My Wish for 2012: Outraged People in Cuba / Miriam Celaya
My Wish for 2012: Outraged People in Cuba / Miriam CelayaMiriam Celaya, Translator: Norma Whiting
Santana Cartoon illustrating the post in Penúltimos Days
A European friend who recently visited Havana asked me what my greatest wish for this year 2012 was. Of course, she expected me to express to her the same old litany: the end of the dictatorship, democracy, peace, freedom, etc. The wishes that tens of thousands of Cubans have made each New Year's and that, despite all the sorrows, have yet to come true. Maybe the propitiatory spirits, those that presumably participate or influence human aspirations need to perceive something more than the resolve in those who make the wishes… a signal indicating a little more vigor to make dreams achievable, something that can fulfill that old saying: "Help yourself, and God will help you."
So I simply said to my friend that, for 2012, I wish to see Cuba full of angry people, for it is on that day that we will be closer to such longed for rights and democracy. I'm not referring to childish protests of indignation on any corner or line, in different tones of voice and willing to be silent when some guy who looks like a political cop stares us down; for State transportation problems, or for the increasing reduction of so-called "subsidies" the national method, distributor of the parameters of poverty. Neither do I speak of the more or less biased comments about "how bad this is getting". For at least 20 years I have been listening to the phrase "what's so good about this is how bad it's getting", or "never is the night as dark as before dawn", and in all that time, there hasn't been the slightest improvement or light. What's more, everything around us is sure to be getting worse and darker, so it is obvious that a change is needed, but not on the part of an autocracy that clings to power and naturally resists change. What is needed is a change of attitude among Cubans.
My greatest desire for this 2012 is, therefore, that ordinary Cubans, those who in all the speeches are grouped under the generic term "the people" decide, once and for all, to make their outrage public and evident. We could, for example, protest in the streets, or in front of government headquarters, to demand an end to the dual currency, since wages are paid in one currency and most products are marketed in another. By the way, it would also be relevant to demand that wages dignify the job, be a source of well-being and not the object of a joke printed on paper money. We could demand the repeal of the retrograde exit permits and all limits on emigration that keep us prisoners, slaves of the Island-plantation. We could reclaim the sacred right to information, the right for the flow of ideas, to participate in making decisions about our destiny, to choose what kind of education we give our children. We could make demands, in short, about how and by whom we wish our country to be governed.
If you think that such claims exceed the heights of indignation of some, perhaps we could start by protesting the unstoppable rise of food prices, or stand up to the abuse of most public officials, or publicly denounce corruption, which ends up striking the needy the hardest. We could just ask to have the CDR's disbanded, (those that are still members of the CDR's [cederistas]) or stop attending accountability meetings and the utmost caricature of democracy: the constituency "elections". Because — beyond the protests taking place in the First World which the official media have the nerve to disclose here — and if there is one thing we don't have a shortage of in Cuba it's a reason to be outraged.
So I modified my wishes for this year, believing that, for democracy to finally emerge, we Cubans need to stop looking outward and upward, waiting for solutions from the solidarity of others, from the Cuban government, or from God, and assume our share, through responsibility and law. Recent statements by the President-General — on the occasion of his counterpart's farewell, the Iranian dictator visiting Cuba, to our shame — that the Communist Party's National Conference, to be held on January 28th, will be just the organizing of the inner life of that (political?) organization, presumably to comply with the guidelines of the past VI Congress, lends the coup de grace to the aspirations of large sectors that still had moderate expectations for a public debate about the decisions of the government, including some Catholic Church sites that have been voicing for an "inclusive and transparent" dialogue between the government and the Cuban people. It will be interesting, given the circumstances, to follow those sites' editorials to find out what new proposal they make us.
So, what I want for 2012 is this: indignant people. Thousands and thousands of Cubans angry about over half a century's worth of fraud, outraged, if only to salvage the spoils of our national shame that still remain after decades of dictatorship.
