Cuba’s bloggers are as sharp abroad as at home

The Crisis of the Sugar Missiles
The 'Crisis of the Sugar Missiles'*|*Yoani Sanchez

Yoani Sanchez

The Congress of the Journalists Union of Cuba (UPEC) has just been contradicted. Barely a few days after that meeting of official reporters, reality has put them to the test... and they failed. Yesterday, the news that a freighter flying under the North Korean flag, coming from Havana and found with missiles and other military equipment in its hold, jumped to the first page of much of the world's press. In Panama, where the arms were detected, the president of the country himself sent out a report via Twitter about what happened. Knowing that in this day and age it's almost impossible to censor -- from the national public -- an event of such scope, we awoke this morning to a brief note from the Ministry of Foreign Relations. In an authoritarian tone it explained that the "obsolete" -- but functional -- armaments were being sent to the Korean peninsula for repairs. It did not clarify, however, why it was necessary to hide them in a cargo of sugar.

At a time when newspapers are offering lessons that governments can't get away with secrecy, the conformist role of the official Cuban press is, at the very least, painful. Meanwhile, in Spain several newspapers have challenged the governing party by publishing the declarations of its former treasurer; in the United States, the Snowden case fills the headlines, which demand explanations from the White House about the invasion of privacy of so many citizens. It is inconceivable that, this morning, Cuba's Ministry of the Armed Forces and its colleagues in Foreign Relations are not being questioned by reporters calling them to account. Where are the journalists? Where are these professionals of the news and of words who should force governments to declare themselves, force politicians not to deceive us, force the military not to behave toward citizens as if we were children who can be constantly lied to?

Where are the resolutions of the UPEC Congress, with their calls to remove obstacles, abolish silence, and engage in an informative labor more tied to reality? A brief note, clearly plagued with falsehoods, is not sufficient to explain the act of sending -- secretly -- arms to a country that the United Nations itself has warned others not to support with the technology of war. They will not convince us of their innocence by appealing to the antiquity of the armaments; things that produce horror never entirely expire. But, as journalists, the most important lesson to come out of this "crisis of the sugar missiles" is that we cannot settle for institutions that explain themselves in brief press releases, that cannot be questioned. They have to speak, they have to explain... a lot.

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Cuban Missiles to North Korea Did Raul Castro Want to Get Caught?
Cuban Missiles to North Korea: Did Raul Castro Want to Get Caught?*|*Yoani Sanchez

Yoani Sanchez

The unforeseen, situations that nobody predicted, are for politics like pepper on food. When it appears that all the possible variables of a scenario are on the table, an event sneaks in among them that changes everything. Such is the case with the diplomatic crisis generated by the arms transported from Cuba in a North Korean ship, discovered in the Panama Canal.

After years of trying to clean up its act before international bodies, this incident sets Raul Castro's government back decades, returning it to the era of the Cold War. There is no time left for the octogenarian politician to reverse the effect of such a a misguided operation. Between now and his announced retirement in 2018, there are not enough days to make people forget the bungling of those missiles hidden under a cargo of sugar. Someone else, in his position, would renounce or remove the Minister of the Armed Forces, but a play like that has no precedent in the Castro regime.

On hearing about the trafficking in this arsenal of war, the question that immediately jumps to mind is how many times have operations like this been carried out without being discovered. The testimony and speculations about Cuba's sending troops and arms to countries in conflict abound. It is symptomatic that on this occasion the contraband has been intercepted mid-journey, which raises a new question. Why in this case has it come to light? Clumsiness or intention? Bungling or being out of touch with the workings of the real world? The questions will be asked, but the answers are known only to a few.

The truth is that these events confirm the denunciations of those who, for years, have documented the support of the Plaza of the Revolution for guerrillas, insurgents, destabilization groups, and governments sanctioned by international organizations. Wrapped in the halo of "proletarian internationalism," the help offered in most cases was hidden with subterfuges, such as merchant ships transporting soldiers or military equipment on the sly. It was the era when the sharp eyes of the satellites didn't track the planet with such precision, and the Soviet bear was there to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for its outstanding disciple in the Caribbean. A bygone and remote era.
Click link above for balance of article.

