Fidel Castro's Private Revolution
JORGE A. SANGUINETTY | Miami | 4 de Octubre de 2016 - 06:06 CEST.
Deception plays an important role in history. Man uses it as an
instrument to achieve his goals, similarly to the way animals, through
mimicry, disguise themselves, depending upon the environment around
them, to escape their predators or to surprise their prey. Deception is
an intrinsic part of human nature and, therefore, of society. Regardless
of its ethical and moral implications, like it or not, we must learn to
grapple with deception.
Applied to public and State affairs, deception has been used to achieve
political, military and economic objectives during various stages of the
history of nations. Cuba is a good example. Its republican history
cannot be understood without acknowledging the prominent role of
deception and, upon the beginning of the revolutionary process in 1959,
deception rose to unprecedented levels in the country, essential to
Fidel Castro's daily modus operandi. Official deception was utilized in
very deliberate, refined and effective ways, in sync with actions of the
revolutionary Government. These actions not only led to Castro's
personal domination of all the State's power, but also virtually all the
country's economic power, hitherto widely distributed among many private
parties. In this way deception convinced a large segment of the
population, perhaps most of it, that the concentration of power served
morally superior ends, as embodied in socialist ideology. It would be
pointing out the obvious to state that without deception the massive
cataclysm called the "Cuban Revolution" that has plagued society since
1959 never would have transpired.
Herein I analyze the main official statements and measures that swiftly
and radically transformed Cuban society in less than two years. It is
not easy to find examples in history of change so rapid and so profound.
It consisted of a refined conflict between Castro's public statements
and the measures later implemented. This cycle of Deception-Betrayal
(D-B) had its first major expression in the initial promise, dating from
before 1959, that the Revolution was being carried out order to
overthrow the Batista dictatorship, restore the Constitution of 1940,
and organize free elections for a new democratic government. Such was
the first segment of the "D-B" cycle, completed in early 1959 when the
Government surreptitiously abandoned the constitutional restoration
plan, and made it official in 1960 speech in which Castro rhetorically
asked: "Elections? What for?" Although the D-B cycle was continuously
repeated on various scales, and at different times, and for different
audiences, here we shall focus on the most significant cases in the
early process.
Thus, the next great cycle was that which also began before 1959, with
multiple statements by Castro denying that he, his followers, and the
revolutionary movement were Communist. However, already in 1959, even
while denying these accusations, Castro was placing, without the
public's knowledge, militant communists in key Government positions,
even while he was getting rid of anti-Communist staff. All this led to
protests and the subsequent resignation of President Manuel Urrutia in
mid-1959, and Commander Huber Matos that October, with the latter's
immediate imprisonment.
Castro's statements about the nature of his revolution, meanwhile,
featured a vague definition of a "humanist" regime. While he persisted
in disavowing that it was Communist, he initiated relations with the
Soviet Union and implemented measures of a socialist nature, such as
agrarian and urban reform laws. These laws violated the property rights
of hundreds of thousands of Cuban citizens and those of a good number of
foreigners, and reached their peak in the D-B cycles and the massive
expropriations of 1960. The greatest of these cycles was completed on
April 16, 1961, when Castro finally proclaimed, in a public speech, the
socialist nature of the revolution. Later that same year the great B-D
cycle came to head with Castro's confession that he was a Marxist-
Leninist and would be his whole life.
It is noteworthy that a large portion of the documentation of many of
these episodes of deception has gradually been erased from public
records in Cuba, a practice that takes the deception to a higher level;
that is, deception about deception. In this way Cuba repeated the
well-known Communist practice of simply deleting inconvenient parts of
their histories, so as to maximize the Government's control over citizens.
Parallel to the process of expropriations in 1960, Cuba's Central
Planning Board (JUCEPLAN) was organized. This would be the
megaorganization that would supplant the market economy that had
prevailed in Cuba hitherto, and that would be in charge, in theory, of
overseeing the country's entire economy under the socialist regime. In
this regard it is crucial to understand that this new system would
replace hundreds of thousands of product and service companies, of all
sizes, each with their respective owners, managers and workers, with
state monopolies. The disappearance of private owners generated a vacuum
of economic and administrative authority that had to be filled, in a
question of just months, with improvised personnel loyal to Castro, to
prevent a production shutdown on the Island.
While the Board represented the essence of what should be the handling a
new and efficient socialist economy, in practice it became the
instrument of the Fidel Castro's last great deception: he would handle
the economy at will, without well-prepared plans, while making use of
expropriated companies as if they were his property. Instead of "social
ownership of the means of production," as expressed in the sacred texts
of socialism, the expropriated property was, de facto, privatized by and
for Fidel Castro himself. He now had all the power, to use and
distribute as however he pleased, without having to answer to anyone,
and without a free and independent press, or supervision by the
Communist Party or any competent State body. And instead of using those
properties and the central planning system to promote Cuba's economic
and social development, Castro used his resources to promote guerrilla
wars in several Latin American countries, antagonize the US all over the
world, and intervene in military conflicts in several African countries.
This was an unknown aspect of his private agenda, in which socialism
itself, as conceived by or dreamt of by socialist Marxists, did not
apply. Another set of deceptive maneuvers came to light, constituting
new instances of betrayal: instead of dedication to the welfare of the
people, Cuban socialism morphed into a proletarian internationalism and
a standard-bearer of anti-Americanism under its the country's new lord
and master.
The Castro scheme constructed a veritable Trojan horse to surprise
millions of unsuspecting Cubans, who were unable to defend their
interests, rights and property. With the Castro regime donning a
disguise of benevolent socialism, the deception was not limited to Cuba,
but also exported for international consumption, with great success.
Emulating the villages of Potemkin, the socialist facade was sold in
other countries through a massive and costly propaganda effort. Many
Cubans still do not grasp the private nature of the Castro regime,
although now it is becoming increasingly clear, due to hints of a
dynastic succession whose main heirs appear to be members of the Castro
family. At this point one wonders whether the public outrage that will
ensue when these truths are widely known just might generate the
conditions necessary for a profound change in the regime.
Source: Fidel Castro's Private Revolution | Diario de Cuba -
http://www.diariodecuba.com/cuba/1475554019_25757.html
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Monday, October 3, 2016
Making a Living in Cuba on Gambling
Making a Living in Cuba on Gambling / Iván García
Iván García, 26 September 2016 — Although the bleachers of the old
stadium in Cerro are deserted, the overcast sky promises rain and the
poor quality of the baseball game between Industriales and Sancti
Spiritus invites a siesta, a chubby mulato with arms tattooed in Chinese
writing — let's call him Óscar — sits on the left side in the bleachers
to place bets.
"Some years before, betting on baseball had more followers. But
present-day baseball is so depressing that people prefer to see a
European-league football [soccer] match. But there's always something
that comes along," he says, agreeing to a bet of 10 Cuban convertible
pesos (CUC) with a gray-haired man who smokes a mentholated cigarette.
There are various types of bets, explains Óscar. "There are bets that
cover you, which are when you see you can lose, and then you opt for
what we call rapid bets. An example: Ten pesos that some player is out
or that the pitch is a strike. It's really a booby trap, since in
baseball there are more outs than hits or men on base, and the pitchers
have to throw more strikes than balls."
Bets or gambling where money flows is an old passion in Cuba. In the
Republican era, the average Cuban played the lottery and the bolita or
charada.* And he bet on cock fights, baseball games, or a match of
billiards or dominoes.
A sector of the wealthy class went to the casinos and the grand Havana
hotels to play roulette, dice or cards, or they went to the Hippodrome,
to bet on the best horses. After Fidel Castro came down from the Sierra
Maestra and took power, betting was prohibited.
Opportunistic soldiers and diehard supporters of the bearded
revolutionaries wrecked the billiard tables, slot machines and roulette
tables in the casinos with baseball bats and meat cleavers.
The delusional aim of the Castro brothers and the Argentine, Che
Guevara, to construct a laboratory man who would work for free without
pay, obey the Regime and hate Yankee imperialism, would happen, among
other things, by prohibiting betting.
Cuban laws punish, with prison sentences that range from three months to
five years, those who facilitate or manage illegal casinos, lotteries or
make bets.
But the prolonged economic crisis that has lasted for 27 years has
postponed alienating social experiments and their corresponding punishments.
"Now the police don't interfere with the betters or the fanatics who
gamble for money. It has to be an operation in search of some criminal
who goes to clandestine gambling houses. But when they get you, they
give you a fine of 60 Cuban pesos (around three dollars); they
confiscate the money and release you without opening a file," says
Mauricio, owner of a burle, an illegal gambling house in popular slang.
The burles sprout like flowers in Cuba. There are various classes. The
authentic dens are set up in grimy quarters where poor people,
pickpockets and rogues gamble a handful of pesos at cards or by throwing
dice. But there are also comfortable residences where people go who have
money from stealing in tourist centers or prostituting themselves with
foreigners.
"In my burle, in order to sit down to gamble, you have to put 5,000
Cuban pesos or 200 Cuban convertible pesos on the table. We also accept
dollars, euros, Swiss francs or pounds sterling," indicates David, the
owner of a clandestine casino in the old part of Havana.
According to Mauricio, the preferred games are "three with three, a
Creole variation of poker, the longana, which is played with domino
tiles, baccarat and Cee-lo, which came from the Orient and is played
with dice." And he says that Cee-lo as well as diverse variants of card
games "surged in the prisons, where the prisoners, instead of betting
with money, bet with sugar cubes, powdered milk or pornographic magazines."
In some burles, they also hold cock fights, one of the oldest traditions
in rural Cuba. After 1959, pens for fighting cocks were prohibited, but
now they're tolerated on the whole Island and involve a lot of money.
The furor for soccer has generated clubs that make discreet bets. In the
absence of a betting game, Román notes in a school notebook the bets for
the weekend matches in the European leagues.
"There are those who gamble 5 CUC. But there are bets of 500 CUC and
more. It depends on the importance of the match. In the Madrid-Barcelona
match, a lot of bills were flying around. People bet until someone gets
a goal," emphasizes Román.
New technologies have incentivized other forms of bets. "There are
groups, above all of young people, who gamble in clandestine video-game
networks and place big bets. It also pays to have five or six computers
with video-games and rent them at one cuc an hour," explains Ángel, who
has set up an illegal business of video-games.
The owners of the burles earn 10 percent of the bets in every game.
Films of car races, like The Fast and The Furious, brought to the
destroyed Cuban roads the competition of cars and motorcycles for money.
There are no Ferraris, Toyotas or Lamborghinis in Cuba. The races are
run, in general, with old U.S. autos, fabricated in the workshops of
Detroit 70 years ago, and upgraded cars from the Soviet era. In the
rural areas, they organize races of "spiders" or horse carts.
"In the car races, bets can go up to three or four thousand Cuban
convertibles. They always choose the best stretch of the road. And every
police patrol car is paid 20 CUC to ensure security for the area," says
an organizer of these races.
Other variants of prohibited games are dog fights and clandestine
boxing. But the star game of betting in Cuba is the bolita, a local
variant of the lottery.
Hundreds of thousands of people play it. From guys with bulging pockets
to pensioners who earn nothing. For every peso bet, the bank pays
between 80 or 90 pesos at a fixed number. Twenty-five pesos invested and
900 or 1,000 pesos in a trifecta or a combination of two numbers. You
bet from one to 100, and every number has one or more meanings. The
results come from the lottery in Miami, and there are two rounds of bets.
Any Cuban who hasn't tried his luck in the bolita, raise your hand.
Iván García
Hispanost, September 8, 2016.
*Translator's note: *"Little Ball" was a type of lottery which involved
100 small, numbered balls. The charada assigned names of animals to the
numbers. This created a superstitious method for betting, often basing a
choice on a dream or an animal seen during the day. The horse was number
1; this is why Fidel Castro was often referred to as el caballo.
Translated by Regina Anavy
Source: Making a Living in Cuba on Gambling / Iván García – Translating
Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/making-a-living-in-cuba-on-gambling-ivn-garca/
Iván García, 26 September 2016 — Although the bleachers of the old
stadium in Cerro are deserted, the overcast sky promises rain and the
poor quality of the baseball game between Industriales and Sancti
Spiritus invites a siesta, a chubby mulato with arms tattooed in Chinese
writing — let's call him Óscar — sits on the left side in the bleachers
to place bets.
"Some years before, betting on baseball had more followers. But
present-day baseball is so depressing that people prefer to see a
European-league football [soccer] match. But there's always something
that comes along," he says, agreeing to a bet of 10 Cuban convertible
pesos (CUC) with a gray-haired man who smokes a mentholated cigarette.
There are various types of bets, explains Óscar. "There are bets that
cover you, which are when you see you can lose, and then you opt for
what we call rapid bets. An example: Ten pesos that some player is out
or that the pitch is a strike. It's really a booby trap, since in
baseball there are more outs than hits or men on base, and the pitchers
have to throw more strikes than balls."
Bets or gambling where money flows is an old passion in Cuba. In the
Republican era, the average Cuban played the lottery and the bolita or
charada.* And he bet on cock fights, baseball games, or a match of
billiards or dominoes.
A sector of the wealthy class went to the casinos and the grand Havana
hotels to play roulette, dice or cards, or they went to the Hippodrome,
to bet on the best horses. After Fidel Castro came down from the Sierra
Maestra and took power, betting was prohibited.
Opportunistic soldiers and diehard supporters of the bearded
revolutionaries wrecked the billiard tables, slot machines and roulette
tables in the casinos with baseball bats and meat cleavers.
The delusional aim of the Castro brothers and the Argentine, Che
Guevara, to construct a laboratory man who would work for free without
pay, obey the Regime and hate Yankee imperialism, would happen, among
other things, by prohibiting betting.
Cuban laws punish, with prison sentences that range from three months to
five years, those who facilitate or manage illegal casinos, lotteries or
make bets.
But the prolonged economic crisis that has lasted for 27 years has
postponed alienating social experiments and their corresponding punishments.
"Now the police don't interfere with the betters or the fanatics who
gamble for money. It has to be an operation in search of some criminal
who goes to clandestine gambling houses. But when they get you, they
give you a fine of 60 Cuban pesos (around three dollars); they
confiscate the money and release you without opening a file," says
Mauricio, owner of a burle, an illegal gambling house in popular slang.
The burles sprout like flowers in Cuba. There are various classes. The
authentic dens are set up in grimy quarters where poor people,
pickpockets and rogues gamble a handful of pesos at cards or by throwing
dice. But there are also comfortable residences where people go who have
money from stealing in tourist centers or prostituting themselves with
foreigners.
"In my burle, in order to sit down to gamble, you have to put 5,000
Cuban pesos or 200 Cuban convertible pesos on the table. We also accept
dollars, euros, Swiss francs or pounds sterling," indicates David, the
owner of a clandestine casino in the old part of Havana.
According to Mauricio, the preferred games are "three with three, a
Creole variation of poker, the longana, which is played with domino
tiles, baccarat and Cee-lo, which came from the Orient and is played
with dice." And he says that Cee-lo as well as diverse variants of card
games "surged in the prisons, where the prisoners, instead of betting
with money, bet with sugar cubes, powdered milk or pornographic magazines."
In some burles, they also hold cock fights, one of the oldest traditions
in rural Cuba. After 1959, pens for fighting cocks were prohibited, but
now they're tolerated on the whole Island and involve a lot of money.
The furor for soccer has generated clubs that make discreet bets. In the
absence of a betting game, Román notes in a school notebook the bets for
the weekend matches in the European leagues.
"There are those who gamble 5 CUC. But there are bets of 500 CUC and
more. It depends on the importance of the match. In the Madrid-Barcelona
match, a lot of bills were flying around. People bet until someone gets
a goal," emphasizes Román.
New technologies have incentivized other forms of bets. "There are
groups, above all of young people, who gamble in clandestine video-game
networks and place big bets. It also pays to have five or six computers
with video-games and rent them at one cuc an hour," explains Ángel, who
has set up an illegal business of video-games.
The owners of the burles earn 10 percent of the bets in every game.
Films of car races, like The Fast and The Furious, brought to the
destroyed Cuban roads the competition of cars and motorcycles for money.
There are no Ferraris, Toyotas or Lamborghinis in Cuba. The races are
run, in general, with old U.S. autos, fabricated in the workshops of
Detroit 70 years ago, and upgraded cars from the Soviet era. In the
rural areas, they organize races of "spiders" or horse carts.
"In the car races, bets can go up to three or four thousand Cuban
convertibles. They always choose the best stretch of the road. And every
police patrol car is paid 20 CUC to ensure security for the area," says
an organizer of these races.
Other variants of prohibited games are dog fights and clandestine
boxing. But the star game of betting in Cuba is the bolita, a local
variant of the lottery.
Hundreds of thousands of people play it. From guys with bulging pockets
to pensioners who earn nothing. For every peso bet, the bank pays
between 80 or 90 pesos at a fixed number. Twenty-five pesos invested and
900 or 1,000 pesos in a trifecta or a combination of two numbers. You
bet from one to 100, and every number has one or more meanings. The
results come from the lottery in Miami, and there are two rounds of bets.
Any Cuban who hasn't tried his luck in the bolita, raise your hand.
Iván García
Hispanost, September 8, 2016.
*Translator's note: *"Little Ball" was a type of lottery which involved
100 small, numbered balls. The charada assigned names of animals to the
numbers. This created a superstitious method for betting, often basing a
choice on a dream or an animal seen during the day. The horse was number
1; this is why Fidel Castro was often referred to as el caballo.
Translated by Regina Anavy
Source: Making a Living in Cuba on Gambling / Iván García – Translating
Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/making-a-living-in-cuba-on-gambling-ivn-garca/
Illegal gambling flourishes in Cuba despite potential stiff punishment
Illegal gambling flourishes in Cuba despite potential stiff punishment
Iván García
Desde La Habana
Although the old stadium in Havana's Cerro neighborhood is almost empty
and rain is in the forecast, Oscar sits by left field and starts taking
bets.
"A few years ago, betting on baseball had more followers. But now
baseball is so depressing that people prefer to watch European-league
soccer. But there's always something that comes along," Oscar, whose
arms are covered in tattoos, says as he takes a $10 bet from a
gray-haired man.
Cuban laws punish illegal gambling with prison sentences that range from
three months to five years. But the prolonged economic crisis that has
lasted for 27 years has postponed the punishments.
