Ileana de la Guardia"Castro Executed My Father Because of Rivalry"

Ileana de la Guardia: "Castro Executed My Father Because of Rivalry" /
Juan Juan Almeida

Juan Juan Almeida, 16 December 2016 — Twenty-seven years after Cause
Number 1, the judicial proceedings that resulted in the deaths by firing
squad and arrests of several high officials of the Cuban army and secret
services, Ileana de la Guardia–daughter of the then-colonel of State
Security of the Havana regime–believes that the decision to execute her
father was made by the Cuban dictator to teach a lesson.

According to De La Guardia, who lives under asylum in France, Castro did
not accept the critiques that her father and others, such as the general
Arnaldo Ochoa–also executed–made regarding the need for changes in the
country. She affirmed that the deaths of her father, Ochoa, and two
other officials served as a way to cast the blame on them for the charge
by United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) that Cuba was involved in
international drug trafficking.

Until the time of your father's trial, who was Ileana de la Guardia, how
did you learn of the trial, how did you experience it?

At that time I was living in Cuba, had finished my university studies,
and was a psychologist. I learned of the seizures of my father and my
uncle, Patricio de la Guardia, on the same day. We did not know where
they were nor what the charges were. Eventually, we learned that they
were being held at Villa Marista [Central Offices of Cuban State
Security], and we went there. Upon arriving we were told that they were
being detained, that they were not arrested, that we had to leave, and
that nobody could tell us what the charges were. This is how justice
works in Cuba–"justice" in quotation marks, that is, because it is not
justice.

A week went by, and I was given the authorization to see my father. I
asked him if he knew what he was being accused of and he told me no. I
also asked him if he would be tried, and he said he didn't know. That
same day in the evening, when I arrived at my grandparents' house, I
learned from a phone call that I was required to appear in the
auditorium of the Armed Forces (FAR) the next day because that was where
the hearing would take place.

Imagine receiving this news without them having the right to have their
lawyers present. The lawyers who were there were "public" defenders. The
one assigned to my father told me that he was ashamed to represent him.
The one for Patricio told us that he had not had time to read the file
and did not really know how to defend "that gentleman."

That was when we knew that they were all lawyers with the Ministry of
the Interior (MININT). Before starting the proceedings, before trying
them, Granma newspaper ran headlines announcing the death penalty. The
front page said, "we will cleanse with blood this offense to the
fatherland." It was clear that the decision to execute them had already
been made.

The trial was a kind of circus in which all were accused or accused
themselves. Later we learned that they had been blackmailed, that they
had to incriminate themselves to escape the death penalty–and to protect
their families–there was a lot of blackmail with regard to the families.
Thus the trial went until the end.

Our family wanted to appeal, but we were denied. Later, the Council of
State, fully and unanimously, came down in favor of execution. They were
executed exactly one month after being arrested: General Arnaldo Ochoa;
Martínez, the assistant; my father, Colonel Antonio de la Guardia; and
his assistant, Amado Padrón.

The memory of that trial brings back images of confusion and much
division within the high military command. How do you remember it, and
what were the repercussions for you, your family?

The consequence for our family was being watched all the time. There
were always cars parked near where we lived, and when we went out, these
cars would follow us with officials inside them who would watch us.
There were also cameras filming us from the houses across the street
from ours.

Your father, as well as Patricio (the brother of your father, Antonio de
la Guardia), and General Arnaldo Ochoa were well-known and admired men.
Throughout that trial, what happened with their friends?

I could not say that all the friends stopped seeing us; I believe some
people were afraid, others were not. I maintained relationships with
many people who continued coming to see us. I know that many people were
let go from the MININT, many officials, a high percentage. That ministry
was taken over by Abelardo Colomé Ibarra, who up until that moment was
in the FAR. There was a takeover of the Interior Ministry by military
officials.

What information do you have about the real reason that your father and
the other defendants in Cause Number 1 of 1989 were executed?

