Ros-Lehtinen says Smithsonian trips to Cuba a cash gift to Castro
Ros-Lehtinen says Smithsonian trips to Cuba a cash gift to CastroBy Pete Kasperowicz – 01/04/12 12:11 PM ET
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) said the Smithsonian Institution's plan to chaperone Americans on four visits to Cuba this year amounts to licensed tourism of Cuba that will help give the "Castro dictatorship" access to much-needed hard currency.
"It is deeply disappointing that the Smithsonian Institute, primarily funded by American taxpayers, is facilitating access to U.S. dollars, which enables the Castro regime to make a hefty profit," Ros-Lehtinen said Tuesday. "The trips not only illustrate a blatant disregard for human rights conditions on the island by an entity that receives U.S. government funding, but provide the deplorable Havana tyranny a sense of legitimacy."
Supporters of tough travel rules related to Cuba have argued for decades that easing travel to the island will only encourage Americans to spent money in Cuba that will mostly end up in the hands of the government, given the amount of control the government has over economic activity.
Ros-Lehtinen stopped short of saying she would move to block the Smithsonian trips but said the visits would do nothing to help Americans to see the brutality of the Cuban regime. "Instead, these tourists will experience a false depiction of Cuba through a biased and censored 'tour' of the island," she said.
"The Smithsonian's 10-day trips to Cuba will amount to little more than a tropical vacation," she said. "Americans participating in these trips will not see the brutal reality of the Castro dictatorship."
The Smithsonian is offering several trips to Cuba this year under a license issued by the Treasury Department. According to the Smithsonian, the trips start at $5,450 and will run from May 4-13, May 11-20, Nov. 9-18, and Nov. 30 to Dec. 9.
Cuban prisoner dies during hunger strike
Posted on Monday, 01.02.12
Cuban prisoner dies during hunger strikeThe Associated Press
HAVANA — A leading human rights activist says a Cuban prisoner who launched a hunger strike because he was not part of a large prison amnesty has died of an apparent heart attack.
Rights activist Elizardo Sanchez said Monday that Rene Cobas died Sunday in the Boniato prison near the western city of Santiago. Sanchez says Cobas was a common criminal and not jailed for political reasons.
Sanchez says Cobas and about 20 other prison inmates launched a hunger strike after learning they were not part of a massive amnesty announced by President Raul Castro on Dec. 23. He says Cobas died after exhibiting symptoms of a heart attack for two days.
The Pope’s Visit to Cuba: Expectations and Possibilities / Intramuros
The Pope's Visit to Cuba: Expectations and Possibilities / IntramurosIntraMuros
Editorial 24The Catholic Church and the official press have announced that His Holiness the Pope Benedict XVI "is considering visiting Mexico and Cuba during the spring of the year 2012". At the same time, the spokesman of the Holy See has declared that the State Department of the Supreme Pontiff has told the Papal Nuncios in each one of these countries to inform the respective ecclesiastical and civilian authorities about the expected visit.This news which was published at the beginning of November has aroused numerous expectations and possibilities. More than a half of the Catholic Church one thousand million members live in Latin America so the visit of the Supreme Pastor of the Catholic Church is always a momentous event that does not leave indifferent either the visited Church or the civilian authorities or a great part of the people that declares itself a believer from a Christian matrix.It's about two things at the same time which are inseparably mixed in one person: the visit of the head of one church and the head of a small State which symbolizes the sovereignty of this religious denomination to be able to exercise its evangelizing mission, without interference or manipulation. That is why whether we want it or not, every visit of one Pope has a religious dimension and another political and social dimension. For this reason it brings spiritual and political expectations in a wide sense though his visit is essentially religious.However, the visit of a head of State should not be compared or likened to the visit of the Pope; if we do that we would be making a mistake in perspective, in interpretation and expectations.Cuba already had a papal visit 14 years ago. His Holiness the Pope John Paul II who has been declared blessed and has been venerated as a saint by millions of persons around the world, carried out an unforgettable pastoral visit to our Island which lasted five days, from the 21st to the 25th of January 1998. It's impossible not to bear this in mind and it's very probable that some try to make comparisons with the announced pilgrimage of Benedict XVI. Though it is natural that we remember and evoke that historic event the best thing we should do is to be aware of the fact that any visit of this kind can't be likened to another one because they are different Pontiffs, because this is a different time and because Cuba in 1998 was a different one in many aspects compared to the Cuba of 2012.THE RESULTS OF A PONTIFICAL VISIT DEPEND ON THE PROTAGONISTS.However, we wish to be participants in this stage