—–Work originally published in Penúltimos Days (http://www.penultimosdias.com) on January 13rd, 2012
Translated by: Norma Whiting
South Africa: Cuban Bailout – Minister Davies Must Account to Parliament
South Africa: Cuban Bailout – Minister Davies Must Account to Parliament6 February 2012
press release
The South African government has wasted R600 million on sustaining the failed Cuban state, including what government has called a "solidarity grant". This follows a R1.4 billion Cuban bailout that President Zuma authorised in December 2010.
When the Parliamentary session reconvenes, the Democratic Alliance (DA) will request that the Minister of Trade and Industry, Rob Davies, appear before Parliament to explain what economic objectives are achieved by this decision.
We want to know how this cash injection for Cuba will help the millions of South Africans who live below the breadline.
Cuba has a tiny economy and little to offer South Africa by way of trade. Our trade with Cuba is unlikely to ever exceed R100 million per year. And at the same time, we have our own massive domestic problems in housing, energy, infrastructure, unemployment and a host of other areas.
It is difficult to justify giving the Cuban regime R2 billion in handouts when our own people are suffering daily.
The R600 million Minister Davies handed out on Friday consisted of credit write-offs, new credit lines and some cash payments. It also includes a R100 million "solidarity grant", which will not need to be paid back to South Africa.
The Cuban regime has a long track record of failing to pay back our loans. In 2010, South Africa had to write off R1.1 billion in bad Cuban debt, and on Friday we wrote off another R250 million in bad debt.
It is a tragic irony that a portion of the Cuban handout is earmarked to promote food security in Cuba, when our own food security is under threat here at home.
We have recently been forced to import maize at a very high price, affecting millions of South Africans who rely on maize-based products as staple food.
The time has come for South Africa to invest in strategic partnerships that deliver prosperity for our people. Maintaining symbolic friendships at enormous costs do not help the South African people.
Geordin Hill Lewis, Shadow Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry
Wilman Villar Mendoza: The Death of a Dissident / Yoani Sánchez
Wilman Villar Mendoza: The Death of a Dissident / Yoani SánchezTranslator: Unstated, Yoani Sánchez
The punishment cell is narrow, is five feet wide by two long, cold and there is not even a blanket for cover. From the hole in the floor that serves as a toilet, a rat occasionally emerges and looks curiously at the curled up man lying there. Outside shouts are heard, metal banging, and the general noise of the Aguadores prison, one of the most feared in eastern Cuba. This scene, common in our prison system, was repeated in early January and was had as its protagonist a young man of 31.
He was called Wilman Villar Mendoza was arrested on November 14, 2011 while participating in an antigovernment protest in the streets of Contramaestre, his hometown. In images broadcast after his death, he is seen at the head of a group carrying the Cuban flag, while the astonished passers-by do not know whether to join the crowd or to shout down the demonstrators. Probably the memories of that place passed through his head again and again while he shivered within the damp walls of the dungeon, but that we can never confirm. Because of that place he would only emerge — already dying — to the hospital and finally to a grave in the cemetery.
Villar Mendoza, the prisoner who recently died of a hunger strike, made a living doing carpentry and masonry work. His specialty was the most slender and beautiful wooden flowers that tourists buy as souvenirs to remember this island. A stalk and six petals carved with the patience of one who knows that time is not worth much in Cuba, the minutes will not bring him anything more successful or happier. He gave form to a piece of cedar, shaping it for hours and hours, brooding with that frustration that is always greater among the youth of the province.
In September 2011 this sense of social unrest led him to join the opposition group Patriotic Union of Cuba. According to the official propaganda je was a common criminal who had even "brutally" beaten his wife in July last year. But too many witnesses, including his own wife, suggests that such insults are only trying to kill his image after the death of his body.
In Cuba, in the words of a friend, "nobody knows the past that awaits you," because criminal records of citizens are also determined by their political behavior. As there is no separation of powers, as the judicial system is not independent of the party branch, those whose ideology falls short will find it reflected in their criminal records.
Generals have been known to have shoot their mistresses, ministers caught in million dollar embezzlement schemes, children and their fathers involved in various crimes that have never been brought before a court. But when it comes to an opponent of the regime, it is enough to have bought milk on the black market, quarreled with your wife, or parked your car badly, to be taken as a culprit.
