"Ladies in White" say Cuba prisoner plight goes on
"Ladies in White" say Cuba prisoner plight goes onReutersBy Jeff Franks Jeff Franks – Sun May 30, 6:20 pm ET
HAVANA (Reuters) – The Cuban government has not yet improved conditions for political prisoners or released any as had been hoped after recent talks between Catholic Church leaders and President Raul Castro, Cuba's "Ladies in White" dissident group said Sunday.
Speaking to reporters after the group's traditional Sunday march protesting the 2003 imprisonment of their loved ones, leader Laura Pollan said they had heard nothing from the government about its plans.
"Here, nothing is known. Everything is a state secret," said Pollan, whose husband, dissident Hector Maseda, is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
Catholic officials said Castro promised in a May 19 meeting with Cardinal Jaime Ortega to move prisoners soon to jails closer to home or, if they were sick, into hospitals.
According to some reports, he also signaled the possible release of an unknown number of prisoners.
The high-level talks preceded a mid-June visit to Cuba by Vatican Foreign Secretary Dominque Mamberti.
So far, Pollan said, the only thing certain is that no prisoners have been moved or released.
"Everything is speculative; there is not thing concrete," she said.
The Ladies in White have staged weekly protest marches since the March 2003 arrest of 75 dissidents, many of whom are their husbands or sons and most still behind bars.
After Sunday's march by 33 white-clad women, Pollan told them it was important for them and their imprisoned family members, particularly those who are ill, to remain calm while waiting for the promised changes.
"Anxiety can produce strong stress and we don't want them to get sicker," she told the women.
At least 26 of the prisoners are said to be in ill health. Former prisoner Guillermo Farinas has been on a hunger strike for more than three months demanding their release.
His hunger strike followed the February 23 death of hunger striking prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo, which prompted international condemnation of Cuban human rights.
In April, the Cuban government tried to stop the women from staging their Sunday marches and brought in pro-government counter protesters to harass them.
But Ortega intervened, and officials allowed the marches to go on, at least for now.
Human rights advocates say Cuba has about 190 political prisoners in all. The Cuban government views them as mercenaries working for the United States and other enemies.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100530/wl_nm/us_cuba_dissidents_1
Aid or undue influence? Cuba sends Venezuela experts to train military, work on security
Aid or undue influence? Cuba sends Venezuela experts to train military, work on securityBy Ian James (CP)
CARACAS, Venezuela — It's no longer just doctors, nurses and teachers. Cuba now sends Venezuela troops to train its military, and computer experts to work on its passport and identification-card systems.
Critics fear that what is portrayed by both countries as a friendship committed to countering U.S. influence in the region is in fact growing into far more. They see a seasoned authoritarian government helping President Hugo Chavez to protect his power through Cuban-style controls, in exchange for oil. The Cuban government routinely spies on dissidents and maintains tight controls on information and travel.
Cubans are involved in Venezuelan defence and communications systems to the point that they would know how to run both in a crisis, said Antonio Rivero, a former brigadier general whose break with Chavez over the issue has grabbed national attention.
"They've crossed a line," Rivero said in a May interview. "They've gone beyond what should be permitted and what an alliance should be."
Cuban officials dismiss claims of outsized influence, saying their focus is social programs. Chavez recently scolded a Venezuelan reporter on live television for asking what the Cubans are doing in the military.
"Cuba helps us modestly with some things that I'm not going to detail," Chavez said. "Everything Cuba does for Venezuela is to strengthen the homeland, which belongs to them as well."
But the communist government has a strong interest in securing the status quo because Venezuela is the island's principal economic benefactor, Rivero says.
As Cuba struggles with economic troubles, including shortages of food and other basics, $7 billion in annual trade with Venezuela has provided a key boost — especially more than 100,000 barrels of oil Chavez's government sends each day in exchange for services.
Rivero, who retired early in protest and now plans to run for a seat in the National Assembly, said Cuban officers have sat in high-level meetings, trained snipers, gained detailed knowledge of communications and advised the military on underground bunkers built to store and conceal weapons.
"They know which weapons they have in Venezuela that they could count on at any given time," he said.
Cuban advisers also have been helping with a digital radio communications system for security forces, meaning they have sensitive information on antenna locations and radio frequencies, Rivero said.