of preparation of the possible Pope's visit so we wish to tell some expectations and possibilities shared by some Cubans, women and men, not necessarily Catholics. There is an old Latin saying though it's not always exact and it goes: "what goes to Rome comes from Rome". This generally means that the expectations of the Church are very important and so are the expectations of the rest of the Nation that the Pope will visit; the view of the local reality that will be informed to the Pope and the characteristics of his pastoral pilgrimage as desired by both parties.That is why it is logical and good that the Holy Father should listen to what the Church and the people wish from his visit. But it is also logical and good that the Pope should wish to convey his message without distorting his mission and being at the service of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, his only paradigm and source of inspiration. The results of a Pontifical visit depend essentially on the smooth communication and the consistence with the identity and the mission of all the protagonists of such event: the Church, the people and the authorities.The president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Cuba who is Dionisio García, Archbishop from Santiago de Cuba has stated that the Pope will come mainly to participate, as a pilgrim, in the celebrations of the discovery of the Virgin of Charity image from El Cobre: the mother, queen and patron of the Republic of Cuba. Thus the center of the Pope's presence in Cuba will be the visit and the Eucharist that will be held in the National Sanctuary-Basilica of El Cobre. And though the itinerary has not been announced, and it appears to be short, we expect he will visit the Capital too in order to have another religious celebration and pay his greetings to the authorities of the country. We cannot either rule out that the Pontiff would have encounters with more specific sectors of the Church, for example, young people, laics, bishops, priests and nuns.SOME EXPECTATIONS AND POSSIBILITIES.It is a responsibility and a duty of each citizen not to stay indifferent toward the national events. The preparation of a papal visit does not belong exclusively to the Church; it is a civic and religious task. All of us should express our opinion, suggest things and show what we feel inside us. We should show our souls because above all it is the visit of a spiritual leader and we all have a soul and we all share the Nation's soul. Here are some of our expectations and opinions:1. Charity unites us. Unity is inclusion."Charity unites us". This is the slogan that summarizes the spirit of the celebrations of the 400 years of the discovery of the Virgin of Charity image which is at the same time, the end and the center of the papal visit. Then charity is the Christian name for love that makes us give ourselves to the others so it should unite all Cubans and that's why our expectation in that sense is that this unity will not be uniformity in thinking, believing in options and in acts. We believe that this unity should not exclude the different ones and the ones that upset the government or the Church. We believe that this unity is not unanimity or unity around one only option. Any way, in only one phrase which is, at the same time, our main expectation regarding this topic: Unity is inclusion. Thus the Pope's visit should include all the representatives of the Cuban nation, all of us children of the Virgin of Charity: the believers, the non-believers, the government, the opposition and the civil society, the ones who live in the Island and the ones who live in the Diaspora. If any of these groups is left out of the papal visit and out of the life in Cuba the unity in charity would not be possible. The degree of inclusion before, during and after the visit could be one of the expectations and opportunities for the preparation and the evaluation of the visit.2. The spirit that will promote the pacific and gradual structural changes.The pacific and gradual structural changes in the political, economic, social, cultural and anthropologic environments are not the purposes of the Pope's visit but they are an urgent need of the people that the Pope will visit and a need of the Church that will receive him. These changes are not a task that the Pope should carry out or a task that should be carried out by the Church in Cuba exclusively but each substantial reform has its foundation in the soul of the people and in the spirit of the citizens. Thus, everything that strengthens the spirit of Cubans, men and women; everything that nurtures the Nation's soul; everything that opens up the nation to the best motions of the Spirit of Truth, Good and Beauty will revitalize the changes that have been patiently expected for a long time. The degree of spiritual depth before, during and after this visit can be one of the expectations and opportunities to prepare the visit, to experience it and evaluate it.3. The promotion of the sovereignty of citizens and a national inclusive dialogue about essential topics.The people that the Pope will visit and even the Catholic Church that is preparing his visit which is a part of that people have had a deficit in citizen education and ethical education to live in freedom, responsibility, participative democracy and fraternity during more than half a century. This