Newly found letters offer glimpse into life of US dancer married to
Cuban spy chief
BY NORA GÁMEZ TORRES
ngameztorres@elnuevoherald.com
She was a Connecticut-born American ballerina and the wife of the
notorious chief of Cuba's intelligence and subversive operations —
Manuel Piñeiro Losada, better known as Barbarroja, or "Red Beard."
And now a trove of Lorna Burdsall's recently discovered letters are on
sale, offering a rare glimpse into the life of Cuba's ruling elites in
the early days of the Castro revolution.
Piñeiro directed Cuba's intelligence, security and subversion apparatus
for nearly three decades, first from the Ministry of the Interior
(MININT) and later from the Americas Department of the Central Committee
of the Cuban Communist Party. His death, in a car accident in 1998,
aroused suspicions at the time because he had just revealed that he was
writing his memoirs.
A trusted aide to the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro since their days in
the Sierra Maestra mountains, Piñeiro was best known as the architect of
Castro's efforts to export his revolution by training and arming
guerrilla groups from virtually every Latin American country.
But in 1955 he was a student at Columbia University in New York who
married Burdsall, a ballet dancer who was studying at the prestigious
Julliard School and was member of the Communist Party of the United
States of America.
Piñeiro was the son of a Bacardí rum representative in the Cuban
province of Matanzas, so Burdsall probably had little idea of what would
happen after he joined Castro's guerrillas and earned the rank of
comandante when they seized power on Jan. 1, 1959.
A few days later, Burdsall, who was in the United States at the time,
received two telegrams from Piñeiro telling her to return to Cuba. A
third telegram sent from Miami and signed "Fifo" told her that she was
booked to return via the Key West-Havana ferry on January 6. One of
Castro's nicknames was "Fifo" although it is not known if the telegram
was sent on his behalf or was from someone else with the same nickname.
What is known is that Castro was in Cuba at the time.
"You will receive money this day if you want to return," said the
telegram, which included a contact address and telephone in Miami. The
address on the telegram is the same as a three-story apartment building
in Little Havana. All the telegrams were sent to Burdsall at the home of
her sister, Nedda, known as Ned, in Lexington, Ky.
Documents from Nedda describe the hurried preparations and emotions
surrounding Burdsall's return to Cuba, and ask about the dress she wore
to the wedding of Castro's brother, Raúl, to Vilma Espín. Photos of the
wedding appeared in Time magazine.
Two years later, Burdsall's mother wrote to the State Department to
report that she did not know her daughter's whereabouts and ask that the
U.S. embassy in Havana make inquiries. The embassy replied that it had
no information on Burdsall or her son Manuel Khalil Piñeiro, born in
1957. Both had been registered at the embassy as U.S. citizens.
"Her application states that she is married to Major Manuel Piñeiro and
her address is the residence of Major Raúl Castro, Camp Liberty, Habana.
Raúl Castro is the Chief of the Cuban Armed Forces. Major Piñeiro is a
high official in the intelligent service of the Cuban Armed Forces. For
the above reasons, Mrs. Piñeiro has had little contact with the Embassy
and her present whereabouts are unknown," the embassy replied.
The telegrams and Burdsall's letters are part of a collection of 20
documents on sale by antiquarian Joy Shivar. Two boxes of Burdsall's
correspondence were obtained by the University of Miami's Cuban Heritage
Collection after her death in 2010.
"This collection provides a rare glimpse into the chaotic period of the
Cuban Revolution through the eyes of an American woman who was deeply
involved and dedicated to the cause," said Shivar. "Ostracized by her
father and possibly other family members (as exemplified by her personal
letters), her critical commitment to Cuba and her husband, Manolo, often
placed her in dangerous situations."
Shivar discovered the documents in the hands of another antiquarian who
had bought them at an auction held by the Burdsall family in Lexington.
Family members who were contacted showed no interest in buying back the
documents, she said.
The documents offer few details about the secret work of Piñeiro in
Latin America, but do provide examples of the privileged life the
ballerina and her husband led as members of Cuba's ruling elite.
A rally on July 26, 1964 in Santiago de Cuba — marking the anniversary
of the attack to the Moncada Barracks, considered the birth of the
Castro revolution — was preceded by a swim in a pool and later a lunch
of roast pork. One Piñeiro birthday was celebrated in Havana's famous
Tropicana cabaret. In the 1970s, years marked by shortages and
austerity, Burdsall wrote about her husband's preference for a fancy
sweet made with cottage cheese.
The documents also make occasional mention of Fidel Castro, his
government and policies and Cubans in general.
"Yesterday was the big day, 4 and a half hour-parade, then Fidel for 2
and a half hours — Cubans have more stamina than most people it seems.
Cuban coffee is very stimulating," she wrote about the May 1st
celebrations in 1965. "This year's May 1st was a very great
success—everybody was happy that we cut more cane (59,000 tons more)
than the 5,100,000 quota."
The letters between Burdsall and her family showed that members of the
revolutionary elite were not greatly affected by the end of direct mail
services between Cuba and the United States in 1963. It's not clear from
the stamps on the envelopes if the letters went through third countries,
but they reached their destination in two to three weeks.
Burdsall and her U.S. relatives also managed to exchange food shipments
and gifts, including some cigars "of the same kind that Fidel smokes."
In one letter to her mother, the ballerina reported that she was
gathering goods for a shipment, some bought by her and others "gifts
from Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, Korea, etc."
Dance filled many of her letters, as she helped to found the National
School of Dance and created the Contemporary Dance group as well as the
experimental Asi Somos group — "That's How We Are." She became an
advisor on modern dance to the Ministry of Culture in 1977.
Burdsall appears to have been no fan of Cuba's prima ballerina Alicia
Alonso, who gave the National Ballet of Cuba great prestige abroad but
blocked efforts to modernize its style and repertoire.
"Now that she's not dancing, she's turned into a choreographer,"
Burdsall wrote in 1974. "The ballet will have its big night on Wednesday
with a new version of The Sleeping Beauty — poor Petipa," she added,
referring to the classic's original choreographer, Marius Petipa.
Piñeiro ultimately divorced Burdsall and married Marta Harnecker, a
Marxist Chilean sociologist. Burdsall remained in Cuba, although she
traveled to the United States occasionally. A granddaughter, Gabriela
Burdsall, lives in Havana and is a ballerina in the same dance company
founded by Burdsall.
FOLLOW NORA GÁMEZ TORRES ON TWITTER: @NGAMEZTORRES
Source: New letters illustrate life of US dancer married to Cuban spy
chief | Miami Herald -
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article136735808.html
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
Monday, March 6, 2017
Cuba Kills Another Dissident
Cuba Kills Another Dissident
After Obama's detente: More tourists on the island and more repression.
By Mary Anastasia O'Grady
March 5, 2017 5:08 p.m. ET
Score another kill for the Cuban military dictatorship: Last month it
eliminated Afro-Cuban dissident Hamell Santiago Más Hernández, an inmate
of one of its most notoriously brutal prisons.
The remarkable thing was not the death of a critic. That's routine in a
police state that holds all the guns, bayonets, money and food. What's
noteworthy is that the world hardly blinked, which is to say that two
years after President Obama's detente with Raúl Castro, the regime still
dispatches adversaries with impunity. It also routinely blocks visitors
to the island, even of the leftist stripe—more on this in a moment—in
order to keep the population isolated. "Normalization" to the contrary,
Cuba is the same totalitarian hellhole that it has been for the past 58
years.
Cuba's now-President Raul Castro at Revolution Square in Havana during a
2006 military parade.
Cuba's now-President Raul Castro at Revolution Square in Havana during a
2006 military parade. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Forty-five-year-old Más Hernández was a member of the Patriotic Union of
Cuba, a group working for a peaceful transition to democracy. He was
healthy when he was arrested in June and sentenced to four years in
prison for "disrespect for authority"—a k a failure to bow to the
masters of the slave plantation. His real crime was advocating for a
free Cuba while black. There are few more lethal combinations.
The black Cuban is supposed to show gratitude to the revolution to
sustain the myth that he has been elevated by communism. The grim
reality is the opposite, but heaven help those who dare to say so.
In November, Más Hernández was transferred to Combinado del Este prison,
a dungeon not fit for animals. There he developed a kidney infection.
His wife told the independent media in Cuba that he lost almost 35
pounds. According to his overlords he died on Feb. 24 of a "heart
attack." Funny, that epidemic of heart disease among those who cross Castro.
His death ought to prick the conscience of the free world. But while the
island is crawling with foreign news bureaus, the story has not appeared
in the English-language press. President Obama may have opened Cuba to
more tourists, but the regime takes pains to keep its 11 million captive
souls and their misery invisible.
The Castro family is a crime syndicate and many American businesses want
a piece of the action. Sheraton Four Points now runs a hotel owned by
the military regime. The luggage company Tumi spent the winter promoting
Cuba travel on its website. (Note to self: Buy that new suitcase from
someone who isn't blind to tyranny.) The upshot is that more U.S.
dollars flow to Cuba's military coffers than ever before.
Mr. Obama argued that more contact with outsiders would empower Cubans.
The regime agrees. It has been open to foreign tourism and investment
since the end of Soviet subsidies in the early 1990s, and millions of
Europeans, Latin Americans and Asians have flooded the country. But its
secret police keep a tight leash on visitors.
British real-estate developer Stephen Purvis, Canadian businessmen Cy
Tokmakjian and Sarkis Yacoubian and U.S. Agency for International
Development contractor Alan Gross all did time in Cuban jails for being
too independent of the mob boss.
Last month Castro took the audacious step of refusing visas to three
prominent Latin American politicians who could hardly be regarded as
enemies of Cuba.
Organization of American States Secretary-General Luis Almagro was
invited to Cuba by Rosa María Payá. She is the daughter of the late
Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá, who was killed in a suspicious car
accident in the summer of 2012. Mr. Almagro was slated to receive an
award named for Ms. Payá's father from the Latin America Youth Network
for Democracy. But Mr. Almagro, who is a Uruguayan leftist, was denied
entry to the island.
The regime also blocked Mariana Aylwin, the daughter of Patricio Aylwin,
the first elected Chilean president post-Pinochet. Ms. Aylwin is a
Christian Democrat and a former education minister and was to accept a
posthumous award for her late father. She remains an important voice in
the Chilean Christian Democrat Party, which is a member, with the
Communist Party among others, of the governing coalition.
Ms. Payá also invited former Mexican President Felipe Calderón to the
event. Mr. Calderón is a member of Mexico's center-right PAN, but as
head of state he was friendly toward Cuba. One memorable moment was when
he welcomed Raúl at the Rio Group summit on the Mayan Riviera in 2010 at
a time when Orlando Zapata, another black Cuban dissident, lay dying in
a military prison. Mr. Calderón was also denied a visa.
Cuba is not reforming. As always, dissidents are sent to prison death
traps, and now Castro insults highly placed onetime friends by refusing
them access to the island. Tourists are welcome, but only to drink state
propaganda and leave behind hard currency. Any suggestion that Cubans
have a right to self-determination remains a crime against the state.
Write to O'Grady@wsj.com.
Source: Cuba Kills Another Dissident - WSJ -
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cuba-kills-another-dissident-1488751707
After Obama's detente: More tourists on the island and more repression.
By Mary Anastasia O'Grady
March 5, 2017 5:08 p.m. ET
Score another kill for the Cuban military dictatorship: Last month it
eliminated Afro-Cuban dissident Hamell Santiago Más Hernández, an inmate
of one of its most notoriously brutal prisons.
The remarkable thing was not the death of a critic. That's routine in a
police state that holds all the guns, bayonets, money and food. What's
noteworthy is that the world hardly blinked, which is to say that two
years after President Obama's detente with Raúl Castro, the regime still
dispatches adversaries with impunity. It also routinely blocks visitors
to the island, even of the leftist stripe—more on this in a moment—in
order to keep the population isolated. "Normalization" to the contrary,
Cuba is the same totalitarian hellhole that it has been for the past 58
years.
Cuba's now-President Raul Castro at Revolution Square in Havana during a
2006 military parade.
Cuba's now-President Raul Castro at Revolution Square in Havana during a
2006 military parade. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Forty-five-year-old Más Hernández was a member of the Patriotic Union of
Cuba, a group working for a peaceful transition to democracy. He was
healthy when he was arrested in June and sentenced to four years in
prison for "disrespect for authority"—a k a failure to bow to the
masters of the slave plantation. His real crime was advocating for a
free Cuba while black. There are few more lethal combinations.
The black Cuban is supposed to show gratitude to the revolution to
sustain the myth that he has been elevated by communism. The grim
reality is the opposite, but heaven help those who dare to say so.
In November, Más Hernández was transferred to Combinado del Este prison,
a dungeon not fit for animals. There he developed a kidney infection.
His wife told the independent media in Cuba that he lost almost 35
pounds. According to his overlords he died on Feb. 24 of a "heart
attack." Funny, that epidemic of heart disease among those who cross Castro.
His death ought to prick the conscience of the free world. But while the
island is crawling with foreign news bureaus, the story has not appeared
in the English-language press. President Obama may have opened Cuba to
more tourists, but the regime takes pains to keep its 11 million captive
souls and their misery invisible.
The Castro family is a crime syndicate and many American businesses want
a piece of the action. Sheraton Four Points now runs a hotel owned by
the military regime. The luggage company Tumi spent the winter promoting
Cuba travel on its website. (Note to self: Buy that new suitcase from
someone who isn't blind to tyranny.) The upshot is that more U.S.
dollars flow to Cuba's military coffers than ever before.
Mr. Obama argued that more contact with outsiders would empower Cubans.
The regime agrees. It has been open to foreign tourism and investment
since the end of Soviet subsidies in the early 1990s, and millions of
Europeans, Latin Americans and Asians have flooded the country. But its
secret police keep a tight leash on visitors.
British real-estate developer Stephen Purvis, Canadian businessmen Cy
Tokmakjian and Sarkis Yacoubian and U.S. Agency for International
Development contractor Alan Gross all did time in Cuban jails for being
too independent of the mob boss.
Last month Castro took the audacious step of refusing visas to three
prominent Latin American politicians who could hardly be regarded as
enemies of Cuba.
Organization of American States Secretary-General Luis Almagro was
invited to Cuba by Rosa María Payá. She is the daughter of the late
Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá, who was killed in a suspicious car
accident in the summer of 2012. Mr. Almagro was slated to receive an
award named for Ms. Payá's father from the Latin America Youth Network
for Democracy. But Mr. Almagro, who is a Uruguayan leftist, was denied
entry to the island.
The regime also blocked Mariana Aylwin, the daughter of Patricio Aylwin,
the first elected Chilean president post-Pinochet. Ms. Aylwin is a
Christian Democrat and a former education minister and was to accept a
posthumous award for her late father. She remains an important voice in
the Chilean Christian Democrat Party, which is a member, with the
Communist Party among others, of the governing coalition.
Ms. Payá also invited former Mexican President Felipe Calderón to the
event. Mr. Calderón is a member of Mexico's center-right PAN, but as
head of state he was friendly toward Cuba. One memorable moment was when
he welcomed Raúl at the Rio Group summit on the Mayan Riviera in 2010 at
a time when Orlando Zapata, another black Cuban dissident, lay dying in
a military prison. Mr. Calderón was also denied a visa.
Cuba is not reforming. As always, dissidents are sent to prison death
traps, and now Castro insults highly placed onetime friends by refusing
them access to the island. Tourists are welcome, but only to drink state
propaganda and leave behind hard currency. Any suggestion that Cubans
have a right to self-determination remains a crime against the state.
Write to O'Grady@wsj.com.
Source: Cuba Kills Another Dissident - WSJ -
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cuba-kills-another-dissident-1488751707
Official Fervor Towards Fidel Castro Contrasts With the Indifference of Young People
Official Fervor Towards Fidel Castro Contrasts With the Indifference of
Young People / EFE-14ymedio, Lorena Canto
EFE (via 14ymedio), Lorena Canto, Havana, 5 March 2017 — A hundred days
after his death and although Cuba has limited by law the use of his name
and image, the figure of Fidel Castro is more present than ever on the
island, where the fervor towards the former president is beginning to
take on messianic proportions that have even come to his being compared
with Jesus Christ.
Since the death of the leader of the Cuban Revolution last November 25
at age 90, there is no activity, congress or celebration in Cuba that
does not include a tribute to Fidel Castro in its program, while the
state media also devotes a good part of its space to him.
A good example of this situation was the recent Havana Book Fair, the
most important cultural event of the year on the island. This year's
event was dedicated to Canada and its authors, but the acts and
presentations of numerous titles around the figure of Fidel Castro
eclipsed the invited country.
The situation contrasts with the last will of the ex-president, made
into law last December by the Cuban Parliament: no monuments or public
buildings or streets with his name, in addition to a rigorous
regulations that shield the commercial use of his figure.
In life, the controversial commander was also opposed to the cult of
personality, although paradoxically it was his personal style of
exercising authority, which led some to consider him a leader and others
to consider him a tyrant.
"The charismatic and messianic figure of Fidel Castro was undoubtedly
one of the most popular elements of the Cuban Revolution from its
beginnings in the 1950s to at least the first decade of the twenty-first
century," Jorge Duany, director of the Cuban Research Institute at
Florida International told 14ymedio.
