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Cuba: 60 Years of Revolution, 60 Years of Oppression
Last month, the Cuban regime reportedly released over 6,500 prisoners to curb the spread of COVID-19. It was also reported that more than 300 people were imprisoned for “spreading an epidemic” by refusing to wear face masks.
It is unclear whether political prisoners were among those granted an “early release,” but pursuant to a petition signed by Cuban organizations operating in exile, political prisoners continue to be subjected to the most deplorable conditions during the pandemic.
The Cuban regime’s actions clearly demonstrate the implementation of repressive policies under the guise of “modernization” — further entrenching the government’s totalitarian dictatorship.
Introduction
Cuba is the largest island in the West Indies archipelago, positioned at the intersection of the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea. Roughly 90 miles north of the country is the United States’ Straits of Florida.
Cuba has been under authoritarian rule since 1952, when dictator Fulgencio Batista took power. As Batista made fortunes and built up his influence over the country, he developed a reputation as a corrupt and ruthless ruler. He controlled the press, suspended free and fair elections, and banned protests. Batista was overthrown in 1959 by a coup d’état, or “revolution” led by Fidel Castro, which resulted in Castro’s political domination, and condemned the island to continued isolation from the rest of the world, even today.
Castro imposed severe internet censorship and state-controlled media regulations, and the Cuban government continues to have the most repressive media conditions in the Americas. Reporters Without Borders ranked Cuba 171 out of 180 countries on its 2020 Press Freedom Index.
Behind Castro’s revolutionary image was a lethal intent: he used his influence as an oppressor to persecute and punish those who engaged in dissent and opposed his dictatorship. Fundamental freedoms — particularly civil and political rights — were abused, and thousands of Cubans were imprisoned, beaten, and executed.
In the 1960s, the regime even went as far as profiting off of these executions by harvesting the blood of political prisoners prior to their execution. Roughly seven pints of blood were harvested from each prisoner, resulting in their state of paralysis. They were then lifted on stretchers, executed by firing squad, and buried in common graves. The Cuban government proceeded to sell their blood at $50/pint to Communist Vietnam.
Not even children were spared from the waves of arbitrary imprisonment and execution. According to Cuba Archives, at least 22 minors were killed by firing squad and 32 by extrajudicial killings under Castro’s regime.
These horrific acts of exploitation and injustice are only glimpses into Castro’s dark legacy.
Political Regime Type
At the end of 1958, Fidel Castro and his rebel forces began the process of ousting Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Their efforts and preparation, however, had begun years earlier when Batista canceled the 1952 Cuban elections and seized power. Fidel Castro, who was running for a seat in congress, was thus deprived of his opportunity to be elected. He subsequently began leading a “Movement” to purportedly return the Caribbean island to a democratic nation.
In January 1959, Fidel Castro and his rebel forces — including Raúl Castro, Ché Guevera, and Camilo Cienfuegos — finally entered Havana and began to centralize their power, unilaterally determining how the country would operate. Although Castro claimed to be a democratic nationalist, his consolidated power quickly led to the rounding up and execution of approximately 500 remaining Batista officials.
Fidel Castro became largely influenced by socialism and communism. After demolishing the remains of Batista’s era, he quickly allied with the Soviet Union, which provided Cuba with substantial agricultural support and subsidies. The two countries’ alignment provoked the United States during the Cold War era and brought about international events including the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. In addition, the United States imposed a trade embargo in 1962.
Castro’s government formally proclaimed Cuba a socialist state in 1961. The announcement was made one month after the failed United States-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion, which resulted in the imprisonment and execution of hundreds of anti-Castro rebels. Fidel Castro then declared the annulment of elections, which consolidated his power and was later enshrined in Cuba’s 1976 constitution.
The 1976 constitution, which formally entrenched socialist domination, was inspired by the ideologies of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Criticism toward the constitution was rooted in how it was drafted, and the mechanism that determined its approval. Lack of citizen participation regarding the drafting of the constitution was a major deficit. The referendum was established by the Communist Party and the National Assembly — overseen by Fidel Castro — whose members were not elected publicly. The constitution, which controlled every aspect of citizens’ way of life, ultimately gave the regime the capacity to crush any and all dissent.
Upon the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba entered into what was euphemistically called a Special Period, which included food rationing, gasoline shortages, and the proliferation of small-scale gardens for Cubans to meet basic nutritional needs, among other things. While spreading propaganda internationally about the implementation of universal health care and education, he left Cubans without economic opportunities and liberty, which was particularly devastating during the Special Period.
Half a decade later, Cuba’s economy began to stabilize as its human rights record continued to decline. In 2003, Cuba’s “Black Spring” drew international condemnation when 75 journalists were arbitrarily arrested, tortured, and detained. These journalists were held on spurious charges, subjected to show trials, barred from consulting with legal counsel outside of the courtroom, and denied medical care while in prison. Many of these political prisoners languished in prison for years. Among them was human rights activist Omar Rodriguez, who was arrested for his involvement in the Varela Project, a draft bill spearheaded by prodemocracy activist Oswaldo Payá that proposed a referendum in which Cubans would decide on reforms that would enable the effective respect of fundamental rights.
That same week, three men attempted to reach the United States by hijacking a ferry. Days later — after a show trial — they were executed by firing squad for what the government claimed to be acts of terrorism. Four other men who had aided in appropriating the boat were sentenced to life in prison.
The Cuban regime’s systematic repression represents the widespread sense of injustice that permeates the island. For example, Cuba’s anti-expression law, Decree 349 — one of the first laws signed by Mr. Díaz-Canel — came into force in 2018 and requires artists, musicians, and writers to receive governmental approval prior to presenting their work publicly or even in the privacy of their homes. The decree allows the Ministry of Culture to suspend performances and advise on cancelling the authorization to engage in artistic work altogether. These judgments can only be appealed before the very same Ministry of Culture, as opposed to an independent and impartial body.
Decree 349 builds on an already existing system of laws and regulations that threaten freedom of expression. The Decree is wholly inconsistent with international human rights standards, jeopardizes free speech and liberty, and is ultimately intended to silence voices that criticize the government. The law’s language is extremely broad and prohibits, for example, the “use of patriotic symbols that contravene current legislation” and “anything that violates the legal provisions that regulate the normal development of our society in cultural matters.”
Cuba’s “New” Constitution
In February 2019, the 1976 constitution was replaced with a new constitution through an orchestrated referendum process. Approximately 86.9% of voters of the roughly 8 million who voted, supported the referendum.
While a voter turnout of nearly 87% would be considered very high for democracies around the world, in Cuba’s case, it’s the natural outcome of a tightly controlled process whose sole purpose is to secure a predetermined result.
Government officials go door-to-door coaxing citizens to go to the polls, and political dissident Antonio Rodiles notes that voter turnout is typically extremely high “because even though people know it’s theater, they also know that they keep track of who votes.” Michael Svetlik, vice-president of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, confirms that elections are typically rigged in authoritarian regimes, and that citizens vote out of fear of punishment. The Cuban regime’s system is no exception; there are no political opposition parties or secret votes to challenge the constitution or regime, so referendums are not free or fair.
Dissidents, who deemed the political process fraudulent, reported that citizens were temporarily detained for either voting “no” or abstaining from voting altogether. The referendum triggered arbitrary arrests across the country and led to the detention of over 400 citizens, as well as a minimum of “48 acts of harassment and 12 physical attacks.”
The police also raided homes of opposition activists and threatened dissidents, warning that “the next time they will end up in a jail cell,” when referring to activists who had given a workshop on voting observation. José Daniel Ferrer, for example, who promoted the “No” vote in a public park, was detained and, alongside 70 other members of his organization, went on hunger strike to protest the Cuban government’s monolithic state.
The new constitution preserves Cuba’s one-party socialist system and is “committed to never returning to capitalism as a regime,” yet this time openly endorses foreign investment (Article 28). While in theory the new constitution reflects some of the proposed changes that were put forth by Cuban citizens, Cuba’s authoritarian regime continues to actively oppress Cuban citizens by withholding fundamental rights of expression.
For example, citizens campaigned for a constitution that would pave the way for same-sex marriage. However, the Drafting Commission removed gender-neutral descriptions of marriage and left members of the LGBTQ community without equal rights. In addition, Cuban citizens are able to “combat through any means, including armed combat when other means are not available, against any that intend to topple the political, social, and economic order.” The term “topple,” however, is not defined in the constitution and could be used broadly to target dissidents for political reasons. Furthermore, while the state now prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (Article 42), protects women from gender violence, and safeguards their sexual and reproductive rights (Article 43), gender and sexual equality continue to be theoretical and abstract improvements. Women are consistently excluded as decision makers, and fall victim to horrific forms of domestic abuse that have only escalated during the COVID-19 quarantine. Yoani Sánchez, a celebrated Cuban blogger and prodemocracy activist, provides a list of resources that Cuban women so desperately need including, shelters for battered women, fair pay, and the opportunity to assume government positions.
Perhaps most notably, the new constitution limits the president’s term to two consecutive periods of five years and highlights that, similar to parliamentary systems, the president will be selected by the National Assembly (Article 126), which may seem like a significant change from the previous era of Castro rule for nearly six decades. However, in practice, the Cuban regime remains a fully authoritarian regime without an independent judiciary or lawful administration of justice by which to hold the government accountable.
The Economy
Fidel Castro relinquished most of his power in 2008, and appointed his hand-picked successor, his brother, Raúl Castro, as Head of State. Raúl’s presidency supposedly resulted in the expansion of the economy, allowing for foreign investment, the buying and selling of property, and permitted entrepreneurs to open small businesses. In addition, Cubans gained access to cellphones, computers, and the internet.
In 2014, Raúl Castro and then-President of the United States, Barack Obama, announced a prisoner exchange and the restoration of diplomatic relations, further presenting the façade of a modernizing Cuba. However, in the background of these developments, Raúl Castro continued to implement many of the abusive tactics that his brother had relied on. For example, a “dangerousness law,” gives the state permission to incarcerate citizens based on a suspicion that they might perpetrate crimes in the future, rather than on the basis of actually having committed a crime. The existence of such legislation allows for an overly broad application of the law, thus enabling the regime to crackdown on various forms of dissent.
Critics of the Cuban regime assert that Raúl’s presidency did not result in the expansion of the economy, and that reforms have been slow and subject to several restrictions. Roughly 12 percent of the country’s G.D.P, generated through private businesses, is heavily controlled by the state. Ministries that operate on national, provincial, and municipal levels have the authority to oversee and report on private businesses under their jurisdictions. These ministries subject business owners to overwhelming requirements and permit government officials to enforce heavy fines, suspend licenses, and seize properties. Furthermore, Cuban citizens are only permitted to acquire one license for one business, blocking them from diversifying their trades.
Other regulations that have prevented the growth of the private sector or imposed restrictions on it include the demand that private taxi drivers document their fuel purchases from government gas stations, preventing them from purchasing fuel on the black market. The informal economy, however, provides a critical means for innovation, autonomy, and entrepreneurialism that is otherwise stifled by state control. In addition, restaurants and bars have set capacities at 50 customers. Furthermore, daycare centers must apportion a minimum of two square meters per child, with no more than six children per daycare aide. Perhaps most damaging, are the laws that enforce an upward-sloping wage scale. Wages increase as more employees are hired, becoming acutely expensive and inaccessible to the average business owner, who earns a salary of roughly $32 per month. Meanwhile, farmers are forced to sell their crops at prices set by the state and that are below market value, rather than being allowed to sell their crops at prices set by supply and demand.
Amid a deepening economic crisis, the government imposed price controls that apply to state-run companies, as well as private sector cooperatives, farmers, small businesses, and self-employed citizens. Pork, for example, which was previously set at 65 pesos per pound is now set at 45 pesos per pound, illustrating the loss of income that farmers have to bear when their monthly wages are already so meager. “With the new prices we are super asphyxiated because the farmer who moves his pigs to Havana still charges 28 pesos a pound,” said Mr. Soler, who is a Cuban butcher. These measures of control indicate the government’s unwillingness to support the expansion of the economy, and, according to Paul Hare, the former British ambassador to Cuba, they also indicate that the Cuban regime is worried about the influence of self-employed and cooperative businesses in the agricultural sector. The government’s control over supply and demand creates an economy that does not conform to citizens’ needs, and effectively damages their standard of life.
The state’s control over the private sector confirms that the regime’s expansion of the economy is deeply superficial. Rather than promoting a capital-rich and diversified economy, the state suppresses any competition against its political interests.
In 2018, Miguel Díaz-Canel succeeded Raúl Castro as President of Cuba. He is the first person outside of the Castro family to take power since the Cuban Revolution over half a century ago. His election, however, did not take place in the context of a free and fair election. He was selected by the National Assembly as their sole candidate, which ensured his appointment and the continuation of Cuba’s one-party state.
While cell phones, computers, and the internet exist within Cuba’s economy, President Miguel Díaz-Canel continues to restrict Cuban citizens’ access to the mobile internet through prohibitively high pricing; four gigabytes of data, for example, cost roughly $30 per month, which is equivalent to the average monthly salary of most citizens. The internet also continues to be heavily censored by the state. The Cuban regime actively blocks independent news, as well as websites that oppose the government and advocate for fundamental reform.
Healthcare and Education
The Cuban Revolution may be seen by some as having transformed the country, in terms of both challenging foreign interests and policy and how Cubans structure their daily lives, inspiring many who have stayed in the country, as the state has claimed to make improvements to healthcare, education, and literacy, and initiated international humanitarian missions.
However, the Cuban Revolution has also pushed millions of people to leave the country. Sixty-one years after Fidel Castro’s coup d’état, the revolution’s darker legacy continues to pervade Cuban society. The state’s revered social system is simultaneously a system of near-universal poverty. Universal healthcare and education mean little if medical products are depleted, if machinery is outdated, and if buildings are crumbling. Sources convey that medicines are missing, and that entire shelves at pharmacies are bare. Those who fall ill are often expected to bring their own sheets, food, and water to the hospital.
