That Silent Way*
To walk to the edge of the stage and speak only within limits, is required practice for certain critical artists still living in Cuba. Occasionally they offer us a phrase seasoned with dissent which will be published in foreign newspapers, though it will find no echo in our national ones. With one foot inside and one foot outside the Island, it must be difficult to go from speaking out to whispering. The long stays abroad have thus become a catalyst of opinions for some representatives of our culture. Evidently, interaction with other realities – with their achievements and their problems – have made the triumphalist slogans sound very distant while the intolerance in their own backyard becomes insufferable.
Pablo Milanes’ last interview – published in Spain under the title, “I want change in Cuba as soon as possible” – shows, on the one hand, the restraint with which he avoids burning the bridges of return, and on the other the audacity of someone who is very worried about what is happening in his country. There is, undoubtedly, an enormous risk in calling those who govern us, “reactionaries of their own ideas”; these are the people who have censored so many writers, musicians and actors for saying much less. The author of the song Yolanda walks the knife’s edge along which others have been cut to shreds. Protecting him in this undertaking are the strength of his international reputation and the support of people from every place and generation. An unknown neighborhood singer-songwriter would pay dearly, but they need Pablo.
Emigration has marked too strongly the artistic level on our stages. Not only have my colleagues from the university and my contemporaries from the neighborhood left en masse, but Cuban culture has a percentage of its representatives – some would say a majority – outside our borders. To lose, now, this strong voice would be to admit that those who composed the background music that accompanied the construction of utopia have stopped believing in it. So no website of any official institution is going publish an aggressive and threatening diatribe against the frankness of the interviewee. Nor will they inform the Madrid consulate that he is no longer welcome in his own country, nor accuse him of speaking with the words of an “American lover.” None of these stigmatizing strategies will be deployed against Pablo, but in the off-hour ministerial chats and the closed circles of power they will not forgive him for having behaved like a free man.
*Translator’s note: The title of this post is taken from the title of one of Pablo Milanes’ songs.
Image source: http://media.photobucket.com/
Abril 10th, 2010 at 20:13
Pablo Milanes, I do remember I saw him when he was playing electric bass with “The Bucaneros”, in “The Pico Blanco” at the St. Johns Hotel. I was only fifteen, yes only fifteen and very mature like most of my generation. Pablo, remember the UMAP? Brother, what ever you need any time.
Marzo 19th, 2010 at 04:18
… so the “party” is in itself a legislative & a executive power … above society & above the state …
I am curious about how losada and/or any of his incarnations will “spin” … this one.
By the way … I haven’t seen your “foot prints” in the spanish side yet … what name are you using there?
Marzo 19th, 2010 at 04:14
“The party stated: “the cuban people have decided to have a single party” … all in the name of unity … ?!!
There is a difference between words & practice … the cuban constitution says many things.
The right & the power to violate & justify the transgretions of the law … resides in the “party”.
“Communism is the guiding force SUPERIOR TO SOCIETY & THE STATE …” article 5 of the present cuban constitution.
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 21:23
However write these articles about Cuba, this person must have an elite position that obstruct his vision of what is really happening to the rest of the population in the Island, this person does not have a ration book like the rest of the population or this person lives in one of the new emerging paradise like Brazil or Venezuela, however if you live in Cuba like the rest of the population you would never make such a full of yourself with statements like this.
Article #3 is full of lies, why I say that, let me explain and disect this article in pieces.
ARTICLE 3. In the Republic of Cuba sovereignty lies in the people (Pleaseeeeeeee, It does not lie in the people, it lies in a small group of old bastards that controls the communist party of Cuba, the rest of the population have no saying in any of the rules adopted by the party) , from whom originates all the power of the state. That power is exercised directly or through the assemblies of People’s Power( The translation of the previous sentence means: The CDR, which stands for Committee for the Defense of the Robolution, nothing more than a bunch of neighborhood snitchers) and other state bodies which derive their authority from these assemblies, in the form and according to the norms established in the Constitution(A Constitution? come on, give a break, there is no constitution only a piece of paper with words to serve their ilogic doctrines) what it is and by law.”
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 18:02
KT:
At least you are trying to make a coherent argument. For that, I’ll give you credit. Nonetheless, your analysis is flawed. Allow me to explain:
The thing is - while flawed - the U.S. system for doing this: for exposing corruption, for working toward change, for having our voices make a difference - is more effective than the Cuban.
This simply isn’t true. The stated goal of the U.S. Government and the belief in free market capitalism, which has its roots with the “Founding Fathers,” and is a philosophy that has become hardened over the years with the influence of thinkers like Leo Strauss, Ayn Rand and the for-profit think-tanks, today has neoliberalism on one end of the spectrum and neo-conservatives on the other end of the spectrum — a narrow spectrum, to be sure.
For both of these schools of thought, there are a number of common threads:
1) Society works best when corporations are given the same rights as human individuals and they compete against each other for the improvement of society,
2) Class is a permanent feature of society and a lower-class will always exist — in fact, MUST exist in order to fill the service roles required by the rich,
3) Individuals should compete against each other for currency, and currency should be necessary for everything a human being needs: health care, shelter, food.
4) The less money you have, the less you will be able to purchase the basic human necessities that everyone needs: food, shelter, health care, etc.
This philosophy is markedly different than socialism. The stated goals (in brief) include:
1) Society works best when individuals are encouraged to co-operate with each other for the betterment of everyone in the community,
2) Corporations should eventually not exist and, until this transition can be complete, corporations should not have the same rights as human individuals and should be regulated in what actions they can take against workers and human individuals that make up the community the corporations operate in,
3) Money should not be the key to the essential needs of human life (food, shelter, health care, etc),
4) Class division is a curse on humanity and society should strive to eliminate classes,
5) Government is an ill on society and society should strive to eliminate its necessity.
Taken on face value, socialism is more in line with the natural thinking of the vast majority of human beings on the planet. People separate themselves from the animal world, in part, by being able to rationalize and communicate with spoken/written language and agree to organize themselves beyond the barbarism of “only strongest shall survive.”
So, my first, and overwhelming point, is that capitalism is a barbaric philosophy and in the evolution of humankind, it belongs in the dustbin. It should be obvious by now that society cannot function decently if all human beings must compete against each other to exist. That concept has left the world in a disastrous condition, where 50,000-some people die every day due to starvation, a tiny percent of the world controls the vast majority of the wealth (and, therefore, power) and only a tiny fraction of the world enjoys the luxuries you cite, and these luxuries are subsidized by slave labor in the rest of the world.
That said, let’s look at the advantages you cite:
Regarding your assertions of privacy … our phones are not tapped, our postal mail is not read, the government doesn’t use snitches and informants, we enjoy privacy of our medical/financial/etc records, etc and this is not true in Cuban society.
That simply isn’t true. There is a right to privacy that the Supreme Court has INFERRED from the Constitution but those same rights exist in the Cuban Constitution. I refer you to Articles 51 - 59 of the Cuban Constitution:
ARTICLE 54. The rights to assembly, demonstration and association are exercised by workers, both manual and intellectual, peasants, women, students and other sectors of the working people, and they have the necessary means for this. The social and mass organizations have all the facilities they need to carry out those activities in which the members have full freedom of speech and opinion based on the unlimited right of initiative and criticism.
ARTICLE 55. The state, which recognizes, respects and guarantees freedom of conscience and of religion, also recognizes, respects and guarantees every citizen’s freedom to change religious beliefs or to not have any, and to profess, within the framework of respect for the law, the religious belief of his preference.
The law regulates the state’s relations with religious institutions.
ARTICLE 56. The home is inviolable. Nobody can enter the home of another against his will, except in those cases foreseen by law.
ARTICLE 57. Mail is inviolable. It can only be seized, opened and examined in cases prescribed by law. Secrecy is maintained on matters other than those which led to the examination.
The same principle is to be applied in the case of cable, telegraph and telephone communications.
ARTICLE 58. Freedom and inviolability of persons is assured to all those who live in the country.
So, what are you talking about? The exact same rights are guaranteed to Cuban citizens under their Constitution.
In fact, the Cuban Constitution guarantees MORE rights to their citizens, including the right to education, health care … even DENTAL care is explicitly granted as a right in the Cuban Constitution.
From the Cuban Constitution:
“ARTICLE 3. In the Republic of Cuba sovereignty lies in the people, from whom originates all the power of the state. That power is exercised directly or through the assemblies of People’s Power and other state bodies which derive their authority from these assemblies, in the form and according to the norms established in the Constitution and by law.”
Sorry, KT. You are just wrong.
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 16:10
Attention all you communist fascists lovers, read carefully comment #87, you b a s t a r d s. I was going to print the word but decided to hyphenate it. Need to inject a little humor, jajajaja
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 16:00
KT,
Brilliantly put! Thank you.
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 13:40
So much time and energy spent on exposing the mistakes, ills and crimes by the U.S. government and capitalist societies. Why? How does this shore-up Castro-fascim?
Is the U.S. perfect? Not by a long shot. Is there / has there ever been / will there ever be a perfect governmental and social system?
Absolutely not.
Why? Because governments are run by humans. Corporations are managed by humans. Humans are, by nature, selfishly motivated. By money, power, security - good stuff for ourselves and those we care about. There will always be corruption, well-intended errors, and myopic decisions made.
The point is, we can strive for better. We can work to make our community and our world a better place for ourselves, our children and the nameless, faceless poor who freeze to death or starve to death or who are imprisoned for their ideas. Humankind can strive to overcome our selfish tendencies and work for the common good.
The thing is - while flawed - the U.S. system for doing this: for exposing corruption, for working toward change, for having our voices make a difference - is more effective than the Cuban. There are a boatload of examples where it doesn’t work in the U.S. Where the tiny voice is snuffed. But, there are a boatload of examples where it _does_ work.
* We have unfettered access to the internet.
* We can assemble how and where we want, for whatever purpose we want.
* We have a free press, who can and do expose fraud, conspiracy, waste, inefficiencies.
* We can work as hard as we want or as little as we want, and reap the corresponding wages or lack thereof.
* Our postal mail is sent and received free from being read by any government party.
* Our phones are not tapped.
* Our neighbors are not paid to tell the state things about our lives.
* We have a right to privacy, extended to our medical, financial and other records. No one tracks what books I check out or purchase.
Of course you will be able to point out exceptions to the above. But why? I’ve already acknowledged that it isn’t perfect. But what about Cuba, where none of these statements are true?
Well, could one argue that the benefit to giving up these things outweighs the negative? Personally, I’ve not heard any credible argument supporting the position that communism / socialism works economically. Nor that fascism / totalitarianism / dictatorship provides long-term, positive benefits for its citizens.
A government should be FOR its people. It should be accountable to its citizens. It should listen to its citizens. The U.S. system is inherently better designed to do that. The Cuban is not.
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 13:15
82M. piñeiro losada
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 10:51
THE CUBAN “RESISTANCE”: ALL PLATITUDES, NO SUBSTANCE … VIVA LA REVOLUCIÓN CUBANA!
Albert:
Yawn: I was born free. I believe I have the right of freedom with all its benefits, priviledges & responibilities not just for me but FOR ALL CUBA.