The key is whether the Cuban Revolution can survive without the physical
presence of the man who so passionately embodied it.
According to Duany, "the worship of and loyalty to the
commander-in-chief became one of the main ideological supports of the
Revolution, although his overpowering personality also provoked intense
disgust and resentment among his political adversaries."
The state media, until now, has avoided the word death and replaced it
with physical disappearance, a shift reminiscent of the way Fidel Castro
used the term biological inevitability.
The newspaper Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth), official organ of the
Union of Young Communists, went further on December 25, Christmas day,
which marked one month since the death of the Cuban leader: "Time does
not devour redeemers," said the front page, in a veiled parallel with
the figure of Jesus Christ.
"Man, we learned to know you eternal. Just like Olofi and Jesus Christ,
there is not a single altar without a light for you," says the chorus of
the song composed by Raúl Torres after the death of Fidel Castro, a tune
that played unendingly during the nine days of national mourning decreed
in Cuba.
Another new constant is the assimilation of the former president with
the Cuban independence figure José Martí, father of the country and next
to whose tomb in Santiago de Cuba Fidel Castro was interred.
For the moderate opponent Manuel Cuesta Morúa, what is happening "seems
to be against the will of Fidel Castro."
"It seems that in his last will he did not talk about the media, where
his presence is constant. It is a gap they [the authorities of the
island] have used, but I think that responds to Cuban society's capacity
to forget," says Morua, the spokesman of the democratic initiative "Otro
18" (Another 2018), which advocates free elections next year.
In his opinion, the country's leadership seeks to perpetuate the message
of "do not forget the imprint of Fidel Castro" in a society that "has
been giving a clear and key answer in that direction, very intuitive, to
say that a country must not have a surname."
Transmitting this message to new generations is a particularly
complicated challenge; for an overwhelming majority of young Cubans, the
bearded commander is more of a distant figure than an ideological
reference point.
In a recent study of Cuban teenagers published by Juventud Rebelde, no
respondent mentioned Fidel Castro among their most admired people.
"The poll seems to confirm an erosion in the figure of Fidel among the
younger generations of Cubans born and raised after the Revolution,
[despite] the government's efforts to maintain his memory as the
undisputed hero of post-Revolutionary Cuba," Duany concludes.
Source: Official Fervor Towards Fidel Castro Contrasts With the
Indifference of Young People / EFE-14ymedio, Lorena Canto – Translating
Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/official-fervor-towards-fidel-castro-contrasts-with-the-indifference-of-young-people-efe-14ymedio-lorena-canto/
Young People / EFE-14ymedio, Lorena Canto
EFE (via 14ymedio), Lorena Canto, Havana, 5 March 2017 — A hundred days
after his death and although Cuba has limited by law the use of his name
and image, the figure of Fidel Castro is more present than ever on the
island, where the fervor towards the former president is beginning to
take on messianic proportions that have even come to his being compared
with Jesus Christ.
Since the death of the leader of the Cuban Revolution last November 25
at age 90, there is no activity, congress or celebration in Cuba that
does not include a tribute to Fidel Castro in its program, while the
state media also devotes a good part of its space to him.
A good example of this situation was the recent Havana Book Fair, the
most important cultural event of the year on the island. This year's
event was dedicated to Canada and its authors, but the acts and
presentations of numerous titles around the figure of Fidel Castro
eclipsed the invited country.
The situation contrasts with the last will of the ex-president, made
into law last December by the Cuban Parliament: no monuments or public
buildings or streets with his name, in addition to a rigorous
regulations that shield the commercial use of his figure.
In life, the controversial commander was also opposed to the cult of
personality, although paradoxically it was his personal style of
exercising authority, which led some to consider him a leader and others
to consider him a tyrant.
"The charismatic and messianic figure of Fidel Castro was undoubtedly
one of the most popular elements of the Cuban Revolution from its
beginnings in the 1950s to at least the first decade of the twenty-first
century," Jorge Duany, director of the Cuban Research Institute at
Florida International told 14ymedio.
The key is whether the Cuban Revolution can survive without the physical
presence of the man who so passionately embodied it.
According to Duany, "the worship of and loyalty to the
commander-in-chief became one of the main ideological supports of the
Revolution, although his overpowering personality also provoked intense
disgust and resentment among his political adversaries."
The state media, until now, has avoided the word death and replaced it
with physical disappearance, a shift reminiscent of the way Fidel Castro
used the term biological inevitability.
The newspaper Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth), official organ of the
Union of Young Communists, went further on December 25, Christmas day,
which marked one month since the death of the Cuban leader: "Time does
not devour redeemers," said the front page, in a veiled parallel with
the figure of Jesus Christ.
"Man, we learned to know you eternal. Just like Olofi and Jesus Christ,
there is not a single altar without a light for you," says the chorus of
the song composed by Raúl Torres after the death of Fidel Castro, a tune
that played unendingly during the nine days of national mourning decreed
in Cuba.
Another new constant is the assimilation of the former president with
the Cuban independence figure José Martí, father of the country and next
to whose tomb in Santiago de Cuba Fidel Castro was interred.
For the moderate opponent Manuel Cuesta Morúa, what is happening "seems
to be against the will of Fidel Castro."
"It seems that in his last will he did not talk about the media, where
his presence is constant. It is a gap they [the authorities of the
island] have used, but I think that responds to Cuban society's capacity
to forget," says Morua, the spokesman of the democratic initiative "Otro
18" (Another 2018), which advocates free elections next year.
In his opinion, the country's leadership seeks to perpetuate the message
of "do not forget the imprint of Fidel Castro" in a society that "has
been giving a clear and key answer in that direction, very intuitive, to
say that a country must not have a surname."
Transmitting this message to new generations is a particularly
complicated challenge; for an overwhelming majority of young Cubans, the
bearded commander is more of a distant figure than an ideological
reference point.
In a recent study of Cuban teenagers published by Juventud Rebelde, no
respondent mentioned Fidel Castro among their most admired people.
"The poll seems to confirm an erosion in the figure of Fidel among the
younger generations of Cubans born and raised after the Revolution,
[despite] the government's efforts to maintain his memory as the
undisputed hero of post-Revolutionary Cuba," Duany concludes.
Source: Official Fervor Towards Fidel Castro Contrasts With the
Indifference of Young People / EFE-14ymedio, Lorena Canto – Translating
Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/official-fervor-towards-fidel-castro-contrasts-with-the-indifference-of-young-people-efe-14ymedio-lorena-canto/
Growing Old in Cuba - Luck or Misfortune?
Growing Old in Cuba: Luck or Misfortune? / Cubanet, Ana Leon
Cubanet, Ana Leon, Havana, 3 March 2017 – Jose Vargas is 85 years old
and a retired musician. He lives alone in a room in a tenement in Old
Havana, depending on a monthly check of 240 Cuban pesos (eight dollars
U.S.) and whatever help his neighbors can offer.
For two years this old man has waited for cataract surgery in both eyes.
He was "given the run around" without the least consideration at the
League Against Blindness; at Dependent Hospital, the operating room
ceiling collapsed, causing the indefinite postponement of the surgery;
and at Calixto Garcia Hospital there were no doctors available.
In spite of Vargas' ordeal, the official press speaks with pride of the
aging population that today comprises 18% of the Cuban population. It
argues that this longevity is an achievement of the socialist system and
optimistically describes it as a "challenge" for the near future. But at
the current juncture, the free health benefits that the Island's high
officials preach so much about in front of international agencies are
not perceived. How can you plan to confront the "challenge" if a
helpless old man has to wait two years for a cataract operation?
Disabled by partial blindness and diabetes, Vargas began to experience
hunger. He suffered hypoglycemia more than once from not eating for long
hours. Rosa, 68 years old, is the only neighbor who, in accordance with
her means, has dealt with feeding him and washing his clothes. "It hurt
me to see him so dirty and hungry (…) I have seen him eating things that
are not good for an old diabetic," the lady told CubaNet.
Nevertheless, Rosa could not take on that responsibility for long given
that she herself is retired and has health problems; so she tried to
seek help.
Trusting in Christian charity, she went to the New Pines Evangelical
Church – very near the tenement where Vargas lives – which distributes
food daily for some elderly loners. But what a surprise when a woman
responded to her, without the least sign of compassion: "That is not our
problem. Go see the delegate [to the local People's Power], the Party
and the Government."
Rosa explained Vargas' case to Old Havana's Municipal Government and
sought a food quota and social worker services from the Family Attention
Centers. Reluctantly, they gave her written authorization that would
permit Vargas to carry home, twice a day, a bowl with rice, peas,
scrambled eggs and jam; all poorly made and without the necessary
caloric content.
As if that were not enough, Vargas had to walk a kilometer a day or pay
30 Cuban pesos (a fifth of his pension) for a bicycle-taxi in order to
collect the food. The social worker who should have taken care of this
task never showed up.
Behind the suffering of a forsaken old man there is so much
administrative corruption and human sordidness that right now the
prospect of growing old in Cuba is terrifying. The State does not have
the institutions or the specialists equipped to confront the wave of
aging that is approaching. The old age shelters – with a couple of
exceptions – are worse and do not accept old people with dementia,
advanced Alzheimer's or any other illness that requires care around the
clock.
At the beginning of the century Fidel Castro dedicated many resources to
graduating thousands of social workers who only served to squander
public funds in that crazy "Summer on Wheels" campaign, where the same
young people charged with regulating fuel consumption in order to
protect State property wound up stealing it. The government spent
millions of pesos, awarded college degrees to a gang of delinquents and
today cannot even harvest the humanitarian benefit of the investment
planned on the basis of political volunteerism and a lack of common sense.
In Cuba today there are not enough social workers, geriatric
specialists, adequate food or medicines. Many unfortunate old people
live in dwellings that are in a deplorable state. Vargas himself is in
constant risk of slipping on the mold caused by leaks in the tenement's
cistern; or being killed by a piece of loose brick from the eaves and
balconies of the building whose century-old structure is in an advanced
state of deterioration.
In the face of official indifference, people who don't have a place to
live enter "the mansion" in an old folks' home, to be "cared" for in
exchange for staying with the living instead of the dead. While death
approaches, who complains of mistreatment? Who can say if the old person
accepts his new situation or is feeling threatened?
A country that does not concern itself with old adults leaves them to
the mercy of bad people. That is the future that awaits Cuba, given that
the State wants to subsidize everything, and it is not possible.
Families have fragmented because of the exiles, and not even the Church
can be counted on. It is no wonder that the number of suicides by
elderly people has increased, although the government hides the statistics.
Translated by Mary Lou Keel
Source: Growing Old in Cuba: Luck or Misfortune? / Cubanet, Ana Leon –
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/growing-old-in-cuba-luck-or-misfortune-cubanet-ana-leon/
Cubanet, Ana Leon, Havana, 3 March 2017 – Jose Vargas is 85 years old
and a retired musician. He lives alone in a room in a tenement in Old
Havana, depending on a monthly check of 240 Cuban pesos (eight dollars
U.S.) and whatever help his neighbors can offer.
For two years this old man has waited for cataract surgery in both eyes.
He was "given the run around" without the least consideration at the
League Against Blindness; at Dependent Hospital, the operating room
ceiling collapsed, causing the indefinite postponement of the surgery;
and at Calixto Garcia Hospital there were no doctors available.
In spite of Vargas' ordeal, the official press speaks with pride of the
aging population that today comprises 18% of the Cuban population. It
argues that this longevity is an achievement of the socialist system and
optimistically describes it as a "challenge" for the near future. But at
the current juncture, the free health benefits that the Island's high
officials preach so much about in front of international agencies are
not perceived. How can you plan to confront the "challenge" if a
helpless old man has to wait two years for a cataract operation?
Disabled by partial blindness and diabetes, Vargas began to experience
hunger. He suffered hypoglycemia more than once from not eating for long
hours. Rosa, 68 years old, is the only neighbor who, in accordance with
her means, has dealt with feeding him and washing his clothes. "It hurt
me to see him so dirty and hungry (…) I have seen him eating things that
are not good for an old diabetic," the lady told CubaNet.
Nevertheless, Rosa could not take on that responsibility for long given
that she herself is retired and has health problems; so she tried to
seek help.
Trusting in Christian charity, she went to the New Pines Evangelical
Church – very near the tenement where Vargas lives – which distributes
food daily for some elderly loners. But what a surprise when a woman
responded to her, without the least sign of compassion: "That is not our
problem. Go see the delegate [to the local People's Power], the Party
and the Government."
Rosa explained Vargas' case to Old Havana's Municipal Government and
sought a food quota and social worker services from the Family Attention
Centers. Reluctantly, they gave her written authorization that would
permit Vargas to carry home, twice a day, a bowl with rice, peas,
scrambled eggs and jam; all poorly made and without the necessary
caloric content.
As if that were not enough, Vargas had to walk a kilometer a day or pay
30 Cuban pesos (a fifth of his pension) for a bicycle-taxi in order to
collect the food. The social worker who should have taken care of this
task never showed up.
Behind the suffering of a forsaken old man there is so much
administrative corruption and human sordidness that right now the
prospect of growing old in Cuba is terrifying. The State does not have
the institutions or the specialists equipped to confront the wave of
aging that is approaching. The old age shelters – with a couple of
exceptions – are worse and do not accept old people with dementia,
advanced Alzheimer's or any other illness that requires care around the
clock.
At the beginning of the century Fidel Castro dedicated many resources to
graduating thousands of social workers who only served to squander
public funds in that crazy "Summer on Wheels" campaign, where the same
young people charged with regulating fuel consumption in order to
protect State property wound up stealing it. The government spent
millions of pesos, awarded college degrees to a gang of delinquents and
today cannot even harvest the humanitarian benefit of the investment
planned on the basis of political volunteerism and a lack of common sense.
In Cuba today there are not enough social workers, geriatric
specialists, adequate food or medicines. Many unfortunate old people
live in dwellings that are in a deplorable state. Vargas himself is in
constant risk of slipping on the mold caused by leaks in the tenement's
cistern; or being killed by a piece of loose brick from the eaves and
balconies of the building whose century-old structure is in an advanced
state of deterioration.
In the face of official indifference, people who don't have a place to
live enter "the mansion" in an old folks' home, to be "cared" for in
exchange for staying with the living instead of the dead. While death
approaches, who complains of mistreatment? Who can say if the old person
accepts his new situation or is feeling threatened?
A country that does not concern itself with old adults leaves them to
the mercy of bad people. That is the future that awaits Cuba, given that
the State wants to subsidize everything, and it is not possible.
Families have fragmented because of the exiles, and not even the Church
can be counted on. It is no wonder that the number of suicides by
elderly people has increased, although the government hides the statistics.
Translated by Mary Lou Keel
Source: Growing Old in Cuba: Luck or Misfortune? / Cubanet, Ana Leon –
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/growing-old-in-cuba-luck-or-misfortune-cubanet-ana-leon/
Cuba’s Raul Castro blasts Trump’s Mexican wall and trade policy
Cuba's Raul Castro blasts Trump's Mexican wall and trade policy
By Marc Frank | HAVANA
Cuban President Raul Castro harshly criticized U.S. President Donald
Trump's immigration, trade and other policies on Sunday as Trump reviews
a fragile detente with Communist-run Cuba begun by his predecessor
Barack Obama.
In his first critical remarks directed at Trump since he took office,
Castro termed his trade policies "egotistical" and his plan to build a
wall along the Mexican border "irrational."
Castro's speech to a summit of leftist leaders in Venezuela was
broadcast by state-run television on Sunday evening.
Before taking office, Trump threatened to torpedo the detente between
the former Cold War foes unless a "better deal" could be struck, without
providing details.
The White House said last month it was in the middle of "a full review
of all U.S. policies toward Cuba."
Castro said: "The new agenda of the U.S. government threatens to unleash
an extreme and egotistical trade policy that will impact the
competitiveness of our foreign trade; violate environmental agreements
... hunt down and deport migrants."
He said migration was due to growing inequality and poverty caused by an
unjust international economic system and that a wall along the Mexican
border was therefore "irrational" and aimed at all Latin Americans, not
just Mexicans.
"You can't contain poverty, catastrophes and migrants with walls, but
with cooperation, understanding and peace," Castro said.
Seeking to reverse more than 50 years of U.S. efforts using isolation to
force Cuba to change, Obama agreed with Castro in December 2014 to work
to normalize relations.
The two close neighbors have since restored diplomatic ties and signed
cooperation agreements.
Trump said last month after having dinner with Florida Senator Marco
Rubio, a vociferous foe of detente, that he and Rubio had similar views
concerning Cuba.
Obama, a Democrat, used executive orders to circumvent the longstanding
U.S. trade embargo on Cuba and ease some restrictions on travel and
business. The embargo can only be lifted by the U.S. Congress, which is
controlled by Republicans.
Travel to the Caribbean island from the United States has increased,
with the start of direct flights and cruises and roaming agreements
signed, but no manufacturing or significant trade deals have yet been
agreed.
(Reporting by Marc Frank; Editing by Paul Tait)
Source: Cuba's Raul Castro blasts Trump's Mexican wall and trade policy
| Reuters - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-usa-castro-idUSKBN16D0BM
By Marc Frank | HAVANA
Cuban President Raul Castro harshly criticized U.S. President Donald
Trump's immigration, trade and other policies on Sunday as Trump reviews
a fragile detente with Communist-run Cuba begun by his predecessor
Barack Obama.
