Celebrating the Prospect of Change / Rebeca Monzo
Celebrating the Prospect of Change / Rebeca MonzoRebeca Monzo, Translator: jCS
If you think about it, Cubans really have very little to celebrate. But the mere fact of being alive, being healthy, and feeling real desire for change, are sufficient reasons to do so. Let us decorate our houses to make ourselves feel better and joyfully welcome visitors, and under no circumstances allow ourselves to lose the few traditions that we have, those traditions, which, despite wind and tide, have remained alive in the hearts of all.
Last night, walking down some of the neighborhood streets, I observed with satisfaction that, despite shortages and high prices for Christmas items, many homes are decorated and lit in celebration of the holidays. Even just a few years ago, few people dared to do this; the majority placing flags in front of their homes to celebrate another anniversary.
In the past, we alone adorned our balcony with garlands. Now, on my block, at least four houses are decorated with lights and that was sorely missed.
Besides handing out flyers advertising gastronomic offerings for the 24th and the 31st of December with Santa's face on them (grapes and more!), the new paladares are all decorated with Christmas themes, adding some life to the neighbourhood. Even five years ago, this was unthinkable. Now, I hope and believe that this will be unstoppable.
Every time you meet someone in the street and you greet them, even if they don't know you know, they will greet you with: To your health, and to change. It might be said that in these times the greatest desire of all Cubans is that these openings continue and that a great transformation take place in our country, once and for all.
The door of totalitarianism has finally been opened just a crack; our duty is to continue to keep on pushing so as to open the door wide. We still have time, it's coming to an end.
Translated by: jCS
December 21 2011
Cuba’s Vegetable Rage
Cuba's Vegetable RageDecember 31, 2011Janis Hernandez
HAVANA TIMES, Dec 31 — In Cuba, the trend toward vegetarian diets is becoming more popular. Though it has been fueled by the mass media and health food advocates, it still hasn't been easy to motivate most people in this regard.
Cuban dining culture has historically been sustained by the consumption of meat, fish and carbohydrates (with this latter having been the basis of the diet since the advent of the Special Period crisis starting the early 1990s).
Likewise, the inconsistent availability of vegetables and their high prices in state-run markets have dissuaded many from vegetarianism.
We should remember that barely ten years ago the vegetarian rage broke out in Cuba as vegetarian restaurants sprouted up in cities and towns on the island. Nonetheless, it proved to be impossible to sustain these establishments, with their homeopathic plates and naturopathic dishes of solely fruits, grains and vegetables.
Their menus begin to see green vegetables replaced by portions of chicken and anything else that had nothing to do with vegetarianism.
There are, however, some individuals — because of the positions of leadership they occupy — who can enjoy the luxury of vegetable-based diet therapies (even rather exotic ones). An incident which I witnessed a good while ago allows me to testify to that fact.
As part of a series of lectures and debates that I had to attend, the main guest was a senior government official in a major ministry.
The confirmation of her visit created a major uproar, not only because of the prestige of this scientist, but also because my co-workers were responsible for seeing to her meal for that evening. As this was to consist solely of vegetables, they would have to go around from place to place looking for the most appetizing vegetables. In fact they enquired as to what were his preferences.
But they were left with their jaws hanging wide open when they got the response saying: "Anything, provided it's fresh. Oh, but not broccoli – it gives her stomach acid!"
Needless to say, broccoli is not grown in Cuba; it is a native of Europe, where it's consumed in all its varieties. Here it can only be found as an imported product that is sold in markets that specialize in products sold in hard currency, making it almost unattainable and unknown to most Cubans.
In fact, if you asked about it, a good number of people wouldn't know what you were talking about.
To the ordinary Cuban, that space on their plate is reserved for lettuce, spinach, watercress and cabbage. Extravagant vegetables like broccoli, asparagus and mushrooms are only available to those in high positions, those who are able to enjoy the pleasure of choosing in the middle of the vegetable rage.
Repression still the rule, but Cuba sees year of change
Posted on Saturday, 12.31.11CUBA
Repression still the rule, but Cuba sees year of change
Now you can get a loan, buy a house and — maybe soon — travel abroad more easily. But the Castro government has no desire to ease its authoritarian ways.By Juan O. Tamayojtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
Joe Garcia, a former executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation, likes to joke about the chat he might have today with the late Jorge Mas Canosa, founder of the powerfully anti-Castro exile lobby.
Garcia says he would tell Mas Canosa that Cuba's rulers have abandoned their dream of an egalitarian utopia, and that even Fidel Castro had confessed that his model of sub-tropical communism "does not work."
He would add that Raúl Castro is now allowing Cubans to start more small businesses, recognizing their right to sell homes and vehicles and even embracing foreign investments in those icons of capitalism — golf resorts.
"Jorge would immediately say, 'It's over. We won!'" said the smiling Garcia, a South Florida Democrat who keeps tabs on developments in Cuba and has made two unsuccessful bids for the U.S. House of Representatives.
Castro critics would disagree strongly and portray the changes as nothing more than lipstick on the rotting corpse of a Soviet-styled economy. Raúl Castro himself timidly calls the changes not "reforms" but "updates" and has vowed to keep central planning as the backbone of the island's economy and prevent any accumulation of private wealth.