This has all the insight of a bad Hollywood movie. You could take these words and place them in mouth of an Israeli, or a Palestinian, or a Nazi German, or a French partisan, or a Mongol invader, or a British imperialist, or an Indian resistance fighter, a contra or a Sandinista, and they would equally make as much sense……..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear patient, by this mean I inform you that you now on are under psychiatric treatment to try improve your lamentable mental condition. I am glad to announce to you that your disease is not curable but able of improvement. After analysis of your case in meeting with my team we arrived to the conclusion that you suffer of severe ideological-mental retarded syndrome . The treatment chosen to revert this condition is simple: 3 daily doses of XXXLLL solid enemas of common sense.
here is your first dose:
To compare this: “I was born free. I believe I have the right of freedom with all its benefits, privileges & responsibilities not just for me but FOR ALL CUBA”, with Hollywood movie, words and placed them in mouth of an Israeli, or a Palestinian, or a Nazi German, or a French partisan, or a Mongol invader, or a British imperialist, or an Indian resistance fighter, a contra or a Sandinista……. shows the confusion in your mind caused by years of castrofascism indoctrination that make you incapable of finding differences between Israeli and Palestinian fighters…..or…. a Nazi German and a French partisan…… etc, etc.
It could be very dangerous for you because your bosses, those that pays you, does not like to be compared with assassins and tyrants despite they are exactly that.
Be careful patient…….. your live is in jeopardy due to your confusion.
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 13:05
Albert:
Again, you talk in generalities, no specifics, no ability to form even one coherent argument against the Cuban Revolution.
As for your assertion that the Cuban Revolution is “moldy” … wake up and look at the world around you. What is “moldy” is the militant Cuban-American mafia, who are rejected by the Cuban-American youth for their insane fanaticism that has led to the violent deaths of thousands of innocents.
What is “moldy” is the US Empire, shown to be in decline in nearly every statistic imaginable and by every public opinion poll, everywhere in the world.
What is brand new and gaining momentum — AGAIN — is the resurgence of socialism in the Americas. Whether you are talking about the 100s of thousands of people at the Battle of Seattle in 1999, the defeat of FTAA/ALCA at the Guerre de Gaz in Quebec City in 2002, the MILLIONS of people who opposed US imperialism leading up to the war in Iraq in 2003, the political revolution that has swept Socialists and the Foro de SĂŁo Paulo parties into power in Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Ecuador, Argentina … the opposition to the G8 in Genoa, the opposition to the PRIistas in Oaxaca, the birth of the Indymedia electronic movement (which predates and far surpasses the right-wing imitators), and on and on and on.
In case you didn’t get it, THIS is the tendency in the world today, as we prepare to kick capitalism into its grave.
Your way had its chance and we see what it gave the world: capitalist dictatorships, the greatest gap between rich and poor the world has ever known, capitalist torture camps, capitalist cocaine cartels, one finance market rip-off after another, the violent destruction of labor unions, etc.
You aren’t living in the 80s anymore. The people have risen up, overthrown many of the capitalist dictatorships that plagued the latter half of the 20th century, and we are well on our way towards destroying the remaining capitalist oligarchies.
Take a look into the minds of the youth of today:
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5191
Viva la revoluciĂłn cubana! Viva Hugo Chavez! Viva Evo Morales!
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 11:58
I don’t care how you word it, the point still remains … we are talking about the present regime & the present conditions in Cuba …
Your attempts to deny a truth by repetition does not work pal.
Your attempts to “create” a truth by repetition does not work either pal.
Add to it: you are living in the past trying to use the moldy heroes of the castro revolution & the old tired slogas to inspire the “tired of hearing the same thing” people of Cuba.
Words are cheap pal … results … what does the present regime have to show? add to it the implicit denial of ALL THE REGIME’S FOSTERED & FOMENTED COVERT OPERATIONS TO “CREATE MANY VIETNAMS” (as your argentinian hero used to say)” BY THE PRESENT REGIME SINCE THE 1950s.
It encompased most of south america, africa & parts of europe.
The fact is like it or not:
YOUR experiemnt has failed, every scheme, from agricultural to industrial & in between.
You blame the US & the embargo but purposely ignore every other country which conducts business w/Cuba (most of them still waiting for your payments for goods delivered) perhaps there is a reason for some of the same countries do not choose to continue doing business w/the present Cuba?
Note:
What most are against is what YOUR leadership & people like you do to the regular cuban people.
Perhaps you’ll pause & think what you have been told many times already:
We are talking about Cuba, not all the countries around her.
We are talking about the quality of life the Cuban people have, not about the quality of life for people from other countries.
We are talking about the Cuba, not about another country.
I know for certain … you have nothing but fabricated, twisted & misrepresented facts, figures * quotes for your parrotings.
You demonstrate little to nothing about human care, sensitivity & compasion.
The way you talk … it tells me: you have never suffered repression, incarceration, torture & loss, the way you talk demonstrates as well that you don’t even know what it is to carry w/you the scars … physical & mental caused by the repression of the regime you so love… you are all talk.
You talk about it like you know what it is & how it feels … you didn’t; represent me then from any of your “comitees” nor you represent me now!
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 10:51
THE CUBAN “RESISTANCE”: ALL PLATITUDES, NO SUBSTANCE … VIVA LA REVOLUCIĂ“N CUBANA!
Albert:
Yawn: I was born free. I believe I have the right of freedom with all its benefits, priviledges & responibilities not just for me but FOR ALL CUBA.
This has all the insight of a bad Hollywood movie. You could take these words and place them in mouth of an Israeli, or a Palestinian, or a Nazi German, or a French partisan, or a Mongol invader, or a British imperialist, or an Indian resistance fighter, a contra or a Sandinista, and they would equally make as much sense.
If all you have is platitudes and flowery language, who can disagree? How can one disagree with someone who really has no point?
If there is reason for the anti-Cuban terrorists to complain about pro-Cuba repetitiveness, it is entirely because all we have to do is simply restate the fundamental case and it should be clear to anyone.
The facts are that DEFENDERS of the world’s military superpower, with all of its aggression and terrorism and torture and dictatorial history, simply cannot co-opt the language of people yearning for hundreds of years to be free of colonial and imperial control. Revolutionary Cuba represents the freedom from that imperial control.
As for whoever wrote that “no dissident walks free in Cuba” … this works for me. This is either a false statement or there really haven’t been many dissidents in Cuba, and for those that do exist, we can plainly see that they are very well represented in the Capitalist Free Press.
As for those who mock the dangers of being a dissident in the United States, I direct you to the case of Fred Hampton, gunned down in his own home by COINTELPRO. I direct you to the car bomb that hit Judi Bari in the 90s. I direct you to the assassination attempt carried out by Alpha 66 against Pastors for Peace who were violating the anti-Cuba blockade to bring needed medical supplies to Cuba. I direct you to Mumia Abu Jamal, framed for a murder he didn’t commit and sits on US death row today. I direct you to Geronimo Pratt, who suffered in prison for 27 years for a crime he didn’t commit. And the hundreds of others who continue to suffer for opposing the US regime and I can promise you this: when THOUSANDS of us come out to protest in favor of them, the Capitalist Free Press does not spare a drop of ink or a second of TV coverage to mention us at all. But 20 Cubans is portrayed in the same press as damn near a revolution.
Still, the world community stands behind Cuba’s right to exist as a revolutionary project. The world community stands behind Cuba’s right to be free of the inhuman economic blockade. The world community stands behind Cuba’s right to be free of terrorism at the hands of the anti-Cuban terrorist movement … specifically, Alpha 66, Luis Posada Carriles, Otto Reich, Orlando Bosch, USAID, the NED and all the other terror organizations given safe harbor by the United States Government.
Yes, your arguments fall flat. Yes, you cannot defend your aggressive anti-Cuban position in the face of the facts. Yes, the vast majority of Cubans have spoken and they reject US interventionism against the Cuban Revolution. Yes, the vast majority of Latin Americans have spoken and they support the inevitable realization of Che Guevara’s dream of a Latin America free from capitalist tyranny and dictatorship, and they support it every day in Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Bolivia, Paraguay and all over the region.
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 09:45
Siggy
an ingnoramus like myself can help but wonder about how such a fragile looking lady deals w/the pressures & stigma atached to her (and us) by being called a gusana traidora, mercenaria all pago the los yankees?
I am sure she can be used as the poster girl to illustrate the consecuences of a decadent life & from a diet of wheatties.
However: I do aplaud your philantropic offer sepecially because of the sacrifice it entails to stop driving your taxi cab & working at the hotel in order to practice your art …
… while I am scared to death I am ompressed by your “team” of caring specialized nurses.
Please use the present cuban system of health care for use of any equipment & payments.
PS
thanks again for the laugh !!!
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 09:27
76Albert (another silent voice)
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 08:30
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Albert…… I don’t know if you (and the other readers and commenter in this site)know(s) that I am the “official” psychologist of the Spanish page of this blog…… well, I’m…….. I got this position by acclamation of my fellows commenter, moderators and (I suspect) the very very Yoani’s approval. I never wanted to develop such activities in the English page too but……… I am afraid it is impossible…… luck at the poor losada mental condition!!!!!……. the duty calls dear friend……… With all the readers/commenter and moderator’s permission I would gladly take care of the patient………. with the help of my team of specialized nurses…. let me introduce you them.
My dear and effective team leader and personal secretary Ricarda, Ricardita as we use to call her:
http://www.dailymotion.com/vid.....uilder_fun
…… and …….. The team:
http://www.onemorebite-weightl.....women.html
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 09:17
I can’t believe what I saw, I always defend Cuban government, no any more!
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 09:13
From Havana University
http://www.firmaspress.com/a-084.htm
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 08:58
This is the system you communist lovers defend!
http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2.....s-por.html
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 08:30
Siggy:
old buddy I needed a pick me upper … thank you for the laugh !!!
Your humor honors you!
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 08:22
66M. piñeiro losada
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 23:36
……….all of this because of my involvement with dissident blogs in the United States. It is not a risk-free proposition to actively support Cuba and socialism in the United States………….
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hahahahahaha………… this dirty agent delires ……… hahahaha……… disidents in USA!!!!!!!……….. risk to defend castrofascism!!!!!! hahahahahahaha…….. delirum tremens !!!!……… “socialism” in Cuba????!!!!!….. hahahaha….. total arrebatus !!!!!
Those cyberthugs are no ashamed at all…… knowing that everyone who read all things written by this castro agent will know that are lies!!!!!!…….
Ptsssss….. you…….. castrofascist……. are you no ashamed of readers opinion about your lies????……. millions of people of all over the world is reading your crap…… did you know it????
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 05:25
losada (in all your incarnations)
so it is understood:
I admit will never match your wit and mastery in quoting “manufactured facts” nor your mastery for msidirection.
I am a simple old man who knows the following:
I was born free.
I believe I have the right of freedom with all its benefits, priviledges & responibilities not just for me but FOR ALL CUBA.
I believe I have the right to choose freely AS SHOULD ALL CUBANS.
I believe I have the right to choose & vote freely whom I want to represent me in a democratic goverment AS SHOULD ALL CUBANS REGARDLESS OF CREED, COLOR OF SKIN, RELIGIOUS PERSUATION, POLITICAL CREED OR SEXUAL ORIENTATION.
I believe I have the right to the choose my own way to happiness AS SHOULD ALL CUBANS.
I do not believe in a system of goverment forced on me BY THE FORCE OF A GUN OR BY MERE INTIMIDATION.
I do not believe in being forced into an ideology I do not agree with.
You can twist & turn, talk circles around me but you WILL not change my beliefs.
I AM A FREE MAN who agrees to live in a free society which even with its imperfections allows for freedom of speech, choice & representation; with free elections, with a “check & balance” of power & with accountability.
In order to mantain the present regime you & yours have crossed the line of my beliefs by force using intimidation, repression, incarceration & torture with impunity.
just keep in mind, what goes around comes around, not even you & yours will escape the consecuences of your choices, everyone is accountable yes, even you.
