end of this year.
Random construction is one of the main causes of erosion at more than
400 beaches around the Caribbean island nation, which is losing sand
beaches at the rate of more than a meter a year, said Ivis Fernandez, an
official with Cuba's Tourism Ministry.
The authorities are also fighting beach erosion by trucking sand to beef
up certain beaches in Varadero, and some 3 million cubic meters of sand
has already been "replanted" in recent years.
"We're spreading the sand through a ... technique that in a short time
restores the natural state of the beaches," said Jose Luis Juanes, chief
of the Department of Coastal Procedures at the Oceanology Institute of
the Environment, Science and Technology Ministry.
Studies show the process of beach erosion at Varadero is irreversible,
forcing officials to regularly refill the beaches with more sand, Juanes
was quoted as saying by state-run daily Juventud Rebelde.
The authorities also were using suction tubes round the clock to dredge
undersea sand and pump it back to shore, he said, adding the method has
been used since the 1920s to expand or rebuild beaches at some of the
world's top resorts.
Like many of the world's most popular beaches, including Cancun in
Mexico, Varadero became the victim of its own success, with a runaway
building boom that put too much stress on its fragile coastal environment.
Prior to l990, Varadero had just three relatively well-known hotels -
the International, Caguama and Oasis - and a handful of converted
million-dollar villas that had been abandoned by their wealthy owners
after the 1959 Cuban Revolution.
More hotels were built since the early 90s and today the number of hotel
rooms in Varadero has quadrupled to 18,742.
Varadero is the crown jewel of Cuba's tourism industry, the country's
second-largest source of foreign revenue, after the exports of technical
and medical services.
Cuba last year hosted some 2.85 million visitors and it hopes to receive
some 3 million this year.
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.asp?id=145254
Cuban priest moves to new parish, says it's not punishment
Posted on Sunday, 06.02.13
Cuban priest moves to new parish, says it's not punishment
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
Jose Conrado Rodriguez, a Cuban priest who has been highly critical of
the communist government and the Catholic Church hierarchy, confirmed
Sunday he will be moving from Santiago de Cuba to a parish in Cienfuegos.
He also will be writing a book and giving lectures on the history of the
image of Our Lady of Charity in the El Cobre Basilica, Cuba's patron
saint, at the request of Santiago Archbishop Dionisio García, the priest
told El Nuevo Herald.
Rodriguez said he welcomed the book assignment and that García offered
him a one-year leave from his pastoral duties to write it. But he wanted
to remain a pastor and obtained a new parish assignment in the south
center port city of Cienfuegos.
"I don't think [the book] is a punishment. I think Dionisio really wants
this book, and I want it also. I will do it with excitement," he said by
phone from his Santa Teresita del Niño Jesús church in eastern Santiago,
Cuba's second-largest city.
Sometimes called "the people's cardinal," the 62-year-old Rodriguez has
criticized Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega, and a U.S. diplomatic cable made
public by WikiLeaks reported that he had complained the church "is not
in the arena."
He was ordered transferred in 2010 to the village of El Cristo on the
outskirts of Santiago but he held on to Santa Teresita until now — at
least publically because the priests who were supposed to replace him
were delayed in another assignment.
Santa Teresita was badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy last year.
Government officials wanted the church to be torn down but Rodriguez
found independent experts who said the church could be fixed, according
to friends of the priest.
"It has not been easy in recent times," Rodriguez said. "But today I
said my goodbyes to the community and on Friday I hand over the parish."
"I am very happy to leave the parish in the hands of my successors,"
three Cubans, he said. The country of 11 million people, officially
atheist from 1962 to 1992, has only 340 priests, slightly more than half
of them foreigners.
The parish runs several canteens for the needy; educational and sports
programs for children; and computer classes for youths and adults.
Rodriguez wrote a public letter to Fidel Castro in 1994 blaming him for
Cuba's chaotic economy, asking for fair elections and urging him to open
a dialogue with dissidents and exiles.
He was sent to study in Spain in 1996, with his supporters saying that
church hierarchs wanted to both protect him and get him out of the way.
He returned to Cuba just before Pope John Paul II's visit in 1998.
After State Security agents burst into this church in 2007 to arrest 15
young dissidents gathered inside, he publicly condemned the event as a
"terrorist party."
Rodriguez followed up with an open letter to Castro's brother and
successor, Raúl Castro, in 2009 urging changes not only to the economy
but also to the island's Soviet-styled political model.
"When problems are not solved, they are like wounds. And when the
infections are big, they can take the life of the patient," he wrote.
"In a situation like Cuba's, a disposition to dialogue and respect for
the other is fundamental."
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/02/3430006/cuban-priest-moves-to-new-parish.html
Cuban priest moves to new parish, says it's not punishment
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
Jose Conrado Rodriguez, a Cuban priest who has been highly critical of
the communist government and the Catholic Church hierarchy, confirmed
Sunday he will be moving from Santiago de Cuba to a parish in Cienfuegos.
He also will be writing a book and giving lectures on the history of the
image of Our Lady of Charity in the El Cobre Basilica, Cuba's patron
saint, at the request of Santiago Archbishop Dionisio García, the priest
told El Nuevo Herald.
Rodriguez said he welcomed the book assignment and that García offered
him a one-year leave from his pastoral duties to write it. But he wanted
to remain a pastor and obtained a new parish assignment in the south
center port city of Cienfuegos.
"I don't think [the book] is a punishment. I think Dionisio really wants
this book, and I want it also. I will do it with excitement," he said by
phone from his Santa Teresita del Niño Jesús church in eastern Santiago,
Cuba's second-largest city.
Sometimes called "the people's cardinal," the 62-year-old Rodriguez has
criticized Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega, and a U.S. diplomatic cable made
public by WikiLeaks reported that he had complained the church "is not
in the arena."
He was ordered transferred in 2010 to the village of El Cristo on the
outskirts of Santiago but he held on to Santa Teresita until now — at
least publically because the priests who were supposed to replace him
were delayed in another assignment.
Santa Teresita was badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy last year.
Government officials wanted the church to be torn down but Rodriguez
found independent experts who said the church could be fixed, according
to friends of the priest.
"It has not been easy in recent times," Rodriguez said. "But today I
said my goodbyes to the community and on Friday I hand over the parish."
"I am very happy to leave the parish in the hands of my successors,"
three Cubans, he said. The country of 11 million people, officially
atheist from 1962 to 1992, has only 340 priests, slightly more than half
of them foreigners.
The parish runs several canteens for the needy; educational and sports
programs for children; and computer classes for youths and adults.
Rodriguez wrote a public letter to Fidel Castro in 1994 blaming him for
Cuba's chaotic economy, asking for fair elections and urging him to open
a dialogue with dissidents and exiles.
He was sent to study in Spain in 1996, with his supporters saying that
church hierarchs wanted to both protect him and get him out of the way.
He returned to Cuba just before Pope John Paul II's visit in 1998.
After State Security agents burst into this church in 2007 to arrest 15
young dissidents gathered inside, he publicly condemned the event as a
"terrorist party."
Rodriguez followed up with an open letter to Castro's brother and
successor, Raúl Castro, in 2009 urging changes not only to the economy
but also to the island's Soviet-styled political model.
"When problems are not solved, they are like wounds. And when the
infections are big, they can take the life of the patient," he wrote.
"In a situation like Cuba's, a disposition to dialogue and respect for
the other is fundamental."
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/02/3430006/cuban-priest-moves-to-new-parish.html
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Cuba Internet, in Slow Motion and Hard Currency
Cuba: Internet, in Slow Motion and Hard Currency / Ivan Garcia
Posted on June 2, 2013
Facing the India fountain, next to Fraternity Park and close to the
Capitol, in the center of Havana, is nestled the Hotel Saratoga.
Its ancient facade, painted lime green, has an architecture of curved
arches and tall columns. The interior is a modern frame with iron
structures and plasterboard. According to the relaxed norms of Cuban
hospitality, the Saratoga is a 5 star hotel.
Like almost all hotels, has an Internet cafe. Going up a wide staircase
with iron railings, after crossing the piano bar in a small room and
pool, one can connect to the internet.
If you have a tablet (iPad), laptop or smartphone, you can do it from
anywhere in the hotel, thanks to a wireless network. Otherwise, the
Saratoga has three computers. The speed of transmission is a maddeningly
slow.
Opening a Yahoo email can take up to 6 minutes. Forget Gmail. The
connection runs at 100 kilobytes. Downloading videos and photos that
exceed a megabyte is not advisable.
The service is too expensive, even for a foreigner. Half an hour for 6
CUC (over $6 US). One hour for 10. Two hours for 15. In the same hotel
where a month and a half ago the singers Beyonce and Jay-Z stayed, the
internet works in slow motion.
In 2010 the Castro government, opting for a full 'digital sovereignty',
decided to open its wallet to the investment and together with Venezuela
and Jamaica, financed a submarine cable of several thousand kilometers.
Its birthplace was the Venezuelan region of La Guaira and termination,
Siboney Beach in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba, about 550
miles from Havana.
Little is known about the cable. It is a kind of 'ALBANET', with filters
and control mechanisms. Behind the famous cable there is an Olympic
framework of corruption.
Some put out their hands along the way and lost several million dollars.
It's rumored — in Cuba the rumors are more reliable than the news from
the official press — that several people could go to jail.
State media reported euphorically that when the cable is connected, the
data transmission speed would be multiplied by 300. While technical
issues are resolved, 97% of the Cuban population still sees the Internet
as the stuff of science fiction.
In its absence, a USB flash drive serves as transmitter of information
for those computers not connected to the network. The regime considers
the internet a 'hegemonic control tool of U.S. imperialism'.
Since the island links to the information superhighway via satellite,
the tropical 'think tanks' wear themselves out trying to design and
effective cyber police that can tame the democratic worldwide web.
So far they have not succeeded. What they have achieved is to block
sites deemed 'subversive' and in the workplaces 'big brother' is
watching the footsteps of those disobedient people who decide to take a
look at a digital newspaper from Miami or Madrid.
In ETECSA, the State telecommunications company, staff with access to
the web had to sign a statement agreeing not to read 'enemy pages or
visit pornographic sites'.
Nor may they have international email account (Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail).
Zero Twitter, Facebook or other social networks. But in such closed
societies, people applaud a speech with the same emphasis that they
blatantly steal from their job or violate established rules.
Raisa, 24, has never surfed internet. That has not stopped the girl from
having a Facebook account and a page where she advertises herself as a
photographer for weddings and quinceañeras — girls' 15th birthday parties.
All thanks to a computer savvy friend, charged with editing and updating
her site. And those who have State accounts on the internet don't miss a
trick. They sell access for 2 CUC an hour.
But I don't recommend it. At its best, the connection is 50k. It can
take you up to 30 minutes to get to the online edition of the Journal of
The Americas.
Even though the Castro regime has established a drips-and-drabs
internet, some censored information reaches the average Cuban. Late, of
course.
Ivan Garcia
Photo: Several people access internet in a room in Havana. Taken from
Infolatam.
1 June 2013
http://translatingcuba.com/cuba-internet-in-slow-motion-and-hard-currency-ivan-garcia/
Posted on June 2, 2013
Facing the India fountain, next to Fraternity Park and close to the
Capitol, in the center of Havana, is nestled the Hotel Saratoga.
Its ancient facade, painted lime green, has an architecture of curved
arches and tall columns. The interior is a modern frame with iron
structures and plasterboard. According to the relaxed norms of Cuban
hospitality, the Saratoga is a 5 star hotel.
Like almost all hotels, has an Internet cafe. Going up a wide staircase
with iron railings, after crossing the piano bar in a small room and
pool, one can connect to the internet.
If you have a tablet (iPad), laptop or smartphone, you can do it from
anywhere in the hotel, thanks to a wireless network. Otherwise, the
Saratoga has three computers. The speed of transmission is a maddeningly
slow.
Opening a Yahoo email can take up to 6 minutes. Forget Gmail. The
connection runs at 100 kilobytes. Downloading videos and photos that
exceed a megabyte is not advisable.
The service is too expensive, even for a foreigner. Half an hour for 6
CUC (over $6 US). One hour for 10. Two hours for 15. In the same hotel
where a month and a half ago the singers Beyonce and Jay-Z stayed, the
internet works in slow motion.
In 2010 the Castro government, opting for a full 'digital sovereignty',
decided to open its wallet to the investment and together with Venezuela
and Jamaica, financed a submarine cable of several thousand kilometers.
Its birthplace was the Venezuelan region of La Guaira and termination,
Siboney Beach in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba, about 550
miles from Havana.
Little is known about the cable. It is a kind of 'ALBANET', with filters
and control mechanisms. Behind the famous cable there is an Olympic
framework of corruption.
Some put out their hands along the way and lost several million dollars.
It's rumored — in Cuba the rumors are more reliable than the news from
the official press — that several people could go to jail.
State media reported euphorically that when the cable is connected, the
data transmission speed would be multiplied by 300. While technical
issues are resolved, 97% of the Cuban population still sees the Internet
as the stuff of science fiction.
In its absence, a USB flash drive serves as transmitter of information
for those computers not connected to the network. The regime considers
the internet a 'hegemonic control tool of U.S. imperialism'.
Since the island links to the information superhighway via satellite,
the tropical 'think tanks' wear themselves out trying to design and
effective cyber police that can tame the democratic worldwide web.
So far they have not succeeded. What they have achieved is to block
sites deemed 'subversive' and in the workplaces 'big brother' is
watching the footsteps of those disobedient people who decide to take a
look at a digital newspaper from Miami or Madrid.
In ETECSA, the State telecommunications company, staff with access to
the web had to sign a statement agreeing not to read 'enemy pages or
visit pornographic sites'.
Nor may they have international email account (Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail).
Zero Twitter, Facebook or other social networks. But in such closed
societies, people applaud a speech with the same emphasis that they
blatantly steal from their job or violate established rules.
Raisa, 24, has never surfed internet. That has not stopped the girl from
having a Facebook account and a page where she advertises herself as a
photographer for weddings and quinceañeras — girls' 15th birthday parties.
All thanks to a computer savvy friend, charged with editing and updating
her site. And those who have State accounts on the internet don't miss a
trick. They sell access for 2 CUC an hour.