Hilda Molina, the former chief neurosurgeon in Cuba, has lamented over the state of Cuba’s health sector and described the politicization of the health system by the Cuban regime, where control is exerted over medical and scientific institutions, universities, and professionals. Within this context, medical statistics are managed — and often falsified — by the state, as opposed to independent experts. Dr. Molina also revealed that sewage and garbage are often strewn along streets, contaminating the country’s drinking water supply and further entrenching deficient and dangerous health conditions.
The Cuban regime hinders doctors’ capabilities under a highly controlled system that stifles medical progress. The country’s closed society bars health care professionals from traveling, consulting, and engaging with other medical experts in the international community, which affects their ability to receive up-to-date information and collaborate with others in innovative ways.
While Cuba’s “esteemed” medical missions are often doted on by the media and host governments around the world — including a recent COVID-19 mission to Italy — they are unjust as they represent a modern form of slavery. Cuban doctors commonly share stories of their forced participation into Cuba’s medical missions and describe strict regulations enforced by the Cuban regime in order to prevent them from defecting while they are overseas. They report being surveilled by Cuban authorities while abroad, having their passports confiscated, and being subjected to horrific forms of intimidation, including sexual harassment and abuse. Some doctors have revealed that they were stationed in areas infiltrated by criminal gangs, and were threatened at gunpoint. Despite their perseverance through these dangerous conditions, doctors are only paid a fraction of what they are owed, while the rest of their remuneration is funneled back to the Cuban regime. The UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery and the UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons even noted that, “forced labor constitutes a contemporary form of slavery,” in their letter to the Cuban regime in 2019.
In addition, Cuban doctors have noted that they are often coerced into falsifying statistics and political propagandizing. Doctors are forced to falsify statistics while they are overseas — inventing patients and clinic visits — because amplifying their medical missions’ efficacy permits Cuban officials to demand more payment from various host countries. Thaymi Rodríguez, a dentist who was stationed in Venezuela, confesses that she was obligated to see 18 patients a day, but might only see five. As a result, she would have to throw away leftover medicine, “because we simply had to,” expressing how painful it was to throw away medicine in countries where it is so greatly needed.
These abuses revealed by Cuban doctors, coerced into participating in the state’s medical missions, highlight the Cuban regime’s exportation of corruption and exploitation abroad.
As for the education system, sources contend that Fidel Castro did not help Cuban citizens achieve literacy. Cuba already had near-universal education and high literacy rates prior to the revolution in 1959. In addition, according to data collected by Carmelo Mesa-Lago, a professor emeritus of Pittsburgh University and expert on Cuba, the economic crisis of the 1990s — which caused the economy to plummet by 35% — resulted in the deterioration of the education system. Cuba’s education system has yet to recover, and education indicators remain below 1989 levels.
In addition, low wages and lack of incentives prompt teachers to emigrate or abandon their professions for more lucrative opportunities. Educators’ salaries are insufficient to maintain an adequate quality of life, and serve to reinforce an educational system that is deeply flawed and unjust. The Cuban regime controls the education sector to promote a revolutionary psychology that in turn sustains the socialist state. As Fidel Castro once said: “The universities are only available to those who share my revolutionary beliefs.”
Case Studies
As has been made clear, Cuba is not a democratic country where there is independence and separation of powers. Under this type of regime, there is no guarantee of independence in the administration of justice which will be highlighted through the following case studies.
Oswaldo Payá and Ángel Carromero
On July 22, 2012, Oswaldo Payá and his young associate, Harold Cepero, died in a car crash in eastern Cuba. The circumstances of the crash are still in dispute and cannot be determined without an independent investigation.
Mr. Payá was one of Cuba’s most celebrated human rights activists and dissidents, championing peace and civil liberties, and was a recipient of the 2002 Sakharov Prize, which is awarded to an individual who fights for human rights and fundamental freedoms. He was the founder and leader of the Varela Project, a petition drive calling for a referendum in which Cubans would decide on legal reforms to guarantee freedom of speech and assembly, among other fundamental rights. Formally, the Cuban constitution allows citizens to introduce legislative reform if they collect 10,000 citizen signatures, and Oswaldo Payá successfully collected over 11,000.
Despite his peaceful efforts, Mr. Payá endured continuous harassment and intimidation by the regime. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has denounced the Cuban government’s harassment and persecution against civil society groups and human rights defenders since 1962, and noted that “for decades the Cuban State has organized the institutional machinery to silence voices outside the regime, and to repress independent journalists, as well as artists or citizens who try to organize themselves to articulate their demands.”
The government has alleged that the car crash that killed Mr. Payá and Mr. Cepero transpired when the driver, Ángel Carromero, a former youth leader of Spain’s ruling party, lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a tree. They determined that the crash happened because of the speed at which Mr. Carromero was driving, and because of his abrupt braking when the car was on a slippery surface. Mr. Carromero was subsequently convicted of vehicular manslaughter and sentenced to four years in prison. He has since been released to Spain to serve out the remainder of his term.
Cuban dissidents and Mr. Carromero, however, have a different account of those same events that unfolded in 2012. In an interview with The Washington Post, Mr. Carromero asserted that government officials followed his car and rammed into it, resulting in the deaths of Mr. Payá and Mr. Cepero, and in his own loss of consciousness. Once taken to the hospital, Mr. Carromero was surrounded by government officials who ruthlessly dismissed his details of the accident. He was drugged and coerced into signing statements with fabricated, self-incriminating evidence. According to Mr. Carromero, the officers warned him that “depending on what [he] said things could go very well or very badly for [him].”
In addition, his false confession was broadcasted on television under deplorable conditions. He was held incommunicado among cockroaches and other insects, with a toilet that lacked a tank, while water streamed from the roof. These forms of cruel and degrading treatment may amount to torture, and are in standing violation of Articles 18, 25, and 26 of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man (“American Declaration”), and Articles 5, 8, 9, 10, and 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (“UDHR”), to which Cuba is bound. The UDHR expressly states that “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
The Human Rights Foundation’s legal report on the state-sanctioned and premeditated murder of Mr. Payá extensively documents the cruelty of Cuba’s totalitarian regime to which Mr. Carromero also fell victim.
The Cuban regime systematically violates the due process rights of activists, particularly through trials that are purely symbolic and held to strengthen the regime, as opposed to finding the truth and administering justice. After his arrest, Mr. Carromero did not have access to legal counsel for many weeks, and later, had all of his conversations with his attorney overseen by a Cuban official. According to international human rights law, the right to defense counsel shall not be delayed, and opportunities to consult with a lawyer shall not be intercepted or censored.
In addition, during Mr. Carromero’s trial, his lawyers were prevented from accessing his case file or evidence on which his accusations were grounded. Mr. Payá’s family was never included in the investigation and was barred from attending Mr. Carromero’s trial.
Human Rights Watch has reported that political prisoner trials in Cuba are virtually-closed hearings that last less than an hour. The organization was unable to document a single case under Raúl Castro’s regime wherein a court had acquitted a political detainee. Mr. Carromero’s trial was no exception — the authorities barred the public from attending his trial and only permitted members of the Communist Party of Cuba into the courtroom. The openness of hearings, however, is imperative to assuring public confidence in the integrity of the legal system, as well as in the administration of justice.
Almost eight years later, justice has yet to be secured for Mr. Payá’s family and for Mr. Carromero. While the UDHR guarantees equality before the law, including the right to a fair and public hearing by an impartial tribunal, the Cuban regime continues to abuse its power for political purposes, and, ultimately, to act with impunity.
Ramón Velásquez Toranzo
At a press conference in 2016 with then-President of the United States Barack Obama, Raúl Castro unequivocally denied the presence of any political prisoners in Cuba. Human rights groups, however, continue to document the cases of Cuban dissidents who continue to be persecuted under the Cuban regime.
The Cuba Archives documented at least 500,000 people who have fallen victim to arbitrary detention since January 1, 1959; Ramón Velásquez Toranzo is one of them. On International Human Rights Day in 2006, Mr. Toranzo set out on a “march of dignity” with his wife Bárbara and their daughter, Rufina. While marching, they held signs that read, “respect for human rights,” “freedom for political prisoners,” and “no more repression against the peaceful opposition.” They called for the respect of their civil liberties, which are guaranteed under the UDHR, the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, and formally in the Cuban Constitution, but are ignored by the Cuban regime.
They marched silently, and, at night, slept on curbsides, at bus stops, and in the homes of those who offered shelter. They started in Santiago de Cuba and hoped to walk the entire length of the country, but were stopped and arrested on the outskirts of Holguín. The Cuban government’s rapid response brigade intimidated them with metal rods and threatened to rape Bárbara and Rufina. Four days later, when Mr. Toranzo was released from prison, they continued marching. State forces, however, continued to torment them by trying to run them over with cars.
They reached Camagüey — over 185 miles from where they began their march — on January 19, 2006, and were arrested again. After being detained for four more days, Mr. Toranzo was taken to a municipal court, where he was charged with “dangerousness,” subjected to a closed trial, and sentenced to three years in prison. Cuba’s “dangerousness” law permits Cuban authorities to incarcerate citizens prior to having committed any crime. Their imprisonment is based on suspicion that they might commit crimes in the future.
A former high-ranking judge revealed that legal cases against dissidents are managed by state security forces, and that judges often acquiesce to fabricated evidence. In Mr. Toranzo’s case, the regime’s evidence against him entailed “official warnings” for being unemployed; these warnings were presented while Mr. Toranzo was marching, and as a result, had never been seen by him. Furthermore, during Mr. Toranzo’s trial — which lasted less than an hour — the presiding judge called a recess to confront Mr. Toranzo’s legal counsel. Upon returning, Mr. Toranzo’s legal counsel stopped defending him and remained silent for the remainder of the trial.
The American Declaration expressly states that every person has the right to a fair trial, the right to protection from arbitrary arrest, and the right to due process of law. No one can be subjected to “cruel, infamous or unusual punishment.” After Mr. Toranzo’s sentencing, and in flagrant violation of his rights, he was stripped down to his underwear and detained in solitary confinement without a bed and in a cell that was flooded with water.
The Cuban regime not only torments political prisoners, but also preys on their family members. After Mr. Toranzo’s arrest, “Death to the worms of house 58” (his address) was spray-painted on a bus stop close to his home. This dehumanizing terminology, targeting political prisoners and their families, is common practice.
The regime also assigned a man near Mr. Toranzo’s home to follow the family. Cuban officials demanded that Rufina’s friends report on her activities, and the constant surveillance eventually led her to flee to the United States. Likewise, her brother René, reported monitoring by the state and noted that Cuban officials questioned everyone he interacted with.
The case of Mr. Toranzo is a looking glass into Cuba’s repressive government — a regime that is unrelenting in its abuse of power and denial of fundamental rights and freedoms.
Conclusion
Although Cuba’s constitutional referendum might have been propagandized as progress toward a more open society, President Díaz-Canel continues to implement the Castros’ dangerous, and sometimes deadly, tactics. The cases of Oswaldo Payá and Ramón Velásquez Toranzo are only two examples of the Cuban regime’s exploitation of justice.
In 2019, Cuban opposition members were consistently arbitrarily arrested, imprisoned, and tortured. There were reports of several cases of prisoners of conscience who were targeted for their peaceful beliefs, and the NGO Cuban Prisoners Defenders reported a minimum of 71 people who were incarcerated on political charges.
The real figures are likely to be higher, but the Cuban government prevents independent groups from entering the country to report on the human rights situation. In addition, the government’s censorship and state-controlled media silence Cubans who oppose the regime, continuing to cover up the government’s corruption and criminality. The state’s lack of transparency further entrenches the government’s totalitarian dictatorship, where even the most peaceful protesters are punished for calling for what they are owed: civil liberties and fundamental freedoms.
At the same time, Cuban artists, journalists, lawyers, and members of the opposition continue to languish in the Cuban gulags. We must speak up on their behalf and continue to echo their calls for freedom and the rule of law. While the Cuban regime continues to avoid accountability for its heinous crimes, we must end its culture of impunity by standing up for human rights and calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Cuba’s courageous human rights defenders.
The Cuban government continues to repress and punish dissent and public criticism. The number of short-term arbitrary arrests of human rights defenders, independent journalists, and others was lower in 2019 than in 2018, but remained high, with more than 1,800 arbitrary detentions reported through August. The government continues to use other repressive tactics against critics, including beatings, public shaming, travel restrictions, and termination of employment.
In February, a new Constitution of the Republic of Cuba was approved in a referendum, which entered into force in April. Prior to the referendum, authorities repressed activists opposing its adoption, including through raids and short detentions, and blocked several news sites seen as critical of the regime.
On October 10, Miguel Díaz-Canel was confirmed as president of Cuba with 96.76 percent of votes of National Assembly members.
Arbitrary Detention and Short-Term Imprisonment
The Cuban government continues to employ arbitrary detention to harass and intimidate critics, independent activists, political opponents, and others. The number of arbitrary short-term detentions, which increased dramatically between 2010 and 2016—from a monthly average of 172 incidents to 827—started to drop in 2017, according to the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, an independent human rights group that the government considers illegal. The number of reports of arbitrary detentions continued to drop in 2019, with 1,818 from January through August, a decrease of 10 percent compared to the 2,024 reports during the same period in 2018.
Security officers rarely present arrest orders to justify detaining critics. In some cases, detainees are released after receiving official warnings, which prosecutors can use in subsequent criminal trials to show a pattern of “delinquent” behavior.
Detention is often used to prevent people from participating in peaceful marches or meetings to discuss politics. Detainees are often beaten, threatened, and held incommunicado for hours or days. Police or state security agents routinely harass, rough up, and detain members of the Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco)—a group founded by the wives, mothers, and daughters of political prisoners—before or after they attend Sunday mass.
In September, in an effort to prevent a demonstration organized by the Cuban Patriotic Union, authorities detained over 90 activists and protestors and raided the union’s headquarters, media reported. The protest supported the Ladies in White and other persecuted groups, and rejected the 2017 Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement between the Cuban government and the European Union. It coincided with a high level European delegation visit to Cuba.