From the beginning, I knew immediately that the charges against Ochoa
and Patricio, who were in Africa, were trumped up. All of them were
charged with drug trafficking, which made no sense. If they were working
in Africa throughout so many years, directing the Cuban troops in
Africa, how were they going to be accused of something that they
couldn't control? If drug trafficking was going on, and the ships were
docking in Cuba, it was happening while these men were in Africa.

Later we realized that Raúl Castro, in a speech to the armed forces that
was broadcast on television, had said, "those officials who are
criticizing, let them go to Eastern Europe," and then, "down with Ochoa."

Then, connecting the dots, we realized that Ochoa and the group of
officials around him criticized Fidel Castro and the regime a great deal
because of the need for changes. This reached the ears of Fidel
and Raúl because Ochoa had made sure to make it public, within the army
and in family gatherings–besides telling them directly.

This is the fundamental reason why Fidel decided to eliminate these
officials: because of the political aspect.

Meanwhile, the DEA was accusing Cuba of involvement in drug trafficking
to the United States, and Castro found the perfect excuse to eliminate
these military men while at the same time eliminate the DEA's accusation
of the Cuban government.

Prior to these events, what would you hear your father say about Fidel
Castro?

As of 1986 or 87, there were very critical articles starting to appear
in the press in Cuba, in the [Spanish-language Soviet] magazines Sputnik
and Novedades de Moscú, which spoke of glasnost and about how Gorbachev
was trying to make rapid changes.

People read these publications and these topics were discussed a great
deal in my father's house, we would speak of it on the patio. They
thought the place might be bugged but they didn't care.

The fact of being at a high level of command and knowing that the
Soviets were already changing the system made them think that Fidel
Castro would accept this. They thought that he couldn't be so crazy as
to oppose the changes. "He has to realize that this doesn't work
anymore, people must be given freedoms to express themselves, to travel,
to have human rights"–they talked about all of this.

When I left Cuba–first to Mexico and later to Spain–it was very
difficult to talk about this because we were still undocumented, we had
no residency anywhere, no political asylum. It was in France, where we
received support, including political asylum, where I decided to speak
publicly. Articles started to come out, journalists started to
investigate, and other facts emerged. We learned that there are
officials in Russia who say that Ochoa met in private with Gorbachev in
Cuba. Ochoa spoke Russian, there was nobody else present, Gorbachev
wanted to speak only with Ochoa. Fidel could not stand this.

Ochoa never kept quiet about anything. One day, right in front of me at
Patricio's house, he said, "This has to change, it cannot go on this
way, that man is insane, what are we going to do with the crazy man."

In Cuba, it was always said that the writer Gabriel García Márquez,
winner of the Nobel Prize in literature and personal friend of Fidel
Castro, tried to intercede so that they would not execute your father
and Arnaldo Ochoa. Is this true?

What I know for sure, because my husband Jorge Masetti and I went to see
him, is that we took García Márquez a letter from my grandmother, asking
him to intervene so that these officials, including my father, would not
be put to death.

He told us, "I will do everything possible, I believe that this is not a
good idea, and I have tried to get across to Fidel Castro that it is not
a good idea for him personally." But I never had proof that he did this.

After the execution, did you ever see García Márquez again? Did he tell
you anything about this matter?

No, never again. I was now the daughter of a traitor. García Márquez was
a powerful man, friend to powerful men. After being executed, my father
was no longer a powerful man, he was a victim.

Did you have the chance to speak with your father after the sentence and
before the execution?

Yes, before the trial, then during the trial I had a visit, during which
he gave me to understand that they asked him to take responsibility and
then they would not execute him, but that there was blackmail regarding
the family and also with his life, and if he did not say that
[incriminate himself], they would execute him.

And they did execute him. During the visit prior to the execution, which
was very personal, he said, "things are going to get bad, but very bad,
in this country." Later came the "Special Period [grave economic
crisis]." He knew what was awaiting Cuba.

