Interview with Pedro Argüelles
Click Here for Audio of Interview with Pedro Argüelles
Transcript, translated:
Yoani Sánchez: What is your current situation? Where are you and what have they told you?
Pedro Argüelles: I’m in the provincial prison of Canaletas in Ciego de Avila. And what I have been told is on Saturday, July 10, I went to the office of the head of the prison and there they put me through on the phone to talk to the Archbishop of Havana, Cardinal Jaime Ortega. He informed me that I was on the list of those who would leave for Spain if I would agree to go. I told him that no, I had no interest in leaving my country. He asked me about my wife as well, if she would have any interest. I said no. Well, he told me, he would report back and he said goodbye. That is all I have been told, they haven’t told me anything more, I’m here waiting for events and their development.
Yoani Sánchez: Pedro, do you think these releases will strengthen or weaken the dissident movement and independent journalism inside Cuba?
Pedro Argüelles: Well, look, whether or not it will affect the strength honestly I can’t say right now because I am here inside and I’ve been here seven and a half years, here in the prison. I know there are new groups, I know there are new people doing independent journalism, carrying on the civil struggle. I think it doesn’t weaken it because in any case there are new pines, as our apostle Jose Marti said, and well, since 1976 when the first cell of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights was created in the Combinado del Este prison, that was the first cell, and we could get to this point because there have been relays, reliefs, there have been people who have carried on, people who died, new people coming out into the public arena. So I think that, ultimately, here we fulfill the law that everyone has the right and the freedom to decide for their own person, my brothers who would like to go I have absolutely nothing against them, that is their sovereign decision, it is their freedom. I make use of the thoughts of Marti who said that the duty of a man is to be where he is most useful. I believe that here is where I am most useful, that this is my place to fight for the rights and freedom inherent in the dignity of the human person and this is where I want to be. I don’t want to be in any other place, here on the front line of combat facing the Castros’ totalitarian regime.
Yoani Sánchez: And what will Pedro Argüelles do once he is outside Canaletas prisons?
Pedro Argüelles: Continue what we started in mid-1992 when I joined the Cuban Committee for Human Rights here in Ciego de Avila and then in 1998 founded the Ciego de Avila Independent Journalists Cooperative. Continue to denounce human rights violations and continue with the independent press and civil struggle. In order to achieve what we have so longed for and suffered for, the transition to democracy in Cuba.
Yoani Sánchez: Well, Pedro, thank you very much and we really hope that your name is among the next to be freed. We wish so much to give you that embrace so long postponed.
Pedro Argüelles: Some day it will happen, and I too am longing to meet with all all these new pines that have arisen.
Yoani Sánchez: Well, thank you very much.
Pedro Argüelles: A hug.
Agosto 7th, 2010 at 15:25
A proposito de huelgas de hambre y medios de expresion “libres”,en Chile hay una huelga de hambre por varias semanas ya llevada a cabo por indigenas mapuches prisioneros por luchar por sus derechos.Los medios de comunicacion “libres” chilenos y mundiales han ignorado por completo esta huelga simplemente porque no les produce dividendos politicos.Que diferente acomo han tratado la huelga de hambre cubana.Por que sera?
Agosto 2nd, 2010 at 21:42
HOW CAN YOU EXPLAIN THE PRIZES AND ACCOLADES GIVEN TO YOANI OVER THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS FROM SOME OF THE MOST DISTINGUISHED INSTITUTIONS AND UNIVERSITIES IN THE WORLD? CAN YOU EXPLAIN THIS PHENOMENOM? ARE YOU AFRAID TO ADDRESS ME PERSONALLY?
Julio 19th, 2010 at 17:50
52Rodolfo
Julio 18th, 2010 at 04:55
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Of course Yoani is not a jornalist….. no one included her have stated she is journalist but a philologist ……. it is so hard to understand????…… come on rudolph….. I think you better than that!!!!!……. I believe it is not needed to explain you what a Phililogist is…….. or I need???
What I am sure is that you can explain why a powerful regime as castrofascims is in need to attack a philologist each time he tries to write about her own country daily live!!!!!
Julio 18th, 2010 at 04:55
If I may add Don Humberto, I have no dislike for Yoani as a person. The only thing I said is that she is not a journalist. She is a good writer. But she would be better served writing a novel, which I am sure she’s already working on. I would buy it. Why make mountains out of mole hills?
Julio 18th, 2010 at 04:38
I did answer you sir: “She was bestowed with awards by admirers in some publications.” That’s plain and simple. Is Barack Obama deserving of a Nobel Prize in your eyes? Maybe as soon as someone receives an award we can dub them grand. It’s not that way at all sir. Accolades don’t presume greatness or legitimacy as a journalist or anything else. She is a blogger that has garnered attention from publications that are eager for a story about a woman behind an “iron curtain” that is sexy to them. Just as the writings of Frederick Douglas or Harriet Beecher Stowe were sexy and salient at the turn of the century for people who wanted to know more about the plight of the slave. That is nothing new.
Julio 17th, 2010 at 13:46
Rolfo,
For the third time I ask you to respond to your statement that,
“Mr. Trudeau, I have never claimed in any manner that there’s free journalism or for that matter, pure journalism in Cuba, or elsewhere. My argument was that Yoani isn’t one.”
HOW CAN YOU EXPLAIN THE PRIZES AND ACCOLADES GIVEN TO YOANI OVER THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS FROM SOME OF THE MOST DISTINGUISHED INSTITUTIONS AND UNIVERSITIES IN THE WORLD? CAN YOU EXPLAIN THIS PHENOMENOM? ARE YOU AFRAID TO ADDRESS ME PERSONALLY?
Julio 17th, 2010 at 11:22
@#48
I think what #47 is expressing is fear.
Fear perhaps that paralizes him/her from taking a stand & doing something about it, the same fear perhaps of not knowing how far to go while performing his/her job, how far he/she can get away while remaining safe.
Fear of sucumbing perhaps to the enticement of a freedom or a power not known till now, the way to deal w/this requires (unfortunally?) a commitment that he/she might not be either ready or sufficiently decisive to embrace.
I will venture to state (without permision perhaps) that what is wanted & whished for Cuba & Her peole is for FREE WILL AND DETERMINATION.
If that makes anyone or all who want such … we ARE (I’LL speak for myself) radicals.
Nevertheless … I would like to know what is it that #47 wants or wishes for Cuba & Her people, the required answer then should be simple & concrete & after please tell me: what do you have to offer or suggest is done for the attainement of FREEDOM AND DETERMINATION FOR CUBA AND HER PEOPLE?
Julio 17th, 2010 at 09:12
blah,blah,blah…. understand what? That you stand for nothing, that you say nothing. Posturing as an elitist snob making blanket statements solves nothing nor offers anything useful. Who cares about the credentials you assign yourself, it lends you no more credibility nor make your disqualifying statements more valid. What you have consistently shown is that you are quite comfortable in utilizing the same code words the castro supporters use to describe those who are against the regime.
Making a case for democracy and a free Cuba does not make one a right-winger or dogmatic. And insulting the likes of you and other useless tools does not make one an extremist. You have offered nothing here of any substance except for a bunch of self-agrandizing, empty comments. But, please continue to “enlighten” us with your “journalistic” and vacuous prose Mr. Obfuscationist.
Julio 17th, 2010 at 05:48
Well, sirs, since you are so quick to brand people, without merit, I may say, I have to make an observation. Because it is you who are perched high on lofty clouds of which you will never come down from, because you are all dillusional. No one really cares about right wing extremists except other right wing extremists. I don’t have to prove that anyone is right or wrong, just like you all don’t prove anything in your posts. Mr. Yuban you are filled with hyperbole in your posts. And yet you claim I say nothing. Yoani, as I have said before and continue to say, is not a journalist. She was bestowed with awards by admirers in some publications. I won awards in school and that didn’t make me a professor. In any case, she does write with eloquence, but she is married to a cause that is her “reason d’etre.” She would be better served to write a novel. I make no attacks. I just pointed out some things. I leave the attacks to you. That is in fact, all this space is used for. Attacks against anyone who doesn’t agree with your points of view. It would be honorable and good if this space was used for “real” debate and not senseless manipulation of words. By the way, there is no such word as “obfuscationist.” The word obfuscation is an intransitive verb. You made it into a noun. But I digress. My only wish is that Cuba is free not just from communism, but from the grasps of outside agitators like yourselves. I want something that you all cannot understand because your minds are filled with dogma and misinterpretations of what is and what isn’t. I am a liberal thinker. I don’t have to pander to one side or the other. I see things for what they are. That is why Yoban thinks I’m sitting on a fence, because he can’t comprehend that I don’t have to take sides. Neither of you are right. Both the revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries are wrong. You all can beat each other to a pulp for all I care. I am not in that mix. I want something outside from what both sides offer. Now, do you understand?
Julio 16th, 2010 at 16:08
Rodolfo said,
Julio 16th, 2010 at 00:21
“Mr. Trudeau, I have never claimed in any manner that there’s free journalism or for that matter, pure journalism in Cuba, or elsewhere. My argument was that Yoani isn’t one.”
RUDOLFO! I POSTED THIS INFORMATION EARLIER TO RESPOND TO YOUR ATTACK ON YOANI AND YOU DID NOT RESPOND! WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? TO LOOK LIKE A LIAR?
YOANI SANCHEZ WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoani_S%C3%A1nchez
2008 - Ortega y Gasset Prize for Journalism
2008 - “100 Most Influential People in the World” - Time magazine[67]
2008 - “100 most notable Hispanoamericans” - El País newspaper[70]
2008 - “10 most influential people of 2008″ - Gatopardo Magazine[71]
2008 - “10 Most Influential Latin American Intellectuals” of the year - Foreign Policy magazine[68]
2009 - “25 Best Blogs of 2009″ - Time magazine[72]
2009 - “Young Global Leader Honoree” - World Economic Forum[73][74]
2009 - Maria Moors Cabot prize - Columbia University Prize[75]
2010- Pefil Prize (Argentina) for for International Liberty of Expression (see video below)
Julio 16th, 2010 at 16:04
AFP: Ex-State Department official gets life for Cuba spy case
WASHINGTON — Walter Kendall Myers, a former State Department official, was sentenced to life in prison without parole Friday for his role in a 30-year conspiracy to provide classified data to Cuba, the Justice Department said.
The man’s wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, who was also charged in the espionage case, was sentenced to 81 months in prison, a Justice Department statement said.
The couple, arrested in June 2009, pleaded guilty last year to charges in connected with “a nearly 30-year conspiracy to provide highly classified US national defense information to the Republic of Cuba,” the statement said.
Kendall Myers, 73, known as “Agent 202,” pleaded guilty last November to a three-count complaint charging him with conspiracy to commit espionage and two counts of wire fraud.