civic and moral illiteracy is one of the greatest shortages of the people and the Church the Pope will visit. It's a pastoral and evangelizing duty of the Church to contribute, with its educative mission, to the education for citizen sovereignty, responsible civic participation and the inseparable coherence between ethics and politics without choosing any ideology or partisan political option. One of the expectations and opportunities to prepare this visit, to experience it and evaluate it is the endeavour for an ethical and civic education that may be present before, during and after the visit. This education would lead to an authentic national dialogue without exclusions in order to deal with every essential topic.4. The reconstruction of the sovereign fabric of civil society.The reconstruction of the sovereign fabric of civil society is a long-term task and a consequence of the education of each person as a citizen, of the ethical responsibility and a spiritual mystique in order to achieve that the discouragement, the human miseries and the materialist and hedonistic interests do not destroy this task for the present and the future of Cuba. The Pope's visit, the way of life and work of the very Church as a paradigm of one of the communities in civil society could be a view, a motion and a possibility of work on the occasion of the Pontiff's visit. The preparation, the carrying out and the ecclesial style that the Pope's visit to Cuba will leave can be a testimonial and prophetic school for the reconstruction of a sound civil society. At the same time that life school for civil society can be an expectation and an opportunity to prepare the visit, to experience it and to evaluate it before, during and after the visit.5 The decriminalization of discrepancy.Cuba needs, above all, to live in the respect and the agreement of diversity which is natural and desirable in a sound society. Cuba needs to decriminalize discrepancy, such as a relevant journalist in Camagüey has said. The mission of Christianity is, according to the Gospel of Saint Luke in its chapter 4, 18-21: To preach the Gospel to the poor; to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind; to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord".That's to mark the visit of the Pastor of the Church we can expect: an amnesty for all the political prisoners or prisoners of conscience, rather than pardon; the cessation of all repression and to change the climate of exasperation we find in the media and on the streets: an environment of war, conspiracy and espionage that harms the Nation's soul and the spirit of Cubanhood: to change all that toward an atmosphere of confidence and fraternity. This good news, guaranteed and consolidated by the complete decriminalization of discrepancy, before, during and after the pontifical visit can be one of the expectations and opportunities to prepare the visit, to experience it and evaluate it.6. Toward a true religious freedom.The true religious freedom in a modern laic State is not "the permit" for each action or work by the churches and it is not having a special office to control their activities or to exclude some works, persons and groups from the Church in order to obtain "the normalization" of the relations between the Church and the State. These relations will only be normal when the Churches enjoy a true religious freedom guaranteed by law or Concordat, by the renewal of mentality and by a social environment of freedom and respect for all the believers. The religious freedom is not a privilege for the ecclesiastic institutions but a right of each citizen and each community of believers. To take care of this right is a responsibility of the Hierarchy of the Church and the civil Authority as well. There cannot be religious freedom if only one of the believers is pursued, discriminated, excluded or repressed for his faith and for the consequences of his faith regarding his political, economic and social options. The purposes of the Gospel are not exclusively the good relations between the Church and the State but and above all, the good relations among all citizens and the State. To promote this more holistic concept of religious freedom can be a support and a source, inspiration and complement of all the other liberties, human rights and expectations regarding the life of the Churches and the Pope's visit. The degree of true religious freedom achieved before, during and after this visit and for each Cuban can be one of the expectations and opportunities to prepare this visit, to experience it and evaluate it.7. National reconciliation: truth, justice, amnesty and magnanimity.Another expectation about the papal visit is that it should contribute to the long and necessary process of national reconciliation. For more than five decades confrontation among Cubans that think and act differently has been stimulated. Persons that love Cuba and work pacifically for it have been unfairly called "warms", mercenaries, traitors and all kinds of degrading damaging remarks. Informers and oppressors have done a lot of physical and psychological harm. The pontifical visit should use a strong spiritual and ethical motivation to make this mania of discrediting the person instead of disagreeing with serenity about his ideas stop. Weak must be the arguments against these ideas when discredit is used against this