CENESEX se pronuncia ante la violencia contra la mujer

“Rompe el silencio. Cuando seas testigo de la violencia contra las mujeres o las niñas, no te quedes de brazos cruzados. Actúa.” Ban Ki-moon, Secretario General de Naciones Unidas

El Centro Nacional de Educación Sexual (CENESEX), en su labor de promoción de la No violencia contra la mujer, y coincidiendo con el Día Naranja, declara su posición ante la campaña mediática desatada en torno a un hecho perpetrado por el hoy sancionado Ángel Santiesteban.

Como parte de la declaración la institución reconoce que en el contexto cubano se han implementado políticas encaminadas al logro de la igualdad entre mujeres y hombres, sin embargo subraya y denuncia la persistencia de formas de violencia con impacto en la salud, la vida familiar y social.

Este es un tema que debe visibilizarse y atenderse, razón por la que cada día 25 activistas de todo el mundo promueven acciones de sensibilización sobre el fenómeno, que constituye un atentado a los derechos humanos.

Con esta declaración el CENESEX insta a tomar medidas que permitan a las mujeres disfrutar de una vida libre de violencia y evitar la impunidad que gozan los ofensores.

Declaración contra la violencia hacia la mujer

Centro Nacional de Educación Sexual

A partir de la Declaración realizada el pasado 8 de marzo de 2013 por un grupo de mujeres artistas, comunicadoras e intelectuales con la finalidad de oponerse a las acciones que pretenden justificar un evidente hecho de violencia perpetrado por el hoy sancionado Ángel Santiesteban, y la manipulación con fines políticos del delito que se le imputa, el Centro Nacional de Educación Sexual (CENESEX):

Observa con preocupación la persistencia de diferentes manifestaciones de violencia ejercidas contra las mujeres en el mundo y, en especial, en nuestra región.

Convencido de que es un tema que concierne a los derechos humanos y que su presencia impide el efectivo disfrute de estos, constituyendo un obstáculo para el logro de la igualdad, el desarrollo y la paz.

Reconoce los avances de las cubanas durante el proceso revolucionario, y las políticas sociales dirigidas al logro de la igualdad de oportunidades entre mujeres y hombres en el país, pero llama la atención de la sociedad sobre la existencia de  formas de violencia que laceran y violan el ejercicio de sus derechos durante el curso de la vida.

Denuncia, de esta manera, toda forma de violencia contra las mujeres sin importar el ámbito donde esta ocurra, por las consecuencias graves que estos actos tienen para su salud y el impacto en la vida familiar y social.

Considera la importancia de fortalecer la formación de actores sociales en capacidad de brindar una atención especializada a la violencia en los distintos escenarios, así como la toma de conciencia de la sociedad en su conjunto sobre la inadmisibilidad de estas manifestaciones.

Condena a los hombres que cometen este tipo de hechos y, especialmente, a quienes intentan blanquear su responsabilidad, amparándose en una supuesta “disidencia” política para evadir la justicia, utilizando campañas que tergiversan la realidad y contribuyen a la revictimización de las mujeres violentadas.

Celebra la respuesta del Estado cubano al sancionar este hecho concreto de alta peligrosidad social.

Por tal motivo, el Centro Nacional de Educación Sexual insta:

A todas las instituciones y organizaciones cubanas a aunar esfuerzos dentro del marco de sus respectivas competencias para intensificar acciones en contra de la violencia ejercida sobre las mujeres, pues, aunque Cuba muestra avances significativos en esta materia, se trata de un fenómeno complejo que aún persiste.

A tomar las medidas que se requieran para garantizar el derecho de las mujeres a disfruta de una vida libre de violencia y evitar la impunidad que gozan los ofensores.

A unir fuerzas y recursos  en una Campaña Nacional  que muestre a la violencia contra las mujeres como un problema de salud, social y de derechos humanos; y que integre a la sociedad en la superación de las brechas de equidad de género, a tenor del cumplimiento del Plan de Acción Nacional de Seguimiento a la Conferencia de Beijing y los Lineamientos de la Política Económica y Social del Partido y la Revolución.

Por lo antes expuestos convoca a cubanos y cubanas, amantes de la paz y el respeto, del humanismo que ha sostenido por décadas nuestro proyecto social revolucionario, a repudiar de modo pacífico toda manifestación de violencia contra las mujeres y las niñas, así como las conductas que pretendan justificarlas.

Servicio gringo, Revés cubano

Margarita Alarcón Perea

Hace unos días el Presidente Barack Obama le concedió una entrevista en la Casa Blanca a José Díaz Balart de Telemundo, y si, es familia de los otros. La conversación giró alrededor de la reforma migratoria, y el control de armas  como los proyectos más importantes para el Presidente durante este, su segundo mandadato. Por supuesto, siendo un Díaz Balart y trabajando para Telemundo, Cuba tenía que estar en la palestra. Esto lo damos por sentado, lo que no se podía dar por sentado fueron las respuestas del Presidente.

El presidente no tenía mucho nuevo que decir, y no fueron las palabras en si lo que me llamaron la atención, fue todo lo que dijo “entre líneas.” No le dedicó oraciones interminables a hablar sobre lo que Cuba tenía que hacer o dejar de hacer, muy propio de los discursos de antaño. Ni tampoco desestimó las preguntas con un simple comentario sobre los derechos humanos en Cuba o algún que otro bloguero. Dijo cosas como “ Creo que podremos ver progreso en estos próximos cuatro años. Y estoy felíz de participar en el.” Dijo que era un “camino de doble vía”. Antes de todo esto, por supuesto, tuvo que hablar de “libertades básicas de la prensa y de asamblea”, pero de ahí pasó a “no pretendemos que cada país opere como lo hacemos nosotros.”

Esto, por supuesto, el hecho que haya hablado con tanta franqueza acerca del tema, le llamó la atención a los funcionarios cubanos y esto llevó a que la Directora del Departamento de Norte América del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Josefina Vidal le dedicara un tiempo a responderle. La señora Vidal le llama la atención al presidente Obama y le implora que reflexione seriamente sobre los cambios que se están llevando a cabo en Cuba y deje de prestarle atención a las voces que lo rodean. Fue un brillante juego de tenis al estilo de Wimbledon, un servicio agradable fue devuelto con revés preciso.

Es un partido lento el que vislumbramos. Tomará más tiempo que los juegos clásicos de Grand Slam a los cuales estamos acostumbrados. Pero lo importante es jugar.

No podemos olvidar que cuando la Sra. Vidal habla de “aquellos que lo rodean” no está divulgando específicamente a quienes se refiere pero ella está muy al tanto de la realidad que rodea a Barack Obama respecto a Cuba.  El hecho de que haya escogido a un poeta cubano americano sin historia política específica, cuyos padres no parecen tener vinculación alguna con el enjambre que es la comunidad cubano americana en Miami  o en Nueva Jersey, fue algo que le llamó la atención a muchos. Incluso más que cuando la primera dama escogió a un diseñador cubano Americano para el vestido que usó durante la primera inauguración.

Richard Blanco es ahora la diana de la retorica anti cubana, pero no aquella que se dedica a la política específicamente, no, esa no. Ahora le están gritando oprobios tanto al presidente como a él y lo hacen desde Europa.

No voy a desgastarme en copiar y pegar las sandeces, inexactitudes, incoherencias y demás barbaridades aquí ahora, dejo al lector con el derecho de buscar por si solo lo que han dicho algunos.  Lo que si recomiendo es que lean esto escrito por un (al parecer) cubano americano desde Miami, profesor del Miami Dade College y publicado en inglés en el sitio del Huffington Post.