But I don't recommend it. At its best, the connection is 50k. It can
take you up to 30 minutes to get to the online edition of the Journal of
The Americas.
Even though the Castro regime has established a drips-and-drabs
internet, some censored information reaches the average Cuban. Late, of
course.
Ivan Garcia
Photo: Several people access internet in a room in Havana. Taken from
Infolatam.
1 June 2013
http://translatingcuba.com/cuba-internet-in-slow-motion-and-hard-currency-ivan-garcia/
Forgiveness or Justice
Forgiveness or Justice / Juan Juan Almeida
Posted on June 1, 2013
The dictators and their henchmen, as a rule, are extravagant,
autocratic, narcissistic, hypochondriac, provocative, enigmatic and
disturbing individuals. Because of this, and more, anyone who grew up in
any of the links in the chain of a dictatorial regime, shares a
psychosocial trauma that is difficult to cure.
Government violence starts to weaken the welfare state with the constant
exercise of its own virtuosity to impose terror and creates uncertainty
under the umbrella of authority. This validates the power and leaves
citizens without any real possibility of using an internal or external
entity to defend their rights. It is called — according to some scholars
– legal helplessness.
Scientifically it has been shown that this damage affects all people
regardless of social class to which each individual belongs. And it
affects not only the psychological and family level, but also damnifies
cultural and educational development.
I do not believe in left nor right; but that all dictatorships possess
as their only ideology the practice of supremacy, and imposition of
their rule to the extent that society ends up adopting passivity,
submission and resignation as a natural phenomenon.
Totalitarianism, with absolute certainty is sexist, the rules legally
and reigns over the woman by whatever means.
I think many know the repeated humiliation of Cuba's Ladies in White.
But there is so much more; for example, Cuba's psychiatric hospitals are
stuffed with very descriptive records of horrific sexual assault by the
authority, which not confronted legally, damages not only the body
memory of each female victim, but also the shock becomes irreparable,
and is extended to the children.
Countless women who have been affected in their individuality, in their
environment, in their family, social and ethical surroundings. Hate, in
these cases (without referring to the many mothers who have lost
children in the sea), is a sensible and even necessary emotion.
Compelling reason forces me to believe that in order to discuss the
future of Cuba and its transition, we should first be self-sufficient
and unburden ourselves of the disguise, and with it, the desire to please.
I don't know about others, but to me, I respect the view of those who
are anxious to figure out how to outline a common moral discourse that
encourages citizen exaltation; it sounds naive, false, ridiculous and
even childish tome to hear them speak of Forgiveness as if this were an
elegant, civilized and pragmatic response to State violence.
I wonder how could Forgiveness, by itself — if it could — not be the
starting point for another period of violence, or how this same
absolution could achieve the reconciliation of a society that for years
seen their children confronted like bands of enemies.
I have read, and lately I hear with reiterated frequency, several
formulas and examples, but I only trust two old tools that have
historically proven to be more reliable than revenge, and more effective
than tolerance: The law and justice.
1 June 2013
http://translatingcuba.com/forgiveness-or-justice-juan-juan-almeida/
Posted on June 1, 2013
The dictators and their henchmen, as a rule, are extravagant,
autocratic, narcissistic, hypochondriac, provocative, enigmatic and
disturbing individuals. Because of this, and more, anyone who grew up in
any of the links in the chain of a dictatorial regime, shares a
psychosocial trauma that is difficult to cure.
Government violence starts to weaken the welfare state with the constant
exercise of its own virtuosity to impose terror and creates uncertainty
under the umbrella of authority. This validates the power and leaves
citizens without any real possibility of using an internal or external
entity to defend their rights. It is called — according to some scholars
– legal helplessness.
Scientifically it has been shown that this damage affects all people
regardless of social class to which each individual belongs. And it
affects not only the psychological and family level, but also damnifies
cultural and educational development.
I do not believe in left nor right; but that all dictatorships possess
as their only ideology the practice of supremacy, and imposition of
their rule to the extent that society ends up adopting passivity,
submission and resignation as a natural phenomenon.
Totalitarianism, with absolute certainty is sexist, the rules legally
and reigns over the woman by whatever means.
I think many know the repeated humiliation of Cuba's Ladies in White.
But there is so much more; for example, Cuba's psychiatric hospitals are
stuffed with very descriptive records of horrific sexual assault by the
authority, which not confronted legally, damages not only the body
memory of each female victim, but also the shock becomes irreparable,
and is extended to the children.
Countless women who have been affected in their individuality, in their
environment, in their family, social and ethical surroundings. Hate, in
these cases (without referring to the many mothers who have lost
children in the sea), is a sensible and even necessary emotion.
Compelling reason forces me to believe that in order to discuss the
future of Cuba and its transition, we should first be self-sufficient
and unburden ourselves of the disguise, and with it, the desire to please.
I don't know about others, but to me, I respect the view of those who
are anxious to figure out how to outline a common moral discourse that
encourages citizen exaltation; it sounds naive, false, ridiculous and
even childish tome to hear them speak of Forgiveness as if this were an
elegant, civilized and pragmatic response to State violence.
I wonder how could Forgiveness, by itself — if it could — not be the
starting point for another period of violence, or how this same
absolution could achieve the reconciliation of a society that for years
seen their children confronted like bands of enemies.
I have read, and lately I hear with reiterated frequency, several
formulas and examples, but I only trust two old tools that have
historically proven to be more reliable than revenge, and more effective
than tolerance: The law and justice.
1 June 2013
http://translatingcuba.com/forgiveness-or-justice-juan-juan-almeida/
New Film Reveals Critical Havana Housing Conditions
New Film Reveals Critical Havana Housing Conditions
June 1, 2013
From Café Fuerte
HAVANA TIMES — While Havana's old town continues to experience a visible
architectural and socio-cultural renewal, unattended buildings in the
neighboring borough of Centro Habana languish and deteriorate before the
eyes of its tenants and the inertia of government authorities.
The area was once a zone of transition between Havana's colonial-era
settlements and the more modern buildings that were being constructed in
the fledgling neighborhood of Vedado. Its magnificent edifices profited
from an urban development program undertaken between 1827 and 1840.
Today, nothing but a decaying image of these achievements remains.
Elena (2012), a documentary by filmmaker Marcelo Martin Herrera, affords
us powerful images of the collapse of Centro Habana, which continues to
crumble and offers no hope of ever becoming a habitable neighborhood
again. The 42-minute film takes its title from the name of one of the
buildings located on 117 Vapor Street, between Espada and Hospital
Streets, built in 1927.
The result of three years of investigative journalism and interviews
with the tenants of the ramshackle building, Elena is one of the most
compelling testimonies about Havana's architectural debacle produced in
recent times.
A graduate of Cuba's Higher Institute of Industrial Design (ISDI),
screenwriter and director Martin Herrera (Havana, 1980) began his career
making graphic designs and animated publicity for television. He is
currently a filmmaker and publicist attached to the Cuban Film Institute
(ICAIC).
230 buildings collapse each year
The film was screened at ICAIC's 12th Young Filmmakers' Festival this
past April, where it received an honorary mention. To date, it has not
been scheduled for screening at any of Cuba's movie theatres or shown on
Cuban television.
With 163,763 inhabitants and covering an area of five square kilometers
(a mere one percent of the capital's total surface area), Centro Habana
is Havana's most densely-populated neighborhood.
According to official figures, the neighborhood is made up of 46,277
residences, 22,712 of which are in poor condition and 4,198 of which are
in a critical state. Some 230 buildings collapse within the boundaries
of Centro Habana every year.
A total of 24,311 of its residents are currently living in "temporary
shelters", a government euphemism used to describe facilities where
large numbers of homeless people are lodged, usually for long periods of
time.
"I haven't seen a news report that captures the country's debacle as
honestly and as unflinchingly in years," a Cuban State journalist told
CaféFuerte. "Though Elena is a documentary about a concrete, everyday
reality, it also captures, through metaphor, the irrecoverable ruins of
Cuban history and of an architectural heritage that is vanishing all
around us."
No stairways
Our source (who asked to remain anonymous) believes that now, when the
assemblies in preparation for the 9th Congress of the Federation of
Cuban Journalists (UPEC) scheduled for July 14 and 15 are underway,
Elena ought to be shown to communications professionals.
Martin opens his documentary with a screen showing Article 9 of Cuba's
Constitution: "The State shall work to ensure that no citizen is denied
comfortable housing." He closes the film with a dedication: "To Havana,
a city that is still waiting."
The documentary began to be shot in October of 2009, when a work brigade
from the Salvador Allende Contingent was expected to undertake the
building's renovation. Repair work had actually begun earlier, in 2000,
but had been suspended.
"The building's stairway collapsed, like New York's Twin Towers," an
interviewee who identifies himself as "Manolo" remarks in the
documentary. Elena's tenants were moved to a shelter, but many returned
to the building, the victims of daily thefts and despair.
"Everything I owned was stolen from me at the shelter. I lived in the
shelter for eight years and I have absolutely no hope of getting
anywhere," a woman says.
Though Elena is not suitable for residence, it is still inhabited, like
many other buildings in Centro Habana. To access it, tenants use a
corridor built between the edifice and a neighboring building. Many
apartments and rooms have no kitchens or bathrooms, and leakages and
sewage, full of excrement and worms, are a common sight.
A never-ending lie
"All of this is one big lie, an insult…I have devoted my entire life to
the revolution, in Cuba and abroad," tells Gregorio, an elderly
gentleman who took part in internationalist combat missions when young.
Gregorio lives surrounded by putrid waters that overflow into his
quarters constantly. He is forced to take out bucketfuls of sewage
regularly. He tells that a public official offered to unclog his drains,
but asked for 40 dollars for the service (about one thousand Cuban pesos).
"I don't have 40 dollars. I can offer 100 or 200 pesos (4 to 8 dollars),
at most, because I can't afford anything else with my pension," Gregorio
explains.
Emilio, another tenant, brings a crushing reality to the fore: "A person
can't go 25 years without a bathroom or kitchen."
Elena documents the telephone calls to different State institutions and
the headquarters of the construction brigade, which were unable to offer
an explanation for their evident neglect of the building. All they
secure are evasive replies and promises which, at the close of 2012, had
not yet been fulfilled.
"The documentary opens with nightmarish images of unnamable bugs moving
in the waste water that floods the building's quarters every day, and
closes with the photographs and addresses of other buildings in Centro
Habana – a small sample of buildings as deteriorated as Elena, or
already a pile of rubble," filmmaker Eduardo del Llano wrote in his
blog. "Elena is one of those critical pieces which, in addition to being
rigorous and energetic, reveal imagination and even a sense of humor. It
is a protest piece, but it is also cinema.""
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=93982
June 1, 2013
From Café Fuerte
HAVANA TIMES — While Havana's old town continues to experience a visible
architectural and socio-cultural renewal, unattended buildings in the
neighboring borough of Centro Habana languish and deteriorate before the
eyes of its tenants and the inertia of government authorities.
The area was once a zone of transition between Havana's colonial-era
settlements and the more modern buildings that were being constructed in
the fledgling neighborhood of Vedado. Its magnificent edifices profited
from an urban development program undertaken between 1827 and 1840.
Today, nothing but a decaying image of these achievements remains.
Elena (2012), a documentary by filmmaker Marcelo Martin Herrera, affords
us powerful images of the collapse of Centro Habana, which continues to
crumble and offers no hope of ever becoming a habitable neighborhood
again. The 42-minute film takes its title from the name of one of the
buildings located on 117 Vapor Street, between Espada and Hospital
Streets, built in 1927.
The result of three years of investigative journalism and interviews
with the tenants of the ramshackle building, Elena is one of the most
compelling testimonies about Havana's architectural debacle produced in
recent times.
A graduate of Cuba's Higher Institute of Industrial Design (ISDI),
screenwriter and director Martin Herrera (Havana, 1980) began his career
making graphic designs and animated publicity for television. He is
currently a filmmaker and publicist attached to the Cuban Film Institute
(ICAIC).
230 buildings collapse each year
The film was screened at ICAIC's 12th Young Filmmakers' Festival this
past April, where it received an honorary mention. To date, it has not
been scheduled for screening at any of Cuba's movie theatres or shown on
Cuban television.
With 163,763 inhabitants and covering an area of five square kilometers
(a mere one percent of the capital's total surface area), Centro Habana
is Havana's most densely-populated neighborhood.
According to official figures, the neighborhood is made up of 46,277
residences, 22,712 of which are in poor condition and 4,198 of which are
in a critical state. Some 230 buildings collapse within the boundaries
of Centro Habana every year.
A total of 24,311 of its residents are currently living in "temporary
shelters", a government euphemism used to describe facilities where
large numbers of homeless people are lodged, usually for long periods of
time.
"I haven't seen a news report that captures the country's debacle as
honestly and as unflinchingly in years," a Cuban State journalist told
CaféFuerte. "Though Elena is a documentary about a concrete, everyday
reality, it also captures, through metaphor, the irrecoverable ruins of
Cuban history and of an architectural heritage that is vanishing all
around us."
No stairways
Our source (who asked to remain anonymous) believes that now, when the
assemblies in preparation for the 9th Congress of the Federation of
Cuban Journalists (UPEC) scheduled for July 14 and 15 are underway,
Elena ought to be shown to communications professionals.
Martin opens his documentary with a screen showing Article 9 of Cuba's
Constitution: "The State shall work to ensure that no citizen is denied
comfortable housing." He closes the film with a dedication: "To Havana,
a city that is still waiting."
The documentary began to be shot in October of 2009, when a work brigade
from the Salvador Allende Contingent was expected to undertake the
building's renovation. Repair work had actually begun earlier, in 2000,
but had been suspended.
"The building's stairway collapsed, like New York's Twin Towers," an
interviewee who identifies himself as "Manolo" remarks in the
documentary. Elena's tenants were moved to a shelter, but many returned
to the building, the victims of daily thefts and despair.
"Everything I owned was stolen from me at the shelter. I lived in the
shelter for eight years and I have absolutely no hope of getting
anywhere," a woman says.
Though Elena is not suitable for residence, it is still inhabited, like
many other buildings in Centro Habana. To access it, tenants use a
corridor built between the edifice and a neighboring building. Many
apartments and rooms have no kitchens or bathrooms, and leakages and
sewage, full of excrement and worms, are a common sight.