His wife, 72, known as “Agent 123,” and “Agent E-634,” pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to gather and transmit national defense information.
They also agreed to forfeit 1.7 million dollars from the sale of their apartment and other goods.
“For nearly 30 years, this couple proudly committed espionage on behalf of a long-standing foreign adversary. Today, they are being held accountable for their actions,” said David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security.
“Their sentences should serve as a clear warning to others who would willingly compromise our nation’s most sensitive classified information.”
Kendall Myers began working at the State Department in 1977 as a contract instructor at the Department’s Foreign Service Institute in Arlington, Virginia.
He moved away from Washington briefly but then returned and resumed his work with the institute. From 1988 to 1999, in addition to his FSI duties, he performed work for the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research.
He later worked as an intelligence analyst specializing on European matters and had daily access to classified information. He received a “top secret” security clearance in 1985 and, in 1999, received access to “sensitive compartmental information,” according to US officials.
According to the Justice Department, the couple was recruited by Cuban intelligence agents who visited them in 1979 in South Dakota.
http://www.google.com/hostedne.....20FzwWT_wA
Julio 16th, 2010 at 10:38
Rudolph
You don’t care what I have to say but here you are responding. I am as extremist and dogmatic as you are open-minded and democratically inclined. What you are is an obfuscationist which is a fancy word for a muckraker. You have no interest in advancing the cause of freedom and democracy in Cuba. Your interests are to elevate yourself above everyone to a position where you can criticize both sides and always be right, how courageous, how intellectually honest. Your pseudo-buddist bullshit doesn’t hide the hypocrisy and self-important content of your wordy and empty pronouncements.
Julio 16th, 2010 at 00:21
Mr. Trudeau, I have never claimed in any manner that there’s free journalism or for that matter, pure journalism in Cuba, or elsewhere. My argument was that Yoani isn’t one. That was the extent of my criticism. I’ve read Granma and other publications, and yes I agree they are lacking in substance and focus. However, the control of newspapers and other publications around the world, rests with those who hold the purse strings. In Latin America, those who have control of the media are the ones who run the country. It’s not any different in Cuba. But they are not alone as far as pandering or lacking in depth or substance. I agree there should be more freedom of expression. But that will come in time when the people decide what they want and not before.
As for you, Mr. Yuban, I don’t much care what you say. I am indifferent to your line of chatter. It does no good to address yourself to me. Mr. Trudeau speaks with some level of respect, which I admire. But please don’t talk to me about sitting on fences. It is obvious that you don’t believe in reconciliation of any sort. The Buddhists believe in the Middle Path as the way to “enlightenment” and I follow that precept. I don’t claim any extreme because I am not an extremist. But I don’t sit on a fence. You just don’t listen to anything that is’t tinged with your brand of dogma.
Julio 15th, 2010 at 20:36
33Barbara Curbelo
Julio 15th, 2010 at 13:30
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Patético……. la ciberesbirriada solo atina a echar mano a un orate hace poco liberado de la cárcel gracias a un esfuerzo masivo de la comunidad cubana en Miami luego de asaltar con un arma de juguete, de esas que dan más susto que las de verdad, el periódico donde alguna vez trabajo por obra y gracia de otras influencias de esa misma comunidad y del cual fue despedido por incapaz e insano. El orate es ahora utilizado por el grupo oficial castrista de Miami y es utilizado exclusivamente para atacar a la blogosfera cubana y en especial a Yoani Sanchez…… el mismo objetivo de la tarea demuestra la desorientación de la dictadura castrista a la hora de enfrentar el fenómeno blogosfera, fenómeno que les ha arrebatado la impunidad y los ha puesto en vivo y a todo color ante los ojos asombrados e indignados de la opinión publica internacional……. pero….. como atacar a Yoani, una bloguera que solo es una cronista de la vida cotidiana del cubano?????….. como atacar un grupo de personas que solo hacen informar a los millones de ávidos lectores del ciber sobre los pormenores de la vida en Cuba?????….. claro que ningún lector del mundo libre comprende estos ataques, máxime cuando estos ataques vienen cocinados en la habitual retorica usada para descalificar oponentes que se diseña y dirige al “mercado interno” cubano. Los incrédulos lectores del mundo libre se quedan patidifusos ante las rocambolescas y surreales alegaciones de esta ciberbrigada lo cual compromete profundamente esta “estrategia” con la ridiculez ante los ojos del mundo, de ahí que la tiranía eche mano de orates, ex criminales y de una brigada nacional y otra internacional de atacantes anónimos cuya sorprendente homogeneidad en escaso intelecto y burdo lenguaje asombran y divierten a los cada vez menos atentos lectores. Así, cuando en un futuro alguno de estos perplejos lectores alegue sobre la soberbia estupidez de estos ataques, el ciberesbirro de turno podrá defenderse alegando que solo se trata de los desvaríos insanos del orate varela, el apátrida inmundo o el ricachón aruca.
Julio 15th, 2010 at 18:36
WHETHER IN CUBA OR ABROAD, THESE POLITICAL PRISONERS ARE AND WILL PLAY A MAJOR ROLE IN CUBA’S PATH TO DEMOCRACY! THE TRUTH WILL SET ALL CUBANS FREE!!
ASSOCIATED PRESS; Cuba prisoners shared cells with rats, roaches
(MADRID — Freed Cuban political prisoners who were flown to Spain this week say their cells were rat- and roach-infested and that disease was rampant.
Julio Cesar Galvez told reporters at a press conference in Madrid on Thursday that “the hygiene and health situations in prisons throughout the island of Cuba are not terrible, they are worse than terrible.
He says “We had to live with rats and cockroaches… with excrement. It’s not a lie.”
Galvez is one of nine political prisoners released by Cuba and flown to Spain, part of a group of 52 activists being released in stages by the Cuban government after being imprisoned in a 2003 crackdown.
A 66-year-old journalist sentenced to 15 years, Galvez says there were outbreaks of dengue and tuberculosis in prison.
http://www.google.com/hostedne.....wD9GVG80O6
Julio 15th, 2010 at 17:48
CuleroDeFidel is gathering some of his “mierda” and posting it today! Guess translating “mierda”is much harder than THE TRUTH!
Julio 15th, 2010 at 17:45
CUBAN POLITICAL PRISONER : Normando Hernández González
Professional Background
Normando Hernández González is a writer and independent journalist. He is the director of Camagüey College of Independent Journalists.
Case History
On March 18, 2003, Normando Hernández González was arrested in his hometown of Camagüey, Cuba, along with 74 other journalists considered to be dissidents by the Cuban government. Thirty-three-year-old Hernández was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment under Article 91 of the Cuban Criminal Code for reporting on the conditions of state-run services in Cuba and for criticizing the government’s management of issues such as tourism, agriculture, fishing, and cultural affairs. For several months following his imprisonment, Hernández was kept in solitary confinement and allowed only four hours of sunlight a week, no access to television or radio, and extremely restricted communication with his family. Furthermore, he was given only polluted water and inadequate food, denied the right to practice religion, and offered only the most basic medical services. In August, after engaging in a hunger strike with seven other inmates in protest of the deplorable prison conditions, Hernández was transferred to Kilo 5½ prison in Pinar del Río, over 400 miles from his home and family.
http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.p...../prmID/174
Cuban Political Prisoner Normando Hernández speaks- Conferencia de Prensa - Madrid 7/15/2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....r_embedded
Julio 15th, 2010 at 16:48
culerodefidel makes a cameo appearance in spanish… back for more barby? Rudolph, I reiterate, how is it possible for you to say so little with so many words? Is it fun for you sitting on the fence taking pot shots at both sides? You are against the regime (supposedly) but also against those against the regime. You can’t have it both ways. You want to sit on your perch criticize both sides, and offer no solutions other than platitudes about the need to help the young people. You claim that Cuba would be ideally served by a form of government that would be a mix of capitalism and socialism. How do we bring this about? Let’s hear your suggestions or ideas on how we can bring about this regime change. Or is it your contention that maybe the communist totalitarians in cuba can be made to morf into your version of ideal socialists? Criticizing those like Yoani and other bloggers that don’t fit your decription of journalist is a convenient excuse for you to criticize those working against the castros. These people are actually putting their hide on the line. What are you doing? You don’t even have the balls to take a defined position.
Julio 15th, 2010 at 15:35
Rodolfo@30
“Cubans are not a monolithic group by any means. They don’t all want wholesale change.”
——–
What’s the numbers of Cubans leaving in the exile ? Will they return to Cuba after the regime changes ? Will they invest heavily in Cuba after the regime change ? Will they favor a capitalist or a socialist society ?
The retired people or the ones who are close to retire will demand socialism. Also the lazy bums ( including Barbara & comp.) who are not willing to work will not ask for capitalism.
Julio 15th, 2010 at 15:08
33Barbara Curbelo
English Barby, English!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Qué pasa? trabajo PRO BONO últimamente!!!!!!!!!!!o viaje a Cuba a ver la familia!!!!
ja ja ja
Julio 15th, 2010 at 14:49
Hello Barby the Curve.
Pasting, pasting and pasting, can You just post something more original instead of copy/paste?
Seems that you got a mistake now, posting an article in Spanish here!!
Julio 15th, 2010 at 13:30
En el periódico español El País a Ernesto Hernández Busto lo identifican como un ensayista que edita un blog de asuntos cubanos titulado Penúltimos Días. En el ensayo que publica Los límites de la ciberdisidencia, donde asegura que ninguna ciber confrontación ha logrado derribar un gobierno - sugiriendo la posibilidad de regresar a los modos de disidencia convencionales - hay un concepto donde se confunde, por no ensayarlo bien.
Dice el bloguero ensayista que el gobierno cubano (lo pone en parábola con Irán) ha aprendido a defenderse de sus ciberdisidentes creando blogueros esbirros que se han dedicado a distorsionar el mensaje de los ciberdisidentes y a inventar hechos digitalmente. Ésto, en lenguaje técnico significa: subir información negativa y crear una realidad virtual.
Veamos: La data que se sube a internet para contrarrestar otra data es negativa o positiva según el receptor, porque prueba de veracidad no existe en la realidad virtual (toda data alterada sólo puede ser identificada en corte por peritos). Y la creación de una realidad virtual es la formación de un mundo paralelo a otro que ya existe, en el cual las cosas son diferentes (mejores o peores, también según el receptor).
Y precisamente esos dos complejos términos son los que ha usado la ciberdisidencia cubana. En ellos ha basado todo su ataque mediático para crear un estado de opinión adverso contra el gobierno cubano. No importa la inmediatez del twitteo o la veracidad de la foto celular (son vias, no mensajes).