Escritora cubana Supuestamente amistosa hacia los gay cuestiona la masculinidad de Richard Blanco

Ariel Gonzalez

 Era inevitable que escoger a Richard Blanco como el poeta para la segunda inauguración del Presidente Obama provocara reacción de parte un segmento bastante vociferante de la comunidad cubana en el exilio. Pero resulta una sorpresa cuando leí que Zoe Valdés, una escritora de prestigio, publicando un artículo en el sitio de derecha Babalu Blog. El ataque contra Blanco es digresivo, se contradice y está sustentado en falsas premisas. Sin embargo, es un llamado de alerta, de advertencia contra permitir que las emociones provocadas por la ideología se coloquen por encima del rigor estilístico y el sentido común.

 Lean el articulo complete aquí.

El momento de actuar, de hacer algo, se hace tan evidente e inminente, que algunas de estas personas están perdiendo los estribos. Le lanzan dardos a diestra y siniestra a cualquiera que tenga un ápice de sentido común o de sentido de pertenencia con su historia, su pasado, su vida.  Pero ya no vivimos en las décadas de los atroces actos de terror contra las voces de la sensatez; los tiempos son distintos, y nosotros también.  

El presidente Obama tiene ahora una ventana, evidentemente está abriendo las persianas y está mirando hacia afuera, ayudémoslo a limpiar la mugre que lleva décadas ahí, empañándole la vista.

Citando al propio Richard Blanco: “(Según la communidad cubana en el exilio) Castro…destruyó el paraiso que fue Cuba. Sin embargo, mi profeor de historia de bachillerato me contó de una Cuba pre-revolucionaria como una isla abandonada llena de corrupcion, y alababa a Castro por sus reformas sociales, citando estadisticas que apoyaban esto mostrando las mejoras dramaticas en los servicios de salud, y en la educacción; y muchos intelectuales que conocí en la universidad glorificaban a la Cuba post revolucion como una sociedad modelo. ¿Quien dice la verdad?¿Cual es la verdadera Cuba? ¿Quien nos cuenta la version correcta? ” 

The time is NOW

Margarita Alarcón Perea

Last week President Barack Obama gave Telemundo´s Jose Diaz Balart (yes, he is related to the other ones) an interview at the White House. The conversation revolved on the issues related to immigration reform, and gun control for the next four years in the presidency. Of course, being a Diaz Balart and working for Telemundo, Cuba was a hot topic. This was a given, what was not was the President’s response to the questions at hand.

The president didn’t have much new to say, and it wasn’t his actual wording that caught my attention, it was everything that you can read between the lines. He didn’t ramble on about how Cuba had to do this or that, and ended his comment. He didn’t offer a quick quip on Cuba’s human rights record (soooo yesterday’s news) or one independent blogger or another. He said things like: “I think we can have progress over the next four years. I’m happy to engage it.”, and he mentioned that it had to be “a two way street.” Before any of this he of course, mentions having to do something about “basic freedoms of the press and assembly” , but then he says “we don’t expect every country to operate the way we do”.

This, of course, the fact that he spoke so candidly about this topic, struck a nerve with Cuban Officials and prompted a quick response from Cuba´s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, by way of the Head of the Department that deals with US Cuba relations, Josefina Vidal. Ms Vidal calls attention to President Obama’s need to stop listening to some of the people he has around him and to start looking and paying attention to the changes that are taking place in Cuba and the many more to come. It was a brilliant game of Wimbledon Tennis at its best, a pleasurable serve was sent back with a blissful back hand.

It’s a slow game we are watching in play. It will take longer than a normal Grand Slam game of tennis. But the important thing is it is in play.

Now, what we mustn’t forget is that when Ms. Vidal mentions “those who surround you” she is not naming names but she is very much on track of the reality that encompasses Barack Obama regarding Cuba. The fact that he picked Richard Blanco, a Cuban American poet of no specific political background, whose parents are nowhere to be found anywhere in the mesh that is the Cuban American community in Miami or New Jersey, nor do they appear to have political ties to anyone in particular, was very significant to many. Even more than when Mrs. Obama chose a Cuban American designer for her first inaugural attire.

Richard Blanco is now the target of anti Cuban rhetoric, but not the specific political one that we are all used to, nope. He is now being lashed out against together with the President for not being all sorts of things that I refuse to rewrite about here but rather remit the reader to a brilliant piece appearing in the Huffington Post today:

A Supposedly Gay-Friendly Cuban Writer Questions Richard Blanco’s Manliness

Ariel Gonzalez

It was inevitable that Richard Blanco’s selection as President Obama’s second inaugural poet would provoke a response from a predictably vocal segment of the Cuban exile community. But I was surprised at the shoddy screed Zoe Valdes, a writer of distinction, posted recently on the right-wing website, Babalu Blog. This assault on Blanco is digressive, self-contradictory and based on false premises. It warrants attention, however, as an admonition against allowing ideologically-driven emotion to overtake stylistic rigor and sound judgment.

Read entire piece here.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ariel-gonzalez/zoe-valdes-richard-blanco_b_2579081.html>

The time to act is so very much in the making that some of these people are just simply loosing it! President Obama has a window, he is obviously pulling the shades and is looking out; let’s help him wipe off the mugginess that is interfering with clear vision.

In the words of Richard Blanco: ”(according to the Cuban exile community) Castro…destroyed the paradise that was Cuba. Yet my high school history teacher portrayed pre-revolutionary Cuba as a destitute country full of corruption, and praised Castro for his social reforms, quoting statistics in support of dramatic improvements in health care, literacy, and education; and many intellectuals I met in college glorified post-revolutionary Cuba as a model society. Who was telling the truth? Which was the “real” Cuba? Who got the story “right?”

The Latin American Gorilla

 

By Arturo Lopez-Levy

Originally in Foreign Policy in Focus

 

It has become commonplace to say that Latin America was absent from the 2012 election campaign in the United States. It is understandable, because the region was mentioned only once in the candidates’ foreign policy debate (by Governor Romney, when he referred to the potential of free-trade agreements in the hemisphere), and it got almost no attention in campaign speeches.

However, as with much conventional wisdom, the devil is in the definitions. If Latin America’s impact on U.S. politics is viewed in terms of relations between governments, the statement is correct; if, on the other hand, the concept includes the public, then the region was present like never before in the elections.

It is time to think about Latin American policy within a broader framework than old-fashioned nationalism. The political borders of transnational societies in the United States and the rest of the hemisphere have little to do with their legal boundaries. Latin America and the United States do not start or end with the Rio Grande or the Caribbean Sea. With their many, non-exclusive identities, Latin American and Caribbean Diaspora populations are increasingly important in the United States and in their home countries. The rigid divide between “Latin America” and the United States needs to be revised.

A New Calculus

It is symptomatic that oft-proposed solutions to the most emblematic problems of inter-hemispheric relations (free trade, energy, immigration, organized crime, and Cuba) have been dependent on the balance of power in American domestic politics. Insofar as the vote of important U.S. Latino groups changed those political calculations, Latin America’s role in the U.S. elections was extremely important. The emerging dynamic could have a major impact on U.S. policy toward the region.

By casting 71 percent of their votes for President Obama, few electoral blocs can claim more credit for Barack Obama’s reelection than Latinos. This is the highest percentage of ballots Latinos have cast for a Democratic candidate since 1996, when Bill Clinton got 72 percent. Had Romney managed to match George W. Bush’s 40-percent showing among Hispanics, he probably would be the president-elect today. Even more painful for the Republicans, Latinos are now 10 percent of the electorate and rising.

But the Republicans’ problem with the Latino electorate is not just demographic; it is first and foremost ideological. Several Republican leaders made offensive statements on the immigration issue. For the rest of his life, Romney will regret his strident support of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law, his promise to veto the Dream Act, and his “self-deportation” proposal for undocumented immigrants. Although Latino voters have numerous concerns—often very similar to those of the average voter—their sensitivity to the immigration issue is unique. They have common connections and histories with the immigrant population and the native countries of their social group. The discriminatory statements of conservative politicians against minorities, especially Hispanics, created a moral pressure within Latino communities to vote.

