Beans, ah, the beans!

Beans, ah, the beans! / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez
Posted on December 31, 2015

14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, 31 December 2015 – Tiny and
tasty, they seem to look at us from the plate and mock the work it takes
to get them. Beans are not only a part of our traditional cuisine, they
constitute an effective indicator to calculate the cost of living in
Cuba. The price increases these delicious little bits have experienced
in the past year is proof of the disastrous economic policy promoted by
Raul Castro.

When, in February of 2008, the former Minister of the Armed Forces
assumed the presidency of the country, many were betting on the
pragmatic character of his mandate. His sympathizers never stopped
reminding us of the phrase in which he asserted, "Beans are more
important than canons." They predicted that our national agriculture
would work like certain farms managed by the Ministry of the Armed
Forces and the Youth Labor Army.

Hopes that overlooked José Martí's accurate maxim, "A nation is not
founded like a military camp is commanded." The behavior of a soldier in
the trenches can never be equated with a farmer's day, and an officer's
command to bend one's back over the earth has nothing in common with the
efforts of a peasant to hire someone to bring in his harvest.

The harangues against the invasive marabou weed, launched by Raul Castro
in his first years as president, fueled expectations, as did his call to
put a glass of milk on every Cuban's breakfast table. The Raulistas
discerned in those statements the soaring of food production and the
bringing down to earth of prices, to be consistent with wages. But
neither occurred.

Instead, in recent months consumers have suffered a significant increase
in the cost of agricultural products. If the year started with a pound
of black beans costing between 12 and 15 Cuban pesos, at the close of
December the price varied between 15 and 20 pesos – the wages of an
entire working day – reaching the staggering price of 30 pesos in the
case of garbanzo beans.

Meanwhile, the average monthly wages in the country only grew from 581
to 640 Cuban pesos (roughly $25 US), a symbolic increase which,
expressed in a worker's purchasing power, equals about three more pounds
of beans a month. The results Raul Castro has achieved with his
much-vaunted methods are not far removed from the little his brother
Fidel Castro achieved with his grandiose agricultural and livestock
projects.

The usufruct leasing of land to farmers ran up against the bureaucracy,
excessive controls and the poor state of the leased land. El Trigal, the
experimental wholesale market, is a sequence of empty stalls, petulant
bananas and high prices. In reality, it is easier to find an apple
brought from thousands of miles away than an orange or chiromoya planted
in our own fields. For the coming year, the country will spend 1.94
billion dollars on food imports, and nobody even talks about the battle
against the invasive marabou weed any more.

"I have to earn my beans," says a teacher, as he justifies dedicating
his workday to cooking pork, along with a portion of"Moors and
Christians"– as we call black beans and rice – that he sells illegally
to the workers at a hospital. Because yes, our lives revolve, rise and
fall around those delicious little bits that we long to put on our
plates. Expensive and tasty, they are the best indicator of the
General's failure.

Source: Beans, ah, the beans! / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez | Translating
Cuba - http://translatingcuba.com/beans-ah-the-beans-14ymedio-yoani-sanchez/

Cuba - Downhill in 2015

Cuba: Downhill in 2015 / Miriam Leiva
Posted on December 31, 2015

Cubanet, Miriam Leiva, Havana, 29 December 2015 — Cubans greeted 2015
with joy and great expectations, but they are saying goodbye to it sadly
and without hope.

Cuban officials will not be able to blame the United States government
for the current crisis and the coming catastrophe that popular wisdom
senses is coming. Throughout the whole year many people of all ages were
heard to say, "Don't tell me that the fault lies with the Americans," as
well as, "the [Cuban] government does not create openings for Obama's
measures to benefit us."

Two news items have depressed the people even more: the Venezuelan
election results, and the announced supposed growth of 4% in Cuba's GDP.
The first is because Cubans sense the imminent repeat of the blackouts
and shortages of the 1990s,* and the second because daily life
conditions put the lie to this statistic. The majority of the population
has shown indifference toward Chavismo, but they fear that without
Venezuela's economic support, calamities will befall Cuba. Meanwhile,
the Cuban government has been seen to be squandering the foreign
investment interest that had gained momentum from the new possibilities
arising out of the Cuba/US thaw.