In his first critical remarks directed at Trump since he took office,
Castro termed his trade policies "egotistical" and his plan to build a
wall along the Mexican border "irrational."
Castro's speech to a summit of leftist leaders in Venezuela was
broadcast by state-run television on Sunday evening.
Before taking office, Trump threatened to torpedo the detente between
the former Cold War foes unless a "better deal" could be struck, without
providing details.
The White House said last month it was in the middle of "a full review
of all U.S. policies toward Cuba."
Castro said: "The new agenda of the U.S. government threatens to unleash
an extreme and egotistical trade policy that will impact the
competitiveness of our foreign trade; violate environmental agreements
... hunt down and deport migrants."
He said migration was due to growing inequality and poverty caused by an
unjust international economic system and that a wall along the Mexican
border was therefore "irrational" and aimed at all Latin Americans, not
just Mexicans.
"You can't contain poverty, catastrophes and migrants with walls, but
with cooperation, understanding and peace," Castro said.
Seeking to reverse more than 50 years of U.S. efforts using isolation to
force Cuba to change, Obama agreed with Castro in December 2014 to work
to normalize relations.
The two close neighbors have since restored diplomatic ties and signed
cooperation agreements.
Trump said last month after having dinner with Florida Senator Marco
Rubio, a vociferous foe of detente, that he and Rubio had similar views
concerning Cuba.
Obama, a Democrat, used executive orders to circumvent the longstanding
U.S. trade embargo on Cuba and ease some restrictions on travel and
business. The embargo can only be lifted by the U.S. Congress, which is
controlled by Republicans.
Travel to the Caribbean island from the United States has increased,
with the start of direct flights and cruises and roaming agreements
signed, but no manufacturing or significant trade deals have yet been
agreed.
(Reporting by Marc Frank; Editing by Paul Tait)
Source: Cuba's Raul Castro blasts Trump's Mexican wall and trade policy
| Reuters - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-usa-castro-idUSKBN16D0BM
New Maternity Legislation in Cuba Ignores Fathers
New Maternity Legislation in Cuba Ignores Fathers
By Ivet González
This article is part of special IPS coverage on the occasion of
International Women's Day, celebrated March 8.
HAVANA, Mar 6 2017 (IPS) - A new set of regulations to strengthen the
maternity rights of working women and encourage people to have children
in Cuba were seen as a positive step but not enough, because they do not
include measures to encourage more active participation in child-rearing
by men.
"These legislative changes promote responsible maternity and paternity,"
sociologist Magela Romero, who is about to become a mother, told IPS.
"There are still aspects to review to achieve a legal text which
reflects from beginning to end its spirit of promoting a culture of
equality between parents."
Against a backdrop of a record low fertility rate and accelerated aging
of the population, the authorities published on Feb. 10 two new
decree-laws and four statutes that modify the 2003 Law for Working
Mothers, which was reformed previously in 2011.
The theme this year of International Women's Day, celebrated Mar. 8, is
"Women in the Changing World of Work: Planet 50-50 by 2030", because
improving the participation of women in the labour market is seen as
essential to achieving equality.
Romero, who is currently studying the father figure in Cuba's labour
legislation, proposed revising even "the most subtle aspects, such as
the title of the law itself, which doesn't mention the working father,
and therefore could conceal them as possible beneficiaries."
In 2003, Cuba placed itself in the forefront in Latin America, passing a
law that ensured working fathers one year of parental leave in case they
became widowers or were abandoned by the mother.
But in what is seen as a sign of the prevailing sexism in Cuban society,
few men have availed themselves of this benefit. The latest figures show
that only 125 fathers requested parental leave between 2006 and 2013, in
this Caribbean island nation of 11.2 million people.
In response to the low level of involvement by fathers and to address
the fact that many children are mainly cared for by their grandmothers,
the new regulations also allow working maternal or paternal grandparents
to request leave to take care of newborns.
According to the latest population and housing census, from 2012, just
49 per cent of children in Cuba lived with both parents, 38 per cent
only lived with their mother (the majority) or their father, while 13
per cent were at the time being cared for by other relatives.
Cuba is the country with the lowest number of children per woman in
Latin America – 1.72 in 2015, according to official figures – in a
country which since 1978 has had a fertility rate below the replacement
level of one daughter per woman, a situation that the region as a whole
will not reach until 2050.
Romero said the new laws acknowledge new developments that have arisen
in light of the current economic reforms, such as women having more than
one job, and those that make up the growing private sector, who
constitute 32 per cent of the 507,342 registered self-employed workers.
For this reason, women who work in the private sector and have two or
more children under 17 will pay only 50 percent of the monthly taxes
they would otherwise owe. And people with a permit to offer services of
childcare, or caring for sick, disabled or elderly people, will also pay
half of the monthly tax.
Moreover, women who go back to their public sector jobs before the end
of the year of maternity leave continue to draw the monthly stipend of
60 per cent of their salary. And those with two jobs receive maternity
payments for each job.
In addition, families with more than two children pay reduced fees, or
are even exempt from paying, for public daycare and school meals.
Hundreds of comments on local news websites have urged the authorities
to take measures in that direction and have assessed them as positive,
for seeking to ease the heavy economic burden that a baby implies in a
country in the grip of a virtually chronic economic crisis since 1991,
and which is now suffering a new economic downturn.
Having a baby in Cuba "can be economically a tremendously stressful
challenge," said Mayra García, who is expecting at any moment the birth
of her first child. It is even hard for her and her husband, who waited
to get pregnant until they had their own house, were economically
independent and had stable jobs in their professions.
"And few couples our age are able to achieve such economic
independence," the 30-year-old editor, who hopes to have at least two
children, told IPS.
She said it was a good thing that new mothers who return to their jobs
before the year is up continue to draw their maternity leave stipend.
And she called for the expansion and improvement of public childcare
services, to help families reconcile family life and work.
"Currently, public childcare centres are unable to keep up with demand,"
she said.
In public daycare centres, monthly fees per child average 40 cuban pesos
(1.6 dollars) and vary depending on the family's income. With
differences per region, a private daycare costs about 100 cuban pesos
(four dollars) and some exclusive childcare centres in the capital even
cost much more and in dollars.
Marybexy Calcerrada and Aida Torralbas, psychologists and gender experts
who live in the city of Holguín, 689 km east of Havana, propose creating
support mechanisms in the workplace for more specific cases.
"A quota for subsidised purchases of a variety of products to meet the
basic needs of infants and adolescents could be considered," Calcerrada
told IPS, urging "continued encouragement of the involvement of men in
their role as fathers."
She believes that "parents should be given quotas of hours for justified
absence from work to take care of children in the face of health
problems and school needs."
Studies show that working women in Cuba earn less than men, despite
earning equal wages, because they are absent more often from their jobs,
to take care of their children and sick and elderly people in their care.
For Torralbas, the new reforms in the legislation "could have been a
good opportunity to give fathers a short period of leave after their
baby's birth. In other countries, the father has two weeks of parental
leave when his child is born," she said as an example.
"In Cuba, women and men think it over carefully before having children,"
said Frank Alejandro Velázquez. "They are not the same mothers and
fathers as 60 years ago. They have been taught to think about minimally
adequate, fair social conditions, infused with gender equality, before
having a child."
This young expert of the Christian Centre for Reflection and Dialogue-
Cuba, in the city of Cárdenas, 150 km east of Havana, also brought up
other issues, such as the "social uncertainty" that exists in this
country where the government began to reform its socialist system in 2008.
"These measures are just a step forward with respect to previous
legislation," he told IPS.
Source: New Maternity Legislation in Cuba Ignores Fathers | Inter Press
Service -
http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/03/new-maternity-legislation-in-cuba-ignores-fathers/
By Ivet González
This article is part of special IPS coverage on the occasion of
International Women's Day, celebrated March 8.
HAVANA, Mar 6 2017 (IPS) - A new set of regulations to strengthen the
maternity rights of working women and encourage people to have children
in Cuba were seen as a positive step but not enough, because they do not
include measures to encourage more active participation in child-rearing
by men.
"These legislative changes promote responsible maternity and paternity,"
sociologist Magela Romero, who is about to become a mother, told IPS.
"There are still aspects to review to achieve a legal text which
reflects from beginning to end its spirit of promoting a culture of
equality between parents."
Against a backdrop of a record low fertility rate and accelerated aging
of the population, the authorities published on Feb. 10 two new
decree-laws and four statutes that modify the 2003 Law for Working
Mothers, which was reformed previously in 2011.
The theme this year of International Women's Day, celebrated Mar. 8, is
"Women in the Changing World of Work: Planet 50-50 by 2030", because
improving the participation of women in the labour market is seen as
essential to achieving equality.
Romero, who is currently studying the father figure in Cuba's labour
legislation, proposed revising even "the most subtle aspects, such as
the title of the law itself, which doesn't mention the working father,
and therefore could conceal them as possible beneficiaries."
In 2003, Cuba placed itself in the forefront in Latin America, passing a
law that ensured working fathers one year of parental leave in case they
became widowers or were abandoned by the mother.
But in what is seen as a sign of the prevailing sexism in Cuban society,
few men have availed themselves of this benefit. The latest figures show
that only 125 fathers requested parental leave between 2006 and 2013, in
this Caribbean island nation of 11.2 million people.
In response to the low level of involvement by fathers and to address
the fact that many children are mainly cared for by their grandmothers,
the new regulations also allow working maternal or paternal grandparents
to request leave to take care of newborns.
According to the latest population and housing census, from 2012, just
49 per cent of children in Cuba lived with both parents, 38 per cent
only lived with their mother (the majority) or their father, while 13
per cent were at the time being cared for by other relatives.
Cuba is the country with the lowest number of children per woman in
Latin America – 1.72 in 2015, according to official figures – in a
country which since 1978 has had a fertility rate below the replacement
level of one daughter per woman, a situation that the region as a whole
will not reach until 2050.
Romero said the new laws acknowledge new developments that have arisen
in light of the current economic reforms, such as women having more than
one job, and those that make up the growing private sector, who
constitute 32 per cent of the 507,342 registered self-employed workers.
For this reason, women who work in the private sector and have two or
more children under 17 will pay only 50 percent of the monthly taxes
they would otherwise owe. And people with a permit to offer services of
childcare, or caring for sick, disabled or elderly people, will also pay
half of the monthly tax.
Moreover, women who go back to their public sector jobs before the end
of the year of maternity leave continue to draw the monthly stipend of
60 per cent of their salary. And those with two jobs receive maternity
payments for each job.
In addition, families with more than two children pay reduced fees, or
are even exempt from paying, for public daycare and school meals.
Hundreds of comments on local news websites have urged the authorities
to take measures in that direction and have assessed them as positive,
for seeking to ease the heavy economic burden that a baby implies in a
country in the grip of a virtually chronic economic crisis since 1991,
and which is now suffering a new economic downturn.
Having a baby in Cuba "can be economically a tremendously stressful
challenge," said Mayra García, who is expecting at any moment the birth
of her first child. It is even hard for her and her husband, who waited
to get pregnant until they had their own house, were economically
independent and had stable jobs in their professions.
"And few couples our age are able to achieve such economic
independence," the 30-year-old editor, who hopes to have at least two
children, told IPS.
She said it was a good thing that new mothers who return to their jobs
before the year is up continue to draw their maternity leave stipend.
And she called for the expansion and improvement of public childcare
services, to help families reconcile family life and work.
"Currently, public childcare centres are unable to keep up with demand,"
she said.
In public daycare centres, monthly fees per child average 40 cuban pesos
(1.6 dollars) and vary depending on the family's income. With
differences per region, a private daycare costs about 100 cuban pesos
(four dollars) and some exclusive childcare centres in the capital even
cost much more and in dollars.
Marybexy Calcerrada and Aida Torralbas, psychologists and gender experts
who live in the city of Holguín, 689 km east of Havana, propose creating
support mechanisms in the workplace for more specific cases.
"A quota for subsidised purchases of a variety of products to meet the
basic needs of infants and adolescents could be considered," Calcerrada
told IPS, urging "continued encouragement of the involvement of men in
their role as fathers."
She believes that "parents should be given quotas of hours for justified
absence from work to take care of children in the face of health
problems and school needs."
Studies show that working women in Cuba earn less than men, despite
earning equal wages, because they are absent more often from their jobs,
to take care of their children and sick and elderly people in their care.
For Torralbas, the new reforms in the legislation "could have been a
good opportunity to give fathers a short period of leave after their
baby's birth. In other countries, the father has two weeks of parental
leave when his child is born," she said as an example.
"In Cuba, women and men think it over carefully before having children,"
said Frank Alejandro Velázquez. "They are not the same mothers and
fathers as 60 years ago. They have been taught to think about minimally
adequate, fair social conditions, infused with gender equality, before
having a child."
This young expert of the Christian Centre for Reflection and Dialogue-
Cuba, in the city of Cárdenas, 150 km east of Havana, also brought up
other issues, such as the "social uncertainty" that exists in this
country where the government began to reform its socialist system in 2008.
"These measures are just a step forward with respect to previous
legislation," he told IPS.
Source: New Maternity Legislation in Cuba Ignores Fathers | Inter Press
Service -
http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/03/new-maternity-legislation-in-cuba-ignores-fathers/
Preparing for a business career in Cuba takes persistence
Preparing for a business career in Cuba takes persistence
BY MIMI WHITEFIELD
mwhitefield@miamiherald.com
Cuban entrepreneur Liber Puente is working on a master's thesis about
communication among "nontraditional friends," so what better place for
some research than Miami.
"The question I'm trying to answer is how do we sit and negotiate with
our former enemies?" Puente said during a quick trip to Miami before
returning to the University of Roehampton, where he is studying on a
Chevening scholarship awarded by the British government to future
leaders and influencers.
The question is a good one as the United States and Cuba try to find
ways to work together after more than five decades of hostility and
while the rapprochement, begun by former President Barack Obama and
Cuban leader Raúl Castro on Dec. 17, 2014, is still on shaky ground.
Puente is busy these days.
During daylight hours he works on his master's degree at Roehampton and
in the evenings he corresponds via email and with his colleague at
Tostonet, a Havana tech operation, and makes plans with the two other
people he works with in his consulting firm, Puente Cubano.
Tostonet repairs laptops, printers, PCs and phones and does network
installations and software development. It has nine workers. While they
are allowed to pursue contracts together, all hold their own licenses as
cuentapropistas, self-employed workers. They aren't recognized as a
private cooperative either, although Puente says they have applied to
become one.
Ted Henken, a Baruch college professor who studies entrepreneurship in
Cuba, said there are around 400 non-agricultural cooperatives but
approvals for new ones seem to have been frozen for the past year or so.
If approved, Puente said Tostonet would be the first IT cooperative in Cuba.
Currently there are some 535,000 self-employed Cubans, accounting for
nearly a third of the workforce.
One of the biggest challenges in running a private tech venture in Cuba
is getting the spare parts to operate the repair operation. "We decided
to buy old laptops, broken laptops so we could get the screws and
hardware needed to make repairs," Puente said. "We learned how to do
maintenance on motherboards to extend their lives."
He said Tostonet is also willing to make an exchange: Two hours of free
salsa lessons for any visitors who drop off an old computer at
Tostonet's Vedado office near the Coppelia ice cream park.
Tostonet workers have collaborated to compete for government contracts,
building websites and installing networks for state enterprises. But
Puente said it's easier to work with the growing number of businesses in
Cuba's private sector.
"It's better business — they pay more quickly," he said. "Government
companies take a long time to pay and there's a lot of paperwork. Still,
[government work] is a reliable business."
Whenever possible, Puente said he likes to support other private
businesses. A private accountant does Tostonet's books and the Tostonet
entrepreneurs hire other independent software developers from time to
time if they need extra help on projects.
Puente's other venture, Puente Cubano, is a play on his last name that
translates as bridge, but it also defines what it does. It serves as a
bridge, helping companies in South Florida and elsewhere navigate the
Cuban market.
"They need someone to guide them through the Cuban market. The
institutions and ways of doing business in Cuba are not what they're
used to," he said. The firm also offers market research services.
Puente wants to learn as much as he can about American business, and
during his recent trip to Miami, he met with executives from Stonegate
Bank, which offers ATM and credit card services in Cuba; Airbnb, the
online home-stay booking service that began operating in Cuba in 2015;
and Facebook, which has caught on in Cuba as the number of public WiFi
hotspots increases.
Growing up in Cuba, Puente said he had an idea Miami was a small place
where the main business was hatching conspiracies against Cuba. Instead,
he said, he found it "big, dynamic," a multicultural city where he could
see doing business in the future. He was struck by the fast pace of life.
Puente has taken a round-about route to entrepreneurship.
In college, his degree was in mechanical engineering. Then he went into
Cuba's foreign service, where he was stationed in various posts abroad.
But, he said, "I wanted to do things on my own." And he wanted to make
more money. So after what he calls an "amicable divorce" from the
foreign service, he struck out on his own.
