University of Michigan groups visit Cuba after Obama eases travel restrictions
University of Michigan groups visit Cuba after Obama eases travel restrictions Posted: Sun, May 6, 2012 : 1:11 p.m.
Jacqueline Haber grew up hearing stories of Cuba, the communist island her father, once a member of the Cuban military, fled nearly half a century ago.
In April, 45-year-old Haber, a nurse for the University of Michigan Health System, stepped foot on Cuban soil for the first time.
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She and 34 U-M alumni became a few of the first Americans to visit Cuba since U.S. President Barack Obama eased travel restrictions in 2011. The group was the first of three U-M contingents to tour Cuba as part of U-M Alumni Association-backed travel expeditions. The last group, which includes Lisa Rudgers, U-M vice president of global communications, is touring the country now.
"It was a bag of mixed emotions," Haber says of her trip to Cuba. "My father always wanted to take his family back to Cuba, to the country he left behind to go to the States for freedom."
In many ways, the Cuba Haber experienced during her visit was similar to the one her father left for America. There's been little construction in the 50 or so years since the U.S. closed doors to Cuba. People drive bike taxis and pre-revolutionary cars and pay to use public restrooms, where toilet paper is rationed by the square and toilets don't have lids.
"Havana is a city frozen in time, with buildings that are just crumbling. The infsatructure is just a mess over there," Haber said.
In other veins, however, the city has changed vitally.
"Almost all of these very large, old estates and homes that were built by the very rich in the (1940s and 50s) have all been turned over to renters," said U-M Alumnus David Morrison, a retired foreign service worker who traveled to Cuba with Haber beginning March 19. "There are huge numbers of families crowded in each of these places."
Morrison and his wife, along with other travelers, paid $3,845 each for the eight-day trip to Cuba, during which they visited with Cuban artists, ballet performers, economists and students and toured several cities, including Havana, the island's capitol.
U-M Alumni Association travel coordinator Carrie Fediuk originally planned for just one departure but response was "so overwhelming" she decided to tack on two extra trips. Fediuk applied for an educational travel visa to Cuba in June 2011 and received the go-ahead in November.
Travel to Cuba has been heavily restricted since the 1960s and in 2003 George W. Bush fully eliminated licenses to travel there. Obama in 2011 eased restrictions, allowing educational trips to Cuba, and the first group of U.S. citizens landed in August. Other elite universities, such as the University of California at Los Angeles and Harvard University, have since led similar trips to Cuba.
"It was a very labor intensive process. The U.S. government wanted to know everything about our program, our history, what our intentions were to travel there," Fediuk recalled, adding that officials circled back with her twice requesting additional information. Fediuk, who regularly arranges trips to countries like Egypt, Machu Picchu, the Galapagos Islands and Turkey, said she can't recall a more detailed vetting process.
The difficulty, she said, was well worth the eventual reward.
"It was uncharted territory," Fediuk said. "Cuba is a place we knew our travelers would want to go. They're curious and they wanted to see a place that's been closed off to U.S. travelers for many, many years."
That's not to say the expedition didn't stir up a little controversy.
"Cuba is a communist regime that not necessarily everybody approves of. We know people have lost their lives trying to flee the country and that's bothersome. So when we opened the trip up I knew there would be some people who didn't agree with our decision to go," Fediuk said. "They were concerned about our traveling there and supporting their economy. Based on the fact that it is a dictatorship and not a free economy."
It was the effects of the restricted economy that shocked Morrison the most.
"The irony is that you have doctors and university professors who stand on street corners and offer guided tours to earn a decent living, which they can't get from either being a professor or a doctor," he recalled.
For Haber, the short trip was "an eye-opener."
"Now I totally understand why my family is the way they are," she said. "Cubans are definitely survivors. They do the most they can with the little they have."
Fediuk says she is planning additional trips for 2013.
Cars, Costs and Benefits / Eliécer Ávila
Cars, Costs and Benefits / Eliécer Ávila Eliécer Ávila, Translator: Unstated
In Cuba, there are many things we take for granted and count on for ourselves and for the world as settled matters, normal in how they work, but in reality they are obsolete things, of poor quality and even dangerous or extremely harmful to our health.
Most people don't realize it because our level of development is so low, so in terms of appreciating the quality of the things around us, almost anything available for subsistence satisfies us. There could be thousands of examples, perhaps millions, because every Cuban could offer several related to his or her own environment and experience.
This time I will address an issue that illustrates some of this insidious reality: cars.
The equipment that is considered ordinary cars in Cuba could not circulate on the streets of any country at a certain level in the world, unless it were for an antique show. Much less if the country is proud of being a tooth-and-nail defender of the environment. The same goes for almost all the motorcycles, most of which are two-stroke (banned for years by international protocols).
An American vehicle of the '40s and '50s circulating on our streets leaves a trail of black smoke in its wake that contaminates more than 100 modern cars would, worse than the ones the Chinese make, and what's more, since they are practically the only ones in the country in private hands, their sale prices are enough to make you die of sadness.
An American "almendrón" (the old cars used in private shared taxi services), reasonably maintained for its year, with an adapted gas engine, can easily cost 25,000 to 35,000 CUC and more, a figure that is even higher in dollars. A Soviet made motorcycle with original parts no longer exists, but would have been almost completely reinvented thanks to Cuban ingenuity, and could be worth between 2,000 to 7,000 CUC, depending on the make.
But a simple search on the Internet will show you how many cars — modern, economical, ecological, safe, and above all "cheap" — can be purchased in international markets. There are even places where you can buy a used car manufactured after 2000 for $300, which would be a dream for any doctor, engineer or teacher in Cuba. And it's the same thing with motorcycles.
Recently I saw an ad for a 2011 Italian Lambretta, a top flight bike of world-renowned quality and durability, for not more than 800 Euros, which is less that a Karpaty would cost in Cuba which, along with the Berjovina, is the worst motorcycle made on the face of the earth, though every day they carry thousands of Cubans all over the place, at cost of spending all your money on it, constantly "babying it along," living covered in grease and permanently pissed off because anything can break on it anywhere, such that people have nicknamed it "prison sentence"; and still it's a privilege to have one at a price which very few people can afford (800-1,700 CUC).
But the issue also involves the subject of fuel, which in spite of all the treaties and the "integration" with countries like Venezuela where, according to Cuban doctors themselves — who are serving on overseas Missions there — "water is more expensive than gasoline"; the fact is that in Cuba fuel prices are rising and according to some Europeans with whom I've talked it is more expensive than in their countries.
It's crystal clear that the greatest institutional fraud is the fact that as Cubans we have to pay much more for almost everything, it being more expensive here than anywhere in the world, while, paradoxically, we earn the least money for a month's work.
This is a topic that the "people's representatives" never seriously addressed at any conference of the Party or the National Assembly. It is very clear that those who don't sleep thinking of our welfare and our development will not face these problems because with the money that is left over after paying an entire people, they are able to buy very nice and comfortable cars, as well as the fuel to go from meeting to meeting in their very clean clothes, not squeezed in with people of all kinds, without sweating their lives away, without losing their health breathing the carbon coming from the bowels of one of those priceless truck-tractors (being operated as public transport) that are imposed on ordinary Cubans. Then there is the TV spot that speaks of the danger of exposing yourself to secondhand smoke…
The truth is that since the year 1959 no Cuban can go to an agency and buy a car normally. The State is the only one who has this privilege and it takes advantage of it to "work" more efficiently, for example, the thousands of men the government has to better monitor — from their modern and comfortable transport — each sheep in the flock who is traveling on foot.
Our people have a right to demand that companies around the world come and sell their equipment directly here. And also that this happens because they pay us according to the standards of the international economy in which a worker (and more if they are professionals which a great number of Cubans are) can have a decent vehicle to get to work and take care of the problems and necessities of life.