"The police no longer interfere with gamblers," says Mauricio, owner of
a burle, an illegal gambling house. "[For the police to interfere] it
has to be an operation in search of some criminal who goes to
clandestine gambling houses. But if they get you, they give you a 60
pesos fine (around $3), confiscate your money and release you without
even opening a case."
The burles, the term used in Cuban slang for gambling houses, sprout
like flowers on the island. There are different types of burles. Some
are authentic dens set up in cuarterías [crowded apartment complexes] in
urban areas where people gamble a handful of pesos playing cards or
rolling the dice. But there are also comfortable residences where people
who have money go.
"In my burle, in order to sit down to gamble, you have to put 5,000
Cuban pesos or 200 Cuban convertible pesos (about $200) on the table. We
also accept dollars, euros, Swiss francs or British pounds," says David,
the owner of an illegal gambling house in Old Havana.
According to Mauricio, the preferred games are "three with three, a
Creole variation of poker; the longana, which is played with dominoes;
baccarat and Cee-lo, which came from the West and is played with dice."
Mauricio says that Cee-lo and other card games "originated in the
prisons, where the prisoners, instead of betting with money, bet with
brown sugar, powdered milk or pornographic magazines."
In some burles, they also hold cock fights, one of the oldest traditions
in rural Cuba that also involve a lot of money. After 1959, cock
fighting was prohibited, but now they're tolerated everywhere on the island.
Other variants of illegal gambling include dog fights and clandestine
boxing. But the star of Cuban gambling is the bolita, a local version of
the lottery.
Hundreds of thousands of people play it, from people with bulging
pockets to pensioners who earn nothing. For every peso bet, the bank
pays between 80 or 90 pesos to a winning number, or up to a 1,000 for a
combination of numbers. The numbers range from one to 100, and every
number has one or more meanings. The results come from the lottery in
Miami, and there are two rounds of bets.
The frenzy for soccer also has generated clubs that make discreet bets.
In the absence of a betting community, people take notes for the weekend
matches in the European leagues.
"There are those who gamble $5, but there are also bets of $500 and
more. It depends on the importance of the match. In the Madrid-Barcelona
match, there's money flying around. People even bet even on what player
will score," says Roman, who takes soccer bets.
The advent of new technologies have brought other forms of gambling.
"There are groups, especially of young people, who gamble in illegal
video-game networks and make big bets. Some people also have five or six
computers with video-games and rent them at $1 an hour," says Ángel, who
has set up an illegal business of video-games.
The owners of the burles earn 10 percent of the bets in every game.
Films of car races, like Fast and Furious, sparked car and motorcycle
racing on Cuban roads. People race old American cars built in Detroit 70
years ago, and some upgraded cars from the Soviet era. In the rural
areas, people also race horse carts.
"In the car races, bets can be up to $3,000 or $4,000. They always
choose the best stretch of the road. And every police patrol car is paid
$20 to ensure security for the area," says an organizer of car races.
Gambling is an old passion in Cuba.
Before the Revolution, the average Cuban played the lottery and the
bolita, and used to bet on cock fights, baseball games, or a match of
dominoes.
A wealthy class used to attend the casinos in Havana to play roulette,
cards or roll the dice, or they went to the racetrack to bet on horses.
After Fidel Castro came down from the Sierra Maestra and took power,
gambling was prohibited. Some supporters used baseball bats and meat
cleavers to destroy slot machines and roulette tables in the casinos.
Source: Illegal gambling flourishes in Cuba despite potential stiff
punishment | In Cuba Today -
http://www.incubatoday.com/news/article105681476.html
Iván García
Desde La Habana
Although the old stadium in Havana's Cerro neighborhood is almost empty
and rain is in the forecast, Oscar sits by left field and starts taking
bets.
"A few years ago, betting on baseball had more followers. But now
baseball is so depressing that people prefer to watch European-league
soccer. But there's always something that comes along," Oscar, whose
arms are covered in tattoos, says as he takes a $10 bet from a
gray-haired man.
Cuban laws punish illegal gambling with prison sentences that range from
three months to five years. But the prolonged economic crisis that has
lasted for 27 years has postponed the punishments.
"The police no longer interfere with gamblers," says Mauricio, owner of
a burle, an illegal gambling house. "[For the police to interfere] it
has to be an operation in search of some criminal who goes to
clandestine gambling houses. But if they get you, they give you a 60
pesos fine (around $3), confiscate your money and release you without
even opening a case."
The burles, the term used in Cuban slang for gambling houses, sprout
like flowers on the island. There are different types of burles. Some
are authentic dens set up in cuarterías [crowded apartment complexes] in
urban areas where people gamble a handful of pesos playing cards or
rolling the dice. But there are also comfortable residences where people
who have money go.
"In my burle, in order to sit down to gamble, you have to put 5,000
Cuban pesos or 200 Cuban convertible pesos (about $200) on the table. We
also accept dollars, euros, Swiss francs or British pounds," says David,
the owner of an illegal gambling house in Old Havana.
According to Mauricio, the preferred games are "three with three, a
Creole variation of poker; the longana, which is played with dominoes;
baccarat and Cee-lo, which came from the West and is played with dice."
Mauricio says that Cee-lo and other card games "originated in the
prisons, where the prisoners, instead of betting with money, bet with
brown sugar, powdered milk or pornographic magazines."
In some burles, they also hold cock fights, one of the oldest traditions
in rural Cuba that also involve a lot of money. After 1959, cock
fighting was prohibited, but now they're tolerated everywhere on the island.
Other variants of illegal gambling include dog fights and clandestine
boxing. But the star of Cuban gambling is the bolita, a local version of
the lottery.
Hundreds of thousands of people play it, from people with bulging
pockets to pensioners who earn nothing. For every peso bet, the bank
pays between 80 or 90 pesos to a winning number, or up to a 1,000 for a
combination of numbers. The numbers range from one to 100, and every
number has one or more meanings. The results come from the lottery in
Miami, and there are two rounds of bets.
The frenzy for soccer also has generated clubs that make discreet bets.
In the absence of a betting community, people take notes for the weekend
matches in the European leagues.
"There are those who gamble $5, but there are also bets of $500 and
more. It depends on the importance of the match. In the Madrid-Barcelona
match, there's money flying around. People even bet even on what player
will score," says Roman, who takes soccer bets.
The advent of new technologies have brought other forms of gambling.
"There are groups, especially of young people, who gamble in illegal
video-game networks and make big bets. Some people also have five or six
computers with video-games and rent them at $1 an hour," says Ángel, who
has set up an illegal business of video-games.
The owners of the burles earn 10 percent of the bets in every game.
Films of car races, like Fast and Furious, sparked car and motorcycle
racing on Cuban roads. People race old American cars built in Detroit 70
years ago, and some upgraded cars from the Soviet era. In the rural
areas, people also race horse carts.
"In the car races, bets can be up to $3,000 or $4,000. They always
choose the best stretch of the road. And every police patrol car is paid
$20 to ensure security for the area," says an organizer of car races.
Gambling is an old passion in Cuba.
Before the Revolution, the average Cuban played the lottery and the
bolita, and used to bet on cock fights, baseball games, or a match of
dominoes.
A wealthy class used to attend the casinos in Havana to play roulette,
cards or roll the dice, or they went to the racetrack to bet on horses.
After Fidel Castro came down from the Sierra Maestra and took power,
gambling was prohibited. Some supporters used baseball bats and meat
cleavers to destroy slot machines and roulette tables in the casinos.
Source: Illegal gambling flourishes in Cuba despite potential stiff
punishment | In Cuba Today -
http://www.incubatoday.com/news/article105681476.html
Fear of flying - GOP lawmakers worry about security gaps at Cuban airports
Fear of flying: GOP lawmakers worry about security gaps at Cuban airports
By Josh Rogin Global Opinions October 2 at 7:30 PM
In pursuing his historic opening of relations with Cuba, President Obama
has frequently pushed legal and political boundaries. Now congressional
Republicans are up in arms about another such initiative: an airline
travel agreement they say exposes the United States to dangerous
security gaps at Cuban airports.
Congressional committees charged with overseeing the Department of
Homeland Security and Transportation Security Administration have
engaged in a months-long feud with the administration over security
vulnerabilities at 10 Cuban airports that have begun direct flights to
the United States. The lawmakers say the lapses increase the risk of
terrorists, criminals, drugs and spies entering the United States.
The security dogs that can be seen at Cuban airports are "mangy street
dogs" that were fraudulently posed as trained animals, the TSA's top
official for the Caribbean, Larry Mizell, told congressional officials
behind closed doors in March, according to these officials.
He also told them there are few body scanners at the Cuban airports and
that those in place are Chinese-made versions for which no reliability
data exists.
When direct commercial flights began in August, federal air marshals
were not allowed on them by order of the Cuban government. No TSA
personnel can be stationed at the Cuban airports. All of the local
airport employees for the U.S. carriers are being hired, vetted and paid
by the Cuban regime, lawmakers said, and the United States has not been
given information that resulted from their vetting or how it was conducted.
"In an effort to secure Obama's legacy on Cuba, they rushed to get it
done without doing the proper due diligence," said Rep. John Katko
(R-N.Y.), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee's subcommittee on
transportation security. "Our concern is oversight, to make sure what
the agency tells us we can verify. There are still a lot of things we
don't know. What we do know is troubling."
Two TSA officials told me that agency personnel have made several visits
to each of the 10 Cuban airports that have been certified as "last
points of departure" for direct flights to the United States and that
the agency is confident they are safe for Americans to fly to and from.
All 10 airports meet the minimum standards for security under U.S. and
international law, the officials said.
But the TSA officials declined to comment on any of the vulnerabilities
identified by the oversight committees, citing those details as
"security sensitive information." Several congressional officials said
that when Mizell, the TSA official, originally told lawmakers and staff
about the problems, no claim was made about information sensitivity. But
when the committee convened open hearings on the issue, officials
refused to repeat the facts in public.
The TSA officials also said the Cuban government had finally agreed to
allow federal air marshals on commercial flights to and from Cuba on
Sept. 26. The administration has not provided the text of that agreement
to Congress because it was still being translated from Spanish to
English, the officials said.
In June, a group of lawmakers tried to visit the Cuban airports to
review matters for themselves, but the Cuban government denied their
visas. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul
(R-Tex.), the leader of the would-be delegation, told me that the
administration, which he said denied repeated requests for assistance
and information, was ultimately responsible for thwarting congressional
oversight.
"It is my responsibility to ensure that any administration puts the
safety and security of the American people above all else," McCaul said.
"Like with the Iran deal and so many other times, the Obama
administration prioritizes legacy building at the expense of national
security."
Only days after the lawmakers were denied visas, NBA basketball legend
Shaquille O'Neal was granted a visa to visit Cuba as part of a State
Department cultural exchange program.
The congressional Republicans sounding the alarm about the Cuban
airports also oppose Obama's overall Cuba policy and doubt that thawing
relations with the government of Cuban President Raúl Castro will
encourage reform there. That debate likely won't be resolved for many
years, but when it comes to airport security, they certainly have a point.
"Cuba remains a state sponsor of terrorism that is allied with some of
the most despicable regimes in the world, from Iran to North Korea, and
I can't comprehend how this administration has allowed commercial
flights to Cuba without the proper vetting and security procedures in
place at each of the Cuban airports," Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told me.
The security situation at Cuban airports is an open invitation for any
bad actor who wishes to do harm to the United States to try to board a
flight to the United States with whatever dangerous contraband they can
carry. If that's the price of Obama securing his Cuba legacy, it's not
worth it.
Source: Fear of flying: GOP lawmakers worry about security gaps at Cuban
airports - The Washington Post -
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/fear-of-flying-gop-lawmakers-worry-about-security-gaps-at-cuban-airports/2016/10/02/876c1466-88cb-11e6-875e-2c1bfe943b66_story.html?utm_term=.a2f54bd0978f
By Josh Rogin Global Opinions October 2 at 7:30 PM
In pursuing his historic opening of relations with Cuba, President Obama
has frequently pushed legal and political boundaries. Now congressional
Republicans are up in arms about another such initiative: an airline
travel agreement they say exposes the United States to dangerous
security gaps at Cuban airports.
Congressional committees charged with overseeing the Department of
Homeland Security and Transportation Security Administration have
engaged in a months-long feud with the administration over security
vulnerabilities at 10 Cuban airports that have begun direct flights to
the United States. The lawmakers say the lapses increase the risk of
terrorists, criminals, drugs and spies entering the United States.
The security dogs that can be seen at Cuban airports are "mangy street
dogs" that were fraudulently posed as trained animals, the TSA's top
official for the Caribbean, Larry Mizell, told congressional officials
behind closed doors in March, according to these officials.
He also told them there are few body scanners at the Cuban airports and
that those in place are Chinese-made versions for which no reliability
data exists.
When direct commercial flights began in August, federal air marshals
were not allowed on them by order of the Cuban government. No TSA
personnel can be stationed at the Cuban airports. All of the local
airport employees for the U.S. carriers are being hired, vetted and paid
by the Cuban regime, lawmakers said, and the United States has not been
given information that resulted from their vetting or how it was conducted.
"In an effort to secure Obama's legacy on Cuba, they rushed to get it
done without doing the proper due diligence," said Rep. John Katko
(R-N.Y.), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee's subcommittee on
transportation security. "Our concern is oversight, to make sure what
the agency tells us we can verify. There are still a lot of things we
don't know. What we do know is troubling."
Two TSA officials told me that agency personnel have made several visits
to each of the 10 Cuban airports that have been certified as "last
points of departure" for direct flights to the United States and that
the agency is confident they are safe for Americans to fly to and from.
All 10 airports meet the minimum standards for security under U.S. and
international law, the officials said.
But the TSA officials declined to comment on any of the vulnerabilities
identified by the oversight committees, citing those details as
"security sensitive information." Several congressional officials said
that when Mizell, the TSA official, originally told lawmakers and staff
about the problems, no claim was made about information sensitivity. But
when the committee convened open hearings on the issue, officials
refused to repeat the facts in public.
The TSA officials also said the Cuban government had finally agreed to
allow federal air marshals on commercial flights to and from Cuba on
Sept. 26. The administration has not provided the text of that agreement
to Congress because it was still being translated from Spanish to
English, the officials said.
In June, a group of lawmakers tried to visit the Cuban airports to
review matters for themselves, but the Cuban government denied their
visas. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul
(R-Tex.), the leader of the would-be delegation, told me that the
administration, which he said denied repeated requests for assistance
and information, was ultimately responsible for thwarting congressional
oversight.
"It is my responsibility to ensure that any administration puts the
safety and security of the American people above all else," McCaul said.
"Like with the Iran deal and so many other times, the Obama
administration prioritizes legacy building at the expense of national
security."
Only days after the lawmakers were denied visas, NBA basketball legend
Shaquille O'Neal was granted a visa to visit Cuba as part of a State
Department cultural exchange program.
The congressional Republicans sounding the alarm about the Cuban
airports also oppose Obama's overall Cuba policy and doubt that thawing
relations with the government of Cuban President Raúl Castro will
encourage reform there. That debate likely won't be resolved for many
years, but when it comes to airport security, they certainly have a point.
"Cuba remains a state sponsor of terrorism that is allied with some of
the most despicable regimes in the world, from Iran to North Korea, and
I can't comprehend how this administration has allowed commercial
flights to Cuba without the proper vetting and security procedures in
place at each of the Cuban airports," Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told me.
The security situation at Cuban airports is an open invitation for any
bad actor who wishes to do harm to the United States to try to board a
flight to the United States with whatever dangerous contraband they can
carry. If that's the price of Obama securing his Cuba legacy, it's not
worth it.
Source: Fear of flying: GOP lawmakers worry about security gaps at Cuban
airports - The Washington Post -
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/fear-of-flying-gop-lawmakers-worry-about-security-gaps-at-cuban-airports/2016/10/02/876c1466-88cb-11e6-875e-2c1bfe943b66_story.html?utm_term=.a2f54bd0978f
Hurricane Matthew closes in on Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba
Hurricane Matthew closes in on Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba
John Bacon, USA TODAY 6:49 a.m. EDT October 3, 2016
Hurricane Matthew barreled its way through the Caribbean and toward
Haiti, Jamaica and Cuba on Monday.
Meteorologists said the Category 4 storm could pose a threat to the
United States by week's end.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said the dangerous storm has
top sustained winds near 130 mph. It was expected to pass to the east of
Jamaica and then cross over or be very close to the southwestern tip of
Haiti late Monday or early Tuesday.
Matthew briefly reached maximum Category 5 status Friday, making it the
strongest Atlantic hurricane in almost a decade. The storm was expected
to remain a powerful and dangerous hurricane into Tuesday, forecasters said.
"Preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to
completion," the hurricane center warned on its Facebook page.
Matthew could dump up to 25 inches of rain over much of southern Haiti,
with "isolated maximum amounts of 40 inches," the hurricane
center warned. Eastern Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and eastern Cuba
could see 10 to 20 inches of rain with 25 inches in isolated areas. In
addition, storm surges in the region could cause catastrophic flooding.
Although the official forecast showed a track east of Florida, the
hurricane center said it was still too soon to rule out possible
possible hurricane impacts there — or how Matthew might affect the
remainder of the U.S. east coast.
In Haiti, one of the world's poorest countries, families were being
urged to stock up on food and water, and evacuations were underway in
high-risk areas. The Haitian Civil Protection Agency said it had 576
temporary shelters available that can accommodate up to 88,252 people
for at least 3 days.
"This could be catastrophic for some places, particularly Haiti,"
National Hurricane Center meteorologist Dennis Feltgen told USA TODAY.
"This is an area where trees just don't exist (due to deforestation).
The terrain is stripped, and the threat of major flash floods and
mudslides is very real."
Hurricane warnings were in effect for the north coast of Haiti, Jamaica
and eastern Cuba. Watches were issued for the Turks and Caicos and
southeastern Bahamas and parts of Cuba.
In Jamaica, Prime Minister Andrew Holness told Reuters his nation was
braced for the storm, which could be the most severe for his nation
since Gilbert killed more than 40 Jamaicans and dumped more than 30
inches of rain in some areas in 1988.
"The impact of the hurricane will probably be similar or greater than
Hurricane Gilbert, but our preparedness would be far better," Holness said.