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 04:23
losada:
be careful whith what you say … if I am to belive you: you “have been visited on numerous occasions by the FBI, local police and even stranger goverment officials who refuse to identify which agency they were from (they were accomapnied by local police) - all this because my involvement with dissident bloggs in the United States.
“It is not a risk free proposition to actively support Cuba and socialism in the United States” and in reference to “the facts” you say: ” Aside from those facts, it is difficult to make a case against the Cuban Revolution when you are talking to someone who is informed about the situation”.
What would warrant you to “under the microscope”? probable cause? no … perhaps suspicious activities? no … perhaps unregisterd foreign personnel? no … perhaps non registered alien? no … regardless, in your cuba, suspicion would have been suffucuent reason for an arrest w/all its consecuences.
Nevertheless, you must be alright … you are still free to express yourself, you are still bloggin …
If the US, you were “visited” & you can rest assured that you will enjoy all available benefits of the law is called: due process.
Now:
if you just want to be a “victim” by the actions you take in a country not of your own, conspiring against its safety or attempting to subvert & instigate, what would you expect to happen (I forgot consecuences to actions don’t exist)?
Are you a paid agent working for your cuba?
Are you engaged in unlawful activities in behalf of your cuba?
If not, you have nothing to fear, at worst you are innocent until proven guilty.
So again … your misdirections don’t work.
The topic of the blogg is comentaries for FREEDOM … the topic is in reference to what happens in Cuba..
Not in any other part of the world.
Not in another country.
Not to other people.
Is about what the present cuban regime does to it people.
Not to what other countries do to theirs.
Clear?
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 00:51
A VIDEO TELL MORE THAN A THOUSAND WORDS!
Ultimo Video de la represion y golpiza a las damas de blanco
Last Video of the repression and beatings of The Ladies in White
Includes the voice of Reina Luisa Tamayo mother of Orlando Zapata Tamayo giving Fidel and Raul hell!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx6Enhveoe4
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 00:35
Losada, Losada, Losada:
No, the Ladies in White were not treated “just fine.” A group of women dressed in white walking down the street with flowers in their hands do not warrant being violently accosted and taken against their will into a bus by state security agents dressed as civilians. You’ve got it wrong. Again.
Let me know when you sign the petition.
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 00:20
M. piñeiro losada (#67)
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 23:48
“Thank you for this opportunity to educate people on the history of the Cuban Revolution, by the way”
LIKEWISE “REVOLUTIONARY RAT”! FOR THE OPPORTUNITY TO EDUCATE THE READERS OF THIS BLOG ON THE REAL MURDERERES AND WOMEN BEATERS IN CUBA! “LA CHINA” & “THE MUMMY”!!
FROM SPAIN’S PAPER “EL PAIS”! PICTURES FROM THE VIOLENCE PERPETRADED ON “THE LADIES IN WHITE”! THEY SAY IT ALL! AND THE VIDEO TOO!
http://www.elpais.com/fotogale…..nt_1/Zes/1
COURTESY OF HANK (#52)
http://www.rtve.es/mediateca/v…..3=&s4=
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 00:13
CNN INTERNATIONAL:Venezuela debates Internet regulation
March 18, 2010
(CNN) — The Venezuelan National Assembly took up debate on Internet regulation just days after President Hugo Chavez called for online restrictions in televised remarks.
The legislative body was not expected to propose new laws regulating the Internet but to establish sanctions for those who break existing laws regulating media, the state-run ABN news agency reported.
At the center of the debate Tuesday were online communications that incite hatred, violence, murder and coups, ABN said.
“These [Web] pages can’t be free to say whatever you feel like,” Chavez said over the weekend in response to false reports posted on a news Web site that one of his ministers had been murdered.
The Web site, Noticiero Digital, retracted the false report, but Chavez said laws were broken.
“There’s a constitution and laws that must be followed,” Chavez said in the televised remarks. “I can’t put anyone in prison, [but] there are state authorities and they must act.”
On Monday Venezuela’s attorney general signaled she was ready to act on the directive.
“The Internet cannot be a lawless territory,” Luisa Ortega Diaz said, according to local reports. Her office opened an investigation into news Web sites and she asked the national assembly to consider regulations, the reports said.
At the same time, Venezuela sought to defend its Internet record.
Lawmaker Manuel Villalba, president of the assembly’s science and technology committee, said the issue in question was not censorship or restriction of the Internet, but a look at the irresponsible use of the technology to spread false information.
“Freedom of expression or information is not being damaged. We have witnessed how there is a permanent freedom of expression in this country,” Villalba said in a televised interview, according to ABN.
According to him, the Internet has flourished under Chavez.
“The government has boosted during all these years the democratization of the Internet. In such way that in the past the Internet was a tool that only the richer sectors of the country could have access to,” he said.
Chavez’s comments that those responsible for posting the false information on the Noticiero Digital Web site should be punished had been taken out of context by the media, Villalba said.
Noticiero Digital stated wrongly that Diosdado Cabello, the minister who oversees the telecommunications regulator, had been assassinated, along with another party leader.
Laws are on the books that make it illegal to incite hate or damage the honor and dignity of another person, Villalba said.
If Venezuela decides to follow a path of increased Internet regulation, it would not be alone.
“[Regulation] exists to some extent in every country,” said Larry Downes, a consultant and author of the recent book “Laws of Disruption.”
In general, “the more stringent [the regulations], the less content you’re going to get,” and that can affect free speech, he said.
In the United States and many other countries, the publisher of information is not generally held responsible for false information it puts on the Internet, Downes said. However, in order to keep this protection, a publisher must fix or remove false information when confronted with it.
Some countries are more strict.
In Italy, for example, a court recently ruled that Google was responsible for vetting all videos for offensive material before they are published on YouTube, instead of simply removing them once they are flagged.
While Internet filtering is a growing trend, in Latin America, the only country really filtering is Cuba, said Jillian York, project coordinator for the OpenNet Initiative.
Concerns that Venezuela could follow Cuba in restricting the Internet were raised earlier this year, when Chavez hired Ramiro Valdes, a Cuban with expertise in Internet regulation, as a consultant for an electricity project.
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WO......internet/
Marzo 18th, 2010 at 00:13
“If this protest in Cuba is the worst the Cuban Government does to protesters, they are literally pacifists in comparison to any US, European, Russian, Asian or African Government.”
Not only is this statement a callous disregard for the truth, it is also a plain and simple falsehood worthy of the Nazi propaganda chief Goebels himself.
There are human beings who are prisoners of conscience in jails today in Cuba. They exist in appalling conditions designed to slowly kill them. That’s what the government in Cuba does to people it disagrees with. And it is what they do not want the outside world to know.
The prisoners are there because they protested in Cuba. They spoke out and said things the tyranny did not like. They are dying right now, slow, painful deaths, beaten by their guards and denied medical attention and systematically starved.
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 23:48
John Two:
Re: the meager 15,000 signatures on the petition …
I’m not talking about the quote — I’m talking about the petition organized by that student movement with 500,000-some signatures on it to Free the Cuban Five. Or, any of the other petitions that have been served up over the years to Free the Cuban Five, TRUE political prisoners who have been tortured in US prisons for years now:
Five activists protesting the injustice of the “Cuban Five” case, on Sept. 12, 2008, were arrested, around noon today, outside the White House. When the police ordered them not to cross a “police line,” set up arbitrarily on the sidewalk, they refused to comply in an act of civil disobedience. Prior to the arrests, a rally was held on the street, (just north of the White House). It was sponsored by the “National Committee to Free the Cuban Five.” When the rally ended, the demonstrators walked over to the White House gate and attempted to deliver Petitions containing over 102,000 signatures, from 78 countries, to President George W. Bush. The Petitions demanded freedom for the “Cuban Five.”
Source: http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org...../12/p28617
That’s just one petition and it had more than 102,000 signatures for the Cuban Five. Now, THAT’S a petition. Hell, there are more than 15,000 Cuban exiles & their extended families and you can’t even convince them to sign it.
Regarding the DOD Document, you miss the point entirely. The point is to illustrate the continued existence of COINTELPRO, an illegal terrorist operation that was directed at domestic dissidents in the US and illegally directed at the Cuban Government.
Fifty years of terrorism against Cuba, that’s what the Ladies in White stand for:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdDToMtuzDU
Thank you for this opportunity to educate people on the history of the Cuban Revolution, by the way.
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 23:36
Hank:
The Ladies in White were treated just fine. They had their protest, they were VASTLY outnumbered by Cubans who support the Cuban Revolution, and they were protected by unarmed women from the government when the situation started to escalate.
That’s exactly how freedom of expression works. I wished that’s the way protests were handled in the US … instead of heavily-armed robocops in body armor beating and spraying people with chemical weapons arbitrarily and mass arrests.
You had twenty-some people who are affiliated with known terrorists like Luis Posada Carriles come out and protest, you had literally hundreds more Cubans come out in support of the socialist revolution and it all ended peacefully. Not only was there freedom of expression but the people made it clear — the vast majority of Cubans support the socialist revolution.
See my longer post on this (#60 here).
Viva la revoluciĂłn cubana! Viva la revoluciĂłn bolivariana! Viva Fidel! Viva Raul!
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 23:18
The diatribe of “Mr Pinguero Estofado” could be the English version of the round table of the Cuban Tv
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 23:06
Losada,
I did a quick search on the OZT petition website — did not see your name there and was frankly, just a little, disappointed. Ok, I was REALLY disappointed. But I did see a lot of other Losadas.
Won’t you join us in demanding that the tyrants who run Cuba like their own little fiefdom release the political prisoners? The prisoners of conscience? People who are in jail for expressing ideas, nothing more. You have ideas — are you in jail? C’mon man, it’s the least you can do. I challenge you to sign the petition. You seem like an outstanding human rights supporter.
And where is your moral outrage about the way the Damas en Blanca were treated?
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 22:50
John Two! YOURE JUST MARVELOUS! JUST MARVELOUS! As Billy Crystal’s would say!
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 22:45
FROM SPAIN’S PAPER “EL PAIS”! PICTURES! THEY SAY IT ALL!
http://www.elpais.com/fotogale.....nt_1/Zes/1
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 22:43
Posted in #58: “Hell, the Vancouver-based Students Movement ALONE delivered 500,000 signatures to free the Cuban Five … and that’s just one national political organization in Canada.”
I assume you’re referring to this:
“The Canadian Federation of Students is Canada’s national students’ organization representing more than one half million students across Canada. At our May semi-annual general meeting, students’ unions passed a resolution calling on the Government of the United States for their immediate release from prison.”
http://www.vancubasolidarity.com/cfsletter.html
The Canadian Federation of Students wrote a letter to former President George W. Bush after passing a resolution at a semi-annual general meeting. They did not collect or deliver 500,000 signatures.
And with regard to your earlier reply about wikileaks (#38) the proof is in the pudding. The wikileaks.org website is still up and running to this day, and even its editors had to concede that two years after the DOD report was written, they had not suffered any repercussions nor had their sources been exposed.
http://www.wikileaks.org
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 22:17
BLAH! BLAH! BLAH! EXCUSES FOR VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN! BLAH! BLAH! BLAH! COME UP WITH SOMETHING MORE ORGINAL! NO EXCUSES FOR VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN!!!
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 22:07
BIG SURPRISE: CAPITALIST PRESS MAKES A BIG DEAL OUT OF 20 PROTESTERS IN CUBA!
What a shock it is to see the Capitalist Press distort, misrepresent and make a huge deal out of 20 protesters in Cuba!