Freedom of Expression
The government controls virtually all media outlets in Cuba and restricts access to outside information. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent organization that promotes press freedom worldwide, Cuba has the “most restricted climate for the press in the Americas.”
A small number of independent journalists and bloggers manage to write articles for websites or blogs, or publish tweets. The government routinely blocks access within Cuba to these websites. In February, before the referendum on the new constitution, it blocked several news sites seen as critical of the regime, including 14ymedio, Tremenda Nota, Cibercuba, Diario de Cuba and Cubanet. Since then, it has continued to block other websites.
Only a fraction of Cubans can read independent websites and blogs because of the high cost of, and limited access to, the internet. In 2017, Cuba announced it would gradually extend home internet services. In July 2019, the government issued new regulations allowing for the creation of private wired and Wi-Fi internet networks in homes and businesses and to import routers and other equipment.
Independent journalists who publish information considered critical of the government are routinely subject to harassment, violence, smear campaigns, travel restrictions, raids on their homes and offices, confiscation of their working materials, and arbitrary arrests. The journalists are held incommunicado, as are artists and academics who demand greater freedoms.
In April, police agents detained Roberto de Jesús Quiñones, an independent journalist who publishes on the news site CubaNet, outside the Guantánamo Municipal Tribunal when he was covering a trial. They beat him while transporting him to the police station. Authorities released him five days later but initiated criminal proceedings against him. According to a local free speech group, in August a municipal court sentenced Quiñones to a year in prison on charges of “resistance” and, for failing to pay a fine imposed upon his release in April, “disobedience.” He was detained on September 11 and transferred to the Guatánamo Provincial Prison, where he was serving his one-year prison sentence at time of writing.
In July, Decree-Law 370/2018 on the “informatization of society” entered into force, making it illegal for Cubans to host their websites from a server in a foreign country, “other than as a mirror or replica of the main site on servers located in national territory.” Though the scope of the rule remains unclear, it could affect most Cuban critical independent news sites and blogs, which are purposely hosted abroad. It also prohibits the dissemination of information “contrary to the social interest, morals, good manners and integrity of people.” Violations can lead to fines and confiscation of equipment.
In April, Decree 349, establishing broad and vague restrictions on artistic expression, entered into force. Under it, people cannot “provide artistic services” in public or private spaces without prior approval from the Ministry of Culture. Those who hire or make payments to people for artistic services without authorization are subject to sanctions, as are the artists. Sanctions include fines, confiscation of materials, cancellation of artistic events, and revocation of licenses. Local independent artists have protested the decree, both before and after it entered force. Three were detained in December 2018 when attempting to join protests, media reported.
Political Prisoners
According to the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, as of October, Cuba was holding 109 political prisoners. The government denies independent human rights groups access to its prisons. The groups believe that additional political prisoners, whose cases they have been unable to document, remain locked up.
Cubans who criticize the government continue to face the threat of criminal prosecution. They do not benefit from due process guarantees, such as the right to fair and public hearings by a competent and impartial tribunal. In practice, courts are subordinate to the executive and legislative branches.
In December 2018, activist Hugo Damián Prieto Blanco, of the Orlando Zapata Civic Action Front, was sentenced to a year in prison for the crime of “pre-delinquent social dangerousness.” Under the Penal Code, a person can be considered in a “dangerous state” when found to have a “special proclivity” to commit crimes—even before any have been committed—“due to conduct in clear contradiction to the norms of the socialist morals.” Zapata had been arrested in November 2018 when participating in a protest. In April, his sentence was suspended and he was released.
In May, after more than two years in prison, Dr. Eduardo Cardet Concepción, leader of the Christian Liberation Movement, was released with limits on his movement and activities. Cardet, a supporter of the “One Cuban, One Vote” campaign, had been sentenced to three years in prison in March 2017. During his imprisonment, he was held in solitary confinement and denied visits and contact with family members, even by phone. Authorities argued that family visits were not “contributing to his re-education.”
In October, José Daniel Ferrer, opposition leader and founder of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), the largest and most active pro-democracy group in Cuba, was detained at his home by police forces. He has not been informed of any charges against him and has not been brought before a judge. He remained in detention at time of writing.
That same month, Armando Sosa Fortuny, the oldest political prisoner in Cuba, died from health complications at a hospital in Camague, where he was transferred from prison last August. Sosa had served 26 of a 30-year sentence issued in 1993 for illegal entry to Cuba and “other acts against the security of the state.” Sosa, a well-known dissenter, spent 43 of his 76 years imprisoned in Cuba.
Travel Restrictions
Since reforms in 2003, many people who had previously been denied permission to travel have been able to do so, including human rights defenders and independent bloggers. The travel reforms, however, gave the government broad discretionary power to restrict the right to travel on grounds of “defense and national security” or “other reasons of public interest,” and authorities have continued to selectively deny exit to people who express dissent without due process.
The government restricts the movement of citizens within Cuba through a 1997 law known as Decree 217, designed to limit migration from other provinces to Havana. The decree has been used to harass dissidents and prevent people from traveling to Havana to attend meetings.
In May 2019, journalist Luz Escobar, of the independent website 14yMedio, was barred from traveling to Miami. In August, she was barred from traveling to Argentina, and journalist Javier Valdés from the publication Convivencia, from traveling to Spain. Agents informed them only that they were not authorized to travel. Also in August, evangelical pastor Adrián del Sol was barred from traveling to Trinidad and Tobago, where he was scheduled to participate in an event on religious persecution.
Prison Conditions
Prisons are overcrowded. Prisoners are forced to work 12-hour days and are punished if they do not meet production quotas, according to former political prisoners. Inmates have no effective complaint mechanism to seek redress for abuses. Those who criticize the government or engage in hunger strikes and other forms of protest often endure extended solitary confinement, beatings, restriction of family visits, and denial of medical care.
While the government allowed select members of the foreign press to conduct controlled visits to a handful of prisons in 2013, it continues to deny international human rights groups and independent Cuban organizations access to its prisons.
Labor Rights
Despite updating its Labor Code in 2014, Cuba continues to violate conventions of the International Labour Organization that it ratified, regarding freedom of association and collective bargaining. While Cuban law technically allows the formation of independent unions, in practice Cuba only permits one confederation of state-controlled unions, the Workers’ Central Union of Cuba.
Human Rights Defenders
The Cuban government still refuses to recognize human rights monitoring as a legitimate activity and denies legal status to local human rights groups. Government authorities have harassed, assaulted, and imprisoned human rights defenders who attempt to document abuses. In July, Ricardo Fernández Izaguirre, a rights defender and journalist, was detained after leaving the Ladies in White headquarters in Havana, where he had been documenting violations of freedom of religion. He was released after nine days in prison.
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
Following public protest, the Cuban government decided to remove language from the draft of the new constitution approved in February 2018 that would have redefined marriage to include same-sex couples. However, transitory disposition No. 11 of the constitution mandates that within two years after approval, a new Family Code will be submitted to popular referendum “in which the manner in which to construct marriage must be included.”
In May, security forces cracked down on a protest in Havana promoting lesbian, gay, bisexual, ad transgender (LGBT) rights and detained several activists, media reported. The protest, which was not authorized, was organized after the government announced that it had canceled Cuba’s 2019 Gay Pride parade.
Key International Actors
In November 2017, the US government reinstated restrictions on Americans’ right to travel to Cuba and to do business with any entity tied to the Cuban military, or to Cuban security or intelligence services. In March 2019, the Trump administration opened up a month-long window in which US citizens could sue dozens of Cuban companies blacklisted by the US administration.
In June, the US administration imposed new restrictions on US citizens traveling to Cuba, banning cruise ship stops and group educational trips. The US Treasury Secretary said the restrictions are a result of Cuba continuing to “play a destabilizing role in the Western Hemisphere, providing a communist foothold in the region and propping up US adversaries in places like Venezuela and Nicaragua by fomenting instability, undermining the rule of law, and suppressing democratic processes.”
In March, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights reiterated a request to the Cuban government to be allowed to visit the country to monitor the human rights situation.
In September, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, visited Cuba to co-chair the second EU-Cuba Joint Council which discussed EU-Cuban relations, in particular in the EU-Cuba political dialogues as well as political and trade cooperation.
Cuba’s term as a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council expired at the end of 2019. During its time on the council, Cuba regularly voted to prevent scrutiny of human rights violations, opposing resolutions addressing abuses in countries including Venezuela, Syria, Myanmar, Belarus, Burundi, Iran, and the Philippines.
The Mirage of Transition in Cuba
On April 19, Raúl Castro stepped down from his self‐ascribed title as president of Cuba and transferred the post to his deputy, Miguel Díaz‐Canel. For the first time since 1959, neither of the Castro brothers, Raúl or the late Fidel, supposedly rules the island. The handover of power to a new generation — Díaz‐Canel is 57 years old — and changes to some political rules, such as the introduction of term limits, have fueled hopes that in the midterm a democratic opening might be in the cards. However, this so‐called transition is just a mirage.
The Castro family remains firmly in control of the government and the military. Raúl has kept his posts as secretary general of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) and commander‐in‐chief of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR). Meanwhile, his son, Alejandro Castro Espín, is at the center of a new power structure that Raúl carefully put in place in recent years, one in which the military elite and the second tier of the Communist Party leadership are in charge.
Fifty‐two‐year‐old Castro Espín is currently a colonel in the Interior Ministry. He is the coordinator of the intelligence and counterintelligence services, which makes him one of the most powerful figures in Cuba. He was also the head of the National Defense and Security Commission, a recently disbanded advisory body to Raúl Castro that many perceived to be a “parallel government.” Rumor has it that Raúl’s goal is to place Castro Espín as secretary general of the PCC by 2021, which would make him the effective ruler of Cuba.1
Díaz‐Canel — although nominally the president — will not wield real power. He himself confirmed this in his inaugural speech to the National Assembly, in which he stated that “Raúl Castro Ruz, as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, will make the most important decisions for the present and the future of the nation.”2
The idea that a democratic transition is underway in Cuba is further belied by two well‐documented developments: the increased crackdown on dissidents and groups in civil society, and the regime’s backtracking on the timid economic policy changes Raúl Castro implemented when he came to power in 2006.
A GRIM OUTLOOK FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES
Despite the hopes stirred by the diplomatic rapprochement between Washington and Havana more than three years ago, it is now clear that the Cuban regime does not intend to change the fundamental nature of its Stalinist political system. In fact, there is evidence that the dictatorship has increased its repression of dissidents and civil society.
The number of arbitrary detentions for political reasons reached 9,940 in 2016, exceeding that of any previous year since 2010,3 and detentions have since remained high.4 Since Barack Obama visited the island in March 2016, the Cuban political police have made it even more difficult to demonstrate. Police officers are now placed outside the houses of dozens of activists during the weekends to prevent those activists from participating in the Sunday marches organized by the Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White) and #TodosMarchamos. The police also make it nearly impossible for other human rights defenders and political activists to meet. Hostility against the families of activists has increased as well. The number of political prisoners has doubled to 140 over the last couple of years.5
Even though in 2013 the regime lifted — although not entirely — the requirement for ordinary Cubans to get permission to travel abroad, democracy activists’ ability to travel is severely limited. Dozens of Cubans have been arrested by the security police days before traveling, on their way to the airport, or even at the airport, and have thus been prevented from participating in seminars and conferences abroad organized by international human rights organizations. Limits on travel to the island also persist for Cubans living abroad: individuals who have criticized the dictatorship or been politically active against it are not allowed to visit.
In April 2016, the PCC gathered for its Seventh Congress. In his opening speech, Raúl Castro made it clear that there would be no reforms that could threaten the “unity of the majority of the people behind the Party” or “cause instability and insecurity.”6 Referring to international demands for a multiparty system, Castro clarified that such a system would occur “neither today, nor ever” and warned that “if one day they succeed in fragmenting us, it would be the beginning of the end of our fatherland, of the Revolution, socialism, and national independence.” Foreign minister Bruno Rodríguez claimed in his speech that Barack Obama’s visit had been “an attack on our conception, on our history, on our culture, and on our symbols.”7
The objective of the PCC’s Seventh Congress was to discuss two documents. The first describes the principles and theories of the economic and social model of the Cuban government. It states that the PCC is “the superior leading force of the society and the State.”8 The second document outlines the “Vision of the Nation” for 2030. Cuba should be “sovereign, independent, socialist, democratic, prosperous, and sustainable,” and to achieve this, the document deems it necessary to have an “efficient and socialist government.”9
Two guiding principles of that vision — national defense against aggression and national security — reinforce the regime’s current defense doctrine, which states that the regime’s institutions, political and mass organizations, and the rest of the population will participate in confronting the activities of “the enemy.” The militarization of society and the inclusion of ordinary citizens in the surveillance system have been two of the most effective strategies to curb self‐organizing in Cuban civil society.
There is scant mention of reform in those documents. Freedom of expression or assembly or multiparty democracy cannot be part of the regime’s narrative. When the PCC declares those principles and that vision for the coming 15 years, it does not have in mind anything other than continuing in exactly the same way as it has for the last six decades.
The only reform within the political system announced at the PCC Seventh Congress concerned the age of individuals entering the highest positions of the party — the central committee, the secretariat, and the political bureau — and how long they will be allowed to hold their positions. In the future, nobody above the age of 60 will enter those bodies or serve for more than two five‐year terms. With this amendment, Raúl Castro wanted to rejuvenate the apparatus and create a new network of loyalists for his son and inheritor, Alejandro. Castro also promised that those changes would be included in the constitution and proposed a constitutional reform and subsequent referendum, a process that would “ratify the irrevocable nature of the political and social system.”10
BACKTRACKING ON TIMID POLICY CHANGES
The consolidation of power in the hands of the Castro family does not seem to be the main topic of concern for most Cuba watchers. Instead, they focus on the promise of the economic program adopted by the PCC in 2011, aimed at creating a small‐business sector that could generate employment and improve services. Unfortunately, those policies have been too timid to bring about meaningful change to the Cuban economy, and the regime is now backtracking on some of them.