The word "safe" is very important in this issue; we all know that accidents have become one of the leading causes of death in our country. But how are they not going to kill people traveling on top of each other crammed into pure iron crates without the slightest guarantee of safety! That, coupled with the deplorable state of the roads and the age of the aircraft fitted with homemade inventions "to keep them flying" is a perfect combination to kill yourself. But the Cuban government seems to only see the responsibility of drivers.
The saddest part is that the propaganda and all the mechanisms of government do not allow people to realize that this one-party system is the permanent barrier that will not let us develop and access the vast store of progress and benefits we could achieve with an open, participatory and democratic society.
It is a mortal sin and suicidal for us and for future generations not to see that everything, absolutely everything, happens because of politics. If we don't change the way we do politics in Cuba, we cannot change anything, we cannot have development, progress, the public good, respect, tolerance, peace or happiness. We will always be backward and hungry and in the end in hell, where we have already lost a good part of our lives and are threatened with losing them completely.
Eliécer Avila Puerto Padre, Las Tunas, Cuba
This text was published in Spanish in the blog Penultimos Dias, courtesy of La Cubanada social network which will bring weekly chronicles from this author.
4 May 2012
Cubans Shooting Up with Sunflower Oil to Build Muscle
Cubans Shooting Up with Sunflower Oil to Build Muscle Published May 04, 2012 EFE
Havana – Injections of kitchen oils such as soy and sunflower has grown among Cubans seeking to build massive muscles, the Communist Party daily Granma said Friday, calling the practice "deplorable" and irresponsible.
The newspaper said that the use of "magic oils" for bodybuilding is nothing new but "it has grown in Cuba over the last few months, with kitchen oils the ones that are most used."
Granma stressed the "disastrous" consequences of the practice and cited Health Ministry specialists who warn of infections, the need for surgery and the risk of contagious diseases caused by exchanging syringes.
"A simple injection, badly done or as a result of the reaction to a substance injected, can even cause death," the daily said, giving examples of youths who have suffered fatal complications.
The daily said that in other countries a compound of fatty acid and lidocaine known as Synthol is all the rage and that a bottle of the substance can cost as much as $300 on the international market.
"For those who want their muscles to look really cut, the solution isn't adding some product to the organism that in the end can spark unfortunate results," Granma, which champions the systematic practice of sports and exercise, said.
Cuba’s little capitalists are ready to rumba
Cuba's little capitalists are ready to rumba By Jeff Franks HAVANA | Fri May 4, 2012 6:10am EDT
(Reuters) – When Ojacy Curbello and her husband opened a restaurant at their home in Havana in late December, not a single customer showed up.
It was a disheartening debut for Bollywood, the first Indian restaurant in the Cuban capital. Curbello worried that their dream of cashing in on recent reforms in this Communist-run country would collapse.
The next day customers began trickling in. As word spread, the trickle became a flood. Many nights the couple had to turn people away or serve them at the family dining table and call in extra help. Today they are planning to increase the 22-seat capacity by expanding their 1950s home and putting tables and a bar in what is now their bedroom.
"It has been amazing how quickly it has taken off," said Curbello, still looking slightly stunned. She sat with her husband, Cedric Fernandez, a Londoner of Sri Lankan descent, in the main dining area, hung with prints of Indian figures.
Bollywood's story is an example of how life is slowly changing in Cuba since President Raul Castro launched a string of limited economic reforms in 2010.
After his ailing older brother, Fidel, stepped down as president four years ago, Raul Castro began to encourage self-employment. He initiated changes in sectors previously restricted to the state or which had operated illegally in Cuba's vast black market.
He has given Cubans the right, with some restrictions, to buy and sell homes and cars for the first time since the early days of the 1959 revolution, led by Fidel.
Would-be farmers can lease land from the government. New small entrepreneurs are being allowed to enter into contracts with state companies and local governments.
As a result, more Cubans are setting up their own businesses as the cash-strapped government moves to cut spending and boost tax revenue.
The self-employed, known on the Caribbean island as "cuenta propistas," literally "on their own account," are selling food, services and assorted goods out of their homes or off sidewalk tables. Private restaurants are opening, and the cries of street vendors, common before the revolution, again echo through neighborhoods.
Havana says more than 371,000 Cubans are self-employed, up from 157,000 before President Castro announced his private-enterprise measures in September 2010. Economy Minister Adel Yzquierdo Rodriguez has said as many as 240,000 more nonstate jobs will be added in 2012.
More such change may be in the works. In April, a senior Communist Party official, Estaban Lazo Hernandez, said in a speech that Cuba will move nearly 50 percent of the country's economic activity to the "nonstate" sector in the coming five years, up from 5 percent now.
This is not capitalism for capitalism's sake, however – and political reform is not part of the program.
The goal is to keep the Communist Party in power by nurturing a larger private sector and a smaller, more efficient state bureaucracy. Cuba says it is developing its own model, but think China 30 years ago, on a far more modest scale.
Whether it will work is one of the great unknowns about Cuba's future.
Interviews with a wide range of cuenta propistas found a mixed record of success and failure, with most doing well enough to keep going but only moderately improving their lives.
A few said they are succeeding hugely. Others have already quit or are thinking about it. Roughly 25 percent of the new businesses have failed, local economists say.
Cuba needs the budding private sector to thrive because in the future the government will no longer offer what essentially has been guaranteed employment.
The state employs about 85 percent of its 5.2 million workers. The plan is to cut a million jobs by 2015, with the hope that many of those laid off will go to work for themselves.
CONSERVING POWER
Some observers believe Castro is opening a Pandora's box with his reforms. Allowing a little capitalism could lead to a desire for more and perhaps pose a threat to the future of communism he envisions. Others think that if Cubans become less dependent on the government, they will be less accepting of its social and political control.
For that reason, said Marifeli Perez-Stable, a Cuban-American professor of sociology at Florida International University in Miami, Castro is proceeding cautiously.
"Raul is going slowly because he knows what he faces," she said. "They are being conservative because they want to conserve power."
Cubans seem generally pleased that economic change is afoot. Some like the idea they can strike out on their own, with an opportunity to earn more than the paltry state wages. The average Cuban salary rose slightly in 2011 to the equivalent of $19 a month.
While most Cubans say change is needed, they also worry about losing their social safety net if there is too big a dose of capitalism. They get low-cost or free housing, a heavily subsidized monthly food ration, and free health care and education.
Cuba, which nationalized all businesses in the years after the revolution, allowed a brief blush of private enterprise in the mid-1990s following the collapse of Havana's patron, the Soviet Union. When that grim time — known in Cuba as the "special period" – began to ease, the government put the brakes on the low-level capitalism that had bloomed and used onerous regulations to run many cuenta propistas out of business.
This time, government leaders have said the reforms are not temporary.
"We are not applying patches or improvising, but looking for permanent solutions to old problems," 81-year-old Vice President Jose Ramon Machado Ventura said in a speech in central Ciego de Avila last July.
"It's deeper, the scope is much bigger, and the objective is larger," says Philip Peters, a Cuba expert at the Lexington Institute in Virginia. "In the 1990s the goal was to make a few adjustments to the model to get their heads back above water. … This time they are making changes to the model."
Cuba's new entrepreneurs face challenges common everywhere, as well as some peculiar to a country where private enterprise has been largely prohibited for a half century. Many lack startup capital and experience, and their customers have limited purchasing power.
A vice minister in Cuba's Labor Ministry recently said the self-employed are heavily concentrated in the making and selling of food, transporting cargo and passengers, and working as contract laborers.
Two-thirds were not working when they started their businesses, he said. A state television report said 16 percent are pensioners.