If Chavez were to lose elections in 2012 or be forced out of office — like he was during a brief 2002 coup — it's even feasible the Cubans could "become part of a guerrilla force," Rivero said. "They know where our weapons are, they know where our command offices are, they know where our vital areas of communications are."
Chavez has acknowledged that Cuban troops are teaching his soldiers how to repair radios in tanks and to store ammunition, among other tasks. No one complained years ago, he added, when Venezuela received such technical support from the U.S. military.
Cuba and Venezuela are so unified that they are practically "one single nation," says Chavez, who often visits his mentor Fidel Castro in Havana and sometimes flies on a Cuban jet.
The countries plan to link up physically next year with an undersea telecommunications cable. The Venezuelans are even getting advice from President Raul Castro's daughter Mariela Castro, who heads Cuba's National Sex Education Center and advocated civil unions for homosexuals during a recent seminar in Caracas.
Some Venezuelans mockingly call it "Venecuba." When the government took over the farm of former Venezuelan U.N. ambassador Diego Arria, he contested the seizure by delivering his ownership documents to the Cuban Embassy, saying the Cubans are in charge and "much more organized than the Venezuelan regime."
"No self-respecting country can place such delicate areas of the government as national security in the hands of officials of another country," said Teodoro Petkoff, an opposition leader who is editor of the newspaper Tal Cual. "President Chavez doesn't trust his own people very much. So he wants to count on the know-how and time-tested experience of a government that for 50 years has been carrying out a brutal and totalitarian dictatorship."
Cuban government officials, however, say the bulk of their assistance is in public services.
At the National Genetic Medicine Center in Guarenas, east of Caracas, Cuban doctors and lab technicians diagnose and treat genetic illnesses.
"What we came to do is science," said Dr. Reinaldo Menendez, the Cuban director of the centre, which also employs Venezuelans. "Our weapons… are our minds, our work, our coats, our stethoscopes.
"We're internationalists by conviction," he added, passing photos of Chavez and Fidel Castro on the walls.
Cuban Deputy Health Minister Joaquin Garcia Salavarria co-ordinates missions involving more than 30,000 doctors, nurses, and other specialists from the island. He estimated that about 95 per cent of the approximately 40,000 Cubans in Venezuela work in medical, education, sports and cultural programs, and that others are helping as advisers on everything from agriculture to software for the state telephone company, CANTV.
As he spoke, Garcia flipped through a file of statistics that he said show the real impact of the Cuban presence: more than 408 million consultations in neighbourhood health clinics since 2003. That's an average of 14 medical visits for each of Venezuela's more than 28 million people.
Many Venezuelans are grateful for the free medical care provided by the Cubans, and waiting rooms are often bustling. Still, polls have repeatedly shown a large majority of Venezuelans don't want their country to adopt a system like Cuba's.
Chavez says he's not copying Cuba's socialist system but has adopted some practices, like creating a civilian militia to defend his government. When he founded a fledgling national police force last year, Chavez boasted that "we're going to compete with the Cuban police force, which is among the best in the world."
A senior Cuban police official, Rosa Campoalegre, has been in Caracas to help with plans for a new university for police and other security officials. She declined a request to be interviewed.
Cuban experts have also been working on systems in public registries and notaries. About 12 Cuban computer specialists from the University of Computer Science in Havana have been creating software to help the immigration agency improve passport control and computerize the identification card system, director Dante Rivas said.
"There's nothing to hide here," Rivas said. "What they do is develop the software, jointly with us, but we operate it exclusively. That's all. They don't do anything else."
In Cuba, he said, the government uses a different system.
The island's computerized civil registry includes all relevant data on its citizens, such as address, age and physical characteristics. All Cubans must carry an identity card, and those who want to travel outside the country must get special permission.
It's especially worrying that Cubans are involved in areas "that have to do with control of information, people's private information," said Rocio San Miguel, who heads a Venezuelan organization that monitors security and defence issues.
Chavez, meanwhile, says Cuba's assistance is worth "10 times more than the cost of the oil we send."
He has effusively thanked Cuba for helping Venezuela to revamp its electrical system — a move ridiculed by Chavez's opponents due to Cuba's own struggles with power outages. Chavez also credited a Cuban cloud-seeding program with helping to bring an earlier rainy season this year after a severe drought.