The number of independent microbusinesses grew rapidly between 2010 and 2014, but that growth has significantly decelerated since.11 In recent months, the regime has announced new restrictions on the private sector because of complaints about, among other things, “excess accumulation of wealth.”12 It also stopped handing out licenses for small businesses, saying it needs to reevaluate the legal framework around these businesses and combat corruption related to them. In July 2017, Raúl Castro openly criticized the dynamics of the microbusinesses. A leaked video recently showed Díaz‐Canel saying that the regime sees entrepreneurs as capitalist instruments who can destroy the revolution. As The Economist’s Bello column rightly points out, “the government wants a market economy without capitalists or businesses that thrive and grow.”13
The regime continues to exert absolute control over the legal labor market, retaining — or confiscating — around 95 percent of the hard‐currency earnings of all Cubans working in the formal dollar economy.14 These profits are then invested in the state’s repressive machinery and in the personal coffers of the Communist Party leadership. This modern‐day system of slavery will not lead to the empowerment of Cuban workers or to the advancement of their rights.
Moreover, the concentration of economic power in the hands of the FAR has accelerated since 2014. The FAR own at least 57 companies and half of the retail businesses in Cuba, along with car fleets, gas stations, and supermarkets — all of which are key sectors of the economy.15 They also control at least 40 percent of the foreign capital in the country through their holding company, Grupo de Administración Empresarial Sociedad Anónima (GAESA). This means that foreign investors in Cuba must establish direct relations with GAESA and its CEO, Luis Alberto Rodríguez López‐Callejas, Raúl Castro’s son‐in‐law.
PROSPECTS FOR CHANGE
The lack of human rights and democracy is the essence of Cuba’s totalitarian political and economic system. The legacy of the Castro brothers includes not only executions, imprisonments, assassinations, torture, beatings, harassment, and intimidation but also a constitutional and legal framework that legalizes repression and promotes widespread violations of human rights by the authorities.
It is not realistic to expect that the Cuban regime will embrace democracy and the rule of law any time soon. A real transition in Cuba must involve the immediate release of political prisoners, the restitution of all fundamental rights and freedoms, the complete dismantling of the dictatorship, and the celebration of free, multiparty, and competitive elections — in other words, the construction of a functioning democracy.
NOTES
1 Roberto Álvarez Quiñonez, “¿Necesita Alejandro Castro, el hijo consentido, ser presidente?” Diario Las Américas, January 22, 2018, https://www.diariolasamericas.com/america-latina/necesitaalejandro-castro-el-hijo-consentido-ser-presidente-n4141838.
2 “Primer discurso completo de Díaz‐Canel como presidente de Cuba,” Pulso de los Pueblos, April 19, 2018, http://pulsodelospueblos.com/primer-discurso-completo-de-diaz-canel-como-presidentede-cuba/.
3 Deutsche Welle, “Cuba Arbitrary Arrests Soared in 2016, Dissidents Say,” January 6, 2017, http://www.dw.com/en/cubaarbitrary-arrests-soared-in-2016-dissidents-say/a-37033489.
4 Data f rom Defenders’ Databas e, https://database.civilrightsdefenders.org/.
5 Figures from the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN), http://ccdhrn.org/.
6 Raúl Castro Ruz, “Informe Central al VII Congreso del Partido Comunista Cuba,” Cuba Debate, April 17, 2016, http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2016/04/17/informe-centralal-vii-congreso-del-partido-comunista-cuba/#.Wt9DkBPwZhE.
7 “Raúl Castro y canciller cubano arremeten contra visita de Obama,” CBS News, April 18, 2016, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/raul-castro-y-canciller-cubano-arremeten-contra-visita-de-obama/.
8 See “Documentos del 7mo. Congreso del Partido aprobados por el III Pleno del Comité Central del PCC el 18 de mayo de 2017 y respaldados por la Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular el 1 de junio de 2017,” http://www.granma.cu/file/pdf/gaceta/%C3%BAltimo%20PDF%2032.pdf.
9 “Documentos del 7mo. Congreso del Partido aprobados por el III Pleno del Comité Central del PCC el 18 de mayo de 2017 y respaldados por la Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular el 1 de junio de 2017.”
10 Article 5 of the Cuban Constitution already states that “The Communist Party of Cuba . . . is the highest leading force of society and of the state, which organizes and guides the common effort toward the goals of the construction of socialism and the progress toward a communist society.”
11 Redacción, “Licencias para trabajo privado en Cuba: las que sí, las que no,” On Cuba, August 3, 2017, https://oncubamagazine. com/economia‐negocios/licencias‐trabajo‐privado‐cuba‐las‐quesi‐las‐que‐no/.
12 Reuters, “Cuba Tightens Regulations on Nascent Private Sector,” December 21, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-economy/cuba-tightens-regulations-on-nascent-privatesector-idUSKBN1EF318.
13 Bello, “A Year Without Fidel.” The Economist, December 9, 2017, p. 38.
14 “Testimony of the International Group for Corporate Social Responsibility in Cuba before the Inter‐American Commission on Human Rights,” October 15, 2005, p. 17, http://www.cubastudygroup.org/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=5411e1c1-7883–4015-9d22-2d0ecc99318b.
15 Michael Smith, “Want toMarkets Do Business in Cuba? Prepare to Partner with the General.” Bloomberg Markets, September 30, 2015, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015–09-30/want-toinvest-in-cuba-meet-your-partner-castro-s-son-in-law.
On April 2018, Miguel Díaz-Canel became Cuba’s new president after six decades of oppressive rule by the Castro family, but it is still politics as usual on the island.
According to BBC News, Díaz-Canel became president in a handover by Raul Castro. There was no real participation from the Cuban people in the election process. The new president has already promised to preserve the island’s one-party system and Raul Castro remains in control of the government’s direction as the leader of Cuba’s Communist Party.
It is clear that the government in Cuba will continue being a dictatorship as it has been under the Castro brothers. Let’s take a closer look at how Cuba’s current system contrasts a democracy.
Cuba’s “Electoral” Process
The Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) considers itself to be a “democracy of the people” but it has nothing to do with democracy because it gives the Cuban people no real choices in electing their leaders. The PCC outlaws any other political party. Anyone running for office must be part of the Communist Party and the electoral process is intentionally murky.
Cuba’s president is supposedly chosen by the National Assembly, whose members are selected by government-designated commissions and vetted by top leadership. All the public can do in the process of nominating National Assembly members is to vote to approve or reject the candidates that have already been pre-selected.
NBC News explains that it is no coincidence that each one usually “receives” at least a 95 percent approval rate. This process is a thinly veiled sham since the National Assembly just does whatever the island’s executive power wants.
According to the Chicago Tribune, the assembly approves all executive branch proposals by margins of 95 percent or more. For example, in this last election for president, it is widely known that Miguel Díaz-Canel was Raul Castro’s clear choice for a successor and the National Assembly just went along with his choice.
Diversity of Political Ideas and Representation
There is no room for diversity of political ideas in Cuba’s one-party system.Therefore, there is no real way for people to make informed decisions – even when voting on a basic level.
Cuba’s Communist Party is the only legal party on the island. As such, any other group seeking to assemble independently is considered illegal and punished with violence or imprisonment.
Civil Liberties for Citizens
Cubans are not afforded the most basic civil liberties. All media is controlled by the government and therefore only report Communist propaganda. Cuba’s press does not serve as a check on the government’s power.
Any websites or blogs critical of the government are routinely blocked or shut
down. Internet access is more than seven times more expensive than in the U.S. and 25 times pricier in Haiti. It’s of bad quality, and still not easily accessible to the Cuban people, even after some hundreds of public hotspots were installed throughout the island. Connections remain spotty and incredibly slow.
Limiting the right to gather and assemble is also one of the main ways the government controls Cuban citizens. Security officers and paramilitary thugs are known to routinely break up peaceful protests or gatherings of anyone known to be in opposition. Neighbors are also encouraged to spy on one another and to report any suspected behavior against the state.
Even freedom of religion faces its obstacles on the island. Churches face constant pressure from the government. In 2018, certain Christian churches on the island were pressured by the Communist Party to persuade members to vote “yes” on the referendum for a new constitution being pushed by the Communist regime. Clearly, there are no boundaries the government in Cuba will not cross in order to continue oppressing its people.
Effectiveness of the Rule of Law
The Cuban people cannot rely on their court system to uphold laws and protect them. They cannot benefit from fair and public hearings or to be tried by an impartial jury of their peers.
The Council of State controls all of the courts in Cuba and their decisions always align with the interests of the Communist Party. Cuba’s people cannot count on due process. Dissidents can expect to be prosecuted under vague charges such as disrespecting authority and creating public disorder. The so-called “dangerousness laws” allow authorities to send any person to jail to 4 years even when no crime was committed.
Cuba’s prisons are also known to be crowded, contain poor sanitation, and use forced labor. Torture committed by guards is common practice. Prisoners are punished if they do not meet strict work quotas. Nothing about Cuba’s laws and how they are enforced is fair or helpful thanks to the Communist government.
Those who denounce the government or take part in hunger strikes and other protests often must face extended solitary confinement, are denied medical care, denied family visits and are subject to violent actions.
Self-Determination and Individual Rights
Lastly, a Cuban’s right to choose how they live their personal lives is also closely restricted. Even the art they purchase or have commissioned must be approved by the government first. President Díaz-Canel signed Decree 349 in April 2018, which established far-reaching and vague restrictions on artistic expression.
Under the regulation, Cuban citizens who hire artists for creative services without proper authorization are subject to sanctions and punishments. Both the buyer and commissioned artist face punishment under this draconian order.
Under present regulations, Cuban citizens who hire artists to provide private services without authorization are subject to sanctions and punishments, including the instruments of the artists and even the homes of the persons involved.
While some restrictions on starting small businesses were lifted in December 2018, this was just a smokescreen for more control over new companies. Longer waits for authorization, more bureaucratic procedures, and increased government controls have essentially stalled small businesses from actually being able to take off meaningfully for Cuban entrepreneurs.
The ability for Cubans to move and work where they please is also severely restricted. A citizen seeking to move to another town or city must first seek government permission or risk being sent back to their place of origin.
A long list of thousands of Cuban citizens are also blacklisted by immigration and prevented to freely visit the country where they were born.
Castro and Communism in Cuba
Meanwhile, an example of communist tactics was being unfolded in Cuba, within 90 miles of the U.S. southeastern shoreline. Early in 1959, after battling for several years,
Fulgencio Batista. Mindful of Batista's cruel record of repression, the U.S. government and the American public in general welcomed Castro's rise to power as a victory for democracy.
American sympathy rapidly evaporated, however, when Premier Castro began to act and sound like a communist dictator. He failed to hold the free elections he had promised the Cuban people. He put to death hundreds of his former political enemies in hasty trials intended more as propaganda than as judicial proceedings. Then he proceeded to fill Cuba's jails once more with political critics, including many of Castro's former comrades, anti-communist labor leaders, and other veteran opponents of the Batista regime. The press was placed under strict censorship. Foreign-owned property was expropriated arbitrarily without fair compensation, and in many cases without any compensation at all. Only the communists emerged unscathed from Castro's repressive and vindictive actions.
As his internal dictatorship hardened, Castro began increasingly to denounce the United States and to seek support from the communist bloc nations. In the face of rising provocations, the Eisenhower administration at first adopted a policy of patient waiting. During the summer of 1960, however, American policy stiffened. The United States placed a temporary embargo on the purchase of Cuban sugar and urged the 21-nation Organization of American States (OAS) to condemn Cuba's actions. The OAS, while it did not directly criticize the Castro regime on this occasion, did condemn communist interference in the Western Hemisphere.
Another international gathering, held later in 1960, seemed to sum up the hopeful and disturbing aspects of the world scene. Meeting in New York, the U.N. General Assembly admitted 16 new nations, all but one from the African continent, a reflection of the rapid postwar movement of formerly colonial peoples to full independence and nationhood. In a speech to the U.N. delegates, President Eisenhower asked other nations to join the United States in providing increased aid to developing areas generally and to the new African nations in particular. He also pledged that the United States would continue to seek a workable program of world disarmament based on an effective system of inspection and control.
Prior to the General Assembly session, world concern over the mounting arms race had been heightened by man's conquest of space, a development which in more tranquil times would have been a source only of admiration and pride. The launching of the first Soviet space satellite in October 1957, and the first American satellite in January 1958-followed by many others-demonstrated that both countries now had rockets powerful enough to hurl atomic and hydrogen bombs into the heart of an enemy country thousands of miles away. In the absence of a foolproof arms inspection system, there was always the danger that, accidentally or otherwise, a push-button war might break out which could destroy millions of lives in a single blinding instant. World opinion was therefore shocked and disheartened when Premier Khrushchev told the U.N. General Assembly in belligerent tones that the Soviet Union would not accept inspection and control in the initial stages of a disarmament agreement. Soviet leaders knew that disarmament without inspection was unacceptable to the democratic nations, since it would give dangerous advantage to a closed society like the Soviet Union which could violate its disarmament pledges with little chance of being found out, whereas violations within a democracy would have a high chance of being discovered and publicized.
What Is Cuba’s Post-Castro Future?
Miguel Diaz-Canel, set to replace Raul Castro as president of Cuba after sixty years of Castro rule, will be faced with the challenges of implementing economic reform and sidestepping regional isolation.
April 18, 2018
8:00 am (EST)
The departure of Raul Castro this month as president of Cuba will mark the first time in sixty years that the country will not be ruled by someone with the surname Castro. While Raul carried out some incremental reforms, the legacy of Raul and his brother Fidel is one of a long-repressed, economically stunted nation, says Christopher Sabatini, lecturer of international relations at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and executive director of Global Americans. Though Castroism is expected to continue under apparent successor First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel, he represents generational change and is likely to have more contact with Cubans as well as foreign leaders, says Sabatini.