The Criminal Code does not include any section for "political offense," so that the "inconvenient" are always charged under another section. Which is what happened to Wilman Villar Mendoza, who resisted police arrest on July 7, 2011 after a domestic incident. Purely by "coincidence" he would only be prosecuted for this case four months later, when he participated in a protest against the government. On arresting him, an officer shouted in front of several witnesses: "now we'll make you disappear," and they did.
The practice of turning activists into criminals is nothing new. In February 2010, when Orlando Zapata Tamayo died after 85 days without food, Raul Castro said publicly that he was a common criminal. He had forgotten that seven years earlier in the book The Dissenters, prepared by pro-government journalists to justify the imprisonments of the Black Spring, Zapata Tamayo appeared with photo, name and surname. Playing with history and rearranging it tends to create these contradictions … since no government has ever been able to predict "what the future holds."
Fortunately, a criminal record can not explain all of the attitudes that a man comes to take in his life. To present Villar Mendoza only as a choleric husband who beat his wife does not explain why he was left to die without food. To accuse him as a common prisoner seeks to reinforce the Manichean idea as that in Cuba there are no decent people, patriotic and law-abiding, who are also opposed to the government. Hence the flood of insults that have rained on the memory of the deceased and the official interest used his civic activism as a way to "clean up" some criminal past.
A recent editorial in Granma asserts that there was no hunger strike. It does not explain, however, how someone only 31 years old deteriorated so rapidly in two months of confinement to the point of dying in a hospital from "multiple organ failure." There is also the testimony of relatives and friends who visited Villar Mendoza in jail to convince him to eat again, but could not get him to stop repeating "Freedom or death!"
To disprove the official version, there are also numerous reports of fasting that appeared in news media in exile and Twitter accounts of local activists since mid-December. The Internet shows what the Cuban press hides.
According to the statement of Maritza Pelegrino, her husband ceased to feed himself on November 24 when he was sentenced to four years imprisonment. He interrupted the strike on December 23 because his jailers made him believe that he would be in the list of prisoners pardoned by General Raul Castro. But he returned to starvation six days later in finding out that all those promises were just lies, dirty tricks.
Tied up and naked they then put him in the punishment cell where he contracted the pneumonia that would kill him. He arrived at the hospital on January 13 and doctors warned the family that only a miracle could save him. Less than a week later he was no longer breathing.
Wilman Villar was killed by the late medical intervention and neglect of those who should have watched over him in prison. A system that has cut off all peaceful, civic and electoral paths for citizens to influence national course killed him. He was turned into a cadaver by a judicial apparatus riddled with irregularities and ideological preferences, where a political opponent is held guilty of any crime with little chance to prove otherwise.
It was not just the lack of food or water that caused the sad outcome of January 19, but having to use one's body as a public square of indignation, on an island where protest is prohibited.
At his death, Wilman Villar Mendoza had two daughters, aged five and seven years. Their mother still does not know how to explain to them what happened.
Originally published in Spanish in El Pais, 31 January 2012
Texas agricultural exports to Cuba continue growth
Texas agricultural exports to Cuba continue growthFebruary 6, 2012 By: Blair Fannin
COLLEGE STATION – Though tightly controlled, there are opportunities for Texas agricultural producers and businesses to capitalize on potential exports of food products to Cuba, according to a Texas AgriLife Extension Service economist.
Dr. Parr Rosson, AgriLife Extension economist and director of the Center for North American Studies at Texas A&M University in College Station, said the Cuban economy has held its own amid world economic turbulence.
Dr. Parr Rosson, Texas AgriLife Extension Service economist.
Thanks to the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000, U.S. businesses may export food, agricultural and forestry products and medicines to Cuba.
Texas supplies Cuba with several export items, including chicken leg quarters, corn and wheat. U.S. corn exports to Cuba saw more than a 200 percent increase in value in 2011 to $109 million during the January-November period as Cuba uses more corn products for poultry feeding operations and other uses.
