Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet: "The Pope must intervene in Cuba"

Feb. 16 - Speaking by telephone direct from Cuba, one of the country’s best-known political dissidents on Tuesday told Congress that Pope Benedict XVI should use his power and visibility as a world leader to shine a light on human rights abuses and political oppression under the Castro regime during his upcoming visit to the communist island nation.
If he has an opportunity to meet with the pope, he will ask him to be an advocate for the oppressed, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet told the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee. He spoke through a translator in testimony delivered over the telephone from Cuba.
"I would say to him, that I would love for him to lobby for our freedom of speech and for a multi-party system, so that everyone can participate and be represented," Biscet said. "We hope that his coming will bring great change to our country."
The congressional committee did not announce Biscet's name before the hearing, out of concern that Cuban authorities would detain him before he was able to testify from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. During the hearing, Biscet's photo was projected on two separate video screens. His image was on several posters propped up along the wall in the hearing room.
President George W. Bush awarded Biscet the Medal of Freedom in 2007 while he was still serving a 25-year sentence for his opposition to Fidel Castro's regime. Biscet accused the Cuban government in the mid-1990s of allowing and covering up botched abortions, and was imprisoned from 1999 to late 2002. He had been free for 37 days when he was arrested again.
Biscet, 50, was freed last March as part of the Cuban government’s decision to release more than 125 political prisoners — a move that came after pressure by the Catholic Church. Some congressional leaders, including Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, have nominated him for a Nobel Prize.
His testimony Thursday came at considerable personal risk and could lead to his re-arrest, he acknowledged. "Everything is possible," Biscet said. "We're under constant supervision."
Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J. and Rep. Albio Sires, D-N.J., said they would write to the pope asking him to meet with Biscet. Rep. David Rivera, R-Miami, said the message to the church couldn't be more clear.
"Now it is up to Catholic Church to respond to Dr. Biscet," Rivera said. "It is up to the pope himself to respond to Dr. Biscet. I would hope they would be responsive to Dr. Biscet's hope and aspirations and his request of the pope and the Catholic Church."
Biscet on Thursday told the committee that the police in Cuba beat him, disfigured his face and broke his foot in an effort to “stop me from defending human rights."

He also described the conditions he experienced in prison in Cuba. Some prisoners were undressed collectively, disregarding "any respect for human dignity," he said. They were handcuffed at their ankles and hands for more than 12 hours and as many as 24 hours. Some were hanged by their hands, with their feet barely touching the ground.
Cuban journalist Normando Hernandez Gonzalez, also a recently freed political prisoner who now lives in Miami, told the committee that women are treated with particular brutality by police. Some men have reported that their captors undressed them, screamed obscenities at them, touched their genitals, and threatened them with rape, he said.
"I still have fresh in my mind the screams of prisoners who were being freshly tortured," he said. "I don't know if I'll be able to ever forget that."
Sires called Biscet's testimony untainted by the politics of the Miami exile community. That should give the Castro regime pause, Sires said, because Biscet is one of their own.
"He's not a product of Miami Beach, he's not a product of Miami, he's not a product of Cubans in exile," he said. "This is a man that was educated in Cuba, and he sees that this is a dictator, that this a country that oppresses human rights. That this is a country that allows no one the freedom to express themselves. And he's personally seen what they do to people who are seeking freedom of expression."
Biscet on Thursday vowed to continue what he described as a non-violent movement to change Cuba. Biscet said they expect little to improve while both Fidel Castro and his brother, Raul, remain alive — but said that they can't wait for their deaths to agitate for change in Cuba.
"So we will create change on our own," he said. "We are hoping that we will have the capacity to create non-violent coercion and pressure in order to actually install that political change ourselves."   The Miami Herald
 

Hugo Chávez is shipping oil to Syria to allow al-Assad's tanks to continue murdering civilians

Feb. 16 - The government of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is emerging as a rare supplier of diesel to Syria, potentially undermining Western sanctions and helping the Syrian government fuel its military in the middle of a bloody crackdown on civilian protests.
A cargo of diesel, which can be used to fuel army tanks or as heating fuel, was expected to arrive at Syria's Mediterranean port of Banias this week, according to two traders and shipping data. The cargo could be worth up to $50 million.
Chavez is a vociferous advocate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who face pressure from Western sanctions. Few leaders on the world stage have polarized opinion as sharply as the Venezuelan president.
Chavez, who still defends the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, has repeatedly backed Arab leaders who have faced a year-long wave of popular protests, which have already toppled four governments.
Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA shipped the cargo aboard the Negra Hipolita vessel, according to AIS tracking data on the Reuters Freight Fundamentals Database and to trade sources. The same tanker carried the first such shipment in November, the sources said.
PDVSA could not immediately be reached for comment.
"The aggressions against Syria are continuing," Chavez said in an address last month. "It's the same formula they (the West) used against Libya - inject violence, inject terrorism from abroad and later invoke the United Nations to intervene."
The South American OPEC member nation has also tried to aid Iran with fuel supplies amid sanctions over its nuclear program.