How will Raul’s presidency be remembered?
Raul will be seen as a continuation of the Fidel Castro government; with Fidel or Raul having governed since 1959, it’s clearly a family affair. But his time in power will also be remembered as one of marginal, incremental reforms.
More on:
When Raul took power, he said that the Cuban economy was a failure—something you never would have heard the infamously obstreperous Fidel say. Raul implemented a series of reforms intended to create market incentives in the Cuban economy: he allowed some measures of private enterprise, rewrote the laws for investment, welcomed Brazilian investment in the Mariel Port, and even allowed some forms of private farming to address national food shortages. His saying was: “Without pause, but without haste.” In other words, he would move the country forward but at his own pace.
But Cuba under the Castros—Fidel and Raul—was still a dictatorship. It’s been a totalitarian state since 1959. There are no democratic elections. Cubans are not allowed to congregate freely and are limited in their freedom of expression and access to information. There’s only one official newspaper run by the Communist Party, and it consists almost entirely of propaganda to support the party and its policies. The result is that Cubans have become atomized.
Explain how the upcoming selection of new leaders will work.
It’s a parliamentary style system. The first round of elections was held in October, when delegates were elected to local councils. Local delegates, together with some national figures and associations such as the ruling Communist Party, then selected provincial delegates from their own ranks. From these were chosen delegates to the National Assembly. All that is left is for the National Assembly to select a Committee of Candidates, from which the next president, the first and second vice presidents, and the Council of State—the group of politicians who meet weekly to review national policy orientation and implementation—will be chosen come April 19.
But the process isn’t democratic. Only members of the Communist Party are allowed to run. People are only voting from an official, pre-approved slate of candidates. There’s choice, but only within the system. And during the first round of elections at the level of local council, voting was held in the open, with no secret ballot process.
All signs point to Diaz-Canel being sworn in as president. What do we know about him?
Diaz-Canel is fifty-seven—relatively young to those who govern today. The average age of the Council of State is now well over sixty years old. He’s the only candidate who was not born during the [Cuban] Revolution. He’s truly a new generation. He’s known to like rock and roll, and is also known to be modest. He used to ride his bicycle to work, and even in these recent elections he waited in line to cast his ballot just like everyone else. He’s kept his head low.
Diaz-Canel rose through the party itself; he started as a provincial secretary in Santa Clara. He’s been groomed from the beginning. If you speak to the average Cuban, they’ll try to tell you that the election is uncertain and that someone other than Diaz-Canel could be elected, but this is meant to build a facade of a more democratic process rather than a coronation, which is effectively what this election is. Choosing someone else would be more than just breaking with the name of the Castros. It would be an apparent break with the will of the Castros. I don’t expect that to happen.
What might this regime change mean for the average Cuban?
There’s a fair amount of expectation. Most Cubans have waited for a long time for some sort of response to their demands for an end to the Castros. By virtue of his age and provincial background, Diaz-Canel is very aware of these frustrations and will likely be much more in contact with the people.
But Diaz-Canel will also continue to be surrounded by people who are very committed to Castroism. Raul Castro is going to continue as the secretary-general of the Communist Party and will remain the de facto head of the armed forces. His son, Alejandro, will remain the de facto liaison between the military, intelligence, and civilian sectors. The thing to keep an eye on is how many of the older generation—the former revolutionaries—get elected to the Council of State. Diaz-Canel will have a little more of a free hand if people of his generation and people of his choosing dominate that council.
Having said that, Diaz-Canel is faced with some very serious challenges. The first is currency unification. There are two currencies in Cuba, which create huge distortions in the economy and act as disincentives to foreign investment. [The Cuban convertible peso (CUC), pegged to the U.S. dollar and used in the tourism industry and to price consumer goods, is worth twenty-five times more than the Cuban peso (CUP), used largely by locals.] Unification could be a very wrenching process, and could even risk inflation and a higher cost of living. The second is, of course, finding ways to generate hard currency. The third is tax collection, and the large number of cuentapropistas [self-employed persons] who make up the informal sector and evade taxation. Diaz-Canel will have to show very strong leadership, but always in the context of the revolution.
How might the upcoming political turnover affect U.S.-Cuba relations?
I do not expect any changes under the Trump administration, whose policy toward Cuba is being guided by a desire to isolate and coerce changes from the government. The Cuban government does not take kindly to coercion.
I don’t think the passing of the baton from the Castros to Diaz-Canel, or someone else of that ilk, will represent a sufficient change for a shift in U.S. policy. The Helms-Burton Act of 1996, which is still in effect, states that the president can only ask to have the U.S. embargo on Cuba lifted if certain conditions are met, including the release of all political prisoners, respect for freedom of expression, respect for freedom of association, and credible steps toward free and fair elections. As long as policy is driven largely by [Florida Senator] Marco Rubio and other hard-liners, the embargo won’t be lifted no matter who’s in power.
How might this change affect Cuba’s broader foreign policy?
Diaz-Canel will be limited by the old-timers. He won’t be embracing the United States for historical reasons. And the relationship with traditional allies will certainly not diminish. Venezuela, for example, has been a political ally and regional banker for a long time; they need each other.
But just by virtue of being of a younger generation, Diaz-Canel is likely to be more of a world figure. He’s traveled more than either of the Castro brothers did. There will be issues that will require Diaz-Canel to reach out; he’ll likely extend a hand to the European Union, which, with Mexico, has recognized the transfer of power as a potential opening in which, through respectful dialogue, the process of change in Cuba can be positively shaped. We’ll see how that process of engagement shakes out.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Studies for a Post-Communist Cuba
Why Study?
- Mr. Kennedy has rejected both the extremes of invading Cuba and of leaving the Cubans to Castro and Communism. This rejection, which in the present circumstances seems the responsible course, leaves open a wide middle range of policy alternatives. Specifically it raises a question as to our policy in the event of sudden and drastic (or even slow and drastic) political change in Cuba.
- Such a change may take place. There are many signs of turbulence as well as terror in Cuba. While it would be foolish to predict a move from passive to active resistance with any certainty, it would be equally fatuous to ignore the possibility. Revolutions are highly uncertain matters and they have frequently caught us by surprise. With or without our help there is a significant chance of internal upheaval. Such a contingency — both the upheaval and its aftermath — should be seriously planned for.
-
Is it? Take the aftermath. What should be done with the expropriated, formerly U.S. owned public utilities? How deal with the extensive nationalization of land and industry? Now that the sugar market has been transformed by the entry and expansion of new producers with U.S. quotas, what can Cuba substitute for a radical decrease in prospects for its principal export? These are only a few of the hard questions that would need answers.
Much material is already available and some work undoubtedly has been done. But it is important to carry through systematic and intensive studies, in and out of the classified community, on political, economic, social programs for a post-Castro Cuba. Such studies should:
- Examine the alternative military-political paths events might take in Cuba; not, of course, all possible paths, but the grossly different ones, and those with a considerable chance of occurring.
- Consider the main interests and political predispositions of principal groups likely to figure in a changeover and what follows.
- Study schedules for restoring civil rights and elections which will offer some safeguards against extremist solutions.
- Analyze the consequences of alternative economic and social policies. These should include measures that might be taken by the Cuban government and problems that will confront the U.S. and allied countries. How will such policies affect the stable growth of GNP and its distribution? How will the various alternatives affect the major groups involved, including the U.S. and other foreign interests.
- For the extremes of invasion or even accommodation (which might fail) as well as for the middle range of policies, such studies of Cuba will come in handy.
- The transformation of a Communist Cuba into a free society would have enormous importance not only for Latin America, but for the whole world. It would represent the first such transformation, and it would occur in a context in which war, because of our great local and over-all military superiority, is not a major risk. We would want it to work.
-
Proposal for a Study of an Economic and Social Program for Post-Communist Cuba
Objective
The aim of the study would be to analyze the key objectives, problems and alternative solutions for transforming the present Communist economy of Cuba. It should be paralleled and complemented by another study of political problems and goals for a transitional regime; and perhaps in practice it will turn out that the two studies should at all points be closely connected. The current proposal, however, concentrates on the economic and social program for a post-Castro Cuba.
Two jobs might be involved. (1) One is fairly technical and objective: to enumerate the main economic and social problems of post-Castro Cuba and to assess alternative ways of meeting them. In assessing the alternatives, the range of choices that seem sensible might at least be narrowed and some preferred alternatives suggested according to explicit criteria of choice. At the same time it should be recognized that these criteria are not quite the same in the work of the second job.
(2) The second task concerns U.S. policies for helping bring about and for operating in a post-Castro Cuba. In Washington slang, "orchestrating" the various instruments of U.S. policy: economic and social development programs, the possible use of force, assistance to and coordination with internal resistance, changing the expectations of potential defectors from Castro's regime by deals as well as appeals, etc. These last matters of course are not separable from political study.
Batista and pre-Batista Cuba were far from satisfactory to Cubans and their dissatisfaction provided the opportunity for political subversion which Castro seized. Castro has introduced drastic changes, some of which, to start with, bettered and many of which in the last two years have seriously worsened the economic conditions of Cubans. In particular, he has moved rapidly and radically to introduce state ownership and collectivization both in agriculture and industry. It is important that post-Castro Cuba not be simply a return to the status quo under Batista or Prio. While Cuba, in 1958, was third or fourth in average per capita income in Latin America, the wide disparities in income cannot be regarded as an adequate system of incentives for growth. It appears on some competent accounts that Cuba was stagnant in the decade before Castro.
In any case both politically and economically a return to the condition under Batista is no longer feasible. The competitive position of Cuban sugar, for example, which accounted for 1/4 of its GNP and most of its exports has radically changed with the introduction of new producers with American quotas. In raising productivity and the efficiency of the economy and in spreading the benefits of such increase more generally, markets have a major role to play. And Cuba, it would seem, can use the capital and entrepreneurial skills of Bacardi and Owens Glass, etc. However, significant changes from the pre-Castro pattern of Cuban and foreign investments are almost surely called for, and even larger changes from the chaotic stratification introduced by Castro. The United States has investments of its citizens which are at stake, but even broader considerations affecting the future of Communism in the world should determine U.S. policy.
Examples of Questions[1]
- What objectives for economic and social development
in Cuba?
- Growth, employment, stability, diversification.
- Possible conflict among these objectives. (For example, recent work on international savings comparisons suggests that savings are quite sensitive to distributive shares (i.e. whether income is received in the form of profits or wages.) To some extent, efforts to equalize income and wealth distribution might decrease savings and make growth more difficult.
- Relative importance at different stages in the functioning of a successor regime.
- How grossly to mark the line between the public and the private, the planned and free market sectors?
- Appropriate criteria and their applications to different economic activities in Cuba.
- Interdependence of the two sectors.
- Main types of activity contemplated for public sector.
- What to do with the State Farms?
- Give them back to their owners.
- Distribute them in family size farms (20 to 60 acres) among the workers.
- Distribute them in medium size farms (300 to 1,000 acres) among carefully selected workers or foremen or efficient minifundistas.
- Leave them as "fincas de beneficio proportional," Puerto Rico style; and
- A combination of the former formulaes, according to agreed upon principles.
- How to compensate the owners of expropriated land
(that presently in the hands of small tenants, who should in any case be
confirmed in their property and that presently in State Farms, as far
as it is not returned to their owners)?
- Bonds not guaranteed against currency depreciation and not convertible into cash for development projects.
- Bonds not guaranteed against currency depreciation but convertible into cash for development project.
- Bonds temporarily guaranteed against currency depreciation and convertible into cash for development projects.
- Bonds guaranteed in toto or in part by industrial shares forthcoming from a capital levy intended to distribute the burden of agrarian reform among all property owners.
- What to do with U.S. owned public utilities?
- Keep them nationalized and arrange reasonable terms of payment with shareholders.
- Sell them to private Cuban corporations.
- Return them to their U.S. owners.
- Tariff policy of public utilities.
- Austerity high tariffs to pay for reconstruction and development.
- Low welfare tariffs.
- Tariffs to cover costs of production.
- Wage, exchange rate and monetary policy.
- Austerity wages, extremely high taxes and orthodoxly oriented (though not orthodox) monetary policy to keep inflation within bounds or open galloping inflation?
- Single or multiple rates? How to encourage a rapid increase in domestic food production without raising excessively the cost of living?
- Capital levy of 30% to 40% to guarantee reconstruction loans but mainly as a political counterpart to austerity wages and also as a step towards a more widespread holding of industrial shares (by gradually selling these shares in small lots)?
- How to finance reconstruction and rehabilitation of private business?
- Need to study a system of automatic long term low interest rate loans for reconstruction of fixed capital and also automatic but short term and normal interest rate loans for working capital.
- How to compensate for lost export markets (mainly sugar, but also possibly tobacco)?
- Need to establish the bases of a "bootstrapping" "up-steep-hill" development policy, which will probably have to be protectionist and unorthodox in a large degree.
- What alternative policies toward new foreign investment?
- Tax inducement and foreign exchange policies.
- Employment and management constraints.
- Treatment of U.S. and of new investment by U.S. and non-U.S. nations.
- Foreign aid from U.S. and OECD sources.
- Import deficit likely to be associated with different growth rates, and different Cuban investment and monetary policies.
- Terms and criteria for U.S. aid — relation to Alliance for Progress.
- Possible aid from OECD countries.
Methods
The first urgent job is to get an up-to-date picture of the present status of Cuba's economy (which is something not available to the current Cuban leaders). To continue with the previous examples, we need a close look at ownership and tenancy in Cuban agriculture, the current division of land, kinds of equipment available, labor status, etc., as well as production, income and employment data in as much detail as possible. This would have to be put together from official statistics and the numerous fragments available in Cuban newspaper and magazine reports, speeches by Castro, Guevara, Rodriguez, etc. and from intelligence sources. The intensive U.S. air reconnaissance of the island during the crisis over the Russian missile bases might yield information to Photo interpreters on the status of agriculture and other segments of the economy. It is possible that comparative photographs may be available for April 1961 if we conducted photographic reconnaissance before the Bay of Pigs.[2]
Given the current status, alternative self-consistent sets of solutions could be elaborated using consultants, for example, agronomists familiar with Cuba, such as former agricultural attaches in the Embassy in Havana (Chester Davis, etc.)