Source: Hurricane Matthew closes in on Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba -
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2016/10/03/hurricane-matthew-haiti-jamaica-cuba/91457628/
John Bacon, USA TODAY 6:49 a.m. EDT October 3, 2016
Hurricane Matthew barreled its way through the Caribbean and toward
Haiti, Jamaica and Cuba on Monday.
Meteorologists said the Category 4 storm could pose a threat to the
United States by week's end.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said the dangerous storm has
top sustained winds near 130 mph. It was expected to pass to the east of
Jamaica and then cross over or be very close to the southwestern tip of
Haiti late Monday or early Tuesday.
Matthew briefly reached maximum Category 5 status Friday, making it the
strongest Atlantic hurricane in almost a decade. The storm was expected
to remain a powerful and dangerous hurricane into Tuesday, forecasters said.
"Preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to
completion," the hurricane center warned on its Facebook page.
Matthew could dump up to 25 inches of rain over much of southern Haiti,
with "isolated maximum amounts of 40 inches," the hurricane
center warned. Eastern Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and eastern Cuba
could see 10 to 20 inches of rain with 25 inches in isolated areas. In
addition, storm surges in the region could cause catastrophic flooding.
Although the official forecast showed a track east of Florida, the
hurricane center said it was still too soon to rule out possible
possible hurricane impacts there — or how Matthew might affect the
remainder of the U.S. east coast.
In Haiti, one of the world's poorest countries, families were being
urged to stock up on food and water, and evacuations were underway in
high-risk areas. The Haitian Civil Protection Agency said it had 576
temporary shelters available that can accommodate up to 88,252 people
for at least 3 days.
"This could be catastrophic for some places, particularly Haiti,"
National Hurricane Center meteorologist Dennis Feltgen told USA TODAY.
"This is an area where trees just don't exist (due to deforestation).
The terrain is stripped, and the threat of major flash floods and
mudslides is very real."
Hurricane warnings were in effect for the north coast of Haiti, Jamaica
and eastern Cuba. Watches were issued for the Turks and Caicos and
southeastern Bahamas and parts of Cuba.
In Jamaica, Prime Minister Andrew Holness told Reuters his nation was
braced for the storm, which could be the most severe for his nation
since Gilbert killed more than 40 Jamaicans and dumped more than 30
inches of rain in some areas in 1988.
"The impact of the hurricane will probably be similar or greater than
Hurricane Gilbert, but our preparedness would be far better," Holness said.
Source: Hurricane Matthew closes in on Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba -
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2016/10/03/hurricane-matthew-haiti-jamaica-cuba/91457628/
A new sponsor for Castro?
A new sponsor for Castro?
ROBERTO ÁLVAREZ QUIÑONES | Los Ángeles | 3 de Octubre de 2016 - 09:51 CEST.
The Castro regime is immersed in an intense propaganda and diplomatic
offensive preparing its usual draft resolution in the UN General
Assembly to condemn the US trade embargo against Cuba.
This time, however, Havana harbors broader aspirations. Its want to
secure support to make the US Venezuela's successor as patrons of
Castroism. The regime knows that Beijing and Moscow are not going to
give Cuba 10 billion dollars a year, and that, due to language barriers,
it is impossible to send 40,000 Cuban doctors to China or Russia and
later garnish their wages.
At the start of this aggressive campaign Foreign Minister Bruno
Rodríguez told the media (with a straight face): "The blockade is the
first of our economy's problems, the main obstacle to our development."
He added that between April 2015 and March 2016 the country lost 4.96
billion dollars because of the "blockade," which allegedly brought the
amount of damages caused by the US since 1962 to over 125.87 billion
dollars.
The latter figure is the key. Given the devastating crisis in Venezuela,
the regime's desire is clear: it wants, more than the cessation of the
"blockade" itself, for Washington to pay compensation that would
constitute a long-term subsidy to keep the Cuban economy afloat and
perpetuate the dictatorship.
Moreover, the figures provided by Rodríguez do not stand up to even the
most basic analysis. It is true that Cuba cannot normally do normal
business with the US – although it can buy food and medicine from it,
the most sensitive areas for the population. But the self-employed could
export to the US everything they are able to produce, as the embargo
only prohibits purchases from Cuba of goods and services generated by
State enterprises.
That is, from the supposed losses due to Cuba's inability to export to
the US one must subtract the exports that could be generated by a
normal private sector on the Island. In other words, if the Castros
freed up Cuba's productive forces, they would be able sell billions of
dollars in goods and services to the US.
In addition, State enterprises can export their products and services to
the planet's other 193 countries. Cuba cannot obtain loans from US banks
or its Government, but it could receive them from the rest of the world
– if the country produced enough to pay them back. As it stands the
regime does not pay even the interest on the principal lent it.
The Island cannot import from third countries products containing more
than 10% of American components, but this usually consists of computers
and sophisticated technologies that are so expensive everyday Cubans
cannot buy them anyway. The Government contends that equipment for its
water sector is more expensive because it has to import it from faraway
China, and not the US (with lower freight fees), but fails to mention
that the USA produces all this equipment in, precisely, China, and goes
on to import it from there.
The US maintains Cuba
The embargo prohibits tourist travel to Cuba, but thanks to the
loopholes opened up by Obama, in 2015 more than 600,000 Cubans and
Americans travelled to the Island. In fact, the "empire" was the second
largest source of tourists to Cuba after Canada, with triple the number
of Germans (175,264 ), who ranked third.
Despite the "blockade," in 2015 the Island received more than 6 billion
USD from its northern neighbors through said travel, remittances, parcel
shipments, the payment of surcharges on tickets, passports, renewals,
permits, and the usual cuts taken at Customs.
This financial contribution tripled gross tourism revenue (1.94 billion)
and exceeded the export of goods from Cuba, of barely 3.9 billion USD.
In 2016 this contribution will surpass 7 billion USD. In other words,
the Island received more money from the US in those 11 months than it
"lost," according to the regime's diplomat. What blockade are we talking
about, then?
The regime should be humiliated that Cuba today exports fewer goods than
the Dominican Republic, which in 2015 sold over 9.89 billion in
products, despite being a much smaller country and with a Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) seven times smaller than that of Cuba before the Castro
regime.
Half a century ago the Island stopped exporting coffee, pineapple,
fruit, meat, zebu stud bulls, and many other agricultural products and
livestock that in the 50s made Cuba a major food exporter. For example,
before Castroism the country produced up to 60,000 tons of coffee, but
in the 2015-2016 harvest it produced just 5,687 tons (10 times less),
according to the Ministry of Agriculture. In 1957 the country imported
29% of the food it consumed, and in 2015 it imported more than 80%.
Today Cuba exports fewer goods than in the mid-20th century,
concentrated in four basic products: nickel, sugar, tobacco, rum and
pharmaceutical products (16% of the total). The latter is the only
value-added export item that the regime has added in nearly 60 years.
What it does export are doctors, like slaves, so it can later garnish
their salaries.
The cause of this economic disaster is not exogenous, but endogenous:
the socialists' appalling inability to generate wealth. Cuba suffers
from an incurable parasitism that forms part of its DNA, a system
designed by Karl Marx and degraded by Fidel Castro. Its parasitic nature
prevents it from supporting itself, and condemns it to relying on charity.
What did they do with 215 billion?
Speaking of handouts, if the Castros are going to vehemently demand
reparations from the US, they should explain what they did with the 115
billion USD donated it by the USSR from 1962 to 1991. And what happened
to the 100 billion donated by Chavez's Venezuela? No country that
receives 5 billion USD in aid every year for 45 years should be talking
about astronomical losses, but rather its own inability to produce.
China, Russia, the European Union, Japan and other countries support the
lifting of the embargo, but this is because they want to take advantage
of the cheapest labor force in the Americas ($24/month compared to $59
in Haiti) and turn Cuba into a great machine to export at low prices, to
the US and worldwide.
If the question is making demands for reparations, Washington could
quantify everything that the Cuban regime has stolen from it over the
course of nearly six decades by pirating products and licenses worth
billions of dollars.
To begin with, we can cite the most watched program on Cuban TV,
popularly referred to as Encuentro con la Yuma (Saturday movie),
featuring films stolen from Hollywood. Blockbuster films by top American
moviemakers, like Spielberg, Coppola, Lucas, Kubrick, Scorsese, Eastwood
and many others, are shown in theaters and on Cuban TV. Avatar's
elongated blue figures were seen on the Island at the same time as the
rest of the world. In this way the State brings in millions of pesos,
without paying a dime.
The computer software and programs used by the Government, Communist
Party and all Cubans are pirated off the US, as are their antivirus
systems, etc. The music for television's Sector 40 was taken from the
James Bond movies. All the country's entities illegally use exclusive
American patents, licenses, copyrights, trademarks, talks, documentaries
and videos of a scientific, technological, character. Not to mention the
American properties confiscated in 1959 and 1960.
If that amount of money were compared to an accurate figure of the
losses caused by the embargo, the Castros would probably owe the US, and
not the other way around.
Source: A new sponsor for Castro? | Diario de Cuba -
http://www.diariodecuba.com/cuba/1475481113_25731.html
ROBERTO ÁLVAREZ QUIÑONES | Los Ángeles | 3 de Octubre de 2016 - 09:51 CEST.
The Castro regime is immersed in an intense propaganda and diplomatic
offensive preparing its usual draft resolution in the UN General
Assembly to condemn the US trade embargo against Cuba.
This time, however, Havana harbors broader aspirations. Its want to
secure support to make the US Venezuela's successor as patrons of
Castroism. The regime knows that Beijing and Moscow are not going to
give Cuba 10 billion dollars a year, and that, due to language barriers,
it is impossible to send 40,000 Cuban doctors to China or Russia and
later garnish their wages.
At the start of this aggressive campaign Foreign Minister Bruno
Rodríguez told the media (with a straight face): "The blockade is the
first of our economy's problems, the main obstacle to our development."
He added that between April 2015 and March 2016 the country lost 4.96
billion dollars because of the "blockade," which allegedly brought the
amount of damages caused by the US since 1962 to over 125.87 billion
dollars.
The latter figure is the key. Given the devastating crisis in Venezuela,
the regime's desire is clear: it wants, more than the cessation of the
"blockade" itself, for Washington to pay compensation that would
constitute a long-term subsidy to keep the Cuban economy afloat and
perpetuate the dictatorship.
Moreover, the figures provided by Rodríguez do not stand up to even the
most basic analysis. It is true that Cuba cannot normally do normal
business with the US – although it can buy food and medicine from it,
the most sensitive areas for the population. But the self-employed could
export to the US everything they are able to produce, as the embargo
only prohibits purchases from Cuba of goods and services generated by
State enterprises.
That is, from the supposed losses due to Cuba's inability to export to
the US one must subtract the exports that could be generated by a
normal private sector on the Island. In other words, if the Castros
freed up Cuba's productive forces, they would be able sell billions of
dollars in goods and services to the US.
In addition, State enterprises can export their products and services to
the planet's other 193 countries. Cuba cannot obtain loans from US banks
or its Government, but it could receive them from the rest of the world
– if the country produced enough to pay them back. As it stands the
regime does not pay even the interest on the principal lent it.
The Island cannot import from third countries products containing more
than 10% of American components, but this usually consists of computers
and sophisticated technologies that are so expensive everyday Cubans
cannot buy them anyway. The Government contends that equipment for its
water sector is more expensive because it has to import it from faraway
China, and not the US (with lower freight fees), but fails to mention
that the USA produces all this equipment in, precisely, China, and goes
on to import it from there.
The US maintains Cuba
The embargo prohibits tourist travel to Cuba, but thanks to the
loopholes opened up by Obama, in 2015 more than 600,000 Cubans and
Americans travelled to the Island. In fact, the "empire" was the second
largest source of tourists to Cuba after Canada, with triple the number
of Germans (175,264 ), who ranked third.
Despite the "blockade," in 2015 the Island received more than 6 billion
USD from its northern neighbors through said travel, remittances, parcel
shipments, the payment of surcharges on tickets, passports, renewals,
permits, and the usual cuts taken at Customs.
This financial contribution tripled gross tourism revenue (1.94 billion)
and exceeded the export of goods from Cuba, of barely 3.9 billion USD.
In 2016 this contribution will surpass 7 billion USD. In other words,
the Island received more money from the US in those 11 months than it
"lost," according to the regime's diplomat. What blockade are we talking
about, then?
The regime should be humiliated that Cuba today exports fewer goods than
the Dominican Republic, which in 2015 sold over 9.89 billion in
products, despite being a much smaller country and with a Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) seven times smaller than that of Cuba before the Castro
regime.
Half a century ago the Island stopped exporting coffee, pineapple,
fruit, meat, zebu stud bulls, and many other agricultural products and
livestock that in the 50s made Cuba a major food exporter. For example,
before Castroism the country produced up to 60,000 tons of coffee, but
in the 2015-2016 harvest it produced just 5,687 tons (10 times less),
according to the Ministry of Agriculture. In 1957 the country imported
29% of the food it consumed, and in 2015 it imported more than 80%.
Today Cuba exports fewer goods than in the mid-20th century,
concentrated in four basic products: nickel, sugar, tobacco, rum and
pharmaceutical products (16% of the total). The latter is the only
value-added export item that the regime has added in nearly 60 years.
What it does export are doctors, like slaves, so it can later garnish
their salaries.
The cause of this economic disaster is not exogenous, but endogenous:
the socialists' appalling inability to generate wealth. Cuba suffers
from an incurable parasitism that forms part of its DNA, a system
designed by Karl Marx and degraded by Fidel Castro. Its parasitic nature
prevents it from supporting itself, and condemns it to relying on charity.
What did they do with 215 billion?
Speaking of handouts, if the Castros are going to vehemently demand
reparations from the US, they should explain what they did with the 115
billion USD donated it by the USSR from 1962 to 1991. And what happened
to the 100 billion donated by Chavez's Venezuela? No country that
receives 5 billion USD in aid every year for 45 years should be talking
about astronomical losses, but rather its own inability to produce.
China, Russia, the European Union, Japan and other countries support the
lifting of the embargo, but this is because they want to take advantage
of the cheapest labor force in the Americas ($24/month compared to $59
in Haiti) and turn Cuba into a great machine to export at low prices, to
the US and worldwide.
If the question is making demands for reparations, Washington could
quantify everything that the Cuban regime has stolen from it over the
course of nearly six decades by pirating products and licenses worth
billions of dollars.
To begin with, we can cite the most watched program on Cuban TV,
popularly referred to as Encuentro con la Yuma (Saturday movie),
featuring films stolen from Hollywood. Blockbuster films by top American
moviemakers, like Spielberg, Coppola, Lucas, Kubrick, Scorsese, Eastwood
and many others, are shown in theaters and on Cuban TV. Avatar's
elongated blue figures were seen on the Island at the same time as the
rest of the world. In this way the State brings in millions of pesos,
without paying a dime.
The computer software and programs used by the Government, Communist
Party and all Cubans are pirated off the US, as are their antivirus
systems, etc. The music for television's Sector 40 was taken from the
James Bond movies. All the country's entities illegally use exclusive
American patents, licenses, copyrights, trademarks, talks, documentaries
and videos of a scientific, technological, character. Not to mention the
American properties confiscated in 1959 and 1960.
If that amount of money were compared to an accurate figure of the
losses caused by the embargo, the Castros would probably owe the US, and
not the other way around.
Source: A new sponsor for Castro? | Diario de Cuba -
http://www.diariodecuba.com/cuba/1475481113_25731.html
Sunday, October 2, 2016
Gorki Águila “The Castro Regime Wants To Mutate Into A Perfect Tyranny”
Gorki Águila: "The Castro Regime Wants To Mutate Into A Perfect Tyranny"
/ EFE – 14ymedio
EFE (via 14ymedio), 29 September 2016 — The dissident and leader of the
Cuban punk-rock band Porno para Ricardo, Gorki Águila, said in Miami on
Thursday that the "plan" of the Cuban regime is "to mutate into a
perfect tyranny" with an "image much more whitewashed before the world. "
The government of "the Castros needs a lot of money, and they are taking
good advantage of this situation," Águila told EFE, speaking in
reference to an economic opening to foreign investment on the island, at
the end of a news conference at the Institute of Cuban Studies and Cuban
Americans, at the University of Miami (UM).
The event was attended by Cuban dissidents, activists from exile and
leaders and legislators of the Cuban-American community in Miami who
expressed their commitment to the Todos por Cuba Libre/All for Free Cuba
campaign, an initiative that will be presented this coming October 11 in
Miami to demand "real change… toward freedom"
Águila, like other participants, bluntly criticized the widespread view
in the United States that encouraging commercial investment on the
island will support openings toward freedom and the restoration of the
rights of Cubans.
"The Castro regime is a Mafioso regime and to place real confidence in
them is impossible. Their whole lives they have lied and betrayed," said
the activist and musician who asked, skeptically, "How are you going to
do business with the Castros and think that freedom is going to be
possible at some point?"
He said that the current worsening of repression on the island is not
only against dissidents, but also against the self-employed who have
shown their discontent with the stifling of and restrictions on their
activities by the authorities.
Referring to his own case as a musician and composer, Águila said he is
"deeply censored" and watch by a coercive power that bans him from
performing in Cuba. "To me, they say it very clearly: you are not going
to play in this country," he denounced.
"I can't play or even practice in my own home. There is a surveillance
camera on an electric pole aimed at my balcony. They have me under total
surveillance and I don't even remember my last attempt to play in Cuba,"
he said indignantly.
Despite all these calamities, Águila was "optimistic" about the crucial
historical change being pushed by Cubans, what the musician called a
"Cuba with two shores."
For his part, the regime opponent Antonio Gonzalez-Rodiles, director of
the critical forum Estado de Sats (State of Sats) stressed the
importance of galvanizing the fact that all Cubans are "fed up" with the
system at a time when, he warned, the "regime is trying to effect a
transfer of power."
A "transfer" that, according to the press conference remarks of the
ex-political prisoner Jorge Luis García Pérez – known as "Antúnez" –
should be called "an intended dynastic succession" of a regime that has
imposed a "single, criminal and genocidal blockade for sixty years" on
Cuban society.
Antúnez, who is also national secretary of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo
National Resistance Front, was very confident that the Todos por Cuba
Libre/All for Free Cuba campaign will be a "great success and give fuel
to those fighting for freedom."