This picture says it all:
http://www.penultimosdias.com/.....amas61.jpg
What happened is that hundreds of Cuban citizens came out to support the Cuban Revolution. Without a doubt, some of those citizens were informed about the counter-protest by their local CDR. So what? The point of the CDRs — Committees in Defense of the Revolution — is to do exactly that. Does that make the opinion of any of the Cuban citizens who came out to support the revolution any less valid?
Then, what happened is that the Cuban police ordered a group of UNARMED, ALL-WOMEN POLICE SQUAD to escort the anti-Cuban protesters away from the mob before violence broke out.
The tactics are so transparent. The “Ladies in White” are openly aligned with the US Special Interests Office, which has funded terrorism against Cuba for 50 years. It would be like a group of Al-Qaeda supporters protesting in New York City. Of course people will come out to aggressively counter-protest!
If the Cuban government DON’T protest the anti-Cuban protesters from angry Cuban citizens, they would be blamed for allowing a public disturbance to get out of hand.
If the Cuban government removes the “Ladies in White” into air-conditioned buses which then take them to a house (not to jail, mind you), then the Cuban government is blamed for “stopping the protest.”
The Capitalist Press relies only on people’s lack of knowledge about Cuban history to misrepresent the situation — which is no surprise, given that the Capitalist Press has been complicit in the terror campaign directed at Cuba since Day One.
Note that the Ladies in White REFUSED to leave on their own. Instead, they intended to stay and taunt an enormous crowd of angry people. How many of those Cubans lost loved ones in the Air Cubana bombing? How many of those Cubans lost loved ones in the Bay of Pigs invasion? How many of those Cubans lost loved ones in any of the other hundreds of “commando missions” executed by Alpha 66 or Luis Posada Carriles or Orlando Bosch, all of whom are terrorists and are protected by the SAME PEOPLE that the “Ladies in White” work with?
If a group of protesters KNOWN to be affiliated with Al-Qaeda protested in New York City, excuse the expression but they would be beaten to death in a “New York minute” and the cops would probably join in on the beating.
Instead, you can clearly see in the pictures that no harm has come to the “Ladies in White”, no one has “beaten them” or anything of the sort. Truly, the WORST PICTURE is one UNARMED, WOMAN COP who is holding one of the protesters by their hair. GIVE ME A BREAK.
Meanwhile, the United States gets by with using “pain compliance” as their method of dealing with the same situation. You can see it in action here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h5-7kqXA7Y
Or just go to YouTube and search for “Seattle protest” or ANY protest in the United States for that matter and see what real repression is — it involves heavily militarized riot police in full body armor beating and attacking protesters with chemical weapons.
If this protest in Cuba is the worst the Cuban Government does to protesters, they are literally pacifists in comparison to any US, European, Russian, Asian or African Government.
I dare anyone here to challenge this logic.
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 21:47
Hank:
As I write this, over 15,000 people from 86 different nations around the world have signed the petition in Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s name denouncing the dictatorship and demanding the release of all political prisoners in Cuba, NOW.
By the way, Hank… 15,000 people out of the whole world? You are bragging about this?
Hell, the Vancouver-based Students Movement ALONE delivered 500,000 signatures to free the Cuban Five … and that’s just one national political organization in Canada.
Meanwhile, as I write this, the United Nations is planning to pass a resolution in support of the Cuban Government, demanding that the illegal and inhumane blockade against the Cuban Revolution be ended immediately, the same resolution that EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY IN THE WORLD except the United States and Israel has passed EVERY YEAR for going on TWENTY YEARS now.
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 21:43
Hunberto,
Thanks! It is a compelling report, TVE did a great job. I would love to see the video translated with subtitles into MANY languages.
OZT’s mother, Reina Luisa Tamayo Danger, everytime I see or hear her speak, strikes me as an incredibly powerful, forceful, articulate and wonderful woman. I am humbled by her. I am beginning to understand the origin of OZT’s strength.
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 21:38
Hank:
Neither one of us has any fear of being arrested, thrown in jail or tortured for writing the things we believe.
Sorry, that’s not correct. COINTELPRO is alive and well where I live and I’ve been visited on numerous occasions by the FBI, local police and even stranger government officials who refused to identify which agency they were from (they were accompanied by local police) — all of this because of my involvement with dissident blogs in the United States. It is not a risk-free proposition to actively support Cuba and socialism in the United States.
Unfortunately, I don’t have as much time as you do for the present exercise, so I am not going to further rebut the statements you make. All I can say is that our points of view are completely and utterly different. I disagree with you on every possible level.
I didn’t think so. You arrogantly demanded facts for my assertions, insinuating that I was lying, and I dumped a mountain of facts on you.
Aside from those facts, it is difficult to make your case against the Cuban Revolution when you are talking to someone who is informed about the situation. Anti-Cuban reactionaries depend on people not knowing, so they can bully their way through an argument. You weren’t able to do that with me so you quit and I’m not surprised.
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 21:19
Hank,
Thanks for the video, put that web site on my favorites! They are getting lots of “scoops” even before CNN! Which in this case means “Cuba Nice Nation”!
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 21:02
The words of Fidel Castro return like a boomerang to haunt him and his tyrannical regime.
On September 15, 1981, Fidel Castro gave the opening speech at the 63rd conference of the Interparliamentary Union, which was held in Havana. These are Castro’s remarks on the Irish Republican Army who died during the hunger strike. Here it is from the “horse” mouth:
“In my opinion, Irish patriots are writing one of the most heroic chapters in human history. They have earned the respect and admiration of the world, and likewise they deserve its support. Ten of them have already died in the most moving gesture of sacrifice, selflessness and courage one could ever imagine.
Humanity should feel ashamed that this terrible crime is committed before its very eyes. These young fighters do not ask for independence nor make impossible demands to put an end to their strike; they ask only for something as simple as the recognition of what they actually are: political prisoners.
The stubbornness, intransigence, cruelty, insensitivity before the international community of the British Government faced with the problem of Irish patriots on hunger strikes until death, remind us of Torquemada and the barbarity of the inquisition in the middle ages.
Let tyrants tremble before men who are capable of dying for their ideals after 60 days of hunger strike! What were Christ’s three days in Calvary, an age-old symbol of human sacrifice, compared to that example?
It is high time for the world community to put an end to this repulsive atrocity through denunciation and pressure!”
Indeed it is. This is one of the few times that I totally agree with the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 21:01
YFET, from the previous section:
Glad I am able to help with translations. I wish I could do more. Please keep up the tremendously great work that you do! We appreciate it.
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 20:45
Look at the video below showing how the Damas de Blanco, “The Ladies in White,” were brutally treated yesterday by the cuban tyranny. The bastards must really be afraid of these flower-toting women.
In Spanish, the title of the report is “Cuba reprime a las Damas de Blanco en una manifestaciĂłn pacĂfica. Al menos treinta de ellas han sido subidas a la fuerza en dos autobuses por la PolicĂa tras un nuevo encontronazo con partidarios del rĂ©gimen cubano.”
Translated: Cuba represses the Ladies in White during a peaceful demonstration. At least 30 of them were forcefully put into two buses by the police in a new confrontation with supporters of the cuban regime.
Good for TVE! Where was Shasta of CNN?
http://www.rtve.es/mediateca/v.....3=&s4=
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 20:37
FUNNY ALL THE “REVOLUTIONARY RATS” KEPT SAYING “KEEP THE DISCUSSION TO THE TOPIC THAT YOANI POSTED ON HER BLOG!”". YET!!THEY HAVE NOTHING TO SAY ABOUT PLABLO MILANES’ DECLARATIONS!! JUST AS YOANI PREDICTED!! CAN’T TOUCH THIS PABLO!!!
(MC HAMMER SONG!
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 20:19
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Cuban security agents break up protest march (INCLUDES PICS)
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ (AP)
HAVANA — Uniformed Cuban security agents prevented the mothers and wives of dissidents from marching on the outskirts of the capital on Wednesday to demand release of their loved ones, shoving them into a bus when they lay down in the street in protest.
It was the second day in a row that a peaceful opposition march by the Damas de Blanca — or “Ladies in White” — degenerated into a shouting match, raising tension a day ahead of the anniversary of a major crackdown on dissent.
The group is made up of female relatives of some of the 75 dissidents arrested in a sweeping government operation on or around March 18, 2003. Some 53 of the dissidents remain jailed, many of them sentenced to decades in jail.
As about 30 Ladies in White left a church in the Parraga neighborhood, hundreds of pro-government supporters crowded around them, shouting “Long Live Fidel!” and “Get out, worms!”
The women shouted back “Freedom!” and said they wanted to call the world’s attention to the plight of their husbands.
Such “acts of repudiation” have become something of a ritual in Cuba. The government claims they arise spontaneously as a result of disgust with the dissidents. Others believe that the government organizes them and that many of those taking part are members of state security.
As the women marched down the street clutching pink gladiolas, the crowd followed them. At nearly every corner, Cuban police and Interior Ministry agents asked the women to voluntarily end their march and take shelter in a government bus, but the women refused.
The women were hoping to march to the home of Orlando Fundora, a dissident who lives in the neighborhood, but a group of female security agents in olive green Interior Ministry uniforms and blue police uniforms formed a cordon at the end of the block, preventing the march from continuing.
When the protesters lay down in the street in protest, the security agents picked them up and put them in a government bus by force. The women were dropped off a short time later at the home of Ladies in White leader Laura Pollan.
The pro-government response to the marches has grown more forceful each day in the lead-up to the anniversary. A march by the Ladies in White on Monday came off peacefully. On Tuesday, government supporters shouted them down as they marched in Havana.
Wednesday’s march was the first time state agents physically intervened. The Ladies in White say they plan to march again on Thursday’s anniversary.
Cuba’s human rights situation has been a cause of renewed international tension since the Feb. 23 death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo after a long hunger strike in jail. Another man, Guillermo Farinas, has refused to eat or drink since shortly after Zapata Tamayo’s death, though he is allowing himself to be fed intravenously periodically at a local hospital.
The European Parliament last week voted overwhelmingly to condemn Cuba for Zapata Tamayo’s death, and a group of artists and intellectuals including Pedro Almodovar have begun to circulate a petition criticizing the Cuban government’s actions.
On Tuesday, the human rights group Amnesty International called for the release of all political prisoners.
Cuba has lashed out at the criticism, saying it will not accept pressure or give in to blackmail. The government describes the dissidents as common criminals who are paid by the United States to destabilize the government, and says every country should have the right to jail traitors.
Editor’s Note: Associated Press writer Paul Haven contributed to this report.
http://www.google.com/hostedne.....gD9EGJP2O2
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 20:14
BBC: Cuba police detain 30 women at Havana protest (INCLUDES SHORT VIDEO)
About 30 ”Ladies in White” were stopped on the march in Havana
Cuban police have arrested the wives and mothers of political dissidents at a demonstration in the capital, Havana.
About 30 members of the “Ladies in White” were stopped as they marched alongside the mother of a prisoner who died last month after a hunger strike.
They were demanding the release of some 50 government critics who are still being held after mass arrests in 2003.
Orlando Zapata Tamayo was the first Cuban activist to starve himself to death in protest in nearly 40 years.
The case of Zapata, declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, drew international condemnation and calls for the immediate release of all Cuba’s detained dissidents.
Wednesday’s protest was the third held this week by the Ladies in White (Las Damas de Blanca) to mark the anniversary of the crackdown in the one-party Communist state seven years ago.
The women were heckled by hundreds of government supporters as they left a church in the Parraga neighbourhood with Reyna Luisa Tamayo, who alleges that her son was tortured in jail and that his death amounted to premeditated murder.