Have you had any further news of your uncle Patricio, where he's living?
Does the government provide him with any retirement pension?

I cannot speak about this very much because it is a bit sensitive. What
I can say is that he paints, because they [Antonio and Patricio de la
Guardia] were painters before being military men, and they studied at an
art school in the United States. He paints very well. He lives in the
family home, it is not a house given to him by the Cuban state. Our
family had properties before 1959. I don't speak much about him these
days, because if I say where he is or if I say too much, they will throw
him in jail again.

Do you have contact with the family of General Ochoa or any of the other
executed officers?

No, none.

In 2006, because of illness, Fidel Castro gave over the command of the
country to his brother, Raúl. The day after this announcement, I entered
the cafeteria of the Karl Marx Theater in Havana, ran into one of the
daughters of General Ochoa, and she told me, "I don't want him to die, I
want Fidel to suffer at least the half of what my family has suffered."
What did you feel at that time, when you heard this announcement, and
what was your reaction when you found out that Fidel Castro had died?

At first, I didn't believe it. When they called me from the US and my
husband answered the telephone, I said to him, "He died again? I want to
continue sleeping, leave me in peace." Later when I got up and realized
that it was true, it was like a sense of relief.

My husband asked me, what do you feel? I told him an enormous relief.
The matter is that for me, it's as if I had died spiritually. Besides, I
already knew that he was ill and that he had lost his senses somewhat,
given the things he would say. For me, he was like a shadow, a ghost.
But that sense of relief was also because that symbol of the repression
is no more, he doesn't exist.

Does the death of Fidel Castro modify or change what 13 July 1989, means
to you and your family?

To a certain point, I will tell you that for me, it is a relief that the
one responsible, who decided the death of my father, has died, and in a
certain way it gives me joy, I must admit. I cannot say that the death
of him who ordered my father to be executed makes me sad, that would be
absurd. That would be hypocrisy.

What does Raúl Castro mean to you?

For me, Raúl Castro represents the continuation of the system, with
certain attributes different from those of his brother. They are two
different people and have different command styles. The two have that
ideologically dogmatic aspect, but perhaps Raúl is a bit more pragmatic,
thus the changes that have been made on the economic level.

This is why I have been in favor of Obama's visit, the opening of
tourism, and of certain exchanges because it is the Cuban people who
will benefit from this. Unfortunately, the regime takes advantage of
this situation, but so does the average Cuban, those who have been able
to start a business derive benefit and thus are able to help their
families and other Cubans. And it is better than nothing, the problem is
that it is not enough.

The country will not change until there are real political changes.

After the execution of your father, have you talked with or run into any
of the children of Fidel or Raúl? If this were to happen, what would you
say to them?

No, never, no. I didn't know them. I never went anyplace where the
children of Fidel Castro might be. I did meet two of Raúl's daughters,
but they were not friends of mine, we ran into each other somewhere.
Mariela also studied psychology, so one time we coincided in some place.

How do you see Cuba's immediate future?

In the short run, as things are now, the growth of tourism and Cubans
surviving. This is what for now the government wants so as to not have
social conflicts with the people because of the difficult economic
situation.

At the political level, they are demonstrating that if they have to
repress people for taking to the streets, for writing certain things in
the blogs, they will do so. They will try to maintain control that way.
We will have to wait and see if they realize that a country cannot
develop without liberty.

Your family, like many others, is scattered around the world. Do you
think that you will ever reunite again in Cuba?

I don't know, the truth is that this is very difficult to answer. Seeing
how things are, knowing that Raúl Castro has placed his children and
relatives into the most important sectors of the country, taking control
of the country with a view towards the future. Truly, I cannot give you
a yes or no answer if I do not know what will happen. It would have to
be a situation that would allow the return to a place with certain
guarantees of justice and legality.