Rights groups say close to 6,000 people have been killed in attacks by Syrian security forces against civilian demonstrators and an increasingly powerful rebel insurgency.
The United States and Europe are pressuring Assad to leave power. Russia and China this month vetoed a United Nations resolution calling on Assad to step aside.
The Venezuelan tanker was last seen off the coast of Cyprus with a destination of Banias and the estimated arrival date of Wednesday, AIS ship tracking on Reuters showed. The satellite tracking has been switched off since Wednesday.
The shipment comes at a critical time for Syria, which has faced worsening energy shortages this winter after Western sanctions all but halted imports, which are needed to meet half the country's diesel demand.  Read more
 

Andres Oppenheimer: Obama should take the offensive on Cuba

Feb. 16 - The U.S. State Department wasn’t terribly smart when it rejected a demand by Latin American populist leaders that Cuba be invited to an April 14 summit of President Barack Obama with 33 hemispheric leaders in Colombia. It should have accepted the petition, and used it to grill Cuba’s military dictatorship in front of a world audience.
The diplomatic ruckus started at a meeting of leftist presidents in Venezuela earlier this month, when Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa proposed that members of the Venezuelan-led ALBA bloc boycott the 5th Summit of the Americas to be held in Cartagena, Colombia, unless Cuba — the only country in the hemisphere excluded from the meeting — was allowed to participate. Venezuela and other countries immediately approved the motion.
U.S. officials responded — sticking to their policy guidelines — that Cuba cannot be invited because under the summit’s rules only democratically elected leaders who are committed to the 34-country Organization of American States’ rules can attend.
Colombia — the host country, which is trying to avoid defections that would mar the summit — sent Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin to Havana to try to solve the problem, but she came back empty-handed. She told reporters after the visit that Cuba indeed wants to attend the summit.
The diplomatic impasse is making big headlines in the region. During a visit here, almost everybody I talked to referred to the issue. Not surprisingly, the prevailing narrative in the Colombian press is that the United States is once again punishing a small and proud Caribbean island for its independent foreign policy — the old David vs. Goliath tale, which Cuba has played so often over the years.
So what should Washington do? Instead of rejecting Cuba’s presence, the State Department should have put out a statement saying that Cuban ruler Gen. Raúl Castro is more than welcome to attend the summit as an outside guest to answer several questions, starting with for how long Cuba plans to remain the last military dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere.
More specifically, and given diplomats’ penchant for legal formalities, Gen. Castro should be asked:
Why is Cuba not complying with former President Fidel Castro Ruz’s commitment at the 1996 Sixth Ibero-American Summit in Viña del Mar, Chile, to respect “political pluralism,” “human rights,” and “political freedoms?” At that Summit, Castro signed the Vina del Mar Declaration, which specifically calls for “the freedoms of expression, association and assembly.”
Needless to say, Cuba still has hundreds of political prisoners — two of whom have recently died from hunger strikes — and allows no opposition parties.
Why is Cuba still violating Article 13 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, which states that “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country”? To this day, Cubans need a government permit to be able to leave the island.
Prominent Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, who has denied a permit to visit Brazil earlier this month, wrote in her Twitter account Feb. 3 that “It’s the 19th time that they violate my right to enter and leave my country... I am a prisoner.”  Read more
 

Cuba has to respect human rights if it wants to attend the Summit of the Americas

Feb. 15 - The US State Department said on Monday that if Cuba wants to participate in the coming Summit of the Americas to be hosted by Colombia, it must first fully integrate to the Organization of American States and guarantee the basic liberties of its citizens.

“The message to Havana is that if it wishes to participate it must begin the process with the OAS and clear some doubts regarding basic liberties which are currently denied to the Cubans”, said Mike Hammer Under State Secretary for Public Affairs.
The controversy was triggered by Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa who suggested that if Cuba is not invited to the Summit of the Americas next April 14/15 in Cartagena, Colombia, members from the Venezuelan-Cuban sponsored Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of America, ALBA, should not attend the event.
Hammer recalled that in the regional meeting held in Canada in 2001 it was agreed that only the leaders of the continent democratically elected are invited to participate in the summits of the Americas. “In fact there is a process in the OAS for Cuba to participate”, but Cuba has shown no interest. Read more
 

Cuban defector signs a 4 year contract for $36 million

Feb. 13 - Cuban outfielder Yoenis Céspedes and the Oakland A's have agreed to terms on a free agent contract.
Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle tweeted that the deal is worth $36 million for four years. Yoenis Cespedes drew interest from several major league teams, including the Marlins, Nationals and Tigers.
The amount would be a record for a Cuban defector.
The Florida Marlins, Detroit Tigers, Washington Nationals and both Chicago teams, the Cubs and White Sox, were among other clubs that had expressed interest in signing the international free agent.
"At the end of the day with all these big free agents, it comes down to the total package," Cespedes' agent, Adam Katz, told ESPN. "Sure, money and the economic package had something to do with it. But it's also about all the surrounding circumstances. And basically, this was a player who felt like this club wanted him more than anybody else." Read more
 

Henrique Capriles to face Chávez in October presidential elections

Feb. 13 - Despite government threats, three million Venezuelans went to the polls on Sunday and chose Henrique Capriles Radonski by almost a 1 million vote margin as the opposition candidate to face Hugo Chávez in October.