Police officers and interior ministry agents later asked the women to end their march and take shelter in two government buses. After they repeatedly refused, several female officers moved in and put them onto the buses by force.
The Cuban government describes the dissidents as common criminals who were paid by the United States to destabilise the country.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8573447.stm
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 20:05
KUDOS FOR AL JAZEERA! THEY ARE GETTING MY RESPECT! LET’S SEE IF “CUBA CENTRAL” IS AS FAIR! I SENT THEM AN E-MAIL TODAY CHALLENGING THEM TO PUT THE AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL DECLARATION! I THINK I WILL SEND THIS TOO! MAYBE THEY WILL SURPRIZE ME!
Al Jazeera (English)- Cuban police break up protest march
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Cuban police have prevented the mothers and wives of detained dissidents from marching on the outskirts of Havana, the capital, forcing them into buses and taking them away, witnesses say.
The so-called Ladies in White were heckled by hundreds of
government supporters as they marched with the mother
of Orlando Zapata, who died in a prison hunger strike in February.
As the women began their march on Wednesday, hundreds of pro-government supporters crowded around them, shouting “Long Live Fidel!” and “Get out, worms!”
The government said the hecklers acted spontaneously as a result of disgust with the women, but some believe the government organises them and that many of those taking part are members of state security.
The AFP news agency reported that police arrested the 30 women.
“We are protesting peacefully and we are not going to get on the bus of a government that has kept our family members in prison for seven years,” Laura Pollan, the leader of the group, said before being forced onto a bus.
Reyna Luisa Tamayo, Zapata’s mother, said that her son had been tortured in prison and that his death on the 85th day of a hunger strike amounted to “premeditated murder”.
http://english.aljazeera.net/n.....64932.html
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 19:54
REUTERS: Cuban police haul protesting “Ladies in White” away (INCLUES PICTURES)
(Reuters) - Cuban police grabbed members of the opposition group “Ladies in White” by their hair, dragged them into a bus and drove them away to break up a protest march on Wednesday.
World
The white clothes the women traditionally wear were smeared with mud as they resisted policewomen forcing them into a bus. Government protesters shouted insults at them for the second day in a row.
The march was the third this week by the Ladies in White who are protesting the 2003 imprisonment of their husbands and sons, most of whom are still in jail.
The seventh anniversary of the crackdown, known as the “Black Spring,” is Thursday, when the women said they will march again.
On Wednesday, they attended a mass in the working class neighborhood of Parraga and began walking toward the nearby home of dissident Orlando Fundora, who began a hunger strike last week.
As the 30 or so women walked along carrying flowers, about 200 government supporters marched alongside, separated by security agents.
“Worms, get out of here. Viva Fidel! Viva Raul!” the government supporters shouted, referring to former president Fidel Castro and his brother, current President Raul Castro, the only leaders Cuba has since the 1959 communist revolution.
For their part, the women shouted “Freedom” and “Zapata lives.” Orlando Zapata Tamayo, an imprisoned dissident died from an 85-day hunger strike on February 23 and has become a rallying point for Cuba’s opposition. His mother, Reyna Tamayo, took part in the march.
‘NO FEAR’
As the pro-government crowd swelled, state security agents repeatedly offered to take the Ladies in White away in a bus, but leader Laura Pollan refused.
Finally, they pulled a bus up and began hauling the women into it, grabbing some by the hair and others by the arms and legs as they screamed in protest. They were driven to Pollan’s house in Central Havana.
“They are invading Cuban territory. This street belongs to Fidel,” housewife Odalys Puente said of the women.
Ladies in White member Berta Soler said: “When a wild animal is penned up, it does this and much more. We are ready for everything. We have no fear.”
Cuba has been condemned internationally for Zapata’s death and its treatment of another hunger striker, Guillermo Farinas, who has been in a hospital receiving fluids intravenously since he collapsed on Thursday.
Fundora, a former political prisoner, was also said to be in hospital after beginning his hunger strike a week ago.
Cuban dissidents, who are small in number and not well known domestically, say the hunger strikes have refocused international attention on their cause.
The United States and Europe have condemned communist-led Cuba over the hunger strikes and called for the release of its estimated 200 political prisoners.
Cuban leaders say dissidents are mercenaries working for the United States and other enemies to subvert the government.
They have vowed to resist international pressure to change their treatment of opponents.
(Editing by Jeff Franks and Alan Elsner)
http://www.reuters.com/article.....2O20100317
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 19:40
Pictures of Las Damas en Blanco (The Ladies in White) beign beaten and dragged in Havana Yesterday by the “Revolutionary Rats” expressing their version of “Freedom of Expression”- THUG STYLE!Specially when they turned their violence towares Orlando Zapata’s Mother!SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! My Cuban mom taught me to never raise my hand to Women, Children and the Elderly! So much for The New Man and New Women created by “THE MUMMY” & “LA CHINA”.
http://www.penultimosdias.com/.....de-blanco/
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 19:39
“Parrotting the same sh*t over and over doesn’t make it true or even credible.”
And yet Yobbo you and your ilk continue daily with this shit!!
” Only the most naive, mentally deficient,misinformed or polically contaminated/brainwashed could be taken in by the ferry stories.”
No ferries b/n Miami and Havana - je je je!! Otherwise a good self-assessment. Thanks for the honesty.
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 19:31
Mr Pineiro:
think I can compare you to members of the so call “mesa redonda” en Cuba. Still, the same tape, but not essence.How you justify the violent aggression to a group of unarmed women just because they are protesting?You are just justifying a crime. Las Damas de Blanco are just following the same pattern that the Cuban’s mothers have done throughout Cuban history. They are fighting for their sons, for their family, They have courage, they are following Mariana Grajales,they are teaching all of us, including you ,a historical lesson. I don’t know how you still are so blind, so unwilling to see a bright reality. Cuba has a dictatorship and a dictator that repress any action or even an idea that just ask for some social justice, for, again, an elemental right.My friend, you really are out of reasons to justify the repression. I salute the fight of the new revolutionaries in the new Cuba, the Cuba without Castrismo. You must respect the decision and the free desire of those in Cuba that are fighting for their freedom. Vivan los NUEVOS revolucionarios!!!
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 19:30
FUNNY THAT ALL THESE “REVOLUTIONARY RATS” MENTIONED NOTHING ABOUT THE STATEMENTS OF AMENSTY INTERNATIONAL. THEY CANT TOUCH THAT!! IT’S AN EUROPEAN ORGANIZATION!!COME ON GUYS LETS TALK ABOUT THAT ARTICLE AN LESS OF YOUR BROKEN RECORD BULLSH*T!
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 18:18
I’ve been away for a few days, it looks like juanita’s been replaced by another piece of human detritous. Amazing (not) how these parasitic voiceboxes for the castros continue to use the same tactics; obfuscation, misdirection, bald-faced lies. They learn well from their terminal patron, tell a lie enough times and you can make it sound like the truth. The tactics used by the most recent fascist/fidelista douche bag gracing this forum are just as stale, tired and bankrupt as the illegimate regime. Parrotting the same sh*t over and over doesn’t make it true or even credible. Trying to make points by belittling other contributors use of grammar or trying to dazzle with a turn of a phrase doesn’t remove the stench emanating from the dung heap of information being sold as fact. Only the most naive, mentally deficient,misinformed or polically contaminated/brainwashed could be taken in by the ferry stories.
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 17:56
Losada,
In reply to your various posts: you expend a great deal of effort explaining and rationalizing. I sincerely hope that you appreciate the freedom of expression you enjoy as much as I do. Neither one of us has any fear of being arrested, thrown in jail or tortured for writing the things we believe. The same is not true for the people living under the dictatorship in Cuba which you so stridently support.
As I write this, over 15,000 people from 86 different nations around the world have signed the petition in Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s name denouncing the dictatorship and demanding the release of all political prisoners in Cuba, NOW.
Many of the people who post here, including me, have a personal understanding of what the tyranny has meant for our lives and those of our families. This is an understanding that we have come to over the course of many very painful years and with which we deal everyday. I don’t use those words lightly.
Cuba is not the North American rust belt. It is not Flint or Detroit, Michigan. It is not Cleveland, Ohio or Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Cuba is a completely different place with a different history and a different people.
All the philosophical contortions you conjure up to justify this particular tyrant’s brand of totalitarian dictatorship, cruelty, inhumanity and downright criminality fall flat when I read them.
Unfortunately, I don’t have as much time as you do for the present exercise, so I am not going to further rebut the statements you make. All I can say is that our points of view are completely and utterly different. I disagree with you on every possible level.
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 17:43
Democracy, Cuban-style — and Venezuela is going down the same path with the fat pig, followed by little pigs Correa in Ecuador and Morales in Bolivia. Latin America is turning into a nice cesspool………..
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 17:24
They are not contras and traitors. They are writers, thinkers, journalists who have issues with the way things are going in Cuba. We have to make a distinction between thinkers and criminals. Cuba puts people in jail for having a wrong opinion. That makes it a fascist country. Like I said before, Cuba, like any other fascist country, puts their best people in jail, the ones with the most courage, the most amount of thoughts, and the best abilities. It is pathetic.
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 17:00
John Two:
You misunderstand the post about the DOD’s leaked memo. It is, in fact, not just targeted at leakers within the DOD but at members of the Wikileaks organization. It is an example of the COINTELPRO program, a secretive, gestapo type force that has operated in the United States against domestic dissidents, engaging in frame-up operations, targeted assassinations, disruption tactics, etc.
The points to take away from this are numerous:
1) These are the exact same tactics used against Cuba by the CIA, USAID and NED for going on 50 years now. Cuba has a right to sovereignty and self-defense. It only makes sense that part of that self-defense includes investigating infiltrators & saboteurs. Cuban dissidents would be a LOT more believable if they simultaneously spoke out against the actions of Alpha 66, the CIA and the US Government for forcing the Cuban Revolution to be more militarized than it wants to be.
2) This is also an indictment of the Cuban exile community, who are predominantly Republican and have strong historical ties to the COINTELPRO program, used both domestically in the US and in Cuba. Cuban dissidents would be a lot more believable if they spoke out against these criminals.
3) To the extent that most Cuban dissidents have strong ties to a foreign power that has a history of committing terrorism and COINTELPRO-style tactics against Cuba, the only conclusion to draw is that either these Cuban dissidents actually ARE working with a foreign power for the destabilization of the Cuban government (in which case, they would be considered criminals in any country on earth and no one has anything to complain about when the Cuban government responds with prison terms) or they are insufferable hypocrites (in which case, they would be considered immoral by any authentic defender of social justice and human rights).
Hopefully, you understand the relevance of this argument now.
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 16:54
!! VIVA CUBA !!
http://n-musicvideos.blogspot......-cuba.html
HAVE A SAFE FLIGHT PARTY GIRL :)
Sunday, March 14, 2010
TURN THE BEAT AROUND : … … … Visit Cuba [-->!!-->] …
TURN THE BEAT AROUND : … Visit Cuba [-->!!-->] …
HAVE A SAFE FLIGHT PARTY GIRL [-->!!-->]
[-->!!-->]
http://n-musicvideos.blogspot......-cuba.html
Posted by infopuma at 3:38 AM 0 comments ;)
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 15:35
M. peinero losada, you’re quite the loyal propagandist for the Castro regime. Your post #6 takes the cake as an example of either misdirection or just plain ignorance. The Department of Defence may or may not be going too far in trying to find to prevent employees and other insiders from leaking classified documents to a public website, and to find and prosecute those who do. While the DOD’s actions are certainly debatable, it has little or nothing to do with freedom of speech or expression as this is understood in international human rights law.