Claudio Fuentes, a dissident photographer from the Forum for Rights and
Freedoms, expressed disappointment at the "voices" who express their
enthusiasm for opening Cuba to foreign investment, as long as it is
obvious that "without freedom there is no prosperity."
Source: Gorki Águila: "The Castro Regime Wants To Mutate Into A Perfect
Tyranny" / EFE – 14ymedio – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/gorki-aguila-the-castro-regime-wants-to-mutate-into-a-perfect-tyranny-efe-14ymedio/
/ EFE – 14ymedio
EFE (via 14ymedio), 29 September 2016 — The dissident and leader of the
Cuban punk-rock band Porno para Ricardo, Gorki Águila, said in Miami on
Thursday that the "plan" of the Cuban regime is "to mutate into a
perfect tyranny" with an "image much more whitewashed before the world. "
The government of "the Castros needs a lot of money, and they are taking
good advantage of this situation," Águila told EFE, speaking in
reference to an economic opening to foreign investment on the island, at
the end of a news conference at the Institute of Cuban Studies and Cuban
Americans, at the University of Miami (UM).
The event was attended by Cuban dissidents, activists from exile and
leaders and legislators of the Cuban-American community in Miami who
expressed their commitment to the Todos por Cuba Libre/All for Free Cuba
campaign, an initiative that will be presented this coming October 11 in
Miami to demand "real change… toward freedom"
Águila, like other participants, bluntly criticized the widespread view
in the United States that encouraging commercial investment on the
island will support openings toward freedom and the restoration of the
rights of Cubans.
"The Castro regime is a Mafioso regime and to place real confidence in
them is impossible. Their whole lives they have lied and betrayed," said
the activist and musician who asked, skeptically, "How are you going to
do business with the Castros and think that freedom is going to be
possible at some point?"
He said that the current worsening of repression on the island is not
only against dissidents, but also against the self-employed who have
shown their discontent with the stifling of and restrictions on their
activities by the authorities.
Referring to his own case as a musician and composer, Águila said he is
"deeply censored" and watch by a coercive power that bans him from
performing in Cuba. "To me, they say it very clearly: you are not going
to play in this country," he denounced.
"I can't play or even practice in my own home. There is a surveillance
camera on an electric pole aimed at my balcony. They have me under total
surveillance and I don't even remember my last attempt to play in Cuba,"
he said indignantly.
Despite all these calamities, Águila was "optimistic" about the crucial
historical change being pushed by Cubans, what the musician called a
"Cuba with two shores."
For his part, the regime opponent Antonio Gonzalez-Rodiles, director of
the critical forum Estado de Sats (State of Sats) stressed the
importance of galvanizing the fact that all Cubans are "fed up" with the
system at a time when, he warned, the "regime is trying to effect a
transfer of power."
A "transfer" that, according to the press conference remarks of the
ex-political prisoner Jorge Luis García Pérez – known as "Antúnez" –
should be called "an intended dynastic succession" of a regime that has
imposed a "single, criminal and genocidal blockade for sixty years" on
Cuban society.
Antúnez, who is also national secretary of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo
National Resistance Front, was very confident that the Todos por Cuba
Libre/All for Free Cuba campaign will be a "great success and give fuel
to those fighting for freedom."
Claudio Fuentes, a dissident photographer from the Forum for Rights and
Freedoms, expressed disappointment at the "voices" who express their
enthusiasm for opening Cuba to foreign investment, as long as it is
obvious that "without freedom there is no prosperity."
Source: Gorki Águila: "The Castro Regime Wants To Mutate Into A Perfect
Tyranny" / EFE – 14ymedio – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/gorki-aguila-the-castro-regime-wants-to-mutate-into-a-perfect-tyranny-efe-14ymedio/
Ethics Commission Rejects Appeal by Journalist Expelled from Radio Holguin
Ethics Commission Rejects Appeal by Journalist Expelled from Radio
Holguin / 14ymedio, Mario Penton
Mario J. Penton, 14ymedio, Miami, 30 September 2016 — The National
Ethics Commission of the Cuban Journalists Union (UPEC) this Thursday
ratified the expulsion of journalist Jose Ramirez Pantoja from Radio
Holguin. The ousted professional now will be able to appeal to the UPEC
Congress, which could encourage the debate currently taking place about
the role of censorship and the protection of the Communist Party over
the press.
The move comes after a long series of appeals since Ramirez Pantoja was
expelled from his job last July 11. The journalist was penalized with
removal from office for five years at the end of which he could return
to work, provided he "has an attitude that comports with UPEC's ethics
code."
14ymedio spoke by phone to Ramirez Pantoja who declined comment but did
not deny the ruling.
"He is being pressured a lot by the authorities. They have told him that
when he spoke with the independent press he complicated his case and in
this trial they did the opposite of what they had announced: they
treated him like dirt and affirmed an unjust sentence," says a Holguin
source close to the journalist.
"It was no use for Arnaldo Marabal [official journalist for the daily
Giron in Matanzas] to try to 'clean him up' writing an interview in
which he assures that Joseito is and always will be a revolutionary.
They wanted him to pay the price in order to scare the others and so
that no one dares to speak without permission," adds the same source.
The Holguin journalist was dismissed from his job after publishing on
his personal blog some controversial comments by the vice-president of
the newspaper Granma, Karina Marron, about the current economic crisis
in Cuba.
At the beginning of September, the recently elected president of the
National Ethics Commission for UPEC, Luis Sexto Sanchez, visited Holguin
in order to interview Ramirez Pantoja. After the interview and even
though different people assured him that the situation would calm down
and he would be able to return to his job, he received the ratification
of the decision at both a provincial and national level.
Before the incident with Marron, Ramirez Pantoja even had been
recognized with the highest distinction that UPEC awards, the Felix
Elmusa. On that occasion, the same authorities who today condemn him to
ostracism awarded him for fighting "from an ethical premise," in order
to make "the truth about Cuba" known to the world and "for educating,
informing and revealing that Cuba is now free."
Translated by Mary Lou Keel
Source: Ethics Commission Rejects Appeal by Journalist Expelled from
Radio Holguin / 14ymedio, Mario Penton – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/ethics-commission-rejects-appeal-by-journalist-expelled-from-radio-holguin-14ymedio-mario-penton/
Holguin / 14ymedio, Mario Penton
Mario J. Penton, 14ymedio, Miami, 30 September 2016 — The National
Ethics Commission of the Cuban Journalists Union (UPEC) this Thursday
ratified the expulsion of journalist Jose Ramirez Pantoja from Radio
Holguin. The ousted professional now will be able to appeal to the UPEC
Congress, which could encourage the debate currently taking place about
the role of censorship and the protection of the Communist Party over
the press.
The move comes after a long series of appeals since Ramirez Pantoja was
expelled from his job last July 11. The journalist was penalized with
removal from office for five years at the end of which he could return
to work, provided he "has an attitude that comports with UPEC's ethics
code."
14ymedio spoke by phone to Ramirez Pantoja who declined comment but did
not deny the ruling.
"He is being pressured a lot by the authorities. They have told him that
when he spoke with the independent press he complicated his case and in
this trial they did the opposite of what they had announced: they
treated him like dirt and affirmed an unjust sentence," says a Holguin
source close to the journalist.
"It was no use for Arnaldo Marabal [official journalist for the daily
Giron in Matanzas] to try to 'clean him up' writing an interview in
which he assures that Joseito is and always will be a revolutionary.
They wanted him to pay the price in order to scare the others and so
that no one dares to speak without permission," adds the same source.
The Holguin journalist was dismissed from his job after publishing on
his personal blog some controversial comments by the vice-president of
the newspaper Granma, Karina Marron, about the current economic crisis
in Cuba.
At the beginning of September, the recently elected president of the
National Ethics Commission for UPEC, Luis Sexto Sanchez, visited Holguin
in order to interview Ramirez Pantoja. After the interview and even
though different people assured him that the situation would calm down
and he would be able to return to his job, he received the ratification
of the decision at both a provincial and national level.
Before the incident with Marron, Ramirez Pantoja even had been
recognized with the highest distinction that UPEC awards, the Felix
Elmusa. On that occasion, the same authorities who today condemn him to
ostracism awarded him for fighting "from an ethical premise," in order
to make "the truth about Cuba" known to the world and "for educating,
informing and revealing that Cuba is now free."
Translated by Mary Lou Keel
Source: Ethics Commission Rejects Appeal by Journalist Expelled from
Radio Holguin / 14ymedio, Mario Penton – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/ethics-commission-rejects-appeal-by-journalist-expelled-from-radio-holguin-14ymedio-mario-penton/
Guantánamo Navy base begins evacuating 700 parents and kids, plus pets, ahead of Hurricane Matthew
Guantánamo Navy base begins evacuating 700 parents and kids, plus pets,
ahead of Hurricane Matthew
BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@miamiherald.com
WASHINGTON
U.S. military cargo planes began evacuating about 700 family members of
troops and other staff by military cargo plane from Guantánamo Bay to
"safe haven" in Pensacola, Florida, on Sunday ahead of Hurricane Matthew.
"We have to prepare for the worst-case scenario" — a Category 3 or 4
hurricane making a direct hit on the remote base, Navy Capt. David
Culpepper, the base commander, told residents over Radio Gitmo Saturday.
"Things are kind of in motion here at this point. We are trying to
execute the most prudent plan given what we know."
Sunday morning, Army Lt. Chris Smith said from Guantánamo headquarters
at 9:40 a.m. that a C-17 cargo plane had already airlifted the first
group of people from the base of around 6,000 residents. Five more
flights were expected throughout the day Sunday, Culpepper told the
base, adding that some family pets could join the exodus, provided their
owners had health certificates from the base veterinarian.
Around 700 people were being flown to Pensacola, where temporary housing
awaited families of sailors. But "no way we're getting 450 pets" onto
the evacuation aircraft, the skipper said. "There just isn't the space."
Other pets, including working dogs, would be sheltered in an empty
munition bunker.
The Guantánamo base spokeswoman, Julie Ripley, announced the "mandatory
evacuation" of "all non-essential personnel" in a statement earlier
Saturday, meaning the military was picking up the cost of flights and
lodging of the family members in Pensacola, as well as providing an
allowance for food. "This includes dependents, school-aged children,
special needs families, and their pets."
In addition, she said, Coast Guard personnel were being evacuated to
Miami, and the Navy's small C-12 aircraft were being flown from the base
to shelter in Jacksonville.
The base that may be best known for its war-on-terror prison — now
holding 61 detainees, staffed by about 2,000 temporary troops and
contractors — also has sailors, families and contractors living there as
more permanent residents. About 6,000 people live there in different
circumstances, including about 250 school-age children with their Navy
families and 2,000 Jamaican and Filipino contract laborers.
At the detention center, spokesman Navy Capt. John Filostrat said
without providing details that preparations were under way for the
storm. He did not reply to a question on what category of hurricane the
buildings currently housing the detainees and command staff could withstand.
Former CIA prisoners, six of them awaiting death penalty trials as
alleged al-Qaida plotters of the Sept. 11 and USS Cole terror attacks,
are held in a clandestine prison building called Camp 7, whose
structural integrity has been questioned. The current commander, Navy
Rear Adm. Peter Clarke called it "structurally safe" in May, nearly two
years after a former commander of the U.S. Southern Command, now retired
Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, told Congress it had become "increasingly
unsustainable due to drainage and foundation issues."
Current hurricane tracks show Matthew hitting the base on Tuesday.
Sunday's evacuations are intended to take pressure off base hurricane
shelters as well as supplies, Culpepper said in a live broadcast from
the studios of Radio Gitmo.
"It reduces our food requirements, it reduces our water requirements,"
Culpepper said. "In fact, if we do get hit directly by a storm and we
have significant damage, which takes several days to repair, that puts
us in a little better position to take care of everybody."
He advised those being airlifted to bring no more than a 40-pound
suitcase, calling Sunday "really our last opportunity to do an evacuation."
The airlift is the first known evacuation of so-called "non-essential"
residents from the base since September 1994, when the military
airlifted 2,200 family members and civilians from the base. At the time,
the outpost was overwhelmed by about 45,000 Haitian and Cuban migrants
who were intercepted at sea while trying to reach the United States,
stretching resources at the outpost that makes its own electricity and
desalinates its own water — like a ship at sea.
"Family members were authorized to return in October 1995, marking an
end to family separations," according to a Navy account of the Operation
Sea Signal evacuation. An earlier evacuation also took families from the
base to Norfolk, by military supply ships, in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The base last took a significant hit during Hurricane Sandy in 2012 when
the storm tore up the war court compound called Camp Justice, ripped
boats from their berths and washed away the docks used by the ferries
that connect Leeward and Windward sides of the base across Guantánamo Bay.
It also caused a blackout on the fence line separating the base from
Cuban-controlled territory, and rough seas churned up a suspicious
500-pound object that turned out to be a harmless training bomb.
It was not immediately known how much, if any, assistance people at the
45-square-mile U.S. Navy base could provide Cubans in nearby
communities. The base is separated from the rest of the country by a
Cuban minefield and a U.S. fence line patrolled by a U.S. Marine Corps
Security Force unit.
The base spokeswoman said in a statement Saturday evening that the U.S.
military had contact with the Cuban Frontier Brigade on the other side
of the minefield to confirm "our agreement to provide mutual support
outside the fenceline as we are able, and as requested following storm
passage."
Meantime, in Jacksonville, the base's Navy headquarters said in a
statement that Naval Air Station Pensacola "has quarters to house the
families" from Guantánamo Bay and counselors "to provide assistance." At
Guantánamo, it said "the remaining military and civilian personnel will
shelter in place and be able to support recovery efforts once safe to do
so following the storm's passage."
The base commander said the soonest the families could return to the
base would be Friday. "If it really pounds us and we have significant
structural damage to buildings, it could be longer," Culpepper said.
"I'll wait until I have power restored to the installation before I ask
everybody to come back."
Source: Navy base Guantánamo to evacuate families ahead of Hurricane
Matthew | In Cuba Today -
http://www.incubatoday.com/news/article105393586.html
ahead of Hurricane Matthew
BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@miamiherald.com
WASHINGTON
U.S. military cargo planes began evacuating about 700 family members of
troops and other staff by military cargo plane from Guantánamo Bay to
"safe haven" in Pensacola, Florida, on Sunday ahead of Hurricane Matthew.
"We have to prepare for the worst-case scenario" — a Category 3 or 4
hurricane making a direct hit on the remote base, Navy Capt. David
Culpepper, the base commander, told residents over Radio Gitmo Saturday.
"Things are kind of in motion here at this point. We are trying to
execute the most prudent plan given what we know."
Sunday morning, Army Lt. Chris Smith said from Guantánamo headquarters
at 9:40 a.m. that a C-17 cargo plane had already airlifted the first
group of people from the base of around 6,000 residents. Five more
flights were expected throughout the day Sunday, Culpepper told the
base, adding that some family pets could join the exodus, provided their
owners had health certificates from the base veterinarian.
Around 700 people were being flown to Pensacola, where temporary housing
awaited families of sailors. But "no way we're getting 450 pets" onto
the evacuation aircraft, the skipper said. "There just isn't the space."
Other pets, including working dogs, would be sheltered in an empty
munition bunker.
The Guantánamo base spokeswoman, Julie Ripley, announced the "mandatory
evacuation" of "all non-essential personnel" in a statement earlier
Saturday, meaning the military was picking up the cost of flights and
lodging of the family members in Pensacola, as well as providing an
allowance for food. "This includes dependents, school-aged children,
special needs families, and their pets."
In addition, she said, Coast Guard personnel were being evacuated to
Miami, and the Navy's small C-12 aircraft were being flown from the base
to shelter in Jacksonville.
The base that may be best known for its war-on-terror prison — now
holding 61 detainees, staffed by about 2,000 temporary troops and
contractors — also has sailors, families and contractors living there as
more permanent residents. About 6,000 people live there in different
circumstances, including about 250 school-age children with their Navy
families and 2,000 Jamaican and Filipino contract laborers.
At the detention center, spokesman Navy Capt. John Filostrat said
without providing details that preparations were under way for the
storm. He did not reply to a question on what category of hurricane the
buildings currently housing the detainees and command staff could withstand.
Former CIA prisoners, six of them awaiting death penalty trials as
alleged al-Qaida plotters of the Sept. 11 and USS Cole terror attacks,
are held in a clandestine prison building called Camp 7, whose
structural integrity has been questioned. The current commander, Navy
Rear Adm. Peter Clarke called it "structurally safe" in May, nearly two
years after a former commander of the U.S. Southern Command, now retired
Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, told Congress it had become "increasingly
unsustainable due to drainage and foundation issues."
Current hurricane tracks show Matthew hitting the base on Tuesday.
Sunday's evacuations are intended to take pressure off base hurricane
shelters as well as supplies, Culpepper said in a live broadcast from
the studios of Radio Gitmo.
"It reduces our food requirements, it reduces our water requirements,"
Culpepper said. "In fact, if we do get hit directly by a storm and we
have significant damage, which takes several days to repair, that puts
us in a little better position to take care of everybody."
He advised those being airlifted to bring no more than a 40-pound
suitcase, calling Sunday "really our last opportunity to do an evacuation."
The airlift is the first known evacuation of so-called "non-essential"
residents from the base since September 1994, when the military
airlifted 2,200 family members and civilians from the base. At the time,
the outpost was overwhelmed by about 45,000 Haitian and Cuban migrants
who were intercepted at sea while trying to reach the United States,
stretching resources at the outpost that makes its own electricity and
desalinates its own water — like a ship at sea.
"Family members were authorized to return in October 1995, marking an
end to family separations," according to a Navy account of the Operation
Sea Signal evacuation. An earlier evacuation also took families from the
base to Norfolk, by military supply ships, in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The base last took a significant hit during Hurricane Sandy in 2012 when
the storm tore up the war court compound called Camp Justice, ripped
boats from their berths and washed away the docks used by the ferries
that connect Leeward and Windward sides of the base across Guantánamo Bay.
It also caused a blackout on the fence line separating the base from
Cuban-controlled territory, and rough seas churned up a suspicious
500-pound object that turned out to be a harmless training bomb.
It was not immediately known how much, if any, assistance people at the
45-square-mile U.S. Navy base could provide Cubans in nearby
communities. The base is separated from the rest of the country by a
Cuban minefield and a U.S. fence line patrolled by a U.S. Marine Corps
Security Force unit.