Only the top brass within their own environment, and a small number of
successful Cubans, were able to prepare holiday feasts with the
traditional foods, drinks and ornaments of the season, throwing
perhaps-lavish parties with gifts from Santa Claus or the Three Wise Men.

A 96-year-old woman, still a militant member of the Cuban Communist
Party, recounted that she receives a monthly pension of 270 Cuban pesos
(CUPs)–the equivalent of about US$10. Out of this she pays 57 CUPs
towards the financing of her refrigerator, which the government sold to
her on credit years ago. A professor for decades and a participant in
all the projects of the Revolution, this lady was convinced that Cuba
would achieve prosperity. Now she has no money to buy the needed
ingredients for a holiday dinner, and even less for a New Year's
celebration. Sometimes her relatives abroad send her remittances, and
her grandchildren help her out so that she can eat.

The Catholic churches were filled for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.
After a 40-year ban on religion, open evangelization began, thanks to
the visits by the three Popes (John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis)
and the rapprochement of Fidel and Raúl Castro, garnering international
recognition and support for restoring the ethical and moral values
destroyed by them. During the homily at the church I attended, the
priest explained the significance of the date and mentioned the great
adversities that Cubans endure daily, in an effort to fill the
congregants with the strength to face them.

In 2015, the population suffered increased prices for agricultural
products, brought about by continued low productivity. The government
announced that pork, a traditional part of the Christmas Eve meal, would
be sold at low prices. Even so, quantity and quality were scarce, which
drove the price up to 50 CUPs (about $US 2.00) per pound on the free
market, while the average monthly salary is the equivalent of some $25.00.

The shortages affected even the pricey hard-currency stores. All year
long, essential medications were unavailable, among them drugs for
diabetes, heart problems, and blood pressure, because those are produced
abroad were not imported on time, and nor were the raw materials for
producing them domestically. Aspirin has been rigorously rationed in
Cuba for years. These products were not available, either, in the
hard-currency pharmacies.

Regardless, the government produced its modern version of the Roman
circus, announcing with great fanfare a supposed opening: WiFi. The new
way of deceiving the world and lessening social pressure was to enable
precarious connectivity within 50 zones scattered throughout the
country, where people of all ages, with great emotion, have been able to
see and talk with their relatives and friends in Miami and other points
around the globe. For the first time, crowds were allowed to gather on
the sidewalks, in the parks, and at the fronts of
hotels—well-supervised, of course. In addition, much hard currency was
collected. Labeled a great accomplishment of the Cuban Internet, ETECSA
announced that new WiFi zones will be activated in 2016—although private
homes will remain unconnected.

President Raúl Castro, likely having been informed of popular
discontent, declared in the Council of Ministers on 18 December that
problems must be addressed, wherever they may be. "We must go where the
problems are, we must talk with the people affected, we cannot leave the
field open to defeatism," he said, according to media reports.

More than ever, Cubans are watching freedom and progress in the US,
while the Cuban government foments a migration crisis in Central
America, taking advantage of the intention of some US legislators to
modify policies regarding Cuban migration. Meanwhile, exit visas for
Cuban doctors are again restricted, changes are not being implemented
that would stimulate industrial and agricultural productivity; approved
categories of self-employment are not expanded to include creative work
and to compensate it well, it being a source of enrichment for all of
society; we have yet to see the multi-million-dollar foreign investments
that were predicted; the American president's measures are blocked,
beneficial as they would be for the average Cuban; and repression continues.

At the same time, the government ramped up its "ideological work" and
propaganda to counteract the spontaneous displays of the Stars and
Stripes that can be seen everywhere. Nevertheless, if Barack Obama were
to not modify the existing migration policies, and were he able to
ensure that his measures reached the people, he would be received with a
jubilation never before shown to any visitor to Cuba, and he could
increase the people's empowerment.

*Translator's Note: Leiva is referring here to Cuba's so-called Special
Period in the 1990s, a time of acute hardship in Cuba following the
collapse of the Soviet Union.