Ejemplos claros, los siguientes…
… toda la confrontación político-personal que Yoani Sánchez ha subido a YouTube es debatible, porque unas imágenes van congeladas y otras en negro, siempre con audio superpuesto. Su denuncia de atropellos callejeros sin mostrar huellas de los mismos, resultan legalmente irrelevantes. El reto a duelo verbal en una esquina céntrica de La Habana de Macho Rico al supuesto atropellador de su mujer, es provocación a escándalo público en cualquier ley occidental. El miedo psico-digital de sentirse vigilada por cámaras en las calles en un mundo totalmente dominado por ese tipo de supervisión cotidiana desde hace una década, es ridículo, más cuando ella incluso vivió en Europa durante la década. La novela por entregas de su blog Generación Y sobre las aventuras, venturas y desventuras diarias de contra-milicias o pandillas de Damas contestatarias contra un Monstruo Represivo, es histrionismo ante el pedido de muchas Damas de aplacar las marchas para lograr el verdadero objetivo. Sus tristes poemas a las carestías son un chiste ante la foto de la misma Yoani en un puesto repleto de frutas y verduras, sonriendo.
Pero lo peor, donde llegó a su límite la ciberdisidencia fue con la aureola de heroísmo y gloria conque pintan a borrachines de barrio, pobres alcohólicos de esquina, delincuentes comunes violentos (todos de la raza negra, en tiempos de Obama) guapetones de navaja y pañuelo en la boca con expendiente de golpizas y quebraduras de cráneos a mujeres y ancianos, empujados al suicidio. Una forma de morir escandalosa (que incluso usa el terrorismo internacional y condenan muchos países civilizados) por medio de campaña de inanición, porque ni huelga se le puede llamar a ese circo mediático reportado desde el exterior en partes diarios donde el propio suicida - en éxtasis televisivo - narra su propia muerte con lujo de detalles, morbosidad y palabras técnicas.
Mensaje más negativo no se le puede enviar a nuestra infancia y nuestra juventud en momentos en que el suicidio de adolescentes se ha elevado dramáticamente en todo el Mundo. Incluyendo al obeso hijito del comandante muerto, otro negro que exige - mediante amenaza de suicidio ante video - que lo dejen viajar.
Todo este show (de por sí macabro, de mal gusto e insidioso incluso por concentrarse en grupos reinvindicados por la Revolución como son los pobres y los negros) no es más que una distorsión informativa sobre Cuba y el invento de un mundo paralelo al mundo cotidiano de la isla. No todos los cubanos son borrachines pedigüeños, ni delincuentes comunes violentos que quieren suicidarse, ni son secuestrados por las calles a diario, ni viven del dinero del contribuyente norteamericano que manipula la Industria Anticastrista desde Miami.
Hay 11 millones de cubanos que trabajan en ciudades y campos produciendo técnica, medicina, seguridad nacional, comida, vida, salud, educación y deporte. E inclusive llevando esos logros, de manera austera, a otras partes del planeta. Ése es el verdadero mensaje de Cuba.
Ante la distorsión informativa y la realidad paralela creada por sus enemigos políticos, el gobierno cubano ha subido otra información y otra imagen para reflejar su verdad al ciberespacio como legítima defensa a la ciber guerra planteada. El ensayista Hernández Busto omite explicar en su ensayo que la inefectividad de su ciberdisidencia es debido a la falta de credibilidad y al rechazo de su mensaje.
Tratar de santificar delincuentes, parásitos, derelictos y vagos en un país de bondadosos, altruistas, creadores y trabajadores no es recomendable. Es ahí donde el ensayista Hernández Busto tiene que ensayar más para derribar al gobierno que precisa derribar. Pero hasta tanto, seguirá siendo lo que es, un pillo de internet. ©varela
Julio 15th, 2010 at 11:21
Sorry ¡¡
Julio 15th, 2010 at 09:38
Rodolfo, So let’s talk about journalism. Here is a an article, in its entirety, from Granma, about the release of prisoners of conscience/
+AT midday today, Wednesday, July 7, Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino was received by Cuban President Raúl Castro Ruz. Miguel Angel Moratinos, Spanish minister of foreign affairs and cooperation, and Bruno Rodríguez Parilla, Cuban minister of foreign affairs, also participated in the meeting.
A few hours earlier, Cardinal Ortega had a joint working meeting with Foreign Ministers Moratinos and Rodríguez Parilla.
In these meetings of today, those present discussed the process initiated on May 19, when President Raúl Castro received Cardinal Jaime Ortega and Monsignor Dionisio García Ibáñez, president of the Cuban Conference of Catholic Bishops.
To date, the development of this process has made possible the release of one prisoner and the transfer of another 12 to their provinces of residence.
In the sphere of these meetings of today, and maintaining the continuity of the aforementioned process, Cardinal Ortega was informed that, in the next few hours, another six prisoners are to be transferred to their provinces of residence and five more are to be released and could leave shortly for Spain with their families.
The Cuban authorities also announced that the 47 remaining prisoners of those detained in 2003 are to be released and can leave the country. This step will be concluded in a period of three to four months, starting from now.
This process has taken into consideration proposals previously expressed to Cardinal Ortega by relatives of the prisoners.
You will notice the total opacity of this piece of writing, with no idea of how to compose a headline, how to outline the main elements in the lead, etc. Halfway through the article it appears that the participants are discussing an undefined process, and then we learn that “47 prisoners of those detained in 2003 are to be released and can leave the country.” This is not journalism, but a government press release, and this is precisely why Cuba needs bloggers, not to mention an independent press. Che was the one who was convinced that an independent press had to be suppressed. Notice the euphemisms — “detained,” as if they were being held for a few days, not hit with crushing sentences which were then increased. All of Cuban “journalism” is like this. Occasionally someone wll write in a UNEAC publication about corruption, and then find themselves expelled from the communist party. Without a civil society, Cuba will not change in any healthy way. And without bloggers and an independent press — not to mention an independent judiciary, it is going to be the way it has been for 50 years. I feel sorry for your family in Bayamo, and for the plight of Cubans in general — life is tough there. But without some courageous people, nothing is going to change.
Julio 15th, 2010 at 05:35
Mr. Trudeau, should I be surprised that a person who claims to have been a writer, doesn’t know what socialism is? It is not like a “gateway drug” that leads you into heavier drugs. It is actually an economic system. I think you know that. But to answer your question, socialism doesn’t lead to “totalitarianism.” People find ways of using things to their own advantage. So if a person gets into power and is inclined toward totalitarianism, that is what they will implement. They can call it socialism or anything else they want. But true socialism is just a means of seeing that a population has what it needs, i.e., universal healthcare, unemployment benefits, and so forth. The list of countries practicing socialism may surprise some because people don’t think of these governments in a bad way. For example, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark, are socialist nations and to some extent, so is the U.K. and Australia. Not to mention, countries like Singapore and Hong Kong, which have hybrid elements of both free market capitalism and socialism. I believe these countries are the benchmark for what could exist in Cuba. However, political change would be needed as well as a new philosophy and ideas of revising the scope and the role of socialism in a new economy.
Now, as for people ending up as political prisoners… there are many all over the world in jails too numerous to mention. Our own country has them. You can Google them for a complete list. But as a wise person once told me, “One man’s freedom fighter, is another man’s terrorist.” I guess it all depends on what side you’re on.
I too have a degree in political science and have written for many years. So, that is why I implore you not to refer to bloggers as “electronic journalists” because the word journalist doesn’t fit. They give opinions. They are married to a single minded view of what they talk about. They are not objective enough to know what to say or not say. I can also tell you that neither you nor I spend enough time with Yoani during her day to say with absolute confidence that what she claims happens to her actually does. I am a skeptic in that sense. Though for the sake of argument, let’s say she gets beaten up and followed. Fine. She has put herself in that position. She has martyred herself to some extent, if that is the correct characterization. But that’s all the criticism I have of her. What I do know is that people in Cuba suffer without having to become political bloggers. Those are the people whom I most care about. They are people like my family in Bayamo. I want something wholly Cuban for them (organic if you will). Cubans are not a monolithic group by any means. They don’t all want wholesale change.
Julio 14th, 2010 at 22:30
Sigmund Freud,
EUREKA!Found the information on the Tugboat Massacre of March 13 in Havana Harbor. A documentary was made about by Leo Ichaso’s daughter Mari Rodriguez Ichaso titled
“Niños del Paraíso” (Children of Paradise). The YOUTUBE clip has sub-titles.
DOCUMENTARY: ‘Niños del Paraíso’,-Hundimiento del Remolcador 13 de Marzo-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related
The “Tugboat massacre” is the name given by Cuban-Americans, exiles, and dissidents, to a July 13, 1994, incident where 41 Cubans who attempted to leave the island of Cuba on a hijacked tugboat drown at sea.[1][2] The Cuban archive project, a New York City based organization which promotes human rights in Cuba, has alleged that the Cuban coast guard deliberately sank the commandeered vessel and then refused to rescue some of the passengers.[3] For their part, the Cuban government has denied responsibility, and stated that the boat was sunk by accident.[1]
On July 13, 1994, at approximately three in the morning, around seventy men, women, and children boarded the tugboat “13 de Marzo” (13th of March). With all vessels in Cuba owned by the state, it would have been illegal to acquire such a boat.[3] It is alleged that around seven miles northeast of Havana harbor, Cuban coast guard vessels rammed the tugboat causing it to sink.
According to survivor María Victoria García, who resettled in the United States in 1999 thanks to a visa obtained for her by the Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation,[1] the government vessels refused to provide assistance to some of the distressed passengers. As a result only 31 survivors were pulled from the water.[3]
Ms. García, whose ten-year old son, husband, and other close family members died in the incident, has stated:[3]
“After nearly an hour of battling in the open sea, the boat circled round the survivors, creating a whirlpool so that we would drown. Many disappeared into the seas… We asked them to save us, but they just laughed.”
International leaders, including the Pope, made statements about the incident and expressed condolences to the victims.[3]
Julio 14th, 2010 at 20:07
NPR: Changes In Cuba: Prisoner Release, Castro’s Role-July 14, 2010
The Cuban government has promised to release 52 political prisoners, some of whom have already flown to Spain. In light of that move, and recent sightings of a healthier-looking Fidel Castro, Julia Sweig, author of Cuba, predicts what may lie ahead in U.S.-Cuba relations.
THERE IS AN AUDIO VERSION IF YOU GO TO LINK!
NEAL CONAN, host:
And now, two more political prisoners flew from Cuba to Spain today, where they joined seven other dissidents released earlier this week. The Cuban foreign minister told journalists yesterday all those who are political prisoners will be released from jail. The release comes as Congress considers legislation to lift the travel ban, and the Obama administration looks at measures to promote more contact.
And Cuba’s former leader Fidel Castro appeared on state television there this week. He’s not been seen in public since intestinal surgery in 2006, and looked better than most expected.