Former agriculture worker Oscar Oquendo is 78 years old. A tall man with wispy gray hair and a withered face, he walks along a crumbling central Havana street selling pastries he makes at home.
Like many of his generation, he says he is loyal to the Castros and communism, but needs money to supplement his monthly pension, equivalent to $10.
4 CENTS APIECE
Oquendo, 78, sells his pastries for one Cuban peso, or 4 cents, apiece. Without a word, he pulls a pastry from his bag, holds it up to a potential customer's startled face, looks him in the eye and waits for a response.
It works – he says he is earning $33 a month.
"I'm very happy with that. I'm helping myself and my country," Oquendo said as he prepared to confront another passerby.
Success has been more elusive for Rafael Barrios, who sells plumbing items from a stand on 10 de Octubre Avenue, where dust swirls past century-old buildings.
At 42, he wonders if he should have left his job at a state warehouse. The insecurity and the long hours needed to earn a little more money are wearing on him.
"At least there I didn't have to work very hard and I got paid every month," he grumbles from behind a table he set up in between abandoned buildings.
But with the government cutting jobs, there is no turning back for him. He is scouting new locations.
Leather goods salesman Arle Toro Perez, 58, faced the same dilemma as Barrios, glumly sitting on a folding chair in a gravel-strewn driveway with few customers to buy the few belts, key chains and wallets he hung from a stand.
He was making about three times more than the $13 a month he earned at the state job he had quit, but still just scraping by. Taxes were high and business slower than he hoped. Some days he sold nothing at all.
He later moved to a new location across from the Havana Libre hotel, which opened in 1958 as the Havana Hilton, and things picked up. There were more tourists and more sales. Today he has a much bigger inventory and a smile on his face.
"Some days I'm making twice as much as I did at the old location. I can take better care of my family," he said.
Some of the new entrepreneurs are stretching the limits set out by the government and doing well.
Alex, who spoke on condition that his last name not be used, was an architect before he discovered the profitability of "pirateria." Today he sells counterfeit DVDs from a dingy, makeshift storefront in central Havana.
He moves between shoppers examining his movie selection, heavy on the latest Hollywood features. One customer looks over a copy of "Killer Elite," starring Robert De Niro and Clive Owen, then hands it back.
Alex has had the business for years, but before the reforms the store was illegal, though not the copyright violations. In Cuba, copyright laws are ignored and state television and movie theaters routinely show pirated movies.
Now, his feel for capitalism unleashed, Alex is diversifying, expanding and, by Cuban standards, making a bundle of money – about $80 a day.
"I have two other stands like this one, and with the money I've accumulated I'm getting into the food business," he said. "I've got a big house with four bedrooms and I've got two cars."
TOURISM TROVE
Much of the entrepreneurship is aimed at the lucrative tourist trade. In the colonial city of Trinidad, 175 miles southeast of Havana, Osmary and Alberto jumped into the business out of necessity.
In late 2010, shortly after Raul Castro announced the opening for the self-employed, the restaurant where Alberto worked closed. They painted their home bright orange and turned it into a guest house, renting rooms to tourists.
One of the first guests praised it on the travel website TripAdvisor.com, and it has been mostly full ever since. The couple began with two rooms, expanded to four and now want to add another and perhaps a pool. A chef now cooks for guests.
"We are more comfortable," Alberto says, declining to divulge numbers. He praised the reforms for giving Cubans a chance to do better. "The people have many ideas."
As a group, the splashiest new businesses are home-grown restaurants, or "paladares" as they are known in Cuba, which have exploded in number in the past year. ("Paladar" means "palate" in English and was the name given to a chain of restaurants opened by a small-time vendor in a popular Brazilian soap opera.)
Expatriates and visitors used to complain that there were too few good places to eat in Havana. Now they have trouble keeping track of all the new ones.
An Internet list showed 93 paladares in Havana districts where foreign residents and tourists are centered. Some date back to the 1990s, but the latest have popped up so quickly they are not yet cited.
The eastern province of Santiago de Cuba had four such eateries before the reforms; now there are 104. In the same period, the total number of self-employed in the province jumped from 8,000 to 25,800.
Many of the new paladares are upscale, with names like Le Chansonnier, El Partenon and Cafe Laurent. They are usually in nicely renovated homes, with fancy decor and hefty prices. Filet mignon with pepper sauce, grilled lobster, roast duck, and fish with white wine replace the usual Cuban fare of rice, beans and pork.
Some owners complain that business has not lived up to expectations and taxes are high. The self-employed must pay 10 percent sales tax every month, a monthly license fee that varies according to profession, and a yearly income tax that also varies but is 50 percent for paladares.
The government says it keeps taxes high because it needs money and doesn't want its reforms to lead to wide class differences, with some people accumulating great wealth.
RAMPANT REAL ESTATE SALES
But the housing market, which the government has opened, could be a major source of capital for Cubans, with the potential to boost living standards and infuse money into the economy. Cuba has billions of dollars worth of real estate that could be turned into liquid assets, and prices are already rising.
"Home ownership is very high in Cuba, about 85-90 percent," says Antonio Zamora, a Cuban-American lawyer who visits Cuba regularly and has studied its investment laws.
Cubans who stayed after the revolution were allowed to keep their homes. Over the years, through laws designed to do away with the for-profit real estate market, renters were also able to earn title to the places where they live. Selling homes was not permitted, and instead a home-exchange system was introduced.
"The net value of Cubans and the country as a whole is going to go through the roof," Zamora said.
Interest in buying and selling homes is running high. A recent check showed 11,025 listings on revolico.com, an Internet marketplace for Cubans, with prices ranging from a few thousand dollars for cramped apartments to several hundred thousand for spacious homes built before the revolution.
On Paseo del Prado, a main Havana avenue, unlicensed sales agents say the market for less expensive properties in better neighborhoods has been so brisk that stock is running low. The Cuban government says the country needs another 600,000 homes. Foreigners are still largely barred from buying Cuban property.
Retired government worker Jose Leon said he turned down an offer equal to $100,000 from a European buyer with a Cuban wife for his 1950s three-bedroom apartment in Havana's once-exclusive Miramar neighborhood. He did not want to pay the 10 percent fee the agents charge and thinks prices will go up.
Many believe that as long as keeping communism afloat is Castro's goal, he will not go far enough to make much of a difference to their lives. Others think he will, but slowly. Castro has said his reforms will take five years to implement because the leadership wants to avoid making mistakes.
Skeptics point out that the government still tells people how many homes they can own and how many chairs they can have in their restaurants. It has set out 181 jobs in which self-employment is allowed – but everyone must be licensed for their jobs.
Alex, the seller of pirated DVDs, nonetheless argues that the changes have put Cuba on an irreversible path. "Three years ago we didn't even think about having cell phones, now we have cell phones," he says. "For years we couldn't sell houses, now we can sell houses. For years, we couldn't buy a car, now we can buy a car.
"And now we can have a business. They are small, they are micro-businesses. But it's yours, and it depends on your ability, your effort, your tenacity."
(Additional reporting by Nelson Acosta, Rosa Tania Valdes in Havana and David Adams in Miami; Editing by Kieran Murray, David Adams and Prudence Crowther)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/04/us-cuba-economy-reforms-idUSBRE8430K320120504
The authorities attack us because we talk about the issues people face
2 May 2012
Cuba: "The authorities attack us because we talk about the issues people face"
"I do not think a tweet from me is going to save anybody from prison but it does save them from impunity" Journalist and blogger Luis Felipe Rojas
For Cuban journalist and blogger Luis Felipe Rojas, posting an entry on his blog Crossing the Wire Fences or even sending an email is a daunting task.