MSNBC’s Steve Schmidt, who directed Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, summed up the 2012 message for the Republican Party: if it does not change its attitude toward the country’s new demographic reality, “it may be left wandering in the dark for a generation.”

The Democrats cannot take the Latino vote for granted. Before this past summer, when the president signed the executive order authorizing temporary residence for more than 1 million young immigrants, Obama’s approval rating among Latinos had fallen significantly to below 50 percent. Accordingly, immigration reform is now at the top of the national agenda.

If the Romney campaign’s movement toward the center after the first presidential debate works as a prelude to a more general Republican repositioning, then the possibility of immigration reform getting passed in Congress is greater. The popularity of a reelected president tends to increase in the first year of the second term, providing Obama with more political capital. Additionally, the next discussion of immigration reform will occur in the context of modest Democratic gains in both houses of Congress, and a Republican Party that has been criticized for obstructionism, bias, and a resistance to compromise.

Few political acts would have a greater effect on U.S.-Latin American relations than the naturalization of millions of Hispanics over the next decade. President Obama announced that immigration reform would be a legislative priority in his second term during the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena. It is not only a domestic but a foreign policy promise. The countries that have the largest number of undocumented immigrants in the United States are the same ones that have free-trade agreements: Mexico, Central America, and Colombia. These are also the countries with the greatest need for a coordinated effort against organized crime and drug and arms trafficking.

Establishing a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants would make border control more manageable, and it would also lead to greater demand for the legal immigration of families and circular movement between the United States and immigrants’ countries of origin. Comprehensive U.S. immigration reform would have a very significant positive impact on tourism, remittances, investment, and the voting preferences of expatriates from those countries.

Room to Maneuver on Cuba?

Another example of how changes in U.S. Latino groups can change the context of policymaking occurred in Cuban-American Miami. For years, Cuban-Americans have voted Republican for president and sent to Congress pro-embargo legislators like Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart, who oppose Cuban-American travel to the island, and Senator Marco Rubio, who has filibustered presidential nominations in retaliation for alleged “abuse” of people-to-people travel.

But Obama won a record share of the Cuban-American vote (47percent to Romney’s 48 percent), showing the power of a new bloc of Cubans consisting both of recent immigrants and Americans of more distant Cuban descent. This bloc rejected the McCarthyist propaganda of the pro-embargo right-wing forces, enabling the president to campaign on more liberal U.S. policies toward the island.

For the first time, the election resulted in victories for candidates favorable to greater contact between the Cuban-American community and the island. In one closely contested House race, Democrat Joe García defeated Republican Rep. David Rivera, one of the most fervent supporters of the embargo. The evolution of García, a former director of the Cuban American National Foundation who now supports Cuban-American cultural exchanges, is evidence of the moderation now prevailing among a major component of the Cuban-American elite.

The same tendency was seen in the election to the Florida state legislature of José Javier Rodriguez, a Democrat who supports exchanges between the Cuban-American community and the island. Garcia will enter the House just as Rep. Ros-Lehtinen leaves the chairmanship of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, in line with the Republican caucus’s term limits.

Outside of Florida, the elections had ambiguous results. In Texas, voters elected Republican Ted Cruz, a Cuban American who will join fellow embargo supporters Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ) in the Senate. On the Cuba issue, however, Cruz’s victory is offset by that of Arizona Republican Jeff Flake, who has been the most consistent anti-embargo voice in the U.S. House in the past decade.

All told, Obama owes nothing to the pro-embargo lobbyists who accused his administration of “unilateral appeasement” towards Havana and paid for spurious campaign ads connecting the president with Raul Castro’s daughter and Hugo Chavez. Now it’s payback time. Anti-embargo groups should work to ensure that the virtuous cycle represented by increased travel and the creation of communities who are interested in new ties with Cuba can continue for four more years.

The messages that have been sent out from a more plural Miami, combined with greater flexibility in Obama’s second term, offer the president more maneuvering room for a rational treatment of the Cuba issue. Taking Cuba off the State Department list of terrorist countries would be a symbolic first step in the right direction.

Cuba, as the rest of Latin America, was not absent from the election; the voters put it into play.

Arturo Lopez-Levy is a PhD Candidate at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies of the University of Denver.

You can follow him on Twitter @turylevy.

 

Cuba and Fidel Castro: Beyond his 86th Birthday.

By Arturo Lopez-Levy 

Originally published in The Havana Note

Regardless of how long he lives, Fidel Castro has had an influential role in shaping the political discourse in Cuba. Fidel skillfully mixed Marxism and nationalism and made a revolution that changed the history not only of Cuba but also of the whole Western hemisphere. He was the most popular leader in a generation of Cubans, a political giant who reached world dimensions during the Cold War. As professor Jorge Dominguez from Harvard University said, If there  had been competitive elections in the early 1960’s, Castro could have won them all. He didn’t have the chance. In the most difficult moments of the Cold War, the United States, as the hegemonic power in the Americas, didn’t have tolerance for a nationalist leader who aspired to an independent neutralist course not to mention a socialist one, no matter how popular Castro was among his people.

On the other hand, Castro was not a misunderstood liberal democrat, but a realist politician with strong nationalist and socialist ideas ready to remain in power and implement his revolutionary program by democratic or undemocratic means.  He learned from the experience of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala and fought the Cuban Civil War of the 1960’s with every conceivable alliance and political weapon  available to him. Political opponents of Castro’s program were treated as enemies of the nation, they suffered financial and property losses, harassment and long prison sentences. Fidel created a new Communist party under his nationalist authoritarian leadership and remained in power for almost five decades. In 2006, he retired undefeated. No leader in Cuba could speak; bring enthusiasm to his followers, and plant fear in his enemies as Fidel Castro did. His charisma was no doubt an important source of the communist party’s legitimacy but he also attracted many Cubans due to his writings, ideas and speeches.

In analyzing how Cuba moved forward after the revolution a completely Fidel centered approach was always insufficient because it is impossible to trace how much of Fidel’s policies were the result of his own views and how much his campaigns were the result of influences by different interests within Cuba’s power structure. But when Fidel was committed to a policy, he was the minimal winning coalition. Politics at the strategic government level consisted of guessing what could help Fidel’s grand strategy. This limited the feedback on policy and the information flows of the system.

Fidel’s style hardly ever consisted of leading from behind. That is why the “Fidel in command” model truly ended when he fell ill in 2006.   Fidel is no longer the decisive force in the political survival of the PCC rule. In part by design and in part by default, the institutionalization of the party rule and the economic reforms proposed in the “Lineamientos Economicos y Sociales” (Social and Economic Guidelines) of the PCC imply a partial withdrawal of the communist state from social spaces and the economy. Fidel’s charisma and leadership style were cardinal obstacles for these two long overdue processes. The supreme leader of the revolution deployed a striking anti market bias all throughout his career.

Fidel was not only the main creator of institutions in post-revolutionary Cuba but also the charismatic leader who reduced their importance at his pleasure, sometimes unconsciously. In his statements, Fidel Castro  was a constant advocate for “democratic centralism” and “collective leadership”, not for cult of personality, but in practice, his charisma and political dominance prevented the institutionalization of a legal-rational bureaucratic rule. The government was wherever he was; its priorities were his priorities. The recently approved term limits were unthinkable under his aegis.

Now, there is a new situation. Raúl Castro’s commitment to economic reforms and institutionalization is opening venues for the discussion of new ideas within the power structure and the general political discourse. Propositions in favor of a gradual expansion of the role of the market in the economy, the diversification of the property structure, and the expansion of the role of law and rules in how government and the party work are openly discussed. This is not part of a transition to a multiparty democracy but embodies the relaxation of information controls; it improves the feedback mechanisms and the expression of pluralistic interests within the Cuban elites and society. Public discourse is breaking away from the homogenous path of previous times, not only in the publications of the Catholic Church or reform oriented magazines such as Temas, but also in the core publications of the system. Newspapers and radios on the provinces, and even Granma, the Communist party newspaper, are talking about the need for separating the party from the government, and economic changes.