Amid these developments, we turn to Julia Sweig, director of Latin American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
And we want to hear from you. Does the release of political prisoners represent the beginning of real change in Cuba? 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That’s at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.
Julia Sweig, the author of “Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know.” She joins us today from the CFR studios here in Washington. Nice to have you with us again.
Ms. JULIA SWEIG (Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies, Council on Foreign Relations; Author): Great to be back, Neal. Thank you.
CONAN: And what does the release of these political prisoners represent?
Ms. SWEIG: Well, I see this in several dimensions. Number one, it represents Raul Castro’s desire to take a very thorny, very controversial and unappealing issue off the table for international purposes and domestic purposes. It represents also, importantly, the release of political prisoners for the prisoners themselves and for their families, an end to a very difficult period. And it represents a very interesting moment in diplomacy with respect to the role of the Vatican, the Cuban Catholic Church, the European Union, the government of Spain and the Cuban government working together to make this happen.
CONAN: Fifty-two. That’s not the number that some human rights activists would use.
Ms. SWEIG: The 52 is the remaining number from 75 that were imprisoned in 19 - in 2003, excuse me. There are additional political prisoners, the numbers vary from a bit over 100, 150 Cuban human rights groups, to several hundred more, according to outsiders. What I gather - Foreign Minister Moratinos of Spain announced yesterday was that in addition to the 52, all political prisoners will also be released, once they figure out who that is.
CONAN: And this - a lot of this stems from concerted diplomacy from the European Union.
Ms. SWEIG: Yes, it does. The government of Jose Luis Zapatero of Spain had the presidency of the European Union from January until the end of last month, and had been working prior to that presidency, and over the first half of this year, with the Cuban government, to get that - the prisoners released. There’s something called the common position of the European Union, which is a sort of soft sanctions policy that’s been in place since the 1990s, which Spain and other members states hope to get rid of and, of course, so does the Cuban government hope to, because this will open the way to cooperation, agreements, assistance and presumably greater foreign investment if the Cuban government opens in that direction.
CONAN: And then the sort of avenue of approach proved to be the Vatican.
Ms. SWEIG: The Vatican - very important. The Vatican has had a channel of dialogue open, as you know, with the Cuban government for about the last 15 years. Pope John Paul II was there in 1999. Gradually, the Cuban Catholic Church has opened up considerable more space for itself on the ground. And I can’t overstate the importance of the Cuban Catholic Church, the Cardinal Jaime Ortega, Archbishop of Havana, and his intervention and dialogue and engagement with the Cuban government, specifically Raul Castro.
CONAN: And the other development, how much is Raul in charge, and how much is Fidel in charge? We thought it was Raul in consultation, occasionally with his brother. Then his brother appears on TV this week and looks, well, for a man his age, pale.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. SWEIG: I think your characterization is still accurate. In Fidel’s hour-and-15-minute talk the other night with, which was taped over the weekend, he made not one reference to this political prison issue and not one reference to internal domestic matters. And there was a large internal domestic component to this prisoner release.
He was talking about foreign policy. This is something that he’s been writing about in his reflections for the last several years. I think it’s very clear from how this diplomacy took place, and between who and whom, that Raul Castro has the reigns of government and of foreign policy, and Fidel’s intervention, if you will, was to show his stalwart base that he’s the keeper of the ideological flame, the great leader, but not - by saying nothing about domestic matters or the political prisoner issue, clearly not running the show, but consulted as you said.
CONAN: And able to predict war between the United States and Iran without really addressing any of the immediate issues involving Cuba.
Ms. SWEIG: Precisely. So he is providing a sort of orientation, talking about the - you know, Cuba, of course, has a principled position in terms of Cuban foreign policy that opposes the imposition of sanction -of sanctions - that sees the use of force to bring about regime change, whether in this hemisphere against Cuba or across the world in Iraq and Iran, as anathema. So Fidel getting out there and saying essentially to his political base, look, you know, we are cutting this deal with members of the European Union who are with the Americans, with our mortal enemy, but here is - you know, we still remain adamantly opposed to the kind of sanctions policy that our temporary allies on this political prisoner business are helping us to figure out.
So I think that it’s a parsing for the Cuban base within the party and within the military that Fidel is playing out while a very pragmatic foreign policy is actually underway on the part of Raul Castro, a foreign policy which I should add has a lot to do with creating space internally to go forward on a number of domestic, especially economic reforms, within the country that really couldn’t happen until he took care of this large albatross hanging over his neck.
CONAN: We’re talking about is this beginning of real change in Cuba with Julia Sweig, who’s director of Latin American Studies, the Council on Foreign Relations. 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. And we’ll go to Steve. Steve on the line with us from Grand Rapids.
STEVE (Caller): Yes. Hi. It seems to me that this prisoner release is more window dressing than anything substantial. These people, as I understand it, have to leave the country. They’re not allowed to live in Cuba anymore. So they’re going to be exiles. And it seems to me it’s just perhaps a shallow attempt at Cuba trying to improve its relations with the rest of the world without really serious reform. Plus, as I understand it, only seven out of the 52 have been released.
CONAN: Nine as of today, but the others, we’re told, will be released. Julia Sweig?
Ms. SWEIG: I think the question of whether this is window dressing or not of course remains to be seen. The internal issues that are so critical in Cuba that have to do with participation, a more open society - I’m not going to say liberal democracy, market economy, because I think we’re very far from getting to that within Cuba. But I think we have to see what comes after this release.
And as the issue of whether the prisoners were obliged to leave the country as a condition of their release, that’s very ambiguous still. I don’t know the exact answer. What I have heard from Catholic Church sources is that no, that they were given the option to stay or to go, and that some are actually choosing to stay. So we’ll have to judge this over the march of time.
CONAN: And just to follow up on Steve’s point, wouldn’t it be - will there be more political prisoners if there is indeed a further opening and people do want to petition their government? Might they end up behind bars or not?
Ms. SWEIG: Well, they might. We don’t know. The kind of low intensity repression that takes place in Cuba of the Raul Castro government is one of more catch and release, a kind of - a lot of self-censorship still exists in Cuba. I think I would be - nobody knows whether the kinds of longer term large sentences that we’ve seen under the Fidel Castro regime, of which these are remnants, will continue under Raul. Let’s just watch this closely.
CONAN: Steve, thanks very much for the call. Appreciate it.
STEVE: Thank you. Thank you very much.
CONAN: Bye-bye. Let’s go next to Rashanda(ph), Rashanda with us from Statesboro, Georgia.
RASHANDA (Caller): Yes. I think that the move for them to release prisoners is a good sign in Cuba. I do think that, as you said, there is a lot things that still have to happen for Cuba to do a 180. But I think it’s to dishonor (unintelligible) this would happen - wouldn’t have happened if Fidel Castro was still in office.
CONAN: Would it have been more difficult for Fidel to have climbed down on this issue?
Ms. SWEIG: Yes, I think so. I think there were moments and opportunities when this has been on the table before. This is not the first prisoner release. Although I think it would’ve been more difficult for him to climb down on this issue, he himself when he was running the country officially as president released tranches(ph) of political prisoners over the last several decades, also with the intervention, for example, of Jesse Jackson, of Jimmy Carter, of the Catholic Church, of prominent Cuban Americans.
So this is not the first time that this has happened. But this Fidel Castro in the late 2000s, when the relationship with the United States had become especially intense - that is, in 2003 on the cusp of the war in Iraq, where there was no prospect in that Fidel Castro’s mind of a real rapprochement with Cuba - excuse me - with United States or with Europe, may have had a much harder time doing so. Raul Castro has a different international environment and a different domestic environment to contend with than Fidel had.
CONAN: Rashanda, thanks very much for the call.
RASHANDA: You’re welcome. Thank you.
CONAN: Bye-bye. And we’re talking again with Julia Sweig, the Nelson and David Rockefeller senior fellow for Latin American Studies, director of Latin American Studies, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the author of “A Reform Movement in Cuba?” - and “Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know.”
You’re listening to TALK OF THE NATION, coming to you from NPR News.
And I have to ask you, Julia, when you saw Fidel on TV the other day, did you think - were you surprised at how well he looked?
Ms. SWEIG: Well, I think I was a bit surprised. I mean, I have not seen him in person, of course, but - for many, many years, but he looked better than I had seen him when he last appeared, maybe last year, and very, very well. He does look hale, as you said, Neal.
CONAN: Here’s an email from Jane in Marathon, Florida: What will it take for Congress to let U.S. citizens travel to Cuba?
Ms. SWEIG: Well, my take: the state of Florida becoming less important in the national political presidential electoral map, Jane in Florida. But it would take a little bit of leadership and a little bit of political will. Right now the way the forces are arrayed, we have nationally 60 to 70 percent of Americans polling repeatedly in favor of lifting the travel ban to Cuba and ending the embargo, commencing diplomatic relations.
We now also have, just a poll two days ago, 64 percent of the Cuban American community likewise supporting the end of the travel ban, not only for themselves but for all Americans. I think public opinion in this country is way ahead of the Congress.
But having said that, we have had legislation to end the travel ban pass in one committee of the House, subcommittee on agriculture. It may well go before two other committees. And as I understand it, the speaker of the House is looking to whether the votes actually exist on the for a floor vote. The Senate likewise - the two cosponsors of the bill have put out a statement saying they have the sponsors, they have the votes -excuse me - to pass this bill.
It would also take some signaling from the White House to indicate it at minimum wouldn’t veto such legislation and might even support or have a neutral stance toward the legislation.
CONAN: Let’s go next to Barbara, and Barbara is with us from San Antonio.
BARBARA (Caller): Yes, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my call.
CONAN: Sure.
BARBARA: My question is the Cuban Five, who are being held in American prisons and who have not been allowed visitation by their families.
CONAN: Are these prisoners on the table? These are people charged with espionage.
BARBARA: They are charged with that, but there’s a lot of controversy and discussion as to whether those charges are valid. And they’re being held in American prisons and their family members have not been allowed entry into the country to visit them.
CONAN: Julia Sweig, any prospect of a change in that situation?
Ms. SWEIG: Well, the question was that you asked, Neal, is this on the table. I don’t know if this is on the table formally between the two governments. There are high(ph) - as far as I understand it, on again, off again discussions about conjugal visits for the Cuban Five that are in American prisons. I note, of course, that we just had a very quick spy swap between the United States and Russia, which in my view comes as the result of the presence of two things, a sort of political will by both governments and good diplomacy to get it done.
That doesn’t exist on this issue between the two governments at this point. It’s an issue that should come on the table but is very sensitive here for reasons related to domestic politics. And - but nevertheless, I agree that it should come onto the table, I hope.
BARBARA: I just wanted to say that their human rights are being violated, given the circumstances of their incarceration. And thank you for taking my call.