Would you delay, then, being able to give your uncle Patricio a hug?

For now, it will be delayed, if they don't make changes and accept that
one can go there having different opinions, which I have stated publicly
outside. I don't believe that I can go."

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

Source: Ileana de la Guardia: "Castro Executed My Father Because of
Rivalry" / Juan Juan Almeida – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/ileana-de-la-guardia-castro-executed-my-father-because-of-rivalry-juan-juan-almeida/

AP's regional offices return to Cuba

AP's regional offices return to Cuba
BY JOE UCHILL - 12/26/16 03:30 PM EST

The Associated Press is returning its Caribbean base of operations to Cuba.

Cuba, the largest country in the Caribbean, housed the news service's
central offices for the region until 1961. The AP was forced to leave
after the botched Bay of Pigs invasion. It reopened a Cuba office in 1999.

The move comes as multiple major news stories play out on the island.
Cuba is still adjusting to slightly thawed relations with the United
States and still reeling from the death of Fidel Castro.
The AP announced the change Monday in a news story that also named
Michael Weissenstein the editor of the newly re-situated bureau.

"Mike is an excellent journalist and wordsmith who has shepherded our
coverage of Cuba through the island's 2014 rapprochement with the United
States to the death of Fidel Castro last month," the story quoted Paul
Haven, news director for Latin America and the Caribbean as saying. "I'm
thrilled that he will be expanding his reach to the rest of the Caribbean."

Source: AP's regional offices return to Cuba | TheHill -
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/311841-ap-returns-caribbean-regional-offices-to-cuba

Trump Could Ice Thawing U.S. Relations with Cuba

Trump Could Ice Thawing U.S. Relations with Cuba
By Marissa Piazzola Published December 27, 2016 Cuba FOX Business

The United States' relationship with Cuba has thawed over the last two
years, thanks in part to a December 2014 agreement between President
Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro to end a decades-long
period of policy isolation. In the years since, major corporations have
signed deals to do business with the Caribbean island and optimism about
the future of the former enemies has grown among citizens of the two
countries.

With President-elect Donald Trump set to take office on January 20,
though, many wonder whether the warming U.S.-Cuba relationship will
begin to again freeze.

"We believe [Trump] will reverse almost all the things that President
Obama did," said Horatio Ortiz, managing director of Classified
Worldwide Consulting, a frontier market intelligence and security firm.

Trump warned back in September at a Florida campaign event that U.S.
policies toward Cuba could change if he were elected President, calling
the agreement one-sided and benefitting the "Castro regime."

"All of the concessions that Barack Obama has granted the Castro Regime
were done through executive order, which means the next president can
reverse them – and that is what I will do, unless the Castro Regime
meets our demands. Those demands will include religious and political
freedom for the Cuban people," Trump said.

More recently, Trump again warned about potentially cutting ties with
Cuba on Twitter (TWTR) and in a formal statement following former Cuban
President Fidel Castro's death last month.

It's true that little has been achieved by the Obama administration in
the way of dismantling Cuba's single-party political system or improving
human rights. The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National
Reconciliation Opens a New Window. (CCDHRN) has documented 9,484
political arrests in Cuba through the end of November 2016, up from
8,616 for all of 2015. What's more, the totalitarian reins may very well
tighten once Trump takes office.

"The hardline Communists in Cuba will use this Trump presidency as a new
call to arms against the imperialistic/capitalistic America," said Ross
Thompson, Ortiz's colleague and fellow managing director at Classified
Worldwide Consulting.

"They lost Fidel and that was a very big blow as far as their image…they
need to kind of drum up some fervor and we see the target of that being
anti-Trump kind of like it was pro-Fidel."

Industries That Stand to Lose

The tourism industry has been at the forefront of U.S. business in Cuba
following the 2014 agreement. Though Americans are still unable to visit
Cuba purely for tourism purposes due to a longstanding embargo, it's
much easier to get to the Caribbean island than it once was thanks to
multimillion-dollar agreements between major U.S. corporations and the
Cuban government.