The study need not make a final choice in all cases among the alternate sets of solutions. In some cases all that is possible might be a narrowing of choice, the elimination of some clearly bad choices and the elaboration of the remaining alternatives for future decisions.
Notes
- [1] Questions A, B, J and K formulated by Charles Wolf; C-I, formulated by Felipe Pazos.
- [2] Felipe Pazos suggested this source and Amrom Katz may be able to locate some expertise. See M-9698, "Up-to-Date Poop on an Idea Involving Agriculture and Reconnaissance," 12-7-62, now being revised as a D.
Acknowledgments
This proposal for a study of Post-Communist Cuba grew out of work done on a recent trip to ISA and State. It is based on conversations and suggestions by D. Ellsbert, O. Hoeffding, L. Johnson, A. Katz, P. Langer, N. Leites, A. Marshall, F. Moore, A. and R. Wohlstetter, C. Wolf, E. Zilbert, and outside RAND, Ernesto Betancourt, Roger Hilsman, Robert Mandelstam, Felipe Pazos. Helmut Sonnenfeldt.
This report is part of the RAND Corporation document series. The RAND Document (D), a product of the RAND Corporation from 1948 to 1970, was an internal working paper written as a step in a continuing study within RAND, which could be expanded, modified, or withdrawn at any time.
The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.
Cuban civil society: survival, struggle, defiance and compliance
Guest article by Lennier López, Sociologist, Florida International University and Armando Chaguaceda, Political Scientist, Universidad de Guanajuato
Introduction: an obstructed civil society
In Cuba, the development and growth of civil society remains obstructed by existing law. Since 1997 the Ministry of Justice has blocked the establishment of new civil society organisations (CSOs) with very few exceptions while regulating those that already exist. Moreover, for each existing CSO, the government establishes a “linking organism,” a state entity that monitors its operations to protect “state interests.” At the same time, the traditional mass organisations, which are the basis of Leninist civil society, monopolise the way that entire segments of society are represented. This pattern makes it difficult for new organisations to emerge that could represent social groups such as women, lawyers, peasants, or others in a different way. On topics such as human rights and government accountability, the activity of officially recognised civil society is limited, mainly takes place at the local level and is closely supervised by the state.
The works of the sociologists Marie Laure Geoffrey (2012), Marlene Azor (2016) and Velia Cecilia Bobes (2007 and 2015) are among the most recent and complete analyses of Cuban civil society. The first two authors have developed rigorous studies of emerging social actors that oppose the government, outlining their resistance to the government’s attempts to control and co-opt them. At the same time, Geoffrey and Azor think that these social actors struggle to expand and connect their agendas with the expectations of a population that sometimes seems tired, demobilised and more focused on daily survival. Bobes, on the other hand, has carried out an exhaustive evaluation of Cuban civil society, linking it to the characteristics of the current participatory model, which we think is important to review here.
Bobes identifies a permanent model of militant citizenship in Cuba, loyal to the official project and dependent on the state, which is articulated around social rights and which subordinates and links civil and political rights to the construction of a socialist society. This model of citizenship relies on a homogenous and equalitarian society that today is changing due to an increase in economic inequality, poverty, territorial differentiation, identity diversification and different ways of living. Moreover, migration and massive corruption at all levels have altered over time the type of society on which this model of citizenship is based. While this model remains hegemonic in Cuba, during the last 50 years there has also been a process of discursive assimilation by the official sector - which has implied that the socialist-oriented traditional mass organisations and some non-governmental organisations are recognised as part of civil society in Cuba - and an emergence of social actors that openly present themselves as opponents of the government or alternatives to both officialdom and its traditional dissidents.
‘Official’ civil society
The official discourse in Cuba has presented, since the 1990s, a socialist civil society composed of mass organisations such as the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), the Workers’ Central Union of Cuba (CTC) and the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR). In all cases, these organisations represent the Leninist model of participation, which is vertical and limits tremendously these groups’ autonomy. This model frames and labels entire segments of the population and promotes both morally questionable political agendas - entailing the mobilisation and control of citizens - and positive communitarian activities such as donating blood, collecting materials for recycling and cleaning common areas in neighbourhoods. However, participation in these organisations has decreased. Attendance at activities managed by these organisations has become routinised, and thus people’s motivation has diminished. Nevertheless, this has not inspired action for change due to the lack of a legal framework to allow alternative groups to work without fear of persecution, very effective mechanisms of control and a well-established ‘survival mindset’ which makes civil society groups spend much energy and resources in solely keeping themselves functioning within Cuban society today.
In the CDRs, the broadest form of mass organisation, the leaders, for example, have held their posts for 10 to 20 years; young people do not seek positions of responsibility. This weakens the ability of the CDRs to exercise the kind of social control that previously allowed the authorities to prevent or solve common crimes and to reduce political criticism in public spaces (Salas 1979). CDRs rarely meet these days. The main function of the CDRs was to schedule and execute rounds of night vigilance to defend the “revolutionary process”; these night watches are not implemented today as they were in previous decades (Salas 1979). Even the anniversary of the founding of the organisation, on 28 September, is not celebrated in many neighbourhoods today.
The government uses the CTC as a channel to transmit the official line of action and as an instrument of control to keep workers politically neutralised. However, the function of the CTC as a socialiser of revolutionary values (Rosendahl 1997) no longer exists. Key points worth mentioning from the documents of the CTC 20th Congress, held in 2014, are an emphasis on efficiency and productivity, the distribution of workers’ participation into local assemblies - fragmenting what should be a national movement - and the manipulation of the organisation’s history. There is no autonomous labour movement in Cuba, and thus there is no organisation that genuinely represents the interests of the Cuban working class. The role given to the CTC, however, is almost obligatory in each state-ruled enterprise and institution; employees are forced to affiliate with the mass organisation, which is supposed to represent them at large as a homogenous group with shared interests and problems. Very low wages - of a monthly average of 750 CUP (around US$30) in the state-owned enterprise sector - have come to diminish members’ interest in the functioning of the CTC, and this was reflected in changes that were made regarding the date of the 20th Congress and the directors of the event.
More diverse and autonomous spaces of Cuban civil society
Since the late 1980s, some organisations have emerged that are opposed to the government. Some of them are associations that defend human rights, such as the Cuban Committee for Human Rights, and others arise from proto-political parties with different political orientations, from conservative to left-wing, while another segment of these organisations focuses on generating alternative channels of information that critique the Cuban reality (Dilia 2014).
The opposition was small and socially marginalised for a long period, due in part to government repression and in part to fragmentation among the groups that composed it. After 2001, the Varela Project, led by Oswaldo Paya from the Liberal-Christian Movement, made the opposition movements more visible, inside and outside Cuba. The initiative was strongly repressed and criminalised, and as a result 75 dissidents were incarcerated in 2003 during what was called the ‘Black Spring’. This event had three key consequences: first, it informed many inside Cuba about the movement, since official television had no choice but to cover the events, albeit with its own version of the story. Second, it triggered a negative reaction in Western foreign diplomatic bodies. Third, it led the mothers and wives of the imprisoned - known as the ‘Ladies in White’ - to mobilise and organise themselves to ask for the liberation of their relatives. The courage of these women, who resisted physical and verbal aggression in the streets and on national television, gained them the support of international organisations including the Catholic Church, many CSOs, and groups from Europe, the United States and Latin America. Even in Cuba, despite the aggressive official propaganda, they gained some respect and were supported by emerging bloggers, artists and intellectuals.
In 2010 and 2011 the political prisoners were liberated thanks to the lobbying efforts of the Catholic Church in Cuba. This seemed to mark a new political era of openness and tolerance, but the repression merely changed its form. Since prosecuting political activists is costly for the Cuban government, given the adverse international reaction generated, it prefers instead to threaten, in different ways, those who attempt to exercise any sort of activism to transform their realities. In 2013, while dissident activism increased, with communication campaigns, public demonstrations and meetings in private homes, the repression also rocketed, with concentrated efforts to repudiate the political opposition, arbitrary detentions, house searches and forced evictions carried out by public authorities in the case of eastern Cuba. The Ladies in White and members of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), civil rights advocates, were victims of these actions and thus gained the role of being protagonists in international media. Amnesty International, referencing data from the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN), a human rights CSO, documented an average of 862 arbitrary detentions each month between January and November 2016. Another CSO, the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights. meanwhile identified more than 4,500 arbitrary detentions during 2017. Further, during the first half of 2018, the CCDHRN denounced 1,576 detentions; to this we may add dozens of activists who have been targeted, persecuted, incarcerated, or temporarily banned from travelling to prevent, in most cases, their attendance at international events where they could have been able to share an alternative and well-structured picture of the Cuban reality.
Artists and scientists have also experienced persecution. The authorities usually justify these arbitrary detentions on the pretext of prosecuting activists for committing a “common crime” rather than on the basis of their activism. Luis Manuel Otero, Tania Bruguera and the biologist Ariel Urquiola, among many others, have recently faced different forms of repression, including incarceration and threats. Mr Urquiola’s is probably the most well-known recent case of rights violations by the Cuban government, having been sentenced to jail in May 2018 for “disrespecting” state officials. However, due to a widespread international reaction and demands for justice on social media after he went on hunger strike to protest his “unfair sentence,” he was granted permission to serve his sentence out of prison.
New social actors, alternative to the establishment, emerged in the 1990s and initially did not have to deal with state control. This may suggest the appearance of an alternative civil society. New CSOs and communitarian movements, religious associations - of Catholic, Protestant, Hebrew, Orthodox and Afro-Cuban belongings - and independent cultural projects all expressed a major diversification of Cuban civil society, with new actors and agendas, even though this did not always translate into more popular empowerment. This was because the development of these new social actors was shaped by their relationships with - and the extent to which they were able to negotiate autonomy from - the state.
In this segment of civil society there are groups that continue to support a socialist model but propose significant, and many times also deep, reforms to the current structure. Hence, they try to work within the present socio-political framework but aim to restructure it. Projects such as Cuba Posible (Possible Cuba) and Red Observatorio Crítico (Critical Observatory Network) are part of this sphere, which is critical of the status quo without seeking to entirely break with it. Within this same spectrum there are also some open spaces in the Catholic Church in the form of centres for secular groups and the public, as well as websites, digital bulletins and magazines that embrace diverse ideas and debates - commonly held among socialist intellectuals, Catholics and social activists - regarding the future of Cuba. This relative freedom of the Catholic Church is connected to its determination to place itself between the government and dissidents, without wanting to decisively move closer to the Cuban political scenario (Farber 2012). This allows the Catholic Church, even though it does not have strong popular support - contrary to what happened in communist Poland, for example - to gain legitimacy and achieve public relevance in today’s and, most likely, tomorrow’s Cuba.
Final reflections and recommendations
Although increasing diversity is present in Cuban civil society, domestic politics continue to be overwhelmingly dominated by the party/state elite that rules the country. Hence, the political participation enabled by new spaces within civil society remains strongly shaped by the official framework. In Cuba, as has been pointed out by Bobes (2016), there is deep social erosion, in terms of citizenship, due to many factors: the obstruction of collective action, a lack of interest in politics, the corrosion of public policies and social rights, and the non-existence of any substantial progress on political rights. Moreover, without autonomous spaces that may articulate challenges to the state, the population is increasingly vulnerable to state power (institutions and bureaucrats, for example) at both the individual and social levels. Within this framework, as long as the relationship between the government and the governed remains unstable and unsecure, the opportunities for people to join in making public demands tend to be infrequent or non-existent (Tilly and Wood 2010: 267). Focusing particularly on Cuba, Tilly and Wood suggest that in one-party regimes the tendency to restrict civil society - including CSOs and social movements - is stronger than under other forms of authoritarianism.
Today, there is not yet a political atmosphere in which the state and civil society can create multidirectional flows of ideas and fertile spaces for dialogue. It seems that the government of the Cuban Communist Party is intensifying, as it has done before, the ideological battle and its determination to control all public spaces - including cyberspace - in order to exert its hegemony over discourse and dispute any narrative that may contradict the official project of the country’s future. We will see whether the still weak organisation and mobilisation capacities of the emerging actors of civil society make it possible, in the short term, to unlock and transform the current political scenario and its impacts on the daily lives of Cubans.
Cuban civil society is weak for two main reasons: the first is the lack of a legal framework that allows freedom of association and expression; the second involves a very shaky environment of collaboration and solidarity among different civil society groups. The only way to approach the first problem is by changing, substantially, the constitution and, subsequently, a great part of the current laws, and this will not likely be the case in the near future. Indeed, the present process of constitutional reform will retain the main articles that restrict any significant progress on political and civil rights.
This situation has forced civil society groups to live under a lot of pressure and constantly watch out for their own survival. However, the only way to approach such a precarious reality is by forming alliances and developing cooperation by exchanging all sort of resources and ideas. We are not referring here to a form of unity that frequently leads to homogenisation, but to a simple way to channel collaboration and support among groups with similar goals. This environment could be constructed by creating networks of people through the organisation of events during which different groups can get to know about each other’s work. Today, social media can be of great help to accomplish that.
Apart from collaboration, we think it is important to build a more fraternal and democratic environment within the broad and diverse spectrum of civil society in Cuba. It would not be enough simply to have a professional relationship with those groups that are closer to our principles and have common strategies and objectives with us; it would also be required to lend a hand to activists and CSOs that might differ from our mission and principles, but which to some extent struggle for survival and face forms of human right violations and abuses of power.
We think therefore that both professional collaboration and solidarity are the keys to strengthening civil society in Cuba.
References
Azor, Marlene (2016), Discursos de la resistencia. Los proyectos políticos emergentes en Cuba (Madrid: Editorial Hypermedia).