"We've begun to see some higher quality beef cuts enter the Cuban market as well," Rosson said. Pork, cotton and dairy products produced in Texas are also exported there.
"Pears, apples, raisins and dry (pinto) beans were exported in 2011, along with corn chips and potato chips," Rosson said. "These are products that we are seeing more interest in due to the growing tourism market in Cuba."
International visitors are increasing, Rosson said, with 2.7 million traveling to the island in 2011, 7 percent above 2010 and a new record. Revenue from tourism exceeded $2 billion, providing more money for Cubans to use in purchasing imported foods. Canada is the top visitor, Rosson said, with 900,000 going to Cuba in 2011.
"They are more likely to go during the winter months," he said. "They can fly from Canada directly to the major beach resort of Varadero."
Those resorts serve many items, including chips, fresh fruit and table cuts of beef and pork.
"The downside is that Cuba is attempting to implement several economic reforms and design a new more market-oriented path for their economy," Rosson said. "It creates some instability and uncertainty."
Rosson said Cuba is "very proficient" in producing certain tropical crops such as sugar, tobacco, citrus and vegetables grown in greenhouses, but other crops such as rice, wheat and corn struggle due to high humidity, insects, disease and the high cost of production.
"And, of course, hurricanes are a threat with each season," he said.
Cuba also lacks consistent agricultural credit, so some crop and livestock production is constrained.
"They rely on joint ventures with Spain and China to finance many agribusiness opportunities," he said.
Agricultural commodities, such as dry beans for example, are shipped out of Corpus Christi. Corn and wheat grown in the Lone Star State ships out of the port of Houston, Rosson said.
The Cuban government's buying agency, Empressa Cubana Importada de Alimentos (Alimport), handles all U.S. exports to the island, Rosson said.
"Alimport is Cuba's exclusive agent for all purchases from the U.S. and negotiates purchases, handles documents and arranges logistics and transportation of goods," Rosson said.
Before a U.S. firm can take product samples or export its products to Cuba, Rosson said each product must be reviewed and licensed by the Office of Exporter Services, Bureau Industry and Security, U.S. Department of Commerce.
"The license is free and is valid for one year," Rosson said. More information on licensing requirements can be found at www.bis.doc.gov.
-30-
Contacts
Dr. Parr Rosson, 979-845-3070, prosson@tamu.edu
http://agrilife.org/today/2012/02/06/texas-agricultural-exports-to-cuba-continue-growth/
Cuba reports big increase in food prices
Cuba reports big increase in food pricesBy Marc Frank
HAVANA | Tue Jan 31, 2012 3:09pm EST
(Reuters) – Cubans paid almost 20 percent more for food in 2011 as economic reforms, reduced imports and stagnating farm production touched off price inflation at the country's many produce markets.
The National Statistics Office reported on its website (ONE.CU) that meat prices rose 8.7 percent while produce prices were up 24.1 percent, for an average of 19.8 percent.
The report was bad news for President Raul Castro, who has been loosening the state's grip on farming and retail food services and sales as it seeks to reform its Soviet-style economy by allowing more private initiative and market forces to kick in.
The changes are part of more than 300 reforms adopted by the ruling Communist Party last year to "update" the economy, which authorities have warned will entail a difficult transition.
Similar reforms in other state-monopolized economies have proved inflationary in the early stages, but the Cuban government hoped increased output would mitigate price increases.
President Castro has made agricultural reform and increased food production a top priority since taking over for ailing brother Fidel Castro in 2008.
But agricultural output increased just 2 percent last year, after falling 2.5 percent in 2010 and remains below 2005 levels.
At the same time, Castro has cut food imports to reduce spending by the debt-ridden government. Because of low farm output, Cuba imports a budget-busting 60 percent to 70 percent of the food it consumes.
Castro also has allowed farmers to sell a growing percentage of their production for whatever price the market will bear.
Rising prices have provoked much grumbling from Cubans, whose buying power has shrunk under Castro's changes.
"Everything is going up, except wages. What I bought yesterday for a peso, today costs 1.10 pesos or 1.20 pesos, but I continue to earn the same," said a Havana office worker who gave her name only as Angelina.