person. The people that the Pope will visit needs a deep process of national reconciliation that necessarily should include these four steps: a commission of truth, legal processes with all the guarantees, an amnesty without amnesia not to fall in the same hole ever again and a spirit of magnanimity which is the mix of forgiveness and fraternity. The degree in which the preparation of the papal visit, the visit itself and what comes afterwards contribute to the process of national reconciliation can be one of the expectations and opportunities to prepare the visit, to experience it and evaluate it.8. The opening-up to the world strengthens the cultural identity and the national sovereignty."May Cuba open- up to the world and may the world open-up to Cuba" was one of the most stunning messages of the visit paid by John Paul II to Cuba 14 years ago. Quickly, many of us in Cuba added that together with those two openings and as a consequence of them the government should open-up mainly to the very Cubans so that all of us can enjoy all the rights. Unfortunately the three openings are still unresolved, some are not started, and some are not completed. The world has changed since 14 years ago: it is more independent, more supportive, more conscious and sensitive to the violations of the Human Rights and to the use of violence in any ways and places. The opening up and the interdependence do not degrade or harm but strengthen the cultural identity and the national sovereignty if the citizens have an ethical and civic education to start a dialogue with other cultures and other nations. Paternalism thinks that by locking up their children at home as if they were little and by giving them a simplified version of the world will result in the children's fidelity and purity. The very life denies the efficiency of being so enclosed regarding information, media, interpersonal relations, travel and interchange among countries. The degree of opening to the world, to Cubans and to all of human rights for all achieved before, during and after this visit can be one of the expectations and opportunities to prepare this visit, to experience it and evaluate it.9. The transition from fear to hope and from hope to the reconstruction of the Country.Cuba needs a deep transition but not only a political and economic transition. Cuba needs, above all and first of all, to transit from fear to hope. This indicator of the situation in our country and the life quality we have in this Island is indeed measurable by all of us: Cuba will not really change if you find fear around you. If television threatens and attacks; if the newspapers are libels that denigrate the different ones; if your neighbourhood is a nest of distrust and informers; if your job is a pack of envy and corruption. If all this happens then something is wrong in Cuba and it must change. There is no life quality where fear is present. If there is no hope the future moves away from each one of us and from the country. A country where the hope of persons lies in the possibility to travel to any other country in order to improve has to change substantially. The Pope's visit, its preparation and its continuity can be evaluated by the concrete steps in this urgent itinerary of transition from fear to hope and from hope to the reconstruction of the Country with freedom and responsibility.10. We Cubans, women and men are and should be the protagonists of our own personal and national history.Another unfinished legacy of the visit paid by John Paul II is that message three times repeated by the venerated Pontiff: "You are and should be the protagonists of your own personal and national history". This is maybe the foundation, the key and the guarantee of all the expectations and possibilities related to the visit of Benedict XVI: Only if we Cubans, women and men accept our personal and civic responsibility the changes in Cuba will be implemented with depth and peace. The Pope will not turn all of our expectations into realities but the prominence and the responsibility of all Cubans will do it; and we will be able to do it and we should do it counting on the supplement of the soul that religions can give through their mystique, their spirituality, their ethics and their liberating and holistic view of reality.The visit of every religious leader is always a call and a spiritual encouragement for all who want to listen and accept the Pope's wise suggestions and advices. That is why the visit of His Holiness Benedict XVI can be a magnificent catalyst in this gradual but irreversible process in which each Cuban, woman and man should accept our responsibility, our social and historic prominence to implement, all of us without exclusion or violence, the changes that only we Cubans should do for Cubans.This will depend on each one of us but very especially on the authorities and the faithful of the Catholic Church and also on the authorities and followers of the Country's government. It will also depend on the contribution of those Cubans, women and men who have decided to exercise their citizen sovereignty in the every day national events.This is the time for every one to contribute what he thinks, what he expects, what he will decide to do on the occasion of the Pope's visit during the next spring in Cuba.Pinar del Río, November 20th 201122nd Anniversary of Father Varela's Birth.