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

Source: Cuba: Downhill in 2015 / Miriam Leiva | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cuba-downhill-in-2015-miriam-leiva/

Cuban Faces of 2015: Danilo Maldonado, ‘El Sexto’, Graffiti Artist

Cuban Faces of 2015: Danilo Maldonado, 'El Sexto', Graffiti Artist /
14ymedio
Posted on December 31, 2015

14ymedio, Havana, 29 December 2015 — Irreverent and daring, the graffiti
artist Danilo Maldonado, known as El Sexto (The Sixth)—in a satirical
reference to the 'Five Heroes'—organized a performance for Christmas
2014 under the title Animal Farm. In Havana's Central Park the artist
intended to release two pigs on which he had painted the names Fidel and
Raul, but he was never able to carry out the action because he was
arrested on the way there and imprisoned.

During the time he spent in prison, El Sexto managed to send out
drawings and letters that visually narrated the rigors of incarceration
and in which he ratified his decision to continue making rebellious art.
A hunger strike, through which he demanded to be released, led him to
the brink of losing his life and made his cause even more visible.
Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience.

In mid-April of this year, 2015, this restless creator born in 1983
received the Vaclav Havel Award for Creative Dissent, in the midst of an
intense international campaign demanding his immediate release which
played out on the social networks with the hashtag #FreeElSexto.

In October of this year, El Sexto was released without ever having been
brought to trial, and is now on an international tour.

Source: Cuban Faces of 2015: Danilo Maldonado, 'El Sexto', Graffiti
Artist / 14ymedio | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cuban-faces-of-2015-danilo-maldonado-el-sexto-graffiti-artist-14ymedio/

Havana’s “Little Hotel” For Parlementarians

Havana's "Little Hotel" For Parlementarians / 14ymedio
Posted on December 31, 2015

14ymedio, Havana, 30 December 2015 — Constructed at the beginning of
this century and known as the Tulip Hotel, it was intended initially to
house patients coming to Cuba under "Operation Miracle," to undergo
medical treatments and surgery. As the number of people coming to the
island for these services declined, the place was left empty.

Now, the property has had to open its hundreds of rooms to the tourist
market – with little success, given the ugliness of its architecture and
its distance from the historic district – and so it has been converted
into place that houses athletes, delegates to numerous congresses, and
deputies to the National Assembly of People's Power during their
meetings at the Place of Conventions in Havana.

This week "the little hotel," as it is known in the Nuevo Vedado
neighborhood where it is nestled, was closed to public access, and not
even pedestrians were allowed to pass along the street in front of the
facade. Meanwhile, its interior welcomes the 612 deputies participating
in the National Assembly's last session of the year.

Source: Havana's "Little Hotel" For Parlementarians / 14ymedio |
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/havanas-little-hotel-for-parlementarians-14ymedio/

Media Campaign Aims to Discredit Rodiles

Media Campaign Aims to Discredit Rodiles / Angel Santiesteban
Posted on December 29, 2015

Angel Santiesteban Prats, 26 December 2015 — State Security is using all
the tools in its arsenal to denigrate Cuban dissident Antonio Rodiles,
who is currently the most uncomfortable thorn in the side of the regime,
in the court of national and international public opinion.

Rodiles is one of three organizers of the Forum for Rights and
Liberties. In conjunction with the Ladies in White and other human
rights organizations, the group promotes peaceful Sunday marches —
demonstrations which have been causing great harm to the regime — under
the hashtag #TodosMarchamos.

Following mass at St. Rita Church, the group meets — as coincidence
would have it — at Gandhi Park, and walks in a peaceful weekly
procession along 26th Street to Third Avenue. They do this knowing that
what awaits them, Sunday after Sunday, is one of those operations
mounted by the repressive forces of the Castro clan to which we have
become so accustomed. Fortunately, however, images of every repressive
attack are recorded, leaving no doubt as to what is really going on.

The reaction by the regime is clear evidence that Rodiles is hitting
them where they are most vulnerable: the nerve center from which they
have zealously maintained, for more than half a century in power, social
discipline. As usual, they have used nastiness, lies and posturing in an
attempt to strip him of his personal attributes, actions which have
caused outrage because of the cowardice which they have been concocted.

This is a well-known tactic, one that has been used many times before on
other opposition figures. The macabre plan is to first tarnish his image
and, once they have sown doubt about him in the public's mind, to then
imprison him, because putting Rodiles behind bars is a longstanding
dream the political police will always fight to achieve.