Every time he wants to access the internet, he has to leave his house in the early hours of the morning and travel 200 kilometres from his hometown of Holguín, in eastern Cuba, to the closest cybercafé. If he is lucky, and he is not stopped at a police checkpoint on the way, he will get to a computer in about three hours.
Once there, Luis Felipe has to show ID to buy an access card and pay six US dollars to use the internet for sixty minutes – that is almost a third of a monthly local salary.
Some days he finds websites containing information considered critical of the government are blocked or messages have disappeared from his inbox.
Internet access is so highly controlled in Cuba that critics of the government have come up with creative ways to ensure their stories get out.
Sometimes that involves converting articles into digital images and sending them via SMS to a contact outside of Cuba, to type and post on Luis Felipe's blog. He also uses text messages for posting on Twitter but the lack of internet access means that he cannot see what others say to (or about) him.
Luis Felipe is part of a growing group of journalists and government critics who are finding new ways to by-pass state control in order to disseminate information about human rights abuses taking place in Cuba.
According to a recent report by Amnesty International, independent journalists and bloggers have faced increased threats and intimidation when publishing information critical to the authorities.
The 'Hablemos Press' Information Centre, an unofficial news agency monitoring human rights abuses across Cuba, recently reported that from March 2011 to March 2012 inclusively, more than 75 independent journalists have been detained, some, like Caridad Caballero Batista up to 20 times.
"After the mass release of prisoners of conscience in 2011, we have seen authorities sharpening their strategy to silence dissent by harassing government critics and independent journalists with short term detentions and public acts of repudiation," said Gerardo Ducos, Cuba expert with Amnesty International.
On 25 March, Luis Felipe was detained in a local police station for five days in order to prevent him from travelling to attend an open-air mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI.
"The authorities attack us because we talk about the issues people face - that not everybody has enough food, that public services do not always work, that there are problems with the health service," Luis Felipe said to Amesty International.
"I have been scared many times. Scared of going to the street, of being beaten up, of being locked up for a long time and not seeing my children. But fear does not stop me. I do not think a tweet from me is going to save anybody from prison but it does save them from impunity."
Cuba: A Little Hunger and Lot of Poor Eating
Cuba: A Little Hunger and Lot of Poor Eating May 2, 2012 Alfredo Fernandez
HAVANA TIMES, May 2 — As a Cuban, I'm always surprised with the way my fellow citizens refer to hunger as a "thing of the past," since we felt it sharply back in the 1990s. The fact is, however, that this isn't always the case.
A brief review of that miserable decade reminds me that we used to eat bistec de toronja ("grapefruit steak," consisting of breaded and fried grapefruit skins) as well as soy picadillo (the worst ground meat-like substance that any human beings ever tasted in the twentieth century, a "mystery meat" that survives up through today).
Some less fortunate individuals even got to the point of trying bistec de colcha de trapear (mop-tassel steak).
In the '90s we got used to cooking without oil — on those rare occasions when we did cook — sometimes without salt and using animal fat; bread was also scarce. In short, at times the Cuban diet reached extremely low levels.
Today it's true that our normal food has reappeared, though not without much effort. One can commonly find oil, salt, an occasional chicken leg or a newly introduced ground-turkey product (which, though still expensive for workers, sometimes can afford the luxury of being edible). Oh, and some beans, which remain available pretty much all year round at the market.
Nonetheless, now it would be worth asking if the diet that we Cubans eat today is in line with the parameters accepted by the World Health Organization.
It's no lie that the act of eating in Cuba has improved compared to the '90s. But to tell the truth, our diets are still very far from what's acceptable. The low wages that Cubans earn make it impossible to balance their diets with fruits, cereals, fiber and protein, as can any worker earning an average wage in this world.
Without a doubt, Cubans today live in the "empire of carbohydrates," with so much white bread and sugar at the center of our diets many of our diseases are caused by excessive consumption of these – oh, and of course those illness are still influenced by the nutritional deficiencies as a result of the mythic '90s.
Two years ago "El Panfilo" (literally "the simpleton") — a resident of the Vedado neighborhood, with a few shots of rum already under his belt — had the audacity to interrupt a promotional video for the group Ogguere with his now famous call for "jama!" (food).
Many people around the world were astonished that in such a short time this unique video was seen by more than a million people on YouTube.
Yet and still, when I see my wages for the month and note that there's nothing I can really buy with them, I always wonder: Did the hunger of the '90s ever end?
May Day in Cuba: The Doctors Out in Front
May Day in Cuba: The Doctors Out in Front May 2, 2012 Fernando Ravsberg*
HAVANA TIMES, May 2 — This year's May Day demonstration in Havana's Revolution Square was led by a broad representation of health care workers, whose work abroad has turned into the principal source of income for the country.
Tens of thousands of Cuban doctors, nurses and medical technicians annually bring in more foreign exchange than tourism and family remittances – the two sources that in the 1990s were the oxygen that allowed the country to withstand the brutal economic crisis.
The majority of the physicians work in Venezuela in "social missions" promoted by Hugo Chavez, but officials of Cuba's Ministry of Public Health report that there's cooperation in dozens of places in the Americas, Africa, Asia and even Europe.
Moreover, this trend seems to be progressively extending to other sectors, with Cuban professionals engaged in several countries as water engineers, architects, chemists, computer scientists and sports trainers. There are thousands of them now working in several African nations.
The sale of medical services
The Cuban government manages these statistics with great discretion, but all sources conclude that there are about 40,000 of their health care workers serving overseas – most of them in Venezuela, but also in 69 other countries.
According to studies by centers specializing in the analysis of the Cuban economy, health care personnel bring in $5 billion USD annually, a significant figure when compared with the $2.4 billion received from tourism or the $1.2 billion from remittances.
The doctors spend periods of two years working in one country or another, during which time they receive part of their salary there while another part goes to their family in Cuba (who are paid in regular pesos and convertible pesos, and are given a discount card to make purchase in stores). Likewise, on their return to Cuba, these workers are allowed to import a large amount of goods with them.
However, the salaries received by these doctors represent a small part of what the Cuban contracting company charges customers who demand their services. This means the bulk of the money goes into the state treasury, making it one of the government's highest profit-generating activities.
"People of Science"
Public health has been one of the greatest accomplishments of the Cuban Revolution, which is not mere propaganda: Health indexes of Cubans are enviable when compared to the rest of the region. Photo: Raquel Perez
In January 1960, in one of his first speeches as prime minister, Fidel Castro announced that "the future of our country must necessarily be a future of people of science" and the following year he launched the nation straight into a massive literacy campaign.
Half a century later, Cuba has more than 1 million professional graduates in diverse branches – of which 70,000 are doctors, or about 10 times more than the country had when the victorious barbudos (bearded guerillas) entered Havana.
Despite the country being left with only 3,000 doctors after the revolution, the provision of medical assistance to other countries began immediately, as far afield as Algeria. Such aid was provided for decades for free.
It was at the insistence of President Hugo Chavez that this system of "internationalism" be transformed into a relation of South-South exchange in which Cuba provides tens of thousands of doctors, teachers and coaches while Venezuela pays with oil.
With the arrival of Raul Castro to the presidency, that system was extended to relations with other nations, such as South Africa, Algeria and Angola. Some 3,000 Cuban professionals are working in Angola, whose services annually contribute more than $100 million to the island's economy.
The new strategy
The government's new policies seem to pursue the use of those human resources that are available to Cuba: that wealth of college graduates that the national economy is unable to assimilate and see themselves forced to do other jobs.
Although currently the work of most doctors serving in other countries is charged for, Havana has retained free missions – such as in Haiti, where hundreds of Cuban aid workers have played a prominent role since the earthquake and in the fight against cholera.
Cuba is also involved in other altruistic projects, such as "Operation Milagro" (which has restored eyesight to millions of people), medical research in the ALBA bloc nations, and a school of medicine that graduates thousands of doctors from across the Americas and the Third World every year.