While all Cubans get a subsidized monthly food ration, it is not enough to get by, so they must purchase additional food at the produce markets or other places not included in the statistics office report.
The increased prices are sure to have a big impact on the estimated 40 percent of the population who rely on state wages or pensions and do not have access to other sources of income, such as remittances from relatives abroad.
The average wage increased only a few percentage points to the equivalent of $19 per month in 2011, the government reported, while pensions, which average just over the equivalent of $10 dollars per month, remained the same.
"There is no doubt prices are rising, and from what I can see on the news the problem is worldwide," Yoandry Leyva, who sells plumbing and other supplies in eastern Santiago de Cuba, said in a telephone interview.
"But I live in Cuba and the problems are mine. Every day the prices go up and I keep earning the same. I hope they settle down because every day is more difficult," he said.
(Editing by Jeff Franks; Editing by Sandra Maler)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/31/us-cuba-inflation-idUSTRE80U1TS20120131
Conjectures About 2012 / Miriam Celaya
Conjectures About 2012 / Miriam CelayaMiriam Celaya, Translator: Norma Whiting
A recurring theme among the last days of 2011 and early 2012 by Cubans and foreign individuals interested in the Cuban reality has been about the outlook for the year just begun, given the chronic nature of the national economic crisis, the ongoing measures (reforms) of the General-President, with his Galapagos kind of pace, the announced increase in the worldwide recession and the political events that will have an important influence on the situation in the medium term, namely, the presidential elections that will take place in the United States and, fundamentally, those in Venezuela.
The warning signs that constitute the tip of an iceberg floating adrift erratically became more pronounced in Cuba in 2011: the removal of some subsidies, the end of the monthly lifetime allowance in hard currency (50 CUC) to staff having completed health "missions" in other Third World countries, the shut-down of several work centers and other silent layoffs, the reduction in ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our Americas) student programs, especially at the Latin American Medical School, increases in food prices and other staples, worsening economic living conditions in the poorest sectors of society (the majority), in contrast against increases in the standard of living of a small sector of the new middle class, among others. This, coupled with the general apathy and the growing feeling of helplessness on the part of groups that will not benefit from Raulista measures, is a picture that points to the further deterioration of social situations and the potential increases in crime, among other adverse factors.
One of the strongest contradictions is the slow pace of government reforms, which, so far, has been unable to stop the deterioration of the system, compared to the rapid social impoverishment that is directly reflected in the disappointment, uncertainty, and lack of confidence in the future, especially a future dependent on the power group that controls both the macro economy and national politics. There don't seem to be many flattering indicators, or reasons for hope. If the welfare of Cuban families hinges on setting up a kiosk or an eatery, on remittances received from relatives abroad –those who have that luxury- or on expectations that hang on the generosity of the government, we might as well start turning out the lights and closing the doors: that is not a future.
On the other hand, none of the new economic "rights" has been matched by social and political rights, as is logical under totalitarian regimes. Cubans have been so thoroughly disenfranchised and have been subjected to such "paternalistic" controls that even we in the opposition factions and independent civil society have sometimes unconsciously wished that freedom of expression, of association and of the press be "allowed", as if they weren't natural rights inherent to the human condition. What can we expect from others who have let discouragement win!
Nevertheless, 2011 was also witness to a surge in alternative and civic groups and to obvious links between the two. A spontaneous process of modest but visible growth has been taking place within the independent civil society, which could be consolidating gradually. Undoubtedly, though it is a small sector, corresponding to the conditions of the dictatorship, this is the reflection of the will of Cubans with emancipated mentalities, determined not to ask permission to be free, convinced that it is vital to transform reality within ourselves. A few years ago this was unthinkable. Similarly, along with the growth of civic spaces, we can expect strong resistance from the authorities, and an eventual increase in repression.