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights sums it up well: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 14:03
Please, save brazilians from Lula and Dilma Rousseff.
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 13:53
Albert: I would respond to your posts but I find them mostly incoherent. If you have an actual argument or point to make, please post it. Otherwise, I have to ignore your sentence fragments and confusion.
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 13:32
It is pretty poor to claim that castro’s cuba has not done anything to instigate “animosity”
All castro’s cuba “does” is in response to “attacks” the self defense claim (thankfully not the twinky defense).
Since that is the case, you conviced me: yours is a reactionary regime.
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 13:12
Another misdirection … this one about “freedom of expresion in cuba” …
The repression being addressed is IN Cuba, not anywhere else.
You authored the comment addressing one thing but jumped to another:
1) claiming the affiliations w/the US (proof & source?)
2) mentioning “trafficking of arms” (proof & source?)
In other words, show the proof with evidence to your claims, not w/words …
By the way I like this instigator’s incarnation better than the others.
thanks!
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 13:00
Or perhaps you can address the “uses” of “el comandante’s fund”?
Ahh … no how about repeating the old: “being the victim of attacks of the monster from the north” while you re read # 15 & #16.
The source is the information provided by your cuban multiple faceted bureaus of intelligence & training.
Misdirect that … by claiming victimization.
Or better yet philantropy in cultural affairs … :)
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 12:40
more misdirection …
“all anti-cubans”?
“castro’s cuba the victim”?
“repetitions”?
The information comes from your leader’s mouth … & his “commitment” to the “reboltusion”
Read #15 … I guess none of it is true …?
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 12:27
Welcome to the blog of Piña Rosada, no longer Yoani’s blog since he has taken over.
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 11:54
realcuba.com, this website, and ALL of the anti-Cuban Revolution websites that you see may start to seem kind of familiar after a while.
Why?
Because they are all just repetitions of the same, tired talking points & misinformation about the Cuban Revolution.
Yoani’s website started out as some occasional thoughtful reflection. But she was quickly eaten up by the anti-Castro mafia and now she just posts the same talking points that all of the rest of them do.
It isn’t often that the anti-Cubans can actually find something wrong with the Cuban Revolution … so, when they do, they go on and on and on about it endlessly.
You can find quality information about Cuba and politics in the Americas online, though. I would recommend starting with this background on the terrorist war waged against Cuba. After watching this excellent movie, you can begin to understand why this tiny island maintains strong security in defense of the Cuban Revolution, which is intended to struggle towards a society where health, education, freedom, independence and the pursuit of genuine happiness is the guaranteed right of every human being:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdDToMtuzDU
Viva la revoluciĂłn cubana! Viva la revoluciĂłn bolivariana!
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 11:47
NOTE: Further discussions about the importance of supporting the Cuban Revolution and all of Latin America against the disastrous effects of centuries of US/European imperialism can be found here:
http://www.desdecuba.com/gener.....9#comments
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 11:19
I meant “now you can visit”
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 11:19
You are right losada … it is therealcuba.com no you can visit it …
thank you
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 11:15
@#23
Your arguments are all just misdirections … #17 is a statement from your leader, but you choose to use misdirection as mentioned in #16.
The rest of the world didn’t make that statement … your leader made it.
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 10:57
fidel castro 8/18/1981, 68 CONFERENCE OF THE INTER-PARLAMENTARY UNION, TO ALL THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO FOUGHT FOR THE INDEPENDENCE OF IRELAND
If you cannot understand the difference between the Cuban Government and the British Empire, which committed cultural genocide against peoples all over the world, then you don’t really understand history at all.
That’s the only response necessary to this absurd assertion that there is a double-standard in what Castro said.
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 10:41
Uhhhhh…. “realcuba.com” is a site with nothing but generic advertisements on it.
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 10:40
no castroists available to answer #16?
Number 16 does not deserve a reply; it isn’t even a coherent point.
My arguments here have gone far outside the supposed “only arguments made by Castroists.”
Your point is proven wrong by what I’ve posted. Try again.
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 10:37
Really, the sad attempts at the Cuban counter-revolutionaries who show 5-second clips of a scuffle during a protest, or show Cuban police defending the Women in White against a huge crowd of pro-Castro revolutionaries (because far more people support the Cuban government than are opposed to it) and then claim that there is no freedom of speech in Cuba have no clue what political repression is like.
Here are videos of political repression:
US Police Use “Pain Compliance Policy” Against Peaceful Protesters -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze5rnVYlpxw
Indymedia Writer Shot & Killed by Capitalist Paramilitaries in Mexico -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related
US Police Torture Protesters with Chemical Pepper Spray -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h5-7kqXA7Y
TERRORISM CAMPAIGN AGAINST CUBA, ALL THE EVIDENCE YOU EVER NEED -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdDToMtuzDU
Let’s not even get started. Cuba has never tortured any prisoners. They have never held down any protesters, pry open their eyes and apply “pain chemicals” to their eyes. They do not attack crowds with gallons of pepper spray.
They do not send paramilitary gangs to shoot protesters dead. They do not organize campaigns of terror, including bombing civilian aircraft, bombing hotels of tourists, attempting to poison children.
But, Cuba HAS been forced to defend themselves against the governments that DO engage in this kind of repression.
The “Women in White” work hand-in-hand with the repressive governments of the Americas. They want to bring the sick and twisted days of Capitalist Dictatorships to Cuba.
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 10:35
wait … there is more … how about the conditions of say the Mazorra or the Marina Azcuy or Salvador Allende … perhaps The HZospital Clinico Quirurgico or Joaquin Albarran … ?
If any castroists it tempted to blame the conditions in the embargo … don’t forget … among all the friends you claim to have in the Americas & in Europe.
None of them donates as much medical equipment & supplies as the US (on record, look it up since you have to apply for a license in order to export even as “charity”).
While you are looking for that … VISIT THIS SITE: realcuba.com
LOOK AT THE VIDEOS & PICTURES & READ ALL THE AVAILABLE INFORMATION …
I am sure is “fabricated propaganda” paid by the mercenary gusanos esbirros of the US …
We disagree even in the VIVAS …
VIVA CUBA, VIVA LA LIBERTAD !!!
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 10:10
no castroists available to answer #16?
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 09:57
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN CUBA:
Let’s watch those videos again, no?
In this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....r_embedded
… what we see are a small group of people affiliated with the US Government, who has funded terrorism against Cuba and led an armed invasion of the country. These people are holding a protest, and another group of people come out to counter-protest, in favor of the revolution. It seems like there are far more people out to protest in favor of the revolution. For about 5 seconds, there is footage of what looks like a small scuffle — big deal, that happens when people go into the streets to express their political points of view.
That was the raw footage.
Now let’s look at how the “free press” — Telemundo, a US-owned television network that is owned by the NBC Network, which is in turn owned by the US multinational General Electric which, amongst many other businesses, is involved in the US arms trafficking business:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....tube_gdata
They twist the raw footage that we saw and label it is “repression in Cuba”.
Only a political partisan or a complete idiot would believe that this is political repression.
If you want to see what political repression looks like, let’s crack open the history books from the Operation: Condor years, the Pinochet regime and, in fact, what is going on TODAY in Honduras, where the democratically-elected President Zelaya was overthrown by the capitalist oligarchy and now journalists and human rights workers are being assassinated in their own homes.
The fact is: if this is the best evidence you have of “repression in Cuba,” then you don’t have evidence of repression in Cuba.
Sorry. All this blog is good for is pointing out the logical inconsistency of the opposition to the Cuban Revolution and the Bolivarian Revolution.
VIVA FIDEL! VIVA RAUL!
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 08:46
-”The stubborness, intransigence, cruelty, insensitivity in front of the international community of the British goverment faced with the problem of Irish patriots on hunger strikes until death, reminds us of Torquemada and the barbarity of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages.
The tyrans tremble before men who are capable of dying for their ideas, after 60 days of hunger strike.
Next to this example what were three days of Christ on the Calvary, for centuries a symbol of human sacrifice?
It is time to put an end, through denunciation and pressure from the world community, to this repugnant atrocity.
fidel castro 8/18/1981
68 CONFERENCE OF THE INTER-PARLAMENTARY UNION
TO ALL THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO FOUGHT FOR THE INDEPENDENCE OF IRELAND.
Double standards?
As I stated before … while pointing the index finger in accusation … there are three fingers pointing back at the one pointing …
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 07:43
most commun threads used to defend the castro & co. regime:
1) To divert attention to all other subjects of suffering in the world.
2) To point out the high rates of success w/infant mortality & the high rate of education/literacy.
Never mind that while infancy survival is assured … they will be condemned to repression & poverty; never mind that while highly educated … it is the regime the one the one that tells them what to do, think, read & write.
3) Using the most commun of double standards:
criticizing all democracies which more times than not do things right yet get “hammered” for the few that go wrong.
While the communist regimes get most things wrong … giving themselves high praise for the very, I said very few rights while repressing the wrongs.
Its not funny but it sounds like it …
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 05:42
let me see if I understand … the Us is guilty of fomenting political unrest, spying, conducting covert operations & a long laundry list of “guilts”.
All the while, the regime’s only fault is its existence & willingnes to extend a “helping hand” to like minded groups.
So, the fact that just about every diplomatic mission in latin america & the caribbean includes “operatives” from the american department in the guise of Prensa Latina or Cuban Airlines or the Cuban Institute of Friendship with People is just a coincidence.
The regime’s stated goal for the “armed struggle” by:
uniting radical groups commited to armed struggle, train them ideologicaly & providing arms & materials is just my imagination.
The commitment to ideologically train these groups is just another sign of my senility.
To encourage terrorism hoping to provoke violence & subsecuent represion to gain legitimacy while gaining converts is another mirage of mine.
The regimes extensive “cultural exchanges” tailor made to support covert operations in places like say … Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala & Colombia is just another dream?
How about the use of sport competitions or culture festivals … used to identify & recruit like in Ecuador in 1981?
So there is “no” military training offered by the regime for subversion & terrorism …
In the provinces of Pinar del Rio or in Guanabo there are no “training camps” to which recruits are brought in w/the cover of “students”, traveling w/false documents or Cuban passports, in transit from … say Panama …
When they arrive at their destination they train for about 6 months w/a curriculum of sabotage, explosives, military tactics, weapons use … add political training … & voila … just cultural exchanges …
How about the youth … secondary stubents, some foreign echange; these scholarships don’t need to be approved by the recipient country …
The Island of Youth is a very interesting when it comes to “training the minds of the future” …
So the Us is guilty of lot of things … the regime is a victim of the “monster from the north”.
Everything the regime has don & does is for self protection & perhaps promulgation of their ideas.
All this “covert” stuff is a delusion of mine … IS IT?
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 00:47
REUTERS SOUTH AFRICA: YES FROM WHERE MANDELA COMES FROM!: Amnesty International says Cuba needs reform
Wed Mar 17, 2010
HAVANA (Reuters) - Amnesty International said Cuba “desperately” needs political and legal reform and called for the communist country to release all political prisoners.
The London-based rights group criticized the Cuban government for putting its opponents behind bars for years for “the peaceful exercise of their rights.”
“Cuba desperately needs political and legal reform to bring the country in line with basic international human rights standards,” said Kerrie Howard, the organization’s deputy director for the Americas, in a statement.
“Cuban laws impose unacceptable limits on the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly,” she said.
Amnesty International issued its statement to mark the 7th anniversary of the so-called “Black Spring,” a March 18, 2003 crackdown in which 75 Cuban dissidents were jailed.