The fact that the May Day march was led by health care personnel is a tribute to one of the sectors that has worked best internally over the last five decades and today is also the mainstay of the Cuban economy. —–
(*) An authorized translation by Havana Times (from the Spanish original) published by Cartas Desde Cuba.
Open Sesame… Travel Restrictions in Cuba / Jeovany Jimenez Vega
Open Sesame… Travel Restrictions in Cuba / Jeovany Jimenez Vega Jeovany J. Vega, Translator: Unstated
On Friday, April 20, Ricardo Alarcon, President of the Cuban Parliament, in an interview with the digital daily World, of the Huffingtonpost.com, reaffirmed Raul Castro's announcement from last year that Cuba will launch "… a radical and thorough immigration reform in the coming months …" which will remove restrictions we've had for decades on Cubans traveling abroad. Let's remember that even now, to travel abroad Cubans need an exit permit, at the extortionate cost of $150 U.S., which is good for 30 days and can be extended 10 times, after which they must return home or lose the right to reside in their own country.
In force since the dawn of the Revolutionary process, restrictions imposed on the travel of Cubans to and from abroad, have become one of the most serious stigma carried by this government. This abusive policy has been responsible for an incalculable amount of suffering for our people, having separated for decades, and even permanently, thousands of families.
Alarcon also said that "… there is another explanation for these restrictions: the need to protect our human capital. The training of physicians, technicians, teachers, etc., is very expensive to the Cuban State and the United States does everything to deprive us of this human wealth."
Sustained by the need to avoid a brain drain, among other arguments, this policy has systematically deprived Cubans of one of the most basic rights of man: the right to free movement and to choose where to live. But in resolving this issue, it seemed much simpler to our government to retain, by force, the professionals, than to guarantee them a dignified way of life which, in medical terms, would be the equivalent of amputating the limb of a patient suffering from lymphatic vessel inflammation which, it is true, regardless of the consequences, would "solve" their problem.
Alarcon said the reform will also favor the Cuban immigrants who today need an entry permit, who do not now have the same "profile" as those who left in the early years.
"Things have changed a lot (…). Nearly half a million Cubans installed outside our borders visit each year. The vast majority of Cuban migration has a normal relationship with their country of origin…"
What has never been even remotely normal, however, is the relationship of the Cuban State with respect to that emigration. As for the "profile" of these emigrants, Mr. Alarcón knows that definitely changed after that wave of the first five years of the Revolution, when it constituted mainly of former Batista supporters and oligarchs.
By the time of Camarioca, of the Mariel boat lift, and of the Maleconazo and the subsequent rafter crisis in 1994, Cuban migration had been made up of people who were, as a rule, younger, and desperate to having lost all hope in their country.
Alarcon also said that "…the immigration issue (…) has always been used as a weapon to destabilize Cuba since 1959 and as an element of distortion of the Cuban reality…" and, he says it as if he were talking about some sneaky trick orchestrated by Yankee think tanks, as if it were a true aberration systematically and massively perpetrated for half a century by the Cuban Government against the will and interest of its people.
At this point some questions present themselves: Why right now and how far will they dare to go? In Havana circles of thought whose opinion I could sound out, it is said that these measures could be oriented with the foresight to open the door to a Cuban emigration that so far has been unnaturally excluded from investing in its own country due to the absurd policy followed by our government, which for decades has preferred to negotiate with foreign investors before offering any opportunity to offer its own emigrants or their descendants. This posture presumably reflects a deep fear of the influence that they might come to gain in the domestic political environment.
This may or may not be the result of the uncertainty that surrounds Hugo Chavez, whose health is perceived to be broken just a few months before the upcoming Venezuelan elections — because losing his support now would be lethal — as will be seen.
But what offers few doubts is that the emigration, although eager to invest in Cuba, given the traumatic memory of the expropriations of the past, might be demanding a series of legal safeguards to make sure that, this time, their investment would not be impounded, beginning with radical changes in their migratory status which, until today, has completely denied their Cuban citizenship.
Another side of the coin makes this moment most "opportune" — for the Cuban government — as the time to make this decision, because if they finally decide to open the doors wide, then there would be embassies in Havana that would possibly close theirs, and show more aversion to issuing visas, not to mention that the U.S. government might repeat the controversial Cuban Adjustment Act.
Even so, those who finally manage to travel will find the majority of their destinations in the world mired in the worst economic crisis since the Crash of 1929, and not offering too many opportunities right now to any newcomers. If to this we add that those who leave no longer face the confiscation of their house and so can leave here their home, family and concrete interests and can return when they please, then I would dare to predict that the first wave of emigrants would stabilize in a few years.
In exchange, the remittances would increase and provide considerable oxygen to the economy — in this sense the investments of the emigrants, were they authorized, would be crucial — and the country would begin to flow in a much more natural way.
So, how far will they dare to go. They certainly have to be thinking big, or everything would be half measures. For an immigration reform today at the level the Cuban people need, they have to leave behind all the current policies. They have to guarantee, unequivocally, through an appropriate body of binding laws, that every Cuban citizen can enjoy his or her right to freely leave the country, and equally to enter it without conditions of any kind including, of course, political ones, for differences of opinion, which would exclude only those involved in terrorist acts, or those who have a debt to the legal system, beyond which absolutely any official who dared to violate this right of a Cuban citizen would be legally called before a People's court.
It is also urgently needed to eliminate once and for all the ominous category of "final departure," a monster that has uprooted entire generations of Cuba, as well as the controversial "letters of invitation" and of course, crushed under its own weight, the odious permission to leave or "white card" whose funeral no one would attend.
But one point I can not overlook in this matter is one of the most controversial nuances, and that is the solution to the problem or releasing those workers in my sector who are required to apply for permission if they wish to permanently or temporarily leave the country.
Who could forget the thousands of former members of the Cuban Public Health sector, who, overwhelmed by spurious wages and harsh living conditions, and finding no other means whatsoever to emigrate, decided to leave from some Medical Mission work abroad, and so were branded with the status of deserters and condemned to banishment, not permitted to enter their own country for at least 10 years?
Would anyone dare to catalog as normal the relations with these emigrants before such heinous treatment? Without any doubt, we can assert that the workers in the Cuban Public Health have received the most denigration treatment in this story and today our government has the opportunity to redeem its position, hopefully to act with wisdom.
Any approach that they apply to the immigration issue at this time, that does not address everything at once and guarantees our right to travel, will restrict the freedom of the Cuban people, and therefore work against the prosperity of the country.
April 30 2012
Cuban dissidents say Cardinal Ortega was wrong to call them criminals
Posted on Tuesday, 05.01.12
Cuban dissidents say Cardinal Ortega was wrong to call them criminals
The dissidents were part of a group of 13 who occupied a Catholic church to press political demands in March. By Juan O. Tamayo jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega has said that the 13 dissidents who occupied a Havana church days before Pope Benedict XVI visited the island had criminal records, were largely uneducated, and that one had mental problems.
But several members of the group contacted by El Nuevo Herald Monday denied they had criminal records. One is an architect and others were educated in a variety of jobs and professions, such as computer technician, sports trainer, bookkeeper and forensic technician.
"I can only say that the 13 are a perfect reflection of Cuban society, in which there is everything," said Havana human rights activist Elizardo Sánchez, who angrily called Ortega's comments "incredible."
Ortega, already branded by critics as too friendly with the Raúl Castro government, sparked a firestorm of controversy last week when he criticized the 13 dissidents during a speech at Harvard University.
"All were old delinquents," he declared, adding that they "lacked a level of culture." He described one as suffering from mental problems and another as having been returned to Cuba by U.S. authorities after serving six years in a U.S. prison.