Puente plans to head back to Cuba after finishing his dissertation in
September and is eager to apply the lessons he has learned. When he was
in Cuba, he took advantage of all the business and management training
available, completing the Catholic Church's Cuba Emprende program for
entrepreneurs, a Cuban Economic Association program, the InCuba program
for cuentapropistas at the Centro Loyola in Havana and studied business
administration at the Centro La Salle in Havana.
As he finishes his degree in England, he keeps thinking about new
ventures: setting up a service that would make it easier for U.S.
companies to hire Cuban software developers and coders, and setting up a
platform for Cuban Americans to pay for private services used by their
relatives on the island. "They would be able to pay, for example, for a
party catered by a cuentapropista," he said. There are a number of
private party planning businesses and catering services already
operating in Cuba that could be potential customers.
He'd like to see the business channels developing between the United
States and Cuba stay open. Even though he's well aware there could be a
policy change toward Cuba under President Donald Trump, he's optimistic
that business ties will endure.
"Trump can't build a wall around the world," he said. "We Cubans are
very creative. I strongly believe that business people will continue to
find a way to keep developing relations. I don't think Trump would want
to stop everything."
Source: Cuban techy shares insights on private business ventures | Miami
Herald -
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article135977813.html
BY MIMI WHITEFIELD
mwhitefield@miamiherald.com
Cuban entrepreneur Liber Puente is working on a master's thesis about
communication among "nontraditional friends," so what better place for
some research than Miami.
"The question I'm trying to answer is how do we sit and negotiate with
our former enemies?" Puente said during a quick trip to Miami before
returning to the University of Roehampton, where he is studying on a
Chevening scholarship awarded by the British government to future
leaders and influencers.
The question is a good one as the United States and Cuba try to find
ways to work together after more than five decades of hostility and
while the rapprochement, begun by former President Barack Obama and
Cuban leader Raúl Castro on Dec. 17, 2014, is still on shaky ground.
Puente is busy these days.
During daylight hours he works on his master's degree at Roehampton and
in the evenings he corresponds via email and with his colleague at
Tostonet, a Havana tech operation, and makes plans with the two other
people he works with in his consulting firm, Puente Cubano.
Tostonet repairs laptops, printers, PCs and phones and does network
installations and software development. It has nine workers. While they
are allowed to pursue contracts together, all hold their own licenses as
cuentapropistas, self-employed workers. They aren't recognized as a
private cooperative either, although Puente says they have applied to
become one.
Ted Henken, a Baruch college professor who studies entrepreneurship in
Cuba, said there are around 400 non-agricultural cooperatives but
approvals for new ones seem to have been frozen for the past year or so.
If approved, Puente said Tostonet would be the first IT cooperative in Cuba.
Currently there are some 535,000 self-employed Cubans, accounting for
nearly a third of the workforce.
One of the biggest challenges in running a private tech venture in Cuba
is getting the spare parts to operate the repair operation. "We decided
to buy old laptops, broken laptops so we could get the screws and
hardware needed to make repairs," Puente said. "We learned how to do
maintenance on motherboards to extend their lives."
He said Tostonet is also willing to make an exchange: Two hours of free
salsa lessons for any visitors who drop off an old computer at
Tostonet's Vedado office near the Coppelia ice cream park.
Tostonet workers have collaborated to compete for government contracts,
building websites and installing networks for state enterprises. But
Puente said it's easier to work with the growing number of businesses in
Cuba's private sector.
"It's better business — they pay more quickly," he said. "Government
companies take a long time to pay and there's a lot of paperwork. Still,
[government work] is a reliable business."
Whenever possible, Puente said he likes to support other private
businesses. A private accountant does Tostonet's books and the Tostonet
entrepreneurs hire other independent software developers from time to
time if they need extra help on projects.
Puente's other venture, Puente Cubano, is a play on his last name that
translates as bridge, but it also defines what it does. It serves as a
bridge, helping companies in South Florida and elsewhere navigate the
Cuban market.
"They need someone to guide them through the Cuban market. The
institutions and ways of doing business in Cuba are not what they're
used to," he said. The firm also offers market research services.
Puente wants to learn as much as he can about American business, and
during his recent trip to Miami, he met with executives from Stonegate
Bank, which offers ATM and credit card services in Cuba; Airbnb, the
online home-stay booking service that began operating in Cuba in 2015;
and Facebook, which has caught on in Cuba as the number of public WiFi
hotspots increases.
Growing up in Cuba, Puente said he had an idea Miami was a small place
where the main business was hatching conspiracies against Cuba. Instead,
he said, he found it "big, dynamic," a multicultural city where he could
see doing business in the future. He was struck by the fast pace of life.
Puente has taken a round-about route to entrepreneurship.
In college, his degree was in mechanical engineering. Then he went into
Cuba's foreign service, where he was stationed in various posts abroad.
But, he said, "I wanted to do things on my own." And he wanted to make
more money. So after what he calls an "amicable divorce" from the
foreign service, he struck out on his own.
Puente plans to head back to Cuba after finishing his dissertation in
September and is eager to apply the lessons he has learned. When he was
in Cuba, he took advantage of all the business and management training
available, completing the Catholic Church's Cuba Emprende program for
entrepreneurs, a Cuban Economic Association program, the InCuba program
for cuentapropistas at the Centro Loyola in Havana and studied business
administration at the Centro La Salle in Havana.
As he finishes his degree in England, he keeps thinking about new
ventures: setting up a service that would make it easier for U.S.
companies to hire Cuban software developers and coders, and setting up a
platform for Cuban Americans to pay for private services used by their
relatives on the island. "They would be able to pay, for example, for a
party catered by a cuentapropista," he said. There are a number of
private party planning businesses and catering services already
operating in Cuba that could be potential customers.
He'd like to see the business channels developing between the United
States and Cuba stay open. Even though he's well aware there could be a
policy change toward Cuba under President Donald Trump, he's optimistic
that business ties will endure.
"Trump can't build a wall around the world," he said. "We Cubans are
very creative. I strongly believe that business people will continue to
find a way to keep developing relations. I don't think Trump would want
to stop everything."
Source: Cuban techy shares insights on private business ventures | Miami
Herald -
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article135977813.html
How Cubans’ gift for improvization sustained the politics and pleasures of Havana
How Cubans' gift for improvization sustained the politics and pleasures
of Havana
By Michael Mewshaw March 3
Michael Mewshaw is writing a memoir about his friendship with Pat Conroy.
A happy hybrid, "Havana: A Subtropical Delirium" invokes the Cuban
capital as an occasion to discuss the country's history, politics, food,
architecture, music, religion and passion for baseball. No author is as
well equipped to take on this task as Mark Kurlansky, who has previously
published half a dozen books on international cuisine, two on baseball
and one — "A Continent of Islands" — that surveys the Caribbean
situation. The danger is that such a polymathic author has no fixed
identity and might fall between categories and be dismissed in this case
as a mere travel writer. That would be a great shame, given the manifold
pleasures of his brief, breezy new book.
Kurlansky approaches Havana like an Impressionist painter, building the
image of this metropolis of 2 million inhabitants with subtle
brushstrokes. He quotes the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, who
wrote that "Havana has the yellow of Cadiz, the pink of Seville turning
carmine and the green of Granada, with the slight phosphorescence of
fish." Visible from almost everywhere, the sea provides a blue surround,
one that is ironically empty of boats. As Kurlansky explains, Cubans are
wary of the ocean, the source of many murderous invasions — the Bay of
Pigs was one of many — and killer hurricanes. Then too, after Fidel
Castro took power and the United States cut off contact, authorities
from both countries have patrolled the Straits of Florida, capturing all
but the luckiest immigrants trying to reach the American mainland in
rickety improvised crafts.
While Cuban exiles might complain that Kurlansky doesn't sufficiently
catalogue the cruelty and repression of the Castro regime, he does note
that "Che Guevara — a man with the looks of a cinema hero — held his
tribunals and executed so many people by firing squad that Castro
removed him from his post." Che then moved on to South America, trading
his role as the Robespierre of the Cuban revolution for his lasting
iconic image as a martyr for socialism.
With estimable even-handedness, Kurlansky remarks that Cuba's previous
dictator, Fulgencio Batista, richly deserved to be toppled. He ran "a
murderous kleptocracy in close partnership with American organized
crime. . . . Foreigners remember the Havana of that time as a kind of
romantic brothel." Kurlansky points out that prostitution continued to
flourish under Castro, and he offers fascinating insight into how the
history of commercialized sex on the island was an outgrowth of slavery,
which wasn't abolished in Cuba until 1872. Under Spanish rule, slaves
had advantages over their counterparts in the United States; they could
legally sell things on the street, "including their bodies." If they
managed to earn enough, they could buy their freedom, and any children
they had by white men were "automatically considered free."
Transplanted African culture pervades society at every level and in
every sphere, and Kurlansky describes at length its influence on Cuban
food, music, dance and religion. Indeed, he spices his chronicle of the
city with recipes for favorite Cuban dishes and drinks such as picadillo
and ajiaco, and the rum-based beverages the daiquiri and the mojito. A
meticulous and tireless researcher, he discusses the restaurants and
bars where this fare originated and notes that in the 19th century, ice
was imported from New England directly to Havana, then crushed for
thirsty American soldiers — remember the Maine and the Rough Riders? —
who favored Coca-Cola liberally spiked with rum. Well hydrated, the
United States controlled the island for decades and of course still
clings to Guantanamo.
Cubans liked Coke, too, and this presented a problem during the U.S.
embargo — but not one that couldn't be surmounted. With a typical flair
for improvisation, they produced Tropi-Cola, which ultimately became so
popular that it was exported to other countries. This talent for
adaptation, Kurlansky points out, served Cuba not just when the United
States isolated it, but when the Soviet Union collapsed and could no
longer subsidize the Castro regime with billion-dollar infusions of food
and fuel. Schools and hospitals continued to function at high levels,
and if the national diet was diminished, at least this resulted in a
drop in cases of diabetes and heart disease.
Kurlansky is hardly an apologist for the Castro regime or a Pollyanna
about conditions in Havana. The sight of '57 Chevys and Ford Edsels
rolling through the cobblestone streets may give the town the
sepia-toned allure of an old photograph, and the vast architectural
disrepair can provoke in some the same sublime response as Goethe
experienced when viewing the Roman Forum. But the reality is laid out by
the author in numbers — "20 percent of the population lives in housing
that has been deemed 'precarious' " — and in powerful descriptive
passages. "With structures sagging on their sturdy columns, sunken
roofs, stained gargoyles, and cracked and blackened stone ornaments,
Havana looks like the remnants of an ancient civilization in need of
teams of archeologists to sift through the rubble."
Kurlansky doffs his cap to indigenous writers ranging from José Martí to
contemporary poets and novelists. He also pays deference to foreign
authors associated with Havana. Ernest Hemingway comes in for
much-deserved discussion, although he seldom wrote about the place where
he lived for three decades. Graham Greene, whose novel "Our Man in
Havana" was made into a movie in the city with Castro's permission, is
quoted as enjoying the capital's "louche atmosphere" and "the brothel
life" — which makes him sound like a lounge lizard. For once Kurlansky's
thoroughness goes missing; he fails to mention that Greene ran supplies
to Castro's men in the mountains — or at least claimed he did, most
recently in Gore Vidal's memoir "Point to Point Navigation" (2006).
"Havana" ends without a dramatic crescendo or sweeping conclusion. This
is no criticism. It could hardly be otherwise now that President Barak
Obama's opening to Cuba is being reassessed by the Trump administration.
But readers interested in the debate couldn't do better than inform
themselves with Kurlansky's book.
HAVANA
A Subtropical Delirium
By Mark Kurlansky
Bloomsbury. 259 pp. $26
Source: How Cubans' gift for improvization sustained the politics and
pleasures of Havana - The Washington Post -
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-cubans-gift-for-improvization-sustained-the-politics-and-pleasures-of-havana/2017/03/03/62d135c6-f53d-11e6-8d72-263470bf0401_story.html?utm_term=.dd7c190131af
of Havana
By Michael Mewshaw March 3
Michael Mewshaw is writing a memoir about his friendship with Pat Conroy.
A happy hybrid, "Havana: A Subtropical Delirium" invokes the Cuban
capital as an occasion to discuss the country's history, politics, food,
architecture, music, religion and passion for baseball. No author is as
well equipped to take on this task as Mark Kurlansky, who has previously
published half a dozen books on international cuisine, two on baseball
and one — "A Continent of Islands" — that surveys the Caribbean
situation. The danger is that such a polymathic author has no fixed
identity and might fall between categories and be dismissed in this case
as a mere travel writer. That would be a great shame, given the manifold
pleasures of his brief, breezy new book.
Kurlansky approaches Havana like an Impressionist painter, building the
image of this metropolis of 2 million inhabitants with subtle
brushstrokes. He quotes the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, who
wrote that "Havana has the yellow of Cadiz, the pink of Seville turning
carmine and the green of Granada, with the slight phosphorescence of
fish." Visible from almost everywhere, the sea provides a blue surround,
one that is ironically empty of boats. As Kurlansky explains, Cubans are
wary of the ocean, the source of many murderous invasions — the Bay of
Pigs was one of many — and killer hurricanes. Then too, after Fidel
Castro took power and the United States cut off contact, authorities
from both countries have patrolled the Straits of Florida, capturing all
but the luckiest immigrants trying to reach the American mainland in
rickety improvised crafts.
While Cuban exiles might complain that Kurlansky doesn't sufficiently
catalogue the cruelty and repression of the Castro regime, he does note
that "Che Guevara — a man with the looks of a cinema hero — held his
tribunals and executed so many people by firing squad that Castro
removed him from his post." Che then moved on to South America, trading
his role as the Robespierre of the Cuban revolution for his lasting
iconic image as a martyr for socialism.
With estimable even-handedness, Kurlansky remarks that Cuba's previous
dictator, Fulgencio Batista, richly deserved to be toppled. He ran "a
murderous kleptocracy in close partnership with American organized
crime. . . . Foreigners remember the Havana of that time as a kind of
romantic brothel." Kurlansky points out that prostitution continued to
flourish under Castro, and he offers fascinating insight into how the
history of commercialized sex on the island was an outgrowth of slavery,
which wasn't abolished in Cuba until 1872. Under Spanish rule, slaves
had advantages over their counterparts in the United States; they could
legally sell things on the street, "including their bodies." If they
managed to earn enough, they could buy their freedom, and any children
they had by white men were "automatically considered free."
Transplanted African culture pervades society at every level and in
every sphere, and Kurlansky describes at length its influence on Cuban
food, music, dance and religion. Indeed, he spices his chronicle of the
city with recipes for favorite Cuban dishes and drinks such as picadillo
and ajiaco, and the rum-based beverages the daiquiri and the mojito. A
meticulous and tireless researcher, he discusses the restaurants and
bars where this fare originated and notes that in the 19th century, ice
was imported from New England directly to Havana, then crushed for
thirsty American soldiers — remember the Maine and the Rough Riders? —
who favored Coca-Cola liberally spiked with rum. Well hydrated, the
United States controlled the island for decades and of course still
clings to Guantanamo.
Cubans liked Coke, too, and this presented a problem during the U.S.
embargo — but not one that couldn't be surmounted. With a typical flair
for improvisation, they produced Tropi-Cola, which ultimately became so
popular that it was exported to other countries. This talent for
adaptation, Kurlansky points out, served Cuba not just when the United
States isolated it, but when the Soviet Union collapsed and could no
longer subsidize the Castro regime with billion-dollar infusions of food
and fuel. Schools and hospitals continued to function at high levels,
and if the national diet was diminished, at least this resulted in a
drop in cases of diabetes and heart disease.
Kurlansky is hardly an apologist for the Castro regime or a Pollyanna
about conditions in Havana. The sight of '57 Chevys and Ford Edsels
rolling through the cobblestone streets may give the town the
sepia-toned allure of an old photograph, and the vast architectural
disrepair can provoke in some the same sublime response as Goethe
experienced when viewing the Roman Forum. But the reality is laid out by
the author in numbers — "20 percent of the population lives in housing
that has been deemed 'precarious' " — and in powerful descriptive
passages. "With structures sagging on their sturdy columns, sunken
roofs, stained gargoyles, and cracked and blackened stone ornaments,
Havana looks like the remnants of an ancient civilization in need of
teams of archeologists to sift through the rubble."
Kurlansky doffs his cap to indigenous writers ranging from José Martí to
contemporary poets and novelists. He also pays deference to foreign
authors associated with Havana. Ernest Hemingway comes in for
much-deserved discussion, although he seldom wrote about the place where
he lived for three decades. Graham Greene, whose novel "Our Man in
Havana" was made into a movie in the city with Castro's permission, is
quoted as enjoying the capital's "louche atmosphere" and "the brothel
life" — which makes him sound like a lounge lizard. For once Kurlansky's
thoroughness goes missing; he fails to mention that Greene ran supplies
to Castro's men in the mountains — or at least claimed he did, most
recently in Gore Vidal's memoir "Point to Point Navigation" (2006).
"Havana" ends without a dramatic crescendo or sweeping conclusion. This
is no criticism. It could hardly be otherwise now that President Barak
Obama's opening to Cuba is being reassessed by the Trump administration.
But readers interested in the debate couldn't do better than inform
themselves with Kurlansky's book.