Translation from the Convivencia website.
December 1 2011
Sequences and Consequences / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado
Sequences and Consequences / Rosa María Rodríguez TorradoRosa María Rodríguez Torrado, Translator: Unstated
There are expectations on Cuba's "multiple shores" regarding the new immigration law that the government of Raul Castro is working on. It's not the first time we've heard about it; it's already been alluded to more than once and the news has leaked out that it is in advanced stages. I wonder how much so. Because there is a precedent in a "memo" published by a news agency a few years ago about the sale of Russian Lada cars, which turned out to be a fiasco.
It's likely that this trick to learn about public opinion on a topic is part of the strategy of the administration that took the helm in 2006. It's a recourse that is becoming repetitive and that arouses suspicions. Perhaps he's waited so long to make reforms that now he turns to tactics to tranquillize and entertain the population in order to gain time for his team to move the pieces of the legal framework to arm the new puzzle. How to return to Cubans the travel rights they enjoyed before 1959 that were violated? Therein lies the dilemma.
They have scammed us so many times for so long that people wonder whether the new measures won't also be saddled with restrictions. Most of the people you talk to about the issue display their skepticism regarding a right. If they don't publicly and legitimately respect all the rights of Cubans, it would be discriminatory, unfair and misleading — repeating the historic error of droit de seigneur in the matter — leaving it to State's different agencies of control to decide what to implement and what not to.
Thus, they would establish a legislation of doubtful guarantees of the capabilities and dignity of Cubans in opposition, relative to the known and accepted norms of the international community, in which they selectively support the authorities when and how it corresponds to their interests.
On the other hand, Cubans need to be educated on this fundamental topic to establish a culture of rights in our society — contrary to the intolerance and outrage fomented — and this is achieved by recognizing and respecting everyone. This happens, as is natural, by implementing human rights, which are inalienable and indivisible and which the government has "no right" to continue violating. They cannot legitimize some few without transgressing others.
They have subjected people to so many abuses of power, that we are justified in distrusting reforms in general and those relating to the new immigration law now in progress. I hope they won't repeat the old carrot-and-stick trick where, in Cuba, the carrot is usually rotten.
They have subjected people to so many abuses of power, that we are justified in distrusting reforms in general and those relating to the new immigration law now in progress. I hope they won't repeat the old carrot-and-stick trick where, in Cuba, the carrot is usually rotten.
Translator: Unstated
December 27 2011
The General’s Pardons / Yoani Sánchez
The General's Pardons / Yoani SánchezTranslator: Unstated, Yoani Sánchez
Thousands of eyes were glued to national television screens this last Friday. The social networks and text messages also vibrated nervously. A strong rumor had been growing all week, feeding the hopes of Cubans on and off the island, killing sleep. Initiated and fed by official voices, the speculations centered on the possibility of the National Assembly announcing travel reforms.
In a country where citizens face severe limitations on leaving and entering their own territory, such suspicions are too important not to pay attention. Bags packed, airplane tickets reserved, and long-delayed hugs between relatives not seen for decades about to be realized. But the illusion lasted only a few days and was deflated with the same haste with which passports are stamped "denied."
Instead of proclaiming the end of the demeaning Exit Permit — also known as the "White Card" — Raul Castro reported on a pardon for more than 2,900 prisoners. People sentenced for diverse crimes, among which were some against State Security. In the words of the official press release, it affected prisoners, "older then 60, sick, women, and also young people with prior criminal histories." A gesture that could be aimed at paving the way for the visit of Pope Benedict XVI this coming March.
The General thus preferred to open the doors of the small prisons, seeing that he is still not disposed to pull back the bureaucratic bars of the great prison. The island as a penitentiary and the immigration officials as stern gatekeepers with a bunch of keys hanging from their belts.