One ideological factor that is emerging in post-Fidel Cuba is an increased emphasis in a nationalist narrative. During Fidel Castro’s leadership, particularly before 1989, the PCC promoted Marxist ideas, and a feeling of belonging to the international communist bloc. Internationalism, not nationalism, was the central ideological principle of Cuba’s foreign policy. Raúl Castro’s recent speech in Guantanamo on July 26 demonstrated how this feature is changing. The emphasis on the revolution as a solution to a history of national humiliation is becoming predominant and issues such as national unity, economic growth and public order are emerging more forcefully in the official discourse. The struggle against the U.S. embargo is becoming again the strongest unifying ideological factor in the elite and between the PCC and the population.

When Fidel’s health forced him to step down , the community of Cubans in Miami Florida reserved the Orange Bowl for the anticipated celebration of his death.  In other parts of the world, such as the Southern Cone of Africa where Cuban troops were key allies in the struggle against Apartheid, there was sorrow. What would happen in Cuba when Fidel Castro dies? A funeral.   Fidel Castro’s death will speed up the processes of economic reform and institutionalization but it is important not to exaggerate his current impact in Cuba’s policymaking. He is a retired head of State.

Fidel Castro is not Cuba. Rather than focusing on an 86 years old revolutionary patriarch, the international community, particularly the United States, should look at the general trends operating in Cuba’s politics and economy. A central question is whether Raul Castro’s economic reform can alter the political dynamics and the distribution of power not only in Cuba but on the Cuban American community and U.S. debate about the embargo.  Everything else being equal, a market oriented Cuban economy, with a vibrant non-state sector, would create a virtuous cycle of pressures to end the U.S. sanctions that would also strengthen the appetite for more economic opening in Cuba. It is also worth noting that the antipathy generated by Fidel among some segments of the American public and the Cuban American community is not transferable to any other leader, not even his brother Raúl.

That is the gift Fidel Castro has given all of us to contemplate on this, his 86^th birthday.

Castro on Democracy Now!

Mariela Castro Espín on Democracy Now! live at the firehouse in New York City

 

<pAMY GOODMAN: In a Democracy Now! special, we begin our show today with a rare U.S. interview with the daughter of the Cuban president, Raúl Castro, and First Lady Vilma Espín. Her name is Mariela Castro. She’s best known in Cuba for her ardent support of gay, lesbian and transgender rights and as the director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education in Havana.

Mariela Castro was recently granted a visa for a rare trip to the United States. Democracy Now! had a chance to sit down with her last week at the Cuban consulate here in New York City. We talked not only about her work combating homophobia, but also her thoughts on the Cuban Five and what’s happening in Cuba 50 years after the start of the U.S. embargo. She called on the United States to release five Cubans jailed for spying on violent anti-Cuban militants in exchange for U.S. citizen Alan Gross, who was arrested in Cuba in 2009 and sentenced to 15 years on charges of subversion. She says, “Free the six.”

We turn now to my interview with Mariela Castro. I began by asking her about what brought her to the United States. Mariela Castro was translated by Elizabeth Coll.

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] I presented my work at the Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, which was held last week in San Francisco. I was also invited by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the work that you’re doing in Cuba.

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] I am the director of the National Center of Sexual Education. This is an academic center that is part of the Ministry of Public Health. Its mission is to coordinate the national program of sexual education with a multidisciplinary focus which coordinates different sectors.

AMY GOODMAN: Why have you chosen to make sexuality and the politics of sexuality your issue? You, yourself, are heterosexual. You’re married to a man. You have three children.

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] This is work that my mother began with the Federation of Cuban Women. She was the one who created CENESEX. Though professionally I worked with preschool children and adolescents, as I heard about the difficulties of LGBT people, I began to sympathize with their needs and problems. Many LGBT couples chose to come to counseling sessions with me, and as I listened to them, I started to study, to find tools to be able to help them.

AMY GOODMAN: You’ve come to the United States at an interesting time. The president, President Obama, has just endorsed same-sex marriage, marriage equality. What are your thoughts about that?

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] I think it’s very valuable that the president of the United States speaks out publicly in favor of the rights of same-sex couples. Being the most powerful country in the world, what the president says has great influence on the rest of the world.

AMY GOODMAN: Yet we do not have across-the-board law that says that same-sex marriage is accepted. And in Cuba, you don’t, either. What are you doing in Cuba to change the laws?

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] In Cuba, CENESEX is leading an educational strategy, with the support of the media, to promote respect for free and responsible sexual orientation and gender identity. We are also doing some advocacy with state institutions and civil society organizations, so that they support this educational strategy. Beyond the educational strategy and our media strategy, we are also promoting legislative initiatives that support the same rights for homosexuals and transgender people, so that, for example, the family code recognizes the rights of these people and also their possibilities as couples, the legalization of their union as a couple.

AMY GOODMAN: Are you pushing for same-sex marriage in Cuba?

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] I am promoting marriage, but it was not accepted by many groups of people. And so, what we are negotiating is the legalization of consensual unions and that the legalization of these unions would guarantee, more than anything, their property rights, inheritance rights.

AMY GOODMAN: So, do same-sex couples have the same economic rights as heterosexual couples?

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] All rights are guaranteed for all people. There is no exclusion for LGBT people. But where there is still not respect for their rights is around the guarantee that if one member of a same-sex couple dies, the survivor be recognized as the person who should receive the inheritance, or even just be allowed to enjoy the goods that they had enjoyed as a couple.

AMY GOODMAN: Presumably, you have your father’s ear, the president of Cuba. How does he feel about making it fully equal between same-sex couples and heterosexual couples?

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] He is convinced that it is necessary, that it is part of the project of full justice the Cuban Revolution proposes.

AMY GOODMAN: Is he supportive like you are?

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] He has been supportive since before, from when my mother was working on these issues.

AMY GOODMAN: And what about gay men and lesbians in the military?

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] In all of Cuban society, there are all kinds of people. In the army, as well, there are homosexuals and lesbians. They don’t manifest it publicly, but they are there.

AMY GOODMAN: If it is known, if they are open, would they be kicked out of the military?

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] I see that the rules have become more flexible. Of course, before, they were more rigid. I think that in all Cuban society, the policy and laws are becoming more flexible. And the same will happen in the army.

AMY GOODMAN: We return to my conversation with Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro. I asked her about the Cuban Five, the five men convicted in 2001 for spying on violent anti-Castro militants in the United States.

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] As part of the Cuban population, I am committed to fighting for the liberation of the five Cubans, in this case, four Cubans who are imprisoned and one who is out on probation in Miami. And, really, they are serving very severe sentences that do not correspond with the evidence. There is no evidence for such severe sentences. If they had been tried justly, they would have already completed their sentences. And yet, they are still prisoners.

AMY GOODMAN: I dare say most Americans don’t even know who they are, why they’re in jail. Can you explain?

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] It has been silenced because it is a kind of political vendetta. You know that Cuba, since the beginning of the revolution, has been the victim of terrorist attempts, organized and perpetrated by terrorist groups based in Miami of Cubans who have even confessed to be killers. They have confessed their crimes, even in books that have been published and in interviews on television. But they have not been brought to justice. However, Cuba has more than 5,000 victims of state terrorism between the dead and the wounded. Thus, as a society, as a sovereign nation, we have the right to defend ourselves, and we do it peacefully.

How? Infiltrating Cuban people who identify with the revolution, infiltrating them into these terrorist groups to alert the Cuban government as to when these terrorist attacks were going to take place, in order to be able to thwart the attempts and defend our population. These terrorist groups enjoy great economic and political power in Florida, and thus, judgments were made that violate the laws of the United States, and they were made in Miami by totally partial judges who oppose the process of the Cuban Revolution.