Cuba’s “Ladies in White,” wives and mothers of the prisoners, were shouted down and harassed by government supporters on Tuesday as they marched through Havana in a protest ahead of the Thursday anniversary.
The Cuban government has been criticized internationally following the February 23 death of prisoner Orlando Zapata after an 85-day hunger strike protest over prison conditions.
It is also under fire for its handling of a second hunger striker, dissident Guillermo Farinas, who stopped eating and drinking three weeks ago and is in a hospital after collapsing last week.
Farinas wants Havana to release 26 ailing political prisoners, but the government has said it will not be “blackmailed” by him.
for the peaceful exercise of their rights is not only a tragedy in itself but also constitutes a stumbling block to other reforms,” said Howard.
She said it was an obstacle to dialogue needed with the United States to be able to obtain the lifting of the longstanding U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.
Amnesty International urged Cuban President Raul Castro to allow monitoring of the country’s human rights situation by the United Nations and other rights groups.
Cuba has vowed to resist international pressure over human rights.
(Reporting by Jeff Franks; Editing by Pascal Fletcher)
http://af.reuters.com/article/.....3H20100317
Marzo 17th, 2010 at 00:30
I SAID FROM THE BEGINNING THAT ALAN GROSS WAS GOING TO BE USED TO GET “THE CUBAN 5″ SPIES AS A BARGANING CHIP! LOOKS THAT WAY TO ME STILL!
KPCC 89.3 PASADENA CALIFORNIA: Arrest Brings New Chill In U.S.-Cuba Relations
In Cuba, a U.S. government contractor has been jailed since December on suspicions of being a spy. U.S. officials say he was doing development work. The incident has soured the Obama’s administration’s cautious outreach to Cuba and left a trail of questions about the man and his work.
In Cuba, a U.S. government contractor has been held in prison, without formal charges, for more than three months. Cuban authorities say they think he is a spy, but American officials say he was just doing development work.
The incident has soured the Obama administration’s cautious outreach to Cuba and left a trail of questions about the contractor and the program he worked for.
Alan Gross was at the airport preparing to leave Havana in early December when Cuban security agents arrested him. Since then, the 60-year-old Maryland resident has been locked up in Villa Marista, a high-security prison.
U.S. officials are working on the case and demanding his release, says Gloria Berbena, a State Department official at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana. But she would not offer more details about Gross’ case, citing privacy restrictions.
“We take every opportunity to raise the issue with the Cuban government. So far since his detention, we’ve been given two visits,” she said.
Gross’ friends and family describe him as a global do-gooder, not a spy. They are worried about his health, saying he has lost 52 pounds since his arrest.
“Mr. Gross should be released immediately on humanitarian grounds. We’re very concerned about his welfare, and we’re pressing for continued consular access to insure he’s being well-treated,” Berbena said.
American officials don’t have a lot of bargaining leverage, though.
Gross entered Cuba on a tourist visa, but he was in the country to do a job. His employer, Development Alternatives Inc., was under contract from the U.S. Agency for International Development to help Cuban dissident groups and promote democratic values.
The Cuban government says Gross was handing out prohibited communications equipment. His company says it was meant to help members of the island’s Jewish community connect to the Internet.
Adela Dworin, president of Havana’s largest synagogue, the Patronato, said she had never heard of Gross prior to his arrest. But she said the synagogue does have computers with Web access.
“We have Internet. I don’t have Internet at home, but we have Internet in the Jewish community. And we have e-mail. And it’s very easy for us to be in touch with the rest of the world,” she said.
At Havana’s two other synagogues, staff members also said they had never heard of Gross.
However, there is little incentive for anyone to admit they knew him.
Cuba’s leaders have said the jailed American is under investigation for spying and that he had committed “serious crimes.” The island’s state-run media have said little else, and Castro government officials declined to comment for this story.
Gross’ arrest is now a major obstacle to any U.S. negotiations with Cuba. Some speculate that Cuba may use him to pressure Washington over the Cuban Five, a group of Cuban intelligence agents serving long sentences in U.S. prisons.
Jean Guy Allard, a Canadian-born reporter who works for Cuba’s Communist Party newspaper Granma, says that Cubans are “fed up” with the actions of USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, a U.S. nonprofit organization created and funded primarily by Congress.
“[Cubans] just won’t accept forever what the U.S. wouldn’t accept on their own territory,” Allard said.
Elizardo Sanchez is a human-rights activist who says he spent 14 months locked in a grim, windowless cell at the same prison where Gross is now held. Sanchez says the Castro brothers don’t really want normalization with Washington. He thinks they would rather have the tensions of the Cold War continue.
Meanwhile, USAID’s Cuba program is now under review. Experts have asked why Gross was sent on such a risky mission — entering Cuba on a tourist visa and allegedly distributing equipment that is illegal there — while working for a U.S. government program that operates openly.
Copyright 2010 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
http://www.scpr.org/news/2010/.....relations/
Marzo 16th, 2010 at 21:22
English readers and comentators,
Please go to this site and sign for the freedom of the political prisioners in Cuba.Thanks in advance
http://firmasjamaylibertad.com/ozt/index.php
Marzo 16th, 2010 at 20:47
NOW THE “REVOLUTIONARY RATS” ARE GOING TO LOVE THIS!
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: Amnesty calls for more freedom in Cuba
By PAUL HAVEN (AP)
HAVANA — The human rights group Amnesty international appealed to Cuban President Raul Castro to release political prisoners and scrap laws that restrict fundamental freedoms, using the seventh anniversary of a major crackdown on dissent to call for change.
Amnesty was especially critical of Cuban laws that make vague offenses like “dangerousness” a jailable crime. Police are allowed to arrest somebody who has committed no crime if they can show the person has a proclivity to be dangerous in the future, Amnesty said.
“Cuban laws impose unacceptable limits on the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly,” Kerrie Howard, Americas deputy director at Amnesty International, said in a statement Tuesday. Howard said Cuba “desperately needs political and legal reform to bring the country in line with basic international human rights standards.”
The group said it was making the call for change around the anniversary of one of Cuba’s largest recent crackdowns on dissent — the March 18, 2003, arrest of some 75 people, including many independent journalists, on charges including treason and working for an enemy state.
Fifty-three of them remain jailed and many have received lengthy sentences.
The government did not respond to a request for comment on the Amnesty report, but routinely dismisses such human rights groups as tools of the United States.
Cuba’s human rights situation has been brought back into the spotlight by the Feb. 23 death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo after a long hunger strike in jail. Another man, Guillermo Farinas, has refused to eat or drink since shortly after Zapata Tamayo’s death, though he has intermittently received fluids and nutrients intravenously at a local hospital.
The European Parliament on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to condemn Cuba for Zapata Tamayo’s death, which it called “avoidable and cruel.” Cuba responded quickly, saying it “rejects impositions, intolerance and pressure.”
On Tuesday, a leading official group for Cuban intellectuals issued a statement calling Zapata Tamayo a common criminal. It denounced international criticism as part of a smear campaign against the country, and singled out foreign “media corporations and hegemonic interests” as leading culprits in what it called a coordinated anti-Cuban effort.
“We know with what malice and morbidity they distort our reality and lie daily about Cuba,” the National Union of Artists and Writers of Cuba wrote of the foreign media.
Mexico is the latest country to openly criticize the Cuban government, with the Foreign Ministry saying Monday that it regretted the death of Zapata Tamayo and was worried about the fate of Farinas.
“With all due respect to the sovereignty of the Republic of Cuba … Mexico urges the Cuban government to take the actions necessary to protect the health and dignity of its prisoners, including those accused or convicted of the crime of dangerousness,” it said.
It is not clear what Cuba’s small, fractured opposition is planning to mark the March 18 anniversary. The Ladies in White, a group of mothers, wives and sisters of those jailed in 2003, has declared a week of protest including marches, prayer gatherings and the reading of letters from their jailed loved ones.
On Tuesday, dozens of government supporters screamed at the women as they marched peacefully in Havana, shouting slogans like “Long live Fidel!”
Such “acts of repudiation” have become somewhat of a ritual in Cuba. The government claims they arise spontaneously as a result of Cubans’s disgust with dissidents. Others believe that the government organizes them and that many of those taking part are members of state security.
In a statement sure to anger Cuba, Amnesty linked the fate of the dissidents and Cuba’s overall human rights record to the eventual lifting of the 48-year U.S. economic embargo, which Cuba considers an illegal blockade.
“The long imprisonment of individuals solely for the peaceful exercise of their rights is not only a tragedy in itself,” said Howard. “But also constitutes a stumbling block to other reforms, including the beginning of the dialogue needed for the lifting of the U.S. unilateral embargo against Cuba.”
Cuba has steadfastly refused to link political reform it sees as an internal affair with its own demands that the embargo be lifted.
It denounces the dissidents as common criminals and mercenaries paid by Washington to destabilize the country, and insists all nations have the right to jail traitors and others seeking to overthrow their government.
http://www.google.com/hostedne.....gD9EG27380
Marzo 16th, 2010 at 19:33
M. piñeiro losada (#8)
“If you are in the streets and demonstrating in favor of the Cuban Revolution, you are not engaged in “freedom of expression,” you are nothing more than a “harasser”. Why isn’t saying “Viva Fidel!” a form of speech?”
A VIDEO IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS! THIS IS HARRASMENT AND VIOLENCE!
YOU TUBE VIDEO ON THE ATTACK THE “WOMEN IN WHITE” IN CUBA. THEY ARE THE WIVES,
MOTHERS, SISTERS AND DAUGHTERS OF POLITICAL PRISONERS! IN THIS DAY OF “HUMAN RIGHTS” AROUND THE WORLD, THIS IS HOW IT WORKS WITH THE CASTRO’S!! SHAME ON THEM AND THOSE WHO ATTACK HELPLESS WOMEN!!
Mitin repudio contra las Damas de Blanco 09/12/2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....r_embedded
Mitines de Repudio en Cuba, en el DĂa de los Derechos Humanos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....tube_gdata
Marzo 16th, 2010 at 19:11
Mr Pineiro:
Do you know what the so call “Brigadas de respuestas rapidas” are? How you explain that , what you call”Cuban people” organize by themselves so quickly against the protesters in a country that everything is controlled by the communist party?What is your concept of Cuban people? Why do you exclude las Damas de Blanco for that group? Are they also part of the “Cuban people or not? Finally, my friend, be a minority does not mean that they are wrong. In Cuba means that they have courage to express what they really feel and think.
Marzo 16th, 2010 at 18:52
Pro-Castro? Harassers! Anti-Castro? Political protesters!
“Cuban government supporters harassed and shouted at members of the opposition group ‘Ladies in White’ on Tuesday in Havana as the women marched in protest against the 2003 imprisonment of 75 dissidents.
The women, numbering about two dozen and dressed in white, had to be protected by state security agents after they stopped and yelled ‘Freedom, Freedom!’ in front of the headquarters of the Cuban state journalists union.”
The “Capitalist Free Press” tells the truth again! So, if you are an anti-Castro Lady in White, you are a “protester” engaged in “freedom of expression.”
If you are in the streets and demonstrating in favor of the Cuban Revolution, you are not engaged in “freedom of expression,” you are nothing more than a “harasser”. Why isn’t saying “Viva Fidel!” a form of speech?
Once again, the Cuban people have spoken. Twenty or so “Ladies in White,” who are affiliated with a foreign government that has supported terrorist activities against the Cuban Revolution for 50+ years, demonstrated in the streets and they were out-numbered by more than TEN TIMES that number — 150 Cubans — who demonstrated in favor of the Cuban Revolution.