Although the president reaffirmed his "unchanging will to gradually introduce the required changes" in the current migratory policies, he could not prevent a snort of frustration bursting forth from the mouths of those who listened at home. For the umpteenth time hope withered and the embrace of an uncle or brother who would not be returning remained annoyingly locked in the trunk of the postponement.
The family and friends of the newly pardoned, however, did have reasons to prepare a Christmas with greater happiness. Although the penal code keeps intact that crimes that led them to prison, those released this Christmas feel themselves to be the beneficiaries of a magnanimous wink from the seat of power.
The presidential indulgence has touched them this time, but thousands of Cubans wait for a similar gesture in matters of basic human rights: A pardon that manages to open the heavy gate that blocks free travel, coming and going from one's country without having to ask for permission.
30 December 2011
Raul Castro Releases 2,900 Common Prisoners But Holds Onto His 11 Million Cuban Hostages
Yoani Sanchez – Award-winning Cuban blogger
Raul Castro Releases 2,900 Common Prisoners But Holds Onto His 11 Million Cuban HostagesPosted: 12/30/11 08:39 AM ET
Thousands of eyes were glued to national television screens this last Friday. The social networks and text messages also vibrated nervously. A strong rumor had been growing all week, feeding the hopes of Cubans on and off the island, killing sleep. Initiated and fed by official voices, the speculations centered on the possibility of the National Assembly announcing travel reforms.
In a country where citizens face severe limitations on leaving and entering their own territory, such suspicions are too important not to pay attention. Bags packed, airplane tickets reserved, and long-delayed hugs between relatives not seen for decades about to be realized. But the illusion lasted only a few days and was deflated with the same haste with which passports are stamped "denied."
Instead of proclaiming the end of the demeaning Exit Permit — also known as the "White Card" — Raul Castro reported on a pardon for more than 2,900 prisoners. People sentenced for diverse crimes, among which were some against State Security. In the words of the official press release, it affected prisoners, "older than 60, sick, women, and also young people with prior criminal histories." A gesture that could be aimed at paving the way for the visit of Pope Benedict XVI this coming March.
The General thus preferred to open the doors of the small prisons, seeing that he is still not disposed to pull back the bureaucratic bars of the great prison. The island as a penitentiary and the immigration officials as stern gatekeepers with a bunch of keys hanging from their belts.
Although the president reaffirmed his "unchanging will to gradually introduce the required changes" in the current migratory policies, he could not prevent a snort of frustration bursting forth from the mouths of those who listened at home. For the umpteenth time hope withered and the embrace of an uncle or brother who would not be returning remained annoyingly locked in the trunk of the postponement.
The family and friends of the newly pardoned, however, did have reasons to prepare a Christmas with greater happiness. Although the penal code keeps intact that crimes that led them to prison, those released this Christmas feel themselves to be the beneficiaries of a magnanimous wink from the seat of power.
The presidential indulgence has touched them this time, but thousands of Cubans wait for a similar gesture in matters of basic human rights: A pardon that manages to open the heavy gate that blocks free travel, coming and going from one's country without having to ask for permission.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/cuba-prisoner-release_b_1175447.html
Jailing of Cuban dissidents denounced
Posted on Tuesday, 12.27.11
Jailing of Cuban dissidents denouncedBy Juan Carlos Chavezjcchavez@elnuevoherald.com
Activists and groups advocating individual freedom in Cuba denounced the jailing in maximum security prisons of three peaceful opponents, including Ivonne Malleza Galano, who this year carried out a series of daring street protests.
The arrests coincide with the massive amnesty announced by Cuban leader Raúl Castro of about 2,900 Cuban prisoners. Five political prisoners were also released, according to information given on Tuesday by Elizardo Sánchez, director of the illegal but tolerated Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation, based in Havana.
"Suddenly the signs are very negative," Sánchez told El Nuevo Herald. "Because while there is an amnesty of criminal and political prisoners, three people who simply staged a small peaceful protest on the streets without any kind of force or violence are being jailed."
Malleza was transferred to Manto Negro women's jail in Havana together with dissident Isabel Hayde Alvarez Mosqueda. Both could be sentenced to five years in prison. The third opponent jailed is Malleza's husband, Ignacio Martínez Montero.