Several pro-Chávez bloggers were threatening to photograph any government employees seen at the polls, to have them fired from their jobs.
With 95 percent of the ballots counted, Capriles, the governor of Miranda state, garnered 1.8 million votes, or about 62 percent of the total, organizers said. Zulia Governor Pablo Pérez came in a distant second with 868,000 votes.
Organizers of the primaries were expecting about 1.5 million voters, but twice as many went out to vote, forcing many polling places to remain open for more than 2 additional hours.
“The big winner of this race was Venezuela,” said Pérez in his concession speech, noting that the government had taunted the opposition by saying the turnout would be weak. “Today Venezuela overcame fear.
“And to Henrique Capriles I say, ‘Count on me in Zulia because you are going to be the next president of Venezuela,’ ” he said..

Read more

 

Cuba and its Ongoing Engagement in Espionage in the Americas

Feb. 13 - Despite many pro-Cuba chants for economic aid and the lifting of the 50 year old Cuban Embargo placed via President John F. Kennedy's Proclamation 3447, there appears to be no shortage of funding by Cuba for that nation's energetic spy apparatchik.
The original U.S. Cuba manifesto, in 1962, expressed the necessity for the embargo until such time that Cuba would demonstrate respect for human rights and liberty. And today, there certainly cannot be much of an argument that the continuing Castro regime has complied with any aspect of that mandate. In fact, Castro's revolution has arrogantly continued to force horrific sacrifices on Cubans in their homeland, as well as the suffering by those that fled the murdering regime over the decades and left families behind.
Neither of the Castro brothers ever, even remotely, disguised their venomous hatred for the U.S., democracy, or the U.S. way of life - even prior to the embargo. Their anti-U.S. rhetoric echoes loudly throughout the world. And they continue to extol radical leftist and communist governments.
As simply partial evidence of continuing human rights abuses, and as recent as last month, the independent Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation said that the government was "using temporary detentions to disrupt events organized by the opposition." The Cuban regime made "brief arrests of 631 opponents in January" alone.
Cuba's security officials also continue to deny the holding of political prisoners, while saying that "Cuban dissidents are tools of the United States."
Do not underestimate Cuba's vast intelligence and espionage network. Their security and intelligence apparatus are on a scale perceived to be "many times larger than that of the United States." And even with Cuba's poverty, depressed economic situation and weak prognosis for future windfalls, their clandestine operational acts continue and extend throughout the Americas and the world. Read more
 

Video shows Cuba's State Security agents using a blanket to prevent filming the arrest of dissidents

Feb. 10 - A group of Cuban ladies belonging to the Rosa Parks civil rights movement, staged a protest on February 1st. to ask for freedom and respect of human rights, as they have been doing on the first of every month.
They also demanded that the Castro regime releases Yasmin Conlledo Riveron and her husband Yusmari Rafel Álvarez Esmoris arrested since January 8.
The women were promptly detained by members of Castro's State Security.
To try to prevent other dissidents from videotaping the arrests, two Cuban agents held a blanket in front of the camera as can be seen here.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/H0WZbIN8z_g ]

 

Yoani Sánchez: Cell phones have changed our lives

Feb. 8 - It weighs more than a “bad marriage,” my grandmother used to say about that enormous black telephone in the neighbor’s house. It had a very short cord and after making a call my index finger was covered with the dust from under the dial. Still, I waited anxiously for the shout that announced my mother was calling from her work or from some province. We went running up the stairs to glue our ears to the receiver and listen to what the almost metallic voice said on the other end. Among the more than ten families living in that tenement, only two had telephones. So any quarrel with the owners of this important gadget would leave you helpless, incommunicado.
If, in March of 2008, Raul Castro had imagined the role cell phones would play in Cuba’s incipient civil society, he probably never would have authorized their use. Before that date, Cubans had to ask a foreigner to take out a cell phone contract and then allow them the use of the service. The desired SIM card could only be acquired by the same people who could enjoy the hotel rooms and car rentals, in short, by people who had not been born on this Island. Fortunately, this apartheid ended almost four years ago, and since that date more than 1.2 million users have contracted with Cubacel for prepaid service. This figure shouldn’t please us, because we are still far behind the rest of the Latin American nations.
Despite the limitations of its high cost, low coverage area in many places in the country, and the temporary suspensions of service to “inconvenient” users, cell phones have changed our lives. At this time, the ability to send and receive text messages has strengthened contact between citizens, fostered the exchange of news, and given us the invaluable ability to post Twitter messages without Internet access. A few days ago the price of internal text messages was reduced by 44%, though we are still light years above the prices in effect in the rest of the world. If the objective of the country’s only telephone company is to attract more customers and raise profits, they will also have to accept the collateral affect of the freeing up of information and communications that this will bring. Cubacel calculates the economic benefits, but it is incapable of realizing — in its true potential — the powerful social tool that we now carry in our pockets.
Generation Y

 

Cuban spring 'unavoidable' amid repression

Feb. 8 - The following article was written by Dr. Laima Andrikiene, an MEP in the European People's Party and a member of the European Parliament's subcommittee on human rights:

Who is responsible for the death of the Cuban political prisoner Wilman Villar Mendoza on January 19? Why, on February 3, was blogger Yoani Sanchez refused permission to travel abroad by Cuban authorities for the 19th time since May 2008? Why were opposition group Damas de Blanco – Sakharov prize laureates – not allowed to travel to the European Parliament in Strasbourg to collect that prestigious award for the freedom of thought?
There are so many questions and almost no answers from the Cuban regime. The situation of harassment and repression endangers the lives of Cuban people who defend human rights and civil liberties. We are aware that the regime is directly responsible for the death of four political prisoners – Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia, Laura Pollan Toledo and Wilman Villar Mendoza – as well as thousands of arbitrary arrests and hundreds of beatings, assaults, and acts of repudiation.
The death of 31-year-old dissident Wilman Villar Mendoza on January 19 after a 50 day hunger strike highlights the continuing repression in Cuba. Villar Mendoza was detained in November 2011 after participating in a peaceful demonstration in Contramaestre calling for greater political freedom and respect for human rights. He was charged with 'contempt' and sentenced to four years in prison in a hearing that lasted less than an hour. He was not given the opportunity to speak in his defense, nor represented by a defense lawyer.
The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, a human rights monitoring group that the government does not recognize, classified Villar Mendoza as a political prisoner in December 2011. The Cuban regime denies holding political prisoners and said in a statement that Mr Villar "was not a dissident nor was he on a hunger strike". The authorities did not even bother to tell Wilman Villar's wife about the death of her husband, and she was informed by some human rights defenders. Read more

 

Cuban-American economist Dr. Antonio Jorge died in Miami

Feb. 8 - Dr. Antonio Jorge, a respected and prolific Cuban economist who also served in several top administrative posts at Florida International University and St. Thomas University, died Monday at the age of 80.
“Antonio had a first-class economic mind that understood social and historical factors,” said Jaime Suchlicki, director of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies at the University of Miami, where Jorge served as a senior research scholar.
Jorge authored or edited 20 books and numerous academic articles, essays and monographs — most of them on Latin American and Cuban economic trends and issues. He also wrote frequent opinion columns for newspapers, including El Nuevo Herald.
He taught at the University of Havana, was chief economist for the Cuban National Association of Manufacturers, chief economist and vice minister of finance for the Cuban government, and president of the Colegium of Cuban Economists in Cuba 1960-1961.
Jorge fled Cuba early in the Fidel Castro government and taught at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, Merrimack College in Massachusetts, the University of Miami and FIU. The Miami Herald
 

More than 1,050 people have registered at CubanSearch looking for relatives and friends

 If you haven't visited or registered, click here for the English Version  Y aqui para la versión en español.

You can register a name of a missing relative, or you can look through the list of names to see if you have any information that you can provide about any of them.

Dozens of people have already found their missing relatives thanks to www.cubansearch.com

 

360° Photos of Havana (UPDATED)

These photos were taken in 2008

Pollution in the Port of Havana from the oil refinery Click here

An old Havana apartment building that hasn't been repaired in half a century Click here

A view of Havana from the steps of the Capitol Click here

Prado y Neptuno; Hotel Telégrafo Click here

Animas and Campanario streets Click here

The University of Havana Click here

Morro Castle Click here

Centro Gallego; Hotel Inglaterra; Teatro Nacional and Capitolio Click here

Muralla and Monserrate Streets Click here

Paseo del Prado and Morro Castle Click here

Paseo del Prado at night Click here

Trees growing out on top of derelict buildings in Havana (make sure to move the mouse down) Click here

The entrance to La Cabaña Fortress, where thousands of cubans were executed by che Guevara Click here

The old Ambar Motors building on Calle 23 near the Malecon and a view of the Hotel Nacional Click here

This is how that same building and area looked when that street was under construction before Castro:

 

Global Journalist: Reporting in Cuba

Feb. 6 - Host David Reed talks with journalists Carlos Lauria and Gary Marx about the media environment in Cuba and the release of the 29 journalists imprisoned in the Black Spring crackdown of 2003.

Carlos Lauría is the Americas Senior Coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Gary Marx is an Investigative Reporter for the Chicago Tribune. From 2002 to 2007 he was the Tribune's correspondent from Cuba, when the Cuban government refused to renew his press credentials.

Click here to see more videos about freedom of the press in Cuba and the audio of an interview with Cuban journalist Jorge Olivera Castillo talking about his experience in prison.

 

South Africa finally learned what everyone else knows: The Castros don't pay their debts

Feb. 6 - From an article written by Geordin Hill-Lewis, Member of the South African Parliament:

The South African government has wasted R600 million on sustaining the failed Cuban state, including what government has called a "solidarity grant". This follows a R1.4 billion Cuban bailout that President Zuma authorized in December 2010.
When the Parliamentary session reconvenes, the Democratic Alliance (DA) will request that the Minister of Trade and Industry, Rob Davies, appear before Parliament to explain what economic objectives are achieved by this decision. We want to know how this cash injection for Cuba will help the millions of South Africans who live below the breadline.
Cuba has a tiny economy and little to offer South Africa by way of trade. Our trade with Cuba is unlikely to ever exceed R100 million per year. And at the same time, we have our own massive domestic problems in housing, energy, infrastructure, unemployment and a host of other areas. It is difficult to justify giving the Cuban regime R2 billion in handouts when our own people are suffering daily.
The R600 million Minister Davies handed out on Friday consisted of credit write-offs, new credit lines and some cash payments. It also includes a R100 million "solidarity grant", which will not need to be paid back to South Africa.
The Cuban regime has a long track record of failing to pay back our loans. In 2010, South Africa had to write off R1.1 billion in bad Cuban debt, and on Friday we wrote off another R250 million in bad debt.
It is a tragic irony that a portion of the Cuban handout is earmarked to promote food security in Cuba, when our own food security is under threat here at home. We have recently been forced to import maize at a very high price, affecting millions of South Africans who rely on maize-based products as staple food.
The time has come for South Africa to invest in strategic partnerships that deliver prosperity for our people. Maintaining symbolic friendships at enormous costs do not help the South African people. PoliticsWeb

 

Italian media: Fidel Castro will be received back into the communion of the Roman Catholic Church

Feb. 5 - I hope it's not true, because it would be an insult to the living relatives and the memory of all those Catholics that were sent to the firing squad for defending their religion and one more scandal for the Catholic Church, but according to this article that appeared on Saturday in GetReligion.org the Italian press has been mentioning such possibility for weeks:

"Fidel Castro will be received back into the communion of the Roman Catholic Church during Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the island in March, the Italian press is reporting. If true, this is a remarkable story — and one that has yet to catch the attention of editors this side of the Atlantic.
On 1 Feb 2012, La Republicca — [Italy’s second largest circulation daily newspaper, La Republicca follows a center-left political line and is strongly anti-clerical; not anti-Catholic per se but a critic of the institutional church] — reported that as death approaches, the octogenarian communist has turned to God for solace.
ABC’s Global Note news blog is the only U.S. general interest publication I have found that has reported this story. It referenced the La Republicca story and said that Castro’s
daughter Alina is quoted as saying “During this last period, Fidel has come closer to religion: he has rediscovered Jesus at the end of his life. It doesn’t surprise me because dad was raised by Jesuits.” The article quotes an unidentified high prelate in the Vatican who is working on the Pope’s Cuba trip: “Fidel is at the end of his strength. Nearly at the end of his life. His exhortations in the party paper Granma, are increasingly less frequent. We know that in this last period he has come closer to religion and God.”
Some Italian websites have even speculated as to when Fidel will make his confession and credo — setting the date as 27 March 2012 at 17:30 when the two ottantacinquenni, Pope Benedict XVI and Castro, will meet at the Palacio de la Revolución when the pope makes his official visit to the head of state, Raul Castro."   Read more Last Temptation of Castro

 

Once again, the Castro brothers deny Yoani Sánchez the exit permit to visit Brazil

Feb. 3 - Cuba’s best-known pro-democracy blogger said she was denied permission to leave her country after Brazil granted her a visa ahead of President Dilma Rousseff’s state visit to the communist island last week.
“There’s no surprise,” Yoani Sanchez said in a posting on her Twitter account today. “They again deny me permission to leave. It’s the 19th time they violate my right to enter and leave my country.”
Sanchez, a critic of Raul Castro’s government on her Generation Y blog, requested permission to travel to Brazil next month so she could attend the screening of a documentary in which she appears. While she’s been barred from leaving Cuba for the past four years, expectations she might be allowed to exit this time increased after Brazil granted her a visa on the eve of Rousseff’s visit this week.
After Rousseff failed to meet with Sanchez and other activists during the three-day trade mission to Havana, the blogger complained on Twitter that the Brazilian president came to Cuba “with her wallet open and her eyes shut.”
Rousseff, who was inspired by Cuba’s revolution to take up arms against Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1960s, said she would not get involved in what is an internal Cuban matter.
“Brazil gave the visa to the blogger,” she told reporters in Havana. “The rest is not a matter for the Brazilian government.”
Brazil’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment on Cuba’s decision when contacted by Bloomberg News.
While blocked from traveling abroad, Sanchez openly criticizes Castro’s government online, and has emerged as a leader among a group of young dissidents who describe the daily travails life in Cuba through difficult-to-access social media. She was invited to Spain after winning the Ortega y Gasset journalism prize in 2008. Many of her chronicles are published by newspapers throughout Latin America.

Bloomberg

 