Yet the changes clearly reflect an ambitious effort to address the structural flaws of Cuba's communist system, abandon its culture of paternalism and attack its parasitic bureaucracy — without risking the government's power to repress dissent.
In a nutshell, Castro's goal is to slash a bloated state sector that controls an estimated 80 percent of the economy, and to allow more space for small-scale enterprises that can produce more efficiently, pay taxes to the government and often can count on financial support from relatives or friends abroad.
It's not been easy. Pushback from entrenched ideologues and bureaucrats appears to have undercut some of the changes, and cuts in the ration cards that provide basic food items at highly subsidized prices have pummeled Cuba's neediest.
A Catholic church in Havana reported a hefty increase in the number of people at its free lunches in recent months. And the government reportedly stopped disability and other aid payments to about 3,000 people in the city of Santa Clara this year.
But many reforms are under way, and the pace of change increased after a congress of the ruling Communist Party of Cuba in April gave a broad endorsement to Castro's 300-plus proposals for change.
SLOWLY UNDOING NATIONALIZATION
Perhaps the most important reform for the average Cuban was the decision in 2010 to permit an expansion of private economic activity in a country that nationalized every single business in 1968, down to push carts that sold hamburgers.
Today, 357,000 people have licenses for "self-employment" — in tightly controlled categories such as party clowns and street vendors of music CDs — and most have incomes well above the official average salary of $20 a month.
For the first time this year, private entrepreneurs were allowed to hire employees — previously "the exploitation of man by man" — rent some state-owned storefronts and even list their services in the island's phone book, which once rejected them as too "consumerist."
Many state-owned businesses, such as locksmiths, carpentry shops and repair centers for electrical appliances such as rice cookers, will be turned into private businesses, according to an official announcement a month ago.
The government also postponed some taxes and fees and reduced others when it became clear they would drown the new businesses, and promised bank loans to the enterprises and to hire some of them to work in areas like construction.
But the initial rush to obtain self-employment licenses appeared to be slowing down, and official figures indicate that nearly 20 percent of those who recently received licenses in Havana surrendered them later, apparently because they could not make a profit.
Cubans complain that the permitted activities are too limited, that there are no legal wholesalers for the raw materials they require — lumber for carpenters, for instance, — and that some taxes and fees remain unfair. Those who rent rooms to tourists pay the same fees regardless of their occupancy.
0BTAINING LOANS TO FIX UP A HOME
Changes in the government's banking monopoly, which has never offered credit cards, never mind a toaster, also mean that Cubans can now obtain loans to build or renovate homes and pay for materials as well as labor.
Private farmers can open previously unavailable bank accounts to handle their money, and loans can rise above the old limits — and go even higher if the borrower has a co-signer or collateral.
Some of the new entrepreneurs are eager to apply for those loans but less eager to put their money in government banks, amid fears that the government could seize their accounts in case of a financial crisis.
PUTTING FALLOW LAND TO BETTER USE
Castro also stepped up his attack on Cuba's second most vexing problem: the myriad failures in agriculture that forced the island to import $1.5 billion in food last year — estimated at 60 to 80 percent of its total consumption.
As of November, 3.4 million acres of fallow state lands had been leased to 170,000 private farmers. Farmers also were permitted to sell directly to consumers and tourist centers, which pay better prices and therefore help to increase production.
Another change coming soon will increase the limits on the leases from 33 to 165 acres and from 10 to 25 years, and will allow relatives and in some cases laborers to inherit the leases, according to news media reports.
The upcoming change also for the first time would allow the farmers to build homes on the leased land, and promises the government will reimburse the farmers for any improvements should they lose their leases, added the reports.
Yet nearly two million acres still remain fallow and farmers must do most of their business through Acopio, the notoriously inefficient state agency in charge of buying their products and getting them to market — but which regularly allows them to rot on the way to market and fails to pay the producers.
Communist Party officials in some provinces are alleged to be grabbing the best leased acres for themselves and getting all the supplies they need, like seeds and fertilizers, while other farmers get only part of their needs.
HOMES FOR SALE — AND ALSO CARS
Also generating a buzz has been Castro's easing of the restrictions on the sale of homes and vehicles — at times hailed as an unprecedented recognition of private property rights, at times dismissed as merely legalizing what had been going on illegally for years.
The permission to buy and sell homes immediately turned the properties into potential cash and erased the unwieldy requirements for the previously allowed permutas — swaps of homes of roughly equal size or value.
More than 4,000 "for sale" signs had gone up as of late December and the government lifted most restrictions on the sale of construction materials to private buyers, cut prices and made a deal with Brazil's version of Home Depot to import supplies.
The government reported last week that since the change went into effect it had registered 360 homes sales and nearly 1,600 "donations" — most likely efforts to legalize previous sales that did not fulfill all government requirements.
Cuba faces a critical housing shortage, officially put at 600,000 units in a country of 11.2 million people. Many properties have been subdivided many times over the decades to accommodate more families, making for a messy trail of ownership rights.
The government also announced that it registered 3,310 sales of vehicles and 994 "donations" in just the first month of the new regulations allowing the sale of all used cars and trucks.
Previously, only pre-1959 vehicles could be bought and sold without restrictions. Today, all used vehicles can be sold. But new vehicles are sold only to Cubans who are approved by the government and earned their money working for the benefit of the country — like doctors who work in Venezuela.