Malleza, a member of the group the Ladies in White, began to draw attention in the last few months because of her work in the opposition
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/27/2563791/jailing-of-cuban-dissidents-denounced.htmlmovement.
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
Cuban Dissident Freed Hours After Violent Arrest
Cuban Dissident Freed Hours After Violent Arrest
HAVANA – Prominent Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas was released without charges several hours after his "violent" arrest in the central city of Santa Clara, his family and colleagues said Monday.
Fariñas was headed for church on Sunday together with a group of 10 opposition members when "three (police) patrol cars blocked their way and the cops began to push and shove them inside," Ramon Jimenez, spokesman for the dissident group United Anti-Totalitarian Forum, told Efe.
"The police were violent with them and Guillermo was treated worst of all," Jimenez said.
Fariñas' mother Alicia Hernandez confirmed Monday the account of her son's detention and said that, after returning home around 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, he had to go to the doctor "because he was in a lot of pain."
The 49-year-old psychologist and independent journalist went on a hunger strike last year for more than four months following the death of opposition prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo, to demand the release of political prisoners suffering severe illnesses.
Guillermo Fariñas, recipient of the European Parliament's 2010 Sakharov Prize for the defense of human rights, was arrested briefly on several occasions this year, the last time in mid-September during a wave of detentions of dissidents in Santa Clara and other towns in central Cuba.
According to the opposition Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, the Communist government has intensified the "interior repression" against dissidence over the last month, and estimates that 380 people were arrested for political reasons in December. EFE
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=456174&CategoryId=14510
Diversity vs. Demagoguery / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado
Diversity vs. Demagoguery / Rosa María Rodríguez TorradoRosa María Rodríguez Torrado, Translator: Unstated
For some time here the leaders of the Cuban government have been given to talking about diversity and defending the importance of respecting this in different groups of people in our national home. It's a positive discourse, of course, but something rather "tricky" if we take into account that it only refers to the social and cultural which in our country is always imposed with militaristic criteria from the seats of power. But perhaps it is the sowing of a seed — I tell myself — of the context for a transition towards which Cuba seems to be beginning to "crawl," toward a society of openness in which we all can walk. I don't want to be too innocent, but neither do I want to be too skeptical about some curtains that seem to be moving, although they still won't let us open the window.
The Cuban government is going to integrate "in its own way" into the world and needs to legitimize itself with slow and calculated steps, into the community of democratic nations in the world, most concretely in Latin American, where it is the only one that currently has a single-party system. With its radar focused on this hemisphere — keeping in mind the recent creation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, CELAC; its partial reconciliation with the Catholic Church which covers the majority of the continent and is a force for action — although with great fear of losing power; timidly instructing and ordering as Party concession the spaces and socio-economic achievements and policies we used to enjoy in society and that they took from us on violently coming into power.
After almost fifty-three years, these steps are the tacit acknowledgment that their model failed and they are preparing the society for its incorporation into the democratic world when they are no longer. However, it is illogical to talk about diversity only for a part of the social fabric. For a people subjected for decades to assimilate this concept, it should cover the entire spectrum of national life, including the political. It should legitimize political parties and respect for the human rights established by the United Nations. Diversity in everything and for everyone should be the motto, which is synonymous with pluralism and rule of law; if not it is a euphemism for the repression of progress. To offer it in a partial sense, according to the interests of the state is demagoguery, at least I think so.
December 13 2011
Cuban-Americans stream to the island for holidays
Posted on Friday, 12.23.11
Cuban-Americans stream to the island for holidaysBy LAURA WIDES-MUNOZAP Hispanic Affairs Writer
MIAMI — Deborah Labrada was giddy as she stood in line at Miami-Dade International Airport, waiting to fly to the town of Guantanamo, Cuba.
It is the place she visits roughly once a year to see her grandfather, aunts and uncles and cousins. She still considers it a second home, even though she has lived nearly all her 17 years in South Florida.