"What Cubanization?" he said. "The Cubans are helping us."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5iZAwmBAkAjvFuxlFjaBD3L3dU8hg
Cuba dissidents still waiting for promised changes
Posted on Monday, 05.31.10Cuba dissidents still waiting for promised changesBy PAUL HAVENAssociated Press Writer
HAVANA — Dissidents and relatives of Cuban political prisoners said Monday that they've seen no improvement in conditions for inmates despite an apparent government agreement to improve life behind bars for the island's 200 political prisoners.
The Roman Catholic Church said the government agreed to move many of those considered "prisoners of conscience" by international human rights groups to prisons closer to their homes, and some ailing inmates are to be sent to hospitals for long-demanded treatment.
But interviews by The Associated Press with six dissidents, relatives and human rights leaders show disappointment at the early results of the reported breakthrough – which was to have gotten under way last week.
"There has been no movement whatsoever," said Elizardo Sanchez, head of the independent Havana-based Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, which monitors treatment of dissidents and would be among the first to hear of prison transfers.
Anxious family members said they still held out hope the government would keep its word, but some were clearly beginning to lose patience.
"I spoke to (my husband) on Wednesday," said Lidia Lima, the wife of one of Cuba's oldest political prisoners, 68-year-old Arnaldo Ramos. "He was so hopeful, but now we're not so sure."
What seemed to be a landmark accord on the political prisoners came amid growing signs that Cuba was ready to soften its stance on the opposition, and that the church would play a leading role.
In May, authorities reversed a ban on weekly protest marches by the Ladies in White – mostly relatives of imprisoned dissidents – after Cardinal Jaime Ortega intervened.
Then, on May 19, Cuban President Raul Castro held a four-hour meeting with the cardinal and another church leader. Ortega a said he saw the encounter as a "magnificent start."
Three days later, Havana auxiliary bishop Juan de Dios Hernandez brought news of the prisoner transfer agreement to hunger-striking dissident Guillermo Farinas, who told AP that the transfers would start May 24.
Orlando Marquez, a Havana church official, told AP on May 23 that the transfers would begin over the course of last week.
The church had no comment Monday on the reason for the lack of movement, but a church official said privately the government had promised only to start the paperwork last week and gave no specific date on when prison transfers or releases might begin. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity surrounding the agreement.
Ramos, a Havana native, is serving an 18-year prison term at the high-security Sancti Spiritus jail in eastern Cuba, 220 miles (350 kilometers) from his home. He is one of 75 people locked up in a sweeping 2003 crackdown on activists, community organizers and human rights leaders. More than 50 are still in jail.
Laura Pollan, the leader of the Damas de Blanco – or Ladies in White – told the AP that at least 17 prisoners of the original 75 are being held at jails outside their home province, 11 were older than 60, and 26 suffered serious health problems.
She said she was particularly concerned for four prisoners who met all of those criteria: Ramos, Adolfo Fernandez, Jesus Mustafa and Omar Ruiz. She said she still had faith change was coming.
"I believe in God. Hope is the last thing one loses," she said. "I am an optimist."
Pollan's husband, Hector Maseda, 65, was among those arrested in 2003 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence in the central province of Villa Clara. He could be a candidate for improved conditions or transfer closer to Pollan in Havana, but she said his situation hasn't changed.
The government had no immediate comment on Monday, nor has it commented publicly on the agreement reached with the church. Cuban officials describe the dissidents as traitors paid by Washington to undermine its communist system. They say their human rights record is among the best in the world.
One dissident's wife, Bertha Soler, told the AP her nerves have been frayed by all the waiting.
"It's already been a week," she said. "I am getting a little desperate."
Her husband Angel Moya is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
Sanchez, the human rights leader, said he was still hopeful the prisoner releases would take place, because the government had clearly made a political decision to make the concessions.
"We must wait without stress," he said. "Sooner or later it will happen, but this is a government that will take all the time it likes."
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/31/1656981/cuba-dissidents-still-waiting.html
Payá traslada a Facebook lucha pacífica por democracia en Cuba
Payá traslada a Facebook lucha pacífica por democracia en CubaLA HABANA, 31 May. 10 / 08:13 am (ACI)
El coordinador del Movimiento Cristiano Liberación (MCL), Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, trasladó la lucha pacífica por la democracia en Cuba a un nuevo escenario: la red social Facebook.