THE SAME INEFFICIENT CENTRAL PLANNING
Less clear is the impact of Castro's campaign to reduce the direct controls that the government exercises over the economy, and to give the managers of state-run enterprises more autonomy to run their business more efficiently.
The Ministry of Sugar, for example, which ran Cuba's once-premier industry as it plunged into disaster over the past decade — the 2006 harvest was the worst since 1905 — was turned into a state enterprise. So was the island's postal service.
But the new "enterprises" apparently will still depend on the same central government planning system that proved inefficient in the past — in the case of the sugar harvest, failing to ensure the timely delivery of supplies like fuel and spare parts.
Government officials have raised the possibility of allowing foreign investments in the sugar sector, and already have approved foreign financing for half-a-dozen golf resorts to be built on state lands leased out for 99 years.
NEXT UP? MAYBE UNFETTERED TRAVEL
Castro also has said that he's working on the one reform unquestionably and most urgently desired by Cubans — the right to travel abroad without an exit permit that is expensive and must be approved by State Security agents.
Most Cubans also want to ease the restrictions on the return of relatives and friends living abroad, and an abolition of the "definitive exit" category, which punishes those who leave the island to settle permanently in another country.
Castro told Cuban lawmakers on Dec. 23 that he understood the calls for reforms of the migration policy, but said that changes will have to come slowly because of the continued hostility of the U.S. government. Any Cuban who sets foot on U.S. territory is allowed to remain and receives U.S. residency.
CLOSING CLINICS, CUTTING SPENDING
Raúl Castro's reforms have come at a price.
As he slashed government subsidies, he had to cut spending on some of the sectors the revolution still holds out as its iconic "victories" — health, education and welfare — greatly damaged since the end of the Soviet Union's massive subsidies in 1991.
Several neighborhood clinics are being closed in favor of more regional facilities, universities are cutting enrollment in some study areas and a dozen or so food items once sold through the ration cards are now available only at much higher prices.
What's more, some of the reforms announced by Castro, now in his sixth year in power after succeeding ailing brother Fidel, were postponed or dropped amid reports of stiff opposition from within the ruling hierarchy.
A plan to lay off 500,000 state employees — a whopping 10 percent of the public payroll — between October of 2010 and April 1 of 2011 was postponed without a new deadline. And a scheme to tie wages to a worker's individual productivity, announced with much fanfare in 2008, has not been mentioned for nearly two years.
Meanwhile, the basic outline of Cuba's political system has not changed: one-party rule, tight controls on of the mass media and varying levels of repression for those who actively oppose the government.
WHAT IT ALL MEANS STILL HARD TO SAY
To Castro's critics, all the changes amount to worthless cosmetic surgery, a confession of failure in 53 years of what the Castros call "building socialism." After all, they say, private enterprise existed and houses could be bought and sold under the Batista dictatorship, before the Castros' 1959 revolution.
To supporters, they are part of a slow but sure-footed campaign to eliminate a number of senseless economic constraints, move toward a more productive brand of socialism and keep the Cuban Communist Party in power.
The only certainties are that Cuba is in the midst of complex changes — which may or may not lead to a more productive brand of socialism — and that the Castro government has no intention of easing its authoritarian and coercive political system.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/21/v-fullstory/2568650/repression-still-the-rule-but.html
Cuba’s Humanitarianism Falls Short
Cuba's Humanitarianism Falls Short12-30-2011
The United States is deeply disappointed that the pardon was not extended to Alan Gross.
The government of Cuba says it has pardoned and will release some 2,900 prisoners held in its jails. President Raul Castro called the pre-Christmas announcement a humanitarian gesture that would include women, the ailing, people older than 60, dozens of foreigners and a small number of political prisoners who have served a large part of their sentence with good behavior.
The United States is deeply disappointed that this pardon was not extended to Alan Gross, an American who is unjustly imprisoned in Cuba. The fact that the Council of State did not consider Mr. Gross's deteriorating health and the two years he has already spent behind bars suggests the gesture was a calculated and hollow one indeed.
Sixty-two years old and suffering from arthritis, Mr. Gross is a dedicated development professional who has a long history of providing assistance and support to underserved communities in more than 50 countries. He was a subcontractor working on a project sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development in Cuba helping connect members of civil society to the outside world. For these well-intentioned activities, he was arrested on Dec. 3, 2009, convicted of crimes against the state and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
We continue to call on the Cuban authorities to release Mr. Gross and return him to his family, where he belongs.
http://www.voanews.com/policy/editorials/Cubas-Humanitarianism-Falls-Short-136449808.html
Allow us a word… / Jeovany J. Vega
Allow us a word… / Jeovany J. VegaJeovany J. Vega, Translator: Unstated
To Dr. Adelaida Fernández de Juan.
Esteemed colleague:
I recently read your article, "Medicine defended, which circulated on the web this past August. Before I read it I saw your name at the bottom, and as this is a sign of responsibility and courage — as those who dare not to hide in anonymity may be arrested — for me, in advance, I felt your sincerity and valor, and so I feel a reverence, far beyond what I can share. Like you, I am a doctor, graduated in 1994, and I find in your writing references to the abuse and misunderstandings, so I would like draw your attention to some details.