AMY GOODMAN: Would the Cuban government be open to a prisoner swap, the Cuban Five for Alan Gross, who has been imprisoned by the Cuban government?

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] The Cuban government has expressed interest in finding a negotiated solution on humanitarian terms, and of course it is fully disposed to negotiate with the government of the United States. But it has not received any response.

AMY GOODMAN: Cuban-American Congress members in the United States have condemned the Obama administration for giving you a visa into the United States. Díaz-Balart, Congressman Díaz-Balart, said, “It is appalling that the Obama administration is welcoming high-level agents of the Castro dictatorship onto U.S. soil. While the Cuban people are struggling for basic freedoms in the face of increasingly brutal repression…”

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen says, “Mariela Castro is part of a ruthless dictatorship that has oppressed the Cuban people for more than half a century. She wants to spew [out] the lies and propaganda of her family’s failed regime and doesn’t want to answer questions from a free and independent media.”

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] I am not going to respond to the mediocre yellow press that she tries to impose on me, which for 50 years has spread lies about the Cuban Revolution. I also want to say about these Cuban congresspeople that you mentioned, everyone in the United States and Cuba knows that they promote laws that violate the rights of Americans to travel to Cuba, that violate the rights of the Cuban community and Cuban descendants in the United States, who are 1.8 million people, to travel freely to Cuba to reunite with their families. These people are constantly promoting legislation that worsens the economic blockade. And with the revolutionary government of these more than 50 years, the Cuban people have found freedom and full justice.

AMY GOODMAN: You’ve been allowed into the United States under the Bush administration.

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] I entered in 2002 for another congress in Los Angeles.

AMY GOODMAN: What would a lifting of the U.S. embargo against Cuba mean for your country, Mariela Castro?

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] In the first place, it would mean that the government of the United States would begin to respect international law. It would mean the beginning of the end of one of the worst human rights violations: that suffered by the Cuban people because of the blockade. For Cuba, it would mean access to development that has been limited by the blockade. And Americans and Cubans could meet in friendship, without the mediation of these unscrupulous congresspeople who manipulate the policy of the United States towards Cuba in service of their personal power and economic interests, and not in function of the necessities of the Cuban people both within Cuba and beyond.

AMY GOODMAN: Your father, President Castro, has been making a transition in Cuba. Can you talk about the changes that you think are most important for people in the United States to understand?

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] One of the most important changes is that the new economic and social strategy has been designed with the full participation of all the Cuban population, who have participated in the debates, both to question the current reality as well as to propose what changes should be made.

AMY GOODMAN: There is a lot of discussion of a post-Castro Cuba. What do you think that would look like?

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] The same—with the same strategy of socialist development, which is always looking for more efficient mechanisms to support social justice and national sovereignty, and also with new public figures, because there are many people participating in Cuba in all the decisions. So that would mean new faces for the media. But for Cubans, those faces would not be new.

AMY GOODMAN: Would you consider the presidency of Cuba?

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] No. That job doesn’t interest me.

AMY GOODMAN: Why?

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] I like my job.

AMY GOODMAN: There are other socialist governments in Latin America—Bolivia, Venezuela—where there are elections. Would Cuba go in that direction?

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] I think Cuba has publicly expressed what the mechanisms of popular election will be, and what is being proposed is to perfect them, not repeat what others do.

AMY GOODMAN: What would it look like?

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] Well, how we do it now is through mechanisms of popular election. It is the people who nominate their leaders. Term limits have been established, and the president, my father, is included in these term limits. This has been the result of a collective discussion, to give opportunities to others, so that they assume their responsibilities. And the mechanisms of control are being perfected so that the people have access to the control of the mechanisms of power.

AMY GOODMAN: How is the health of your uncle, Fidel Castro?

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] I just want to add, in Cuba, we don’t have electoral campaigns, and the Communist Party doesn’t field candidates. And the leaders don’t receive an additional salary. And the legislators don’t receive an additional salary, because they are still doing their jobs. So positions of power in Cuba do not generate economic interests in people.

Fidel looks like he’s doing really well. He is an octogenarian, so he doesn’t have the same vitality that characterized him his whole life—that where there was a problem, Fidel was there with the people looking for solutions; that where there was a threat or danger, Fidel was right there in front of his people. Fidel is now giving us the privilege of his writing, of the writing of history. There are things that only he knows. And he is giving us a marvelous historical legacy that gives the Cuban people a spiritual strength that is priceless.

AMY GOODMAN: How did he manage to survive? I believe it’s more than 600 assassination attempts by the United States, at least hundreds. The CIA documents many of them.

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] I think it was three things. First, his charisma and his sense of justice convinced even his executioners. Above all, he was the leader of the Cuban people, he is the maximum leader of the Cuban people, and the people have always protected him. But he is also a third world leader. And in the countries that he visited where they organized the attempts, mostly organized by the CIA, these same populations protected him.

AMY GOODMAN: What is your assessment of President Obama?

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] President Obama represents an imperialist government and policy. So if you were to say to me, “Do you prefer him? Would you like him as a president?” I would say I would prefer a president who responds to the interests of the American people, who protects the poor from the arbitrary actions of the rich, and that respects international law. I have a very personal impression that Obama is a person who tries to be just. But while occupying the position of the presidency of the United States, it is very difficult to be just. However, I am a person who always likes to think positively, and I would like to believe that Obama in a second term will be a better human being and a better president.

AMY GOODMAN: You mentioned issues of poverty and equality. What is your assessment of the Occupy movement in the United States?

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] It’s very interesting to me how the American population has found new languages and forms of struggle, a new language of struggle to fight for their social demands. And they do it peacefully and with deep reasoning. I don’t think they are against the government. They are against the policies that violate their rights. And I feel admiration for the courage of these people.

AMY GOODMAN: What would you like to see most change about the United States?

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] I want the Cuban Five to go back to Cuba and for Alan Gross to go home. I want an end to the financial, commercial and economic blockade that violates the human rights of the Cuban people, and the normalization of relations between both countries.

AMY GOODMAN: And what would you like to see most change about Cuba?

MARIELA CASTRO: [translated] In Cuba, I want to see the socialist system strengthened with mechanisms that are always more participatory and democratic, and that the sovereignty of Cuba always be respected.

AMY GOODMAN: Mariela Castro, daughter of the Cuban president, Raúl Castro. She is the most prominent champion of gay, lesbian and transgender rights in Cuba. She called on the United States to release the five Cubans imprisoned here in the U.S. They were spying on anti-Cuban militants in the U.S. In exchange, she says, Cuba should release Alan Gross, a U.S. citizen jailed in Cuba.

Amanpour & Castro

The United States had a rare and unique opportunity last week to witness first hand a one on one conversation between two intelligent women. Unfortunately the event was promoted on live television for Spanish speaking audiences and for the international section of CNN.

Below please find the full English transcript of the conversation held between Christiane Amanpour and Mariela Castro Espín.

MAP

Mariela Castro during the May Day Parade march holding a sign from the “OBAMA GIve Me Five!” campaign

 

 

AMANPOUR: Mariela Castro, thank you for being with us.

MARIELA CASTRO ESPIN, DAUGHTER OF RAUL CASTRO: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: I want to ask you first, who inspired you to this cause of gay rights?

ESPIN (through translator): In the first place, it was my mother.

My mother began to do this kind of work in the Cuban women’s organization, first defending women’s rights, children’s and youth rights and little by little she began to try and have people be respected in the LGBT community that, because of a very patriarchal culture inherited from the Spanish system continues to be our reality, these prejudices are still repeated.

AMANPOUR: Let me show you these pictures that we have found, amazing pictures of you and your family, your mother and your father and your siblings. This is the current president, Raul Castro, your father. And this is your mom, Vilma.

ESPIN: Yes.

AMANPOUR: And which is you here?

ESPIN: Here. Esta.