This smear campaign recently began after Rodiles returned from the
United States, where he was invited to speak at a congressional debate
in Washington on the topic of Cuba. He later met with prominent
Cuban-American congressional representatives, who are calling on the
government of Raul Castro to respect freedom and human rights on the
island as a prerequisite for progress in restoring diplomatic relations.
It is worth remembering that, upon returning home from his first such
visit last year, Rodiles' organization was the object of a cyber attack,
albeit a relatively minor one.

Those maneuvering to sully human rights activists are working hard to
dismantle the Forum for Rights and Freedoms. To do this, they need to
get Rodiles out of the way, dismember the Ladies in White organization
and remove the obstacles blocking their path to remaining in power, as
they have done for nearly six decades.

If the Castro dictatorship reacts this way to someone like Antonio
Rodiles, clearly it must be because he is doing something right.
Persecuting him is payback for his political activism, for his constant
defiance of the injustices that the regime perpetrates against those who
oppose its plans.

Neither the defamations aimed at vilifying him — in essence, because of
his pride — nor the entire army of followers that the terrorist state
uses to harass him will be enough. Nor will plotting to achieve spurious
benefits succeed in changing our standards or our ideas. On the
contrary, this shameful strategy convinces us even more of the need for
a clean and democratic government.

Angel Santiesteban-Prats

Havana, December 2015, "free" on parole.

Source: Media Campaign Aims to Discredit Rodiles / Angel Santiesteban |
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/media-campaign-aims-to-discredit-rodiles-angel-santiesteban/

Cuban Faces of 2015 - Dionisio Guillermo García Ibáñez, Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba

Cuban Faces of 2015: Dionisio Guillermo García Ibáñez, Archbishop of
Santiago de Cuba / 14ymedio
Posted on December 30, 2015

14ymedio, Havana, 29 December 2015 — He was working as an electrical
engineer specializing in telecommunications when, in 1980, he decided to
assume the habit. Dionisio Guillermo García Ibáñez was born in 1945, and
as a deacon did his first outstanding work alongside Father Jose Conrado
Rodriguez in the preparations for the Cuban Ecclesial Reflection, which
concluded in 1985, when he was ordained as a priest. Eleven years later
he would be consecrated as a bishop.

The current Archbishop Primate of the Archdiocese of Santiago de Cuba
and President of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba is also the
custodian of the image of the Virgin of Charity venerated in the Shrine
of Cobre. During this year, and with the presence of Pope Francis in
Cuba, he announced the jubilee year that will end in September 2016, to
mark the centenary of the declaration of the Virgin as patroness of Cuba.

Those skilled in ecclesiastical intricacies consider him a likely
successor to Cardinal Jaime Ortega y Alamino as Archbishop of Havana,
which could happen around next Easter.

Source: Cuban Faces of 2015: Dionisio Guillermo García Ibáñez,
Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba / 14ymedio | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cuban-faces-of-2015-dionisio-guillermo-garcia-ibanez-archbishop-of-santiago-de-cuba-14ymedio/

New Year’s Eve Fatalities

New Year's Eve Fatalities / Rebeca Monzo
Posted on December 30, 2015

Rebeca Monzo, 29 December 2015 — We are now almost at the end 2015 and
outside one can detect a distinctive feeling of sadness. People wander
the streets, going from poorly stocked farmers markets to stores in
their daily search for food. If they cross your path and you wish them a
"Merry Christmas," not only do they not return the greeting, they look
at you stunned, as though you were an extra-terrestrial.

Very few hard currency stores are decorated with lights or Christmas
trees. The others — the ones that price goods in the misnamed Cuban
peso, a currency that is almost worthless but the one in which salaries
and pensions are paid — do not even carry normal every-day light bulbs.
Their shelves are either unabashedly empty or are filled with the same
product. Their display windows are broken and grime covers the floors
and glass.

There is no media coverage of traditional celebrations, only stories
about the latest anniversary of the triumph of a revolution, which from
the beginning was already showing signs of what it would ultimately
become: a complete failure.

Never has the Cuban family been so divided and dispersed as it is now.
Christmas Eve passed without notice. The streets were as deserted and
dark as usual, and there were none of those enticing aromas of
yesteryear wafting from neighborhood kitchens that gave hints of a
pleasant meal to come.

If this is the socialism the government says it wants to "perfect," may
God help us!

Source: New Year's Eve Fatalities / Rebeca Monzo | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/new-years-eve-fatalities-rebeca-monzo/