A través de posts, el líder disidente dialoga con ya cerca de dos mil contactos sobre la realidad cubana. Además rememora hechos protagonizados por la resistencia pacífica en años anteriores y critica el engaño y la represión en que viven los cubanos dentro de la isla, gracias a la desinformación distribuida por el Gobierno comunista.
"….Gracias hermano, es la forma de decirte que mi apoyo a tu causa, nuestra causa, es incondicional…. Te queremos¡¡¡", es uno de los comentarios recibidos en la página Payá.
Por su parte, el líder del MCL comenta: "Amanece y comenzó a llover. Dios moja la tierra reseca y revive la vida. Cuando parece que todo esta perdido descubrimos ¿qué nos queda aún a los cubanos? TODOS SOMOS CUBANOS ¿qué nos une? LA ESPERANZA. ¡Despiértate! que desde donde tú estés lograremos los cambios para la libertad. No te digo SIGUEME sino VAMOS JUNTOS. Creemos una red unidos en la esperanza".
La dirección del sitio web es http://es-la.facebook.com/people/Oswaldo-Paya/1130642190
Gobierno castrista no cumple
Gobierno castrista no cumple
Raúl Castro prometió a la jerarquía católica el traslado inmediato de 17 presos de conciencia a sus provincias de origen.
El gobierno de Cuba se demora en implementar los acuerdos alcanzados en las negociaciones entre la Iglesia Católica cubana y el gobierno castrista.
Por su parte, el licenciado Guillermo Fariñas Hernández aconseja a la oposición que continúe con su labor de denunciar las violaciones de los derechos humanos tanto contra los prisioneros políticos como contra el pueblo de Cuba.
Fariñas destaca que la demora del gobierno cubano en dar cumplimiento a lo prometido a la jerarquía católica, es para distraer la atención sobre las violaciones de derechos humanos que sistemáticamente se cometen en Cuba.
Según Fariñas está a punto de cumplir sus cien días en huelga de hambre.
Raúl Castro prometió a la jerarquía católica el traslado inmediato de 17 presos de conciencia a sus provincias de origen y el ingreso en hospitales de los reclusos más enfermos.
http://www1.voanews.com/spanish/news/latin-america/Gobierno-castrista-no-cumple-95259814.html
Cuba es un potencial mercado de carne
Cuba es un potencial mercado de carneAsimismo hay posibilidades para carne de pollo y leche, productos que bien Paraguay puede exportar a este mercado
PARÍS. Francia.- El mercado cubano está interesado en la carne paraguaya, pese a que existen diferencias importantes en lo que se refiere al status sanitario. La seriedad del trabajo interinstitucional desarrollado en el país para la lucha contra la fiebre aftosa, que dejó resultados óptimos, despierta el interés de la nación caribeña, según informó Daniel Rojas, presidente del Servicio Nacional de Calidad y Salud Animal (Senacsa), tras la conclusión de una mesa de trabajo, desarrollada aprovechando la 78 edición de la asamblea anual de la Organización Mundial de Sanidad Animal (OIE), llevado a cabo en París, Francia.
El titular del Senacsa destacó que Cuba está interesada en importar el producto nacional, por ende iniciará el proceso oficial para lograr el propósito.
Cuba posee un status de país libre de fiebre aftosa sin vacunación –máximo nivel-, mientras que Paraguay está un peldaño por debajo de ese status, con la denominación de país libre de fiebre aftosa, pero con régimen de vacunación. En la enfermedad de Encefalopatía Espongiforme Bovina (BSE) o mal de la vaca loca, Cuba está por debajo del nivel de Paraguay, ya que el país caribeño tiene riesgo controlado, mientras que la ganadería local ostenta el de riesgo insignificante.
Igualmente en el interés de Cuba, se enumera la importación de carne de pollo y leche.
Silvio, las mariposas y la ausencia
Silvio, las mariposas y la ausenciaLuis Cino (PD)
LA HABANA, Cuba, mayo (www.cubanet.org) – Varios de mis mejores amigos, que viven en Miami desde 1980, están felices porque Silvio Rodríguez al fin obtuvo visa del Departamento de Estado norteamericano para actuar en los Estados Unidos. Me cuentan que, como ya se sabe que no será en Miami (prudente y precavido que es Silvio), están ansiosos por averiguar si finalmente el concierto "en otro lugar de Florida" será en la ciudad de Orlando. Les da mucha ilusión poder asistir a un concierto de Silvio, que es como volver a estar en Cuba. En la Cinemateca, Casa de las Américas o Bellas Artes, como hace treinta y tantos años.