Cuban women denounce beatings and harassment by Castro's police

Feb. 2 - Cuban dissidents say police beat, groped and detained seven women who tried to stage a march in the central city of Santa Clara to demand the release of an opposition couple jailed since early January.
In an audio recording provided by the dissidents, women were heard screaming and repeatedly shouting “Don’t stick your hands on my breasts, murderer” — allegedly as police searched for the cellphones recording the scene.
“He put his hands inside my blouse, then they lifted my blouse in the middle of the street looking for my phone,” said Idania Yánes Contreras, who led the march and recorded a narration of the Wednesday confrontation on her phone.
“We were all punched and had our hair pulled” as police carried the women to waiting patrol cars, Yánes added. Police also seized a frying pan the women had been banging on to attract attention.
Six of the women were freed Thursday and the seventh was sent home late Wednesday, Yánes told El Nuevo Herald by telephone from her home in Santa Clara.
Yánes said the seven members of the Rosa Parks Feminist Movement for Civil Rights, all dressed in black as a sign of mourning “for the victims of the dictatorship,” launched the protest carrying a sign that said, “For Freedom, Against Impunity.”
The march was intended to protest the continued detention of independent journalist Yazmín Conlledo Riverón and her husband, Rafael Álvarez Esmoris, who were arrested Jan. 8 on what Yánes described as fraudulent charges.
The women had gone only about half a block, shouting “Freedom” and “Down with Repression,” Yánes said, when uniformed police and State Security agents in civilian clothes swooped down on them and began searching for the phones.
One security official told another, “that person has a cellular there,” according to a transcript provided by the dissidents. The actual recording, posted on the blog of Jorge Luis García Pérez, known as Antúnez, is sometimes difficult to understand.
Antúnez, whose wife Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera was one of the seven women detained, writes the blog Ni Me Callo Ni Me Voy — I will not shut up or leave.
The other women were identified as Yaité Diosnelly Cruz Sosa, Yanisbel Valido, Xiomara Martín Jiménez, María del Carmen Martínez López and Damaris Moya Portieles.
The Rosa Parks movement is named after the Afro-American civil rights activist woman who sparked the bus boycott in Montgomery, Al.

Read more

 

Will we ever see a Cuban spring?

Feb. 2 - Margaret Thatcher once said, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” During my week in Cuba, I saw firsthand the truth of her case.
Havana, a once-glorious architectural gem, is falling down — literally. Much of the central city is crumbling and building collapses are common because there is no maintenance. Many people live without running water, and roosters can be heard crowing a block from the nation’s capitol, which is shuttered for “renovations.”
The sight of American cars from before 1959 plying the streets is charming but an indication of chronic stagnation. Going to the rural areas is like boarding a time machine to the 19th century. Farmers plow by walking behind two oxen, and horses provide basic transportation. Public “buses” consist of horse-drawn wagons.
Fidel Castro’s “revolución,” now in its 54th year, as spray-painted slogans constantly remind you, is running out of other people’s money. First the Soviet Union propped up the Communist takeover, and after its collapse, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela came to Castro’s rescue.
It’s a devil’s bargain. Castro barters young Cuban professionals for oil, with Chavez delivering a reported 100,000 barrels a day. In exchange, Cuban doctors and teachers are sent to Venezuela. Chavez went to Cuba for cancer treatment last year.
Castro himself almost died in 2006, although of what remains a mystery. He still heads the Communist Party, but is rarely seen and there are rumors he suffers from dementia. His brother, Raul, runs the government, though it’s not clear he could survive Fidel’s death.
The brothers’ scramble to keep 11 million Cubans sullen but not mutinous is leading to a patchwork of liberalizations. Tourism is growing, bringing in foreign investment and the dreaded C-word — capitalism. Large collective farms are being divided, with farmers getting plots to use for 10 years and permits to sell their produce. Read more
 

Sheer Hypocrisy: “I prefer a million critical voices before the silence of the dictatorships” Dilma Rousseff

Feb. 1 - Commentary by Yoani Sánchez about the visit of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff:

Choosing the time for a presidential visit can be an exceedingly thankless task in this so unpredictable and changeable world. When the date of the visit of a head of state is placed on the agenda, announced, and reconciled with the hosts, life commonly offers up the unexpected. The government palaces don’t control chance, nor anticipate the surprising events that strain the arrival of a dignitary. Dilma Rousseff knows this well. Her presence in Havana was coordinated for weeks and was even preceded by that of the foreign minister, Antonio de Aguiar Patriota. Everything seemed neatly tied up: a fast timeframe, efficient, protocol, focused on economic themes, ending with her boarding her flight to Haiti. But something complicated it.
Several days before the Brazilian economist and politician landed at Jose Marti Airport, a young Cuban died after a prolonged hunger strike. The official media threw itself into presenting him as a common criminal, although he had been arrested at an opposition march through the streets of Contramaestre. The radicalized discourse of power and the political temperature reached those levels where our rulers perform so well. In that context, the recently concluded Conference of the Cuban Communist Party became more an act of reaffirmation than of change, a statement of unity rather than an opening. Many who were waiting for an announcement of political transformations of great significance, realized that the event was, instead, the ultimate lost opportunity for the generation in power. One day after its closure, Raul Castro — General Secretary of the only permitted party — received Dilma Rousseff, the former guerrilla who today leads a country with diverse political forces and a highly critical press.
Dilma’s Cuban agenda includes inspecting the construction work at the Port of Mariel and the possible granting of new bank credits. Brazil is our second largest trading partner in Latin America, but it’s not just a question of resources. The Raul regime also has the urge, at this time, to be legitimized by other presidents in the region. So there will be smiles, handshakes, commitments to “eternal friendship” and photos, lots of photos. The civic activists, for their part, will attempt a meeting with the woman who was tortured and imprisoned during a military government, though there is little chance that she will receive them. Dilma Rousseff will converse with Raul Castro, she will be very close to him at exactly this delicate juncture in which chance has placed her. We hope she will not miss the opportunity and will comport herself consistent with the clamor for democracy, instead of opting for a complicit silence before a dictatorship.
Note: Yoani will find out on Friday February 3 if the Castro brothers will allow her to travel to Brazil for the presentation of the documentary "Cuba-Honduras Connection." Generation Y