Ten U.S. airlines regularly fly commercial flights to Cuba including
American (AAL), JetBlue (JBLU) and Southwest (LUV). Several cruise lines
including Carnival (CCL), Royal Caribbean (RCL) and Norwegian (NCLH)
have also received approval to sail to Havana, while Starwood Hotels &
Resorts (HOT) signed a deal to manage three hotels in the Cuban capital.

Meanwhile telecommunications companies including AT&T (T), Verizon (VZ)
Sprint (S) and T-Mobile (PCS) reached agreements with the Cuban
government to offer roaming service to U.S. travelers.

Tech corporations, too, made headlines recently with their own
initiatives to enter the Cuban market. Alphabet's Google (GOOGL) signed
a deal with Cuba's state telecom company to install computer servers on
the island, thereby improving Internet service for the Cuban people.
General Electric (GE) is hoping to reach an agreement soon to be able to
sell power, aviation and medical equipment to the Cuban government.

In theory, U.S. investment in Cuba by all these names and others could
be rolled back under a President Trump, though experts note it would not
happen overnight.

"It's not like one fell swoop, it's something that requires this
collaborative process among U.S. agencies, but in theory the authority
is there. Just like President Obama had the authority to do this,
[Trump] has the authority to undo it," said Pedro A. Freyre,
international practice chair at law firm Akerman LLP.

Freyre, who was born in Havana but came to the U.S. with his family in
1960, says there are other industries in which the president-elect would
have a tougher time imposing any sort of regulations.

"What he could not undo is the framework for sales of agricultural and
pharmaceutical commodities because of a carve out from the embargo. It's
not regulation, it's law…those sales throughout the years have been in
the range of hundreds of millions of dollars, which is not an
insignificant amount in the context of Cuba," he said.

According to a 2015 U.S. Department of Agriculture report Opens a New
Window. , U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba totaled $300 million in
2014. With seven out of the top 10 agricultural states having voted for
Donald Trump, Freyre says their investment in Cuba will likely be
something the new administration takes into consideration.

Another factor to consider is how Cuban-Americans feel about expanding
relations with Cuba. According to a 2016 poll conducted by Florida
International University Opens a New Window. , 63% of Cuban-American
residents in Miami-Dade County, Florida oppose the continuing embargo.

"I think that there is a very broad consensus with Cuban-Americans that
we all want to see a free and prosperous Cuba…where people can speak
their minds and where people can have their own business and where Cuba
moves up," said Freyre, who believes it will be difficult for Trump to
achieve success with Cuba through harsh measures.

Source: Trump Could Ice Thawing U.S. Relations with Cuba | Fox Business
-
http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/12/27/trump-could-ice-thawing-u-s-relations-with-cuba.html

Cuba faces deep financial woes

Cuba faces deep financial woes
Tourism increase is great hope in 2017.

HAVANA (AP) — Alex Romero was delighted when President Barack Obama came
to Havana in March bearing the promise of a bright new future.

Like so many other Cubans, the 42-year-old state photography shop
employee was thrilled with the president's vision of restored ties
between the United States and Cuba. Families would reunite. A flood of
American business would lift the stagnant centrally planned economy,
fueling its slow path toward reform. Even as Obama spoke, an 80 percent
surge in U.S. visitors was drenching state-run and private businesses
with hundreds of millions of desperately needed dollars.

Nine months later, the world seen from Havana looks different.

President Raul Castro faces what could be his toughest year since he
took power in 2006. 2017 brings a possible economic recession and a U.S.
president-elect who promises to undo Obama's normalization unless the
Cuban government makes concessions on civil rights. Resistance to
pressure from Washington is a founding principle for the Cuban communist
system, making domestic concessions in exchange for continued detente a
virtual impossibility.