The base spokeswoman said in a statement Saturday evening that the U.S.
military had contact with the Cuban Frontier Brigade on the other side
of the minefield to confirm "our agreement to provide mutual support
outside the fenceline as we are able, and as requested following storm
passage."
Meantime, in Jacksonville, the base's Navy headquarters said in a
statement that Naval Air Station Pensacola "has quarters to house the
families" from Guantánamo Bay and counselors "to provide assistance." At
Guantánamo, it said "the remaining military and civilian personnel will
shelter in place and be able to support recovery efforts once safe to do
so following the storm's passage."
The base commander said the soonest the families could return to the
base would be Friday. "If it really pounds us and we have significant
structural damage to buildings, it could be longer," Culpepper said.
"I'll wait until I have power restored to the installation before I ask
everybody to come back."
Source: Navy base Guantánamo to evacuate families ahead of Hurricane
Matthew | In Cuba Today -
http://www.incubatoday.com/news/article105393586.html
Two Miami men charged with organizing deadly 2008 voyage from Cuba
Two Miami men charged with organizing deadly 2008 voyage from Cuba
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@elnuevoherald.com
In June 2008, an overloaded boat with Cuban migrants capsized and two
people lost their lives — an 11-year-old boy and a young woman.
The official Cuban version of the event was that migrant smugglers
deliberately sank the migrant boat to distract attention of Cuban border
guards who were chasing the smugglers. But dissident sources said at the
time that the migrant boat had been deliberately rammed by a Cuban
government vessel.
The smugglers ultimately escaped to the United States in a fast boat.
Now, eight years later, two Miami Cubans — José Rafael Mena Núñez and
Yosvany Pérez Roche — have been arrested and charged with organizing the
fateful 2008 voyage.
Both now face trial in Miami federal court, and if found guilty they
could be sentenced to a maximum penalty of life in prison. Mena Núñez
was arrested Sept. 16 while Pérez Roche was picked up four days later.
Trial has been tentatively scheduled for mid-November.
THE ILLEGAL SEA VOYAGE RESULTED IN THE DEATHS OF TWO CUBAN MIGRANTS, AN
11-YEAR-OLD BOY AND A YOUNG WOMAN.
The case came to light in federal court when a grand jury on Sept. 9
handed down an indictment against Mena Núñez, 50, and Pérez Roche, 45,
accusing them of inducing foreign nationals to enter and reside in the
United States illegally and that such an action resulted in the deaths
of two migrants.
The indictment identified the dead only by their initials: J.L.N.S. and
Y.R.R.
But when the tragedy occurred, the Cuban newspaper Granma identified the
victims by name.
They were 11-year-old Jorge Luis Núñez Sánchez, whose initials are
J.L.N.S., and Yudersi Rosabal Rodríguez, whose initials are Y.R.R.
The episode occurred on June 17, 2008, when the smugglers tried to elude
capture by Cuban authorities who pursued them in a boat.
According to the article at the time, the smugglers deliberately
overturned the flimsy migrant boat that carried 20 Cuban migrants headed
for the United States. The smugglers escaped in a fast boat waiting
nearby, according to Granma, the newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party.
However, websites belonging to Cuban political dissidents said at the
time that the migrant boat was struck by a Cuban border guard boat.
At the time, Granma said the tragedy occurred off the northern coast of
Cuba near Villa Clara, and that the smugglers had charged $10,000 per
person for the voyage.
The indictment in Miami does not clarify whether the migrant boat was
overturned by the smugglers or rammed by the Cuban government boat.
The document only says that the "conduct" of Mena Núñez and Pérez Roche,
resulted "in the deaths of J.L.N.S. and Y.R.R."
Source: Two Miami men charged with organizing deadly 2008 voyage from
Cuba | In Cuba Today - http://www.incubatoday.com/news/article105383401.html
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@elnuevoherald.com
In June 2008, an overloaded boat with Cuban migrants capsized and two
people lost their lives — an 11-year-old boy and a young woman.
The official Cuban version of the event was that migrant smugglers
deliberately sank the migrant boat to distract attention of Cuban border
guards who were chasing the smugglers. But dissident sources said at the
time that the migrant boat had been deliberately rammed by a Cuban
government vessel.
The smugglers ultimately escaped to the United States in a fast boat.
Now, eight years later, two Miami Cubans — José Rafael Mena Núñez and
Yosvany Pérez Roche — have been arrested and charged with organizing the
fateful 2008 voyage.
Both now face trial in Miami federal court, and if found guilty they
could be sentenced to a maximum penalty of life in prison. Mena Núñez
was arrested Sept. 16 while Pérez Roche was picked up four days later.
Trial has been tentatively scheduled for mid-November.
THE ILLEGAL SEA VOYAGE RESULTED IN THE DEATHS OF TWO CUBAN MIGRANTS, AN
11-YEAR-OLD BOY AND A YOUNG WOMAN.
The case came to light in federal court when a grand jury on Sept. 9
handed down an indictment against Mena Núñez, 50, and Pérez Roche, 45,
accusing them of inducing foreign nationals to enter and reside in the
United States illegally and that such an action resulted in the deaths
of two migrants.
The indictment identified the dead only by their initials: J.L.N.S. and
Y.R.R.
But when the tragedy occurred, the Cuban newspaper Granma identified the
victims by name.
They were 11-year-old Jorge Luis Núñez Sánchez, whose initials are
J.L.N.S., and Yudersi Rosabal Rodríguez, whose initials are Y.R.R.
The episode occurred on June 17, 2008, when the smugglers tried to elude
capture by Cuban authorities who pursued them in a boat.
According to the article at the time, the smugglers deliberately
overturned the flimsy migrant boat that carried 20 Cuban migrants headed
for the United States. The smugglers escaped in a fast boat waiting
nearby, according to Granma, the newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party.
However, websites belonging to Cuban political dissidents said at the
time that the migrant boat was struck by a Cuban border guard boat.
At the time, Granma said the tragedy occurred off the northern coast of
Cuba near Villa Clara, and that the smugglers had charged $10,000 per
person for the voyage.
The indictment in Miami does not clarify whether the migrant boat was
overturned by the smugglers or rammed by the Cuban government boat.
The document only says that the "conduct" of Mena Núñez and Pérez Roche,
resulted "in the deaths of J.L.N.S. and Y.R.R."
Source: Two Miami men charged with organizing deadly 2008 voyage from
Cuba | In Cuba Today - http://www.incubatoday.com/news/article105383401.html
Saturday, October 1, 2016
Tallies and Tales of the Reforms
Cuba: Tallies and Tales of the Reforms / Vicente Botín
Once upon a time…
A female cat fell in love with a handsome young man and prayed to the
goddess Aphrodite to turn her into a woman. The goddess, pitying the
cat's yearning, transformed her into a beautiful maiden, and the young
man, captivated by her beauty, married her. But, on the wedding night,
Aphrodite wanted to know if the cat, now a woman, had changed inside as
well, and so she let loose a mouse in the bedroom. The cat, forgetting
her status as a woman, rose from the bed and chased the mouse so as to
devour it. At that point, the goddess, grown angry, returned her to her
previous condition, turning the woman back into a cat.
With this fable, the Greek philosopher Aesop means to tell us that, "The
change in status of a person does not cause her to change her
instincts." Which the wise collection of popular sayings might translate
as, "You can dress up a monkey in silk, but she is still a monkey."
"Why this eagerness to dress the monkey in silk?" I asked myself, when I
saw, incredulous, the Chanel parade in Havana. The Adidas tracksuit
which Fidel Castro has been sporting for years was outshone by fashion
czar Karl Lagerfeld's diamond-studded jacket and Brazilian supermodel
Gisele Bündchen's beret (albeit without the star that adorned Che
Guevara's cap in that famous photograph by Alberto Korda).
Could it be that vileness can be disguised by glamour? Is is possible to
wrap in gift paper, as though it were a box of chocolates, the Penal
Code in force in Cuba, which brutally punishes all forms of dissidence?
Can repression and the lack of freedoms be combined with haute couture?
Is the march by the Ladies in White along Fifth Avenue compatible with
the pageant of Chanel models along the Paseo del Prado?
Giusepe Tomassi de Lampedusa puts in the mouth of Tancredi, one of the
characters in his novel, "The Leopard," this utterance directed to his
uncle Fabrizio, Prince Salina: "Everything must change if everything is
to stay as it is."
In political science, "leopard-like" or "Lampedusian" are descriptors
for the politician who initiates a revolutionary transformation but
which, in practice, alters the structures of power only superficially,
intentionally keeping the essential elements of those structures.
Raúl Castro is a lot like the Lampedusian Tancredi, because he seems to
want to change everything, but his intention is for everything to stay
as it is.
When I arrived in Havana in early 2005 as a correspondent for Televisión
Española, everything was much clearer, or, to be more exact, seemed less
confused. There were no fireworks. Any glamour, for want of a better
term, was provided by Fidel Castro, with his eternal olive-green
uniform, and the parades were not directed by Karl Lagerfeld, but rather
by the dictator himself, on the Malecón, in front of the then-US
Interests Section, now the US Embassy.
Of course, then these demonstrations were called "Marches of the
Embattled People." The other marches, those of the Ladies in White, were
repressed without pity, and concerts, such as those by the group "Porno
para Ricardo," were nothing like those by the Rolling Stones: they would
end with their leader, Gorki Águila, in jail. There is where the
dissidents could be found, the ones from the Black Spring of 2003, and
other, newer ones, who were continually being thrown into the prisons.
At that time, Havana was falling to pieces. There were power blackouts,
and the ration book was entirely insufficient to meet the basic needs of
the population. The US was the imperialist ogre, the culprit of all the
evils afflicting the country, and the spies, "The Five," were heroes.
There were no shades. Everything was black or white.
Now I ask myself, "Has all that changed? Is it all part of the past?"
When he was named the successor, and with his brother still physically
present, Raúl Castro started his own trajectory. He proceeded like a
good bureaucrat, without rhetoric, step by step, convinced that, in
order to survive, the Revolution needed a facelift. So he pulled out of
his hat a jar of makeup, a tube of lipstick and a comb, and with an
oriental patience (it is not for nothing that they call him "the
Chinaman"*), he began to embellish the corpse of the Revolution until he
made unrecognizable… unrecognizable for the gullible who let themselves
be fooled by Photoshop.
Cuba is in fashion, and the mirage of the reforms serves as a screen to
cover the reality that Cubans live, or rather, suffer. Could it be that
they are invisible who inhabit the Island? Do they no longer have to
steal or deceive in order to survive? Do they no longer have to
"resolve" their problems?
There has been too much speculation over the nature of and the time it
will take to implement these reforms that have been announced so many
times, like the Byzantines used to speculate, in the 15th Century, about
the sex of angels, while the Ottomans were besieging Constantinople.
Could it be that the Turks are at the gates of Havana?
The Turks, probably not, but the Cubans yes, who for more than half a
century have lived besieged within a fortress, commanded by an
apprentice and witch doctor, who is performing a balancing act to
contain the demands of a people beleaguered by penury and the lack of
freedoms.
The foreign correspondents who work in Cuba confront the dilemma of
rummaging through the trash or going with the flow. During the four
years that I spent on the Island, I suffered all types of pressures to
force me to sweeten my reports. The censors were not concerned with
political criticisms, after all, the Cuban government enjoys no few
sympathies throughout the world. What bothered them was the pure and
simple description of the difficult living conditions of the Cuban
people. The shameful condition of the hospitals, the precariousness of
the housing, the cut-offs of water and power, the scarcity and bad
quality of the food, the lack of transportation, and let us not mention
the prostitution, as a express route to access consumer goods.
All those topics were taboo. They could not be mentioned, under threat
of expulsion. The paradox is that currently, all of those problems
continue, they have not disappeared, but they appear to no longer be a
problem for anybody. Simply put, they are not spoken of. They are swept
under the rug.
The first "reformist" measures announced by Raúl Castro provoked an
effect similar to hypnosis. Like an expert prestidigitator, he exchanged
the bread and circuses of the Romans for self-employment licenses, cell
phones, cars, houses and microwave ovens, despite their high cost
in Cuban Convertible pesos (CUC).
But Cubans, after so many "absurd prohibitions," celebrated them
joyously and, beyond that, the announcement of new promises–among them,
the suppression of the double currency, the revaluation of the Cuban
peso, and the end of the ration book which, in Cuba, ironically enough,
is called the "provision" book.
But it is well known that the road to hell is paved with good
intentions. Eight years later, those good intentions have yet to be
realized, especially the suppression of the double currency, which not
only has not been resolved but has become even more complex, with the
application of different exchange rates.
For Raúl Castro this is the cause of "an important distortion, which
will be resolved as soon as possible." It will not be put off until the
Twelfth of Never, the dictator has said, but at this rate, it will be
resolved when hell freezes over.
The dual monetary system — the Cuban peso (CUP) and the Cuban
Convertible peso (CUC) — is cause for no few arguments among brainy
analysts who do not tire of debating over the consequences of solving
that problem through a type of shock therapy or, conversely, doing it in
phases.
While the dispute rages on over whether they are greyhounds or
wolfhounds, until the Island's government solves the enigma, Cubans will
suffer the consequences of that distortion that suffocates them, because
their salaries are paid in Cuban pesos, but they must use CUC to buy
practically everything they need at a 25% markup.
The minimum salary on the Island is 225 Cuban pesos, and the median
monthly salary is 625, which come out, respectively, to about 9 and 25
CUC or roughly the same in US dollars. What can one do with that amount
of money? What would you be able to do with an income of $25 per month?
The cost of the products in the "basic basket," subsidized by the
government is, approximately, 10 Cuban pesos per month. It it is simply
impossible, however, that one person, especially a retiree, with no
other resources but his pension, can subsist all that time, with just a
few pounds of rice and beans, the basic food of Cubans, to which are
added a few ounces of pasta, coffee and salt.
The ration book also provides for five eggs per person per month, and a
few more more for 10 pesos: a bit of oil, another bit of ground soy
meat, a bar of soap… come on, it's as if one had just come out of a war
zone.
Aside from the ration book, one can purchase (also with Cuban pesos)
certain unregulated products, but the true foodstuffs, beef and fish,
primarily, can only be bought with CUCs.
And although the government recently lowered the price of some basic
products, these continue being very high. For example, one kilo of
frozen chicken costs 2.35 CUCs, and a half kilo of powdered milk, 2.65.
Just these two products account for 20 percent of the median monthly salary.
In the world in which we live, it seems absurd to speak in these terms.
Has any one of you ever told a guest that you cannot make her an omelet
because you have already consumed your five monthly eggs?
Cubans do not live in our world. To not understand that is to turn on
its head the myth of Plato's cave and to accept that the people
inhabiting Cuba, chained and in the shadows, live in the real world and
we, on the other hand, in an apparent reality.
Allow me to ask you some questions. Has any one of you recently visited
a house in Centro Habana? A great number of them are propped up to
prevent collapse and, even so, this occurs almost daily, with a high
number of fatalities.
Did you know that in the hospitals, the sick must bring their own
sheets, their food and even a bottle of bleach for sanitation, due to
the abysmal hygienic conditions, and that infections in the operating
rooms result in a high rate of deaths?
I invite you to visit, for example, La Balear hospital in San Miguel del
Padrón. It is not in Haiti, but rather in Havana, the capital of the
country that publicizes its health system as one of its greatest
accomplishments.
Are you aware that diabetes patients only receive, on a monthly basis,
between two and five sterile, single-use syringes of insulin, and that
the rest that they need they must buy them on the black market or, as
recommended, boil the used ones?
Do you know that hopelessness is causing a stampede toward the United
States, and the exodus to that country has quintupled in the last five
years?
Do you know the number of boat people who escape to the United States
for lack of a travel permit, despite the much ballyhooed migratory
reform, and perish in the Florida Straits?
All of this occurs, continues to occur, while the eyes of the world are
turned to the reforms that have been implemented in recent years,
although it remains to be seen to what extent they will be affected by
what Raúl Castro has euphemistically called "tensions" and "adverse
circumstances" provoked by, among other factors, the crisis in
Venezuela, which has substantially reduced the shipments of oil to the
Island.
The reforms yet to come are discussed, exhaustively, in forums such as
this, but there are always more questions than answers because only the
government of the Island holds they key to what it will do and when.
And the Cubans? What role do they play in all this? Are they and their
circumstances also an object of study?
If you allow me I will parody Shakespeare in "The Merchant of Venice" to
say, "Does a Cuban not have eyes? Does a Cuban not have hands, organs,
proportions, senses, affections, passions? If you prick us do we not
bleed? If you poison us do we not die?"
Cubans do not have a dog in this fight. They attend, mute, to the
government's hot air and do what they have always done under the
dictatorship: survive.
And surviving in the towns of the interior is much more difficult than
in the capital. The living conditions of millions of Cubans are pitiful.
The metaphor of Italian writer Carlo Levi would have to be employed, and
say that Christ was detained in Havana, because further out from the
capital, Cubans live outside of history, crushed by poverty.
But the government, insensitive to the privations of Cubans, walks and
walks toward the precipice.
Among the litany of lamentations over the failure to fulfill the
economic plans, during the recent sessions of the National Assembly of
People's Power, voices of alarm were heard before the possibility that
the situation will deteriorate even further and produce a social
outburst, with a repeat of street protests such as those of the
Maleconazo of 1994. As a precaution against such incidents, the
government is sharpening its knives.
But the spotlights, at present, are shining on the enormous cinematic
stage which Cuba has become for the world, and especially on the
proposals of the VII Congress of the Communist Party, which took place
this past April.
Essentially, what was discussed there was what the government
understands as the "conceptualization of the socioeconomic model," which
in reality is nothing more than the continuation of the so-called
"Alignments of the Social and Economic Policy of the Party and the
Revolution," presented during the previous Congress and which, like all
good resolutions have been left half-baked.
The conceptualization is now in its eighth version and only 21 percent
of the 313 Guidelines have been implemented; the rest, that is, the 79
percent, is "in-process." At this rate, it will take decades to put the
well-worn guidelines into practice.
Similarly, the Mariel Special Development Zone has dropped anchor: of
the 400 investment projects that were predicted, only 11 have been
accepted; within a century, perhaps the rest will have been approved.
The government continues to beat around the bush and appears not to fear
that it is past its prime. Meanwhile, it maintains control over the
means of production, what it calls the "predominance of the property of
all the people," although in the last five years the state sector
diminished, from 81 to 71 percent, while the private and cooperative
sector expanded.