A never-ending lie
"All of this is one big lie, an insult…I have devoted my entire life to
the revolution, in Cuba and abroad," tells Gregorio, an elderly
gentleman who took part in internationalist combat missions when young.
Gregorio lives surrounded by putrid waters that overflow into his
quarters constantly. He is forced to take out bucketfuls of sewage
regularly. He tells that a public official offered to unclog his drains,
but asked for 40 dollars for the service (about one thousand Cuban pesos).
"I don't have 40 dollars. I can offer 100 or 200 pesos (4 to 8 dollars),
at most, because I can't afford anything else with my pension," Gregorio
explains.
Emilio, another tenant, brings a crushing reality to the fore: "A person
can't go 25 years without a bathroom or kitchen."
Elena documents the telephone calls to different State institutions and
the headquarters of the construction brigade, which were unable to offer
an explanation for their evident neglect of the building. All they
secure are evasive replies and promises which, at the close of 2012, had
not yet been fulfilled.
"The documentary opens with nightmarish images of unnamable bugs moving
in the waste water that floods the building's quarters every day, and
closes with the photographs and addresses of other buildings in Centro
Habana – a small sample of buildings as deteriorated as Elena, or
already a pile of rubble," filmmaker Eduardo del Llano wrote in his
blog. "Elena is one of those critical pieces which, in addition to being
rigorous and energetic, reveal imagination and even a sense of humor. It
is a protest piece, but it is also cinema.""
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=93982
Free Health Care in Cuba?
Free Health Care in Cuba?
June 1, 2013
Moses Patterson
HAVANA TIMES — A much heralded triumph of the Cuban revolution is the
"free health care system". Cuban propagandists will even favorably
compare the Cuban system to US health care delivery.
I imagine, few, if any, of these apologists, have ever experienced
either one, let alone both systems. I just spent last week experiencing
the Cuban health care system. Let me explain:
My wife and I travelled to Cuba last week to help my mother-in-law
recover from surgery. She was going to have to spend at least three days
in the hospital post-op and several more days motionless in bed at home.
We arranged to rent a large 'casa particular' or rental apartment close
to the hospital with two bedrooms and two bathrooms so that my wife and
I could be comfortable and attend to her mother.
My wife's family is from Guantanamo, but the surgical hospital in
Guantanamo, which was damaged by hurricane Sandy last year did not have
the surgical equipment available for the specific surgery my
mother-in-law needed, so for a variety of reasons, we decided to have
the surgery in Havana.
Prior to the trip, my wife wisely purchased towels and two sets of
sheets and pillowcases for her mother's use during her hospital stay. In
addition, we packed several aerosol cans of spray disinfectant, special
soap used for sponge baths and a room air-freshener that plugs into to
an electrical outlet.
Although this Havana hospital provides linens, the quality and hygiene
of the supplied linens is questionable. Needless to say, you don't need
to bring your own linens for US hospitals.
The morning we brought her to the hospital, it was hard to ignore the
dimly lit halls inside and the faint smell of urine and disinfectant
that seemed to be nearly everywhere. Even though I knew this was the
best option available to us in Cuba, I could not help but think that if
this was the US, there would be no way I would leave my mother-in-law in
a hospital that smelled like this.
We were told the elevators weren't working that day so we had to trek up
to the fourth floor for the pre-operation prep and to speak with the
surgeon.
It was clear to me that the staff in this hospital worked and moved
about similar to the way hospital staffs move about in the US. Although
there were some staff who seemed content to simply sit around and talk,
there were others who kept busy doing their jobs.
My wife is still recognized on the street from her days as a national
newscaster several years ago so it was hard to tell how much of our
initial 'special treatment' was just because of her former status in
Cuba and how much was standard customer service.
Still, it is fair to say we were well-received and everyone was polite
and even pleasant. Under these working conditions, that is worth no
small recognition.
After I completed my job carrying the small suitcase with the sheets and
towels and personal items up the stairs, I decided to wander around the
hospital a little while my wife and mother-in-law met with the surgeon.
"It was clear to me that the staff in this hospital worked and moved
about similar to the way hospital staffs move about in the US. Although
there were some staff who seemed content to simply sit around and talk,
there were others who kept busy doing their jobs."
It was raining outside so it was even more hot and humid inside than
normal and if there was any air-conditioning it was fighting a losing
battle. There were noisy fans on all the floors and pushcarts
half-filled with soiled linens left in the halls.
The real difference was the hospital itself. There were more broken than
unbroken windows. Even the unbroken ones still had the "X" tape-blocking
from the last hurricane to threaten La Habana nearly five years ago. If
the interior of the hospital had once had a color scheme, it was no
longer evident.
Most of the walls needed a couple fresh coats of whatever color to hide
the years of gurney crashes and greasy hands. Floor tiles, mostly
broken, were a hodge-podge of colors and markings as well.
Even the most conscientious janitor would have to go about their
cleaning chores by memory because the structural deterioration as well
as imbedded dirt and grime would never betray what was clean and what
was not.
Despite these physical conditions, the two hour surgery thankfully went
well. My wife, upon hearing the good news from the surgeon prompted me
to slide a 100 cuc bill in his hand (Keep in mind that this 'tip'
tripled his monthly salary).
We thanked him and asked if he would continue to visit 'mi suegra' and
we would see to it that he was taken care of again before we took her
home. He nodded his understanding. I still can't imagine tipping a
surgeon in the US.
We thanked the doctor and asked if he would continue to visit 'mi
suegra' and we would see to it that he was taken care of again before we
took her home. He nodded his understanding. I still can't imagine
tipping a surgeon in the US.
I then left for the store to buy juice for my mother-in-law, the Cuban
equivalent of flowers in the US. When I returned to the hospital later,
she was still in recovery. Since she was going to be groggy for the next
few hours, my wife busied herself finding out who would be on staff that
night.
She arranged that the bed was made up with the new sheets. Ten cuc to
the shift 'jefa' assured that she would get the best mattress available
and that her suitcase would be unmolested.
The next two days for me was spent shuttling food and juice to the
hospital for my wife and her mother. I even brought back pizzas and soda
for the staff. The spray disinfectant came in handy for the bathroom.
Her 'room' had ten beds and 8 men and women patients with no dividing
curtains for privacy. Again, even the worst private and semi-private
rooms that we take for granted in the US were simply not available in
this hospital. Believe me, we asked.
We plugged in the air-freshener across the room and by the second day it
began to have an effect. The other patients in the ward also brought
sheets and towels and their own food. Fruits and juices were offered and
shared by everyone.
The doctor managed to look in on my mother-in-law frequently. So did the
nurses and even the staff responsible for cleaning. Word must have
gotten out that my wife was a good tipper.
At the end of the third day, my mother-in-law had arranged to trade her
used sheets and towels for a week's supply of Vicodin and Percocet with
another MD on staff.
These top-shelf painkillers are normally not available in Cuba. She had
also arranged for one of the nurses who worked in the afternoons to drop
by the rental house to check on her in the mornings on her way to work.
(10 cuc per visit)
When we added up the costs of linens, juices, pizzas for the staff, tips
for the doctors and nurses and other odds and ends, my mother-in-law's
three day hospital stay in La Habana costs my wife and I just less than
$400. If she had had the same procedure done in the US, her deductible
would have been at least $1000.
As far as we know, she is no worse for the wear. Her surgeon and the
staff seemed caring and attentive. I have no way of knowing how much of
a difference was made because we had resources typically not available
to the average Cuban.
We also do not know if the same service would have been better or worse
in Mexico City, Guatemala City, or Buenos Aries. We do know now that
hospital conditions are much better in the US. We also know that without
ANY resources, her experience could have been worse. Much worse. Cuban
health care is at least adequate but it is certainly not free.
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=93949
June 1, 2013
Moses Patterson
HAVANA TIMES — A much heralded triumph of the Cuban revolution is the
"free health care system". Cuban propagandists will even favorably
compare the Cuban system to US health care delivery.
I imagine, few, if any, of these apologists, have ever experienced
either one, let alone both systems. I just spent last week experiencing
the Cuban health care system. Let me explain:
My wife and I travelled to Cuba last week to help my mother-in-law
recover from surgery. She was going to have to spend at least three days
in the hospital post-op and several more days motionless in bed at home.
We arranged to rent a large 'casa particular' or rental apartment close
to the hospital with two bedrooms and two bathrooms so that my wife and
I could be comfortable and attend to her mother.
My wife's family is from Guantanamo, but the surgical hospital in
Guantanamo, which was damaged by hurricane Sandy last year did not have
the surgical equipment available for the specific surgery my
mother-in-law needed, so for a variety of reasons, we decided to have
the surgery in Havana.
Prior to the trip, my wife wisely purchased towels and two sets of
sheets and pillowcases for her mother's use during her hospital stay. In
addition, we packed several aerosol cans of spray disinfectant, special
soap used for sponge baths and a room air-freshener that plugs into to
an electrical outlet.
Although this Havana hospital provides linens, the quality and hygiene
of the supplied linens is questionable. Needless to say, you don't need
to bring your own linens for US hospitals.
The morning we brought her to the hospital, it was hard to ignore the
dimly lit halls inside and the faint smell of urine and disinfectant
that seemed to be nearly everywhere. Even though I knew this was the
best option available to us in Cuba, I could not help but think that if
this was the US, there would be no way I would leave my mother-in-law in
a hospital that smelled like this.
We were told the elevators weren't working that day so we had to trek up
to the fourth floor for the pre-operation prep and to speak with the
surgeon.
It was clear to me that the staff in this hospital worked and moved
about similar to the way hospital staffs move about in the US. Although
there were some staff who seemed content to simply sit around and talk,
there were others who kept busy doing their jobs.
My wife is still recognized on the street from her days as a national
newscaster several years ago so it was hard to tell how much of our
initial 'special treatment' was just because of her former status in
Cuba and how much was standard customer service.
Still, it is fair to say we were well-received and everyone was polite
and even pleasant. Under these working conditions, that is worth no
small recognition.
After I completed my job carrying the small suitcase with the sheets and
towels and personal items up the stairs, I decided to wander around the
hospital a little while my wife and mother-in-law met with the surgeon.
"It was clear to me that the staff in this hospital worked and moved
about similar to the way hospital staffs move about in the US. Although
there were some staff who seemed content to simply sit around and talk,
there were others who kept busy doing their jobs."
It was raining outside so it was even more hot and humid inside than
normal and if there was any air-conditioning it was fighting a losing
battle. There were noisy fans on all the floors and pushcarts
half-filled with soiled linens left in the halls.
The real difference was the hospital itself. There were more broken than
unbroken windows. Even the unbroken ones still had the "X" tape-blocking
from the last hurricane to threaten La Habana nearly five years ago. If
the interior of the hospital had once had a color scheme, it was no
longer evident.
Most of the walls needed a couple fresh coats of whatever color to hide
the years of gurney crashes and greasy hands. Floor tiles, mostly
broken, were a hodge-podge of colors and markings as well.
Even the most conscientious janitor would have to go about their
cleaning chores by memory because the structural deterioration as well
as imbedded dirt and grime would never betray what was clean and what
was not.
Despite these physical conditions, the two hour surgery thankfully went
well. My wife, upon hearing the good news from the surgeon prompted me
to slide a 100 cuc bill in his hand (Keep in mind that this 'tip'
tripled his monthly salary).
We thanked him and asked if he would continue to visit 'mi suegra' and
we would see to it that he was taken care of again before we took her
home. He nodded his understanding. I still can't imagine tipping a
surgeon in the US.
We thanked the doctor and asked if he would continue to visit 'mi
suegra' and we would see to it that he was taken care of again before we
took her home. He nodded his understanding. I still can't imagine
tipping a surgeon in the US.
I then left for the store to buy juice for my mother-in-law, the Cuban
equivalent of flowers in the US. When I returned to the hospital later,
she was still in recovery. Since she was going to be groggy for the next
few hours, my wife busied herself finding out who would be on staff that
night.
She arranged that the bed was made up with the new sheets. Ten cuc to
the shift 'jefa' assured that she would get the best mattress available
and that her suitcase would be unmolested.
The next two days for me was spent shuttling food and juice to the
hospital for my wife and her mother. I even brought back pizzas and soda
for the staff. The spray disinfectant came in handy for the bathroom.
Her 'room' had ten beds and 8 men and women patients with no dividing
curtains for privacy. Again, even the worst private and semi-private
rooms that we take for granted in the US were simply not available in
this hospital. Believe me, we asked.
We plugged in the air-freshener across the room and by the second day it
began to have an effect. The other patients in the ward also brought
sheets and towels and their own food. Fruits and juices were offered and
shared by everyone.
The doctor managed to look in on my mother-in-law frequently. So did the
nurses and even the staff responsible for cleaning. Word must have
gotten out that my wife was a good tipper.
At the end of the third day, my mother-in-law had arranged to trade her
used sheets and towels for a week's supply of Vicodin and Percocet with
another MD on staff.
These top-shelf painkillers are normally not available in Cuba. She had
also arranged for one of the nurses who worked in the afternoons to drop
by the rental house to check on her in the mornings on her way to work.
(10 cuc per visit)
When we added up the costs of linens, juices, pizzas for the staff, tips
for the doctors and nurses and other odds and ends, my mother-in-law's
three day hospital stay in La Habana costs my wife and I just less than
$400. If she had had the same procedure done in the US, her deductible
would have been at least $1000.
As far as we know, she is no worse for the wear. Her surgeon and the
staff seemed caring and attentive. I have no way of knowing how much of
a difference was made because we had resources typically not available
to the average Cuban.
We also do not know if the same service would have been better or worse
in Mexico City, Guatemala City, or Buenos Aries. We do know now that
hospital conditions are much better in the US. We also know that without
ANY resources, her experience could have been worse. Much worse. Cuban
health care is at least adequate but it is certainly not free.
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=93949
A Cuban Day Care Activity
A Cuban Day Care Activity
June 1, 2013
Rosa Martinez
HAVANA TIMES — The start of the school year is a highly important moment
in Cuba. The country's public education system stands, next to
healthcare and sports, as one of the most significant achievements of
the Cuban revolution, and, every year, we attest to this on the first
Monday of the month of September, when kids return to the country's
schools or enroll in these institutions for the first time.