"People expected that after Obama came there would be changes in the
relationship between the U.S. and Cuba but that we could keep the best
of what we have, the benefits for the people," Romero said. "Trump's not
going to be able to get what he wants, another type of Cuba. If the
world's number one power takes us on, 2017 is going to be really bad for
us."

Castro must manage these twin economic and diplomatic challenges during
a year of transition. The 85-year-old general has promised to hand over
the office in early 2018 to a successor, widely expected to be Miguel
Diaz-Canel, a 56-year-old official with neither the Castro name nor
revolutionary credentials. The change will occur without Castro's older
brother Fidel, the revolutionary leader whose largely unseen presence
endowed the system he created with historical weight and credibility in
the eyes of many Cubans before he died last month at 90.

"Even if those two events hadn't taken place — Trump's victory and
Fidel's death — 2017 was going to be a very difficult year for Cuba,"
said Cuban economist Omar Everleny Perez, a visiting professor at Keio
University in Tokyo.

Cuba publishes few credible economic statistics, but experts expect the
country to end this year with gross domestic product growth of 1 percent
or less. It maintained a rate close to 3 percent from 2011 to 2015.

One bright spot is tourism, booming since Obama and Castro's Dec. 17,
2014, detente announcement set off a surge in overall visitor numbers,
up more than 15 percent in 2015 and again this year.

"I've never seen as many tourists as I have this year," said Magalys
Pupo, a street-corner pastry vendor in Old Havana. "They're everywhere
and they're the income that we need in this country."

The slowness of macroeconomic growth despite a surge of interest in
foreign investment and the greatest tourism boom in decades attests to
both long-term mismanagement of the Cuban economy and the depth of the
crisis in other sectors, particularly aid from Venezuelan in the form of
deeply subsidized oil.

Analysts believe that as Venezuela's Cuba-inspired socialist economy has
disintegrated, exports to Cuba has dropped from 115,000 barrels daily in
2008 to 90,000 in recent years to 40,000 a day over the past few months.

Venezuela was the prime destination alongside Brazil for Cuban doctors
and other professionals whose salaries go directly to the Cuban
government, providing another vital source of hard currency believed to
be slackening in recent years. Nickel, another of Cuba's main exports,
has seen a sharp price drop this year.

The revenue drop might be creating a vicious cycle for Cuba's state-run
industries. Experts said cutbacks in imported industrial inputs this
year will lead to lower productivity in Cuba's few domestic industries
in 2017 and make zero growth or recession highly likely.

"It's going to be a tough year," said Antenor Stevens, a 66-year-old
retired public water specialist. "We're a people who've suffered a lot.
We've felt a lot of need, but there's still a revolutionary consciousness."

Source: Cuba faces deep financial woes | Business | columbiatribune.com
-
http://www.columbiatribune.com/business/cuba-faces-deep-financial-woes/article_282f2b69-81f8-5095-a89e-496c1a602d19.html

If It’s About Abuses…

If It's About Abuses… / Fernando Dámaso

Fernando Damaso, 25 December 2016 — Some official journalists, who seem
to be following orders from on high, have taken against the
self-employed and their prices, which they consider too high for the
ordinary citizen.

Of course no one has written a single line or even a word about the
prices in the state sector, which are much higher than those charged by
the self-employed.

It is no secret to anyone that the Ministry of Finances and Prices fixes
prices, two, three, four and many more times above the cost of the
products, usually of low quality, which are produced or imported and
sold in the network of State stores.

The case of Haier refrigerators, which are purchased at rock bottom
prices in China, due to their obsolete and discontinued technology, are
sold to Cubans at elevated prices (and in addition you can only get one
if you trade in a working refrigerator for which you are not given a
single cent), constitutes the palpable demonstration of a shameless scam.

The Haiers, without spare parts and without any ability to repair them,
break down and languish in houses whose inhabitants haven't even
finished paying for them.