También me alegro, porque de cierta forma, de ser posible el concierto en Florida, olvidados de lejanías, al menos por casi dos horas, volveremos a reunirnos, gracias a las viejas canciones. Será una oportunidad única para compartir juntos por primera vez las canciones escritas por Silvio en las tres últimas décadas, las que escuché en ausencia de ellos, en los mismos lugares, pero con otros amigos y otros amores, que nunca fueron lo mismo, aunque siguieran igual o peor el hambre y la desesperanza.
Con tantas canciones hermosas y los recuerdos que nos evocan, ¿qué importa si quita o pone la r de revolución y luego dice (ay, Silvio) que "ciertas libertades" son fábulas que le recuerdan un cuento de catacumbas de Michael Ende?
¿Qué vamos a hacer si las canciones de Silvio, zoquete y genial, junto a las de los Beatles, conforman la banda sonora dulce y amarga de nuestra muy machucada generación melenuda, mezclillosa y minifaldera?
Nuestros amores de entonces, tan contrariados y espinosos como los que vinieron después y los de ahora mismo (cosas del amor en tiempos de dictadura) discurrían en escuelas de becados, campamentos agrícolas, cañaverales, obras de choque de la construcción, unidades militares, calabozos, tribunales y enrejadas salas siquiátricas para reclutas revoltosos donde, inevitablemente, tarareábamos o teníamos en mente alguna de las ambiguas canciones de Silvio, que aunque hermosas, a ciencia cierta, si no eran de amor o evidentes panfletos políticos, no sabíamos de qué carajo hablaban. Pero ese era precisamente su mayor encanto.
Algunas citas tomadas de sus canciones deben andar por ahí en algún libro que regalé a alguna amada en los tiempos en que las muchachas aún apreciaban que un tipo flaco, melenudo y miope, expulsado de todos los sitios posibles y con manía de andar descalzo en casa, les regalara un libro con alguna dedicatoria como "Todo se vuelve a inventar si lo comparto contigo".
Me contaba hace unos días en un e-mail, Rosita, la más querida de mis amigas, que vive ahora en Coconut Grove, sus recuerdos sobre un concierto de Silvio, a las 12 de la noche, en la Universidad de La Habana, allá por los 70. Es curioso, nunca logro que coincidan exactamente mis recuerdos con los de las mujeres que amé.
Estuve precisamente con Rosita en el único concierto de Silvio a medianoche del que tenga memoria. Pero fue la víspera de San Valentín (¿1976, 1977?) en la sala-teatro de Bellas Artes y no en la universidad. Ninguno de los dos teníamos por entonces más de 20 años. "Qué maneras más curiosas de recordar tiene uno", cantaba Silvio de las mariposas que emergieron de lo oscuro, profeta de nostalgias. Recuerdo que cantó una de mis preferidas: De la ausencia y de ti. En el viaje de regreso, en la guagua, primero en la 54 y luego en la 31 hasta La Güinera, en la fría madrugada de febrero, Rosita dormía en mi hombro. Y yo, enamorado como un perro, aspiraba el aroma único de su pelo castaño rojizo y tramaba en vano la reconquista.
Por recuerdos como ese y muchos otros, bien vale volvernos a reunir en un concierto de Silvio. A ver si por fin logramos encontrar el unicornio azul y ya no se nos pierde más.
Proteínas para embarazadas
Proteínas para embarazadas
SANTA CLARA, Cuba, 31 de mayo (José Guillén / www.cubanet.org) – Desde el 15 de mayo se está vendiendo en Villa Clara, por la libreta de racionamiento, una libra de pollo a las mujeres embarazadas, con el propósito, según se dijo, de estimular a otras a parir. El pollo se suma a la libra de carne de res que reciben las gestantes, y que alternarán con pescados.
Según los informes oficiales, Villa Clara es una de las provincias cubanas con mayor índice de envejecimiento poblacional. Las mujeres no paren , desestimuladas por las precarias condiciones que les impone la crisis económica. Las autoridades de salud pronosticaron que medidas como estas contribuirán a que aumente el número de embarazadas en Villa Clara.
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