Out-numbered again. The “Ladies in White” are a small minority, the vast majority of Cubans support the revolution.
Viva la revoluciĂłn cubana! Viva la revoluciĂłn bolivariana!
Marzo 16th, 2010 at 18:47
A lot safer in Mexico than Cuba?
http://www.alternet.org/story/.....can_deaths
Marzo 16th, 2010 at 18:43
How Freedom of Speech is Suppressed in Capitalist “Democracies”:
An interesting example has come out today that demonstrates how freedom of speech is suppressed in “free, capitalist democracies.”
Wikileaks.org has become an incredible resource for journalists, US dissidents, leftists, researchers and anyone interested in finding out what REALLY goes on behind the scenes in the world. The reason this site is necessary is because the “Capitalist Free Press” is widely-regarded as completely subservient to multinational corporations and the government.
The latest document to be released on Wikileaks demonstrates for the world how a “capitalist democracy” deals with “freedom of speech” that it wishes to suppress:
http://wikileaks.org/#us-intel-wikileaks
This leaked document from the United States Department of Defense Intelligence Analysis Program is important for a couple of reasons.
Unlike in authoritarian governments, where you can be arrested and charged with saying something that is illegal to say, the U.S. government takes a different and far more dangerous approach.
From the report:
“The possibility that current employees or moles within DoD or elsewhere in the U.S. government are providing sensitive or classified information to Wikileaks.org cannot be ruled out.”
And, the proposed solution to this problem?
“The identification, exposure, termination of employment, criminal prosecution, legal action against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistlblowers could potentially damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others considering similar actions from using the Wikileaks.org Web site.”
In other words, the solution is to engage in covert activity to infiltrate, expose, intimidate, disrupt, organize a “frame-up” (arresting someone for a crime they did not commit) or harassment against people involved in the Wikileaks.org project.
This is significant not only because it exposes the manner in which US law enforcement and the US Department of Defense illegally operates domestically but it also is documented evidence of the return of COINTELPRO-style actions against bloggers and independent news/information websites. Wikileaks.org refuses to accept donations from either corporations or governments, in order to remain independent.
For those who don’t know, COINTELPRO was an illegal law enforcement program at a number of US law enforcement agencies (FBI, CIA, local police, etc).
COINTELPRO was designed to infiltrate, disrupt, harass, confuse and crush the organizations involved in the social justice movements in the United States during the 1960s and early 1970s.
COINTELPRO was responsible for sending forged letters from different African-American civil rights groups to other groups, threatening them and trying to divide them. COINTELPRO was involved in illegal “frame-ups” where they arrested someone for a crime they did not commit. For example, Black Panther Geronimo Pratt was illegally arrested and spent 27 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.
COINTELPRO was also involved in fabricated assassinations. The most famous (but certainly not the only) assassination involved the murder of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton in Chicago. In this case, Chicago police stormed Fred Hampton’s apartment and immediately began shooting anyone who moved. Fred Hampton was assassinated in this incident.
The recommendations of the Wikileaks.org document from the DOD shows that the US Government is still planning the same type of COINTELPRO tactics against dissidents in the United States. Even the existence of COINTELPRO tactics is enough to create paranoia and a paralyzing effect on organizations working for change in the United States.
It is these same tactics that have been used against Cuba.
Viva la revoluciĂłn cubana! Viva la revoluciĂłn bolivariana!
Marzo 16th, 2010 at 18:22
So, if a Cuban expresses a contrary opinion to the government and, at some time, is arrested … it is because Cuba does not tolerate freedom of speech.
If a Cuban expresses a contrary opinion and the government does nothing, then it is because they are secretly talking badly about him and they are STILL wrong.
The problem, of course, is that the world sees plenty of opinions coming out of Cuba, of all different kinds. And with the “Capitalist Free Press,” we certainly see almost all anti-Castro viewpoints and basically none of the pro-Revolution viewpoints.
Every single day, the blogueros are making it harder and harder to convince the world that Cuba has no freedom of expression and no internet access.
Marzo 16th, 2010 at 17:00
THE “REVOLUTIONARY RATS” ARE TREADING WATER AND SQUEALING! THEY WILL HAVE TO SHUT UP VERY SOON!
THE WASHINGTON POST: Cuban government supporters harass rights marchers
By Nelson Acosta and Jeff FranksReuters
Tuesday, March 16, 2010; 3:05 PM
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban government supporters harassed and shouted at members of the opposition group “Ladies in White” on Tuesday in Havana as the women marched in protest against the 2003 imprisonment of 75 dissidents.
The women, numbering about two dozen and dressed in white, had to be protected by state security agents after they stopped and yelled “Freedom, Freedom!” in front of the headquarters of the Cuban state journalists union.
The dissidents were marching for the second day in a protest to commemorate the 2003 “Black Spring” crackdown by the government against opponents.
About 150 men and women began walking alongside and shouting them down in what is known in Cuba as an “act of repudiation,” usually directed against government opponents.
“Viva Fidel! Viva Raul! The street belongs to the Revolution!” the government supporters shouted, referring to the 1959 Revolution led by Fidel Castro which subsequently installed a communist system in Cuba.
The women, who are wives and mothers of the Black Spring prisoners, were escorted by state security agents, who formed a protective cordon, to the Central Havana home of Ladies in White leader Laura Pollan.
Tuesday’s demonstration was the second of seven consecutive marches planned by the women’s group to mark the seventh anniversary of the Black Spring crackdown that began March 18, 2003 and drew widespread condemnation of Cuba.
The anniversary comes at a time when Cuba’s human rights record is under fire for the February 23 death of dissident hunger striker Orlando Zapata Tamayo and for its handling of an ongoing hunger strike by dissident Guillermo Farinas in the central city of Santa Clara.
Farinas, who launched his strike three weeks ago to back demands for the release of 26 ailing political prisoners, has been in a hospital receiving fluids intravenously since he collapsed on Thursday.
A third hunger strike is underway by former political prisoner Orlando Fundora, who began eight days ago and is now in a hospital, his family said on Tuesday.
GOVERNMENT WARNING
The Ladies in White staged their first march on Monday without incident. But Pollan said she had been warned by the government not to march to “sacred places” that included the state journalists’ center.
In December, the women were jostled and jeered by government supporters when they marched to mark International Human Rights Day.
Of the 75 people imprisoned in 2003, 52 remain behind bars.
Alejandrina Garcia, wife of prisoner Diosdado Gonzalez Marrero, who is serving a 20-year sentence, said Tuesday’s incident was not unexpected.
“What happened today is the same as always — government mobs repudiated us with government slogans, but we continued shouting ‘Freedom’ and “Zapata lives,” she told Reuters.
She said the Ladies in White would march again on Wednesday as planned, with the intention of visiting Fundora to encourage him to end his hunger strike.
A man whom Garcia identified as former political prisoner Hugo Damian Prieto was detained by security agents following a brief fracas with government supporters outside Pollan’s home.
Zapata’s death has become a rallying point for Cuba’s small dissident community and drawn international attention to their cause. The United States and Europe have condemned communist-led Cuba over the hunger strikes and called for the release of its estimated 200 political prisoners.
Cuba’s government, which views dissidents as mercenaries working for the United States and other enemies, has described Zapata and Farinas as common criminals. It has vowed to resist international pressure over the dissidents.
(Editing by Jeff Franks, Pascal Fletcher and Eric Walsh)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....02512.html
Marzo 16th, 2010 at 16:48
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: The Castro-Chávez link: What are 30,000 Cuban advisers doing in Venezuela?
The Obama administration has dismissed Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez as a pesky loudmouth. But he imperils regional security and freedom.
By John Hughes / March 16, 2010
Provo, Utah
While two wars in Southwest Asia and a dangerous confrontation with Iran dominate President Obama’s foreign- policy worry list, oil-rich Venezuela, much closer to home, is becoming more than a minor irritant.
To date, the Obama administration has dismissed Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez as a pesky, leftist loudmouth, whose verbal eruptions against the United States pose no threat. But a new era of “Cubanization” in Venezuela should warn of a crackdown against Mr. Chávez’s domestic opponents and a stepped-up drive for socialist revolution across Latin America.
Chávez has been importing “advisers” from Cuba. There are now some 30,000 of them, many of them intelligence, security, and political affairs officers, as well as medical personnel.
Chávez’s recent installation of Cuban Vice President Ramiro Valdes in a key advisory role in Venezuela is seen by Chávez opponents as a sinister move toward greater “Cubanization” and Castro-style communism. Mr. Valdes is also Cuba’s communications minister and ranks third in the Cuban hierarchy. His job in Venezuela is supposedly to handle an electricity crisis – though his qualifications are suspect.
In recent years, Chávez has established alliances with nations that could be counted on to tweak Washington. Russia has engaged in military exercises with Venezuela and signed an agreement to supply up to $2 billion worth of weaponry. China is buying more than 330,000 barrels of oil daily from Venezuela and has signed an investment agreement to develop more. China also has just completed a $400 million communications satellite for Venezuela.
Iran has been Venezuela’s most ingratiating suitor. The two nations have signed dozens of agreements in recent years to boost infrastructure, energy, and manufacturing in the South American country. Chávez has visited Tehran often, pledging cooperation with Iran in opposing “US imperialism,” liberating countries from the “imperialist yoke,” and furthering “Bolivarian socialist principles” in Latin America. Chávez has consistently endorsed Iran’s nuclear program.
At home, Chávez lauds Fidel Castro as a political blood brother, and communist Cuba as an example for all of Latin America.
His governance has become increasingly authoritarian, detailed in a blistering report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. It highlights how Chávez has undermined judicial independence, intimidated or silenced opposition media, hobbled elected opposition figures, and criminalized dissidents and human rights groups.
Last week, a Spanish judge accused Venezuela of colluding with terrorist groups including the Basque ETA rebels and the Colombian FARC.
Once lauded by his people as a reformer, Chávez is now the target of angry street rallies, especially as he has rather blatantly plotted to stay president for life.
Cuba depends on Venezuela’s cheap oil (the US is also a major buyer) and would be disadvantaged if the Chávez regime fell. Havana may be alarmed by the fissures in Chávez’s support and probably welcomed the opportunity to position Valdes in Caracas to bolster Chávez.
Cuba’s leaders may also have some concerns about their own country’s political stability. Cuban dissidents say word has been passed up the military command that the ailing Fidel Castro may not outlast this year. His succession is by no means certain. Fidel’s brother Raúl, currently managing the country while his brother is incapacitated, is credited with being a better administrator than Fidel, but lacks Fidel’s charisma.
The Obama administration, beset by major problems at home and challenges abroad, may have thought it could delay confronting lesser problems in Latin America. This may prove to have been an unwise calculation.
Mr. Obama: Don’t be surprised by that 3 a.m. call.
John Hughes, a former editor of the Monitor, writes a biweekly column.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Comme.....-Venezuela
Marzo 16th, 2010 at 16:28
Yeap, it all seem to indicate that the boat is sinking rapidly I wonder if the Castros know?
Marzo 16th, 2010 at 16:24
I hope the world realize that what is happening in Cuba is the gradual ending of a failed system. Now we have those who sang the gains of the Revolution starting to question it. True that they are doing it from outside, but they are doing it now. On the other hand we have the rampant corruption of the members of the nomenclature, rats trying to get off the boat before it sinks, while filling their pockets with the people’s money, and the we have the heroic decision of those like Zapata and Farinas that preferred to die that to live under that regime. Hopefully, the Cuban tragedy will be over soon.