The fate of one and all in this 2012 will be marked, among other situational factors, by the interests that have already been outlined more clearly, which, in very general terms, are: the olive green elite and all of its caste, by virtue of recycling itself in order to maintain power; the great entrepreneurs, members of that same caste or associated with it, for maintaining an economic monopoly and increasing their private capitals; new small businessmen and owners, for increasing their profits, making use of the meager reforms, and perhaps for fighting for other reforms; the ever-unfortunates, for surviving another year of shortages; we, the disobedient dreamers, for increasing activism in order to promote awareness of democratic changes and for seeking new ways to foster them.
Some readers may think I'm pessimistic, but that is not the case. My greatest optimism consists precisely in viewing reality face-to-face and continuing to wish for changes. Today, the despair of tens of thousands of Cubans is one of the main allies of the regime. However, we must not give up. We might find the opportunity and perform a miracle in the midst of all this dark, murky and imprecise present. Nobody knows how much time we have left, but it is not the time to throw in the towel. Those of us who are alive and want to achieve will not allow fatigue and defeat to win the game.
Translated by Norma Whiting
January 9 2012
Medical Policy, or Political Medicine? / Ernesto Morales Licea
Medical Policy, or Political Medicine? / Ernesto Morales LiceaErnesto Morales Licea, Translating Cuba, Translator: Unstated
A little less than a year ago I lived for two weeks thinking I had cancer in my lymph nodes. In November, 2010, a team of pathologists at the "Carlos Manuel de Cespedes" Provincial Hospital in Bayamo signed a yellowish paper, prepared on a typewriter with a number of typing errors, telling me I had a Hodgkin lymphoma of the nodular sclerosis type.
The news was soon running like wildfire in a city of two hundred thousand people where my name, due to journalist-politician confrontations, had gained unfortunate notoriety.
Fifteen days later, another team of pathologists, these belonging to the "Hermanos Ameijeiras" Hospital in Havana, would make my mother let loose a flood of withheld tears,by telling us that opinion was nothing but a monstrous error.
The tests repeated in Havana on my lymph nodes showed an alteration (hyperplasia) which may have been the product of an ancient virus, which did not contain any sign of malignancy.
The diagnostics that would save me from the clutches of chemotherapy came after procedures as tortuous as a bone biopsy of the hip, a medullogram, and another nasal tissue biopsy (only practicable by introducing a kind of fine scissors in my nose to the larynx, and cutting a piece of tissue), from which I suffered for several days.
On returning to my eastern city, with another paper telling me that at age 26 I was not facing any cancer, never let me know what the five pathologist from Bayamo did or did not see when they determined that I had Hodgkin's lymphoma.
That's right: literature searches and dozens of questions to other physicians let me know that these kind of lymphoma cells have a clear structure, well-defined, classical, which make any confusion very difficult.
I will never assert that behind an opinion that destroyed the nerves of my family and my friends, was the dark and powerful hand of the State Security, as several of those close to me asserted, alarmed at the inconceivable error. It is not my specialty to found my opinions on subjective bases, without arguments in hand: that is the specialty of the slanderers.
However, now that after the incredibly sudden death of Laura Pollan some well-known Cuban dissidents (Elizardo Sanchez, Guillermo Fariñas, Jose Daniel Ferrer, among many others) have signed a declaration of refusal to be hospitalized for illness, I find it impossible not to recall my own experience.
The national tragedy reaches such extremes of justified paranoia: when apparatchiks of State intelligence have the power to expel students from the University, to decide who can and cannot travel outside the country, to block a person from purchasing food at a supermarket, or entering a public movie theater; when these apparatchiks are present even in the most anodyne and least important institutions of society, why not believe their interests would also prevail in a hospital?
This statement of the Cuban Democratic Alliance, saying that only in case of emergency surgery do they want to be transferred to a "hospital of the regime" (read: all Cuban hospitals), and only if a doctor they trust tells them so, I believe represents one of the most terrible statements that could be known for a long time: not even in the medical system do the disaffected feel they have full rights.
Not even in a quasi-sacred ground such as health care, where professionals swear the Hippocratic oath to defend the lives of their patients at all costs, an area that should not ever yield to pressures or influences of any kind, not even there can Cubans who oppose the government can feel safe.