The government of Raúl Castro is confident in the new Foreign Investment
Law's capacity to attract capital, authorizing outside investment in all
sectors of the economy, except in health, education, armed forces and
communication media.
But there is much mistrust on the part of the investors regarding the
guarantees they will receive on acquired properties and the transfer of
utilities in foreign currency. The law is very ambiguous in this regard,
as it establishes the freedom of investors to repatriate their profits,
so long as doing so does not constitute, and I quote, "a danger to the
sovereignty of Cuba."
Another negative aspect is that joint ventures or enterprises funded by
foreign capital will continue to not have the power to contract their
employees directly; they will have to do it through government entities
charged with negotiating salaries and other working conditions.
This practice was in place under the previous law and implies an
infringement of the rights of workers who are without free unions to
represent them.
More than a few discriminations are suffered by Cubans, without the new
laws, the laws of the much -vaunted changes, protecting them.
The current Foreign Investment Law allows Cubans who reside overseas to
invest in Cuba, but not those who live on the Island. They are
prohibited from investing in their own country.
The executive director of Cuba Archive, María Werlau, recently made a
presentation to the US Congress denouncing the repugnant business of
human trafficking carried out by the Island's government, and which has
become its major source of revenue: something more than $8-billion,
compared to the $3-billion produced by tourism.
According to official data (I quote María Werlau), around 65,000 Cubans
work in 91 countries, with 75 percent (approximately 50,000) in the
health sector. Their services are sold abroad, and the greater part of
their salaries is confiscated by the Cuban government.
The violations of universal labor rights, which such a practice implies,
infringes international accords signed by Cuba and by the majority of
the countries where these exported workers are laboring, including
conventions and protocols against the trafficking in persons, and of the
ILO, the International Labour Organization.
The wage vampirism practiced by the Cuban government attains its most
repulsive aspect in the trafficking of blood. The massive drives to
obtain donations made voluntarily and altruistically, even using
coercive methods, cover up a lucrative business, which some sources
estimate brings in some $30-million per year. The government sells the
blood of Cubans overseas, with no concern for the shortage of reserves
in the Island's hospitals.
The doses of capitalism which Raul Castro is introducing in Cuba ma non
troppo, as the Italians might translate Castro's slogan "without haste
but without pause," do not alter in the least the stone tablets of the
current Constitution that is in force, which establishes an
"irrevocable" one-party regime, of "Marxist-Leninist ideology and based
on the thought of Martí," as an "organized vanguard of the Cuban nation,
primary leading force of society and of the State." And to overlook this
means to not understand what country we are talking about.
In Cuba, there are no political prisoners, according to Raúl Castro. But
in fact, there are, and many. It is enough to consult the statistics put
out monthly by human rights defense organizations.
Are you familiar with the Article 72 of the Penal Code? If you have read
"1984," the shocking book by George Orwell, you will recall that the
"thought police" would go after "thoughtcrime," crimes of the mind.
So, then, Article 72 of Law Number 62/87 of the Cuba of the supposed
changes, is a carbon copy of the Orwellian laws.
That article says the following: "The special proclivity in which a
person is found to commit crimes, demonstrated by the conduct he
observes, in manifest contradiction to the norms of sociality morality,
is considered a state of dangerousness."*
In other words, the police can detain anyone suspected of hiding
subversive ideas in the deepest part of of their consciousness.
The appointment of Miguel Díaz Canel, 56 years old, an "apparatchik" of
the Communist Party, as first vice-president of the Council of State,
and the announcement, made by Raúl Castro himself, that he would cede
power in February 2018, could mean that the regime was heading towards
renewal, at least generationally. But, once again, it was apparent that
all was purely cosmetic.
If, in fact, Raúl Castro reiterated, during the VII Congress of the
Communist Party, his intention to resign from his position as President
of the Councils of State and of Ministries, he was reelected "Bulgarian
style"** with 100 percent of the vote, as First Secretary of the Party
for the next five years, that is through the year 2021, at which time he
will or should reach, if God does not intervene, the age of 90 years.
At that time, Raúl Castro will turn over the secretariat of the Party
and also, in his words, "the flags of the Revolution and of Socialism,
without the least trace of sadness or pessimism, with the pride of duty
accomplished."
As Don Quixote says, "for empty words, the noise of bells."
And what did the President of the United States try to do by going to
that Island situated beyond all comprehension? Like Hank Morgan, the
hero of Mark Twain's celebrated novel, "A Connecticut Yankee in King
Arthur's Court," Barack Obama was transported to the land of never
again, convinced that normal diplomatic relations and a surge in
commerce will give way, in the end, to greater liberty for Cubans.
Hank Morgan was saved from death by fire by knowing when a solar eclipse
would occur, but Barack Obama, lame duck that he is, was slowly roasted
over a barbeque.
For the exegetes of the Revolution, Obama did not go to Cuba, as he
said, with the purpose of "burying the last remnant of the Cold War on
the American continent," but rather with more nefarious intentions. The
United States, according to Raúl Castro, has changed its former hostile
strategy for "a perverse strategy of political-ideological subversion
that threatens the very essences of the Revolution."
As the song says:
Not with you and not without you
are my sorrows eased
with you because you slay me
without you because I die.
The United States has taken giant steps in the normalization of its
relations with Cuba, and the Island's government is taking good
advantage of this. But it has not changed its rhetoric, nor has it
advanced one millimeter on the path that leads to democracy.
The rapprochement between the two countries has provoked an enormous
controversy between supporters and detractors, while Raúl Castro and his
minions observe the bullfight, with satisfaction, from the sidelines.
For The Washington Post, the policy of the Obama Administration toward
the Cuban government has stymied the efforts of those who fight for
democracy on the Island: the activists who have spent their lives
struggling against the regime at enormous personal cost.
It is they, and the Cuban people, who should lay the foundations of a
new nation with democracy and liberty, and not those who,
illegitimately, have usurped that right and want to continue doing so
through deceit.
The Cuban Revolution is a corpse, but that corpse has not yet been
buried, and its stench will take time in going away. Meanwhile, Cubans
continue to live inside a cage with heavy bars, which the government is
now sugar-coating, like sugar-coating a pill to hide its bitterness.
As in Oscar Wilde's gothic novel, "The Picture of Dorian Gray," Raúl
Castro shows a benevolent face, but his smile is the reverse of a
mocking grimace. His tactic is tall tales; his strategy, maintaining his
position in power.
Allow me to end my contribution by reading a brief poem of León Felipe,
a Spanish writer exiled in Mexico after the Spanish civil war. It is
entitled, "I Know All the Tales," and I believe it reflects very well
the great deceit of the Cuban government's reforms.
It says:
I do not know much, it is true.
I only tell what I have seen.
And I have seen:
that man's cradle is rocked by tales…
That man's cries of anguish
are drowned out by tales…
That man's weeping is tamped down with tales…
That the bones of man are buried with tales…
And that the fear of man…
has invented all the tales.
I do not know much, it is true.
But I have been lulled to sleep with all the tales….
I know all the tales.
Thank you very much.
Translator's Notes:
*In fact, Cubans call Raul Castro not "El Chino," as in the original
text here, but "La China" — The Chinese Woman — as a slur on his
parentage and his sexuality.
**"Pre-criminal dangerousness" is a crime in Cuba's Penal Code and
carries a sentence of 1-4 years in prison.
*** An expression that alludes to the former Soviet bloc, and decisions
made unanimously–more out of fear or coercion than by conviction–during
Communist Party meetings.
Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison
Source: Cuba: Tallies and Tales of the Reforms / Vicente Botín –
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cuba-tallies-and-tales-of-the-reforms-vicente-botin/
Once upon a time…
A female cat fell in love with a handsome young man and prayed to the
goddess Aphrodite to turn her into a woman. The goddess, pitying the
cat's yearning, transformed her into a beautiful maiden, and the young
man, captivated by her beauty, married her. But, on the wedding night,
Aphrodite wanted to know if the cat, now a woman, had changed inside as
well, and so she let loose a mouse in the bedroom. The cat, forgetting
her status as a woman, rose from the bed and chased the mouse so as to
devour it. At that point, the goddess, grown angry, returned her to her
previous condition, turning the woman back into a cat.
With this fable, the Greek philosopher Aesop means to tell us that, "The
change in status of a person does not cause her to change her
instincts." Which the wise collection of popular sayings might translate
as, "You can dress up a monkey in silk, but she is still a monkey."
"Why this eagerness to dress the monkey in silk?" I asked myself, when I
saw, incredulous, the Chanel parade in Havana. The Adidas tracksuit
which Fidel Castro has been sporting for years was outshone by fashion
czar Karl Lagerfeld's diamond-studded jacket and Brazilian supermodel
Gisele Bündchen's beret (albeit without the star that adorned Che
Guevara's cap in that famous photograph by Alberto Korda).
Could it be that vileness can be disguised by glamour? Is is possible to
wrap in gift paper, as though it were a box of chocolates, the Penal
Code in force in Cuba, which brutally punishes all forms of dissidence?
Can repression and the lack of freedoms be combined with haute couture?
Is the march by the Ladies in White along Fifth Avenue compatible with
the pageant of Chanel models along the Paseo del Prado?
Giusepe Tomassi de Lampedusa puts in the mouth of Tancredi, one of the
characters in his novel, "The Leopard," this utterance directed to his
uncle Fabrizio, Prince Salina: "Everything must change if everything is
to stay as it is."
In political science, "leopard-like" or "Lampedusian" are descriptors
for the politician who initiates a revolutionary transformation but
which, in practice, alters the structures of power only superficially,
intentionally keeping the essential elements of those structures.
Raúl Castro is a lot like the Lampedusian Tancredi, because he seems to
want to change everything, but his intention is for everything to stay
as it is.
When I arrived in Havana in early 2005 as a correspondent for Televisión
Española, everything was much clearer, or, to be more exact, seemed less
confused. There were no fireworks. Any glamour, for want of a better
term, was provided by Fidel Castro, with his eternal olive-green
uniform, and the parades were not directed by Karl Lagerfeld, but rather
by the dictator himself, on the Malecón, in front of the then-US
Interests Section, now the US Embassy.
Of course, then these demonstrations were called "Marches of the
Embattled People." The other marches, those of the Ladies in White, were
repressed without pity, and concerts, such as those by the group "Porno
para Ricardo," were nothing like those by the Rolling Stones: they would
end with their leader, Gorki Águila, in jail. There is where the
dissidents could be found, the ones from the Black Spring of 2003, and
other, newer ones, who were continually being thrown into the prisons.
At that time, Havana was falling to pieces. There were power blackouts,
and the ration book was entirely insufficient to meet the basic needs of
the population. The US was the imperialist ogre, the culprit of all the
evils afflicting the country, and the spies, "The Five," were heroes.
There were no shades. Everything was black or white.
Now I ask myself, "Has all that changed? Is it all part of the past?"
When he was named the successor, and with his brother still physically
present, Raúl Castro started his own trajectory. He proceeded like a
good bureaucrat, without rhetoric, step by step, convinced that, in
order to survive, the Revolution needed a facelift. So he pulled out of
his hat a jar of makeup, a tube of lipstick and a comb, and with an
oriental patience (it is not for nothing that they call him "the
Chinaman"*), he began to embellish the corpse of the Revolution until he
made unrecognizable… unrecognizable for the gullible who let themselves
be fooled by Photoshop.
Cuba is in fashion, and the mirage of the reforms serves as a screen to
cover the reality that Cubans live, or rather, suffer. Could it be that
they are invisible who inhabit the Island? Do they no longer have to
steal or deceive in order to survive? Do they no longer have to
"resolve" their problems?
There has been too much speculation over the nature of and the time it
will take to implement these reforms that have been announced so many
times, like the Byzantines used to speculate, in the 15th Century, about
the sex of angels, while the Ottomans were besieging Constantinople.
Could it be that the Turks are at the gates of Havana?
The Turks, probably not, but the Cubans yes, who for more than half a
century have lived besieged within a fortress, commanded by an
apprentice and witch doctor, who is performing a balancing act to
contain the demands of a people beleaguered by penury and the lack of
freedoms.
The foreign correspondents who work in Cuba confront the dilemma of
rummaging through the trash or going with the flow. During the four
years that I spent on the Island, I suffered all types of pressures to
force me to sweeten my reports. The censors were not concerned with
political criticisms, after all, the Cuban government enjoys no few
sympathies throughout the world. What bothered them was the pure and
simple description of the difficult living conditions of the Cuban
people. The shameful condition of the hospitals, the precariousness of
the housing, the cut-offs of water and power, the scarcity and bad
quality of the food, the lack of transportation, and let us not mention
the prostitution, as a express route to access consumer goods.
All those topics were taboo. They could not be mentioned, under threat
of expulsion. The paradox is that currently, all of those problems
continue, they have not disappeared, but they appear to no longer be a
problem for anybody. Simply put, they are not spoken of. They are swept
under the rug.
The first "reformist" measures announced by Raúl Castro provoked an
effect similar to hypnosis. Like an expert prestidigitator, he exchanged
the bread and circuses of the Romans for self-employment licenses, cell
phones, cars, houses and microwave ovens, despite their high cost
in Cuban Convertible pesos (CUC).
But Cubans, after so many "absurd prohibitions," celebrated them
joyously and, beyond that, the announcement of new promises–among them,
the suppression of the double currency, the revaluation of the Cuban
peso, and the end of the ration book which, in Cuba, ironically enough,
is called the "provision" book.
But it is well known that the road to hell is paved with good
intentions. Eight years later, those good intentions have yet to be
realized, especially the suppression of the double currency, which not
only has not been resolved but has become even more complex, with the
application of different exchange rates.
For Raúl Castro this is the cause of "an important distortion, which
will be resolved as soon as possible." It will not be put off until the
Twelfth of Never, the dictator has said, but at this rate, it will be
resolved when hell freezes over.
The dual monetary system — the Cuban peso (CUP) and the Cuban
Convertible peso (CUC) — is cause for no few arguments among brainy
analysts who do not tire of debating over the consequences of solving
that problem through a type of shock therapy or, conversely, doing it in
phases.
While the dispute rages on over whether they are greyhounds or
wolfhounds, until the Island's government solves the enigma, Cubans will
suffer the consequences of that distortion that suffocates them, because
their salaries are paid in Cuban pesos, but they must use CUC to buy
practically everything they need at a 25% markup.
The minimum salary on the Island is 225 Cuban pesos, and the median
monthly salary is 625, which come out, respectively, to about 9 and 25
CUC or roughly the same in US dollars. What can one do with that amount
of money? What would you be able to do with an income of $25 per month?
The cost of the products in the "basic basket," subsidized by the
government is, approximately, 10 Cuban pesos per month. It it is simply
impossible, however, that one person, especially a retiree, with no
other resources but his pension, can subsist all that time, with just a
few pounds of rice and beans, the basic food of Cubans, to which are
added a few ounces of pasta, coffee and salt.
The ration book also provides for five eggs per person per month, and a
few more more for 10 pesos: a bit of oil, another bit of ground soy
meat, a bar of soap… come on, it's as if one had just come out of a war
zone.
Aside from the ration book, one can purchase (also with Cuban pesos)
certain unregulated products, but the true foodstuffs, beef and fish,
primarily, can only be bought with CUCs.
And although the government recently lowered the price of some basic
products, these continue being very high. For example, one kilo of
frozen chicken costs 2.35 CUCs, and a half kilo of powdered milk, 2.65.
Just these two products account for 20 percent of the median monthly salary.
In the world in which we live, it seems absurd to speak in these terms.
Has any one of you ever told a guest that you cannot make her an omelet
because you have already consumed your five monthly eggs?
Cubans do not live in our world. To not understand that is to turn on
its head the myth of Plato's cave and to accept that the people
inhabiting Cuba, chained and in the shadows, live in the real world and
we, on the other hand, in an apparent reality.
Allow me to ask you some questions. Has any one of you recently visited
a house in Centro Habana? A great number of them are propped up to
prevent collapse and, even so, this occurs almost daily, with a high
number of fatalities.
Did you know that in the hospitals, the sick must bring their own
sheets, their food and even a bottle of bleach for sanitation, due to
the abysmal hygienic conditions, and that infections in the operating
rooms result in a high rate of deaths?
I invite you to visit, for example, La Balear hospital in San Miguel del
Padrón. It is not in Haiti, but rather in Havana, the capital of the
country that publicizes its health system as one of its greatest
accomplishments.
Are you aware that diabetes patients only receive, on a monthly basis,
between two and five sterile, single-use syringes of insulin, and that
the rest that they need they must buy them on the black market or, as
recommended, boil the used ones?
Do you know that hopelessness is causing a stampede toward the United
States, and the exodus to that country has quintupled in the last five
years?
Do you know the number of boat people who escape to the United States
for lack of a travel permit, despite the much ballyhooed migratory
reform, and perish in the Florida Straits?
All of this occurs, continues to occur, while the eyes of the world are
turned to the reforms that have been implemented in recent years,
although it remains to be seen to what extent they will be affected by
what Raúl Castro has euphemistically called "tensions" and "adverse
circumstances" provoked by, among other factors, the crisis in
Venezuela, which has substantially reduced the shipments of oil to the
Island.
The reforms yet to come are discussed, exhaustively, in forums such as
this, but there are always more questions than answers because only the
government of the Island holds they key to what it will do and when.
And the Cubans? What role do they play in all this? Are they and their
circumstances also an object of study?
If you allow me I will parody Shakespeare in "The Merchant of Venice" to
say, "Does a Cuban not have eyes? Does a Cuban not have hands, organs,
proportions, senses, affections, passions? If you prick us do we not
bleed? If you poison us do we not die?"
Cubans do not have a dog in this fight. They attend, mute, to the
government's hot air and do what they have always done under the
dictatorship: survive.
And surviving in the towns of the interior is much more difficult than
in the capital. The living conditions of millions of Cubans are pitiful.
The metaphor of Italian writer Carlo Levi would have to be employed, and
say that Christ was detained in Havana, because further out from the
capital, Cubans live outside of history, crushed by poverty.
But the government, insensitive to the privations of Cubans, walks and
walks toward the precipice.