During the time I practiced medicine I was a witness to various situations in which a health worker mistreated, consciously or unconsciously, some patient or family member. This is undeniable. But as undeniable as this, is the fact that for each of these cases of mistreatment I can recall a dozen cases (without exaggerating), on the contrary, only in these, different from the others, were rarely reported.
When a patient feels mistreated, frequently they immediately complain to the different levels of the Health System, the Government and the Party, but this almost never happens when the mistreatment — much more frequently than people think — happens in reverse. Sometimes the patient isn't even aware of his attitude, as the grievance is assumed from the professionalism of the mistreated, in this case us.
However, there is a point where I disagree with you or with whomever suggests it. When you refer to the topic, "…the extremely low and disproportionate salaries, the undervaluing of the vocation, the truly abusive treatment of which we are victims and other grave matters…"; then giving the sense that, "…there are possibilities of lessening these evils."
This takes me to past times, when our sector was on the list of the so-called "budgeted," that is those depending completely on State financing. This was the excuse to explain why professional salaries in the health sector were so low and could not in any way be raised. But time passed, then came the era of medical missions abroad and now we live in a very different reality.
Today Cuba maintains collaborative medical missions in over 70 countries, which have been reported in recent years to bring up a sum of between five billion and eight billion dollars annually. A rapid calculation converts 8 billion dollars — in the Cuban peso in which we receive our wages — into 180 billion pesos annually.
With this alone we are the most productive economic sector of this country. But to these millions in income (which greatly exceeds even Tourism, which generates some two billion) we have to add that contributed by the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, the third highest exports after nickel and petrochemicals. It's clear: our section has become the engine of the Cuban economy, so there is no compelling reason that we should be paid this miserable salary, equivalent to less than 30 dollars for an entire month's work.
If I go on about the numbers, it's only because they are very eloquent. You know, as I do, that the added human sensibility that makes our work priceless, despite our great scarcities that perhaps those who judge with surprising lightness us don't know, don't fully understand the seriousness of the matter.
You, like me, have been on medical duty where there is a lack of vital medications, reagents, X-ray film and essential disposable materials; where we don't even have running water, where we can't even wash ourselves on a 24-hour shift, without even being able to wash our hands; resting in such tough conditions that people wouldn't even believe it if they saw it; eating poorly — for example broth and mashed potatoes, or corn flour and boiled potatoes for every meal — knowing beforehand that this shift did not bring us a penny to feed our children and knowing, as well, what is even more painful, that other State sectors like ours, which don't generate anywhere near the income we do, are much better paid.
For decades we have been a very poorly served sector. In my case, I remember that since 1994 I worked for seven years with only the two doctor's coats I was given as a recent graduate, and this compares with other sectors that have received uniforms and shoes every year — some even every six months — as well as extra monthly pay in convertible pesos, personal hygiene products and food. I couldn't explain this if it weren't accepted, with pain I say it, hard evidence: those responsible for dealing with this sector don't concern themselves with the well-being of our workers, nor with our families, everything is a matter of sheer laziness, a proverbial irresponsibility, or both.
You quote another journalist, Fernando Ravsberg, as part of what is already becoming a crusade, also on the attack — according to what I infer from what you wrote, because I haven't had access to that article — extending the shadow of bribery on the just and the unjust. I read it and remember, however, such elevated examples of moving dedication: professionals who are second to none in knowledge, and also in ethical principles, people of integrity, who carry their wisdom with a shining humility, living in the midst of shortages and that it shames me even to remember, and who even so, prefer to die rather than stoop so low.
I know there are the unscrupulous among us, I know its face, its name, its last name, they are not abstract examples but reality. But for my pride and yours, Doctor, and perhaps to the surprise of Mr. Ravsberg, they will never be the rule, they are a painful exception. That I know and I would hold both my hands to the fire for that, my disinterested and honest people. Who search the trees for firewood, who look above us and find enough reed to cut it; but when there is not enough courage, it is more comfortable and certain to take from us, those below.
For saying words very similar to yours, Doctor, I was stigmatized, and some idiot even accused me publicly of being "money-grubbing," when I am among those convinced that capitalism is very far from offering a solution to the problems of the world, but to belabor this point would take us far off topic.
I think it is stupid to run after the superfluous, following a consumer culture that compels me to buy a cellphone every month or a new car every year. But as absurd as this is, after working 26 years, to be without a penny three days after being paid; that the workers of our sector eat lunch at noon without knowing if they will eat dinner that night; that our "salaries" honorably earned don't even allow us to feed our families for more than a week a month; that a specialist with 20 years experience has only one pair of broken shoes; that the most that we can aspire as physicians is to a battered bicycle.
Before such a picture, even Kafka would pale, would certainly suffer a massive heart attack with all the complications described by cardiology. I don't ask for irrational opulence, but nor do I deserve the miserable existence they seem to want to condemn me to.
Excuse my manners, allow me to present myself: I am Jeovany Jimenez Vega, I live in Artemisa and I have been a specialist in Internal Medicine since 1999. Five years ago I was disqualified to practice Medicine anywhere in the national territory indefinitely, since October 2006, for having channeled to then Minister Dr. José R. Balaguer Cabrera the opinions of 2300 professionals in Public Health about that disrespectful "salary increase" in our sector in mid-2005.