All schools in the country organize cultural activities in which
children, educators and families participate.
It has become tradition for the principal of the school to deliver a
speech that underscores the importance the school has as a forger of the
country's future workers, professionals and artists.
Usually, this speech has some of the political content we insist on
finding in all our daily experiences in Cuba, invariably touching on the
US blockade, imperialism and the revolution.
The address opens the school year officially, and the principal cannot
let pass an opportunity to stress that, despite the shortages the
country has suffered in the course of more than 50 years, no Cuban child
has been left without schooling, teachers or textbooks.
Though such statements are boring for us parents, who have heard them
countless times, we do understand and appreciate them. We begin to ask
ourselves, however, why no one speaks of the rise in juvenile violence,
or speak to children about their rights and parents about their duties.
The same thing happens at every start-of-the-school-year function, so
it's not something that catches me by surprise anymore. What I hadn't
expected, however, is for this old, tired story to repeat itself at an
activity held by my little girl's day care center.
In this case (it was May), the anniversary of the creation of Cuba's day
care centers was being celebrated. These are very important for women,
for they afford them the opportunity to fulfill their dreams of a career
and of professional development without neglecting the care of their
children.
It was a colorful activity in which the teachers dressed up as clowns
and performed dance and song numbers.
The kids enjoyed a show by a magician who, in addition to doing tricks,
told a beautiful story which kept them entertained from beginning to
end. I would be lying, however, if I said they enjoyed the beginning or
end of the activity itself.
The beginning was boring for the kids because, as in all official
ceremonies, it involved playing Cuba's national anthem. Though a few
children managed to mouth the words of the anthem, not one of them
showed any interest in singing that song, whose significance only the
parents and teachers were aware of.
Playing the national anthem is perhaps justified: it is one of the
symbols of our homeland and children ought to get to know it and learn
to respect it from the time they are little. But closing an activity
aimed at children under five with a boring speech, that's something
altogether different.
And that's what happened: the activity ended with a speech about the
commitment that Cuba and its revolution demand, a speech that included
quotations from Commander in Chief Fidel Castro. The parents struggled
to control their little ones who, bored by the high-sounding phrases,
began to run around, scream and play.
Every little kid in Cuba knows who Fidel is, but no kid there understood
what the kindergarten, the teachers, the plasticine, the colored
crayons, the horse on four wheels or the black doll had to do with the
homeland or the revolution. Most of them didn't know what the revolution
was or what it was good for.
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=93958
June 1, 2013
Rosa Martinez
HAVANA TIMES — The start of the school year is a highly important moment
in Cuba. The country's public education system stands, next to
healthcare and sports, as one of the most significant achievements of
the Cuban revolution, and, every year, we attest to this on the first
Monday of the month of September, when kids return to the country's
schools or enroll in these institutions for the first time.
All schools in the country organize cultural activities in which
children, educators and families participate.
It has become tradition for the principal of the school to deliver a
speech that underscores the importance the school has as a forger of the
country's future workers, professionals and artists.
Usually, this speech has some of the political content we insist on
finding in all our daily experiences in Cuba, invariably touching on the
US blockade, imperialism and the revolution.
The address opens the school year officially, and the principal cannot
let pass an opportunity to stress that, despite the shortages the
country has suffered in the course of more than 50 years, no Cuban child
has been left without schooling, teachers or textbooks.
Though such statements are boring for us parents, who have heard them
countless times, we do understand and appreciate them. We begin to ask
ourselves, however, why no one speaks of the rise in juvenile violence,
or speak to children about their rights and parents about their duties.
The same thing happens at every start-of-the-school-year function, so
it's not something that catches me by surprise anymore. What I hadn't
expected, however, is for this old, tired story to repeat itself at an
activity held by my little girl's day care center.
In this case (it was May), the anniversary of the creation of Cuba's day
care centers was being celebrated. These are very important for women,
for they afford them the opportunity to fulfill their dreams of a career
and of professional development without neglecting the care of their
children.
It was a colorful activity in which the teachers dressed up as clowns
and performed dance and song numbers.
The kids enjoyed a show by a magician who, in addition to doing tricks,
told a beautiful story which kept them entertained from beginning to
end. I would be lying, however, if I said they enjoyed the beginning or
end of the activity itself.
The beginning was boring for the kids because, as in all official
ceremonies, it involved playing Cuba's national anthem. Though a few
children managed to mouth the words of the anthem, not one of them
showed any interest in singing that song, whose significance only the
parents and teachers were aware of.
Playing the national anthem is perhaps justified: it is one of the
symbols of our homeland and children ought to get to know it and learn
to respect it from the time they are little. But closing an activity
aimed at children under five with a boring speech, that's something
altogether different.
And that's what happened: the activity ended with a speech about the
commitment that Cuba and its revolution demand, a speech that included
quotations from Commander in Chief Fidel Castro. The parents struggled
to control their little ones who, bored by the high-sounding phrases,
began to run around, scream and play.
Every little kid in Cuba knows who Fidel is, but no kid there understood
what the kindergarten, the teachers, the plasticine, the colored
crayons, the horse on four wheels or the black doll had to do with the
homeland or the revolution. Most of them didn't know what the revolution
was or what it was good for.
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=93958
Mariel port expansion may be economic boost and ecological bust
Posted on Saturday, 06.01.13
Mariel port expansion may be economic boost and ecological bust
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
A $900 million project to expand the Cuban port of Mariel into a
strategic hub for shipping in the Atlantic has been painted in Havana as
the country's best opportunity in decades to set a new course for its
stagnant economy.
It might also be an ecological calamity, the latest in a series of
schemes by Cuba's all-powerful communist government to boost its
economic development at the expense of its nature, according to experts
on the island's environment.
The Mariel project has killed nearly 10 acres of mangroves in the bay
and silted the waters of the bay and one of the rivers that feeds into
it, said Eudel Cepero, a Cuba-born environmental consultant and activist
in Miami.
Working from satellite photos of Mariel available on Google Earth,
Cepero said he also measured 20 acres of coves within the bay filled in
to expand the port's container and other land operations, and 25 acres
of surrounding land quarried for fill.
Cepero acknowledged that without a first-hand study of Mariel — the
starting point of the 1980 boatlift that brought more than 125,000
Cubans to U.S. shores — he cannot definitively establish the
environmental damage.
"But if you kill 10 acres of mangrove in the Florida Keys, there's a
revolution," said Cepero, a lecturer at the University of Miami and
Miami-Dade College. "That would be like destroying an entire eco-system."
"What's going on (in Mariel) certainly seems alarming," said Sergio
Diaz-Briquets, a Washington-based consultant who co-authored a book on
the island's environmental record, "Conquering Nature."
Cuba usually gets high marks from the international environmental
community for its regulatory framework and the pristine condition of
many of its national preserves, especially along its southern coastline.
About one-quarter of its land and marine habitats are legally protected,
one of the highest percentages in the world. And Havana has signed many
of the key international agreements and declarations on the environment.
Yet, like other developing countries, the government at times has tossed
aside environmental and other concerns over projects considered to be
strategically needed for economic growth, said Diaz-Briquets.
"The reality is that in the situation that Cuba faces, with economic
difficulties, the question becomes whether that (regulatory) framework
can be enforced when the very survival of the revolution is at stake,"
he said.
The Mariel project is a "once in a century" chance to set a winning
development strategy for the country and "probably the biggest
investment project today in Cuba," Havana economist Pedro Monreal wrote
in a column last month.
Once completed next year, he argued, the mega-port could easily become a
hub for shipping all along the Atlantic, an area expected to grow
following the expansion of the Panama Canal that is due to be completed
in 2015.
Mariel will have space for 3 million cargo containers, a duty-free zone
that could serve the entire Caribbean and bonded assembly plants —
"maquiladoras" — that could produce goods for Latin America and Europe,
according to official Havana reports.
"No one is thinking about the environment. This is always about jobs and
money," said Dan Kipnis, a Miami activist who has fought the ongoing
dredging of the port of Miami. "Why would Cuba be any different?"
But Cuba is very different.
For one, the Western Hemisphere's lone ruling Communist Party runs a
top-down system in which agencies and the state monopoly on the media
can be ordered to overlook or hide any problems with the Mariel project,
said Diaz-Briquets.
Cuba also has no known independent environmental activists who can
monitor the project. Cepero started the Around Cuba Environmental Agency
in 1996 to report on such issues but fled the island four years later.
It was never recognized by the government.
"In Cuba it's the same government that's doing the construction and the
monitoring, so there's no independent review," said Cepero. "Where's the
independent check? Well it's in these satellite photos that anyone can
see on Google Earth."
Havana has not revealed any details on the environmental impact of the
Mariel project. And the Brazilian government, which is financing $640
million of the $900 million price tag, said last month its agreement
with Cuba requires the details be kept secret.
The environmental impact statement for the port of Miami dredging is two
inches thick and publicly available. A dozen federal and state agencies,
as well as non-government environmental activists, are monitoring the
project.
Brazil's state-owned National Bank for Economic and Social Development
(NBESD), which is providing the financing, did not answer El Nuevo
Herald's detailed questions about Mariel but emailed the newspaper a
brief statement.
"As in any operation that deals with exports of Brazilian goods and
services that we finance, in the case of the Mariel project we abide by
local environmental regulations," bank spokesman Paulo Braga wrote in
the statement.
The bank's web page asserts that a "responsible social and environmental
work is indispensable for development … Based on this vision (the bank)
embraces socio-environmental development as an issue that cuts across
all its activities."
Odebrecht, the Brazilian construction firm carrying out the Mariel
expansion — as well as the expansion of parts of Miami International
Airport, said the Cuban government was in charge of all pre-construction
research, such as environmental impact statements.
"Companhia de Obras em Infraestrutura (COI), an Odebrecht independent
special purpose entity engaged in the development and execution of
infrastructure projects in Cuba, is not responsible for any preliminary
study concerning the Port of Mariel. All previously researches of this
project were developed by the Cuban government," said a statement to El
Nuevo.
Cuban diplomats in Washington did not reply to requests for comment.
Brazil is Cuba's second-largest commercial partner in Latin America
after Venezuela, with bilateral trade topping $624 million in 2008.
Relations improved further after President Dilma Rousseff took power in
2011.
Mariel is a so-called "pocket bay" 28 miles west of Havana, with a
1,066-foot wide mouth opening into a bay 2.8 miles long and 2.3 miles
wide, and up to 31 feet deep. The town of Mariel, with a population of
about 43,000, sits on its southeastern end.
A 2008 report by Cuba's Ministry for Science, Technology and the
Environment ranked the bay as slightly contaminated, mostly by untreated
sewage from the town and spills from its port operations.
Cuba saw its share of environmental misadventures under former ruler
Fidel Castro, notorious for his recklessly impulsive ideas on economic
development throughout his nearly half-century in power.
Just six weeks after he seized power in 1959, Castro announced that he
was preparing to drain the Zapata Swamp, rich in myriad types of
wildlife, and turn it into farmland. A number of acres were drained, but
the project was shortly abandoned.
In the 1960s, Castro ordered virtually every river dammed for
irrigation, under the slogan "not one drop wasted." Diaz-Briquets said
it was likely that saltwater encroachment increased and brackish waters
receded, impacting coastal habitats.
In 1985, he ordered construction of a 65-mile "Southern dyke" along the
southern coast of Havana province to block the infiltration of saltwater
and the loss of freshwater. Pollutants from agricultural runoff
accumulated on the land side of the dyke, killing acres of mangrove.
And in the 1990s, a 12-mile stone causeway was built across the shallow
waters of the Bay of Dogs off the north central coast to make it easier
to shuttle larger numbers of tourists to the Cayo Coco resort. The
causeway cut off tidal flows, salinity spiked and oxygen dropped, and
the bay became a lifeless body. Later modifications reportedly improved
the water flow, but the results are not publicly known.
The bays of Moa and Nuevitas on the northeastern coast have been
reported to be highly contaminated by pollution from nickel processing
plants and other industries. The state news media monopoly has published
little on those cases.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/01/v-fullstory/3428522/mariel-port-expansion-may-be-economic.html
Mariel port expansion may be economic boost and ecological bust
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
A $900 million project to expand the Cuban port of Mariel into a
strategic hub for shipping in the Atlantic has been painted in Havana as
the country's best opportunity in decades to set a new course for its
stagnant economy.
It might also be an ecological calamity, the latest in a series of
schemes by Cuba's all-powerful communist government to boost its
economic development at the expense of its nature, according to experts
on the island's environment.
The Mariel project has killed nearly 10 acres of mangroves in the bay
and silted the waters of the bay and one of the rivers that feeds into
it, said Eudel Cepero, a Cuba-born environmental consultant and activist
in Miami.
Working from satellite photos of Mariel available on Google Earth,
Cepero said he also measured 20 acres of coves within the bay filled in
to expand the port's container and other land operations, and 25 acres
of surrounding land quarried for fill.
Cepero acknowledged that without a first-hand study of Mariel — the
starting point of the 1980 boatlift that brought more than 125,000
Cubans to U.S. shores — he cannot definitively establish the
environmental damage.
"But if you kill 10 acres of mangrove in the Florida Keys, there's a
revolution," said Cepero, a lecturer at the University of Miami and
Miami-Dade College. "That would be like destroying an entire eco-system."
"What's going on (in Mariel) certainly seems alarming," said Sergio
Diaz-Briquets, a Washington-based consultant who co-authored a book on
the island's environmental record, "Conquering Nature."
Cuba usually gets high marks from the international environmental
community for its regulatory framework and the pristine condition of
many of its national preserves, especially along its southern coastline.
About one-quarter of its land and marine habitats are legally protected,
one of the highest percentages in the world. And Havana has signed many
of the key international agreements and declarations on the environment.
Yet, like other developing countries, the government at times has tossed
aside environmental and other concerns over projects considered to be
strategically needed for economic growth, said Diaz-Briquets.
"The reality is that in the situation that Cuba faces, with economic
difficulties, the question becomes whether that (regulatory) framework
can be enforced when the very survival of the revolution is at stake,"
he said.