"The first thing I'm going to do when I get there is cry, and then give everyone hugs," she said Monday, as she leaned against her cart of bags secured in the festive, neon green airport plastic wrap. The duffel bags - cheaper to ship through than heavier, traditional luggage – bulged with food, over the counter medicine, toys and other necessities hard to obtain in Cuba's struggling economy.
Labrada was among thousands of Cuban-Americans flying to the island this week to celebrate the new year. These types of annual pilgrimages would have been sharply curtailed if two South Florida, GOP Cuban-American congressmen had succeeded in returning to the Bush-era limit of once every three years. The measure backed by U.S. Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart and David Rivera was tucked into the congressional spending bill, but Republican leaders jettisoned it last week as part of a last minute compromise.
Labrada said Monday she didn't appreciate the effort to restore the old restriction.
"I think it was very disappointing, because the least we can do is help our own families," she said. "We should go and take advantage of the opportunity to bring them things and help any way we can."
President Barack Obama allowed unlimited family visits by Cuban-Americans shortly after taking office and removed the $1,200 annual cap on remittances. Exact numbers are difficult to come by, but the Cuban government said earlier this year it expected about 500,000 U.S. visitors annually, the vast majority of them Cuban-Americans. Cuban officials did not immediately respond to requests for corresponding statistics from past years, but they have previously said there were nearly 300,000 visits from Cubans living outside the island in 2009. It was not immediately clear whether that included repeat travelers.
Many Cuban-Americans, like Labrada have already been traveling to Cuba for years. They just had to go through special church trips or through a third country to get around the three year ban.
Of nearly a dozen families interviewed at the Miami Airport, all but two said they'd last visited the island in the last year or two.
"I don't think it should be any different for us than it is for anyone else going to visit family in any other country," Labrada said.
Except it is different.
Most Cubans who come to the U.S. are able to immigrate here as a result of U.S. policy that views them as victims of political oppression. And as Diaz-Balart is quick to note, not everyone can travel. While average Cubans may be able to visit family off the island, their visa requests can easily be denied. The Cuban government has refused to allow blogger and internationally renowned activist Yoani Sanchez to travel to the U.S. and Europe to accept human rights awards.
But Professor Andy Gomez of the University of Miami's Institute for Cuba and Cuban-American Studies says the flood of travelers isn't likely to stop any time soon, and he says trying to stem the flow makes no sense.
"I was at the Miami airport last week, and there were flights on the hour," he said. "Stopping it? Impossible. It is the people-to-people contact we want and need, and it is already happening."
Most of the flights to Cuba still originate from South Florida, with nearly 300,000 people departing to the island just from Miami International Airport in 2010. Numbers for 2011 were not yet available. But they also now leave from places such as Tampa, Fla.; Oakland, Calif.; Los Angeles, New York City, Atlanta and Puerto Rico.
Flights to Cuba from the Tampa International Airport began in early September after a 50-year hiatus, and local officials are banking on it as a new source of revenue. Airport officials said about 45,000 passengers will travel the route in 2012.
Manny Martinez, a 21-year-old Tampa resident, was standing at the back of the long line four hours before Tuesday's flight. He said he's spending two weeks on the island and staying with family. Like Labrada, he said Cuba still feels like home, even though he's lived in the U.S. for 11 years.
When asked to name the first thing he would do once he arrived, he laughed.
"Party," he said. "Just go out with my old friends and have fun."
Not everyone goes just to see family.
Gomez said his maintenance man just returned from a trip to Cuba to visit his dentist because he has no health care insurance in the U.S. and can't afford the visit here. Meanwhile, media reports are on the rise in South Florida about Cuban-Americans involved in Medicare fraud fleeing to the island.
Back at the Miami airport, Isabel Baez, 39, teared up as she talked about visiting her family in Santiago de Cuba. Yet, she said she knows of people who also go as "mules," taking much needed provisions for others on the island who are not relatives, sometimes even for resale.
"But most of those people still go to see their family," she said. "They bring the packages as a way to get a free ticket."
Associated Press writer Tamara Lush contributed to this report from Tampa, Fla.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/23/v-fullstory/2558933/cuban-americans-stream-to-the.html
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