The U.S. "excludable" was Carlos Miguel López Santos, who has claimed that U.S. authorities returned him after mistaking him for another man accused of terrorism, said María López Báez, head of a Havana chapter of the Cuban Human Rights Commission.
Another of the 13 suffers from mental problems, said López by phone from Havana. She added that those problems were created by the government repression.
Ortega's office in Havana did not reply to an email asking if the information about the group had come from the dissidents themselves or from government officials.
López said 11 of the 13 were members of the little known Republican Party of Cuba (PRC) and two of the Frank Pais November 30 Movement.
They occupied Our Lady of Charity Church in Havana March 13, and Ortega asked the Cuban government to force them out the next day.
El Nuevo Herald reached six of the 13 by phone Monday:
.• Jennifer Hernandez Piloto, 23, said she had no criminal record and no university studies but earned a diploma as a food preparation technician. She is active in the PRC and the dissident Latin American Federation of Rural Women.
• Her brother Yosiel Guia Piloto, 29, said he had no criminal record either. He did not attend college and works as a bricklayer.
• Daysi Ponce Arencibia said she graduated from high school, has a certificate as a computer technician and used to work in the Ministry of Health. She added that she now repairs cigarette lighters and has no criminal record.
• Ronnier Valentín Aguillón said he played competitive baseball, has a bachelor's degree in sports medicine and now earns some income as a practitioner of Santeria, one of Cuba's several African-based religions. He said he was never convicted of anything.
• PRC spokesman Fred Calderon Muñoa said he studied commerce in a university and worked as a bookkeeper in the archives section of a Havana provincial government office.• Madeline Caraballo Betancourt, 42, the only one who acknowledged a criminal record, said she served six months in prison in 2005 for criticizing the government.
Caraballo said she was fired from her job as a forensic medicine technician in Havana after complaining about a blood transfusion that made her HIV-positive. She now buys and sells used clothing and other items.
López said PRC director Vladimir Calderón Frías, 46, is an architect with no criminal record.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/30/2776374/cuban-dissidents-say-cardinal.html
Justice for Rolando / Yamil Dominguez
Justice for Rolando / Yamil Dominguez Translator: Unstated, Yamil Domínguez
Rolando is a great man, father, brother and friend. His incarceration just as he was prepared to bring people, including his family,but he was not willing to sacrifice one life when the Cuban border guard charged him with their ships. He could have run with the chance to escape and those in his boat were screaming at him to keep going, the desire of those people was above all to escape the regime of the island.
But even so he voluntarily stopped his boat because he knew that the military regime were willing to sink it. He then told people that he was not a murderer like the military regime and could not continue to risk their lives. He followed the orders screamed from the soldiers of the other vessel, saying to them, "I will not be complicit in a slaughter that you are looking for, I am not the murderer, the murderers are you."
Anyone who has lived similar experience knows that this happens for service members of the Cuban coast guard, they ram their boats against those carrying people who want desperately to escape the tyrannical regime. Rolando was sentenced to 25 years in jail. I wonder where in the world this case would result in 25 years, and knew this regime and that the best witnesses to are inside the prisons, because there no one has anything to hide and you say what you did and didn't do. The phrase, "I did this, but I didn't do what they made up," is common among the punished, and that's how the Cuban judicial system works.
I knew guys who went to get their families and the coast guard criminally rammed their boat running the risk that the families hadn't boarded yet, among them children, because they would have been dead. What happened to the tugboat 13 de Marzo? They sank it without scruples, and even with so much popular discontent that followed, Fidel Castro in one of his rhetorical speeches supported those who perpetrated such an act that cost so many lives, claiming they were workers from another ship protecting the tools of their trade. That was done only on orders from of his government. That's exactly what the Cuban regime's military has most of the time, the advantage and no witnesses.
Those who should have to serve a 25 or 30 year sentence or those who by order of the tyranny are willing to sacrifice the lives of civilians who have committed the crime of loving freedom. Rolando committed his crime and no one denies it, but he has already been in prison 10 years, 9 of those in Combinado del Este, the most inhuman in its conditions, and it now up to the parole law and his application under Resolution 9 of the Supreme Court.
Since 2006, a military medical team rules that he should not have to complete his sentence because of his deplorable state of health, but Cuban State Security reached out their dark hand and denied his parole saying he could finish his sentence in a hospital. None of this happened.
Rolando was like Julio Mesa, me, and others treated as CRs (counter-revolutionary), in my opinion for being a Cuban resident in the United States or having acquired the citizenship of the United States.
Nonetheless Rolando has remained bravely fighting for his rights. When I entered the military hospital in the State Security wing and he was transferred due to his poor health to the next room, only a wall divided us; he was also there for 16 months with the subcontractor Adam Gross as a roommate.
Finally his hope was that they would give him his freedom for having served half of the sanction imposed, but it was not to be, he was transferred to the prison of Guanajay where against the repression he declared a hunger strike. I always knew that this was the last thing that would do because of his poor health, mostly his heart. But guess that's what they are able to drive him to do, those thugs who are unable to respect a man who has spent 10 years imprisoned and rightfully plays his freedom.
His family and friends have opened a blog, desperately looking for justice and demanding his rights, and trying to ease the repression on the part of the guards at Guanajay prison, while his health continues to deteriorate after 10 long years. The blog, Justice for Rolando, is here.
He is one of many men who have served more than his share, and who are still suffering the relentless punishment without limit of a regime that has no mercy.
March 26 2012
An Open Letter to Castro and The Cardinal / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo
An Open Letter to Castro and The Cardinal / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, Translator: Unstated
By Luis Eligio D'Omni and Amaury Pacheco D'Omni: (Artists currently on tour in the United States of America)
1- On The 13th of April, Hector Riscart Mustelier (El Ñaño), the leader of Cuban alternativity, musician for and director of the band Herencia [Heritage], and Bobo Shanti Leader in Cuba, will be tried behind closed doors, without witnesses, and without defense counsel, for a cause constructed by special police agents.
He is being tried despite the silence those of us who are worried about his situation have sustained, expecting that justice would come from the highest levels of government, and avoiding by all costs to turn Ñaño's case into a political campaign. To this aim we have sent letters to the president of the Communist Party and of the Cuban government, Raul Castro Ruz, to the President of the Parliament, Ricardo Alarcón Quezada, and lastly, to a high Catholic Church figure, cardinal Jaime Ortega, given that Ñaño's case is that of a religious artist.
Today, Bob Marley would raise his voice in a song of glory for Ñaño, would they prohibit it in our television?
Next, we will publish the letter we sent to Raul Castro and to the rest. But before, we want to make a note that Ñaño was already sent to prison unjustly many years ago. A search was performed in his house and no proof was found. They found, behind a trash can, a small piece of paper, smaller than a tear, and said it was marihuana. He was then accused of drug trafficking and was incarcerated. Back then Ñaño's wife was intimidated by State Security so that she would remain silent.
To those friends who are unconditionally in support of everything being fine with Cuba's system, we say that we speak with the Truth.
Today, the answer has remained the same. Those officials who met with Ñaño's wife and with his mother, supposedly representing the president, offended them with rude words, and referred to Ñaño in the worst of manners.
We want to say, given so much insistence into turning Cuban artists who courageously express their realities into politicians or members of the opposition, in order to keep us tied to the Machiavellian repressive machinery in Cuba (to those within and outside of Cuba who don't believe this because of their unconditional love to the Revolution, and to the impeccable and glorious record of Cuban State Security: we assure them that it does exist), and with the aim of exiling us or locking us up in prisons as in the case of Hector Riscart, that we think the Cuban government ignores this situation, and that this is part of a strategy of independent State Security agents to hide away political corruption. We do not think it is possible for a ruler to be behind a situation of this sort, and it is evident that the letter never reached him.