ESPIN (through translator): I’m right here. This is me. I’m the second child.

AMANPOUR: Given your family’s history and the revolutionary hero and the tough guy image in Cuba, was it difficult to take up this cause of gay rights?

ESPIN (through translator): All families in the world are patriarchal families and they’re machista families. And in the case of my family, the fact that my mother was already working in this field, she ensured that my father interpreted this reality in a more flexible way.

And for me it was always easy to speak openly with my parents and this idea of fighting against homophobia was really something that I took from them.

But even so, although I found understanding in my family and my family was very understanding, even my father is very understanding right now, it’s a very difficult and complex process, and this is why my father always said that I have to be very careful about everything and to do this very attentively and carefully so that I wouldn’t hurt other people who don’t understand, but that I do have to provide people the instruments with which they can respect other realities, even though they don’t understand them.

AMANPOUR: You have written, “As I began to recognize the damage that homophobia was doing to society, I would come home and confront my parents with the issue. And when I got home, I said to my father, `How could you people have been so savage?’ My dad said, `Well, we were like that in those days. That’s what we were taught. But people learn.'”

So it was an evolution for your father.

ESPIN (through translator): Exactly. I think that Cuban society as a whole has been changing and its political leaders are also changing as part of society.

AMANPOUR: Even in this country, it’s taken a long time for politicians to agree, for instance, to gay marriage, same-sex marriage. President Obama has just said that he supports it. You must admire President Obama.

ESPIN (through translator): Yes. And when I heard this news, and I was questioned about it in the press, of course I can say that I support and I celebrate what President Obama has done. I believe that it’s very just and I feel a great deal of admiration for President Obama.

I believe that if President Obama had fewer limitations in his mandate, he could do much more for his people and for international law and international rights. Yes, I think that I dare to say that, because I’m not American. That’s really a right that the American people have. But I feel the right to express what I feel, and if I was an American citizen, yes, I would vote for President Obama.

AMANPOUR: On this issue of same-sex marriage, do you think that will become legal in Cuba?

ESPIN (through translator): Already several years ago, my mother began to promote this bill and even trying to propose changing legislation. First we were proposing the freedom of same-sex marriage.

But since there’s been such a debate on this and there are so many diverse opinions in Cuba, what is being proposed right now are civil unions, where gay couples have the same rights as heterosexual couples. However, this hasn’t happened as yet, and people who are in same-sex couples do not have any protection.

AMANPOUR: You can see these pictures of gay rights marches in Cuba itself. When do you think this law will be taken up? When do you think that there will be progress from the Cuban parliament on this?

ESPIN (through translator): According to what had been planned, it’s this same year that this still has to be presented, which recognizes the rights of same-sex couples.

AMANPOUR: As we’ve been talking, you’ve talked about human rights and you’ve talked about the limits of the state. So let me ask you about the rights in your country and whether you think that gay rights, civil rights, could lead to more different kinds of rights, political kinds of rights. Where do you see this trend going, opening up the space for civil rights?

ESPIN (through translator): At present, in the last few years, there’s been a big debate that the Cuban people have participated in in many sectors. And there have been criticisms and suggestions of what we have to change in Cuban society.

And many valuable ideas have come from this. And what we’ve seen is what the population believes should be our socialist transition process in Cuba. And we want to include everything that we believe to be our need. And of course, this translates into rights, civil rights.

AMANPOUR: Well, let me ask you about that. I’ve been in Cuba several times over the last 14 years, and I can see that under your father, President Raul Castro, there’s been opening on the economic front, but not so much on the political front. Again, do you think these civil rights will lead to more political diversity, more political rights?

ESPIN (through translator): As to political rights, what are you talking about?

AMANPOUR: Obviously, there’s one party in Cuba, so that’s one issue. But Human Rights Watch says that Cuba remains the only country in Latin America that represses virtually all forms of political dissent. So I’m trying to figure out whether there is space in Cuba for broader political rights, where people, for instance, can dissent without being sent to jail.

ESPIN (through translator): All right. Human Rights Watch does not represent the ideas of the Cuban people and their informants are mercenaries. They’re people that have been paid by foreign governments for media shows that do not represent Cuban positions correctly.

However, the presence of a sole party in Cuba came from the fight against colonialism, from Spain. Jose Martin had the merit of creating the Cuban revolutionary party in Cuba as a sole party, specifically to achieve independence and to avoid domination by the United States. So that’s the line that we followed in Cuban history because conditions haven’t changed.

And it hasn’t been easy. We’ve been working for many years to achieve this. We’ve achieved it in many spheres, in human rights, the rights of women, health, in many areas. But in other areas, where we haven’t reached that, we’re still working. That demand, that Cuba have various parties, no country has shown that having plural parties leads to democracy.

So the suggestions that they want to make to us aren’t valid. Conditions haven’t changed. Cuba is a country that for over 50 years have been subjected to the violation of international law with the financial blockade which has not allowed Cuba to access development.

AMANPOUR: I think I heard you suggest that if the embargo was not there and if you were not under pressure, that there would be a different political reality or there could be a different political reality in Cuba. Is that right?

ESPIN (through translator): Exactly. That’s right. If Cuba weren’t the subject of an economic and trade embargo, which has created so many problems for us, then Cuba, it wouldn’t make sense to have a sole party, just one party. But it’s when our sovereignty is threatened that we use this resource, which has truly worked in Cuban history.

AMANPOUR: As you know, there are many people, even inside Cuba, who feel that if the embargo was lifted, it would actually cause the one-party system to collapse. It would cause, perhaps, socialism to collapse.

ESPIN (through translator): I don’t think it would collapse. I don’t think socialism would collapse. I think it would become stronger. This is why they don’t lift the embargo.

AMANPOUR: Let me get to some of the reaction that your visit here has caused. Were you surprised that the U.S. government gave you a visa?

ESPIN (through translator): Even though I had obtained a visa under Bush in 2002, I was surprised this time. I didn’t think that I would be granted a visa. But I’m grateful. I was able to have a very rich exchange with professionals and activists in San Francisco and in New York as well.

AMANPOUR: You don’t need me to tell you what the Cuban-American community thinks. Florida Senator Marco Rubio accused you of bringing a campaign of anti-Americanism to the United States. Is that what you’re doing here?

ESPIN (through translator): In the first place, that senator doesn’t represent the Cuban-American people in the United States, just a very small interest group that has dedicated itself to manipulating policies in the United States towards Cuba affecting the civil rights of the Cuban-American people to travel freely and as often as they want, to be able to go back and see their families in Cuba.

So their leaders have always asked that we normalize relations based on respect towards our sovereignties and our social and economic projects. And I think that we can achieve this. I think it’s easy. It’s unfortunate that a small group of people are really limiting this process. I felt the friendship and the affection of the people of the United States.

I felt very well here. I’ve met wonderful people and I see that we share many points in common, Cuba and the United States. Right now in Cuba, there are many Americans because of the flexibility that Obama has. And it’s wonderful. They may feel very well there. And we’re ready. We’re ready to meet in friendship with any type of conditioning or political (inaudible).

AMANPOUR: Did you expect more from President Obama or has he gone as far as you expected him to go on the Cuban issue?

ESPIN (through translator): I think that the whole world and the American people have placed great hopes on President Obama and I personally understand that that is his position and that his public mandate limits him a great deal.

But I believe that President Obama needs another opportunity. And he needs greater support to move forward with this project and with his ideas, which I believe come from the bottom of his heart. He wants to do much more than what he’s done. That’s the way I interpret it personally. I don’t know if I’m being subjective.

AMANPOUR: Do you think that he wants to lift the embargo, and that there could be proper relations between Cuba and the United States under a second Obama term?

ESPIN (through translator): I believe that Obama is a fair man. And Obama needs greater support to be able to take this decision.

AMANPOUR: Do you want Obama to win the next election?