HAVANA
A Subtropical Delirium
By Mark Kurlansky
Bloomsbury. 259 pp. $26
Source: How Cubans' gift for improvization sustained the politics and
pleasures of Havana - The Washington Post -
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-cubans-gift-for-improvization-sustained-the-politics-and-pleasures-of-havana/2017/03/03/62d135c6-f53d-11e6-8d72-263470bf0401_story.html?utm_term=.dd7c190131af
Sunday, March 5, 2017
Cuba Seeks To Encourage Women To Enter Military Service
Cuba Seeks To Encourage Women To Enter Military Service / 14ymedio,
Mario Penton
14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 3 March 2017 – With the opportunity to
study at the university by passing the University entrance exams with
the "minimum score," the Ministry of Higher Education (MES) is offering
an incentive for young women who want to enlist in Military Service,
which is an obligation for men.
The announcement was made by the MES authorities during a press
conference this Thursday, where they stressed that the requirements for
regular entry to higher education for candidates who are not military
women remain the same: "Pass exams in Math, Spanish and History with a
minimum of 60 points" and compete in the provincial roster for a
university seat.
"They will be offered first-rate careers and the Ministry will do
everything possible to offer them the majors they request," said a
journalist at the meeting.
"An important element is that they will be given the possibility of
enrolling in the regular day course," he added.
The enrollment for the subjects that are studied in regular daytime
courses will be 36,705 places for the next course.
In the case of women who choose to wear the green uniform of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces, they will skip the requirement that they
compete with other candidates in their provinces and may enroll in the
universities simply by passing the entrance tests.
Recruits to compulsory military service in Cuba have the opportunity to
study a university career through Order 18. That law privileges the
recruits' access to the university the second year after joining the
FAR. In the case of women, they can start at the university the same
year they enlist.
After the arrival of Raúl Castro in 2006, university enrollment declined
sharply, a trend that contrasted with the increase in the previous 20
years, when enrollment in the social and human sciences increased by 4,000%.
The entrance exams for higher education also underwent changes, becoming
more rigorous.
Starting with Raul Castro's reforms, enrollment in the humanities
decreased by 83% while enrollment in the national sciences great by 13%.
In 2014, university enrollment decreased by 30%. In the 2014-2015
academic year there were 18,112 fewer university graduates than in the
previous academic period.
According to statistics provided by the Cuban Government, 356,600 women
worked in the country's defense, public administration and social
security in 2015, fewer than the 451,400 women that made up these
organizations in 2014.
The Army continues to be one of the main institutions in the life of the
Cuban nation. Its presence extends to the Government and controls the
Business Administration Group that manages the main tourist companies of
the country.
In 2016, Global Firepower placed Cuba in 79th position among the world's
major powers and one of the 10 most powerful military forces in Latin
America.
Source: Cuba Seeks To Encourage Women To Enter Military Service /
14ymedio, Mario Penton – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cuba-seeks-to-encourage-women-to-enter-military-service-14ymedio-mario-penton/
Mario Penton
14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 3 March 2017 – With the opportunity to
study at the university by passing the University entrance exams with
the "minimum score," the Ministry of Higher Education (MES) is offering
an incentive for young women who want to enlist in Military Service,
which is an obligation for men.
The announcement was made by the MES authorities during a press
conference this Thursday, where they stressed that the requirements for
regular entry to higher education for candidates who are not military
women remain the same: "Pass exams in Math, Spanish and History with a
minimum of 60 points" and compete in the provincial roster for a
university seat.
"They will be offered first-rate careers and the Ministry will do
everything possible to offer them the majors they request," said a
journalist at the meeting.
"An important element is that they will be given the possibility of
enrolling in the regular day course," he added.
The enrollment for the subjects that are studied in regular daytime
courses will be 36,705 places for the next course.
In the case of women who choose to wear the green uniform of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces, they will skip the requirement that they
compete with other candidates in their provinces and may enroll in the
universities simply by passing the entrance tests.
Recruits to compulsory military service in Cuba have the opportunity to
study a university career through Order 18. That law privileges the
recruits' access to the university the second year after joining the
FAR. In the case of women, they can start at the university the same
year they enlist.
After the arrival of Raúl Castro in 2006, university enrollment declined
sharply, a trend that contrasted with the increase in the previous 20
years, when enrollment in the social and human sciences increased by 4,000%.
The entrance exams for higher education also underwent changes, becoming
more rigorous.
Starting with Raul Castro's reforms, enrollment in the humanities
decreased by 83% while enrollment in the national sciences great by 13%.
In 2014, university enrollment decreased by 30%. In the 2014-2015
academic year there were 18,112 fewer university graduates than in the
previous academic period.
According to statistics provided by the Cuban Government, 356,600 women
worked in the country's defense, public administration and social
security in 2015, fewer than the 451,400 women that made up these
organizations in 2014.
The Army continues to be one of the main institutions in the life of the
Cuban nation. Its presence extends to the Government and controls the
Business Administration Group that manages the main tourist companies of
the country.
In 2016, Global Firepower placed Cuba in 79th position among the world's
major powers and one of the 10 most powerful military forces in Latin
America.
Source: Cuba Seeks To Encourage Women To Enter Military Service /
14ymedio, Mario Penton – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cuba-seeks-to-encourage-women-to-enter-military-service-14ymedio-mario-penton/
The Prosecution Asks For Three Years In Prison For The Opponent Eduardo Cardet
The Prosecution Asks For Three Years In Prison For The Opponent Eduardo
Cardet / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Havana, 3 March 2017 — This Friday, the trial against Eduardo
Cardet, a doctor and the national coordinator of the Christian
Liberation Movement (MCL), was concluded. The prosecution has maintained
its original request for three years of deprivation of liberty for the
opponent, who has been detained since November 30 and charged with
"attack on authority." The trial was held in the Municipal Court of
Gibara (Holguin) and the sentence will be handed down on March 20.
The arrest occurred in a violent manner outside the activist's home in
the municipality of Velasco, where he lives and works in the Family
Clinic office. He is charged with an alleged attack on a State Security
officer at the time of arrest.
Cardet's wife, Yaimaris Vecino, was able to enter the courtroom this
morning, but other MCL activists had to wait outside the
building. Marlenys Leyva, Cardet's mother-in-law, told 14ymedio that
only nine family members were allowed in.
A neighbor told 14ymedio that "Cardet was very calm and explained very
well what happened, without contradictions." He asserts that the
opponent has the truth in his hand and that the same could not be said
of the accusation. "They stumbled from beginning to end trying to impose
their lies," he explains.
According to Marlenys Leyva, the access road to the Tribunal was closed
from the early hours and there was a considerable number of members of
the Rapid Response Brigades around the outside of the building.
Cardet, 48, was denied bail on three occasions to await trial at his home
"The people of State Security are here, like Major Juan Carlos
Espinosa." He stated that not only was there a police presence outside
the building but there was also "a large group of officers inside."
Cardet, 48, was denied bail on three occasions to await trial at his
home. Set to begin on February 20, the process was postponed to Friday
without explaining the reasons to either the family or the accused.
According to Vecino, the defense lawyer, Eliécer La Rosa, called four
witnesses during the trial. The lawyer indicated that those presented by
the prosecution are members of the Rapid Response Brigades. For their
part, MCL activists have denounced Cardet's case as being "fabricated"
by the Cuban government to get him to stop his activism.
The extension of the preventive confinement of the opponent has
generated pronouncements of international organizations such as Amnesty
International, which declared him a prisoner of conscience. Similarly,
the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation
demanded his immediate release.
Source: The Prosecution Asks For Three Years In Prison For The Opponent
Eduardo Cardet / 14ymedio – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/the-prosecution-asks-for-three-years-in-prison-for-the-opponent-eduardo-cardet-14ymedio/
Cardet / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Havana, 3 March 2017 — This Friday, the trial against Eduardo
Cardet, a doctor and the national coordinator of the Christian
Liberation Movement (MCL), was concluded. The prosecution has maintained
its original request for three years of deprivation of liberty for the
opponent, who has been detained since November 30 and charged with
"attack on authority." The trial was held in the Municipal Court of
Gibara (Holguin) and the sentence will be handed down on March 20.
The arrest occurred in a violent manner outside the activist's home in
the municipality of Velasco, where he lives and works in the Family
Clinic office. He is charged with an alleged attack on a State Security
officer at the time of arrest.
Cardet's wife, Yaimaris Vecino, was able to enter the courtroom this
morning, but other MCL activists had to wait outside the
building. Marlenys Leyva, Cardet's mother-in-law, told 14ymedio that
only nine family members were allowed in.
A neighbor told 14ymedio that "Cardet was very calm and explained very
well what happened, without contradictions." He asserts that the
opponent has the truth in his hand and that the same could not be said
of the accusation. "They stumbled from beginning to end trying to impose
their lies," he explains.
According to Marlenys Leyva, the access road to the Tribunal was closed
from the early hours and there was a considerable number of members of
the Rapid Response Brigades around the outside of the building.
Cardet, 48, was denied bail on three occasions to await trial at his home
"The people of State Security are here, like Major Juan Carlos
Espinosa." He stated that not only was there a police presence outside
the building but there was also "a large group of officers inside."
Cardet, 48, was denied bail on three occasions to await trial at his
home. Set to begin on February 20, the process was postponed to Friday
without explaining the reasons to either the family or the accused.
According to Vecino, the defense lawyer, Eliécer La Rosa, called four
witnesses during the trial. The lawyer indicated that those presented by
the prosecution are members of the Rapid Response Brigades. For their
part, MCL activists have denounced Cardet's case as being "fabricated"
by the Cuban government to get him to stop his activism.
The extension of the preventive confinement of the opponent has
generated pronouncements of international organizations such as Amnesty
International, which declared him a prisoner of conscience. Similarly,
the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation
demanded his immediate release.
Source: The Prosecution Asks For Three Years In Prison For The Opponent
Eduardo Cardet / 14ymedio – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/the-prosecution-asks-for-three-years-in-prison-for-the-opponent-eduardo-cardet-14ymedio/
Cuban Government Sees IT As “A Weapon For The Defense Of The Revolution”
Cuban Government Sees IT As "A Weapon For The Defense Of The Revolution"
/ 14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez
14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 3 March 2017 — The role of
information technology as a "weapon for the defense of the Revolution"
has grabbed the attention of the latest meeting of the Council of
Ministers, held several weeks late this Tuesday in the Palace of the
Revolution and headed by President Raul Castro.
During the meeting, policies were approved for the improvement of the
system of standardization, measurement, quality and accreditation, as
well as fishing and food safety. But the leading role was taken by
Information and Communication Technologies, whose shortcomings were
expressed by General Leonardo Andollo Valdés, who is in charge of the
Commission for the Implementation and Development of Improvement of the
Economic and Social Model.
The military man stressed that "different actions have been undertaken
for the regulation of computerization in the country, however, a
comprehensive policy is required." He called for the creation of content
aimed at "strengthening the identity and preserving the values of
Cuban society."
At a time when new technologies are gaining a presence among the
population, the Government is still cautious about defining protocols
for computerizing activities of daily life. Doing legal paperwork on the
internet, or reserving a ticket, or taking money out of an ATM, are all
tasks that continue to be surrounded by complexities.
Andollo said that conditions will be created to facilitate both
communication between government institutions and procedures for the
population. Citizens have insisted on the need for these improvements,
since it is not comprehensible that in such a centralized state, many
procedures must be pursued separately with each entity.
On the other hand, while official reluctance remains, alternative
distribution networks have a wide assortment of devices, content and
"tricks" – such as NanoStations, Bullets, Rockets or Routers – to take
advantage of global developments in technology. On the streets of Cuba,
the most sophisticated smartphones coexist with the stories of those who
still haven't been able to afford their first cellphone.
The ministers met the day before the announcement of the prices of Nauta
Home, a service that provides Internet browsing from homes. After a
pilot test that included 2,000 homes in Havana's historic center, the
Telecommunications Company (ETECSA) announced the fees for the service,
which range from 15 to 115 Convertible Cuban pesos (CUC) for 30 hours of
connection. The available speeds start at 128 kilobytes and range up to
2 megabytes.
Source: Cuban Government Sees IT As "A Weapon For The Defense Of The
Revolution" / 14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cuban-government-sees-it-as-a-weapon-for-the-defense-of-the-revolution-14ymedio-marcelo-hernandez/
/ 14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez
14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 3 March 2017 — The role of
information technology as a "weapon for the defense of the Revolution"
has grabbed the attention of the latest meeting of the Council of
Ministers, held several weeks late this Tuesday in the Palace of the
Revolution and headed by President Raul Castro.
During the meeting, policies were approved for the improvement of the
system of standardization, measurement, quality and accreditation, as
well as fishing and food safety. But the leading role was taken by
Information and Communication Technologies, whose shortcomings were
expressed by General Leonardo Andollo Valdés, who is in charge of the
Commission for the Implementation and Development of Improvement of the
Economic and Social Model.
The military man stressed that "different actions have been undertaken
for the regulation of computerization in the country, however, a
comprehensive policy is required." He called for the creation of content
aimed at "strengthening the identity and preserving the values of
Cuban society."
At a time when new technologies are gaining a presence among the
population, the Government is still cautious about defining protocols
for computerizing activities of daily life. Doing legal paperwork on the
internet, or reserving a ticket, or taking money out of an ATM, are all
tasks that continue to be surrounded by complexities.
Andollo said that conditions will be created to facilitate both
communication between government institutions and procedures for the
population. Citizens have insisted on the need for these improvements,
since it is not comprehensible that in such a centralized state, many
procedures must be pursued separately with each entity.
On the other hand, while official reluctance remains, alternative
distribution networks have a wide assortment of devices, content and
"tricks" – such as NanoStations, Bullets, Rockets or Routers – to take
advantage of global developments in technology. On the streets of Cuba,
the most sophisticated smartphones coexist with the stories of those who
still haven't been able to afford their first cellphone.
The ministers met the day before the announcement of the prices of Nauta
Home, a service that provides Internet browsing from homes. After a
pilot test that included 2,000 homes in Havana's historic center, the
Telecommunications Company (ETECSA) announced the fees for the service,
which range from 15 to 115 Convertible Cuban pesos (CUC) for 30 hours of
connection. The available speeds start at 128 kilobytes and range up to
2 megabytes.
Source: Cuban Government Sees IT As "A Weapon For The Defense Of The
Revolution" / 14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cuban-government-sees-it-as-a-weapon-for-the-defense-of-the-revolution-14ymedio-marcelo-hernandez/
Luxury and Excess in Socialist Cuba
Luxury and Excess in Socialist Cuba / 14ymedio, Marta Requeiro
14ymedio, Marta Requeiro, Miami, 26 February 2017 – I don't know how my
mother managed always to know a little more about my friends and their
customs, and even those of the neighbors, because her limited time did
not allow her to gossip; but she continually warned me that things are
not always as they appear.
That is how I ended up having a lover who was to her liking. I confess
that he was attractive, but we had frequent differences when we talked
about topics of daily life that ended up opening a breach in the
relationship.
Contrary to what the Island's Government always suggested, without being
apparent except to the most rebellious or those with the "clinical eye,"
the beginning of the abysmal separation that today exists between the
two known population groups, the governing elite with all of its
coterie, and the people, was immediately conceived.
I realized soon after beginning the relationship with him that there
were people who projected an image of humility but, behind closed doors,
had covered all the basic necessities that for common mortals – like me
– were impossible. And more so, they came to be luxuries.
I later learned, thanks to that relationship, that there was a segment
of the population that accessed a life unknown to the majority of
Cubans. Ordinary Cubans who served once a month on the guard duty for
the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), more than
anything in order not to be robbed in the night by their own neighbors
and despoiled of what they had achieved with their own effort. Ordinary
Cubans who marched to the Plaza Jose Marti on dates commemorating some
important revolutionary event in order to sing hymns and feed their
faith in the process of change (a change that still has not arrived),
and who subsisted on what they would acquire through the ration booklet
and who always carried the empty bag that was indispensable when leaving
the house so as not to be surprised and unprepared for the arrival at
the warehouse of some product among those that were distributed only
sporadically and that, hopefully, would be something good.
Many families had only the ration book to count on to provide them with
petty rations, which, even if they were well managed and "cultivated,"
did not even allow them, at least once a day, to bring to the table a
serving of decent food.
Even so, the markets and warehouses of that time were not as poorly
supplied as now, and that little ration booklet meant something.
Already by the '80's the economic impoverishment, forecast only to get
worse, was obvious, today inhuman for the ordinary Cuban, who is always
the most affected.
As young as one was, one could tell. In most cases what was missing was
enough courage to publicly say it and in a form of protest, as happens
today with the internal dissidence that, in spite of the vexations that
those who dare to raise a voice are subjected to, there are more who
join them in order to protest their discontent.
It happened one day that a friend invited my lover to a house in Vedado
that belonged to one of his cousins who would turn fifteen. My mother,
knowing that I would go with him – after already having investigated his
background and knowing that he was from a good family – and making him
promise that we would be back early – granted me permission.
I had time to prepare my best clothes to go in accord with the occasion
since he advised me several days ahead that I had to go elegant.