CONAN: All right, Barbara, that’s - there is one American being held in Cuba, though. Apparently not on espionage?
Ms. SWEIG: This is not on espionage. His name is Alan Gross. He’s neither being held on espionage or is a political prisoner. He hasn’t been formally charged. He’s been held since December. He is a resident of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. He is there working as a contractor for the United States government on a program that is funded by the U.S. Congress and administered to Beltway bandit companies by USAID, part of a program designed to - depending upon how you look at it - promote democracy in Cuba, carry out regime change activities. It’s a sort of - a new iteration of what used to be covert programs that some call covert overt programs.
CONAN: Mm-hmm.
Ms. SWEIG: He was passing along satellite technology, very sophisticated satellite technology, had been to Cuba on a number of occasions, as I understand it - going down as a tourist visa but engaging in this activity as a contractor, and that Cubans arrested him. And as I understand it, there have been significant discussions between the two governments about him. The arrest has affected a policy review within this administration about the appropriateness of these programs.
And as I understand it, these programs are being refashioned to have much more oversight, accountability and transparency. I would hope that the Cuban government would release him as soon as possible.
CONAN: Julia Sweig, thanks very much for your time today. We appreciate it.
Ms. SWEIG: Thanks for having me, Neal.
CONAN: Julia Sweig at the Council on Foreign Relations. There’s a link to her article on Cuba at our website, npr.org, click on TALK OF THE NATION.
http://www.npr.org/templates/s.....=128516247
Julio 14th, 2010 at 19:41
Bravo Pedro! You are one of the people who is going to defeat Cuba´s tyrani. What I think you are not doing properly, is to organize protest for shortage of food, bad water suppply and lack of everything, as I have red at Yoani´s blog.
People working for the Government have not that kind of problems, as they get daily their products by means of organized ¨direct distribution¨, as it called. What about people ouside the communist system? You do not get anything, and you must buy whatelse you find, at higher prices. This is not acceptable in a civilized country!
This situation are been created by communist corruption, as the Government control all distribution and prices. Because they want to make money fron other sources, they created a parallel market, so called “black market”. The idea and purpose are to kill the whole non-communist population by an induced famine. I suppose, you and all other people outside the tyrani system do not want to be victims any more.
cmedinarebolledo@yahoo.se
Julio 14th, 2010 at 14:58
Interview of two of the recently released Cuban political prisoners, Pablo Pacheco & Jose Luis Garcia Paneque in Spain’s television. Very emotional for anyone to see and hear-in spanish. Thanks to Joel Garcia from the blog “Un Cubano en Canarias”
http://www.facebook.com/group......mp;ref=ts#!/video/video.php?v=1461713256882&ref=mf
JOSE LUIS GARCIA PANEQUE — Plastic surgeon from Las Tunas who received a 24-year sentence. He was a member of the unofficial Cuban Independent Medical Association. He was also involved in independent journalism.
Source: Amnesty International.
PABLO PACHECO AVILA — Independent journalist from Ciego de Avila, sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Source: Amnesty International.
http://www.google.com/hostedne.....AD9GU715O5
Julio 14th, 2010 at 14:26
THE NEW YORKER: Brothers, Prisoners, and Spies-by Jon Lee Anderson
Last week, a friend in Havana sent me an uncharacteristically euphoric e-mail message: “What do you think of Raul’s strategic first strike? I told you he was worth keeping an eye on.” What he was referring to was the news that Cuba’s government had agreed to release fifty-two—or one-third—of its remaining political prisoners.
The deal was brokered after negotiations were held between President Raul Castro, Fidel’s brother; Cuba’s Catholic Church hierarchy; and Spain’s foreign minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos. Most of the prisoners—seven released this week and the rest in the next few months—are expected to emigrate initially to Spain, which has agreed to host them. (The seven arrived in Madrid today.) The fifty-two represent the last imprisoned members of a group of seventy-five independent journalists and political activists who were arrested in a crackdown in 2003 on charges of conspiring with the U.S. government to destabilize the state. But, most important, these prisoners are said be merely the first to go free. Moratinos has said that Raul Castro told him he intends to free all of Cuba’s political prisoners, presumably after further negotiations.
Among Cuba-watchers, opinion is divided over the substance or value of Raul Castro’s move to release the prisoners. My friend on the island told me that he thought it was “a good initiative.” One of the country’s best-known dissidents, Hector Palacios, one of the original group of seventy-five (he was arrested and imprisoned in 2003 and sentenced to twenty-five years, but released in 2007) was quoted in El Pais characterizing it as follows: “It is the most serious step the government has made in the past fifty years to find national harmony, and so this could represent the beginning of a new era.”
“It would be nice to think it’s a step towards a new era,” said Daniel Wilkinson, a Latin America specialist at Human Rights Watch, but he was doubtful that it was. “The problem is, we’ve seen this before—the government makes a show of releasing prisoners but then does nothing to dismantle the repressive machinery it has in place to imprison people, and it continues arresting more afterward.”
Maybe so. Then again, some things have changed. For one thing, Cuba’s economic circumstances are dire and the country badly needs international financial assistance to get out of the corner it finds itself in. Ideally, it needs to be able to conduct free and open trade with the United States in order to survive economically.
The most immediate positive development brought by the announcement was that Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas had agreed to suspend his hundred-and-thirty-five-day-old hunger strike, held precisely to protest the living conditions of Cuba’s political prisoners, some of whom are in poor health. Last week, Farinas was said to be close to death. He began his hunger strike in February, following the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a political prisoner whose own hunger strike was largely ignored by prison authorities. Zapata’s death is said to have acutely embarrassed Cuba’s government, and the prospect of a second death, Farinas’s, had spurred it to address some of its human-rights problems with the help of the Catholic Church. Even before yesterday’s announcement, quiet progress had been made in a number of areas after talks between Raul Castro and Cardinal Jaime Ortega, in which, among other things, Castro agreed to commute a number of outstanding death sentences; lifted the official ban on weekly protest marches by the Damas en Blanco, or Ladies in White, an association of prisoner’s wives; and approved the transfer of inmates being held in far-flung provinces to prisons nearer to their families. (The island’s independent Human Rights Commission reports that fewer political prisoners are being held now than at any time since Fidel Castro seized power in 1959.)
Cuba’s prisoner release is likely to improve relations with the European Union, which have been strained ever since the 2003 crackdown, and it could also lighten the tensions in its long standoff with the United States. The Obama Administration has softened the forty-eight-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba by easing limitations that the Bush Administration had imposed on remittances and on travel to the island by Cuban-Americans. A new congressional bill has been introduced to lift all travel restrictions on U.S. citizens and to expand agricultural trade. But even if the bill passes when it is voted on later this summer, the Administration has made it clear that sanctions will remain in place until Cuba takes definite steps towards further democratization, and improves its human-rights record—a key element of which would be the freeing of its political prisoners.
So, does this week’s breakthrough on prisoners represent a historic opportunity for a normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States? It could.
In December, 2008, while Obama was still President-elect, Raul Castro said he was willing to begin talks, and suggested that, as a first step, they should consider a “gesture-for-gesture” prisoner exchange. In subsequent talks with the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Castro reiterated the point, letting it be known that he was willing to free political prisoners in exchange for “reciprocal international measures.”
Castro may well have had in mind something along the lines of the fuss-free spy-swap conducted this week between the United States and Russia. The biggest reciprocal gesture the United States could make—short of unilaterally lifting the embargo—would be to free Cuba’s so-called “Five Heroes,” five deep-cover intelligence agents who have been held in U.S. prisons since their arrests in 1998. The agents were sentenced to unusually severe prison terms—ranging from fifteen years to double-life terms—in December, 2001, after a jury trial in South Florida found them guilty of espionage and other offenses.
Since last December, meanwhile, Cuba has held a presumably tradable American “spy” of its own. Alan Gross, an employee of a Bethesda-based consultancy called Development Alternatives, Inc., or DAI, was apprehended while distributing prohibited laptops, cellphones, and satellite data telecommunications gear to pro-democracy groups in Cuba. The U.S. government has strenuously denied that Gross is an intelligence agent, or that DAI is a C.I.A. front company, but acknowledges that the firm had won a bid to fulfill a U.S. government contract aimed at the promotion of democracy in Cuba. Cuba’s National Assembly President, Ricardo Alarcon, called the initiative an example of Washington’s “privatization of war.” (On July 2nd, a fortified office compound belonging to DAI was attacked by Taliban suicide attackers in the northern city of Kunduz, in Afghanistan, resulting in the deaths of four security subcontractors, including a German, a Briton, and two Afghans. DAI was said to be on a U.S. government contract assisting with “local governance and community development.”)
Thus far, though, the reaction in Washington has been muted. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the prisoner release “overdue” but “encouraging.” And this may be a good moment for the U.S. to demonstrate some of the “reciprocity” Raul Castro claims to be looking for, and see what happens. Castro has made the first move. If Obama were to make the second—perhaps even by freeing the “Five Heroes”—it might not only get Gross out but also help bring about a historic watershed in the fifty-one-year dispute between Cuba and the United States.
Coinciding with these developments, Fidel Castro’s surprise reappearance on Cuban state television—chiefly, it seemed, to warn of the risks of a nuclear war in the festering U.S. confrontations with Iran and North Korea—left most observers puzzled. Some have speculated that it was a bid by Fidel to grab back the limelight from Raul and to remind everyone that he was not to be counted out. But the fact that Fidel stuck to foreign affairs and didn’t mention the prisoner releases at all suggests that the Castro siblings were, as they have been for so many years, acting in concert, each in their latest agreed-upon roles, with Raul in charge of the sweaty business of local politics and governance, and Fidel as Cuba’s own Elder Brother oracle, looking, as ever, to the world’s far horizons.
http://www.newyorker.com/onlin.....spies.html
Julio 14th, 2010 at 14:05
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Cuban dissidents enjoy new-found freedom in Spain-ALAN CLENDENNING and JORGE SAINZ
MADRID — As two more Cuban dissidents flew into Spain, the seven who preceded them rejoiced Wednesday in their newfound freedom despite an uncertain future in a nation mired in Europe’s debt crisis.
Some of the Cubans still appeared dazed after arriving with just a few suitcases, or in one case, with no change of clothes. They were accompanied by wives, children and some older parents, part of 52 activists being released in stages by the Cuban government after being imprisoned in a 2003 crackdown. In all, 20 are expected to land in Spain.
Lester Gonzalez didn’t sleep at all during his first night out of a Cuban prison, saying that being in a modest Madrid hotel was so disorienting that he felt “like I’m in a place where I’m dreaming.”
“We have to learn to live in freedom,” added Julio Cesar Galvez, a 66-year-old journalist.
The two who arrived Wednesday, Normando Hernandez and Omar Rodriguez, were whisked away from Madrid’s airport along with 10 family members to the hotel where their compatriots were staying. Two others, Luis Milan and Mijail Barzaga, are expected to arrive Thursday.