ESPIN (through translator): As a citizen of the world, I would like him to win. Seeing the candidates, I prefer Obama.

AMANPOUR: Now, as you know, there are many issues that cause problems between Cuba and the United States. One of the issues right now is Alan Gross. I want to play you something that he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALAN GROSS, AMERICAN HELD PRISONER IN CUBA: I have a 90-year-old mother who has inoperable lung cancer and she’s not getting any younger. And she’s not getting any healthier. I would return to Cuba, you know, you can quote me on that. I’m saying it live. I would return to Cuba if they let me visit my mother before she dies. And we’ve gotten no response.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So my question to you is why should Alan Gross not be allowed to visit his sick mother?

ESPIN (through translator): The Cuban government has publicly requested that they want to negotiate based on human considerations, Alan Gross’ situation as well as the situation of the five Cubans who have been in prison for 15 years in the United States. And the Cuban people who are participating in this process is to seek a satisfactory solution for the six families, the five Cubans and for Alan Gross.

I think that it’s fair. I’m hurt by any families suffering. I’m dedicated to helping people and making them happy, and it seems to me that independently of the fact that he’s committed a crime and that he’s only served a short period of his sentence, I think that it’s fair that people can receive the benefit of flexibility in the world of law and justice, and that these negotiations go forward into the two governments. I think that as a people, we’re going to be very happy the situation has been solved.

But we have the case of Gerardo Hernandez, who’s in prison. His mother fell ill. He asked for permission to see his mother. His mother passed away, and Gerardo was not able to say goodbye to his mother. He also hasn’t been able to see his wife this whole time.

Alan Gross has been granted everything that he’s asked for. He’s been able to see his wife. He’s been able to have matrimonial conjugal visits and he has been treated with respect and dignity the way we always treat prisoners in Cuba.

We haven’t received the same treatment on the other hand for our five prisoners who have very long sentences. They’re not right. So what we want is the well-being of all of these families. That’s what we (inaudible) the most. I think that the six must be released, both the five Cubans and Alan Gross.

AMANPOUR: You yourself have said in New York this week, our system is open and fair, as you’ve just told me. Many would disagree with you, but you have said that. But you’ve also said that it could be more democratic. What do you mean by that?

ESPIN (through translator): I meant to say that we need to establish permanent mechanisms for the people’s participation when we make decisions, because this is the only way that all our people can participate.

AMANPOUR: We often wonder why it is that Cubans can’t travel very easily. Cubans have to get permission from the government to travel and come back. They can’t just leave. And it’s quite difficult to get permission. I mean, people have told me that inside Cuba. Why? I mean, what’s the point of that?

ESPIN (through translator): The subject of migration in Cuba was always managed politically from here and you know that there are many difficulties. And immigration law, even though the law in the United States is maintained, should change in Cuba.

So several years ago, there’s been a great discussion regarding the subject about how to modify this law and I understand that the fear and new immigration law will be approved in Cuba, which opens up to everything that the Cuban people have requested in our ongoing debate.

AMANPOUR: So you foresee change in the travel laws?

ESPIN (through translator): Yes, and I believe it’s going to come about very soon.

It’s one of the things that we’ve asked for the most in all of these discussions.

AMANPOUR: I have to ask you about somebody who you’re already having a bit of a verbal war with, and that is Yoani Sanchez, the dissident blogger inside Cuba. Why shouldn’t she be allowed to blog? Why shouldn’t she be allowed to say what she does?

ESPIN (through translator): The way I see it, Yoani Sanchez is allowed to express herself. She has a blog. She’s on Twitter. She’s on Facebook. She’s not in prison, even though she’s a mercenary. (Inaudible) she’s received over half a million dollar in prizes (inaudible) form of payment and (inaudible) mercenary does exist in Cuba.

Even though she’s done that, she’s not in prison. Even though she is breaking the law, she’s allowed to express herself and she’s allowed to lie. She has time to lie in everything that she wants. She’s free. She even has the most sophisticated technology which exists in Cuba to connect to Internet and to be able to publish her ideas.

AMANPOUR: In that regard, a couple of years ago, journalists came to Cuba, and they met with your uncle, Fidel Castro. And he gave an interview and he basically said the Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore. What do you think he meant by that?

ESPIN (through translator): He meant to say that in this new era, in Cuba’s new reality, with the development of the political culture and functions (ph) in our country, it was time for a change. We had to change our strategy. And that’s what we’ve been doing. He realized it. And as a leader, he was calling upon us to do that.

But those changes do not happen overnight. I repeat, they have to be worked on. We have to generate a debate, and I think that that is what we’ve been doing. And I’m very satisfied to see that the maximum leader of our revolution has identified our difficulties, because as a people we were also defining them.

AMANPOUR: Thank you very much for coming in.

ESPIN (through translator): Thank you very much.

Behind the wall

Margarita Alarcón Perea

Every two years the city of Havana gets a new makeup job. Not paint, and not cement. It’s a makeup job in the sense that it is unfortunately ephemeral but no less beautiful to contemplate and enjoy while it lasts. The Biennale of Havana is the makeup job I refer to and this year it has hit the town hard and is painting it bright red.

Artistic Practices and Social Imaginaries is the theme of this 11th Havana Biennial 2012 and most of the work present is made up of interactive groundbreaking concept art reminiscent of Alexander Calder back when he revolutionized the notion of art and movement as one.

Over one hundred artists from 45

 countries are sharing in this festival of graphic imagery, many in collaborative works, all taking over the streets, the pavement, buildings, scaffolding and breathing in from the energy of the city itself to create in some cases a city of their own.

“Behind the Wall” gives title to one of the more expressive and interactive of the exhibits which stretches along the Malecon Habanero, (Havana ocean front walk). Cuban artists of the younger more provocative generation living both inside and outside the island have chosen this part of town to show their work. Pieces that have in common the desire for peace, belonging, movement and acceptance.

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The Biennale will go on for a month from its inaugural date of May 11^th. During this time, over 1,500 legal US visitors will be walking the streets of Havana partaking in the event, learning, and writing about the days they spend here. This year the Biennale is proving that art can create a bridge to bring people together on the common ground of beauty and self expression.

Arles del Rio “Fly Away”

Meanwhile, back home in the US, members of Congress are having a field day over a couple of visas granted to two Cubans. A couple of visas, TWO mind you, not 100, not even 200, just TWO. One was to the historian of the City of Havana and a world renown preservationist, Dr Eusebio Leal Spengler who also happens to be an honorary member of the French Foreign Legion and an invited speaker at the Brookings Institute. The other is Mariela Castro Espín, who is a sexologist, the director of the Center for Sex Education in Cuba and yes, well, her last names give her away, she is also one of the children of Raul Castro.

Neither Mariela nor Eusebio are travelling to the US to do proselytism on behalf of the “communist” regime. They are both visiting the US in regards to their fields of expertise, and because they were invited,  one to speak at  LASA “Latin American Studies Association” and the other at Brookings.

While members of Congress are insulting the current administration’s policy of reasonable and logical engagement with Cuba, and taking the Department of State to task over its decision to grant visas to a couple of Cuban citizens who happen to be academics other North American’s  are taking advantage of the Obama Administrations efforts to close the gap between both nations  by allowing travel and the parting in an artistic and scholarly  event that will help them better understand Cuba.

 

Rachel Valdés Camejo “…Happily Ever After…”

More Cuba in the loop.

 

 

1. Tell  Congress to address April’s terrorist attack in Miami
2. Let the State Department know that you denounce the visa denials of Cuban academics

 

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Tell Congress to address April’s terrorist attack in Miami

1) On April 27th there was a terrorist attack on a travel agency in Miami that is active in organizing travel to Cuba, and that arranged the travel for the group of 300 pilgrims who traveled to Cuba with Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami for the visit of Pope Benedict XVI. The Coral Gables Fire Department says: ” A fire at a company that charters flights to Cuba was sparked after a chunk of pavement was used to break open an office window and an incendiary device was then tossed into the building.”