We hope Hector Riscart is placed in entire liberty this Friday the 13th, after five months without any legal guarantees, and of being treated as a common criminal…
In the case of Hector Riscart, they are applying all the weight of a law lacking any mercy and are failing to take into account the light this person contributes…but we know very well what happens with drugs at many levels in Cuba. Since always, since the times of our grandparents' stories, or the guerrilla, up to this very day, marihuana has been a natural plant used in all of Cuba every day, and in every city we have crossed. We have proved it, its prohibition is nothing but a big business. Its legality would dismantle a great business, like the medicine with which so many humans drug themselves daily, like the alcohol and the tobacco that are main, legal causes of the death of other millions.
We already know that they pretend that our Art be constantly reacting to the repression of the government or of the institutions…..and that today's youth live behind and wait in silence for the ideas of those who behind their desks don't walk the streets or suffer what the common man suffers.
But our art is way beyond that, our Art is action, and original action contains the forces of the Universe. We hope the tragedy that surrounds Hector Riscart and his family comes to an end, for the sake of love, FOR LOVE…
This Friday the 13th we will walk together to the tribunal of Carmen and Juan Delgado (in the city of Santo Suarez), family, friends, artists, and activists committed to the truth. Those of us who are outside of Cuba will walk there with our minds, our hearts, and our spirits…
2 – Letter sent to the President of the Republic of Cuba, Raul Castro Ruz, with copies sent to Ricardo Alarcón and to the Cardinal Jaime Ortega:
INJUSTICE AND VIOLENCE AGAINST RASTAFARIAN ARTIST IN TODAY'S CUBA. A PLEAD TO THE POWER OF LIGHT AND TRUTH.
By family members, artists, and friends of Hector Riscart Mustelier (El Ñaño).
THE TRUTH ALWAYS FIRST, THE TRUTH BEFORE, THE TRUTH AFTER, THE TRUTH WITH LOVE..
President of the Republic of Cuba and First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, Raul Castro Ruz: We hope love and the highest intelligence guide you in your reading of this letter, so that we can receive from you courteous attention.
In the midst of so many changes surrounding Cuba (whether some believe it or not, whether many think they are slow, or whether many others think it's a lie), changes that are being called for by you, from the presidency of the republic, and from everyone at every social level, within and outside the island…and despite the fact that every day the official press publishes news of new economic and civil apertures, and articles that denounce discrimination, we do not yet see mechanisms that function efficiently and urgently before the power abuses and the injustices of citizens with police and state authority against civilians, although we are all Cubans, with the very same rights.
Last November 15th, something deplorable occurred, and we believe we are before an act of discrimination that extends into an act of injustice with grave consequences.
The artist Hector Riscart (El Ñaño): one of the first Rastafarians in Cuba, a scholar of the religious spirituality BoboShanti, director of the Reggae Band, Herencia (Heritage) – a very respected musical group that is committed to the spiritual growth of the youth – was searched by the Police while exiting his concert in the National Cabaret among other members of his group, in the corner of the Capitol, in front of the Payret Cinema.
Ñaño found this humiliating and asked to be led to a police unite, so that he could be searched there, and so that he wouldn't have to face humiliation in the middle of the street.
The police officers did not comply, and when Ñaño tried to defend his rights, he was attacked with much violence from the part of the police, and was treated as the most despicable criminal.
Already in the Police Station, he had to suffer further offenses and insults, and before the amazement of the officer on duty who witnessed such brutality, listen, along with another detained brother, to the plans of fabricating a false accusation of drug trafficking: "you, who belong to the party, accuse him, because no one will doubt your word".
The law will doubt this official much less, since he took so much care in boasting, during the violent detention, of having found an important artist of this country with hard drugs. Some days later, without any official records or accusations, Ñaño was sent to a provisional prison (where he currently is), where they cut his dreadlocks (long pieces of hair tangled or weaved), the most sacred thing for a Rastafarian.
Every established legal procedure was violated: declaration of false investigations, denial of a comparison between the accounts of witnesses, and failure to allow a lawyer to assist him. Furthermore, they shamelessly manipulated his wife so that she wouldn't defend Ñaño publicly, and multiple visits were paid to the Cabaret's manger to ask with exaggerated lies the expulsion of the musical group from their job, this is the situation as of today.
It is only after almost two months of this sad event, that Ñaño was able to see a lawyer, who is very scared and does not know how to defend this case, saying it is impossible to go against the word of the police. At this moment Hector Riscart is without a lawyer, because we can not find one that is willing to defend the case honestly. All of this occurred within our dear Cuba, under the surveillance cameras of the Payret Cinema. The images taken by the camera were first said to have disappeared, and then said to be pointing elsewhere. That is what we were told when we asked to show them as proof. Why did these images disappear, or why were they looking elsewhere when an act of violence was happening under them? The police instructors sent to the prosecutor a file fabricated with lies and incoherence, where it says that Ñaño has no witnesses. The situation has been denounced in two occasions before the Central Committee of the State Council (Attention the citizenry), but no progress has been shown in two months.
(The situation of his wife and his children isn't the best; we won't describe here his mother's suffering).
Hector Riscart, connected to his Biblical belief in God, does not eat any type of artificial or animal products, whether they fly, crawl, run, or live under the sea. His situation, besides being completely unjust, is grave, because he has been eating only rice for two months, and they do not allow for any other animal product to reach him. He has lost weight in a manner similar to someone who is fasting or doing a hunger strike.
The situation is even more grave, given that he suffers from four gastrointestinal chronic diseases. We are very afraid that his health worsens to the point of a tragedy in our lives. I say "our" lives because we are talking about a spiritual brother, a natural leader, and a very inspirational artist. His death or a sudden aggravation of his health would be a great tragedy for us.
Many brothers feel greatly moved by this situation, and are waiting in profound silence for a solution. But their silence hasn't been respected either and it is no longer a solution.
Why the determination to keep such a dear and noble artist imprisoned, one who contributes messages of spiritual liberation and whose endeavors are known by everyone? Why is his status being ignored, treating him like a criminal?
According to declarations from our brother Zenén (the other detainee from that day, sound technician for the band), who saw him for the last time in the unit, Hector Riscart was already convinced that they would condemn him with all negative premeditation. "Look after my children, I can only think about them", was the only thing he said.
Zenén shed many tears in the unit before the harsh officer who tortured him psychologically so that he would give a false declaration; in that moment a very young woman entered, who had been with them all the time in the National Cabaret, during their concert, pretending to be a prostitute. It is evident that the accusation against this leader of alternative Cuban art was already being schemed.
Why was this trap laid out to accuse him of a crime he did not commit? Was it because he is black, because he is a conscious Rastafarian, because he is a committed artist, or is it simply police brutality protected by officers and detectives whose job is to protect the truth, a common situation to any citizen?
Why are they choosing to ignore that we can work for the social and spiritual well-being of Cubans in today's Cuba, from the point of view of philosophies, beliefs, and life paths that are very positive, and that have become a salvation for many, but that aren't precisely within the communist discourse?
(On that subject and as a parenthesis we want to tell you that we know many Cubans of great dignity and integrity, that contribute and can contribute even more to this nation because of their intelligence and ethics, that are treated with disdain every day. Some have died, others have been thrown out of their work centers or repressed in many ways, disrespected by the police, or auto-exiled because of frustration since they do not fit into our Homeland for not preaching the Government discourse or for believing in the autonomy and individual independence of thought and action).