The day and time came and we climbed into the car of his friend who,
accompanied by his girlfriend, would carry us to the party that would
take place in Vedado.
We went up 23rd Street and, now well into the trip, the driver took a
turn I could not say where; but there was a time when I did not exactly
know our location. I was not at all familiar with that place where the
car travelled.
The neighborhood that emerged before my eyes was at a glance far from my
neighborhood and what was familiar to me until then. It was composed of
beautiful houses with immense gardens that extended from the sidewalk to
the entrances, some with tall bars of black balusters. The car kept
going until it came to an immense wooden gate in a fortified wall that
extended for almost the whole block.
We got out, and the uninhibited driver went forward to press the
doorbell, which turned out to be an intercom. It was strange for me to
look around and see majestic houses, well-cared for, painted, to hear
silence and await a response from that artifact attached to the
concrete; in my neighborhood it sufficed to yell from the sidewalk the
name of the person sought for him to come out, and in the air you could
always hear the mixed sound of different rhythms and someone or other
calling vociferously highlighted by dogs barking in the distance.
Finally we heard a voice come from the apparatus asking "who is it" and
with a simple "I," said by the driver, the handle of the solid wooden
door was magically activated so we would enter invading the immense
barricade that impeded access and visibility from the streets to the
dwelling.
Passing the threshold, I marveled at the beauty of the immediate area.
If they spoke to me then I swear I do not remember it. I felt like and
must have had the same expression as Alice in Wonderland.
Some hundred guests had already arrived, all dressed elegantly. My
boyfriend, while we were there, asked me several times if I was alright.
Surely my unusual quietness was making my surprise evident.
I saw for the first time live – and in full color – a domestic service
team. Until then I had only seen it in foreign films. It was composed of
about half a dozen women dressed in green guayabera dresses and white
lace-up tennis shoes.
I saw there for the first time Pringles Potato Chips, and beer acquired
without the well-known scavenging for the five boxes on the ration book
only allocated if you were getting married or turning fifteen, and in
cans. I tasted – with a grimace – the Spanish brandy Terry Malla Dorada.
I felt strange before this conglomeration displaying the bourgeois
behavior criticized by the Government.
The two smorgasbord tables in the middle of the immense room with a
marble floor never emptied. Trays with all kinds of snacks and
sandwiches were brought by the waitresses.
Outside, next to the entryway, was the bar attended by two young men
with white guayaberas who asked what we wanted to drink or what we
desired, including glasses for the beer.
Later the rueda de cubana dance was unleashed to the furor of the music
of the Van Van hits and it reminded me how beaten up Cuba was.
I felt like leaving, I had nothing in common with the others there,
nothing was familiar and known to me except my companion and the music;
then I suggested that he invent an excuse and that we leave. That
opulence and excess were inconceivable for what was proclaimed from the
other side of the wall, although the reason was a fifteen-year-old's party.
I asked the friend to get us out of there and take us to the nearest bus
stop. He agreed after trying to persuade us, without success, and
wanting to know the reason for our sudden departure.
Outside I felt relief, and I breathed comfortably. I commented on it
with my fiancé, and he told me what little he knew of the mysterious
family of his friend, whom he believed was from State Security or a
bodyguard for someone important.
How was that way of life kept in silence, how was it not criticized on
television, and where did it come from and how was that luxury and
excess that was not just a festive event paid for? How was there a
capitalist form of existence inside Cuban territory, supposedly
socialist and egalitarian?
Back then it was undercover; today we know how it is and that the
behavior of the ruling leadership far from surprising us proves the
existence of two social classes or poles that they themselves do not
want to recognize as so disparate: The experts in training and
subjugating so that the Cuban people do what they say and not what they
do, and the people themselves.
We have learned about the excess expenses for recreation and tourism of
one of Fidel's sons and the carryings-on of Raul's grandson/bodyguard.
The international press and Cuban dissidence have unveiled those two
faces of those who for almost six decades have had control and power on
the largest of the Antilles.
It is true, looks deceive!
I met some people who lived in secret opulence supporting Castro-ism,
which stayed in power with a public image as protector of the underdogs.
It's not that I don't like the good life but that condition is given in
Cuba only to those who speak of equality without practicing it.
Opulence and abundance should belong to those who earn it, inherit it or
work for it, not to those who steal it. Submission is not dignified,
even less for so long a time. Let's hope that once and for all the Cuban
people open their eyes and reclaim the rights that have been denied them.
Translated by Mary Lou Keel
Source: Luxury and Excess in Socialist Cuba / 14ymedio, Marta Requeiro –
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/luxury-and-excess-in-socialist-cuba-14ymedio-marta-requeiro/
14ymedio, Marta Requeiro, Miami, 26 February 2017 – I don't know how my
mother managed always to know a little more about my friends and their
customs, and even those of the neighbors, because her limited time did
not allow her to gossip; but she continually warned me that things are
not always as they appear.
That is how I ended up having a lover who was to her liking. I confess
that he was attractive, but we had frequent differences when we talked
about topics of daily life that ended up opening a breach in the
relationship.
Contrary to what the Island's Government always suggested, without being
apparent except to the most rebellious or those with the "clinical eye,"
the beginning of the abysmal separation that today exists between the
two known population groups, the governing elite with all of its
coterie, and the people, was immediately conceived.
I realized soon after beginning the relationship with him that there
were people who projected an image of humility but, behind closed doors,
had covered all the basic necessities that for common mortals – like me
– were impossible. And more so, they came to be luxuries.
I later learned, thanks to that relationship, that there was a segment
of the population that accessed a life unknown to the majority of
Cubans. Ordinary Cubans who served once a month on the guard duty for
the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), more than
anything in order not to be robbed in the night by their own neighbors
and despoiled of what they had achieved with their own effort. Ordinary
Cubans who marched to the Plaza Jose Marti on dates commemorating some
important revolutionary event in order to sing hymns and feed their
faith in the process of change (a change that still has not arrived),
and who subsisted on what they would acquire through the ration booklet
and who always carried the empty bag that was indispensable when leaving
the house so as not to be surprised and unprepared for the arrival at
the warehouse of some product among those that were distributed only
sporadically and that, hopefully, would be something good.
Many families had only the ration book to count on to provide them with
petty rations, which, even if they were well managed and "cultivated,"
did not even allow them, at least once a day, to bring to the table a
serving of decent food.
Even so, the markets and warehouses of that time were not as poorly
supplied as now, and that little ration booklet meant something.
Already by the '80's the economic impoverishment, forecast only to get
worse, was obvious, today inhuman for the ordinary Cuban, who is always
the most affected.
As young as one was, one could tell. In most cases what was missing was
enough courage to publicly say it and in a form of protest, as happens
today with the internal dissidence that, in spite of the vexations that
those who dare to raise a voice are subjected to, there are more who
join them in order to protest their discontent.
It happened one day that a friend invited my lover to a house in Vedado
that belonged to one of his cousins who would turn fifteen. My mother,
knowing that I would go with him – after already having investigated his
background and knowing that he was from a good family – and making him
promise that we would be back early – granted me permission.
I had time to prepare my best clothes to go in accord with the occasion
since he advised me several days ahead that I had to go elegant.
The day and time came and we climbed into the car of his friend who,
accompanied by his girlfriend, would carry us to the party that would
take place in Vedado.
We went up 23rd Street and, now well into the trip, the driver took a
turn I could not say where; but there was a time when I did not exactly
know our location. I was not at all familiar with that place where the
car travelled.
The neighborhood that emerged before my eyes was at a glance far from my
neighborhood and what was familiar to me until then. It was composed of
beautiful houses with immense gardens that extended from the sidewalk to
the entrances, some with tall bars of black balusters. The car kept
going until it came to an immense wooden gate in a fortified wall that
extended for almost the whole block.
We got out, and the uninhibited driver went forward to press the
doorbell, which turned out to be an intercom. It was strange for me to
look around and see majestic houses, well-cared for, painted, to hear
silence and await a response from that artifact attached to the
concrete; in my neighborhood it sufficed to yell from the sidewalk the
name of the person sought for him to come out, and in the air you could
always hear the mixed sound of different rhythms and someone or other
calling vociferously highlighted by dogs barking in the distance.
Finally we heard a voice come from the apparatus asking "who is it" and
with a simple "I," said by the driver, the handle of the solid wooden
door was magically activated so we would enter invading the immense
barricade that impeded access and visibility from the streets to the
dwelling.
Passing the threshold, I marveled at the beauty of the immediate area.
If they spoke to me then I swear I do not remember it. I felt like and
must have had the same expression as Alice in Wonderland.
Some hundred guests had already arrived, all dressed elegantly. My
boyfriend, while we were there, asked me several times if I was alright.
Surely my unusual quietness was making my surprise evident.
I saw for the first time live – and in full color – a domestic service
team. Until then I had only seen it in foreign films. It was composed of
about half a dozen women dressed in green guayabera dresses and white
lace-up tennis shoes.
I saw there for the first time Pringles Potato Chips, and beer acquired
without the well-known scavenging for the five boxes on the ration book
only allocated if you were getting married or turning fifteen, and in
cans. I tasted – with a grimace – the Spanish brandy Terry Malla Dorada.
I felt strange before this conglomeration displaying the bourgeois
behavior criticized by the Government.
The two smorgasbord tables in the middle of the immense room with a
marble floor never emptied. Trays with all kinds of snacks and
sandwiches were brought by the waitresses.
Outside, next to the entryway, was the bar attended by two young men
with white guayaberas who asked what we wanted to drink or what we
desired, including glasses for the beer.
Later the rueda de cubana dance was unleashed to the furor of the music
of the Van Van hits and it reminded me how beaten up Cuba was.
I felt like leaving, I had nothing in common with the others there,
nothing was familiar and known to me except my companion and the music;
then I suggested that he invent an excuse and that we leave. That
opulence and excess were inconceivable for what was proclaimed from the
other side of the wall, although the reason was a fifteen-year-old's party.
I asked the friend to get us out of there and take us to the nearest bus
stop. He agreed after trying to persuade us, without success, and
wanting to know the reason for our sudden departure.
Outside I felt relief, and I breathed comfortably. I commented on it
with my fiancé, and he told me what little he knew of the mysterious
family of his friend, whom he believed was from State Security or a
bodyguard for someone important.
How was that way of life kept in silence, how was it not criticized on
television, and where did it come from and how was that luxury and
excess that was not just a festive event paid for? How was there a
capitalist form of existence inside Cuban territory, supposedly
socialist and egalitarian?
Back then it was undercover; today we know how it is and that the
behavior of the ruling leadership far from surprising us proves the
existence of two social classes or poles that they themselves do not
want to recognize as so disparate: The experts in training and
subjugating so that the Cuban people do what they say and not what they
do, and the people themselves.
We have learned about the excess expenses for recreation and tourism of
one of Fidel's sons and the carryings-on of Raul's grandson/bodyguard.
The international press and Cuban dissidence have unveiled those two
faces of those who for almost six decades have had control and power on
the largest of the Antilles.
It is true, looks deceive!
I met some people who lived in secret opulence supporting Castro-ism,
which stayed in power with a public image as protector of the underdogs.
It's not that I don't like the good life but that condition is given in
Cuba only to those who speak of equality without practicing it.
Opulence and abundance should belong to those who earn it, inherit it or
work for it, not to those who steal it. Submission is not dignified,
even less for so long a time. Let's hope that once and for all the Cuban
people open their eyes and reclaim the rights that have been denied them.
Translated by Mary Lou Keel
Source: Luxury and Excess in Socialist Cuba / 14ymedio, Marta Requeiro –
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/luxury-and-excess-in-socialist-cuba-14ymedio-marta-requeiro/
HUMAN RIGHTS? CUBA ARRESTS, ORDERS TRIAL FOR HOMESCHOOLING PARENTS
HUMAN RIGHTS? CUBA ARRESTS, ORDERS TRIAL FOR HOMESCHOOLING PARENTS
Father reports: 'They are making inquiries as if we were criminals'
Published: 16 hours ago
BOB UNRUH
Even as President Trump prepares to undo some of Barack Obama's
executive orders to normalize America's relations with Cuba, the
communist island nation remains far short of international human-rights
standards.
For example, government officials arrested and put on trial a mother and
a father for homeschooling their children.
Prosecution of homeschooling parents has been carried out in other
countries in recent years, including Germany, Ireland, Sweden and even
the United States. But the Home School Legal Defense Association, the
world's premiere homeschool advocates, says that doesn't make Cuba's
recent jailing of Ramon and Adya Rigal any the less a violation of their
rights.
The organization said the couple, arrested on Feb. 21, had decided to
homeschool because they wanted the best for their children.
"We wanted the freedom to give our children the education that we, the
parents, have chosen," Ramón explained. "As Article 26.3 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights says, every parent has the right
to give his children the education that he chooses."
The dispute erupted when authorities noticed their children were not in
the government's education program.
See what American education has become, in "Crimes of the Educators: How
Utopians Are Using Government Schools to Destroy America's Children."
The parents were visited by a team of police officials, a lawyer and
several teachers.
"They wanted to impose their position upon us and gave us a warning
notice and told us they would take us before the courts because of our
position on homeschooling," Ramón said in a statement released through
HSLDA.
"I visited authorities several times to find a peaceable solution to my
problem," he added. "I brought up the possibility of homeschooling under
their supervision. I was told that if I did, my wife and I would be
imprisoned and our children sent away."
It was the Municipal Office of Education in Guantanamo that explained
"in our system, homeschooling is not considered an educational
institution, as this term is basically used in countries with capitalist
foundations."
There are penalties, the government said, for allowing a minor to be
absent from school.
The officials then moved through the neighborhood to undermine the
pastor and his wife.
"They are making inquiries among our neighbors as if we were criminals
and creating a bad image of me as they go about homes making inquiries
about us," Ramón said.
The government was equally unconcerned about a letter from Michael
Donnelly, HSLDA's chief of global outreach. Officials simply didn't respond.
Donnelly had pointed out that "as a matter of international human rights
law, the right of parents to choose the kind of education their children
shall receive is recognized as a 'prior' right by the United Nations
Declaration on Human Rights in article 26(3)."
"When parents choose to home educate their children they are exercising
their own right as well as taking on the responsibility to provide an
education for their children," he said. … There is no human rights
framework or treaty that recognizes that an education must be provided
by government controlled schools."
He provided copies of the Berlin Declaration and the Rio Principles to
help officials understand.
See the parents awaiting processing by police:
The parents now been ordered to check in with police every week.
The HSLDA report from Donnelly explained: "Ramón wants to be able to
stay in Cuba to pastor his congregation. But it is no wonder that Ramón
and his family, after being treated like this simply because they
homeschool, have expressed a desire to seek refuge in a country that
would respect their rights to educate their children."
He noted that before 2014, when Obama and Raul Castro cut a deal to
restore ties with Cuba, there had been no official contact for decades.
See what American education has become, in "Crimes of the Educators: How
Utopians Are Using Government Schools to Destroy America's Children."
U.S. law still required the U.S. to oppose Cuba's human rights violations.
The White House said only last year that should Cuba want to become part
of the global community of nations, it needs to treat its citizens with
"certain minimum norms."
HSLDA said Cuba needs to acknowledge the rights of parents to homeschool
their children, and an online petition allows people to send that very
message to Cuba.
"We hope that members of Congress and the Trump administration will take
an interest in this case and take action to defend the Rigals and others
like them. Your support, through membership and the Homeschool Freedom
Fund, provides the resources which enable us to fight these important
battles for families who are being oppressed and mistreated for their
choice to homeschool," Donnelly's report said.
The threat of jail for homeschool parents is more common that probably
most people know.
Just this year an Ohio mom mother faced the possibility of conviction
for homeschooling. HSLDA said Valerie Bradley was convicted of being
"criminally reckless" over homeschooling.
In Germany, the Wunderlich family has been in the bull's-eye of a
long-running government campaign against homeschooling, repeatedly being
threatened with jail terms.
In 2013, they famously faced down police officials armed with a
battering ram at the home.
The SWAT team, authorized by a judge to use force if necessary, took the
children and told the Wunderlichs they wouldn't see them again soon
because they were violating federal law by homeschooling.
Although there was no claim the children were being mistreated, a team
of 20 social workers, police and special agents stormed the family's
home. The HSLDA said at the time that Judge Koenig of the Darmstadt
family court signed the order authorizing the immediate seizure of the
children by force.
Previously in Ireland, a homeschooling mother went to prison for 10 days.
In Germany, officials have left untouched the anti-homeschooling laws
from the Adolf Hitler era.
In 1937 Hitler said: "The youth of today is ever the people of tomorrow.
For this reason we have set before ourselves the task of inoculating our
youth with the spirit of this community of the people at a very early
age, at an age when human beings are still unperverted and therefore
unspoiled. This Reich stands, and it is building itself up for the
future, upon its youth. And this new Reich will give its youth to no
one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and
its own upbringing."
In 2006, a German education official said the government was working to
avoid future conflicts over homeschooling with one particular family by
looking "for possibilities to bring the religious convictions of the
family into line with the unalterable school attendance requirement."
HSLDA has documented that the German government considers homeschooling
to be child abuse, even though it is recognized as a right by the
Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the European Convention for the
Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the United Nations
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
In fact, a 16-year-old in Germany once was taken into custody and
detained in a mental facility because she was being homeschooled.