The FBI report has not yet been issued, yet the presence of the FBI South Florida counter-terrorism task force says enough, and unofficial agencies present at the scene have said that this attack was “deliberate.”

Folks, this was a terrorist attack, plain and simple. You’d think that members of Congress from Florida would condemn it, wouldn’t you? Nope, not one word. In fact, not one member of Congress from ANY state has issued a statement denouncing the bombing. We want to see a serious investigation and prosecution of the perpetrators. Congress should be interested in this, too.

Send an email to your member of Congress here asking for a public response to a terrorist attack within our country’s borders. If you are from Florida, it is especially important that you take this action.

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Let the State Department know that you denounce the visa denials of Cuban academics

2) You may have heard about the State Department’s denial of visas to 11 respected Cuban scholars who were planning on attending the Latin American Studies Association meeting in San Francisco this week—while at the same time approving visas for two prominent Cubans invited to the same conference. The approvals of visas to Mariela Castro (a sexologist and President Raul Castro’s daughter), Dr. Eusebio Leal (the historian of the City of Havana), and two weeks earlier to Josefina Vidal (head of the North American Section of MINREX, Cuba’s foreign ministry). BTW, we applaud these visas, as there should be free and easy exchange between Cuban officials and U.S. officials, too. (Aren’t they “people,” too?) You can read comments from The Havana Note here.

The Cubans who were denied visas are a “Who’s Who” of Cuban academe who favor increased exchange between the United States and Cuba, and even the normalization of relations. They are effective in their messaging. Perhaps that is why they were denied? Click here to tell the State Department that you support educational exchanges with Cuba. We want to see a free flow of ideas on both sides of the Florida straits!

During an election year—when Florida is a crucial focus for both political parties—moves toward fully ending the travel ban have been stalled. But playing defense is an honorable role for us to play. As we wait for the right climate to push for more openings and significant progress toward normalization of relations between the two neighbor nations, we can’t let forces that oppose engagement win the day and succeed in eroding the advances we’ve made—or frighten away people and institutions that support travel to Cuba.

Thanks for your continued advocacy on behalf of the End the Travel Ban campaign! And we’ll be back in touch soon with an announcement about a delegation to Cuba in January 2013 which LAWG will be accompanying and co-leading!

All the best,

The LAWG Cuba Team.

Alan Gross vs. the Cuban Five?

May 23, 2012 – Ron  Kampeas,  Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Washington

From The Jewish Exponent

Advocates for Alan Gross, who is serving prison time in Cuba, say that talk of a trade for five Cuban spies is a non-starter. But they acknowledge hopes that the Obama administration will consider lower-level concessions in exchange for Cuban considerations for the jailed American.

Insiders say that Gross’ advocates want the U.S. government to consider, among other things, more family visits for the “Cuban Five,” agents who were arrested in 1998 and convicted in 2001 on espionage-related charges, and the permanent return home for the one among them who is now out of jail and serving probation.

The Cuban government recently came closer than ever to making explicit that the fate of the Cuban Five factors into its considerations of whether to release Gross, the State Department contractor who was convicted on charges stemming from his efforts to connect Cuba’s small Jewish community to the Internet.

Gross, who is Jewish and from Potomoc, Md., was arrested in 2009 and sentenced last year to 15 years.

“We have made clear to the U.S. government that we are ready to have a negotiation in order to try and find a solution, a humanitarian solution to Mr. Gross’ case on a reciprocal basis,” Josefina Vidal, the top official in the Cuban Foreign Ministry handling North America, said in a May 10 interview on CNN.

Vidal would not offer specifics, but prompted by interviewer Wolf Blitzer, she said the Cuban Five were a concern. “Cuba has legitimate concerns, humanitarian concerns related to the situation of the Cuban Five,” she said.

The State Department immediately rejected such reciprocity. “There is no equivalence between these situations,” Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokeswoman, said in remarks to the media the day after the interview. “On the one hand, you have convicted spies in the United States, and on the other hand, you have an assistance worker who should never have been locked up in the first place. So we are not contemplating any release of the Cuban Five, and we are not contemplating any trade.

“The continuing imprisonment of Alan Gross is deplorable, it is wrong, and it’s an affront to human decency. And the Cuban government needs to do the right thing,” she said.

On background, a source apprised of the dealings among Gross’ advocates, the U.S. government and the Cubans says that Gross’ advocates are willing to press for visits by the wives of two of the Cuban Five, Rene Gonzalez and Gerardo Hernandez. The United States has refused visas multiple times for the women, and Amnesty International has taken up their cause.

Another possible “give,” according to the source: a permanent return to Cuba for Gonzalez, who is out of jail and serving probation in the Miami area. It’s not clear what the Cubans would offer in return for such concessions, but it is likely they would draw protests from the Cuban-American community, including among stalwart pro-Israel lawmakers, such as Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the powerful chairwoman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, who has rejected any leniency for the Cuban Five.

Ronald Halber, who heads the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington and has directed much of the national activism on Gross’ behalf, said he understands the “intensity” of the Cuban-American community’s response, but said that Obama also should take into account the national interest.

“I do not believe that U.S. policy to Cuba can be held hostage by the Cuban community in Miami,” he said. “It’s American national interests that are at stake. They should be part of the conversation, I understand the intensity, although this intensity is more among the older generation, not the younger generation. Our government has to do what is in our interests.”

Gross’ family and his advocates in the organized Jewish community emphasize their agreement with Nuland’s premise: There is no equivalency between a contractor installing and training others in the use of communications equipment and five spies believed to be instrumental in the 1996 shooting of two small aircraft leafleting Cuba with pro-democracy messages, resulting in the deaths of four Cuban-American activists.

Three of the five were sentenced to life and one to 19 years. Gonzalez, sentenced to 15 years, was released last year on a three-year probation.

“We’re not in a position to negotiate that and I don’t think the U.S. government is inclined to do so,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the community’s foreign policy umbrella.

Instead, he said, “we are continuing to press the case in various fora directly and indirectly.”

That included the Presidents Conference’s recent requests that Pope Benedict XVI raise Gross’ plight during his March trip to Cuba.

Gross, who is held in a medical facility, has been visited by family, friends and Jewish leaders. He is allowed weekly calls to the United States.

Most recently he spoke with leaders of the JCRC of Greater Washington to thank them for leading U.S. advocacy on his behalf.

Gross, his family and his advocates want him to make a two-week visit to his 90-year-old mother, who is dying of cancer in Texas, after which he has pledged he will return to Cuba.

His family had voiced support for allowing Gonzalez to return home for two weeks to visit his brother. Gonzalez made the visit in March and has since returned.

Vidal said the two concessions were not equivalent.

“The cases of Mr. Gross and Mr. Rene Gonzalez, I have to tell you, are different,” she told CNN. “First, Mr. Rene Gonzalez, who is one of the Cuban Five, he served completely his term until the last day. Rene Gonzalez was not detained and was not imprisoned for attempting against U.S. national security.”

Those are the charges against Gross; Cuba says the Cuban Five were guilty only of spying on groups it considers as extremist and not on the U.S. government.

Cuba maintains that Gross’ activity on behalf of the Jewish community was a cover for installing sophisticated communications equipment. Gross has said the equipment is freely available in U.S. electronic goods outlets and online.

Halber of the Washington JCRC noted a new openness to Cuba under the Obama administration, which has facilitated travel between the two countries. President Raul Castro’s daughter, Mariela, is attending a conference this week in San Francisco.

Halber said the primary fault lies with the Cuban government for attempting to leverage Gross’ freedom to secure concessions for the Cuban Five.

“He is a man who is being used as a hostage, who is being used as a pawn,” Halber said. “The Cubans are using a man as a bargaining chip to get back five correctly convicted folks who committed crimes on U.S. soil.”