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Independent Labor Unions Outlawed in Cuba, for the 'Proletariat' and the Self-Employed Alike
Independent Labor Unions Outlawed in Cuba, for the 'Proletariat' and the Self-Employed Alike*|*Yoani Sanchez

Yoani Sanchez

The National Tax Administration (ONAT) office is open and dozens of people have been waiting from very early. An employee shouts directions for what line to get into for each procedure, although a few minutes later confusion will reign once again. At a desk without a computer another official writes the details of each case attended to, by hand. The wall behind her back is damp with humidity, the heat is unbearable and people constantly interrupt to ask for forms. An institution that takes in millions of pesos in taxes every year carries on with feet of clay, suffering from material precariousness and poor organization. Congested offices, interminable paperwork and lack of information are only some of the problems that hinder its management.

However, the setbacks don't stop there. The lack of stable wholesale markets with diversified products also slow down the private sector. The inspectors fall on the cafes, restaurants and other autonomous businesses. Strikes or any public demonstrations to reduce taxes are strictly forbidden. It is expected that the self-employed will contribute to the national budget, but not that we will behave like citizens willing to make demands. The only union permitted, the Central Workers Union of Cuba (CTC), tries to absorb us in their straitjacketed structures. Paying monthly dues, participating in congresses where little is accomplished, and parading in support of the same government that lays off thousands of workers: it is to this that they want to reduce our collective action. Why not create and legalize our own organization, one not managed by the government? An entity that is not a transmission line from the powers-that-be to the workers, but the reverse?

Unfortunately, most of the self-employed don't consider that salary independence and productivity must be tied to union sovereignty. Many fear that at the slightest hint of a demand their licenses will be cancelled and other measures taken against them. So they remain silent and accept the inefficiencies of ONAT, the inability to import raw materials from abroad, the excesses of the inspectors and other obstacles. Nor have emerging civil society organizations managed to capitalize on the needs of this sector to help them achieve representation. The necessary alliance between social groups that share nonconformity and demands doesn't materialize. So our labor demands continue to be postponed, caught between the fear of some and the lack of attention from others

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Havana Havana, Your Fountains Are Broken
Havana Havana, Your Fountains Are Broken | Generation Y

Posted by Yoani-Sánchez


I’m in the same park where thirty years ago my sister and I ran and played. Two girls turning pirouettes similar to ours hide behind some bushes. However, there is something very different in this deja vu: missing is the fountain with its sound of rain falling on marble. With rare exceptions, a very similar panorama repeats itself in every Havana plaza. Scarcity, negligence or urban policy, no one can explain it, but in recent decades this city has lost the moist presence of its fountains.

Guided by my memory, I decided to take a water tour. At the corner of Belascoaín and Carlos III all that is left of that pond where we dunked our hands and sometimes our feet is an empty tank. A few blocks further on, rusted iron marks the site of one of the more ephemeral fountains of my memory. It only lasted a few weeks after its inauguration in an official event, speech and all. Known as “Paulina’s bidet,” near Sport City, now and again downpours turn it into a greenish lake with tadpoles. And don’t even talk about the Fountain of Youth — drab and decrepit — so close to the sea, so far from its former glory.

In a brief investigation of why this city has lost so many sources, I find varied and revealing answers: “The problem is they stole the pump that supplies the water,” an official told me. At another site an annoyed employee assured me, “We had to close it because some people ended up bathing here, because they don’t have showers in their homes.” The nicest was a lady who looked at me with narrowed eyes while reproaching me, “Oh my, what a tremendous memory you have, this fountain hasn’t worked for decades.” In the center of Plaza Vieja stands one of the few that still functions, surrounded by an imposing fence, to keep the neighbors from taking the precious liquid bucket by bucket. My water tour ended, desert-like, at the well-known La India fountain, also without a drop of H2O.

As residents of this city we must do something so that our children can experience the beauty of parks with fountains. I know there are other priorities to be resolved, but how gray is the asphalt, how solitary a little square and how oppressive the heat without this sound of water skipping over the stones.

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Cuba, Venezuela slammed on press freedoms
http://news.yahoo.com/cuba-venezuela-slammed-press-freedoms-211001604.html

Denver (AFP) - Venezuelan journalists and a dissident Cuban blogger denounced press censorship and other forms of media control by their countries' leftist governments, at a conference here Sunday.