At the time of my punishment I was a Party member – since 1995 – and was studying the final year of specialization in Internal Medicine; I was expelled from the party immediately and suspended from my Residence, and several months later was disqualified, along with a colleague and friend who accompanied me on that initiative.
The details of they flat out lied to try to legitimize our punishment can be found in the first post of my blog "Citizen Zero" (http://citizenzerocuba.wordpress.com), open since last December to denounce this injustice and fight to regain the exercise of the profession that was taken from me.
Doctor: Despite everything, I have no doubt, we can count on the respect and caring of the majority of our patients and this is a great encouragement to continue. Along with this, I am comforted that there are professionals like yourself, who are not resigned to look on with indolence and shame, but who break their silence and share the truth. We consecrate our lives to the medical profession, as we must, but this should never be understood as renouncing the right to proudly defend our rights.
We live proud of our sublime profession, far beyond that "…contempt for the vocation, the abusive treatment…" to which we are subjected by those whose job it is to ensure our well-being as workers.
We will never forget that our oath imposes on us the duty to comfort man in his sickness and at his death, and to always comfort him in his pain, even if in his delirium he comes to bite the hand that cures him. In this endeavor, Doctor, we hold our heads high and our hearts open, and nothing else matters. Be assured, better times will come.
September 12 2011
Cuban Jewish leaders meet with jailed American
Posted on Wednesday, 12.28.11
Cuban Jewish leaders meet with jailed AmericanBy PAUL HAVENAssociated Press
HAVANA — A leader of Cuba's small Jewish community who visited jailed American contractor Alan Gross and even released pictures of them celebrating the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah together said Wednesday that he was in good spirits and fine health. But her account was quickly disputed by the man's wife, who said he was increasingly frail and despondent.
Adela Dworin said that she and another Jewish leader spent nearly two hours Monday with Gross at the military hospital where he is being held. They lit candles, ate potato pancakes and passed around chocolate coins to celebrate Hanukkah.
Photographs taken during the meeting show a thin Gross wearing a light-blue guayabera shirt standing between Dworin and another Cuban Jewish leader, David Prinstein. Gross has a gray beard. They are believed to be the first photos released of Gross inside the military hospital.
"His health is very good," Dworin told The Associated Press ahead of the photos' release. "He has gained some weight. He's not fat, but he's not so thin anymore."
But that account was questioned by Gross's wife, Judy, who revealed that she had traveled to Cuba to visit her husband a few weeks ago, and said she speaks to him regularly on the phone.
"He is deteriorating more and more every day," she wrote in a statement. "He told me he is feeling very hopeless … I truly do not know how much longer he can take this ordeal."
Judy Gross said her 62-year-old husband had recently cried for the first time while they spoke on the phone together, and said if he appeared cheerful in front of Dworin it was only to "put on a brave face."
"We continue to beg the Cuban authorities to let Alan come home to us," she wrote, adding that one look at the photos released by Dworin show a man who is weak and frail compared to the way he looked before his arrest.
Gross, who was portly, reportedly had lost 100 pounds (45 kilos) since he was arrested in December 2009.
Dworin said he told her he now weighs 161 pounds and walks five miles a day within the military hospital he is being held. She said he looked considerably better than on a previous visit she made to see him, and even made a muscle to show her his returning strength.
Dworin said Gross even told her he would like to return to Cuba for a visit after his release, noting he has seen the entire island except for the western province of Pinar del Rio.
Gross was working on a USAID-funded democracy-building program when he was arrested. His supporters say he was only trying to help the island's small Jewish community improve its Internet connection. Cuba says the USAID programs are aimed at bringing about regime change on the island.
Gross was sentenced to 15 years in jail earlier this year. His family and other prominent Americans have pleaded with Castro to release him on humanitarian grounds, noting that both his mother and daughter have been diagnosed with cancer since his incarceration.
Castro has voiced concern about Gross' condition, but the American was not included on a list of 2,900 prisoners the Cuban leader pardoned last week, most of them in jail for common crimes.
Gross' wife, Judy, said Saturday that her family was deeply distressed to hear that Gross was not included in the pardon.
"To receive news in the middle of Hanukkah that the Cuban authorities have once again overlooked an opportunity to release Alan on humanitarian grounds is devastating," she said.
Dworin said Gross was extremely anxious to get back home to his wife and family, but said he was upbeat during the visit.
She said they did not discuss Castro's prisoner amnesty at length during the Hanukkah celebration, but that Gross knew about it and was clearly disappointed not to be part of it.
"He wants to have hope," Dworin said. "We Jews always live with hope, or we would have disappeared from the earth long ago. A miracle could occur. After all it is Hanukkah, which is all about a miracle."
Hanukkah, which concluded Tuesday, is the Festival of Lights for Jews. The holiday commemorates the rededication of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 164 B.C. According to tradition, a candelabra was lit with only enough oil for one day, but it miraculously burned for eight days.