The Mariel project is a "once in a century" chance to set a winning
development strategy for the country and "probably the biggest
investment project today in Cuba," Havana economist Pedro Monreal wrote
in a column last month.
Once completed next year, he argued, the mega-port could easily become a
hub for shipping all along the Atlantic, an area expected to grow
following the expansion of the Panama Canal that is due to be completed
in 2015.
Mariel will have space for 3 million cargo containers, a duty-free zone
that could serve the entire Caribbean and bonded assembly plants —
"maquiladoras" — that could produce goods for Latin America and Europe,
according to official Havana reports.
"No one is thinking about the environment. This is always about jobs and
money," said Dan Kipnis, a Miami activist who has fought the ongoing
dredging of the port of Miami. "Why would Cuba be any different?"
But Cuba is very different.
For one, the Western Hemisphere's lone ruling Communist Party runs a
top-down system in which agencies and the state monopoly on the media
can be ordered to overlook or hide any problems with the Mariel project,
said Diaz-Briquets.
Cuba also has no known independent environmental activists who can
monitor the project. Cepero started the Around Cuba Environmental Agency
in 1996 to report on such issues but fled the island four years later.
It was never recognized by the government.
"In Cuba it's the same government that's doing the construction and the
monitoring, so there's no independent review," said Cepero. "Where's the
independent check? Well it's in these satellite photos that anyone can
see on Google Earth."
Havana has not revealed any details on the environmental impact of the
Mariel project. And the Brazilian government, which is financing $640
million of the $900 million price tag, said last month its agreement
with Cuba requires the details be kept secret.
The environmental impact statement for the port of Miami dredging is two
inches thick and publicly available. A dozen federal and state agencies,
as well as non-government environmental activists, are monitoring the
project.
Brazil's state-owned National Bank for Economic and Social Development
(NBESD), which is providing the financing, did not answer El Nuevo
Herald's detailed questions about Mariel but emailed the newspaper a
brief statement.
"As in any operation that deals with exports of Brazilian goods and
services that we finance, in the case of the Mariel project we abide by
local environmental regulations," bank spokesman Paulo Braga wrote in
the statement.
The bank's web page asserts that a "responsible social and environmental
work is indispensable for development … Based on this vision (the bank)
embraces socio-environmental development as an issue that cuts across
all its activities."
Odebrecht, the Brazilian construction firm carrying out the Mariel
expansion — as well as the expansion of parts of Miami International
Airport, said the Cuban government was in charge of all pre-construction
research, such as environmental impact statements.
"Companhia de Obras em Infraestrutura (COI), an Odebrecht independent
special purpose entity engaged in the development and execution of
infrastructure projects in Cuba, is not responsible for any preliminary
study concerning the Port of Mariel. All previously researches of this
project were developed by the Cuban government," said a statement to El
Nuevo.
Cuban diplomats in Washington did not reply to requests for comment.
Brazil is Cuba's second-largest commercial partner in Latin America
after Venezuela, with bilateral trade topping $624 million in 2008.
Relations improved further after President Dilma Rousseff took power in
2011.
Mariel is a so-called "pocket bay" 28 miles west of Havana, with a
1,066-foot wide mouth opening into a bay 2.8 miles long and 2.3 miles
wide, and up to 31 feet deep. The town of Mariel, with a population of
about 43,000, sits on its southeastern end.
A 2008 report by Cuba's Ministry for Science, Technology and the
Environment ranked the bay as slightly contaminated, mostly by untreated
sewage from the town and spills from its port operations.
Cuba saw its share of environmental misadventures under former ruler
Fidel Castro, notorious for his recklessly impulsive ideas on economic
development throughout his nearly half-century in power.
Just six weeks after he seized power in 1959, Castro announced that he
was preparing to drain the Zapata Swamp, rich in myriad types of
wildlife, and turn it into farmland. A number of acres were drained, but
the project was shortly abandoned.
In the 1960s, Castro ordered virtually every river dammed for
irrigation, under the slogan "not one drop wasted." Diaz-Briquets said
it was likely that saltwater encroachment increased and brackish waters
receded, impacting coastal habitats.
In 1985, he ordered construction of a 65-mile "Southern dyke" along the
southern coast of Havana province to block the infiltration of saltwater
and the loss of freshwater. Pollutants from agricultural runoff
accumulated on the land side of the dyke, killing acres of mangrove.
And in the 1990s, a 12-mile stone causeway was built across the shallow
waters of the Bay of Dogs off the north central coast to make it easier
to shuttle larger numbers of tourists to the Cayo Coco resort. The
causeway cut off tidal flows, salinity spiked and oxygen dropped, and
the bay became a lifeless body. Later modifications reportedly improved
the water flow, but the results are not publicly known.
The bays of Moa and Nuevitas on the northeastern coast have been
reported to be highly contaminated by pollution from nickel processing
plants and other industries. The state news media monopoly has published
little on those cases.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/01/v-fullstory/3428522/mariel-port-expansion-may-be-economic.html
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Cubans Prefer Shortcuts to Get on the Web
Cubans Prefer Shortcuts to Get on the Web / Luis Felipe Rojas
Posted on June 1, 2013
Cuba's Ministry of Communications has announced the opening of a hundred
Internet cybercafes throughout the whole country for June 4. The
official press informs us there will be a doubling of the navigation
capacity and a reduction of 1.50 CUC in the price per hour (to 4.50 CUC,
or a little more than $4.50 US), if we compare it to the previous 6 CUC
per hour it cost for an access card.
With the implementation of the 118 centers, government officials
announced an increase to more than 334 computers with internet access.
This is a ridiculous figure when taking into account that about 68,000
specialists from the Ministry of Health use email and the Internet, who
in turn sell it "under the table" at prices ranging between 30 and 60
CUC per month. The same applies to journalists, intellectuals and other
employees of ministries and state enterprises that have access to the
Internet from their homes and who, with this practice, earn extra money
while helping to scale up access to the network among Cubans.
For the small business owner in Cuba is still more profitable to rent
email accounts and Internet service "under the table" in the interstices
of the black market. At the distance of a click or a discreet phone call
it's possible to have sixty or ninety hours a month, according to their
needs. Use of public Internet sites for businesses such as real estate,
sales of various items, and rooms rentals is infrequent. A domestic
connection remains the ideal way.
Illegal Internet cafes, which operate at rates between 1 and 2 CUC per
hour, will not be affected by this measure that is announced as one more
reform of the Revolution, because payment rates, although they have
fallen by a third, will still be prohibitive for most people, if we
consider that the minimum wage is about 220 Cuban pesos per month and a
connection card cost 112 Cuban pesos for an hour.
Email service is commonly used for messaging with family and friends
abroad, in these rooms you can see the long lines of girls waiting for
their turn to communicate with their foreign boyfriends or suitors.
Those who want to have a more secure communication, rarely use the email
service sold by the State.
Another innovation is the implementation of the e-mail "@nauta" with
international reach with storage capacity of up to 50MB.
In the flood of information coming from the main official newspapers,
nothing appears about about the restrictions on sites opposing
government policies. Magazines and newspapers showing the daily life of
the Cuban reality are sometimes censored by the controllers of the
national servers.
The famous "Operation Truth," where restless kids from Computer Science
University launch daily attacks on the social networks in search of new
dreamers with the revolutionary project, has sharpened its weapons.
For over five years the "Hermanos Saiz" Association offered young
artists and writers the possibility of a fixed line, computer, and a fee
to pay the telephone bill in exchange for "combatting" inconvenient
intellectuals, wandering daily through the social forums to convince
Internet users around the world of the revolutionary benefits and to
submit a monthly report of their cybernetic fidelity.
With proceeds from one 11-hour session, the 118 Internet rooms should
report an average of half a million CUC at least, assuming a massive
influx to the connection spots, but with the rising cost of everyday
life, connecting to the Web is still a luxury that few can afford if
they use only the services the State provides.
30 May 2013
http://translatingcuba.com/cubans-prefer-shortcuts-to-get-on-the-web-luis-felipe-rojas/
Posted on June 1, 2013
Cuba's Ministry of Communications has announced the opening of a hundred
Internet cybercafes throughout the whole country for June 4. The
official press informs us there will be a doubling of the navigation
capacity and a reduction of 1.50 CUC in the price per hour (to 4.50 CUC,
or a little more than $4.50 US), if we compare it to the previous 6 CUC
per hour it cost for an access card.
With the implementation of the 118 centers, government officials
announced an increase to more than 334 computers with internet access.
This is a ridiculous figure when taking into account that about 68,000
specialists from the Ministry of Health use email and the Internet, who
in turn sell it "under the table" at prices ranging between 30 and 60
CUC per month. The same applies to journalists, intellectuals and other
employees of ministries and state enterprises that have access to the
Internet from their homes and who, with this practice, earn extra money
while helping to scale up access to the network among Cubans.
For the small business owner in Cuba is still more profitable to rent
email accounts and Internet service "under the table" in the interstices
of the black market. At the distance of a click or a discreet phone call
it's possible to have sixty or ninety hours a month, according to their
needs. Use of public Internet sites for businesses such as real estate,
sales of various items, and rooms rentals is infrequent. A domestic
connection remains the ideal way.
Illegal Internet cafes, which operate at rates between 1 and 2 CUC per
hour, will not be affected by this measure that is announced as one more
reform of the Revolution, because payment rates, although they have
fallen by a third, will still be prohibitive for most people, if we
consider that the minimum wage is about 220 Cuban pesos per month and a
connection card cost 112 Cuban pesos for an hour.
Email service is commonly used for messaging with family and friends
abroad, in these rooms you can see the long lines of girls waiting for
their turn to communicate with their foreign boyfriends or suitors.
Those who want to have a more secure communication, rarely use the email
service sold by the State.
Another innovation is the implementation of the e-mail "@nauta" with
international reach with storage capacity of up to 50MB.
In the flood of information coming from the main official newspapers,
nothing appears about about the restrictions on sites opposing
government policies. Magazines and newspapers showing the daily life of
the Cuban reality are sometimes censored by the controllers of the
national servers.
The famous "Operation Truth," where restless kids from Computer Science
University launch daily attacks on the social networks in search of new
dreamers with the revolutionary project, has sharpened its weapons.
For over five years the "Hermanos Saiz" Association offered young
artists and writers the possibility of a fixed line, computer, and a fee
to pay the telephone bill in exchange for "combatting" inconvenient
intellectuals, wandering daily through the social forums to convince
Internet users around the world of the revolutionary benefits and to
submit a monthly report of their cybernetic fidelity.
With proceeds from one 11-hour session, the 118 Internet rooms should
report an average of half a million CUC at least, assuming a massive
influx to the connection spots, but with the rising cost of everyday
life, connecting to the Web is still a luxury that few can afford if
they use only the services the State provides.
30 May 2013
http://translatingcuba.com/cubans-prefer-shortcuts-to-get-on-the-web-luis-felipe-rojas/
A specter is haunting Cuba
A specter is haunting Cuba
Analysis: Prosperity, once unthinkable in Cuba, looms as the largest
threat to the Castro regime.
CARDENAS, Cuba — A specter is haunting Cuba: the specter of prosperity.
This terrifies Cuban leaders.
"Prosperity" has an appealing sound. Many ordinary Cubans, especially
the young, yearn for it. Their Communist leaders have responded with
reforms that now give them more chance for material self-improvement
than they have known in decades.
The change is astonishing. Streets are lined with private businesses,
ranging from shops and cafes to computer schools to yoga and aerobics
studios. Along highways, vendors hawk fish and vegetables. This would
have been unthinkable a few years ago.
Few Cubans are happy with the change, though. Many think it is far too
limited. Regulations still make it difficult for them to hire employees
and buy supplies. Businesses must stay small; people call them "bonsai
businesses" after the Asian plants that never grow beyond miniature size.
This frustrates the remarkable number of Cubans who are eager to become
entrepreneurs. They wish the government would cast aside its fears and
liberate the economy.
"Something in the minds of our leaders makes them hate the thought that
someone might get rich," observed the barber who shaved me in the
provincial town of Cardenas.
He was right, but the regime's fears are understandable.
Senior Cuban leaders, symbolized by Fidel and Raul Castro, were forged
in the crucible of Marxist ideology and spent their lives considering
capitalism a cruel enemy of humanity. They rebelled against social
inequality as young men, saw the suffering that enveloped many
capitalist countries in Latin America, and were appalled by the
emergence of rapacious oligarchy in Russia after privatization in the 1990s.
Almost literally on the back of their necks, they feel the eager breath
of what some call the "Miami mafia," wealthy Cuban Americans who dream
that investing in Cuban businesses could be their path to power in their
ancestral homeland.
Legalizing larger-scale private business in Cuba would have profound
political consequences. It would lead to the emergence of a middle
class, and eventually a wealthy class. Such classes always seek to
transform their economic power into political power. Cuban leaders are
acutely aware that an open economy could be the greatest long-term
threat to their revolutionary order.
This makes the US trade embargo on Cuba even more self-defeating than it
has been for the last half-century. It is among the most bizarre
American foreign policies. No other country in the world has cut itself
off from Cuba. Lifting the embargo would hasten the kind of change most
Americans — and most Cubans — would like to see in Cuba. Paralyzed by
fear of the Cuban vote in Florida, however, generations of American
politicians have refused to take this eminently logical step.
In today's Cuba, life is shaped by access to hard currency. This has led
to a ludicrous distortion of the social order. A surgeon, who by the
nature of his profession may work only for the state, is paid in Cuban
pesos and earns the equivalent of $30 per month. A waiter in a tourist
restaurant, paid in hard currency, can earn that in a day. So can
performers who dress up in garish caricature of old Cuban dancers and,
for a fee, allow themselves to be photographed kissing tipsy tourists in
the colonial plazas of Old Havana.
Some Cuban parents, I was told, now discourage their children from
pursuing a profession like medicine or engineering because there is no
money in it. Bartenders live better. "Our pyramid is inverted," one man
told me.
Access to hard currency has made Cardenas, on Cuba's north coast, one of
the island's most prosperous towns. Its wealth comes from two sources.
Many local people work in one of the 50 hotels that comprise the nearby
tourist enclave at Varadero Beach, and bring home tips that place them
among the country's highest earners. In addition, the town's location
has tempted many local people to risk the boat or raft trip to Florida,
and those who have made it send dollars back to their relatives.