DVD equipment, TVs, air conditioners, rice cookers, "Queen" pots,
electric cookers, exploding coffee pots and other poor quality articles
at high prices, are added to the long list of official robberies. The
same thing happens with dozens of plastic items, which the state buys at
ridiculous prices and sells as if they were made out of gold, silver or
porcelain.

With regards to these outrages, which affect and bleed the pockets of
ordinary Cubans, official journalists remain silent and complicit and,
if questioned, repeat that healthcare and education are free, something
completely false, because both services are paid for by every Cuban,
with what they don't receive for their labor in their miserable wages.

This reality is very difficult to hide. If anyone has any doubts, make a
tour of the hard currency stores and — why not? — also those that sell
in Cuban pesos, where a single screw costs three pesos, one brush
eighty, a gallon of emulsified paint 85 to 120, and enamel paint 280,
and so on.

Distinguished journalists, here are the abuses to the pockets of all
citizens and not just ordinary ones.

Source: If It's About Abuses… / Fernando Dámaso – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/if-its-about-abuses-fernando-dmaso/

Revolutionary Christmas

Revolutionary Christmas / Somos+, Javier Cabrera

Somos+, Javier Cabrera, 24 December 2016 — I was an atypical Cuban child
because I always had Christmas. My mother, whom they tried to expel from
her teaching job once because Christians didn't have the morals to teach
classes to the "New Man," said that she wasn't going to let a man tell
her whether or not to celebrate Christmas or the Three Kings in her own
home.

In those Decembers, she took out the little tree from her childhood,
with what we called "the balls from before '59," and bought gifts with
whatever she could. I remember perfectly that the gifts were
increasingly fewer, and in the '90s moved from the floor to the little
table. Of course, the celebration was never interrupted, not even in
1994, a year to forget.

For me, the year started to come to an end when Christmas showed up in
our house. And I suffered many conflicts in kindergarten and elementary
school, because I couldn't understand that I lived in a country that was
so equal, and so different.

Today I look back and understand that the best Christmas gift I got was
this: "No one has the right to tell you to celebrate or not to
celebrate. Your freedom ends when you let one group of the 'enlightened'
impose their celebrations, wakes, or whatever they want."

Earlier this year, I landed a few hours apart in the same airport where
the Chapecoense team's plane crashed. I was going to work, and I was
warned that there was a huge local party. I heard some fireworks set off
in celebration, but not even 3% of what was normal. In general, without
imposition, or fines, or prohibitions, I saw a people in pain come
together to fill stadiums.

An image in complete contrast to the imposed mourning that same week in
Cuba, mourning that they are now trying to extend indefinitely,
annulling our freedom to celebrate, or choosing not to participate
without facing the loss of one's job, which in any event only pays a
pauper's wages.

Christmas is many things, but above all it is home, family and
celebration. Today it is no longer completely banned, and even so it is
scandalous that no one has asked an entire people for forgiveness for
forcing them to cancel it.

Today, Christmas day, I remember my mother a lot and thank her for not
allowing them to tell her what to do. I also remember friends who didn't
dare, and who didn't even hear about Christmas until they were older.

Today is a good day to tell the mother of all of us, Cuba, that we
celebrate and we celebrate with her. That she gives us once again the
ability not to listen to those who would bother a united family that
celebrates. To them, as a nation, she also gives the freedom to
celebrate their frustrations where no one interferes with them.

Source: Revolutionary Christmas / Somos+, Javier Cabrera – Translating
Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/revolutionary-christmas-somos-javier-cabrera/

Pagan, A Very Bad Man With a Cuban Ministry of the Interior ID

Pagan, A Very Bad Man With a Cuban Ministry of the Interior ID / Luis
Felipe Rojas

Luis Felipe Rojas, 20 December 2016 — Today I am going to tell you
something you absolutely are not going to believe. But I don't care, the
military dictatorship violates human rights in cold blood and many don't
even want to know. Great is the fool who defends them.