Speaking on the second day of a meeting of the Inter-American Press Association, award-winning Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez said Cuban President Raul Castro in the past year has stepped up government crackdowns on free speech.

The crackdown has involved "violence carried out by pro-government mobs, intimidation, vandalism and the arrests of five (would-be) independent journalists," she said.

Cuban television, radio, newspapers and magazines are all state-run.

On a positive note, Sanchez hailed Twitter as "a great tool to report human rights violations in places that are under repressive regimes."

But she said that while Castro has opened cyber-cafe services to which Cubans can get paid access, most in the Caribbean nation of 11 million -- where the average salary is under $20 a month -- cannot afford it.
State media remains all that most Cubans have access to, since "it is prohibitive for anybody to spend a third of their monthly salary on an hour of Internet time," she said.

Cuba does allow government members, scientists and educators Internet access at work but home service is not an option.

Even the most influential non-state actor in Cuba, the Catholic church, has not been able to get its own schools and media in Cuba.

Venezuelan journalists pointed to the close coordination between Cuba and Venezuela on its "revolutionary" state-run media, which has expanded while the privately owned media has withered under government pressure.
Miguel Enrique Otero, editor of Venezuela's independent El Nacional newspaper, complained in debates that Venezuela was subject to a "media hegemony ... born in and advised from Havana."

Otero cited the example of a newly created Strategic Center for the Protection and Security of the Homeland (CESPPA). The group, which reports to the president's office, is supposed to censor at will any information deemed sensitive to national security.

"Sadly, the two governments are mirroring each other on the worst things -- in their failing to bring prosperity to their people, and in repressing freedoms," Cuba's Sanchez charged.

The two governments became close allies under the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who extended a lifeline to Cuba's cash-strapped communist government by providing it with cut-rate oil and hard currency.
Cuba's biggest hard-currency export earner is the more than six billion dollars a year Caracas pays Havana for the services of thousands of Cuban doctors and other medical staff.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro -- with six months in office -- so far has held to Chavez' line of extremely close cooperation with Cuba

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The Illusion of Color
The Illusion of Color | Yoani Sanchez

Yoani Sanchez



I got home from school and there was a man sitting on the floor in front of the TV. His fingers were stained with paint and some oil-paint tubes were scattered around him. It was the latest fad in the neighborhood: painting a colorful pattern on those boring black-and-white screens. The first one to do so was the downstairs neighbor, always up-to-date with the latest trends, which included posters of lightly-clad women taped to the walls, and an enormous porcelain tiger at the entrance to her home. She dictated fashion throughout the whole tenement, so when she transformed her "boob tube" with a rainbow in reds and blues, everyone imitated her. In my house at 218 Krim, they painted some stripes and even a central circle in various tones. Most significant is that years later, I remembered the programs and cartoons I saw on that "invention" as if they'd come to me in their original polychrome. My brain had joined the shades and constructed the illusion of color.

This personal anecdote comes to me when I read the latest 2012 Statistics from the Census of Population and Housing. On learning that there are still more than 700,000 black-and-white TVs in Cuba, I can't help but evoke the excited neighbors of my tenement using their fingertips to paint their cathode ray tubes. But in the current figures, there is not only evidence that they are still watching TV programming in black, white and gray... but also that they are economically worse off in our country. They are the ones who have failed to get together the convertible pesos for a modern Sony or LG. Those who probably have no family abroad, who haven't found a way to divert State resources, or whose privileges ended with the end of the USSR. The poorest who, in a society of such avid TV watchers, don't have the resources to enjoy the tonalities.

I wonder if any of those old TVs touched up with stripes in green, purple and cyan still survive... If some child on this island still watches like my sister and me did, mentally joining a piece of color here and another there to imagine Huckleberry Hound was a blue dog, or Cheburashka with his fur brown.

Now I no longer know, I can no longer distinguish in my memory, between what came to me thanks to the ingenuity of painted screens, or what I enjoyed years later thanks to the ingenuity of painted screens, or what I enjoyed years later thanks to Technicolor.

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