Bobes, Velia C. (2016), “Reformas en Cuba: ¿Actualización del socialismo o reconfiguración social?” Cuban Studies (Vol. 44, No. 1).
Bobes, Velia C. (2015), “Del hombre nuevo a una socialidad gentrificada. Impacto social de la reforma,” in Bobes, Velia Cecilia (ed.), Cuba ¿Ajuste o transición? Impacto de la reforma en el contexto del restablecimiento de las relaciones con Estados Unidos (Mexico: FLACSO).
Bobes, Velia C. (2007), La nación inconclusa. (Re) constituciones de la ciudadanía y la identidad nacional en Cuba (Mexico: FLACSO).
Dilla, Haroldo (2014), “Cuba: los nuevos campos de la oposición política,” Real Instituto Elcano, June 23rd.
Farber, Samuel (2012), “La iglesia y la izquierda crítica en Cuba,” Nueva Sociedad (Vol. 242), 123-138.
Geoffray, Marie Laure (2012), Contester à Cuba (Paris: Dalloz).
Rosendahl, Mona (1997), Inside the Revolution, Everyday Life in Socialist Cuba (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).
Salas, Luis (1979), Social Control and Deviance in Cuba (New York: Praeger).
Tilly, C. and L. Wood (2010), Los movimientos sociales 1768-2008. Desde sus orígenes a Facebook (Barcelona: Crítica).
Cuba: battling economic crisis, escalating attacks on civil society
Roberto Quinones
Communist-run Cuba has imposed sweeping price controls on all state and private businesses as it battles a deepening economic crisis and mounting U.S. sanctions, Reuters reports:
Resolutions published in the official gazette banned all retail and wholesale price increases except for products imported and distributed by the state where already-set profit margins cannot be increased. “In effect they have suspended what there is of a market,” a Cuban economist said, asking not to be identified due to restrictions on talking to foreign journalists.
Economist Andrew Zimbalist, a Cuba expert at Smith College, said, “Such measures are usually okay for short periods of time, but if they stay in place they begin to create serious distortions in the economy.”
The economic crisis will undermine the regime’s efforts to establish “Market-Leninism” – a market socialist model with Cuban characteristics.
“In
Cuba they’ve been thinking about transition and ‘the day after’ for a
long, long time, but that debate has focused on to what degree to open
up the economy and whether to go farther toward a Vietnam or China model,” says Eduardo Gamarra, an expert in Latin American democratization at Florida International University in Miami.
The U.S. is open to engagement with Cuba, but only if the regime “renounces its oppressive behavior,” said the U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.
“We’re doing everything we can here to support the Cuban people,” although “the list of challenges is long,” he said in a telephone interview with DIARIO DE CUBA, specifying the regime’s human rights abuses.
“You see with [journalist] Roberto Quinones (above) and his recent detention,” he said. “We know the story of the Ladies in White, right. This is a government that has denied these most basic freedoms to the Cuban people.” Quinones recently reported that How Night Fell by Huber Matos remains banned in Cuba.
It is also imperative to break the ‘Cubazuela‘ connection, Pompeo added. “Any new leader in Venezuela must get the Cubans away from the security apparatus,” he told Pablo Díaz Espí, Diario’s director.
“That connection, that link through the security team prevents the Venezuelan people from having the opportunity that they need to grow their economy and to restore democracy in their country,” he said. “That is not going to happen with hundreds and thousands of Cuban security officials, intelligence officials, military officials there with this very, very tight link.”
Pompeo’s comments come at a time of escalating repression of civil society activists and independent journalists.
The regime’s actions are generating an atmosphere of tension similar to that preceded by the raids of the Black Spring (2003), when 75 dissidents were convicted to long sentences in Castro prisons, Miriam Celaya writes for Translating Cuba. What
stands out now is that the harassment remains constant, especially —
although not exclusively — against the youngest and most active members
of the emerging civil society, she adds.
Cuba this week relaxed controls on Internet access in an effort to defend the regime’s legitimacy both in the real and virtual worlds.
Sirley Avila Leon
The Center for a Free Cuba is assisting human rights activist Sirley Avila Leon, who lost her hand due to a machete attack by Cuban government agents in 2015. She recently spoke to a group of teachers at an event organized by Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and met with other human rights organizations.
The Human Rights in Foreign Affairs seminar, organized by the Václav Havel Institute of the Center for the Opening and Development of Latin America (CADAL, Argentina), was held on May 6-10, 2019, the NED’s International Forum adds. CADAL also organized a conversation Cuban historian and political activist Manuel Cuesta Morúa on “The Fight for Democracy and Human Rights in Cuba.”
Writing for the International Forum’s Power 3.0 Blog, Armando Chaguaceda and Maria Werlau examine “Cuba’s Efforts to Shape Debate in Latin America.”
A Formula for Change in Cuba
Sustained and diversified pressure exerted by the opposition to force dialogue with those in power opens up possibilities that must be explored.
There have been countless calls for the unity in the opposition to the Castro dictatorship, but few seem to know how to achieve this, or what to do with it.
When it comes to such appeals for unity, they are regularly issued in a routine and vague way, without specifying what kind of unity, or who its agents or protagonists should be. The history of Cuba that began in 1959 shows us how, from the outset of the revolutionary process, the regime's strategy was based on the maximum dissolution of formal and informal ties between all citizens. This infinite set of inter-citizen relationships is what today is called "social capital," which, in an imperceptible way, makes up the connective tissue of every society, its unifying element of social cohesion.
However, from the beginning, analysts of the revolutionary process primarily focused on the most easily observable and measurable aspects of what happened during the first two years, especially the expropriation of companies' physical and financial capital, much of the citizens' real estate (buildings and land), and the loss of a major portion of the country's human capital through an exodus abroad.
But social capital is not alienable. Thus, it was simply diluted,
along with the suppression of the freedom of expression and
communication. The elementary inter-citizen relations that still exist
without government intervention are limited in scope, restricted to
families, neighbors, colleagues from a few unions and workplaces,
students and members of religious orders.
Soon the Cuban Government monopolized ties between the people through
the State's organizations and companies, the Armed Forces, the Communist
Party, and mass organizations.
In a very short time Cubans lost their freedom to organize not only political activities, but also those of any other nature. Along with a reduction in private property, freedom of commerce and business, and other liberties that were respected even during the Batista dictatorship, the new government soon restricted the entire gamut of freedoms of organization and expression. Thus, citizens were isolated from each other, and therefore, exposed to arbitrary manipulation by the new governmental order.
That is, Cubans' connective means to carry out any independent, collaborative tasks in favor of their individual interests was reduced to a bare minimum.
In their respective evolutions, societies gradually amass various forms of wealth, some tangible and others less tangible, or entirely intangible. Among the former we can include physical, financial and human capital; and among the latter, cultural capital and social capital, this being a relatively modern concept in the social sciences, but one that has been become more prominent and, increasingly, been assigned greater methodological and analytical utility.
The identification of social capital and its evolution within the framework of Cuba serves to enrich study of the country and, above all, to illuminate some critical aspects of its anomalous development during the revolutionary process. As an intangible form of wealth that cannot be easily quantified or measured, social capital adds an extremely useful analytical dimension to describe and explain what has happened in Cuba since 1959, in addition to facilitating study and the formulation of strategies and policies for change in the country through civil society.
A change that could guide others
The practical importance of this concept cannot be overstated in light of what happened in Havana in November 2020 with the San Isidro Movement (MSI), when some 300 Cuban artists and intellectuals gathered in front of the Ministry of Culture to demand dialogue with the authorities and express their discontent over restrictions on their freedom.
This event was followed in February by a similar, although smaller, demonstration before the Ministry of Agriculture, to complain to the authorities about the lack of action to prevent the mistreatment of animals and the government's disinterest in this situation. Both events are examples of the preliminary power of social capital, and evoke the impact of the Solidarity movement in Poland in the 1980s.
In all three cases, the protests came about because a certain unity was achieved thanks to the fact that the participants, connected to each other because they belonged to a certain social group, were able to define and express a concrete and practical objective rooted in a common interest. In all three cases interpersonal relationships not only facilitated collective action, but also the expression of a common interest because the people in question belonged to a certain sector. Belonging to a professional community facilitates personal contact, exchange and communications, as well as the identification of common interests and levels of interpersonal trust necessary to carry out actions that can be successful over the long run.
What is interesting and promising about these events is that they disarm the members of the Cuban Government, who, with great arrogance, oppose all forms of dialogue, even simply listening to the opinions of citizens, hiding behind false statements about the origins and motivations of these initiatives, and accusing their participants of being agents of the United States and harboring subversive motives. It is also interesting to note that these initiatives can be carried out in accord with the Cuban constitution and its legal system, although the authorities do not recognize this.
After more than 60 years of popular impotence in the face of the abuses of Castro's totalitarianism, and stubborn government refusals to address the serious problems that affect the country, two examples of citizen initiatives have appeared on the Cuban scene that, replicated on more occasions, and by other actors, could pave a path to some form of change on the island.
In the absence of other feasible strategies for change, and given the regime's ostensible inability to improve living conditions in Cuba, sustained and diversified pressure from the opposition to force dialogue with those in power opens up possibilities that must be explored with patience and wisdom. This could be the formula to bring
About 45 people remain on hunger strike inside and outside Cuba
On March 19, José Daniel Ferrer began a hunger strike after the government intensified the crackdown on activists
UNPACU STRIKES FACE BOOK PHOTO
MIAMI, USA.- This April 2nd about 45 people are going on hunger strike in protest at the Cuban regime's repressive escalation against the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) and its activists for several weeks, Cuba Decide reported.
In the last update, dated 1:00 p.m. this Friday, the citizen initiative seeking democratic restoration on the island said that 312 hours after the start of the strike, 41 people find themselves without eating food within Cuba and 4 do so outside the country.
Although strikers have received solidarity from inside and outside the island, other opposition organizations, artists, activists, international media and political representatives from various countries and human rights institutions, uniformed police, guards and undercover State Security officers maintain a strong police enforcement close in the vicinity of UNPACU headquarters , in the Altamira distribution, province of Santiago de Cuba.
UNPACU leader José Daniel Ferrer reported on Twitter today that even political police officers have been visiting neighbors to intimidate those who are related to the organization or its members.
On March 19, UNPACU leader José Daniel Ferrer began a hunger strike after the government intensified the crackdown on activists in that eastern province in the face of the serious food crisis in the village.
"UNPACU's headquarters in Santiago de Cuba are used as a solidarity dining room. From there, more than 200 people are fed extreme poverty every day. Medicines are also shared and medical assistance is offered. However, despite the serious economic and health crisis that lives the island", which already "reaches the humanitarian scale", "the Cuban regime uses its resources to intensify violence against everyone who thinks differently", and in "the last few weeks the persecution of activists and the people they attend was on the rise," Cuba Decides in a statement last week.
"Interior Ministry officers mistreat, threaten and arrest many who approach the solidarity dining room. State agents have come to threaten, hit and even arbitrarily arrest several children who were going to seek food," the text added.
Strikers "demand freedom to do their humanitarian work. They call for the cessation of abuse and serious human rights abuses of women, the elderly and citizens in general; repression and beatings of activists and the police fence imposed," and "Raúl Castro and Miguel Díaz-Canel, under the command of the state in Cuba, are responsible for the physical integrity" of these 54 people.
Repressive Monday in Cuba leaves several arrests of activists and opponents
Dna reporter Cuba Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho, CubaNet journalist María Matienzo, activist Kirenia Yalit Núñez and Nelva Ismarays Ortega, wife of José Daniel Ferrer
MIAMI, USA. Cuban artist and opponent Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was arrested on the morning of this Monday while trying to hand out candy and jams to children in the San Isidro neighborhood.
A live broadcast via Facebook via the artivist's account shows political police officers dressed as civilians take Otero Alcántara after he left to give the little ones in the area maps of Cuba, books and candy.
"Look at the children as they don't let them through. State Security doesn't let children go to get their candy and candy. They won't let them through. Look how they're there. We're going out to give the candy to the kids," Otero Alcántara announced shortly before he was arrested.
"They take him prisoner," he was heard telling one of the artist's teammates in full recording.
So far, the whereabouts of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara are unknown.
Manuel de la Cruz Pascual, a young man who disguised himself as a clown to accompany Otero Alcántara to hand out the gifts, was also arrested by political police officers.
"I'm in Aguilera, in Aguilera, in October 10th. Here they brought me in handcuffs," the young man said in a video uploaded to his Facebook profile.
On today, DNA reporter Cuba Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho and Kirenia Yalit Núñez, coordinator of the Cuban Youth Dialogue Table, were also arrested.
Both activists were intercepted by political police officers on the way out of their homes. In the case of Yalit Núñez, CubaNet was able to confirm that the activist was arrested while preparing to make personal arrangements.
In the case of Valdés Cocho, he was released after spending an hour held inside a patrol car.
Another of the arrested of the day was the DNA reporter Cuba Esteban Rodríguez.
CubaNet journalist María Matienzo Puerto was also arrested in the afternoon hours of today, according to reports appearing on social media.
"In the afternoon hours of today we have just arrested our colleague María Matienzo Puerto, journalist of CubaNet News. Maria was leaving her home for El Cerro station, where activist Kirenia Yalit has been arrested since this morning. Stop repressing women. Stop suppressing a town," journalist José Raúl Gallego, collaborator of Project Inventory, reported on Twitter.
By the close of this note, both Matienzo Puerto and Yalit Núñez had already been released.
Regime holds fence against UNPACU
In the midst of the hunger strike that dozens of activists from cuba's Patriotic Union have been holding for 17 days, the island regime has also snatched the fence against that opposition organization.
This Monday, as part of the repressive wave ousted by State Security agents, Nelva Ismarays Ortega, wife of opposition leader José Daniel Ferrer, his 16-year-old daughter Fatima Victoria Ferrer and activist Yaniris Popa, were arrested.
The opposition leader noted on Twitter that all three were intercepted "when they were going to visit striker Niuvis Biscet, who is in very poor health."