An tear-filled reunion played out at the hotel as Hernandez saw his mother, Blanca Gonzalez, after eight years of separation.
“I have not seen my son since I left Cuba,” said Gonzalez, who flew into Madrid from Miami. “I am very tense, very nervous, very emotional.”
Despite mixed emotions over losing their homeland and embracing a new country, the other seven men were beaming as they went for a stroll around the city and saw that their arrival Tuesday was front-page news.
Pablo Pacheco fulfilled a lifetime dream by seeing the massive stadium where the Real Madrid football team plays, and said Yankee Stadium in New York was next on his list.
But with a brother still imprisoned in Cuba, the 40-year-old journalist said he could not celebrate yet. And he doesn’t plan to apply for residency in the United States, even though his mother and two brothers live in southern Florida, because he believes his 2002 application for political refuge in the United States landed him in prison.
“The U.S. government denied it and then the Cuban government gave me a 20-year prison sentence,” Pacheco said. “I don’t have anything against the United States, but that is the reality and it means a lot.”
The Cubans said being in Spain was a gift compared to their prisons in communist Cuba.
The Spanish government is assisting them, but finding jobs may be tough for the dissidents — most of them journalists. Spain has been struggling with 20 percent unemployment after a two-year recession and its journalism industry has seen many layoffs and hiring freezes.
Four Cuban dissidents who came with 13 relatives and friends in 2008 — when Spain’s economy was booming — have had a tough time adjusting and already want to leave, said Borja Bergareche of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
“They found life here very hard, and would like either to return to Cuba as free men, which isn’t going to happen, or travel to the United States,” Bergareche said of the four — Pedro Pablo Alvarez Ramos, Omar Pernet Hernandez, Jose Gabriel Ramon Castillo and Alejandro Gonzalez Raga.
That didn’t worry Jose Luis Garcia, a 44-year-old journalist and plastic surgeon who arrived Tuesday. In just a short walk, he was struck by so many cars driving by, construction workers at building sites and trucks delivering goods.
“In Cuba, they talk about an apocalyptic economy in Spain, but I don’t see that here,” said Ruiz, who arrived only with a few toiletry items and the pants and shirt he was still wearing Wednesday. “The only thing I ask for from Spain is an opportunity to work.”
Social workers said they did not know when the Cubans, their wives, a few children and older relatives would leave the hotel.
Galvez wasn’t worried about where he’ll live next or whether he’ll be able to find work in journalism because just being in Spain with his wife and 5-year-old son was a joy.
“After seven years in prison, I can see my boy smiling and playing with his new toy car and looking at all the cars on the street,” Galvez said with a smile. “The situation is a lot better here than it was in Cuba.”
The Cubans, for now, are being cared for by the Spanish Red Cross, Spain’s Commission for Help to Refugees and the Spanish Catholic Migrations Association.
Each family will be handled individually, and looked after in terms of health care, maintenance and accommodation. The groups will also try to help them find work. The Spanish government already provides immigrants with free medical treatment and education for children.
Despite the deal to free them, the Cuban government has long maintained that none are prisoners of conscience. It insists they are mercenaries paid by Washington and supported by anti-Castro exiles in Miami whose only goal was to discredit the Cuban government. Many of the Web sites the journalists had worked for were maintained by exiles outside Cuba.
Omar Ruiz, a 62-year-old journalist, said he wants to go to the United States, where his wife has relatives, but “no one has offered us the opportunity.”
The U.S. Embassy in Madrid declined to comment on individual immigration cases but said anyone in Spain was welcome to apply for a visa to enter the United States. The U.S., Spain and Chile offered to take in the dissidents, but the Cubans said they were only given the choice of going to Spain or staying in prison.
But the Cubans would likely face no hurdles getting permission to live in the United States, said Jose Azel of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami, because Cuban-American lawmakers in Congress would press for them to get visas.
“I don’t think for the political prisoners it would be difficult at all,” he said.
Spain has said the Cubans will receive residency permits that allow them to travel freely.
Contributing to this report: Associated Press writers Harold Heckle and Ciaran Giles in Madrid, and Christine Armario in Miami.
http://www.google.com/hostedne.....wD9GUU4U00
Julio 14th, 2010 at 13:14
@#23
Perhaps you see the same parallel if nothing else in the treatment people who did “not obey” the regime were subjected to …
As I said before, however well deserved it is a sad thing to know that there are people like this, if nothing else they serve as markers for what to “see” before it happens again …
Julio 14th, 2010 at 12:54
Albert,
the execution of ceausescu was well deserved as he was responsible for the murder of many people who did not obey a corrupt communist regime. The torture used by communists would make the Nazis to blush. The Reds made an art out of how to torture people.
Julio 14th, 2010 at 09:27
Rodolfo,
You have sidestepped my most important question — why does socialism so easily veer into totalitarianism ? Why do critics of the regime end up in jail for their opinions ? Yoani Sanchez is a blogger — a form or electronic journalism. You don’t have to go to journalism school to do it. You don’t even have to go to journalism school to be a journalist –I was a writer and editor of a major newsmagazine in the 60’s and 70’s, and my only qualification was a history degree, and some practical experience starting at the bottom on a big-city newspaper. Why I say you are ad feminam is because you claim that Yoani Sanchez does what she does just to make money. Now I know how hard it is to make ends meet in Cuba entirely dysfunctional economy, but I would ask you to make a tiny leap of the imagination and think of the crap she has to take — the tapped phones, interdictions on travel, being followed everywhere and vilified in brain-dead shows like Mesa Rotonda, not to mention the physical violence she has suffered. There are easier ways to make money, even in Cuba.
Julio 14th, 2010 at 07:42
Yes change is bound to happen … my only hope is taht it is a peaceful change, I am reminded at times of the execution of nicolae ceausescu … while perhaps deserved was sad.
Somehow (to me) it parallels the situation in Cuba, on the one hand ceausescu claims of doing what was best for the people w/statements of how much he had done for their education & health as well as providing for the life necesities.
All the while not forgeting his crimes but justifying his acts of repression, the use of the army & any other entity in order to stay in power.
To trigger the revolt, it took an impossible to control or suppress act of defiance by the people that turned brutal by the attempt to repress it.
But the gates to freedom were open, it was a lesson that perhaps the rebolutionary dictators in Cuba should be aware of … don’t push the people beacuse sooner or later … justice & freedom will be theirs.
Julio 14th, 2010 at 04:42
Well, Mr. Trudeau, you have me all wrong. I am not pro any regime. I am pro people and pro choice, but certainly not proregime. It just so happens that in this blog there is only one voice that seems to matter, and that is of far right leaning persons who care not for opinions outside of their own. That’s not to say that you are all idiots, because there are intelligent people that post here. But to be ad hominem, suggests that I am somehow devoid of logic and filled only with emotion. It’s funny, but I believe that many of the posts here fit under that category. As to the charge of being ad feminam… well, all I can say is that criticizing Yoani as a “non journalist” is fair because she is a blogger. The fact that she garnered awards from some media outlets doesn’t make her one. Besides that she writes mostly in the first person, which is frowned upon in most reputable J schools. I know that for a fact. But be it as it may, I don’t want to make a big deal about that because she’s actually a good writer. But she should be a novelist, not a journalist.
Julio 13th, 2010 at 23:34
Sigmund Freud,
I remember that when the Pope visited Cuba, many journalists covered that event as well as other things. I recall seeing a piece, I think on ABC that included this story with testimonies of some of the survivors and some family members of those who were murdered. One woman told a story, that haunts me to this very day. She had her small child in her arm trying to swim ashore and she tried to reach for a body that was floating and while trying lost her grasp and let go of the child. I have tried to find that news piece online or similar one but no luck. Maybe someone here might know where I can find it. I build my arsenal of information and this would be one I could use to show the Castro’s as THE MURDERES THAT THEY ARE.
Julio 13th, 2010 at 23:25
TIME MAGAZINE: U.S. Fails to Respond to Cuba’s Freeing of Dissidents-By Tim Padgett / Miami
The Administration is engaging Cuba on some bilateral issues such as immigration, mail service and containing the BP oil spill. But even if the political prisoners’ release is overdue and their imprisonment an outrage to many international human-rights groups, the agreement to free them provides an opportunity that President Obama may fail to seize. When Obama last year abandoned his predecessor’s draconian restrictions on Cuban Americans’ travel to Cuba, he effectively tossed the ball into the Castros’ court. Havana seemed to resist any temptation to reciprocate. But when imprisoned dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo died in February as a result of a hunger strike to draw attention to the plight of Cuba’s political prisoners — and others threatened to follow his example — international criticism nudged the more reform-minded Raúl to open negotiations with Cuba’s Roman Catholic Church and the Spanish government, which resulted in last week’s stunning announcement.
Many Cuba watchers saw the next move as being Obama’s. One of the more obvious and less risky steps the Administration could take is to throw its support behind a bill currently moving through Congress that would lift the ban on U.S. travel to Cuba and loosen the 48-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba to make agricultural sales to the island easier. Polls show that a majority of Cuban Americans back the measure, and last month, some 75 prominent Cuban dissidents, including internationally renowned blogger Yoani Sánchez, signed a letter insisting it would “facilitate the transition we Cubans so greatly desire.” (Could the U.S.-Cuba travel ban end soon?)
Earlier this month, the House Agriculture Committee passed the bill, which must get through the Financial Services and Foreign Affairs committees before the full chamber can vote on it — a journey that could use some White House clout. But so far, even after the prisoner release, the Administration has confined itself to supporting a “robust debate” on Capitol Hill about Cuba policy. “It’s absolutely mum on this,” says Christopher Sabatini, senior director of policy at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas in New York. “But it reflects the surprising policy radio silence we’re so often getting from this White House on Cuba and Latin America in general.”
Sabatini’s organization, in conjunction with the influential Cuba Study Group and the Brookings Institution’s Latin America Initiative, will on Thursday, July 15, release a report titled “Empowering the Cuban People Through Technology.” It will urge Obama to at least use his executive prerogative under the embargo to lift restrictions on U.S. telecommunications investment in Cuba. Obama last year did permit increased cell-phone and satellite links between the U.S. and Cuba to “promote the freer flow of information and humanitarian items to the Cuban people.” But that opening has been too limited, says the report, which argues (as do tech-savvy dissidents like Sánchez) that Obama’s democratization-via-information goal can realistically be achieved only by letting U.S. telecom companies operate inside Cuba. (Castro’s exit: change in Cuba?)
The report argues that any economic benefits to the Castro regime from allowing U.S. telecoms into Cuba are outweighed by the social benefits to Cuban citizens. And it notes that while Havana exerts China-style control over Internet use, networking sites like Facebook are often uncensored so that tourists, a major source of Cuba’s hard currency, can use them while on the island.