Yet this is a sobering kind of prosperity. Nearly every building in
Cardenas is somewhere between deteriorating and collapsed. The pace of
life is languid to the point of lassitude. As in the rest of Cuba, all
children attend school, are clothed, and eat reasonably well, and there
is no acute poverty — an irrefutable achievement. Yet Cardenas reflects
the poverty of hope and opportunity that grips much of Cuba today.
Strolling along the town's main street, Calle Real, I stopped to chat
with a young man named Alexei who was sitting at a makeshift table in
front of his bedroom window. A sign said he could repair and unblock
cellphones.
"I'm an engineer," he told me. "After I finished school, I did my two
years of social service at a radio plant. Now I'd like to keep working
as an engineer. It's humiliating to work fixing cellphones, but this is
the way to earn money. I have to think of my family."
I asked Alexei when he thought true change would come to Cuba. "Medium
term — 10 to 15 years," he estimated. Another Cuban, also around 30,
told me, "five years."
Alexei is forbidden to open a second shop, or to hire more than one
employee. This is supposed to prevent Cuba's new reforms from burgeoning
into full-fledged capitalism. In the same vein, it is now legal for
Cubans to buy and sell cars — but no one may open a lot at which cars
would be bought and sold in volume, since that crosses the line into
"big" or "exploitative" business.
Cubans do not appear to be in an angry or pre-revolutionary state. Many
seem complacent, submissive, or resigned. They are used to hard times.
Even their frustration at the limits of Cuban life has not blinded them
to the successes of their society. A young novelist who is a sharp
social critic told me after returning from a trip to France: "I saw some
very tough things, like people living in the street, and it made me think."
The expanding definition of what is tolerable in economic life has its
counterpart in a remarkable opening of the Cuban mind. Never in the last
half century has world culture crashed so fully into Cuba.
Gay life is flourishing. So is hip-hop culture. Kids play paintball.
There are cutting-edge Cuban tattoo artists, surfers, and installation
artists. Soccer is emerging to challenge baseball. The Union Jack is a
fashion icon. In Havana, crowds of hip young things congregate on
weekend evenings along the central blocks of 23rd Street, gravitating
into groups of "rockers" and "emos."
Cuba is settling into the pattern that will shape its national life for
the next few years. Private business will continue to flourish, but only
at a low level. Government will accommodate the public demand for change
to the minimum extent possible. The seeds of longer-term change are
being sown.
"This country is becoming more diverse and heterogeneous every day,"
Roberto Zurbano, a dreadlocked Cuban intellectual, told me at his
book-lined office near the Havana waterfront. "There is a closer
identification between social discourse and government discourse. We're
moving toward a single society with a coherent social and economic
project. Our challenge is to find a way to steer a socialist ship in a
capitalist sea."
It is a noble but daunting challenge. Strong forces, many born of
legitimate fears, hold Cuba back. A young man in the provincial capital
of Matanzas explained this to me indirectly but vividly.
"See that fishbowl?" he asked when I dropped into his office. "Those two
goldfish are more than 50 years old." I told him that sounded unlikely.
"Resisten y resisten," he assured me. "They go on and on."
Slow to get the joke, I told him I still doubted it.
"Their names," he said with a wry smile, "are Fidel and Raul."
Editor's note: This spring, Boston University journalism and photography
students made a weeklong trip to Cuba. By special arrangement,
GlobalPost is presenting six stories that emerged from their trip. The
introductory piece is by Stephen Kinzer, the former New York Times
foreign correspondent who was the students' journalism professor. The
five that follow were written by his students. Photos were taken by
students working under the guidance of prize-winning photographer
Essdras Suarez.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/cuba/130506/specter-prosperity-haunting-cuba
Analysis: Prosperity, once unthinkable in Cuba, looms as the largest
threat to the Castro regime.
CARDENAS, Cuba — A specter is haunting Cuba: the specter of prosperity.
This terrifies Cuban leaders.
"Prosperity" has an appealing sound. Many ordinary Cubans, especially
the young, yearn for it. Their Communist leaders have responded with
reforms that now give them more chance for material self-improvement
than they have known in decades.
The change is astonishing. Streets are lined with private businesses,
ranging from shops and cafes to computer schools to yoga and aerobics
studios. Along highways, vendors hawk fish and vegetables. This would
have been unthinkable a few years ago.
Few Cubans are happy with the change, though. Many think it is far too
limited. Regulations still make it difficult for them to hire employees
and buy supplies. Businesses must stay small; people call them "bonsai
businesses" after the Asian plants that never grow beyond miniature size.
This frustrates the remarkable number of Cubans who are eager to become
entrepreneurs. They wish the government would cast aside its fears and
liberate the economy.
"Something in the minds of our leaders makes them hate the thought that
someone might get rich," observed the barber who shaved me in the
provincial town of Cardenas.
He was right, but the regime's fears are understandable.
Senior Cuban leaders, symbolized by Fidel and Raul Castro, were forged
in the crucible of Marxist ideology and spent their lives considering
capitalism a cruel enemy of humanity. They rebelled against social
inequality as young men, saw the suffering that enveloped many
capitalist countries in Latin America, and were appalled by the
emergence of rapacious oligarchy in Russia after privatization in the 1990s.
Almost literally on the back of their necks, they feel the eager breath
of what some call the "Miami mafia," wealthy Cuban Americans who dream
that investing in Cuban businesses could be their path to power in their
ancestral homeland.
Legalizing larger-scale private business in Cuba would have profound
political consequences. It would lead to the emergence of a middle
class, and eventually a wealthy class. Such classes always seek to
transform their economic power into political power. Cuban leaders are
acutely aware that an open economy could be the greatest long-term
threat to their revolutionary order.
This makes the US trade embargo on Cuba even more self-defeating than it
has been for the last half-century. It is among the most bizarre
American foreign policies. No other country in the world has cut itself
off from Cuba. Lifting the embargo would hasten the kind of change most
Americans — and most Cubans — would like to see in Cuba. Paralyzed by
fear of the Cuban vote in Florida, however, generations of American
politicians have refused to take this eminently logical step.
In today's Cuba, life is shaped by access to hard currency. This has led
to a ludicrous distortion of the social order. A surgeon, who by the
nature of his profession may work only for the state, is paid in Cuban
pesos and earns the equivalent of $30 per month. A waiter in a tourist
restaurant, paid in hard currency, can earn that in a day. So can
performers who dress up in garish caricature of old Cuban dancers and,
for a fee, allow themselves to be photographed kissing tipsy tourists in
the colonial plazas of Old Havana.
Some Cuban parents, I was told, now discourage their children from
pursuing a profession like medicine or engineering because there is no
money in it. Bartenders live better. "Our pyramid is inverted," one man
told me.
Access to hard currency has made Cardenas, on Cuba's north coast, one of
the island's most prosperous towns. Its wealth comes from two sources.
Many local people work in one of the 50 hotels that comprise the nearby
tourist enclave at Varadero Beach, and bring home tips that place them
among the country's highest earners. In addition, the town's location
has tempted many local people to risk the boat or raft trip to Florida,
and those who have made it send dollars back to their relatives.
Yet this is a sobering kind of prosperity. Nearly every building in
Cardenas is somewhere between deteriorating and collapsed. The pace of
life is languid to the point of lassitude. As in the rest of Cuba, all
children attend school, are clothed, and eat reasonably well, and there
is no acute poverty — an irrefutable achievement. Yet Cardenas reflects
the poverty of hope and opportunity that grips much of Cuba today.
Strolling along the town's main street, Calle Real, I stopped to chat
with a young man named Alexei who was sitting at a makeshift table in
front of his bedroom window. A sign said he could repair and unblock
cellphones.
"I'm an engineer," he told me. "After I finished school, I did my two
years of social service at a radio plant. Now I'd like to keep working
as an engineer. It's humiliating to work fixing cellphones, but this is
the way to earn money. I have to think of my family."
I asked Alexei when he thought true change would come to Cuba. "Medium
term — 10 to 15 years," he estimated. Another Cuban, also around 30,
told me, "five years."
Alexei is forbidden to open a second shop, or to hire more than one
employee. This is supposed to prevent Cuba's new reforms from burgeoning
into full-fledged capitalism. In the same vein, it is now legal for
Cubans to buy and sell cars — but no one may open a lot at which cars
would be bought and sold in volume, since that crosses the line into
"big" or "exploitative" business.
Cubans do not appear to be in an angry or pre-revolutionary state. Many
seem complacent, submissive, or resigned. They are used to hard times.
Even their frustration at the limits of Cuban life has not blinded them
to the successes of their society. A young novelist who is a sharp
social critic told me after returning from a trip to France: "I saw some
very tough things, like people living in the street, and it made me think."
The expanding definition of what is tolerable in economic life has its
counterpart in a remarkable opening of the Cuban mind. Never in the last
half century has world culture crashed so fully into Cuba.
Gay life is flourishing. So is hip-hop culture. Kids play paintball.
There are cutting-edge Cuban tattoo artists, surfers, and installation
artists. Soccer is emerging to challenge baseball. The Union Jack is a
fashion icon. In Havana, crowds of hip young things congregate on
weekend evenings along the central blocks of 23rd Street, gravitating
into groups of "rockers" and "emos."
Cuba is settling into the pattern that will shape its national life for
the next few years. Private business will continue to flourish, but only
at a low level. Government will accommodate the public demand for change
to the minimum extent possible. The seeds of longer-term change are
being sown.
"This country is becoming more diverse and heterogeneous every day,"
Roberto Zurbano, a dreadlocked Cuban intellectual, told me at his
book-lined office near the Havana waterfront. "There is a closer
identification between social discourse and government discourse. We're
moving toward a single society with a coherent social and economic
project. Our challenge is to find a way to steer a socialist ship in a
capitalist sea."
It is a noble but daunting challenge. Strong forces, many born of
legitimate fears, hold Cuba back. A young man in the provincial capital
of Matanzas explained this to me indirectly but vividly.
"See that fishbowl?" he asked when I dropped into his office. "Those two
goldfish are more than 50 years old." I told him that sounded unlikely.
"Resisten y resisten," he assured me. "They go on and on."
Slow to get the joke, I told him I still doubted it.
"Their names," he said with a wry smile, "are Fidel and Raul."
Editor's note: This spring, Boston University journalism and photography
students made a weeklong trip to Cuba. By special arrangement,
GlobalPost is presenting six stories that emerged from their trip. The
introductory piece is by Stephen Kinzer, the former New York Times
foreign correspondent who was the students' journalism professor. The
five that follow were written by his students. Photos were taken by
students working under the guidance of prize-winning photographer
Essdras Suarez.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/cuba/130506/specter-prosperity-haunting-cuba
The "Secret Process" Against Graffiti Artist El Sexto
The "Secret Process" Against Graffiti Artist El Sexto / El Sexto –
Danilo Maldonado Machado
Posted on May 31, 2013
By Ernesto Santana
In his five years as a graffiti artist Danilo Maldonado, El Sexto (The
Sixth), has gone through violent and arbitrary arrests, the seizure of
his personal property, threats and other abuses, but has continued to
stamp his works throughout Havana.
State Security has kidnapped him and even taken him to visit Alexis
Leyva, Kcho, an "example of artist" according to them. In vain, El
Sexto, is backsliding and the direct and confrontational tone of his art
grows ever stronger. If at one time he used great ironies such as
"Return my five euros," he now puts "Down With Castro" on a bloody
background or paints a swastika over the face of Fidel Castro.
"I'm like a dog with a bone," says Danilo in conversation with this
reporter, "even though every time they erase my graffiti faster." When
they increased the pressure on him, he decided to combine the marginal
arts of tattoo and graffiti and began to draw on his own skin what he
wanted to denounce; and in addition, as an example of his persistence,
he wrote his signature over the police pink paint-outs over his previous
graffiti.
abajo-castro,,-741206A Spray Can as a Weapon
But they have to catch him in the act to stop him. Simply carrying a
spray can in his pocket, as happened on Friday May 17, when he went with
some friends to buy some beer at the corner of Twenty and G about nine
in the evening. A policeman asked for documentation and took him to the
station at Zapata and C, where he had to wait until the next day to meet
with the chief of the station.
"When I finally talked to him," Danilo said, "he asked me, 'So you're
the one who does all that out there?' I gave him a disc with my work, so
he would know what I was doing. " The reaction was take odor samples
(they tried to get him to give them urine samples, but he declined,
although they disrespected him with extreme rudeness) and they took him
in two patrol cars to make a search of his home.
"They started to take canvases, sprays, a laptop, a camera, memory
cards, discs and unused canvases, and put everything in nylon bags that
said 'Forensics'," El Sexto said. Then they took him back to the police
station and at midnight that same Saturday, the 18th, they returned to
take him to the office of the chief, now absent. "There was a woman who
behaved with very little respect. All my belongings were on a table, any
old way, all mixed up," says Danilo.
SP_A1069-779127The officer informed him that three of his paintings
would be confiscated, as well as templates for stencils, his artistic
projects, thirty-seven enamel spray cans and even four cans of oil paint
and even his resume, arguing that they were objects related to "a crime
under investigation." Then they handed him a record of what had been
seized and released him.
Not Unemployed: Artist
Two days later, El Sexto started a legal process with an attorney to get
them to return what they had seized him, because when they searched his
home and confiscated objects, he was not given a copy of what
confiscated, as dictated by the procedures. "Why did they return some
works and not others?" the graffiti artist asked. "Why did they keep the
spray paint that I bought at State stores? They did what they felt like,
violating many things," he said.
He had been branded unemployed and he had replied: "I am an artist,
although I am not your artist. I'm not here to worship any god. I have
the right to criticize and say what I want." And it was more clear when
he told the police: "You're not talking about some revolution, but a
phalanx who loves the F of Fidel. It is illegal for me to paint the
walls, but not to write "Long live Fidel" or "In line with Fidel"
without asking anyone. Why do I have to check with you to say something?"
fidel-fasisssta-729672The Secret Process
Determined not to be passed over, he will continue to demand the return
of his works. "I did not kill anyone, I am an honest person, I live in
my work and my wife is pregnant," he pointed out to the officer. "In
fact, my greatest endorsement is what you do, punishing me, which
confirms that I'm doing my job. How ironic."