In nearby Sweden, WND also reported a case in which authorities snatched
a 7-year-old child from an airplane as the parents were moving to India
so they could homeschool.
Swedish courts have ordered Dominic Johansson to be permanently
separated from his parents, Christer and Annie Johansson. Christer later
was imprisoned in the fight.
The U.S. Department of Justice at the time, under Obama, said in court
it agrees with the philosophy of the German government that bureaucrats
can punish homeschooling parents.
In one case in Mississippi, HSLDA fought a decision from Judge Joe Dale
Walker of the state's 13th Chancery district court that included the
judge's threats to school officials.
"He threatened us," said a school official who later was served with an
order the judge wrote and signed for himself.
Walker about that time was ordered by the state Supreme Court to explain
his behavior.
Source: Human rights? Cuba arrests, orders trial for homeschooling
parents -
http://www.wnd.com/2017/03/human-rights-cuba-arrests-orders-trial-for-homeschooling-parents/
Father reports: 'They are making inquiries as if we were criminals'
Published: 16 hours ago
BOB UNRUH
Even as President Trump prepares to undo some of Barack Obama's
executive orders to normalize America's relations with Cuba, the
communist island nation remains far short of international human-rights
standards.
For example, government officials arrested and put on trial a mother and
a father for homeschooling their children.
Prosecution of homeschooling parents has been carried out in other
countries in recent years, including Germany, Ireland, Sweden and even
the United States. But the Home School Legal Defense Association, the
world's premiere homeschool advocates, says that doesn't make Cuba's
recent jailing of Ramon and Adya Rigal any the less a violation of their
rights.
The organization said the couple, arrested on Feb. 21, had decided to
homeschool because they wanted the best for their children.
"We wanted the freedom to give our children the education that we, the
parents, have chosen," Ramón explained. "As Article 26.3 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights says, every parent has the right
to give his children the education that he chooses."
The dispute erupted when authorities noticed their children were not in
the government's education program.
See what American education has become, in "Crimes of the Educators: How
Utopians Are Using Government Schools to Destroy America's Children."
The parents were visited by a team of police officials, a lawyer and
several teachers.
"They wanted to impose their position upon us and gave us a warning
notice and told us they would take us before the courts because of our
position on homeschooling," Ramón said in a statement released through
HSLDA.
"I visited authorities several times to find a peaceable solution to my
problem," he added. "I brought up the possibility of homeschooling under
their supervision. I was told that if I did, my wife and I would be
imprisoned and our children sent away."
It was the Municipal Office of Education in Guantanamo that explained
"in our system, homeschooling is not considered an educational
institution, as this term is basically used in countries with capitalist
foundations."
There are penalties, the government said, for allowing a minor to be
absent from school.
The officials then moved through the neighborhood to undermine the
pastor and his wife.
"They are making inquiries among our neighbors as if we were criminals
and creating a bad image of me as they go about homes making inquiries
about us," Ramón said.
The government was equally unconcerned about a letter from Michael
Donnelly, HSLDA's chief of global outreach. Officials simply didn't respond.
Donnelly had pointed out that "as a matter of international human rights
law, the right of parents to choose the kind of education their children
shall receive is recognized as a 'prior' right by the United Nations
Declaration on Human Rights in article 26(3)."
"When parents choose to home educate their children they are exercising
their own right as well as taking on the responsibility to provide an
education for their children," he said. … There is no human rights
framework or treaty that recognizes that an education must be provided
by government controlled schools."
He provided copies of the Berlin Declaration and the Rio Principles to
help officials understand.
See the parents awaiting processing by police:
The parents now been ordered to check in with police every week.
The HSLDA report from Donnelly explained: "Ramón wants to be able to
stay in Cuba to pastor his congregation. But it is no wonder that Ramón
and his family, after being treated like this simply because they
homeschool, have expressed a desire to seek refuge in a country that
would respect their rights to educate their children."
He noted that before 2014, when Obama and Raul Castro cut a deal to
restore ties with Cuba, there had been no official contact for decades.
See what American education has become, in "Crimes of the Educators: How
Utopians Are Using Government Schools to Destroy America's Children."
U.S. law still required the U.S. to oppose Cuba's human rights violations.
The White House said only last year that should Cuba want to become part
of the global community of nations, it needs to treat its citizens with
"certain minimum norms."
HSLDA said Cuba needs to acknowledge the rights of parents to homeschool
their children, and an online petition allows people to send that very
message to Cuba.
"We hope that members of Congress and the Trump administration will take
an interest in this case and take action to defend the Rigals and others
like them. Your support, through membership and the Homeschool Freedom
Fund, provides the resources which enable us to fight these important
battles for families who are being oppressed and mistreated for their
choice to homeschool," Donnelly's report said.
The threat of jail for homeschool parents is more common that probably
most people know.
Just this year an Ohio mom mother faced the possibility of conviction
for homeschooling. HSLDA said Valerie Bradley was convicted of being
"criminally reckless" over homeschooling.
In Germany, the Wunderlich family has been in the bull's-eye of a
long-running government campaign against homeschooling, repeatedly being
threatened with jail terms.
In 2013, they famously faced down police officials armed with a
battering ram at the home.
The SWAT team, authorized by a judge to use force if necessary, took the
children and told the Wunderlichs they wouldn't see them again soon
because they were violating federal law by homeschooling.
Although there was no claim the children were being mistreated, a team
of 20 social workers, police and special agents stormed the family's
home. The HSLDA said at the time that Judge Koenig of the Darmstadt
family court signed the order authorizing the immediate seizure of the
children by force.
Previously in Ireland, a homeschooling mother went to prison for 10 days.
In Germany, officials have left untouched the anti-homeschooling laws
from the Adolf Hitler era.
In 1937 Hitler said: "The youth of today is ever the people of tomorrow.
For this reason we have set before ourselves the task of inoculating our
youth with the spirit of this community of the people at a very early
age, at an age when human beings are still unperverted and therefore
unspoiled. This Reich stands, and it is building itself up for the
future, upon its youth. And this new Reich will give its youth to no
one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and
its own upbringing."
In 2006, a German education official said the government was working to
avoid future conflicts over homeschooling with one particular family by
looking "for possibilities to bring the religious convictions of the
family into line with the unalterable school attendance requirement."
HSLDA has documented that the German government considers homeschooling
to be child abuse, even though it is recognized as a right by the
Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the European Convention for the
Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the United Nations
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
In fact, a 16-year-old in Germany once was taken into custody and
detained in a mental facility because she was being homeschooled.
In nearby Sweden, WND also reported a case in which authorities snatched
a 7-year-old child from an airplane as the parents were moving to India
so they could homeschool.
Swedish courts have ordered Dominic Johansson to be permanently
separated from his parents, Christer and Annie Johansson. Christer later
was imprisoned in the fight.
The U.S. Department of Justice at the time, under Obama, said in court
it agrees with the philosophy of the German government that bureaucrats
can punish homeschooling parents.
In one case in Mississippi, HSLDA fought a decision from Judge Joe Dale
Walker of the state's 13th Chancery district court that included the
judge's threats to school officials.
"He threatened us," said a school official who later was served with an
order the judge wrote and signed for himself.
Walker about that time was ordered by the state Supreme Court to explain
his behavior.
Source: Human rights? Cuba arrests, orders trial for homeschooling
parents -
http://www.wnd.com/2017/03/human-rights-cuba-arrests-orders-trial-for-homeschooling-parents/
Pennsylvanians make a rum run to Cuba
Pennsylvanians make a rum run to Cuba
March 5, 2017 12:33 AM
By Brian O'Neill / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
HAVANA, Cuba — Pennsylvania legislators flew to Havana last month with a
simple idea for getting around the 55-year-old embargo against Cuba:
Trade our agricultural products for rum.
Two days in, the plan got even simpler: just buy a boatload of rum for
state liquor stores and forget the embargo. Republican state senate
leaders say the 21st Amendment, which ended Prohibition 30 years before
the embargo began, gives each state absolute control over alcoholic
beverages.
"You can't just suspend the federal constitution," said Sen. Chuck
McIlhinney, R-Bucks County and chair of the Senate Law & Justice Committee.
A Pennsylvania play for Cuban rum would be an extraordinary move at a
time when eased Cuban-American relations under President Barack Obama
have given way to mostly guesses about President Donald Trump's stance.
In the mid-1990s, Mr. Trump put out feelers for an investment in Cuba
once the restrictions were eased, but while the Pennsylvanians were away
on the island, Mr. Trump announced that he and Sen. Marco Rubio,
R-Florida, "have very similar views on Cuba.''
Mr. Rubio has been a vocal critic of Mr. Obama's Cuba policy. Toss in
conservative Keystone Republicans venturing into one of the last
outposts of socialism — and finding bureaucrats who have their own spin
on the art of the deal — and the plot is as thick as Cuban molasses.
If Mr. McIlhinney is right, and Pennsylvania has a winning
constitutional argument to bypass the embargo, it's one that might have
worked years ago. The Liquor Control Board is consulting its lawyers and
planning a strategy that could end with Pennsylvania being the only
place to buy Cuban rums — though likely not before a court battle.
Federal impoundment of cases of Cuban rum at the Philadelphia docks
until the case is decided in court wouldn't be the worst publicity; that
surely would make national news and increase the appetite for the
long-taboo spirits. But it's doubtful any ship owner would take that
risk. Ships docking at Cuban ports aren't allowed to dock at U.S. ports
for six months.
It seems more likely Pennsylvania would seek a declaratory judgment. A
federal judge could issue a legally binding decision before any rum
leaves Cuba.
The irony of the state Liquor Control Board being the vehicle for reform
is lost on no one. Senate President Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, said with
a smile that this transaction would be "from one controlled state to
another." But such a deal "will do more to help capitalism, and
capitalism breeds democracy," than the embargo ever did, Mr. McIlhinney
said.
"The Russians are gone,'' he said after five days and four nights in
Cuba. "I didn't see any."
If this deal moves on fast-forward, the multi-day talks Pennsylvania
state officials had with a tag team of Cuban government operatives in
around Havana may come to be seen as one uncommonly quiet revolution.
Three of the four minority and majority chairs of the Pennsylvania
legislative committees overseeing liquor, and two of the three LCB board
members, made the stops with other legislators, and they ran into
surprises from the get-go.
Tuesday morning, Feb. 21, AZ Cuba (Cuban Sugar Group)
Rafael Suarez Rivacoba, director of international relations for the
sugar group, asked through an interpreter why all these visitors were
there. When he heard "rum," Mr. Rivacoba shared a story familiar to
every Western Pennsylvanian: the sudden collapse of a single-product
economy.
Before the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, Mr. Rivacoba said, Cuba
produced seven to eight million tons of sugar a year. The implosion of
the Soviet bloc meant the disappearance of Cuba's principal sugar
market. One hundred sugar mills shut down.
The 1990s were known as Cuba's "Special Period." When the Russians left,
so did their oil, and that left Cuba reeling. By 2004, the country was
producing only 1 million tons of sugar per year, Mr. Rivacoba said. Now
it's about twice that but there's capacity to double production again —
if there's a market.
Meantime, his colleague Rodrigo Diaz Sandoval, director of the group's
division of logistics and exports, said, "We think we have the rum that
an American citizen deserves to drink."
When LCB board member Mike Negra said the Pennsylvanians came seeking to
buy, Mr. Rivacoba then broke in with a question that might as well have
been translated as "so what's taking you?" He had a meeting that
afternoon with the rum group, and it would be a technical detail to
create 750-milliliter bottles for the U.S. market.
Later Tuesday morning, Cuba Chamber of Commerce
Cuba's promoters offered a power-point presentation, touting the
country's central location in the Caribbean in the same way
Pennsylvania's promoters do when promoting the commonwealth's proximity
to U.S. population centers. The visual message: You could do well here.
Cuba trades with more than 75 countries and trade has tripled in the
past 10 years, the island's boosters said. By the time they showed
slides of the Mariel Special Development Zone, "the most modern
container port in the Americas," they were sounding more like students
of Alexander Hamilton than of Karl Marx.
Cuba seeks foreign investment, they said. It doesn't have enough
domestic savings to provide enough capital. They called it "updating of
the Cuban economic model."
So when the Pennsylvanians raised the idea of bartering agricultural
products in exchange for rum, they were told that in bygone days Cuba
sent tons of sugar, rum and citrus fruits to socialist countries in
exchange for oil, equipment and food. They're past that now. They like
to be paid in cash.
Each time the Pennsylvanians tried to talk up a creative international
deal, the Cubans steered attention to the tax breaks for joint ventures
with the Cubans in Mariel, a port made famous by the 1980 boat lift.
"We want to end that blockade," Orlando Hernandez Guillen, president of
the chamber, said.
Afterward, Mike Diven, the former state legislator from Brookline who
organized this trip as a combined amateur boxing exhibition/trade
mission, betrayed no discouragement.
"I didn't hear a solid no," Mr. Diven said. "I hear it's complicated."
Tuesday afternoon, Food Industry Ministry
Juan B. Gonzalez Escalona, president of CubaRon, could match a football
coach at halftime with his enthusiasm for his product. He told
Pennsylvanians that he's sure Americans sometimes smell Cuban rum
wafting across the Straits of Florida. He'd like to end our frustration
"for humanitarian reasons.
Constellation Brands, the Fortune 500 company based in western New York
that imports beers, wines and liquors, has visited a couple of times, he
said, and was expected back in a few days. (A spokesperson for
Constellation Brands said in an email Wednesday, "We don't comment on
rumor or speculation.")
Cuba's message was clear. The island may have problems, but their rum
has international appeal. Cuba, in a joint venture with Pernod Ricard of
France since 1994, sells rum in more than 100 countries.
Pennsylvanians touted their uncommon buying power with $2.4 billion in
LCB sales last year (including taxes, which they didn't mention). Nearly
$147 million of that was in rum.
Betsy Diaz Velasquez, the deputy minister of the food industries, seemed
unimpressed. She replied that Pennsylvania is only seventh among the 50
states in rum consumption. Still, she said, she'd like Cuban products to
be on Pennsylvania's list of more than 100 rum labels.
When Mr. Gonzalez said the rum is aged in American oak barrels, Rep.
Mark Mustio, R-North Fayette, asked where they got them.
American barrels "come every year to Cuba and we don't know how," Mr.
Gonzalez said slyly.
Mr. Scarnati, whose sprawling district in the state's northwestern tier
has a battered timber industry, said he'd love to have a new trading
partner for Pennsylvania oak.
"We'll all go home and be ambassadors for Cuba and encourage our
government to end this unjust embargo," Rep. Adam Harris, R-Juniata
County and chair of the House Liquor Committee, said.
After samples of rum were offered and swallowed,Ms. Velazquez predicted
that Cubans would defeat the visiting Americans in the next afternoon's
boxing tournament in Pinar del Rio. "Our boxers will have rum in their
blood," she said and, sure enough, the Cubans took six of the nine bouts.
Thursday morning, Feb. 23, Matanzas Province Government Building, Matanzas
"Our eyes continue to be opened," Mr. McIlhinney told provincial
leaders. "We wonder out loud why we are continuing with this boycott
when the threat to the U.S. ended a long time ago."
Mr. Scarnati said Tuesday it's pretty clear the embargo has devastated
Cuba but has done nothing to help the U.S. He'll have to gauge whether
there's an appetite in Harrisburg for a legislative resolution to ask
Congress to end the embargo proclaimed by President John F. Kennedy in
February 1962.
John Nichols, a Penn State professor emeritus of communications who has
been making trips to Cuba for 40 years, said before anyone even got on
the plane, "Things work slowly in Cuba. Progress has to be built over a
number of years through a lot of personal relationships."
If Pennsylvania does get Cuban rum into the state stores, it will be
from a scouting mission that used no taxpayer money. All seven
legislators, four Republicans and three Democrats, used either personal
or campaign money to pay for their trips, they said in individual
interviews. Two LCB board members, Mike Negra and Michael Newsome, each
used $4,600 from the State Stores Fund to cover expenses. That comes
from liquor sales and is commonly used for buying trips.
Neither the rum nor any domestic monopoly on its sales would last long
if Pennsylvania gets Cuban rum first. Seventeen states control wholesale
spirits. If Pennsylvania's constitutional argument prevails, Mr.
McIlhinney expects the entire embargo to be broken.
"I'm not trying actually to be bootlegger," he said. "I would like the
question raised and settled.''
Brian O'Neill: boneill@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1947 or on Twitter
@brotheroneill
Source: Pennsylvanians make a rum run to Cuba | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
-
http://www.post-gazette.com/news/state/2017/03/05/Pennsylvanians-make-a-rum-run-to-Cuba/stories/201703050065
March 5, 2017 12:33 AM
By Brian O'Neill / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
HAVANA, Cuba — Pennsylvania legislators flew to Havana last month with a
simple idea for getting around the 55-year-old embargo against Cuba:
Trade our agricultural products for rum.
Two days in, the plan got even simpler: just buy a boatload of rum for
state liquor stores and forget the embargo. Republican state senate
leaders say the 21st Amendment, which ended Prohibition 30 years before
the embargo began, gives each state absolute control over alcoholic
beverages.