But pro-embargo groups insist just as emphatically that such moves would give the Castros a lifeline. And in Washington, the more hard-line Cuban-American cohort still trumps South Florida polls and dissident letters — especially since groups like the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee have doled out $11 million in congressional campaign contributions over the past five years, hoping to beat back Cuba measures like the new House travel bill.
Even though Washington’s half century of isolating Cuba has failed to dislodge the Castros — and even though ramping up engagement with Cuba could very well help emerging democratization forces like the island’s Catholic Church — the Obama Administration would rather avoid a fight with that flush and fierce lobby. Domestic political calculations, then, may mean passing up an opportunity to change the dynamic in one of the most intractable problems of U.S. foreign policy.
http://www.time.com/time/world.....topstories
Julio 13th, 2010 at 23:12
In a day like today were killed more than 60 persons by castrofascist regime while trying to escape Cuba in a thug boat…….. among the killed more than 20 children:
http://cayocanasisland.blogspo.....a-los.html
Julio 13th, 2010 at 23:01
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Clinton asks Jewish support to free worker in Cuba-By MATTHEW LEE
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday urged Jewish groups to join the campaign to persuade Cuba to release a U.S. government contractor detained on the communist island for seven months without charge.
Clinton told representatives of the American Jewish community that they should add their voices to calls for Cuba to release Alan P. Gross, a U.S. Agency for International Development contractor who was helping members of Cuba’s small Jewish community use the Internet to stay in contact with each other and with similar groups abroad.
“Alan was providing information and technology that would assist this community to be better connected,” Clinton said at a State Department reception in honor of Hannah Rosenthal, the Obama administration’s special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism. Gross’ wife, Judy, attended the event.
“Our government works every single day through every channel for his release and safe return home,” Clinton said. “But I am really making an appeal to the active Jewish community here in our country to join this cause … because this family deserves to be reunited and each and every one of us should do everything we can to make it clear to the Cuban government that Alan Gross needs to come home.”
Gross, a 60-year-old native of Potomac, Md., was working in Cuba for a firm contracted by USAID when he was arrested as a suspected spy in Havana on Dec. 3. He has been held without charge in the capital’s high-security Villa Marista prison since.
The U.S. says Gross committed no crime and has repeatedly appealed for his release on humanitarian grounds. In May, the head of Cuba’s high court said prosecutors had yet to open a legal case against him. Formal charges can’t be filed in Cuba without a judicial accusation and the opening of a case, so it appears unlikely charges against Gross are imminent.
Judy Gross has said her husband had brought communications equipment intended only for humanitarian purposes and not for political use by Cuba’s small dissident community. Satellite phones and other telecommunications materials are outlawed in Cuba, where the government maintains strict control over Internet access and the media.
Clinton’s appeal to the U.S. Jewish community followed the release on Tuesday of seven jailed Cuban dissidents who were sent to Spain, the first of 52 political prisoners to be freed under an agreement worked out between Cuban authorities and the Catholic church.
http://www.google.com/hostedne.....AD9GUHIC80
Julio 13th, 2010 at 17:21
NEW YORK TIMES: Freed Cuban Prisoners Vow Defiance-RAPHAEL MINDER-July 13, 2010
MADRID — Flashing victory signs and expressing defiance, the first seven political prisoners released by President Raúl Castro of Cuba arrived in Madrid on Tuesday and vowed to continue their opposition to the island’s Communist leadership.
“This is a continuation of the fight,” Ricardo González Alfonso, one of the dissidents, told reporters upon landing at Madrid’s airport. He insisted that a change in government in Cuba was “inevitable.”
The seven men, who left Cuba Monday night with their relatives on two commercial flights, were expected to be joined soon by additional members of the group of 52 prisoners that the Cuban government agreed to release last week. Spain’s foreign minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, who brokered the deal along with the Roman Catholic Church, told the Spanish parliament Tuesday that four more dissidents would arrive in Spain in the next two days, news services reported.
In Washington, the State Department on Tuesday called the release of the first seven Cuban prisoners a “positive development” but repeated its longstanding call for the “immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners.” How many prisoners remain, though, is a matter of debate.
During a news conference in Madrid, the dissidents insisted that their surprise release should not be considered a propaganda victory for the Cuban leadership and that their work challenging the government would not let up. The dissidents, all of whom suffered health problems in prison, appeared in reasonable condition after seven years behind bars and were clean shaven and wearing freshly ironed shirts.
Léster González Pentón, an opposition journalist who was serving a 20-year prison term, said: “We don’t consider ourselves to have been manipulated. In a dialogue process something always has to give, but we didn’t give.”
He added: “Cuba deserves democracy and in a democracy there is room for all leanings to participate.”
The men, who included journalists, a democracy activist and a surgeon, were among 75 people arrested and sentenced to lengthy prison terms as part of a Cuban government crackdown on dissent in the spring of 2003. The international reaction to the arrests was fierce, with the European Union applying diplomatic sanctions.
The death in February of one of the prisoners, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, after he conducted a long hunger strike to protest prison conditions boosted the pressure on Cuba. Then, another activist, Guillermo Farinas, began a hunger strike of his own. He was near death when Mr. Castro’s mass prisoner release prompted him to begin eating again.
Julio Cesar Galvez, an independent journalist who was serving a 15-year sentence, said: “We hope that those who continue in Cuba will be able to enjoy the same liberties as we have at this moment.”
Marc Lacey contributed reporting in Mexico City.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07.....spain.html
Julio 13th, 2010 at 15:58
Sending these men to exile is a cowardly act on the part of the Castro regime. If you believe in your convictions, what several dozen journalists think and print won’t matter. But if you are insecure and unsure and you can’t back up your ideology with rational arguments… you silence the opposition… which they have done.
On some level… the dissident movement will lose some steam (which is what the Castros want)… but the dissident movement will eventually prevail. In my darkest moments, I think the the Soviet Union fell within a matter of days and so did the Berlin Wall. It could happen in Cuba as well… we can only hope sooner than later.
Julio 13th, 2010 at 15:32
Rodolfo,
Pedro and his fellow prisoners have already achieved much from prison — drawing international attention to the fundamental lack of civil rights in Cuba. Do you believe that socialism requires total suppression of any criticism ? Communism may be indeed be dead, but there is a distinctly Stalinist tinge to the Castro brothers’ death grip on power. Have you noticed how anyone who gets too high is cut down ? The debate is really not about socialism but the establishment of a civil society, a phrase that Raoul uses with disdain. I would also note that Pedro Arguelles speaks with considerably more dignity than you. Most of the pro-regime posters on this thread make use of the personal smear and the ad hominem — and ad feminam — attack.
Julio 13th, 2010 at 13:52
Albert (qui ose gagne)!
For MY FLACA and CUBA! I WILL DO JUST ABOUT ANYTHING!This is NOTHING!
Julio 13th, 2010 at 13:10
BBC NEWS: Freed Cuban dissidents speak after landing in Spain-Tuesday, 13 July 2010
The first freed political prisoners from a group of 52 Cubans have spoken for the first time after flying into the Spanish capital.
In a statement issued after they landed in Madrid, the dissidents said exile was a “continuation of the struggle”.seven men and their families flew to Spain on two commercial flights.
The release of the dissidents, who were jailed as part of a government crackdown in 2003, was brokered last week by the Catholic Church and Spain.
Cuba came under international pressure to free them, after a jailed dissident starved himself to death earlier this year to draw attention to their plight.
‘A new stage’
One of the dissidents, Ricardo Gonzalez, said at Madrid’s Barajas airport that being in exile was a “continuation of the struggle”.
He continued: “For me change begins with freedom, not only ours and our companions, but all Cuban citizens. We are sure that, given the seriousness of the church and Spanish government, all prisoners will be freed.”
A second, Julio Cesar Galvez, said: “We are the first of a group of prisoners of conscience who have just landed after seven years in captivity.
“This signifies the start of a new stage for the future of Cuba and all Cubans.
“We hope that those who remain in Cuba will enjoy the same freedom as we do,” he added, referring to political prisoners still held on the island.
Just hours before the dissidents left Havana on Monday evening, former President Fidel Castro made a rare TV appearance.
The 83-year-old spoke at length in an interview on state television about international affairs but did not mention the dissidents.
Continued protests
The Cuban government has agreed to free all 52 of the prisoners in the coming months. At least 20 are said to have expressed a desire to go to Spain.
Spanish officials say they will not be required to stay in the country and will be free to head elsewhere. Both the US and Chile have offered them asylum.
Elizardo Sanchez, head of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCHRNR), has said at least three prisoners have told the Church that they want to remain in Cuba.
The former prisoners were reunited with their wives and children late on Monday. Spanish consular officials at the airport interviewed them one by one and then granted them visas.
In a phone call from Havana airport, one of the freed men, Omar Ruiz, told the Associated Press: “I won’t consider myself free until I arrive in Spain.”
In the hours before their departure, relatives had been told to prepare to leave Cuba at a moment’s notice.
“Sunday they performed medical check-ups, did paperwork for the passports and told us to be ready starting today,” Irene Viera, the wife of community organiser Julio Cesar Galvez, told AP.
“I’m very nervous about all of this,” she said. “I can finally see him without it being in prison for the first time in years.”
The first flight, operated by Air Europa, landed at Madrid’s Barajas airport with Lester Gonzalez, Omar Ruiz, Antonio Villarreal, Julio Cesar Galvez, Jose Luis Garcia Paneque and Pablo Pacheco on board at 1249 local time (1049 GMT).
The second, operated by Iberia, carrying journalist Ricardo Gonzalez and his family, arrived shortly afterwards.
Mr Gonzalez’s wife told the BBC on Monday that one of the first things they would do after arriving would be to go for a long walk together.
The prisoner release announced last Wednesday could become the biggest this decade on the communist-ruled island.
Under the agreement, 52 political prisoners should be freed in the coming months.
All were part of a group of 75 dissidents rounded up in 2003 and sentenced to jail terms of between six and 28 years. The other 23 have already been freed.
On Sunday, a group of the wives and mothers of the political prisoners - known as the Ladies in White - staged their weekly march through Havana calling for the release of all political prisoners.
The leader of the Ladies in White said their marches would continue.
“While there is one political prisoner or prisoner of conscience, there will be Ladies in White,” Laura Pollan said.
Before Monday’s releases there was a total of 167 “prisoners of conscience” in Cuba, according to the CCHRNR.