Among the litany of lamentations over the failure to fulfill the
economic plans, during the recent sessions of the National Assembly of
People's Power, voices of alarm were heard before the possibility that
the situation will deteriorate even further and produce a social
outburst, with a repeat of street protests such as those of the
Maleconazo of 1994. As a precaution against such incidents, the
government is sharpening its knives.
But the spotlights, at present, are shining on the enormous cinematic
stage which Cuba has become for the world, and especially on the
proposals of the VII Congress of the Communist Party, which took place
this past April.
Essentially, what was discussed there was what the government
understands as the "conceptualization of the socioeconomic model," which
in reality is nothing more than the continuation of the so-called
"Alignments of the Social and Economic Policy of the Party and the
Revolution," presented during the previous Congress and which, like all
good resolutions have been left half-baked.
The conceptualization is now in its eighth version and only 21 percent
of the 313 Guidelines have been implemented; the rest, that is, the 79
percent, is "in-process." At this rate, it will take decades to put the
well-worn guidelines into practice.
Similarly, the Mariel Special Development Zone has dropped anchor: of
the 400 investment projects that were predicted, only 11 have been
accepted; within a century, perhaps the rest will have been approved.
The government continues to beat around the bush and appears not to fear
that it is past its prime. Meanwhile, it maintains control over the
means of production, what it calls the "predominance of the property of
all the people," although in the last five years the state sector
diminished, from 81 to 71 percent, while the private and cooperative
sector expanded.
The government of Raúl Castro is confident in the new Foreign Investment
Law's capacity to attract capital, authorizing outside investment in all
sectors of the economy, except in health, education, armed forces and
communication media.
But there is much mistrust on the part of the investors regarding the
guarantees they will receive on acquired properties and the transfer of
utilities in foreign currency. The law is very ambiguous in this regard,
as it establishes the freedom of investors to repatriate their profits,
so long as doing so does not constitute, and I quote, "a danger to the
sovereignty of Cuba."
Another negative aspect is that joint ventures or enterprises funded by
foreign capital will continue to not have the power to contract their
employees directly; they will have to do it through government entities
charged with negotiating salaries and other working conditions.
This practice was in place under the previous law and implies an
infringement of the rights of workers who are without free unions to
represent them.
More than a few discriminations are suffered by Cubans, without the new
laws, the laws of the much -vaunted changes, protecting them.
The current Foreign Investment Law allows Cubans who reside overseas to
invest in Cuba, but not those who live on the Island. They are
prohibited from investing in their own country.
The executive director of Cuba Archive, María Werlau, recently made a
presentation to the US Congress denouncing the repugnant business of
human trafficking carried out by the Island's government, and which has
become its major source of revenue: something more than $8-billion,
compared to the $3-billion produced by tourism.
According to official data (I quote María Werlau), around 65,000 Cubans
work in 91 countries, with 75 percent (approximately 50,000) in the
health sector. Their services are sold abroad, and the greater part of
their salaries is confiscated by the Cuban government.
The violations of universal labor rights, which such a practice implies,
infringes international accords signed by Cuba and by the majority of
the countries where these exported workers are laboring, including
conventions and protocols against the trafficking in persons, and of the
ILO, the International Labour Organization.
The wage vampirism practiced by the Cuban government attains its most
repulsive aspect in the trafficking of blood. The massive drives to
obtain donations made voluntarily and altruistically, even using
coercive methods, cover up a lucrative business, which some sources
estimate brings in some $30-million per year. The government sells the
blood of Cubans overseas, with no concern for the shortage of reserves
in the Island's hospitals.
The doses of capitalism which Raul Castro is introducing in Cuba ma non
troppo, as the Italians might translate Castro's slogan "without haste
but without pause," do not alter in the least the stone tablets of the
current Constitution that is in force, which establishes an
"irrevocable" one-party regime, of "Marxist-Leninist ideology and based
on the thought of Martí," as an "organized vanguard of the Cuban nation,
primary leading force of society and of the State." And to overlook this
means to not understand what country we are talking about.
In Cuba, there are no political prisoners, according to Raúl Castro. But
in fact, there are, and many. It is enough to consult the statistics put
out monthly by human rights defense organizations.
Are you familiar with the Article 72 of the Penal Code? If you have read
"1984," the shocking book by George Orwell, you will recall that the
"thought police" would go after "thoughtcrime," crimes of the mind.
So, then, Article 72 of Law Number 62/87 of the Cuba of the supposed
changes, is a carbon copy of the Orwellian laws.
That article says the following: "The special proclivity in which a
person is found to commit crimes, demonstrated by the conduct he
observes, in manifest contradiction to the norms of sociality morality,
is considered a state of dangerousness."*
In other words, the police can detain anyone suspected of hiding
subversive ideas in the deepest part of of their consciousness.
The appointment of Miguel Díaz Canel, 56 years old, an "apparatchik" of
the Communist Party, as first vice-president of the Council of State,
and the announcement, made by Raúl Castro himself, that he would cede
power in February 2018, could mean that the regime was heading towards
renewal, at least generationally. But, once again, it was apparent that
all was purely cosmetic.
If, in fact, Raúl Castro reiterated, during the VII Congress of the
Communist Party, his intention to resign from his position as President
of the Councils of State and of Ministries, he was reelected "Bulgarian
style"** with 100 percent of the vote, as First Secretary of the Party
for the next five years, that is through the year 2021, at which time he
will or should reach, if God does not intervene, the age of 90 years.
At that time, Raúl Castro will turn over the secretariat of the Party
and also, in his words, "the flags of the Revolution and of Socialism,
without the least trace of sadness or pessimism, with the pride of duty
accomplished."
As Don Quixote says, "for empty words, the noise of bells."
And what did the President of the United States try to do by going to
that Island situated beyond all comprehension? Like Hank Morgan, the
hero of Mark Twain's celebrated novel, "A Connecticut Yankee in King
Arthur's Court," Barack Obama was transported to the land of never
again, convinced that normal diplomatic relations and a surge in
commerce will give way, in the end, to greater liberty for Cubans.
Hank Morgan was saved from death by fire by knowing when a solar eclipse
would occur, but Barack Obama, lame duck that he is, was slowly roasted
over a barbeque.
For the exegetes of the Revolution, Obama did not go to Cuba, as he
said, with the purpose of "burying the last remnant of the Cold War on
the American continent," but rather with more nefarious intentions. The
United States, according to Raúl Castro, has changed its former hostile
strategy for "a perverse strategy of political-ideological subversion
that threatens the very essences of the Revolution."
As the song says:
Not with you and not without you
are my sorrows eased
with you because you slay me
without you because I die.
The United States has taken giant steps in the normalization of its
relations with Cuba, and the Island's government is taking good
advantage of this. But it has not changed its rhetoric, nor has it
advanced one millimeter on the path that leads to democracy.
The rapprochement between the two countries has provoked an enormous
controversy between supporters and detractors, while Raúl Castro and his
minions observe the bullfight, with satisfaction, from the sidelines.
For The Washington Post, the policy of the Obama Administration toward
the Cuban government has stymied the efforts of those who fight for
democracy on the Island: the activists who have spent their lives
struggling against the regime at enormous personal cost.
It is they, and the Cuban people, who should lay the foundations of a
new nation with democracy and liberty, and not those who,
illegitimately, have usurped that right and want to continue doing so
through deceit.
The Cuban Revolution is a corpse, but that corpse has not yet been
buried, and its stench will take time in going away. Meanwhile, Cubans
continue to live inside a cage with heavy bars, which the government is
now sugar-coating, like sugar-coating a pill to hide its bitterness.
As in Oscar Wilde's gothic novel, "The Picture of Dorian Gray," Raúl
Castro shows a benevolent face, but his smile is the reverse of a
mocking grimace. His tactic is tall tales; his strategy, maintaining his
position in power.
Allow me to end my contribution by reading a brief poem of León Felipe,
a Spanish writer exiled in Mexico after the Spanish civil war. It is
entitled, "I Know All the Tales," and I believe it reflects very well
the great deceit of the Cuban government's reforms.
It says:
I do not know much, it is true.
I only tell what I have seen.
And I have seen:
that man's cradle is rocked by tales…
That man's cries of anguish
are drowned out by tales…
That man's weeping is tamped down with tales…
That the bones of man are buried with tales…
And that the fear of man…
has invented all the tales.
I do not know much, it is true.
But I have been lulled to sleep with all the tales….
I know all the tales.
Thank you very much.
Translator's Notes:
*In fact, Cubans call Raul Castro not "El Chino," as in the original
text here, but "La China" — The Chinese Woman — as a slur on his
parentage and his sexuality.
**"Pre-criminal dangerousness" is a crime in Cuba's Penal Code and
carries a sentence of 1-4 years in prison.
*** An expression that alludes to the former Soviet bloc, and decisions
made unanimously–more out of fear or coercion than by conviction–during
Communist Party meetings.
Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison
Source: Cuba: Tallies and Tales of the Reforms / Vicente Botín –
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cuba-tallies-and-tales-of-the-reforms-vicente-botin/
Mega-Hurricane Matthew Heads for Jamaica, Cuba
Mega-Hurricane Matthew Heads for Jamaica, Cuba
By HOWARD CAMPBELL, ASSOCIATED PRESS
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Oct 1, 2016, 9:18 AM ET
One of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes in recent history weakened
a little on Saturday as it roared across the Caribbean on a course that
still puts Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba in the path of potentially
devastating winds and rain.
Matthew briefly reached the top hurricane classification, Category 5,
and was the strongest Atlantic hurricane since Felix in 2007.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said its winds had slipped
to a still-devastating 155 mph (250 kph) and it was expected to reach
the eastern part of Jamaica on Monday.
Jamaicans began clearing out store shelves as they stocked up emergency
supplies and Prime Minister Andrew Holness on Friday called an urgent
meeting of Parliament to discuss preparations for the storm.
"I left work to pick up a few items, candles, tin stuff, bread,"
41-year-old Angella Wage said at a crowded store in the Half Way Tree
area of the capital, Kingston. "We can never be too careful."
Evan Thompson, director of Jamaica's National Meteorological Service,
said the first effects of the storm may be felt as early as Saturday.
"We do consider it serious," Thompson said. "We are all on high alert."
Jamaicans are accustomed to intense tropical weather but Hurricane
Matthew looked particularly threatening. At its peak, it was more
powerful than Hurricane Gilbert, which made landfall on the island in
September 1988 and was the most destructive storm in the country's
modern history.
"Hurricane Matthew could rival or possibly exceed Gilbert if the core of
the strongest winds does actually move over Jamaica," said Dennis
Feltgen, a meteorologist and spokesman for the hurricane center in
Miami. "There is no certainty of that at this point."
Matthew was expected to bring heavy rainfall especially to the eastern
tip and higher elevations, which could trigger flooding and landslides,
Thompson said.
Forecasters said rainfall totals could reach 10 to 15 inches (25 to 38
centimeters) with isolated maximum amounts of 25 inches (63 centimeters)
in Jamaica and southwestern Haiti.
Kingston is in the southeastern corner of Jamaica and is expected to
experience flooding. The government issued a hurricane watch on Friday,
and a tropical storm watch was issued for Haiti's southwest coast form
the southern border it shares with the Dominican Republic to the capital
of Port-au-Prince.
As of 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT), the storm was centered about 400 miles (645
kilometers) southeast of Kingston. It was moving west at 7 mph (11 kph).
Hurricane-force winds extended outward up to 45 miles (75 kilometers)
from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 205
miles (335 kilometers).
It brought extremely high tides, storm surge and heavy rain to Colombia,
prompting authorities to declare an alert as local TV broadcast images
of cars and tree trunks surging though flooded streets in coastal areas.
Local media in La Guajira province reported that one person died in
flooding.
Matthew caused at least one death when it entered the Caribbean on
Wednesday, with officials in St. Vincent reporting a 16-year-old boy was
crushed by a boulder as he tried to clear a blocked drain.
——
Associated Press writer Ben Fox contributed from Miami.
Source: Mega-Hurricane Matthew Heads for Jamaica, Cuba - ABC News -
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/mega-hurricane-matthew-threatens-jamaica-haiti-cuba-42490360
By HOWARD CAMPBELL, ASSOCIATED PRESS
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Oct 1, 2016, 9:18 AM ET
One of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes in recent history weakened
a little on Saturday as it roared across the Caribbean on a course that
still puts Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba in the path of potentially
devastating winds and rain.
Matthew briefly reached the top hurricane classification, Category 5,
and was the strongest Atlantic hurricane since Felix in 2007.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said its winds had slipped
to a still-devastating 155 mph (250 kph) and it was expected to reach
the eastern part of Jamaica on Monday.
Jamaicans began clearing out store shelves as they stocked up emergency
supplies and Prime Minister Andrew Holness on Friday called an urgent
meeting of Parliament to discuss preparations for the storm.
"I left work to pick up a few items, candles, tin stuff, bread,"
41-year-old Angella Wage said at a crowded store in the Half Way Tree
area of the capital, Kingston. "We can never be too careful."
Evan Thompson, director of Jamaica's National Meteorological Service,
said the first effects of the storm may be felt as early as Saturday.
"We do consider it serious," Thompson said. "We are all on high alert."
Jamaicans are accustomed to intense tropical weather but Hurricane
Matthew looked particularly threatening. At its peak, it was more
powerful than Hurricane Gilbert, which made landfall on the island in
September 1988 and was the most destructive storm in the country's
modern history.
"Hurricane Matthew could rival or possibly exceed Gilbert if the core of
the strongest winds does actually move over Jamaica," said Dennis
Feltgen, a meteorologist and spokesman for the hurricane center in
Miami. "There is no certainty of that at this point."
Matthew was expected to bring heavy rainfall especially to the eastern
tip and higher elevations, which could trigger flooding and landslides,
Thompson said.
Forecasters said rainfall totals could reach 10 to 15 inches (25 to 38
centimeters) with isolated maximum amounts of 25 inches (63 centimeters)
in Jamaica and southwestern Haiti.
Kingston is in the southeastern corner of Jamaica and is expected to
experience flooding. The government issued a hurricane watch on Friday,
and a tropical storm watch was issued for Haiti's southwest coast form
the southern border it shares with the Dominican Republic to the capital
of Port-au-Prince.
As of 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT), the storm was centered about 400 miles (645
kilometers) southeast of Kingston. It was moving west at 7 mph (11 kph).
Hurricane-force winds extended outward up to 45 miles (75 kilometers)
from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 205
miles (335 kilometers).
It brought extremely high tides, storm surge and heavy rain to Colombia,
prompting authorities to declare an alert as local TV broadcast images
of cars and tree trunks surging though flooded streets in coastal areas.
Local media in La Guajira province reported that one person died in
flooding.
Matthew caused at least one death when it entered the Caribbean on
Wednesday, with officials in St. Vincent reporting a 16-year-old boy was
crushed by a boulder as he tried to clear a blocked drain.
——
Associated Press writer Ben Fox contributed from Miami.
Source: Mega-Hurricane Matthew Heads for Jamaica, Cuba - ABC News -
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/mega-hurricane-matthew-threatens-jamaica-haiti-cuba-42490360
Edwards heading to Cuba for trade talks
Edwards heading to Cuba for trade talks
MELINDA DESLATTE, Associated Press 1:22 p.m. CDT September 30, 2016
BATON ROUGE — Gov. John Bel Edwards announced Friday that he is
traveling to Cuba next week for a trade mission, seeking to build
economic ties with the island nation now that the U.S. is moving to
normalize relations between the countries.
The five-day trip, which begins Monday, will include Agriculture
Commissioner Mike Strain, Economic Development Secretary Don Pierson and
Transportation and Development Secretary Shawn Wilson. About 50 other
state, local, education and business officials also will participate.
"We want Louisiana to be first in line to any new opportunities with
Cuba, particularly the import, export and foreign direct-investment
possibilities that could range into the billions of dollars in the
coming years," Edwards said in a statement.
The visit comes as President Barack Obama has re-established diplomatic
relations with the one-time foe. The United States and Cuba severed
diplomatic ties in 1961 amid the Cold War. Obama traveled to Cuba in
March, the first by a sitting U.S. president in nearly 90 years, and
he's named the first U.S. ambassador in more than a half-century.
Louisiana currently ranks as the top exporting state to Cuba and is
seeking to bolster those relationships.
State lawmakers passed a resolution earlier this year urging trade talks
with Cuba. Edwards' office said the Democratic governor's trip will
include executives from five Louisiana port districts to discuss
commercial opportunities with the country.
"There remains much work to be done before our nation's embargo on
broader trade with Cuba is lifted," Edwards said. "However, there are
new opportunities that can benefit Louisiana, and I am optimistic that
we will be able to build on our existing trade partnership."
The governor's office said Edwards and the Louisiana delegation will
attend an opening reception with Cuban officials Monday night; hold
meetings Tuesday with the Cuban ministers of foreign affairs and foreign
investment and the national port administration; visit the Port of
Mariel and Port of Havana on Wednesday; visit farms and meet with the
Cuban minister of agriculture on Thursday; and return to Louisiana on
Friday.
Strain also traveled to Cuba in July with a state delegation.
"Cuba imports 80 percent of its produce, and Cuba is in great need of
quality products Louisiana can provide," the Republican agriculture
commissioner said in a statement.
The last visit to Cuba was by Democratic Louisiana Gov. Democrat
Kathleen Blanco in 2005.
Source: Edwards heading to Cuba for trade talks -
http://www.theadvertiser.com/story/news/local/louisiana/2016/09/30/edwards-heading-cuba-trade-talks/91328004/
MELINDA DESLATTE, Associated Press 1:22 p.m. CDT September 30, 2016
BATON ROUGE — Gov. John Bel Edwards announced Friday that he is
traveling to Cuba next week for a trade mission, seeking to build
economic ties with the island nation now that the U.S. is moving to
normalize relations between the countries.
The five-day trip, which begins Monday, will include Agriculture
Commissioner Mike Strain, Economic Development Secretary Don Pierson and
Transportation and Development Secretary Shawn Wilson. About 50 other
state, local, education and business officials also will participate.
"We want Louisiana to be first in line to any new opportunities with
Cuba, particularly the import, export and foreign direct-investment
possibilities that could range into the billions of dollars in the
coming years," Edwards said in a statement.
The visit comes as President Barack Obama has re-established diplomatic
relations with the one-time foe. The United States and Cuba severed
diplomatic ties in 1961 amid the Cold War. Obama traveled to Cuba in
March, the first by a sitting U.S. president in nearly 90 years, and
he's named the first U.S. ambassador in more than a half-century.