The brothers Geordanis and Adael Muñoz Guerrero are two activists of the
Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), an opposition organization located
mainly in Santiago de Cuba. The Muñoz brothers were convicted of
contravention: they didn't pay the 24,000 peso fines imposed on them
when they appeared with anti-Castro signs in their neighborhood
of Rancho Grande, Palma Soriano, where they live.

Geordanis's wife told me on the Radio Marti program Contacto
Cuba (Minute 12:43), what happened to them on 3 November, when they were
both in prison in Aguadores. An official from State Security named
Dainier Suarez Pagan came to them. He ordered Geordanis handcuffed
behind his back, took him down from Detachment 1, and he himself gave
him a hard beating.

Yenisei Jiménez told me herself, her voice breaking, because she became
furious telling about the abuse.

On 9 September 2015 these activists tried to go to the Shrine of the
Virgin of Charity of Cobre. On the way they were detained by the police,
civil officials and members of the Rapid Response Brigades — 'ordinary'
citizens who supposedly rise up spontaneously to repress their fellow
citizens — and they saw them in an unusual way.

Pagán, the bad man who beats women and men in Santiago de Cuba, took
charge of the humiliation. He undressed Geordanis and beat him with a
rubber cane and told him if he wanted he could put it on the social
networks. As this young regime opponent is not ashamed of being martyred
for the freedom of his homeland, he let a photo be taken of his bruised
buttocks and handed it over to Jose Daniel Ferrer (UNPACU's leader and
former prisoner of the Cause of 75 from the Black Spring of 2003) and he
posted it on his Twitter account.

The Muñoz Guerrero brothers were sentenced to prison in October for 6
months (Adael) and one year (Geordanis).

Geordanis Muñoz Guerrero leads the "Pedro Meurice Estiú" cell in Palma
Soriano and had twice gone to Argentina invited by the Center for the
Opening and Development of Latin America (CADAL). He participated in
workshops on Human Rights and 'nonviolent' struggle, put on by the young
Serb Srdja Popovic, leader of the OTPOR movement.

There is more. Both brothers were fined again, but this time — you won't
believe it — inside the prison. They were fined 2,000 pesos because
Geordanis sent a note outside about the bad conditions suffered by
common inmates in the prison.

What will the hundreds of Cuban attorneys who know that a G2 official
violates all the protocols of Prison Control, Prison Security, Internal
Order, Reeducation and sees and mistreats his victims in cold blood do
about it?

When are Cuban lawyers, with their law degrees, going to get off the fence?

The henchman Dainier Suárez Pagán is a particularly bad man. He has
beaten dozens of opponents throughout the province of Santiago de Cuba.
The little that is known of him is that he has the rank of first
official (that is, Major or Lieutenant Colonel) and that he comes from
the town of San Luis.

Ferrer wrote to the Cuban bishops, hoping to hear, but he has had no
response. He did this on 11 September 2015 and started his letter in an
elegant way: "Respectable Pastors: (…)" but the prelates turned a blind eye.

Ferrer, who denounces every injustice that happens to his activists,
included this paragraph in the letter: "… In those hills (known as" La
Tanqueta"), political police agent Dainier Suárez Pagán, with his
subordinates, has beaten, injured and harassed more than a dozen
activists. They have been stripped and forced, with pistols placed
against the heads of these victims, to assume humiliating positions
while they threaten to rape them sexually. They have also brought the
flame of a match to their chin to force them to shout against their own
organization while filming them with a mobile phone."

Each bishop to his bishopric, all are silent. And the soldiers beat Cubans.

Translated by Enrique

Source: Pagan, A Very Bad Man With a Cuban Ministry of the Interior ID /
Luis Felipe Rojas – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/pagan-a-very-bad-man-with-a-cuban-ministry-of-the-interior-id-luis-felipe-rojas/