Cuba has always denied that it has political prisoners, describing them as criminals paid by the US to destabilise the country.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/wor.....617820.stm
Julio 13th, 2010 at 13:03
Humberto:
as always you come thru e/good info, I was just wondering about the seven …
Thanks for your dedication & commitment
Julio 13th, 2010 at 12:51
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Brief biographies on 7 Cubans released to Spain
A brief biography on the seven Cuban political prisoners released and then sent to Spain:
LESTER GONZALEZ — Independent journalist from Santa Clara, youngest of the 75 opposition members arrested in Cuba in March 2003. Member of Reason, Truth and Freedom Human Rights Movement. Sentenced to 20 years in prison. He reportedly has a number of health problems, including a hernia operation he underwent in 2008 and anxiety from being separated from his daughter.
Source: English Pen and Amnesty International.
OMAR RUIZ — Independent journalist from Santa Clara working for a group not recognized by Cuba’s government. Over 60 years old. Sentenced to 18 years in prison. Reportedly has prostate problem and high blood pressure. Opposition websites say he is son of evangelical pastor.
Source: Amnesty International.
ANTONIO VILLARREAL — Signature collector from Santa Clara for the Varela Project democracy drive. Sentenced to 15 years in prison. He reportedly started a hunger strike along with five other inmates at Boniato prison. The Varela Project collected thousands of signatures from Cuban voters seeking a referendum on civil rights such as freedom of speech, assembly, press and business ownership. The signatures were delivered to Cuba’s parliament, which shelved the proposal.
Source: Amnesty International.
JULIO CESAR GALVEZ RODRIGUEZ — Journalist from Havana. Sentenced to 15 years in prison. He was allegedly fired in 2001 from two official radio stations for collaborating with Cuba Free Press.
Source: Amnesty International.
JOSE LUIS GARCIA PANEQUE — Plastic surgeon from Las Tunas who received a 24-year sentence. He was a member of the unofficial Cuban Independent Medical Association. He was also involved in independent journalism.
Source: Amnesty International.
PABLO PACHECO AVILA — Independent journalist from Ciego de Avila, sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Source: Amnesty International.
RICARDO GONZALEZ ALFONSO — Independent journalist from Havana who did work for Reporters Without Borders. Sentenced to 20 years in prison. Maintained a private library at his home. Family members concerned about his health.
Source: Amnesty International.
http://www.google.com/hostedne.....AD9GU715O5
Julio 13th, 2010 at 12:34
I disagree with Rodolfo in #1. Pedro’s unwillingness to be forced to leave Cuba is an act of selflessness not ego. Even more courageous - should he be released - he plans to take up the same human rights work that landed him in jail in the first place. Forcing people into exile is a reprehensible practice contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and all international human rights norms.
Julio 13th, 2010 at 12:20
Igor,
The reason Fidel,
“…..did not discuss were events in Cuba, where the government on Monday released and sent into exile the first of some 52 political prisoners they have promised to free in coming months.”
is because IS A OLD VIDEO!Why no real LIVE appearance? If he looks SOOO GOOD and is SOO LUCID? Is ANOTHER TRICK to keep his IMAGE ALIVE! Remember these words!
Julio 13th, 2010 at 07:54
http://www.thestar.com/news/wo.....rance?bn=1
HAVANA—A relaxed and lucid Fidel Castro returned to the limelight Monday after years spent largely out of public view, discussing world events in a raspy voice in his most prominent television interview since falling seriously ill four years ago.
The 83-year-old former president talked about how tension between the United States and both North Korea and Iran could ultimately trigger a global nuclear war, in an interview on “Mesa Redonda” — or “Round Table” — a daily Cuban talk show on current events.
The conversation ranged widely, from Pakistan’s need for energy to America’s out of control defence spending and China’s decision to lend Cuba money to buy energy efficient light bulbs.
One thing Castro did not discuss were events in Cuba, where the government on Monday released and sent into exile the first of some 52 political prisoners they have promised to free in coming months.
The interview lasted about an hour and 15 minutes — but much of that time was spent with either Castro reading essays by someone else or having his own words read back to him by presenter Randy Alonso.
The scene at a sparsely lit office at an undisclosed location was slightly surreal, even in a country that often feels stuck in a 1950s time warp. It was even unclear whether the interview was live or when it might have been taped.
At one point, Castro referred to a July 5 article as having been published six days ago, which would mean the show was taped on Sunday. Later, however, the program’s host read from an essay published Sunday evening, referring to it as having come out “last night.”
The revolutionary leader wore a dark blue track suit top over a plaid shirt as he took questions. Three academics sat silently nearby as Castro spoke, sometimes nodding in agreement.
Castro warned that an attack on Iran would be catastrophic for America.
“The worst (for America) is the resistance they will face there, which they didn’t face in Iraq,” he said.
As the interview progressed, Castro at times showed flashes of his prowess as a powerful speaker. At other points, however, he paused for lengthy periods and shuffled pages of notes he kept in front of him. Later, he listened as the host read back long tracks from essays Castro himself wrote recently.
The former Cuban leader has shunned the spotlight since undergoing emergency intestinal surgery in July 2006. The illness forced him to step down — first temporarily, and later permanently — and cede power to his younger brother Raul. His recovery has been a closely held state secret, and his health has been the subject of persistent rumours among exiles in Florida.
Castro remains head of Cuba’s Communist Party and continues to publish his thoughts on world events in opinion pieces.
While Cubans have become accustomed to reading Castro’s writings, he has stayed largely out of the public eye since ceding power, helping Raul Castro solidify his place as the country’s leader after a lifetime spent in his more famous brother’s shadow.
Monday’s highly anticipated interview was announced in a front-page story in the Communist-party daily Granma earlier in the day. Castro has appeared in videotaped interviews with Cuban television in June and September 2007, but Monday’s appearance was the most advertised and extensive.
Cuban media later showed footage of workers watching the elder Castro on large screens set up at their workplaces.
Photos of the elder Castro greeting workers at a science centre were published in pro-government blogs and on state media over the weekend, the first time he has been photographed in public since his illness.
Cubans reacted with surprise to word of Castro’s relative media blitz.
“I think it will have a positive effect on people,” 21-year-old student David Suarez told the AP. “It will give hope that once again he will help to solve our problems.”
Magaly Delgado Rojo, a 72-year-old retiree in Havana’s Playa neighbourhood, said the appearances must have been carefully thought out by Cuban leadership.
“The photos and now the ‘Round Table’ appearance are meant to send a message: ‘I am here and I am on top of everything. … I am a part of every decision that is being made,’” she said. “This is not casual at all. This is calculated.”
The two Castros have ruled Cuba since overthrowing dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959. Fidel’s health has for years been the subject of frequent rumours — particularly among exiles in Florida, and his television appearance will undoubtedly be scrutinized for signs of his aging.
The photographs of Fidel published this weekend were taken on Wednesday at a scientific think-tank in Havana. He is shown smiling and waving at workers, appearing relaxed and happy, but somewhat stooped. Granma republished the photographs on Monday under the story about his upcoming television appearance.
Cuba has occasionally released pictures showing Castro in private meetings with dignitaries, most recently during a visit in February by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. But he had not been photographed in a public setting since 2006.
Castro appeared in a 50-minute taped interview with Alonso of “Mesa Redonda” in June 2007 to discuss Vietnam and other topics. He also appeared on Cuban television for an hourlong interview in September of that year, knocking down a slew of rumours of his death.
A month later, he phoned in to a live broadcast featuring Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a close Castro ally who was visiting Cuba. Castro sounded healthy and in good humour, but he was not seen.
Julio 13th, 2010 at 05:06
Pedro is a simple man, he stands w/faith & hope; no tags, no ideologies, no labels, he stands as a human being, for dignity & freedom.
These two things the rebolution can’t control &cannot defeat … not for lack of trying, just: faith & hope.
Neither needs to be supported by long florid speeches, slogans or party lines … Faith & hope ARE our human nature, they make us unique.
Just faith & hope for the future, no rethoric, no fateful battles, no dramatic stands, just faith & hope transforming our world sometimes by a single gesture.
It is not ego, is simply something that has to be done, and man do.
Sometimes change comes from humble simple beginings … it is so, history is full of these beginings …
Julio 13th, 2010 at 03:43
The dissidents can regain control of the situation if they don’t accept the immoral condition of being deported in order to be release from prison. Obviously Raul Castro plan to release the political prisoners, is to free himself from them through force deportation.
Seven Prisoners Refuse Forced Deportation
http://www.capitolhillcubans.c.....ation.html
at 6:17 PM Sunday, July 11, 2010
Havana-based blogger Claudia Cadelo has reported, via Twitter, that three of the 52 Cuban political prisoners that the regime has “agreed” to release in the coming months have expressed that they will not leave prison, if they are to be forcibly deported to Spain.
The three prisoners — Pedro Arguelles Moran, Eduardo Diaz Fleitas and Regis Iglesias Ramirez — are demanding that their release be unconditional.
UPDATE: Laura Pollán, leader of the Ladies in White, told the BBC that four more prisoners have refused to leave the island, including Jesús Mustafá Felipe, Oscar Elías Biscet, José Daniel Ferrer and Arnaldo Ramos Lauzerique.
Julio 13th, 2010 at 03:15
YOANI SANCHEZ WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoani_S%C3%A1nchez
2008 - Ortega y Gasset Prize for Journalism
2008 - “100 Most Influential People in the World” - Time magazine[67]
2008 - “100 most notable Hispanoamericans” - El País newspaper[70]
2008 - “10 most influential people of 2008″ - Gatopardo Magazine[71]
2008 - “10 Most Influential Latin American Intellectuals” of the year - Foreign Policy magazine[68]
2009 - “25 Best Blogs of 2009″ - Time magazine[72]
2009 - “Young Global Leader Honoree” - World Economic Forum[73][74]
2009 - Maria Moors Cabot prize - Columbia University Prize[75]
2010- Pefil Prize (Argentina) for for International Liberty of Expression
YOANI IS NOT A JOURNALIST RODOLFO?
Julio 13th, 2010 at 02:53
I’d be so out of there. What a huge ego. He thinks he can do something from the inside. What an imbisile! He thinks he’s Jesus dying for everyone’s sins? What journalism are they talking about? What newspapers are there? Certainly not an international press. Yoani is hardly a journalist. She must be getting paid well to not be starving and writing a blog and visiting prisoners. Maybe that’s the new way to survive in Cuba, become a journalist againts the government and get paid by whatever organization is paying Yoani. I am not a supporter of Castro, but I am not a supporter of Yoani’s either. I hope for an end to the embargo, but not an end to socialism. And for those who don’t understand, that doesn’t meat communism. Because that is indeed dead. But socialism is a good economic principle. The state can still invest in profitable ventures while still providing the social safety nets needed by the populace. The failure for the Cuban government is a lack of resources. They have not enough viable resources or come up with alternative methods to aid the economy. The leadership needs to move aside and let new blood into the mix. But socialism should be at the forefront, regardless of who leads.
Julio 12th, 2010 at 23:01
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