Paul Haven can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/paulhaven/
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/28/2564490/cuban-jewish-leaders-meet-with.html
Chronicle of Asclepius in Cuba (Part 2) / Jeovany J. Vega
Chronicle of Asclepius in Cuba (Part 2) / Jeovany J. VegaJeovany J. Vega
Translator's note: Asclepius is the ancient Greek god of Healing and Medicine
If you are moderately well-informed you know that we 11 million Cubans living in Cuba are subject to a ban on free travel abroad. In this case it's not about a personal decision, but requires that you be invariably authorized by an arm of the Ministry of the Interior with discretionary power to say yes or not to your "permission to leave"; a privilege that becomes the stuff of blackmail, with perks awarded to those who remain "quiet" and refusals as punishment for the irreverent, to set an example to others. This general prohibition is contained in the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) Resolution 54, specifically designed for those who work in Public Health, and which presents a bleak picture.
But returning to our mental exercise, here we have our thoughtful doctor who is forbidden to travel abroad, who can't support his family on his evanescent salary, who can't go to work in another better paid sector because the Resolution prohibits it, with a purely decorative Union that bows to the orders of the Administration and the Party, through which he can't channel any solution to these basic problems, nor will it acknowledge his starvation wages, nor the terrible conditions of hygiene and good, coupled with the lack of resources and medications which, save in happy exceptions, he passes his medical shifts in our polyclinics and hospitals; shifts for which our doctor, incidentally, does not receive even a penny.
Then our thoughtful physician has only one way out, and resignedly chooses the only door left open; he applies to be part of some medical mission that our supportive government sustains in some dozens of countries. He just has to fill out the rigorous documents, and spend a few months or years, and then our doctor leaves his office or hospital to care for the poor of the world.
I believe in human solidarity like I believe in the light of the sun, but in life you have the discern the luster of gold from the shine of the mirrors. When a doctor, dentist or other Cuban health professional leaves to work on a foreign mission, regardless of any moral valuation, he does it under indisputable circumstances. This worker, until now deprived of a decent wage, will from this moment forward receive 300 or 400 dollars a month, while his family in Cuba – which under no circumstances Is allowed to accompany him — will receive his full wages in Cuban pesos along with 50 convertible pesos every month.
Although under certain circumstances it can come to more depending on the destination country, it will never exceed 15% to 20% of what the host country is paying Cuba for his services. This is an estimate, as this information is practically inaccessible, but it's true that around 80% of what our doctor generates in his contracted wages — not taking into account extras for additional tests, radiology studies, etc., which are generously covered — goes directly to the coffers of the Cuban state to be administered by human functionaries.
Meanwhile, the Cuban health workers abroad receive a wage that in many cases is less than the legal minimum wage for a native of the country they are working in. When the worker returns to Cuba on completing his mission, he is once again subject like any good Cuban to the travel ban. Any professional that abandons his mission is invariably treated like a traitor, and is never permitted to enter Cuba again and will not be able to see his children grow up; he will not even be authorized to come in the case of an illness or death of a loved one.
Now let's look at a revealing fact: over the last decade contracting for medical services has brought the Cuban government tens of billions of dollars, and has become the country's largest source of export earnings. The selfless medical missions which our government exports to the world's poor, in the last decade, have generated between five and eight billion dollar annually; tourism is a distant second at two billion. This number accounts for the export of services only; our professionals in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries are third in line, surpassed only by the nickel industry and the petroleum products.
Note, first, the enormous economic dividend this implies, and secondly the obvious, and no less important, political benefit, that makes our leaders smell like Messiahs and garners votes for them in international forums. Add to that, thirdly, the escape valve it provides for the mood of the worker, who knows if he waits patiently for a mission abroad he can multiply his salary by 20 to 40 times during the two or three years, on condition he remain silent.
For the protestors, the outlaws, they will never join this mass of internationalists who now amount to about half of our practicing physicians who, clearly, resent the quality of medical care offered to the Cuban population.
Every human society is a complex system of relationships that require adjustments in their mechanisms and which should reward personal effort, because this will encourage respect for the value of honest labor. In this system, each one should have a well-defined place. While it is the role of the doctor to safeguard health and human life, that of the senior leaders of this country should be to guarantee the strategic design of a balanced and functional society and this, without a doubt, they have not managed to accomplish after 50 years of projects and conferences.
Not only did they fail in their design, but they did so resoundingly. The apologists talk about "free" education and health, but without attempting to complain of the sun for its spots, I suggest that this is relative, because the money they don't charge me at school or at the hospital, bleeds from my fingers in the hard-currency stores with their absurd policy of extremely abusive prices, where things are marked up 500% or 1000% over their wholesale price. Also, to guarantee an education and people's health is not a gesture of goodwill, but an obligation of the State. We mustn't forget that over his whole life a worker salary is cut by 33% to guarantee his Social Security. This gloomy subject is rarely spoken of in my country.
I have clean hands and I like to play it straight, so someone who's playing a game can save the lectures on patriotism. I believe the necessary Revolution of 1959 was right and authentic, but I can't applaud what it has condemned us to, because if there is no respect for the rights of man, there is nothing left to defend.
I am with the Revolution, but will never resign myself to its errors, nor with the acts of demagogues and opportunists. I am a doctor, a Cuban, I live in the real and difficult Cuba, not in the TV newscasts and I do not wish to emigrate. I graduated in 1994, and since 1998 have had a specialty in General Medicine. I was a third-year Resident in Internal Medicine until April 2006 when, in my last year, I was suspended from the study of this specialty and then disqualified from the practice of medicine in Cuba, for an indefinite time in October 2006, along with a colleague, Dr. Rodolfo Martinez Vigoa.