When the informed his attorney that a file had been opened on his
client, the counsel asked what he was accused of, and the only response,
according to what Danilo said, "they told him they couldn't tell him,
because it was a secret process. I insisted, but the only thing they
told me was "soon" they would tell me what I was accused of. They
alleged that it was a falsehood that they'd made an accusation and that
I had refused to sign it. But we wrote letters of complaint and
delivered them to the appropriate places," Danilo Maldonado concluded.
escupeloThe Criminal Value of the Artwork
From these events, Otari Oliva, one of the project coordinators of
Christ the Saviour Gallery (which did a great series of exhibitions of
Cuban graffiti between September and November), wrote a text setting out
his concerns as an artist: "The situation of El Sexto makes me reflect:
a work of art can possess criminal value and this is referred to in the
criminal code of my country. Starting today I would like to be able to
determine, as I can determine the criminal value of certain acts, the
criminal value which may lie in a work of art." And then he made his
position clear: "Either the criminal code will be adequate and judgment
will be pronounced from an exercise in transparency, clarifying for
Danilo and everyone the reasoning of the authorities, or we are
dangerously close to a burning pyre of books, in addition to the hands
of our artists trembling perhaps a little more from now on."
Either way, El Sexto does not have among his plans, backing down. In the
coarse search they did of his home, the experts like a bag with the word
"Forensics" printed on it, which he now thinks of using to create a
work. A gift that they gave him to continue honing his art.
Photos courtesy of Ernesto Santana. Originally published on Cubanet.
30 May 2013
http://translatingcuba.com/the-secret-process-against-graffiti-artist-el-sexto-el-sexto-danilo-maldonado-machado/
Danilo Maldonado Machado
Posted on May 31, 2013
By Ernesto Santana
In his five years as a graffiti artist Danilo Maldonado, El Sexto (The
Sixth), has gone through violent and arbitrary arrests, the seizure of
his personal property, threats and other abuses, but has continued to
stamp his works throughout Havana.
State Security has kidnapped him and even taken him to visit Alexis
Leyva, Kcho, an "example of artist" according to them. In vain, El
Sexto, is backsliding and the direct and confrontational tone of his art
grows ever stronger. If at one time he used great ironies such as
"Return my five euros," he now puts "Down With Castro" on a bloody
background or paints a swastika over the face of Fidel Castro.
"I'm like a dog with a bone," says Danilo in conversation with this
reporter, "even though every time they erase my graffiti faster." When
they increased the pressure on him, he decided to combine the marginal
arts of tattoo and graffiti and began to draw on his own skin what he
wanted to denounce; and in addition, as an example of his persistence,
he wrote his signature over the police pink paint-outs over his previous
graffiti.
abajo-castro,,-741206A Spray Can as a Weapon
But they have to catch him in the act to stop him. Simply carrying a
spray can in his pocket, as happened on Friday May 17, when he went with
some friends to buy some beer at the corner of Twenty and G about nine
in the evening. A policeman asked for documentation and took him to the
station at Zapata and C, where he had to wait until the next day to meet
with the chief of the station.
"When I finally talked to him," Danilo said, "he asked me, 'So you're
the one who does all that out there?' I gave him a disc with my work, so
he would know what I was doing. " The reaction was take odor samples
(they tried to get him to give them urine samples, but he declined,
although they disrespected him with extreme rudeness) and they took him
in two patrol cars to make a search of his home.
"They started to take canvases, sprays, a laptop, a camera, memory
cards, discs and unused canvases, and put everything in nylon bags that
said 'Forensics'," El Sexto said. Then they took him back to the police
station and at midnight that same Saturday, the 18th, they returned to
take him to the office of the chief, now absent. "There was a woman who
behaved with very little respect. All my belongings were on a table, any
old way, all mixed up," says Danilo.
SP_A1069-779127The officer informed him that three of his paintings
would be confiscated, as well as templates for stencils, his artistic
projects, thirty-seven enamel spray cans and even four cans of oil paint
and even his resume, arguing that they were objects related to "a crime
under investigation." Then they handed him a record of what had been
seized and released him.
Not Unemployed: Artist
Two days later, El Sexto started a legal process with an attorney to get
them to return what they had seized him, because when they searched his
home and confiscated objects, he was not given a copy of what
confiscated, as dictated by the procedures. "Why did they return some
works and not others?" the graffiti artist asked. "Why did they keep the
spray paint that I bought at State stores? They did what they felt like,
violating many things," he said.
He had been branded unemployed and he had replied: "I am an artist,
although I am not your artist. I'm not here to worship any god. I have
the right to criticize and say what I want." And it was more clear when
he told the police: "You're not talking about some revolution, but a
phalanx who loves the F of Fidel. It is illegal for me to paint the
walls, but not to write "Long live Fidel" or "In line with Fidel"
without asking anyone. Why do I have to check with you to say something?"
fidel-fasisssta-729672The Secret Process
Determined not to be passed over, he will continue to demand the return
of his works. "I did not kill anyone, I am an honest person, I live in
my work and my wife is pregnant," he pointed out to the officer. "In
fact, my greatest endorsement is what you do, punishing me, which
confirms that I'm doing my job. How ironic."
When the informed his attorney that a file had been opened on his
client, the counsel asked what he was accused of, and the only response,
according to what Danilo said, "they told him they couldn't tell him,
because it was a secret process. I insisted, but the only thing they
told me was "soon" they would tell me what I was accused of. They
alleged that it was a falsehood that they'd made an accusation and that
I had refused to sign it. But we wrote letters of complaint and
delivered them to the appropriate places," Danilo Maldonado concluded.
escupeloThe Criminal Value of the Artwork
From these events, Otari Oliva, one of the project coordinators of
Christ the Saviour Gallery (which did a great series of exhibitions of
Cuban graffiti between September and November), wrote a text setting out
his concerns as an artist: "The situation of El Sexto makes me reflect:
a work of art can possess criminal value and this is referred to in the
criminal code of my country. Starting today I would like to be able to
determine, as I can determine the criminal value of certain acts, the
criminal value which may lie in a work of art." And then he made his
position clear: "Either the criminal code will be adequate and judgment
will be pronounced from an exercise in transparency, clarifying for
Danilo and everyone the reasoning of the authorities, or we are
dangerously close to a burning pyre of books, in addition to the hands
of our artists trembling perhaps a little more from now on."
Either way, El Sexto does not have among his plans, backing down. In the
coarse search they did of his home, the experts like a bag with the word
"Forensics" printed on it, which he now thinks of using to create a
work. A gift that they gave him to continue honing his art.
Photos courtesy of Ernesto Santana. Originally published on Cubanet.
30 May 2013
http://translatingcuba.com/the-secret-process-against-graffiti-artist-el-sexto-el-sexto-danilo-maldonado-machado/
BBC Analyzes What "Expanded Internet Access" Really Means For Cuba
BBC Analyzes What "Expanded Internet Access" Really Means For Cuba
Posted on May 31, 2013
This post is from the Havana Times, and is an authorized translation
prepared by that site of an article that appeared in the BBC's El Mundo.
A summary is the statistics is as follows:
In a country of over 11 million people, the new internet (mostly
intranet) access will consist of:
1 cybercafe for every 65,000 people (assuming 8 million potential users).
334 computers for the entire country, operating 11 hours a day, for
3,674 hours of computer time, daily, for the entire nation.
If only 10% of the population wants to get on-line, each individual will
be able to do so once every six months.
If 8 million of the 11+ million Cubans want to get on-line, each person
will be able to do so once every 5 years.
If one individual could connect for one hour a day, it would cost them
$135/month (U.S.) — nearly 7 times their monthly wages (or more, for
lower wage workers).
All use will be monitored, and any user who violates the "norms" will be
cut off. No politics, no sex.
Revolico.com — Cuba's "Craiglist" — is blocked.
No one under 18 will be admitted. (Forget homework help, students.)
Cuba's New Cybercafés: A Piecemeal Strategy
HAVANA TIMES — Next month, 118 public Internet access points will open
across Cuba, something which Cubans, one would expect, ought to regard
as rather good news. Though any step in the right direction should be
applauded, it would be remiss not to gauge the real impact this measure
will have on the island.
Supposing that there are 8 million young people and adults across Cuba
who are interested in using the Internet, we would have one cybercafé
for every 65 thousand people. You would see line-ups of people longer
than those that would gather outside bodegas if they began handing out
beef rations again.
With a total of 334 computer consoles around the country, the cybercafés
will be open 11 hours a day. If every user were to navigate for only an
hour, a mere 3,700 people would be able to access the Internet a day. If
we maintain our initial figure of 8 million potential Internet users,
people would get to connect once every 5 years.
Even if we assume I am exaggerating and that only 10% of this
hypothetical population wants to use the Internet, each person would
have access to the web only once every six months. And Cuba's phone
company, ETECSA, needed all of two years to take this bold step, from
the date in which the installation of an underwater fiber-optic cable
between Cuba and Venezuela was completed.
Though the company's directives offer some hope, claiming that, "in the
future", they will attempt to expand their services to meet demands with
Wi-Fi networks, Internet service for mobile phones and even homes, they
play it safe and conclude by saying they "cannot give any specific dates."
People, however, can do their own math. If, in the time since the
sub-aquatic cable was installed, the capacities created can accommodate
a mere 3,700 users a day, it will take centuries before all Cubans of
age and deserving of Internet access have this privilege.
In addition to this, they have announced that rates will be lowered to
US $5.00 (4.50 CUC) for every hour of Internet use, a price which proves
affordable if one connects to the web once every six months, but which
would entail spending US $135 a month if one wanted to do so, for 1
hour, at least once a day.
A Cuban's average monthly salary is of US $20. Supposing that, in a
given family, there are two people earning this salary and a couple of
pensioners receiving US $10, plus a relative in Miami who sends them US
$50 every month, they would have to devote the family's entire income to
pay the cybercafé bill.
The problem, apparently, is that ETECSA requires substantial sums of
money, "significant investments", to modernize the country's
technological infrastructure. It shouldn't take long to put together
such money, considering that, with these new cybercafés, they can take
in US $16 thousand a day, some 6 million dollars a year.
Strict Rules on Users
In addition to being expensive, cybercafés will impose strict rules on
users, and authorities will reserve the right to block the account of
any individual who employs the web to carry out actions that "undermine
public safety or the country's integrity, economy, independence and
sovereignty."
ETECSA will also "immediately suspend the service if it detects that,
during the navigation session, the user has violated any of the ethical
norms of behavior which the Cuban State has established."
In a nutshell, no politics and no sex. I imagine that the slogan of
these cybercafés will be something along the lines of "A healthy
Internet for the Cuban family." A system of filters which block access
to a number of ideologically or morally "offensive" sites is already in
place.
Political censorship on the web is rather "tropical": though some sites
operated by Cubans living in Miami are blocked, the main newspaper of
Cuban exiles can be freely accessed by cybernauts on the island. In the
case of Spain, one anti-Castro page is blocked and another isn't, though
both publish pretty much the same information.
When it comes to moral matters, however, censors evince the puritanism
of a small-town parish priest. In their crusade against pornography,
they block new pages containing videos, photographs, contacts, stories
or any kind of eroticism – literally nothing gets past them.
They are also particularly intolerant of any commercial use of the web.
Cuba's main classifieds page, Revolico.com, is blocked. There isn't a
single Internet user in Cuba, however, who does not know how to use a
proxy to evade the official filters and access these ads.
The most surprising restriction, however, is that people under 18 will
not be allowed to navigate the Internet at these cybercafés. It looks as
though junior and senior secondary school students will have to
cultivate a good deal of patience and wait until they reach university
to get to know what the Internet is all about.
We would well be justified in describing Cuba's current strategy for the
expansion of Internet services, which leaders in the sector insist will
lead to a luminous future of web connectivity, as a piecemeal tactic.
30 May 2013
http://translatingcuba.com/bbc-analyzes-what-expanded-internet-access-really-means/
Posted on May 31, 2013
This post is from the Havana Times, and is an authorized translation
prepared by that site of an article that appeared in the BBC's El Mundo.
A summary is the statistics is as follows:
In a country of over 11 million people, the new internet (mostly
intranet) access will consist of:
1 cybercafe for every 65,000 people (assuming 8 million potential users).
334 computers for the entire country, operating 11 hours a day, for
3,674 hours of computer time, daily, for the entire nation.
If only 10% of the population wants to get on-line, each individual will
be able to do so once every six months.
If 8 million of the 11+ million Cubans want to get on-line, each person
will be able to do so once every 5 years.
If one individual could connect for one hour a day, it would cost them
$135/month (U.S.) — nearly 7 times their monthly wages (or more, for
lower wage workers).
All use will be monitored, and any user who violates the "norms" will be
cut off. No politics, no sex.
Revolico.com — Cuba's "Craiglist" — is blocked.
No one under 18 will be admitted. (Forget homework help, students.)
Cuba's New Cybercafés: A Piecemeal Strategy
HAVANA TIMES — Next month, 118 public Internet access points will open
across Cuba, something which Cubans, one would expect, ought to regard
as rather good news. Though any step in the right direction should be
applauded, it would be remiss not to gauge the real impact this measure
will have on the island.
Supposing that there are 8 million young people and adults across Cuba
who are interested in using the Internet, we would have one cybercafé
for every 65 thousand people. You would see line-ups of people longer
than those that would gather outside bodegas if they began handing out
beef rations again.
With a total of 334 computer consoles around the country, the cybercafés
will be open 11 hours a day. If every user were to navigate for only an
hour, a mere 3,700 people would be able to access the Internet a day. If
we maintain our initial figure of 8 million potential Internet users,
people would get to connect once every 5 years.
Even if we assume I am exaggerating and that only 10% of this
hypothetical population wants to use the Internet, each person would
have access to the web only once every six months. And Cuba's phone
company, ETECSA, needed all of two years to take this bold step, from
the date in which the installation of an underwater fiber-optic cable
between Cuba and Venezuela was completed.
Though the company's directives offer some hope, claiming that, "in the
future", they will attempt to expand their services to meet demands with
Wi-Fi networks, Internet service for mobile phones and even homes, they
play it safe and conclude by saying they "cannot give any specific dates."