Louisiana currently ranks as the top exporting state to Cuba and is
seeking to bolster those relationships.
State lawmakers passed a resolution earlier this year urging trade talks
with Cuba. Edwards' office said the Democratic governor's trip will
include executives from five Louisiana port districts to discuss
commercial opportunities with the country.
"There remains much work to be done before our nation's embargo on
broader trade with Cuba is lifted," Edwards said. "However, there are
new opportunities that can benefit Louisiana, and I am optimistic that
we will be able to build on our existing trade partnership."
The governor's office said Edwards and the Louisiana delegation will
attend an opening reception with Cuban officials Monday night; hold
meetings Tuesday with the Cuban ministers of foreign affairs and foreign
investment and the national port administration; visit the Port of
Mariel and Port of Havana on Wednesday; visit farms and meet with the
Cuban minister of agriculture on Thursday; and return to Louisiana on
Friday.
Strain also traveled to Cuba in July with a state delegation.
"Cuba imports 80 percent of its produce, and Cuba is in great need of
quality products Louisiana can provide," the Republican agriculture
commissioner said in a statement.
The last visit to Cuba was by Democratic Louisiana Gov. Democrat
Kathleen Blanco in 2005.
Source: Edwards heading to Cuba for trade talks -
http://www.theadvertiser.com/story/news/local/louisiana/2016/09/30/edwards-heading-cuba-trade-talks/91328004/
Cuba approves U.S. air marshals on commercial flights
Cuba approves U.S. air marshals on commercial flights
NORA GÁMEZ TORRES
ngameztorres@elnuevoherald.com
Cuba will allow U.S. air marshals on regularly scheduled commercial
flights between the two countries, island authorities announced Friday.
Josefina Vidal, director of the Cuban Foreign Ministry's department for
the United States, posted on her Twitter account that an "arrangement on
the deployment of Air Marshalls on board airlines was amended to make it
applicable to scheduled flights."
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) confirmed the
agreement in a statement to el Nuevo Herald Friday.
"With regard to Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS) coverage on flights
to/from Cuba, TSA has an arrangement in place for charter and scheduled
commercial flights," the statement said. "As a general matter, to
protect the operations and efficacy of our Federal Air Marshal program,
TSA does not provide specific information about when or which flights
are covered by our air marshals, as that could potentially compromise
security. "
The twin announcements eliminate a confrontation between the Obama
Administration and members of Congress over the security of flights to
and from Cuba.
The TSA admitted in mid-September that no federal air marshals were
aboard the regularly scheduled commercial flights to Cuba that started
in late August. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fl., and other Congress members
quickly accused the Obama administration of lying because TSA officials
had declared earlier that a bilateral agreement for the air marshals
would be in place by the time the flights started.
As the controversy continued, the House Committee on Homeland Security
approved a measure to suspend the regular flights until the TSA
certified that Cuban airports met all security requirements. The measure
was submitted by Rep. John Katko, R-NY, chairman of the subcommittee on
transportation security.
Cuba's Foreign Ministry also announced that representatives of the two
countries had met in Washington Wednesday to discuss "the security of
the flow of people and goods between the two countries, and mutual
concerns about cybersecurity."
Officials from the Cuban Ministries of the Interior and Transportation
as well as the Customs Department took part in the meeting, along with
U.S. officials from the Departments of State, Justice and Homeland Security,
Representatives of both government also gathered in Washington Friday
for the fourth round of meetings of the Bilateral Commission, to review
progress on issues of "shared priority" such as cooperation on
commercial flights, public health and the fight against drug trafficking.
Source: Cuba approves U.S. air marshals on commercial flights | In Cuba
Today - http://www.incubatoday.com/news/article105157771.html
NORA GÁMEZ TORRES
ngameztorres@elnuevoherald.com
Cuba will allow U.S. air marshals on regularly scheduled commercial
flights between the two countries, island authorities announced Friday.
Josefina Vidal, director of the Cuban Foreign Ministry's department for
the United States, posted on her Twitter account that an "arrangement on
the deployment of Air Marshalls on board airlines was amended to make it
applicable to scheduled flights."
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) confirmed the
agreement in a statement to el Nuevo Herald Friday.
"With regard to Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS) coverage on flights
to/from Cuba, TSA has an arrangement in place for charter and scheduled
commercial flights," the statement said. "As a general matter, to
protect the operations and efficacy of our Federal Air Marshal program,
TSA does not provide specific information about when or which flights
are covered by our air marshals, as that could potentially compromise
security. "
The twin announcements eliminate a confrontation between the Obama
Administration and members of Congress over the security of flights to
and from Cuba.
The TSA admitted in mid-September that no federal air marshals were
aboard the regularly scheduled commercial flights to Cuba that started
in late August. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fl., and other Congress members
quickly accused the Obama administration of lying because TSA officials
had declared earlier that a bilateral agreement for the air marshals
would be in place by the time the flights started.
As the controversy continued, the House Committee on Homeland Security
approved a measure to suspend the regular flights until the TSA
certified that Cuban airports met all security requirements. The measure
was submitted by Rep. John Katko, R-NY, chairman of the subcommittee on
transportation security.
Cuba's Foreign Ministry also announced that representatives of the two
countries had met in Washington Wednesday to discuss "the security of
the flow of people and goods between the two countries, and mutual
concerns about cybersecurity."
Officials from the Cuban Ministries of the Interior and Transportation
as well as the Customs Department took part in the meeting, along with
U.S. officials from the Departments of State, Justice and Homeland Security,
Representatives of both government also gathered in Washington Friday
for the fourth round of meetings of the Bilateral Commission, to review
progress on issues of "shared priority" such as cooperation on
commercial flights, public health and the fight against drug trafficking.
Source: Cuba approves U.S. air marshals on commercial flights | In Cuba
Today - http://www.incubatoday.com/news/article105157771.html
Cuban diplomat takes to Twitter, says rapprochement with U.S. must continue
Cuban diplomat takes to Twitter, says rapprochement with U.S. must continue
BY MIMI WHITEFIELD
mwhitefield@miamiherald.com
Josefina Vidal, Cuba's chief negotiator in normalization talks with the
United States, said Friday that Cuba has been "intensely" laying the
groundwork so that the process of rapprochement that began under
President Barack Obama will continue even after he leaves office.
In a novel use of social media for a Cuban official, Vidal hosted a
Twitter Q&A session from the offices of @TwitterDC after concluding a
series of meetings with State Department officials. Vidal responded live
to written questions sent in by Twitter users for about 40 minutes. Far
more questions were submitted than she answered during the session.
Topics ran the gamut from migration, banking, the embargo and potential
investment by American companies to what other overtures to Cuba Obama
could make in the waning months of his presidency. But Vidal said there
was still a long road ahead before the two countries would arrive at the
full normalization of relations.
"It is our will and aspiration that the bilateral process that began on
Dec. 17, 2014, will be irreversible," said Vidal. "We've been working
intensely in this direction precisely to create the basis that will
permit this irreversibility."
Whatever the result of the upcoming U.S. presidential election, she
said, the rapprochement process, which "has the support of the immense
majority of public opinion," should continue.
Asked why the Cuban population hadn't yet noticed the impact of Cuba's
new relationship with the United States, Vidal responded: "Because there
still aren't normal relations."
On Friday, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere
Affairs Mari Carmen Aponte and Vidal led their respective delegations at
the fourth meeting of the Bilateral Commission, which included updates
on shared priorities such as public health, counter narcotics, and the
resumption of scheduled commercial flights between the United States and
Cuba.
During her Twitter session, Vidal said Cuba is still discussing ways
that its national airline, Cubana de Aviación, might be able to make
regularly scheduled flights between Cuba and the United States.
The U.S. State Department said the two sides expected to have future
meetings on economic issues, human rights, claims, environmental
protection, agriculture, law enforcement, health, migration, educational
and cultural exchanges, trafficking in persons, and regulatory issues.
Vidal said the fifth meeting of the Bilateral Commission would be held
in December, and from now until the end of the year seven high-level
visits by both Cuban and U.S. delegations were planned in Washington and
Havana.
She said the two sides were in the process of negotiating six new
agreements. They have already reached 12 agreements on areas of mutual
concern such as the environment and maritime protection since
rapprochement began.
Asked what further reforms the Obama administration might undertake,
Vidal mentioned allowing more U.S. products to be exported to Cuba,
allowing more Cuban imports and normalizing banking relations.
"There are many problems in U.S.-Cuban banking transactions," Vidal
said. "Operations are denied, bank accounts are closed, transfers of
money are rejected. This is one of the areas where many difficulties
still exist."
Even though the Obama administration has allowed the use of the U.S.
dollar in third-party financial transactions involving Cuba, "the
reality is that up to now, Cuba has not been able to make payments to
third parties with this money nor make deposits in cash with dollars,"
said Vidal.
Among the key aspects in reaching a normal relationship, she said, was
for the United States to end its "preferential" migratory policy for Cubans.
The U.S. wet foot/dry foot policy allows Cubans who reach U.S. territory
by any means to stay while in most cases Cubans who are intercepted at
sea en route to the United States are returned to the island. The Cuban
Adjustment Act allows Cubans to apply for permanent residency in the
United States after a year.
The elimination and modification of the United States' preferential
migratory policy toward Cubans was discussed during the Bilateral
Commission and will continued to be discussed in the future, Vidal said.
The questions and Vidal's response are available on her Twitter account
@JosefinaVidalF.
Source: Cuban diplomat takes to Twitter, says rapprochement with U.S.
must continue | In Cuba Today -
http://www.incubatoday.com/news/article105250981.html
BY MIMI WHITEFIELD
mwhitefield@miamiherald.com
Josefina Vidal, Cuba's chief negotiator in normalization talks with the
United States, said Friday that Cuba has been "intensely" laying the
groundwork so that the process of rapprochement that began under
President Barack Obama will continue even after he leaves office.
In a novel use of social media for a Cuban official, Vidal hosted a
Twitter Q&A session from the offices of @TwitterDC after concluding a
series of meetings with State Department officials. Vidal responded live
to written questions sent in by Twitter users for about 40 minutes. Far
more questions were submitted than she answered during the session.
Topics ran the gamut from migration, banking, the embargo and potential
investment by American companies to what other overtures to Cuba Obama
could make in the waning months of his presidency. But Vidal said there
was still a long road ahead before the two countries would arrive at the
full normalization of relations.
"It is our will and aspiration that the bilateral process that began on
Dec. 17, 2014, will be irreversible," said Vidal. "We've been working
intensely in this direction precisely to create the basis that will
permit this irreversibility."
Whatever the result of the upcoming U.S. presidential election, she
said, the rapprochement process, which "has the support of the immense
majority of public opinion," should continue.
Asked why the Cuban population hadn't yet noticed the impact of Cuba's
new relationship with the United States, Vidal responded: "Because there
still aren't normal relations."
On Friday, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere
Affairs Mari Carmen Aponte and Vidal led their respective delegations at
the fourth meeting of the Bilateral Commission, which included updates
on shared priorities such as public health, counter narcotics, and the
resumption of scheduled commercial flights between the United States and
Cuba.
During her Twitter session, Vidal said Cuba is still discussing ways
that its national airline, Cubana de Aviación, might be able to make
regularly scheduled flights between Cuba and the United States.
The U.S. State Department said the two sides expected to have future
meetings on economic issues, human rights, claims, environmental
protection, agriculture, law enforcement, health, migration, educational
and cultural exchanges, trafficking in persons, and regulatory issues.
Vidal said the fifth meeting of the Bilateral Commission would be held
in December, and from now until the end of the year seven high-level
visits by both Cuban and U.S. delegations were planned in Washington and
Havana.
She said the two sides were in the process of negotiating six new
agreements. They have already reached 12 agreements on areas of mutual
concern such as the environment and maritime protection since
rapprochement began.
Asked what further reforms the Obama administration might undertake,
Vidal mentioned allowing more U.S. products to be exported to Cuba,
allowing more Cuban imports and normalizing banking relations.
"There are many problems in U.S.-Cuban banking transactions," Vidal
said. "Operations are denied, bank accounts are closed, transfers of
money are rejected. This is one of the areas where many difficulties
still exist."
Even though the Obama administration has allowed the use of the U.S.
dollar in third-party financial transactions involving Cuba, "the
reality is that up to now, Cuba has not been able to make payments to
third parties with this money nor make deposits in cash with dollars,"
said Vidal.
Among the key aspects in reaching a normal relationship, she said, was
for the United States to end its "preferential" migratory policy for Cubans.
The U.S. wet foot/dry foot policy allows Cubans who reach U.S. territory
by any means to stay while in most cases Cubans who are intercepted at
sea en route to the United States are returned to the island. The Cuban
Adjustment Act allows Cubans to apply for permanent residency in the
United States after a year.
The elimination and modification of the United States' preferential
migratory policy toward Cubans was discussed during the Bilateral
Commission and will continued to be discussed in the future, Vidal said.
The questions and Vidal's response are available on her Twitter account
@JosefinaVidalF.
Source: Cuban diplomat takes to Twitter, says rapprochement with U.S.
must continue | In Cuba Today -
http://www.incubatoday.com/news/article105250981.html
La santería, un 'negocio' que crece con internet y el turismo
La santería, un 'negocio' que crece con internet y el turismo
DDC | La Habana | 30 de Septiembre de 2016 - 16:01 CEST.
Los "negocios" vinculados a la santería podrían considerarse uno de los
sectores de más rápido crecimiento en la economía informal de la Isla
por atraer a turistas que están dispuestos a pagar miles de dólares para
convertirse en sacerdotes o iniciarse en esas prácticas religiosas,
señala un reportaje en la publicación Fusion.
Según el artículo, firmado por Walter Thompson-Hernández, en los últimos
tiempos la santería "está experimentado un auge relacionado con la
normalización de las relaciones entre Washington y La Habana y una
gradual expansión del capitalismo" en la Isla.
Thompson-Hernández destaca la repercusión económica de este incremento y
resalta que "cada vez hay más negocios en internet".
El autor del trabajo, que visitó Cuba, dice haber comprobado que el
precio promedio para convertirse en santero oscila entre 1.000 y 3.000
dólares, y la ceremonia se extiende durante una semana con rituales de
sacrificio animal, danzas y otros.
Compara el costo de estas ceremonias con las que se realizan en Europa o
Estados Unidos, donde podrían alcanzar entre 5.000 y 20.000 dólares,
ante lo cual muchos extranjeros prefieren viajar a Cuba y "en la medida
en que internet crece (...) también lo hace la santería".
El profesor de Estudios Latinoamericanos de la Universidad de
Princenton, Adrian López-Denis, citado en el artículo, asegura que
actualmente "internet está facilitando a los cubanos estudiar santería y
ofrecerla a los extranjeros como un producto más en el mercado".
Pero el auge de la santería preocupa a algunos de sus fieles, que
consideran que el nuevo "boom" está dando lugar a la explotación y la
apropiación de una religión profundamente conectada con el legado
afrodescendiente de la Isla.
Juan Álvarez, un afrocubano de mediana edad practicante y padre de
familia en La Habana, también citado en el artículo, opina que "la
religión está evolucionando de una práctica espiritual orgánica a un
lucrativo negocio que deja a los afrocubanos en una precaria condición".
"La santería está muy de moda (…) los blancos han estado viniendo a Cuba
y practicando esta religión de negros y robando nuestros secretos.
Empezaron a darse cuenta de que había dinero para hacer y comenzaron a
tomar ventaja", dice Álvarez.
Para este practicante, en el fenómeno están envueltas "la explotación y
la hipocresía", que son tan antiguas "como la propia Cuba", añade.
Source: La santería, un 'negocio' que crece con internet y el turismo |
Diario de Cuba - http://www.diariodecuba.com/cuba/1475244083_25682.html
DDC | La Habana | 30 de Septiembre de 2016 - 16:01 CEST.
Los "negocios" vinculados a la santería podrían considerarse uno de los
sectores de más rápido crecimiento en la economía informal de la Isla
por atraer a turistas que están dispuestos a pagar miles de dólares para
convertirse en sacerdotes o iniciarse en esas prácticas religiosas,
señala un reportaje en la publicación Fusion.
Según el artículo, firmado por Walter Thompson-Hernández, en los últimos
tiempos la santería "está experimentado un auge relacionado con la
normalización de las relaciones entre Washington y La Habana y una
gradual expansión del capitalismo" en la Isla.
Thompson-Hernández destaca la repercusión económica de este incremento y
resalta que "cada vez hay más negocios en internet".
El autor del trabajo, que visitó Cuba, dice haber comprobado que el
precio promedio para convertirse en santero oscila entre 1.000 y 3.000
dólares, y la ceremonia se extiende durante una semana con rituales de
sacrificio animal, danzas y otros.
Compara el costo de estas ceremonias con las que se realizan en Europa o
Estados Unidos, donde podrían alcanzar entre 5.000 y 20.000 dólares,
ante lo cual muchos extranjeros prefieren viajar a Cuba y "en la medida
en que internet crece (...) también lo hace la santería".
El profesor de Estudios Latinoamericanos de la Universidad de
Princenton, Adrian López-Denis, citado en el artículo, asegura que
actualmente "internet está facilitando a los cubanos estudiar santería y
ofrecerla a los extranjeros como un producto más en el mercado".
Pero el auge de la santería preocupa a algunos de sus fieles, que
consideran que el nuevo "boom" está dando lugar a la explotación y la
apropiación de una religión profundamente conectada con el legado
afrodescendiente de la Isla.
Juan Álvarez, un afrocubano de mediana edad practicante y padre de
familia en La Habana, también citado en el artículo, opina que "la
religión está evolucionando de una práctica espiritual orgánica a un
lucrativo negocio que deja a los afrocubanos en una precaria condición".
"La santería está muy de moda (…) los blancos han estado viniendo a Cuba
y practicando esta religión de negros y robando nuestros secretos.
Empezaron a darse cuenta de que había dinero para hacer y comenzaron a
tomar ventaja", dice Álvarez.
Para este practicante, en el fenómeno están envueltas "la explotación y
la hipocresía", que son tan antiguas "como la propia Cuba", añade.
Source: La santería, un 'negocio' que crece con internet y el turismo |
Diario de Cuba - http://www.diariodecuba.com/cuba/1475244083_25682.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