 

It's not the embargo, it's the stupid system that doesn't work: Cuba food prices up 20% in 2011

Feb. 1 - Government report shows agricultural reforms not increasing production or dropping prices.
Food prices in Cuba shot up by nearly 20 percent last year as the cash-strapped government cut subsidies and imports and agricultural reforms failed to crank up domestic production, according to a new government report.
The report by the National Statistics Office reflects Cubans’ long-running complaints that while some food items have been appearing with more frequency in stores, the prices have been so high that few can afford them.
Cuban leader Raúl Castro, trying to reform the stagnant Soviet-style economy, has put heavy emphasis on the need to increase agricultural production by leasing fallow state lands to private farmers and allowing them more freedom to grow and sell their products.
But the report, titled Sales on the Farm Market, showed that produce prices soared by 24.1 percent during 2011 and meat prices rose by 8.7 percent for an average increase of 19.8, Reuters news agency reported.
Reuters added that although the reforms could increase agricultural production down the road, output increased just 2 percent last year and fell 2.5 percent in 2010. Overall agricultural production in 2011 remained below the levels of 2005.
Dissident Havana economist Martha Beatriz Roque said the government figures reflect “stagflation” — stagnant productivity coupled with inflation — and the failures of Castro’s efforts at agricultural reforms since he replaced brother Fidel Castro in 2006. The Miami Herald
 

One person killed after another Havana building crumbles

Jan. 28 - A 90-year-old Havana, Cuba, theater collapsed and killed one man in the fifth such wreck in 10 days, underscoring the precarious state of many dwellings and commercial structures in a city known for its architecture.
The Campoamor Theater, which opened in 1921, closed in the mid-1970s and then partially collapsed about five years ago, neighbors said. But four families, driven by Cuba's critical housing shortage, were squatting there when it collapsed Thursday.
The four-story shell was featured in a 2006 documentary about the state of many of Havana's old buildings, "The New Art of Making Ruins," by German filmmakers Florian Borchmeyer and Matthias Hentschler.
Ricardo Riquene Anaya, 47, plunged from the third floor and died when the building collapsed, one emergency worker said. His son had to be pulled from the ruins but reportedly suffered only cuts and bruises.
Just last week, at least four youths were killed and five injured when their three-story building, also in Centro Havana, fell in a heap. It had been condemned after a partial collapse over 10 years ago. Three other Havana buildings collapsed Thursday, but no injuries were reported, said the emergency worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"What we're seeing is a sign of what is happening to the government, slowly crumbling," dissident Martha Beatriz Roque said by telephone from Havana. The Miami Herald

 

Another visitor to Cuba experiences Castroscare

Jan. 27 - From an article in Moon Travel Guides (H/T) Capitol Hill Cubans:

A few weeks ago while escorting a National Geographic Expeditions’ 10-day “Cuba: Discover its Culture & People” trip, one of the participants fell ill with a serious dental problem.
I accompanied her to the Clínica Internacional—the foreigners-only International Clinic— Cienfuegos. Cuba’s best medical services are reserved for foreign tourists paying hard currency. This was no exception. An English-speaking doctor saw us immediately.
She identified an abcess and recommended we visit the dental ward at Cienfuegos Hospital. We were transferred in a low-tech ambulance.
The hospital’s broken windows and screens were an ill omen of worse to come: The black ring (caused by a million grubby hands) around the door handle to the dental ward, suggested it hadn’t been cleaned since the revolution.
We were admitted immediately to the ward and seated at one of a dozen stations. The first image took my breath away. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Dental instruments were sitting in a tray that hadn’t been cleaned—not even wiped!—in ages. Literally, my best guess is in months, if not years! A microscopic study might well have revealed every known bacteria under the sun. In Europe or North America, the hospital would be instantly closed as a health hazard. The travelers looked up at me with a mix of revulsion and near-panic.
Fortunately, the female dentist didn’t need to place any instrument in her mouth. Instead, she looked into her mouth and instantly confirmed the abcess, then wrote a prescription for antibiotics, which the international clinic had in stock.
The next day, while walking along Cienfuegos’ main shopping street (El Búlevar), the group paused to peruse the local pharmacy that serves local Cubans. I counted barely a handful of drugs (all locally produced) for sale on the sparsely stocked shelves.
What a study in contrasts!…
The barebones Cubans-only pharmacies. And the foreigners-only pharmacies fully stocked with imported drugs, reminding me of President Jimmy Carter’s admonition (presented live on Cuban TV during his visit to Cuba in January 2001) that Cuba can buy all the drugs its needs from Mexico, Brazil, etc. at prices well below those charged in the United States.
The Cuban government disingenuously tells Cubans that the U.S. embargo is to blame for the critical shortage of basic medicines. How, then, to explain the fully-stocked pharmacies serving tourists, which Cubans never get to see? Clearly, a political decision has been made to not stock the Cuban pharmacies.
Why? I can think of only one plausible reason: It’s great politics in Fidel Castro’s pathological demonization of Uncle Sam. Let’s hope things will soon change under his younger brother, Raúl.
Meanwhile, and more worrying, is the disparity between Cuba’s claims about the excellence of its health-care system and the shocking revelation that it doesn’t even apply standards of basic hygiene. Moon Travel Guides

 

Video of a mob controlled by the Cuban regime, attacking the home of Maritza Castro in Havana

Jan. 12 - On Tuesday, January 10, the home of Cuban dissident Maritza Castro was attacked by a paramilitary mob under the control of Cuba's State Security.