There are many grave precedents, that aren't told in the book Rastafarians in Cuba, whose presentation was advertised in only one occasion last year on the TV news, and was presented in only one library. This book should be re-edited and distributed among the police units and study centers of the country. Artists of the New Protest Hip Hop Song have denounced in several occasions the deliberate abuse against them and others, in their songs. The internet is full with fabrications, but also with audio-visual documents that shine light on the abuse of power at a police and state level.
Fear is also natural, one that is founded in repeated and current precedent, where police witnesses have withdrawn their accusations and admitted to being pressured and intimidated to declare falsely against the accused, and despite this, the accused is condemned. We can deduce conditioning and a previously elaborated scheme. This scares us terribly, and suggests judicial corruption. The Government, in its presidency, should tend to all of these facts, and feel strongly worried for the sake of justice.
We have plenty of testimonies of cases that could prove what we here state.
Hector Riscart himself was a victim of this in a court in the year 2003, where he was condemned to a long prison term without any proof, and his wife (signatory to this letter), was intimidated by agents of State Security so that she would remain silent. At that moment the conscience and innocence of both of them was different with respect to justice. Hector, who was put in liberty two years later, was harassed by an anti-narcotics agent so that he would work for him, and this agent promised him vengeance.
This agent reappeared at this time and described el Ñaño described it well in a fragment of his last statement:
"I made it clear to this officer that I would never work for him. He said in 2005, that one day I would regret it and he would retaliate. I didn't make a case of his threats and I never heard from him. Now he got angry, saying by way of derision (I quote) "So you took to drugs! You can make a fuckin' lot of money with drugs… " What a phrase worthy of a chief national anti-drug department. "Sure you have every luxury at home," he said. Everyone knows how we live humbly at home with my mom and my wife. This officer wanted to provoke me. I just opened my mouth to say: "LIAR, you say that because I never worked with you."
"Then they took me to the station where I was assigned an "instructor"(investigator/interrogator) named Yordanis, who insisted for days that I make my statement, fooling me saying he would investigate the matter well. I told him I had evidence to disprove all the police farce and that was when I stated this in my own hand.
"We now know, all that is on file 826/11, they have set a trap, using my declaration, adapting it to the police, with all their lies so well-organized. The cost of my statement has been the loss of the only visual evidence in my favor, disappeared.
"Now the file is back to the station with the sole intention of "fixing" pretty much everything, or leaving out details that were inconsistent, so that they are perfect."
Now several different artists have dedicated works, especially music, to el Ñaño.
Maybe his arrest can open a debate about the use of drugs in Cuba. The most consumed are 1) alcohol, 2) tobacco, 3) marijuana (unlike many other countries here even its consumption is condemned), 4) crack cocaine, 5) meth, 6) paco (cocaine residue, industrial solvents and rat poison) and 7) ketamine.
These last three are medical industrial products. Those that generate the greatest death and violence are the first two, both legal in Cuba, of course. There is a very great negative prejudice associated with marijuana and Rastafarians. But we must listen to the Rasta fundamentals and attend to the truth of the behavior in reality at all levels.
(We take advantage of this opportunity to say that in the streets of Cuban the reality is very different from that expressed in the national media. There is a growing dissatisfaction these days because ordinary people are not represented, and because the freedoms which should be ours from birth are not in our own hands, and continue being in the hands of a vertical power, although they present it as a horizontal process._
We imagine that you know of a singer named Bob Marley, his songs of redemption and freedom that are a global inspiration. This is the same artistic and spiritual energy proposed by el Ñaño and the Real Rastafarians in Cuba. (Real Rastafari is conscience, heart and life, unlike many who just are Rastafarians in appearance).
There are many members of this movement who are being accosted, imprisoned, and the injustice is in the whole country, especially when it comes to making use of the new economic civil rights and rights of association. Some have also criticized the Central Committee of the Council of State without solutions.
Before the impossibility of receiving prompt justice, and because the seriousness of it (which grows, we know that they will continue to fabricate changes and that el Ñaño faces trial without any solid defense, and without the right to bail which would cost him his life because of the food in prison), almost two months later we have to make the public understand his situation.
What do we hope for?
For Hector Riscart to be released immediately and restored to its home with his children, his wife, his family and friends.
To let him return to incorporating his spiritual quest and his work as director of his musical group.
That his group can work in peace.
That he be freed from all the charges he is accused of: a man devoted to art and spirituality, who lives with humility, and preaches the social good that can not engage in a business as dark as drug trafficking.
We hope not to be harassed or punished in any way, so say we here. And we hope this happens because we are often subtle and silent.
We expect to receive Light. LIGHT. LIGHT …
PEACE JUSTICE NON-DISCRIMINATION
April 14 2012
Cubans court controversy in malaria battle
April 29, 2012 4:35 pm
Cubans court controversy in malaria battle By Andrew Jack Malaria vaccine trial in Tanzania©AP
Half a century after Cuba despatched military advisers to Africa to spread communism during the cold war, it is sending less ideological specialists to attack a very different foe.
Dozens of salesmen and technical experts from the Havana-based company Labiofam have made inroads across the continent with a product to fight malaria, capitalising on high-level diplomatic connections forged during the early years of African independence. But health specialists have voiced concerns about the cost and effectiveness of the technology the Cubans are selling.
More than 600,000 people a year die in Africa from malaria, according to World Health Organisation estimates, and donors spend about $1.6bn globally on efforts to combat the disease.
Most international support credited with the recent decline in malaria in Africa has been channelled to providing bednets, diagnostics and drugs. The Cubans are instead pushing bacterial larvicides, which destroy the eggs laid by mosquitoes in stagnant water, preventing their reproduction and spread.
"We think larvicides can become a strategic intervention in the fight against malaria," says Hafez Adam Taher, a representative of Labiofam in Ghana, who says the west African government has agreed to pay Labiofam $74m over two years for a single larviciding programme. "No single thing can do it. If you want to tackle malaria seriously, you have to go to the roots."
The WHO is more cautious. It is finalising guidance that concludes larvicides have only a "specific and limited" role to play, where there are sites for mosquito larvae that are "few, fixed and findable" – something that is rarely the case in Africa.
Robert Newman, head of the agency's malaria programme, cautions over the risks of draining scarce resources for tackling the disease. "Our effort is to provide guidelines on the tools that are most appropriate," he says. "We need to maximise the use of resources, financial and human." The Ghanaian ministry of health declined to comment.
Scientists fear larviciding is expensive, requiring the use of many specialists and local volunteers who could be better deployed elsewhere. It has to be repeated regularly, and often proves ineffective because it is difficult comprehensively to identify and destroy mosquito eggs. Insecticide-treated bednets can last longer, both killing mosquitoes and protecting people from the bites of those that survive.
Cuba's actions come as China – through drug donations and support for health centres – has sought to match Western funding in Africa for malaria.
Cuba stresses the public health rather than business side of its work, with the state-controlled company declaring on its website: "The projects of the Labiofam Entrepreneurial Group are not implemented as commercial operations, but as integrated two-year-long projects within existing health programs."
Yet it is in discussions about contracts in several other countries. Larviciding programmes are under way in Nigeria and the Ivory Coast as well as Ghana. Labiofam also plans to build a factory in Tanzania.
To the frustration of local African malaria specialists, the Cubans have frequently bypassed the technical experts and their demands for detailed data proving the impact of larvicides.
"They go straight to the heads of state, playing the diplomatic connection," says one African official, who declined to be named.
Mr Hafez says Labiofam has stepped up efforts in recent months to work with other experts dealing with malaria. At a time of growing pressure on donors, suspicion remains.
Stephen O'Brien, the UK minister for international development, says: "I'm concerned there is a marketing campaign for larviciding uncoupled from the science, and we find ourselves going down a route where people think they are dealing with a significant new tool when [it has] only a modest place."
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/48c68ede-86dd-11e1-ad68-00144feab49a.html#axzz1tWC4CYRn
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