"You can't just suspend the federal constitution," said Sen. Chuck
McIlhinney, R-Bucks County and chair of the Senate Law & Justice Committee.
A Pennsylvania play for Cuban rum would be an extraordinary move at a
time when eased Cuban-American relations under President Barack Obama
have given way to mostly guesses about President Donald Trump's stance.
In the mid-1990s, Mr. Trump put out feelers for an investment in Cuba
once the restrictions were eased, but while the Pennsylvanians were away
on the island, Mr. Trump announced that he and Sen. Marco Rubio,
R-Florida, "have very similar views on Cuba.''
Mr. Rubio has been a vocal critic of Mr. Obama's Cuba policy. Toss in
conservative Keystone Republicans venturing into one of the last
outposts of socialism — and finding bureaucrats who have their own spin
on the art of the deal — and the plot is as thick as Cuban molasses.
If Mr. McIlhinney is right, and Pennsylvania has a winning
constitutional argument to bypass the embargo, it's one that might have
worked years ago. The Liquor Control Board is consulting its lawyers and
planning a strategy that could end with Pennsylvania being the only
place to buy Cuban rums — though likely not before a court battle.
Federal impoundment of cases of Cuban rum at the Philadelphia docks
until the case is decided in court wouldn't be the worst publicity; that
surely would make national news and increase the appetite for the
long-taboo spirits. But it's doubtful any ship owner would take that
risk. Ships docking at Cuban ports aren't allowed to dock at U.S. ports
for six months.
It seems more likely Pennsylvania would seek a declaratory judgment. A
federal judge could issue a legally binding decision before any rum
leaves Cuba.
The irony of the state Liquor Control Board being the vehicle for reform
is lost on no one. Senate President Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, said with
a smile that this transaction would be "from one controlled state to
another." But such a deal "will do more to help capitalism, and
capitalism breeds democracy," than the embargo ever did, Mr. McIlhinney
said.
"The Russians are gone,'' he said after five days and four nights in
Cuba. "I didn't see any."
If this deal moves on fast-forward, the multi-day talks Pennsylvania
state officials had with a tag team of Cuban government operatives in
around Havana may come to be seen as one uncommonly quiet revolution.
Three of the four minority and majority chairs of the Pennsylvania
legislative committees overseeing liquor, and two of the three LCB board
members, made the stops with other legislators, and they ran into
surprises from the get-go.
Tuesday morning, Feb. 21, AZ Cuba (Cuban Sugar Group)
Rafael Suarez Rivacoba, director of international relations for the
sugar group, asked through an interpreter why all these visitors were
there. When he heard "rum," Mr. Rivacoba shared a story familiar to
every Western Pennsylvanian: the sudden collapse of a single-product
economy.
Before the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, Mr. Rivacoba said, Cuba
produced seven to eight million tons of sugar a year. The implosion of
the Soviet bloc meant the disappearance of Cuba's principal sugar
market. One hundred sugar mills shut down.
The 1990s were known as Cuba's "Special Period." When the Russians left,
so did their oil, and that left Cuba reeling. By 2004, the country was
producing only 1 million tons of sugar per year, Mr. Rivacoba said. Now
it's about twice that but there's capacity to double production again —
if there's a market.
Meantime, his colleague Rodrigo Diaz Sandoval, director of the group's
division of logistics and exports, said, "We think we have the rum that
an American citizen deserves to drink."
When LCB board member Mike Negra said the Pennsylvanians came seeking to
buy, Mr. Rivacoba then broke in with a question that might as well have
been translated as "so what's taking you?" He had a meeting that
afternoon with the rum group, and it would be a technical detail to
create 750-milliliter bottles for the U.S. market.
Later Tuesday morning, Cuba Chamber of Commerce
Cuba's promoters offered a power-point presentation, touting the
country's central location in the Caribbean in the same way
Pennsylvania's promoters do when promoting the commonwealth's proximity
to U.S. population centers. The visual message: You could do well here.
Cuba trades with more than 75 countries and trade has tripled in the
past 10 years, the island's boosters said. By the time they showed
slides of the Mariel Special Development Zone, "the most modern
container port in the Americas," they were sounding more like students
of Alexander Hamilton than of Karl Marx.
Cuba seeks foreign investment, they said. It doesn't have enough
domestic savings to provide enough capital. They called it "updating of
the Cuban economic model."
So when the Pennsylvanians raised the idea of bartering agricultural
products in exchange for rum, they were told that in bygone days Cuba
sent tons of sugar, rum and citrus fruits to socialist countries in
exchange for oil, equipment and food. They're past that now. They like
to be paid in cash.
Each time the Pennsylvanians tried to talk up a creative international
deal, the Cubans steered attention to the tax breaks for joint ventures
with the Cubans in Mariel, a port made famous by the 1980 boat lift.
"We want to end that blockade," Orlando Hernandez Guillen, president of
the chamber, said.
Afterward, Mike Diven, the former state legislator from Brookline who
organized this trip as a combined amateur boxing exhibition/trade
mission, betrayed no discouragement.
"I didn't hear a solid no," Mr. Diven said. "I hear it's complicated."
Tuesday afternoon, Food Industry Ministry
Juan B. Gonzalez Escalona, president of CubaRon, could match a football
coach at halftime with his enthusiasm for his product. He told
Pennsylvanians that he's sure Americans sometimes smell Cuban rum
wafting across the Straits of Florida. He'd like to end our frustration
"for humanitarian reasons.
Constellation Brands, the Fortune 500 company based in western New York
that imports beers, wines and liquors, has visited a couple of times, he
said, and was expected back in a few days. (A spokesperson for
Constellation Brands said in an email Wednesday, "We don't comment on
rumor or speculation.")
Cuba's message was clear. The island may have problems, but their rum
has international appeal. Cuba, in a joint venture with Pernod Ricard of
France since 1994, sells rum in more than 100 countries.
Pennsylvanians touted their uncommon buying power with $2.4 billion in
LCB sales last year (including taxes, which they didn't mention). Nearly
$147 million of that was in rum.
Betsy Diaz Velasquez, the deputy minister of the food industries, seemed
unimpressed. She replied that Pennsylvania is only seventh among the 50
states in rum consumption. Still, she said, she'd like Cuban products to
be on Pennsylvania's list of more than 100 rum labels.
When Mr. Gonzalez said the rum is aged in American oak barrels, Rep.
Mark Mustio, R-North Fayette, asked where they got them.
American barrels "come every year to Cuba and we don't know how," Mr.
Gonzalez said slyly.
Mr. Scarnati, whose sprawling district in the state's northwestern tier
has a battered timber industry, said he'd love to have a new trading
partner for Pennsylvania oak.
"We'll all go home and be ambassadors for Cuba and encourage our
government to end this unjust embargo," Rep. Adam Harris, R-Juniata
County and chair of the House Liquor Committee, said.
After samples of rum were offered and swallowed,Ms. Velazquez predicted
that Cubans would defeat the visiting Americans in the next afternoon's
boxing tournament in Pinar del Rio. "Our boxers will have rum in their
blood," she said and, sure enough, the Cubans took six of the nine bouts.
Thursday morning, Feb. 23, Matanzas Province Government Building, Matanzas
"Our eyes continue to be opened," Mr. McIlhinney told provincial
leaders. "We wonder out loud why we are continuing with this boycott
when the threat to the U.S. ended a long time ago."
Mr. Scarnati said Tuesday it's pretty clear the embargo has devastated
Cuba but has done nothing to help the U.S. He'll have to gauge whether
there's an appetite in Harrisburg for a legislative resolution to ask
Congress to end the embargo proclaimed by President John F. Kennedy in
February 1962.
John Nichols, a Penn State professor emeritus of communications who has
been making trips to Cuba for 40 years, said before anyone even got on
the plane, "Things work slowly in Cuba. Progress has to be built over a
number of years through a lot of personal relationships."
If Pennsylvania does get Cuban rum into the state stores, it will be
from a scouting mission that used no taxpayer money. All seven
legislators, four Republicans and three Democrats, used either personal
or campaign money to pay for their trips, they said in individual
interviews. Two LCB board members, Mike Negra and Michael Newsome, each
used $4,600 from the State Stores Fund to cover expenses. That comes
from liquor sales and is commonly used for buying trips.
Neither the rum nor any domestic monopoly on its sales would last long
if Pennsylvania gets Cuban rum first. Seventeen states control wholesale
spirits. If Pennsylvania's constitutional argument prevails, Mr.
McIlhinney expects the entire embargo to be broken.
"I'm not trying actually to be bootlegger," he said. "I would like the
question raised and settled.''
Brian O'Neill: boneill@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1947 or on Twitter
@brotheroneill
Source: Pennsylvanians make a rum run to Cuba | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
-
http://www.post-gazette.com/news/state/2017/03/05/Pennsylvanians-make-a-rum-run-to-Cuba/stories/201703050065
Saturday, March 4, 2017
Cuba “Revolutionary Integration” As A Form Of Social Control
Cuba: "Revolutionary Integration" As A Form Of Social Control / Cubalex
Cubalex, 2 March 2017 – It is common for people living in Cuba, once
they start school at about six and pass from one educational level to
another, to join social and mass organizations. First, in elementary
school, the Pioneers, and then, at age 14, the social and mass
organization and later the student organizations.
Once they start their working life they join the country's only union,
and the organization for their professional sector. Most do not have any
assigned function, but they pay their dues.
The rule is that everyone is integrated into several of the social and
mass organizations — all of them the only ones of their kind in the
country — according to their educational level, their professional
sector or specific interests. Their lives, social and work, and that of
their families depend on this integration and on participating in
patriotic, political and military activities.
"Revolutionary integration" violates freedom of association, which
includes the right not to be forced to join an organization. It is a
requirement to obtain a university degree, to get a job, or to ascend in
the workplace, where one also is required to be integrated into
political organizations.
State institutions, including schools, demand and verify your
membership. Sometimes directly, others through a business subordinate to
the Ministry of the Interior. Security and Protection, or the organs of
criminal investigation, coordiante with the social and mass organizations.
For example, the administration of the Committees for the Defense of the
Revolution (CDR), when a case is being investigated, provide private and
intimate information and opinions, in many cases personal and
subjective, that are later used by the prosecutor.
In the sentences of the courts, in addition to the personal data, it is
taken into account whether the accused person participates in activities
"targeted or programmed by mass organizations" or whether the person
publicly expresses disagreement with socialist principles. This
determines whether he is good or bad person.
"Revolutionary integration" is the mechanism of social control that
allows the political group in power to establish systems of rewards and
punishments. People who do not join these organizations for religious
reasons, or who publicly express their political opinions, are condemned
to work immobility, isolation and social discrimination.
Source: Cuba: "Revolutionary Integration" As A Form Of Social Control /
Cubalex – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cuba-revolutionary-integration-as-a-form-of-social-control-cubalex/
Cubalex, 2 March 2017 – It is common for people living in Cuba, once
they start school at about six and pass from one educational level to
another, to join social and mass organizations. First, in elementary
school, the Pioneers, and then, at age 14, the social and mass
organization and later the student organizations.
Once they start their working life they join the country's only union,
and the organization for their professional sector. Most do not have any
assigned function, but they pay their dues.
The rule is that everyone is integrated into several of the social and
mass organizations — all of them the only ones of their kind in the
country — according to their educational level, their professional
sector or specific interests. Their lives, social and work, and that of
their families depend on this integration and on participating in
patriotic, political and military activities.
"Revolutionary integration" violates freedom of association, which
includes the right not to be forced to join an organization. It is a
requirement to obtain a university degree, to get a job, or to ascend in
the workplace, where one also is required to be integrated into
political organizations.
State institutions, including schools, demand and verify your
membership. Sometimes directly, others through a business subordinate to
the Ministry of the Interior. Security and Protection, or the organs of
criminal investigation, coordiante with the social and mass organizations.
For example, the administration of the Committees for the Defense of the
Revolution (CDR), when a case is being investigated, provide private and
intimate information and opinions, in many cases personal and
subjective, that are later used by the prosecutor.
In the sentences of the courts, in addition to the personal data, it is
taken into account whether the accused person participates in activities
"targeted or programmed by mass organizations" or whether the person
publicly expresses disagreement with socialist principles. This
determines whether he is good or bad person.
"Revolutionary integration" is the mechanism of social control that
allows the political group in power to establish systems of rewards and
punishments. People who do not join these organizations for religious
reasons, or who publicly express their political opinions, are condemned
to work immobility, isolation and social discrimination.
Source: Cuba: "Revolutionary Integration" As A Form Of Social Control /
Cubalex – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cuba-revolutionary-integration-as-a-form-of-social-control-cubalex/
The Ladies In Green Can Not Sell Their Lettuce
The Ladies In Green Can Not Sell Their Lettuce / 14ymedio, Havana
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 2 March 2017 — A few minutes after noon,
the Lettuce Women stood on the corner of Obispo and Mercaderes streets
in Old Havana. They came with their unique message that promotes healthy
food and a love of animals. Under the March sun, their lettuce bikinis
generated more curiosity than their environmentalist discourse.
From a lime-green suitcase, activists pulled out magazines and ad
sheets to promote a vegan diet. A campaign that does not stop generating
confusion in Cuba, a country obsessed with meat and where the dream of
many people is to eat a steak every day.
At first the activists were surrounded by more press than public, but
their scanty clothing soon caused an uproar. Under the eyes of some
policemen the Ladies responded to questions from journalists and those
who wanted to know what it's like to be a vegan.
The women declared that, since their arrival on the island, they have
viewed the situation of the animals with "a lot of sadness," according
to Yerica Sojo, a Puerto Rican who has been doing this for more than ten
years, "there are many [animals] abandoned in the street who need help."
Some national groups do "a very good job of caring for them and
promoting compassion," like the Association for the Protection of
Animals and Plants.
This Friday the Ladies in Green plan to go to different schools to chat
with the students.
With regards to the Cuban diet they said it "contains a lot of animals"
but also "there are many fruits, vegetables and grains that can be
eaten" and that one can be vegan and "keep the Cuban culture of eating
rice, beans, bananas."
Among the recipes they distributed to the public, there were some to
prepare potato croquettes or mango ceviche.
Near the place where the activists engaged with the public is the San
Rafael street market. This week a head of lettuces cost about 10 Cuban
pesos (CUP) in the market, which is equivalent to the amount of money a
retiree receives on their pension for a full day.
Eating vegetables and legumes is often a luxury that many Cubans cannot
afford.
In the final minutes of the presentation the women took out some pens
shaped like fruits and vegetables from the bottom of their suitcase and
tried to distribute them among those present. However, a dozen people
rushed over the suitcase and grabbed all that were left.
The Lettuce Women promised to "warm up Havana" with "advice on how to
save animals, be healthy and protect the environment while being
vegans." But there were more lewd looks at their bodies than interest in
their message.
Source: The Ladies In Green Can Not Sell Their Lettuce / 14ymedio,
Havana – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/the-ladies-in-green-can-not-sell-their-lettuce-14ymedio-havana/
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 2 March 2017 — A few minutes after noon,
the Lettuce Women stood on the corner of Obispo and Mercaderes streets
in Old Havana. They came with their unique message that promotes healthy
food and a love of animals. Under the March sun, their lettuce bikinis
generated more curiosity than their environmentalist discourse.
From a lime-green suitcase, activists pulled out magazines and ad
sheets to promote a vegan diet. A campaign that does not stop generating
confusion in Cuba, a country obsessed with meat and where the dream of
many people is to eat a steak every day.
At first the activists were surrounded by more press than public, but
their scanty clothing soon caused an uproar. Under the eyes of some
policemen the Ladies responded to questions from journalists and those
who wanted to know what it's like to be a vegan.
The women declared that, since their arrival on the island, they have
viewed the situation of the animals with "a lot of sadness," according
to Yerica Sojo, a Puerto Rican who has been doing this for more than ten
years, "there are many [animals] abandoned in the street who need help."
Some national groups do "a very good job of caring for them and
promoting compassion," like the Association for the Protection of
Animals and Plants.
This Friday the Ladies in Green plan to go to different schools to chat
with the students.
With regards to the Cuban diet they said it "contains a lot of animals"
but also "there are many fruits, vegetables and grains that can be
eaten" and that one can be vegan and "keep the Cuban culture of eating
rice, beans, bananas."
Among the recipes they distributed to the public, there were some to
prepare potato croquettes or mango ceviche.
Near the place where the activists engaged with the public is the San
Rafael street market. This week a head of lettuces cost about 10 Cuban
pesos (CUP) in the market, which is equivalent to the amount of money a
retiree receives on their pension for a full day.
Eating vegetables and legumes is often a luxury that many Cubans cannot
afford.
In the final minutes of the presentation the women took out some pens
shaped like fruits and vegetables from the bottom of their suitcase and
tried to distribute them among those present. However, a dozen people
rushed over the suitcase and grabbed all that were left.
The Lettuce Women promised to "warm up Havana" with "advice on how to
save animals, be healthy and protect the environment while being
vegans." But there were more lewd looks at their bodies than interest in
their message.
Source: The Ladies In Green Can Not Sell Their Lettuce / 14ymedio,
Havana – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/the-ladies-in-green-can-not-sell-their-lettuce-14ymedio-havana/
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