Yoani Sanchez once told me how the emergency medical attention she received at a clinic in Havana, was reported later, in minute detail, by a reporter who aired a television report against her.
Just as I will never know how much was error and how much was intentional in a diagnosis that ripped away a large part of my youth, it's likely we may never know to what extent two deadly viruses entered the body of Laura Pollan naturally, if she was already infected with them, and whether they were really the cause of death of the Lady in White. That's one of the many consequences of the obscurantism with which everything moves at the official level in Cuba.
But we do know a hard truth: the values of a society are too riddled with rot if even the responsibility, the incorruptibility of medical ethics must be distrusted by those who disagree with government policy. With or without reason.
(Originally published in Martí Noticias)
October 20 2011
Cuban official calls to reduce food imports
Cuban official calls to reduce food importsUpdated: 2012-01-10 10:45(Xinhua)
HAVANA – Cuba should reduce its increasing food imports, Vice President Esteban Lazo was quoted as saying by official daily Granma on Monday.
Lazo made the remarks during his visit to the La Yaraguana farm, one of the major agricultural centers in the country's eastern province of Holguin.
Lazo said Cuba should develop its potentials to produce crops and import only those foods the island can not produce.
The Caribbean island country spends about $2 billion every year on food imports to meet domestic demand.
Cuban President Raul Castro has constantly said that food supply concerns national security and the country can not continue to afford that amount of money every year after having suffered a serious economic crisis for two decades.
Castro has adopted a series of policies to develop the country's agriculture such as giving state-controlled idle land to private producers, granting loans to producers and removing bureaucratic obstacles for farmers to sell their products.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2012-01/10/content_14414142.htm
Exemption for Cuban Prisoners
Jose A. Gutierrez-Solana – Former Cuban political prisoner
Exemption for Cuban PrisonersPosted: 1/8/12 10:44 AM ET
My name is Jose A. Gutierrez-Solana, a former Cuban political prisoner, from January 1961 to January 1971. I was content when I came across the recent announcement made on December 23rd, 2011 by Raul Castro that the Cuban Government pardoned roughly two thousand nine hundred prisoners. However, the media spreads the recent law pardon, as a step towards a more open society, without an analysis of the details behind their penitentiary system and the governing laws.
For starters, according to official reports; only seven of those liberated had been condemned for political reasons. They are: Alexis Ramirez Reyes (completed 12 years in prison), Modesto Alexei Martinez Torres (completed 8 years in prison), Carlos Martinez Ballester, Walfrido Rodriguez Piloto, Yordani Martinez Carvajal, Yran Gonzalez Torna ( completed 21 years in prison) y Augusto Guerra Marquez. Furthermore, the number of prisoners who obtained the law pardon represents only 4% of the total imprisoned population, which fluctuates from 70,000 to 80,000 people, according to some estimates. A very large portion of the Cuban population has gone to prison in the last 53 years under Castro's rule. The mere fact that the influx of new prisoners exceeds the number of ones who received this law pardon demonstrates the decaying state of this once prosperous island.
In any democratic society the exemption of prisoners could be considered a good will gesture from the government throughout the holiday season, but in Cuba this is not the case. It is a political game used to mask the realities of a penitentiary system that is replete of prisoners, lacking the most basic hygienic conditions, and suffering from systematic hunger, as well as physical and psychological torture. This "gracious" law pardoned does not fix the totalitarian law which condemns any commercial activity, such as selling or buying food, construction materials, or any writing that could go against the ideology of the system, such as a pamphlet containing the Human Right's Declaration.
The law pardon that the Cuban regime has propitiated is nothing new, nor original. The system has always dealt this card as an escape valve to control the negative resentment inside the country and as a cosmetic cover-up in front of the world. These prisoners will be out of jail, just to come back to a society that is depleted of democratic rights. Therefore, I believe we need to look at the larger picture of the legal system that controls the society and the complexity of the penitentiary system. Because as long as the individual liberties and civil rights continue to be violated in Cuba there is nothing to brag about, nothing to celebrate.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jose-a-gutierrezsolana/exemption-for-cuban-priso_b_1181042.html
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