The ancestral intolerance to which we were already accustomed made the powers-that-be react as if we had thrown a Molotov cocktail. Terrified by that tiny consensus, they did what they do best: put down by force and show of dissent. They never responded, they were unscrupulous and brutal. The details of this injustice are fully known by all the relevant central agencies including the Attorney General's Office, without anyone doing anything to fix it.
I am one more among tens of thousands of Cuban doctors who live every day under this outrageous reality. I live under a government that deprived me of the right to exercise my profession for political considerations, that systematically censored my opinions, that took away my right to travel freely, that doesn't respect my right to receive information first hand and that denies me 21st century Internet access, all of which give an idea of how retrograde they are when topic is man's right to think freely.
The government that commits this flagrant violation of the rights of millions of Cubans now occupies no less than the Vice Presidency of the Human Rights Council of the UN. If you had the patience to read this far, you already have a rough vision of what our professionals in Public Health experience. If you belong to the group of apologists or those with clenched fist, know that this is the Cuba that you applaud or condemn so fervently as your conscience dictates.
August 19 2011
What to Celebrate? / Rebeca Monzo
What to Celebrate? / Rebeca MonzoRebeca Monzo, Translator: Meg Anderson
Today, December 3rd, we celebrate the Day of the Doctor in my world.
I have a doctor friend, with twenty-five years of experience, specializing in psychiatry, with good results, according to the acknowledgement of her patients, which is what really counts, who this year will be in her house baking cakes to be able to survive, while in her ancient place of employment, a polyclinic in Central Havana, they will hand out flowers and make speeches, with out taking into account that of the five psychiatrists who work there, only one of whom kept their job, while the other four, including my friend, were let go.
My friend is still young, not yet fifty years old, and has vast experience in her field, is divorced and has two children to take care of who are still studying. It is inconceivable that a doctor's knowledge and experience would be wasted in this way. I understand that if this polyclinic had too many psychiatrists, something I doubt as this is an overpopulated city in which people do not enjoy the best living conditions, they should have had the others sent to other health centers where they could have used them. The sick who come in search of medical help almost always have to be attended to by inexperienced foreign students, who in some case cannot communicate very well with them, because they do not speak our language correctly. In general, this is not well received by those who come seeking medical attention, when our government shows off by sending so many doctors on foreign missions.
Is it that, since people here the do not have life insurance (it doesn't exist), they come to practice on us as if we were guinea pigs? What's certain is that already this is causing discomfort among people; we like to be well served and to be in the presence of an experienced doctor, from whom the students next to them can gain experience, rather than practice on the sick.
Nevertheless, my congratulations to all these hardworking Cuban doctors who take the bus (guagua in "good Cuban") or bicycle to their hospital or polyclinic, who have shifts too often, who work with many difficult materials and who even so are kind and professional with the patients (as they should be), receiving a lower salary than an employee at Aurora (a business that sweeps the streets) or a fumigator. To all of them, my deepest respect.
Translated by: Meg Anderson
December 3 2011
Chronicle of Asclepius in Cuba (Part 1) / Jeovany J. Vega
Chronicle of Asclepius in Cuba (Part 1) / Jeovany J. VegaJeovany J. Vega, Translator: Unstated
Asclepius is the ancient Greek god of Healing and Medicine
The Cuban Revolution has always raised great passions. Millions within and outside the island are split between those who applaud and offering moving excuses, or those who clench their fists and launch incendiary accusations. But without a doubt, among the picturesque barbarities that flourish under the tropical sky there is one that is particularly atrocious: the condition of semi-slavery affecting public health professionals. To shed some light on the matter, I suggest you follow me through this attempt at a chronicle.
Imagine for a moment you decided to study medicine in Havana and graduated in 1994, during the worst economic crisis in our history. Some of your friends from high school, who take life a little more lightly, decided to raise and sell pigs, open their own businesses, or start working in tourism. Once you graduate, after six years of personal sacrifice, you naturally aspire to live honestly on your salary, but it starts at 231 Cuban pesos a month, that is you receive less than two dollars for a whole month's work for almost two years.
From time to time you run into a friend from high school, who has bought an elegant car, as compared to your raggedy bicycle. But you want to get ahead so you devote four more years of your youth to study. After a total of ten years study (combining medical school and your specialty), you end up as a specialist in internal medicine, with which, given that specialty, your salary will be around 531 Cuban pesos a month, Meaning you will work a full month for a salary equivalent to $21 U.S. Meanwhile, a barman at a hotel earns $200 U.S., on one shift! The customs official at the airport earns $500 U.S. extorting the tourists, and this is 25 times the monthly salary of a doctor, again, on one shift!
This abysmal difference in living standards is the root of our dramas. Painfully, in Cuba, the well-being of your family doesn't depend on your dedication to work or on your desire to excel, nor on the respect shown your profession, which also illustrates the chaos that has ruled our lives for the last 20 years. It is in this jungle where our doctors "fight," not living in the encouraging world of International Cubavision TV, where the Revolution continues strong and victorious, with GDP growing 10% a decade, while the little guy suffers an economy in ruins, a complete divorce from reality, as if we are talking about two different countries.