The mob threw rocks and used wood stick to break the windows of the activist's home.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/mLgKUjTdcak ]

 

The ANC thanks Castro for his "unwavering support", while Jesse denounces "economic apartheid"

Jan. 9 - This weekend, African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma paid tribute to the men and women who sacrificed their lives for the liberation of South Africa, and to Castro's Cuba for "its unwavering support," during a ceremony to commemorate the 100 anniversary of the organization.

Also in attendance was US civil rights activist, Rev. Jesse Jackson who said it was time the country snapped out of "educational and economic apartheid."

"We single out Cuba for her unwavering support to the movement. "Freedom would not have been achieved (without the support)," Zuma said.

What a pair of hypocrites! What about freedom for the Cuban poeple?

Neither one of them has ever said one word about the abuses of the racist regime in Cuba, a country where 11 million human beings, the majority of them black or of a mixed race, has been enslaved for 53 years by the same Castro brothers who they thank for the "liberation" of their homeland.

When have you heard any of these so called " Black activists" denounce the brutal abuses of the Castro regime against the Cuban people?

Meanwhile, Jesse Jackson told the crowd: "Now you have been freed from humiliation of skin color apartheid- but there is educational apartheid, there is economic apartheid and land ownership."

Have you ever heard Jesse Jackson mention one word about the tourist apartheid in Cuba?

Have you ever heard him denounce the fact that only two Cubans, whose last name is Castro, are not subjected to the economic apartheid in the island?

Have you ever heard him denounce the fact that Cubans are second class citizens in their own country?

No way, Jesse would not jeopardize the opportunity to be wined and dined by the racist slave masters that have kept Cubans enslaved for 53 long years.

These are not "activists" on my book, they are HYPOCRITES!  The Africa Report

 

Listen to Fidel Castro

For those who think that the Cuban people chose the system imposed by the Castro brothers, here are some of the things that Fidel Castro said and promised when he gained power Click Here

 

Visit our updated Videos page with many new and old videos

 

Satellite photos of Cuba's prisons, missile installations, military bases and more

 

A look at Havana before the Castro brothers destroyed it Cuba B.C

 

Visit our updated page: The Useful Idiots

 

Our new page: Fidel Castro, the World's oldest terrorist

 

We have new photos of Havana taken in October of last year

Oct. 9 - A friend sent me around two dozen photos of Havana that he took at the beginning of this month.

Some of them are very sad, because they show how Havana has been completely destroyed by this gang of human termites.

Some others are hard to believe, including this one of goats having "lunch" off the dumpsters on a Havana street.

Click here  to see them

 

Article in El Nuevo Herald about Cuban Search

July 16 - Today's El Nuevo Herald has an article and a video about my new website, Cuban Search, that helps Cubans inside and outside the island, find relatives with whom they have lost contact.

Cuban Search serves as the missing-link with their relatives and friends between those millions of Cubans who are now spread all over the world and who may be trying to find them. El Nuevo Herald (Spanish)

 

Capitol Hill Cubans: Finding lost Friends

June 25 - Nearly every Cuban exile has a harrowing story about how they fled Castro's Cuba.
Each journey is full of tremendous risk, pain and sacrifice -- and that's just to leave the island.
Then, there are the challenges of starting a new life in a foreign land.
To help ease this transition, a new website has been launched to help Cubans find their friends and relatives abroad.
It's called Cuban Search.
According to its founder, George Utset (of the blog, The Real Cuba), the response has been overwhelming -- parents looking for their children who had left Cuba and they couldn't find, children looking for their parents, brothers, cousins, friends and schoolmates.
You can either search for a particular name, or register and enter the person that you are looking for.
You can search alphabetically, by city, or even by school.
Cuban Search has also teamed up with Cuba Archive Project to provide a database of Cubans who have disappeared at sea trying to escape Castro's Cuba.
It is estimated that as many as 70,000 Cubans have perished at sea in search for freedom.
Thus far, 900 have been identified. Capitol Hill Cubans

 

Socio-Economic Conditions in Pre-Castro Cuba

Dec. 17 - Cuba Facts is an ongoing series of succinct fact sheets on various topics, including, but not limited to, political structure, health, economy, education, nutrition, labor, business, foreign investment, and demographics, published and updated on a regular basis by the Cuba Transition Project staff at the University of Miami.

Click here to learn the truth about Cuba's Health, Education, Personal Consumption and much more in pre-Castro Cuba.

 

More photos showing how the Castro brothers have destroyed one of the world's most beautiful cities

Click here