People, however, can do their own math. If, in the time since the
sub-aquatic cable was installed, the capacities created can accommodate
a mere 3,700 users a day, it will take centuries before all Cubans of
age and deserving of Internet access have this privilege.
In addition to this, they have announced that rates will be lowered to
US $5.00 (4.50 CUC) for every hour of Internet use, a price which proves
affordable if one connects to the web once every six months, but which
would entail spending US $135 a month if one wanted to do so, for 1
hour, at least once a day.
A Cuban's average monthly salary is of US $20. Supposing that, in a
given family, there are two people earning this salary and a couple of
pensioners receiving US $10, plus a relative in Miami who sends them US
$50 every month, they would have to devote the family's entire income to
pay the cybercafé bill.
The problem, apparently, is that ETECSA requires substantial sums of
money, "significant investments", to modernize the country's
technological infrastructure. It shouldn't take long to put together
such money, considering that, with these new cybercafés, they can take
in US $16 thousand a day, some 6 million dollars a year.
Strict Rules on Users
In addition to being expensive, cybercafés will impose strict rules on
users, and authorities will reserve the right to block the account of
any individual who employs the web to carry out actions that "undermine
public safety or the country's integrity, economy, independence and
sovereignty."
ETECSA will also "immediately suspend the service if it detects that,
during the navigation session, the user has violated any of the ethical
norms of behavior which the Cuban State has established."
In a nutshell, no politics and no sex. I imagine that the slogan of
these cybercafés will be something along the lines of "A healthy
Internet for the Cuban family." A system of filters which block access
to a number of ideologically or morally "offensive" sites is already in
place.
Political censorship on the web is rather "tropical": though some sites
operated by Cubans living in Miami are blocked, the main newspaper of
Cuban exiles can be freely accessed by cybernauts on the island. In the
case of Spain, one anti-Castro page is blocked and another isn't, though
both publish pretty much the same information.
When it comes to moral matters, however, censors evince the puritanism
of a small-town parish priest. In their crusade against pornography,
they block new pages containing videos, photographs, contacts, stories
or any kind of eroticism – literally nothing gets past them.
They are also particularly intolerant of any commercial use of the web.
Cuba's main classifieds page, Revolico.com, is blocked. There isn't a
single Internet user in Cuba, however, who does not know how to use a
proxy to evade the official filters and access these ads.
The most surprising restriction, however, is that people under 18 will
not be allowed to navigate the Internet at these cybercafés. It looks as
though junior and senior secondary school students will have to
cultivate a good deal of patience and wait until they reach university
to get to know what the Internet is all about.
We would well be justified in describing Cuba's current strategy for the
expansion of Internet services, which leaders in the sector insist will
lead to a luminous future of web connectivity, as a piecemeal tactic.
30 May 2013
http://translatingcuba.com/bbc-analyzes-what-expanded-internet-access-really-means/
Dissidents' return to Cuba an act of courage
Posted on Friday, 05.31.13
Dissidents' return to Cuba an act of courage
By Fabiola Santiago
fsantiago@MiamiHerald.com
Here's Cuba, post-travel "reform," round one.
In short lines sent from her cellphone — one could say guerrilla-style,
for the way a word, a smiley face, a phrase began in one tweet and ended
in another — the celebrated blogger Yoani Sánchez reported on her return
to Havana.
"Back to blindly tweeting via SMS," she wrote Thursday night to her
504,534 Twitter followers as soon she landed.
Sánchez remarked on her 30-minute path through customs, her reunion with
loved ones, and on Friday, posted similarly truncated snippets on Facebook.
They began bittersweet with the rain — "like it's the end of the world,
but the sun will shine" — and by day's end were critical of the limited
digital TV the government says it will allow, of the outrageously priced
Internet cafés that block most information China-style, and for the lack
of accessibility to the average Cuban.
"My grandchildren will have Internet wi-fi sometime in 2032," she wrote.
Without missing a beat, the 37-year-old dissident who traveled for 103
days through Europe and the Americas giving testimony about life in Cuba
and denouncing human rights violations was back to describing what it's
like to endure a country where the most mundane possessions, including
peace of mind, are inaccessible or forbidden, or both.
Sánchez, by far the most famous of Cuba's traveling bloggers and
dissidents — able to leave the island under liberalized travel rules
after years of denials — is not the first to travel widely and return.
Ladies in White leader Berta Soler, Rosa María Payá, daughter of the
late dissident leader Oswaldo Payá, and the young activist Eliécer Avila
also recently went home.
On the day she returned, Payá was threatened by a pro-government blogger
who accused her of defaming Cuba and breaking the law by calling for an
international investigation into her father's death.
Avila was detained at customs and his luggage searched for four hours.
The government confiscated 26 books about culture, human rights and
democracy, and photographed all his electronics.
He said he had no regrets.
"I was absolutely certain that [returning] was what I wanted; the
sentimental ties I left in Cuba and the sense of responsibility with the
future were powerful reasons," he wrote in an essay in the digital
Diario de Cuba. "In fact, I didn't feel sad, I was happy to return."
Whether Sánchez will face reprisals is yet to be seen. But a
pro-government blogger attacked her arrival, calling her " la
vacacionista," the vacationer, and saying she had received "90 days of
training to topple the island's government."
It takes guts and commitment to take on a dictatorship from inside, and
by returning to continue their fight for democratic change, Cuba's brave
traveling dissidents have proven their worth.
While in exile, in Miami or elsewhere, they would be one more among us.
Their credibility lies in the strength of their voice from inside Cuba.
Their return home closes a historic chapter — but also opens a new, and
more important one perhaps, for the island's future.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/31/3426922/fabiola-santiago-dissidents-return.html
Dissidents' return to Cuba an act of courage
By Fabiola Santiago
fsantiago@MiamiHerald.com
Here's Cuba, post-travel "reform," round one.
In short lines sent from her cellphone — one could say guerrilla-style,
for the way a word, a smiley face, a phrase began in one tweet and ended
in another — the celebrated blogger Yoani Sánchez reported on her return
to Havana.
"Back to blindly tweeting via SMS," she wrote Thursday night to her
504,534 Twitter followers as soon she landed.
Sánchez remarked on her 30-minute path through customs, her reunion with
loved ones, and on Friday, posted similarly truncated snippets on Facebook.
They began bittersweet with the rain — "like it's the end of the world,
but the sun will shine" — and by day's end were critical of the limited
digital TV the government says it will allow, of the outrageously priced
Internet cafés that block most information China-style, and for the lack
of accessibility to the average Cuban.
"My grandchildren will have Internet wi-fi sometime in 2032," she wrote.
Without missing a beat, the 37-year-old dissident who traveled for 103
days through Europe and the Americas giving testimony about life in Cuba
and denouncing human rights violations was back to describing what it's
like to endure a country where the most mundane possessions, including
peace of mind, are inaccessible or forbidden, or both.
Sánchez, by far the most famous of Cuba's traveling bloggers and
dissidents — able to leave the island under liberalized travel rules
after years of denials — is not the first to travel widely and return.
Ladies in White leader Berta Soler, Rosa María Payá, daughter of the
late dissident leader Oswaldo Payá, and the young activist Eliécer Avila
also recently went home.
On the day she returned, Payá was threatened by a pro-government blogger
who accused her of defaming Cuba and breaking the law by calling for an
international investigation into her father's death.
Avila was detained at customs and his luggage searched for four hours.
The government confiscated 26 books about culture, human rights and
democracy, and photographed all his electronics.
He said he had no regrets.
"I was absolutely certain that [returning] was what I wanted; the
sentimental ties I left in Cuba and the sense of responsibility with the
future were powerful reasons," he wrote in an essay in the digital
Diario de Cuba. "In fact, I didn't feel sad, I was happy to return."
Whether Sánchez will face reprisals is yet to be seen. But a
pro-government blogger attacked her arrival, calling her " la
vacacionista," the vacationer, and saying she had received "90 days of
training to topple the island's government."
It takes guts and commitment to take on a dictatorship from inside, and
by returning to continue their fight for democratic change, Cuba's brave
traveling dissidents have proven their worth.
While in exile, in Miami or elsewhere, they would be one more among us.
Their credibility lies in the strength of their voice from inside Cuba.
Their return home closes a historic chapter — but also opens a new, and
more important one perhaps, for the island's future.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/31/3426922/fabiola-santiago-dissidents-return.html
British businessmen await Cuba's verdict as graft trial ends
British businessmen await Cuba's verdict as graft trial ends
By Marc Frank
HAVANA | Fri May 31, 2013 7:50pm EDT
(Reuters) - The two-day trial of two top executives of a British
investment fund ended in Havana on Friday with a five judge panel
expected to deliver its verdict within 10 days.
The sentences of two other foreigners tried a week ago have yet to be
announced, as the government presses forward with an unprecedented
crackdown on corruption.
In this week's trial on the communist-run island, Amado Fakhre, a
Lebanese-born British citizen and chief executive officer of Coral
Capital Group Ltd, faced various bribery charges related mainly to the
fund's import business.
Chief Operating Officer Stephen Purvis, who headed various investment
projects, faced lesser charges, such as operating outside the bounds of
the fund's license, sources close to the case said on condition of
anonymity.
The defendants' lawyers and British consular officials had no comment
upon leaving the court, an old mansion, surrounded by an iron fence, in
an outlying Havana neighborhood.
The trial was closed to the media.
There are only a few foreign investment funds in Cuba. Coral Capital
said it invested some $75 million and had more than $1 billion of
projects in the works.
The company was caught up in an investigation of Cuba's international
trading sector, part of a broader crackdown on corruption by President
Raul Castro after he replaced ailing brother Fidel in 2008.
Fakhre has been jailed since the company's offices were raided and
closed in October 2011. Purvis was arrested and imprisoned in March 2012.
In September 2011, authorities shut down one of the most important
Western trading companies in Cuba, Canada-based Tokmakjian Group, after
doing the same in July to another Canadian trading firm, Tri-Star Caribbean.
The owner of Tri-Star Caribbean, Sarkis Yacoubian, originally from
Armenia, was tried last week at the same court. He and an associate,
Lebanese citizen Krikor Bayassalian, were charged with bribery, tax
evasion and damaging the economy.
DOZENS ARRESTED
Dozens of Cuban officials and businessmen have reportedly been arrested,
tried and sentenced in the anti-corruption sweep.
Cuba's state-run media has not yet reported the trials, nor mentioned
the arrests and crackdown on foreign trade.
Castro established the comptroller general's office in 2009, even as he
began implementing market-oriented economic reforms.
That step marked the start of the anti-corruption campaign that
uncovered high-level graft in sectors ranging from the cigar, nickel and
communications industries to food processing and civil aviation.
Coral Capital, registered in the British Virgin Islands in 1999, was
best known in Cuba as the joint venture partner in Havana's upscale
Saratoga Hotel and another hotel complex on the resort key of Cayo Coco.
It had plans to build golf courses and related real estate developments
near Havana.
The fund branched into trade financing and importing heavy equipment and
other merchandise and this may have led to its problems, foreign
business sources said.
The company represented various international brands in Cuba, among them
Liebherr Earth Moving, Yamaha Motor Corporation and Peugeot Motorcycles,
according to its website, now defunct.
(Reporting by Marc Frank. Editing by Andre Grenon)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/31/us-cuba-corruption-trial-idUSBRE94U1B920130531
By Marc Frank
HAVANA | Fri May 31, 2013 7:50pm EDT
(Reuters) - The two-day trial of two top executives of a British
investment fund ended in Havana on Friday with a five judge panel
expected to deliver its verdict within 10 days.
The sentences of two other foreigners tried a week ago have yet to be
announced, as the government presses forward with an unprecedented
crackdown on corruption.
In this week's trial on the communist-run island, Amado Fakhre, a
Lebanese-born British citizen and chief executive officer of Coral
Capital Group Ltd, faced various bribery charges related mainly to the
fund's import business.
Chief Operating Officer Stephen Purvis, who headed various investment
projects, faced lesser charges, such as operating outside the bounds of
the fund's license, sources close to the case said on condition of
anonymity.
The defendants' lawyers and British consular officials had no comment
upon leaving the court, an old mansion, surrounded by an iron fence, in
an outlying Havana neighborhood.
The trial was closed to the media.
There are only a few foreign investment funds in Cuba. Coral Capital
said it invested some $75 million and had more than $1 billion of
projects in the works.
The company was caught up in an investigation of Cuba's international
trading sector, part of a broader crackdown on corruption by President
Raul Castro after he replaced ailing brother Fidel in 2008.
Fakhre has been jailed since the company's offices were raided and
closed in October 2011. Purvis was arrested and imprisoned in March 2012.
In September 2011, authorities shut down one of the most important
Western trading companies in Cuba, Canada-based Tokmakjian Group, after
doing the same in July to another Canadian trading firm, Tri-Star Caribbean.
The owner of Tri-Star Caribbean, Sarkis Yacoubian, originally from
Armenia, was tried last week at the same court. He and an associate,
Lebanese citizen Krikor Bayassalian, were charged with bribery, tax
evasion and damaging the economy.
DOZENS ARRESTED
Dozens of Cuban officials and businessmen have reportedly been arrested,
tried and sentenced in the anti-corruption sweep.
Cuba's state-run media has not yet reported the trials, nor mentioned
the arrests and crackdown on foreign trade.
Castro established the comptroller general's office in 2009, even as he
began implementing market-oriented economic reforms.
That step marked the start of the anti-corruption campaign that
uncovered high-level graft in sectors ranging from the cigar, nickel and
communications industries to food processing and civil aviation.
Coral Capital, registered in the British Virgin Islands in 1999, was
best known in Cuba as the joint venture partner in Havana's upscale
Saratoga Hotel and another hotel complex on the resort key of Cayo Coco.
It had plans to build golf courses and related real estate developments
near Havana.
The fund branched into trade financing and importing heavy equipment and
other merchandise and this may have led to its problems, foreign
business sources said.
The company represented various international brands in Cuba, among them
Liebherr Earth Moving, Yamaha Motor Corporation and Peugeot Motorcycles,
according to its website, now defunct.
(Reporting by Marc Frank. Editing by Andre Grenon)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/31/us-cuba-corruption-trial-idUSBRE94U1B920130531
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