Faced with such a hostile reality, our doctors have to invent miracles in their free time to feed their families, badly; make "magic" in the black market, work as a photographer, clown, carpenter, shoemaker or cosmonaut, always illegal, because up to a few months ago the Ministry of Labor prohibited, by Resolution, access to self-employment.
Suppose that you, a specialist in internal medicine, decide to go for a second specialty. After another four years of great sacrifice you graduate, for example, as a surgeon and now your monthly salary is augmented with 50 Cuban pesos (just over $2.00 U.S.), which is enough to buy four bars of soap. Thus, while a surgeon's monthly salary is 623 Cuban pesos ($27.00 U.S.), a guard in the Specialized Protection Services, after a one month course, earns about 1,500 Cuban pesos monthly in cash, plus extra food and toiletries, while a cop on the beat receives up to 1,600 Cuban pesos, plus other benefits. For some obscure reason our government believes that doctors don't merit such deference.
After getting over your shock, you say, "But come on man! If a salary isn't even enough to buy toilet paper, become a barman, a customs inspector, even the security guard at the hospital will make out better!" I would respond: My friend, the leaders of my country literally turned the sacred practice of medicine into the famous tunic of Nessus — the poisoned shirt that killed Heracles; our doctors cannot work outside the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) because a Labor Ministry resolution categorically forbids it. No entity outside MINSAP is permitted to offer a doctor work. Can you comprehend it? But you meditate on this and your face lights up: "Emigrate! To some country that needs doctors, at least temporarily, while things improve."
Then I ask you to make yourself comfortable and listen carefully to the good part, because here it comes…
Everything you're read up to this point will seem like a game of little girls playing in the convent garden, compared to how you will live if you decide to travel outside Cuba as a doctor and Cuban citizen. In July 1999 the Minister of Public Health issued Resolution 54, still in force, whose details I don't know and nor do our workers, as they are hidden from us with the zeal of a State Secret. This Resolution of Ignominy, as we call it, is the most humiliating insult inflicted upon those who embrace the medical profession in Cuba since the coming of Columbus. It states that if you want to permanently leave the country, or even do so temporarily, you must ask the Minister of Public Health for "liberation" from the sector.
That is, if the happy idea occurs to you to visit your family or friends abroad during your vacation, you must wait an obligatory five years of your life at a minimum (!!), during which you will be held against your will by the Ministry of Public Health, with no options. It doesn't matter if you just graduated or if you've been working for 30 years, both have to wait five years! I know, personally, cases held for 7 years before their "liberation." Even retired doctors and dentists are held for three years before being allowed to travel; even a nurse faces this aberration!
Let's clarify that from the moment that you begin the paperwork to travel, you will automatically be placed on a list of the "unreliable," and will be relieved of all your administrative posts and teaching positions, if you have any, and you will be transferred from your job to one further away and that is a demotion. As the years pass marriages break up, children are traumatized, parents die without seeing their children again.
I can't adequately describe the human suffering that is caused by the monster to those who see their rights undermined, but none of this concerns the Union or Parliament: they can always blame the Cuban Adjustment Act for your death if instead of resigning yourself you improvise a raft and end up devoured by the sharks. As you can see, under such circumstances to speak of semi-slavery is much more than a euphemism.
*Footnote: As of two decades ago, two currencies circulate in Cuba: the Cuban peso (CUP), also called "national money" — in which workers receive their wages — and the convertible peso (CUC), also called "convertible currency" — which is used in the chain of hard-currency stores that accept only this money.
EXCHANGE RATES:
1994: 1 CUC = 1 USD = 140 CUP
Since the late 1990s to 2001: 1 CUC = 1 USD = 21 CUP
September 2001 to today: 1 CUC = 25 CUP
(To be continued …)
August 17 2011
Vigil Planned For American Held in Cuba
Vigil Planned For American Held in Cuba Alan Gross not among 2,900 prisoners released by Cuban regime Monday, Dec 26, 2011 | Updated 10:22 AM EST
Supporters of a Maryland man who is entering his third year of captivity in Cuba are holding a vigil Monday in downtown Washington.
Alan Gross, 62, of Potomac, was arrested at the Havana airport in 2009 and was sentenced to 15 years in jail by a Cuban court for crimes against the state. At the time of his arrest, Gross was working for a Bethesda company called Development Alternatives, which recently won a government contract to promote democracy in Cuba. Family and U.S. officials said that Gross’ job was to distribute computer and satellite phone equipment to Cuba’s small Jewish community. The Cuban government claims that such programs, which are sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), are aimed at undermining the Communist government of Raul Castro.
The most recent vigil comes after Cuba announced Friday that it was releasing 2,900 prisoners in advance of a visit by Pope Benedict XVI early next year. A Foreign Ministry official confirmed to the Associated Press that Gross was not among those who would be released.
U.S. officials have been lobbying for Gross’ release on humanitarian grounds, citing his deteriorating health and the cancer diagnoses that his elderly mother and daughter have both received. American Jewish leaders have also stepped up calls for Gross’ release, which would have coincided with the beginning of Hannukah.
Today’s vigil begins at noon, and will be held at the Cuban Interests Section at 2630 16th Street, Northwest.
Copyright Associated Press / NBC4 Washington
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