News in development...
Cuban artist Luis Manuel Otero claims return of occupied works on Friday
'The murder of independent art in Cuba continues and becomes more reluctant these days of deceptive congress,' activists denounce.
The artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara announced on Sunday his decision to go out and claim the return of the works that were occupied on Friday during the break-in to the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement (MSI) in Old Havana.
"Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara sends me this message. He tells me to share it, he'll be out again at 4:00PM. The works are still in the possession of State Security or who knows who," journalist Matienzo Puerto said on her Facebook profile on Sunday.
"Garrote Vil was the work that triggered the repressive wave on this occasion. The regime doesn't tolerate uncomfortable art normally, with a congress of its only party, less!" he added.
Later, Matienzo, who defended Otero Alcántara's right to claim his works, reported that the founder of MSI had "to be at home already". "Where's Luis Manuel?" he asked.
Otero Alcántara said on Sunday that he was under house arrest after his release on Saturday and that he also suffered the "total incommunicado", as the internet and national telephone services were cut off.
"The murder of independent art in Cuba continues and becomes more reluctant in these days of deceptive Congress. Media manipulation, repression, are the flags behind every slogan of this vile club government," he condemned on his Facebook profile.
On Sunday afternoon, MSI curator Anamely Ramos denounced the weekend's crackdown on the island.
"These are the patrols in the vicinity of the houses where Hector Luis Valdés, Iliana Hernández, Maykel Osorbo Castillo and the security bikes are located in front of the house of Oscar Casanella. A ghost congress in the midst of this filterless and shameless repression," he wrote on his Facebook profile.
"Luis Manuel Otero and Amaury Pacheco arrested. Stolen works. Connection interrupts. Hunger and tails. shortage. Lack of basic rights. El Gato and Manuel de la Cruz threatened to be charged with contempt. Luis Robles is asked for six years. More than 130 political prisoners. The complete picture of a regime of terror. And the international community and press agencies, mute. Let's keep looking somewhere else. Freedom doesn't come in trees," he added.
Maykel Castle Osorbo was taken on Saturday for a house in Lawton, as reported by the MSI.
"There he is, with the patrol outside. State Security says that until tomorrow (Monday) they remove surveillance from him and the other activists. This is how the Mafia state of Cuba keeps the streets for revolutionaries... based on terror," a Facebook post noted.
"If anything happens to Maykel or Luis, to one of those besieged activists, your responsibility will be and it won't be enough all the time in the world to pay for it," he added.
On Sunday, human Rights Watch (HRW)Executive Director for the Americas José Miguel Vivanco asked Havana's regime to cease human rights violations on the island.
"While the Communist Party Congress is taking place,the artists of the San Isidro Movement are under surveillance and deprived of freedom in their own homes. We demand the cessation of these serious and repeated human rights violations," Vivanco said on Twitter.
"Why is the regime so afraid of independent artists and journalists?" he added.
Vivanco cited the cases of Tania Bruguera, Carolina Barrero, Amaury Pacheco, Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho, Camila Acosta and Luz Escobar. "All my solidarity for them," he said.
Silverio Portal: "They're looking for a way to drag me to prison again"
"It is clear that they want to keep me well under control," the former political and conscience prisoner denounced after a new state security repressive maneuver.
HAVANA, Cuba. – "Obviously this is a State Security strategy to keep me under control because they want to know every step I take," former political and conscientious prisoner Silverio Portal Contreras reported after receiving an urgent official subpoena to appear before the Execution Judge of the Municipal Court of La Lisa on the morning of this Tuesday.
According to the former political prisoner, the judicial authorities informed him that he would be monitored thereafter.
"I handed over the subpoena and they automatically say, 'Silverio you're going to be monitored by the Court here at La Lisa. I'm the execution judge and you have to keep all things in order. (In addition) will be monitored by the Head of Sector and by someone from the Committee (Defense of the Revolution, COR) or the Party,'" he explained.
The activist also points out that the judicial authorities also handed over a document to his wife, Lucinda González Gómez, detailing that both should appear before the head of Community Sector accompanied by the coR president.
"It's clear they want to keep me under control. Before the subpoena, State Security approached me on the avenue and told me I was going to be chased by them without having to use any repression or detention," he explained.
Meanwhile, González Gómez detailed that since her husband's prison exit, political police have maintained strict surveillance over the home where they both reside.
"Repression has always been there, but four days ago we were besieged by State Security and uniformed police officers. Threats were never lacking," he emphasized.
The interviewee points out that in the Court they also asked about the state of health of Portal Contreras and also notified him that to reside in his home he had to maintain good social behavior in the neighborhood.
"We are suffering persecution, we cannot transit. And (I was told) that I have to go with a block factor, with the chairman of the Committee, with the surveillance or the Party to see the head of sector. Never in life has that been seen; I don't know how legal that is," he said.
Portal Contreras, recognized by Amnesty International as a political and conscientious prisoner, stated that State Security is after him everywhere, so he feels "harassed."
"I took a bus and (the political police officers) came after me: one in front on a motorbike and one behind, and inside the guagua went one too. I got off in Havana and they came after me wherever I went," he insisted.
In June 2018, after a peaceful protest in Havana, Portal Contreras was sentenced to four years in prison for alleged crimes of "contempt" and "public disorder".
In 2019 several international bodies such as the European Parliament and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights demanded their release.
Finally, in December 2020 the activist was released on extrapenal leave due to his delicate state of health.
"I have a feeling you're looking for a way to drag me to prison again," the former political prisoner now warned.
They try to burn down the home of an opponent's son in Cuba
At 10:45 p.m on Thursday, strangers threw fuel, presumably gasoline and set fire to a part of the house
Irenaldo Sosa Báez (left) with Guillermo Fariñas (centre) and another FANTU activist. Photo Radio Television Martí.
MIAMI, USA.- The National Council of the United Antitothalite Forum (FANTU) reported this Friday that unknown paramilitaries tried to burn down the home of the son of Irenaldo Sosa Báez, Territorial Coordinator for the North East of the opposition organization.
Sosa Báez, he said, is visiting the house, in the village of Peralejo, municipality La Sierpe, sancti Spíritus province, which several men tried to burn down to pressure him and return to his place of origin in the province Las Tunas.
In a reporting note FANTU noted that at 10:45 p.m. on Thursday, strangers threw fuel, presumably gasoline and set fire to a part of their son's house.
"With the help of some of his son's neighbors, he and Irenaldo threw away several buckets of water and managed to put out the fire. The arsonists, as they ran out of the fact site, shouted several slogans in favor of the neo-Russian military junta in government," the note says.
This Thursday morning Sosa Báez had been arrested in the aforementioned house and driven from there, by national revolutionary police (PNR) troops, to the Provincial Criminal Investigations and Operations Unit (UPICO), popularly known as El Vivac, in the head city of the province.
The FANTU coordinator was questioned and threatened by several officers from the Department of Confrontation to enemy Subversive Activity in Sancti Spíritus, who told him that they did not want him on the territory of the province and that he had to return to the city of Las Tunas, where he resides.
Sosa Báez, he explained, is in that central province accompanying his sick wife, who is currently under complete medical examination at the Provincial Hospital "Camilo Cienfuegos". According to the opponent, as soon as they finished it and gave him medical treatment, they would return to Las Tunas.
Commits suicide in Cuba young reguetonero victim of depression
"I just want the world to know that this is a cause of youth's desperation for a government that doesn't let it develop"
MIAMI, USA.- With a heartbreaking social media message, Jonathan Fermín Michel Valdés (El Kamel) announced the suicide of Cuban reguetonero Ivan El Bacoco this week in Havana, apparently the victim of depression.
According to El Kamel, a colleague and childhood friend, "my brother took his own life because of depressive problems he always had. That's how we spent the morning, talking and crying, and I gave him encouragement by fighting with him."
In his statement, posted on Instagram's social network on Thursday, El Bacoco's friend added: "I'm too hurt about this. I just want the world to know that this is a cause of youth's desperation for a government that doesn't let it develop. A lot of young people are doing it, not just him. That's not the solution..."
The singer also published a photograph of both of them in which he wrote:"A large part of me is going with you."
The suicide of the young Cuban reguetonero has created a shock between urban artists such as Yomil, El Funky, Chocolate MC, Alex Duvall and Manu Manu.
"Don't wait for someone to die to tell him how much you loved him, tell him today that you have him around," Chocolate wrote on his Instagram, quoting American writer H. Jackson Brown.
He added: "When you see someone depressed, don't leave them alone. Give him conversation, entertain him, make him laugh, help him lift his spirits. Depression is the baddest disease there is."
"Ivan, aka El Bacoco, excellent friend, brother, singer and songwriter, personally my brother, my friend, the composer of all the songs on my record, tremendous man. (...) My brother, wherever you are, rests in peace, that your unborn child will never, as long as I exist, be alone; you're my brother and as such I'll behave," he wrote on his Facebook profile, for his part, Moro Champion Boys.
Although the Cuban government is not characterized by its transparency in reports and figures, in 2012 a study on the subject revealed that suicide was among the top ten causes of death in Cuba.
The document further noted that the weight of death from suicidesin the death of young people, mainly in the age group between 15 and 25 years, mostly attributed to partner problems, failure of student life or life in general, and poor economic situations in their family nuclei, among others, was alarming.
For its part, in September 2020 an article by DW.com, whichaddressed the statistics of this problem in Latin America, placed Cuba at number eight among the 10 countries in the region where the highest number of suicide deaths occur. In front of the island are the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Argentina, Colombia and Chile.
According to the text, "36% of suicides in the Americas occur at ages 25 to 44, and 26% between the ages of 45 and 59. Suicide rates in men remain higher than for women, and account for about 78% of all suicide deaths."
Luis Robles case, another step in the Cuban regime's 'terror strategy against dissent'
With the accusation notified to the young man who demonstrated peacefully with a poster in Havana, the Prosecutor's Office seeks an exemplary sanction.
Cuban political prisoner Luis Robles was formally charged with the crimes of enemy propaganda and resistance for peacefully protesting with a poster in Havana. The Prosecutor's Office issued a joint six-year prison sentence. The tax notification, considered lawyers consulted by DIARIO DE CUBA, adds more discredit to the Cuban judicial system.
The tax charge notified to Robles demonstrates a number of issues, including that there is already a presumption of early guilt in the Criminal Chamber of the Provincial People's Court, which provided for the establishment of the case.
In this sense, the chances of the young man being sanctioned "are almost full,as much as the sanction will be irrationally exemplary."
According to the analysis of the case issued by Cuban jurists, following the notification of the tax charge, "the fact that the precautionary measure of provisional imprisonment is not changing is the strongest of the evidence" that Robles will be convicted.
Over the past two years, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has made a number of complaints against the Government in this area. In this sense, Havana knows that dissent is part of the exercise of freedom of expression and its forced interruption is a violation of fundamental rights.
According to the criterion of the jurists consulted, "demanding justicefrom representatives ofinstitutions that the people choose cannot be configured as enemy propaganda unless it is based on racist, discriminatory, fundamentalist claims and petitions, calling war or containing fascist elements." For the lawyers, "it's not the case" of Robles.
"Luis Robles is not responsible for any crime; therefore, the case must be overstepped, acquitted by judgment and released under any variant of judicial decision," they added.
With cases such as those of Luis Robles,Evert Oscar and, more recently, Yoandi Montiel "El Gato de Cuba", State Security lashs out at the growing spontaneity of citizens exercising their rights to freedom of expression and adds one more pillar to the terror strategy that has been in place against dissent for years.
The tax notification to Robles also shows the false constitutional statement that the presumption of innocence is guaranteed.
Professional and lay judges who agreed to bring Luis Robles to trial have violated Article 263, in particular in paragraphs one and two of the Criminal Procedure Act.
According to the legal analysis, "both the Prosecutor's Office and the Instructional Body have failed to bring to trial as fundamental evidence the public video that circulated in networks with the time of Robles' arrest, violently subjected by officers and without resisting.
The video is documentary evidence required in the investigation.
The excess of law enforcement officers during the performance of their duties is known not to qualify in favor of the Administration and Jurisdiction in crimes of contempt, resistance, disobedienceor attack. According to the lawyers consulted for this analysis, the Supreme Court has made it clear in several court rulings.
For its part, the book Cuban Criminal Code,edited, printed and distributed by the state-owned National Organization of Collective Law Firms of Cuba,says of the crimes of attack, contempt, resistance and disobedience: "when the aforementioned subjects (officials) exceed or overreach in the performance of their function, these crimes (against the administration and jurisdiction) cannot protect such excess".
Likewise, for the experts "it is inadmissibleto claim that Luis Robles in his action was responding 'to a call for the Cuban counter-president known to Alexander Otaola', for fundamental human rights such as expression are intrinsically personal, indispensable in principle and unattakable by any legal force, much less when the opinion, idea and thought that is expressed expressed the desire for justice to be managed".
In any case, the jurists noted, "you have to prove the link with evidence" and the influencer cited in the tax petition "cannot become the cause of criminalization of non-criminal conduct, because Cubans have the right to express feelings of justice that no one has the right to erase or conceal."
Thus, they considered that in the case of Luis Robles" have been violated "the principlesof presumption of innocence, effective judicial protection and the others that make up the proper criminal process ", contained in Instruction No.247 of March 23, 2020 addressed to the Cuban courts.
"A miracle or due prudence and justice would be the first step in starting to regain the trust that is lost every day of the judicial system in Cuba,"they concluded.
US is concerned about human rights violations in Cuba
"The United States takes seriously the violations of freedoms guaranteed by the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights"
MIAMI, USA. - U.S. Undersecretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, Julie Chung, said her country is concerned about repeated allegations of human rights violations arriving from Cuba.
"We are concerned about allegations of arbitrary detention and violation of the right of Cubans to meet, express themselves and travel freely," she wrote on Twitter's social network on Thursday morning.
He added: "The United States takes seriously the violations of freedoms guaranteed by the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights."
Although the statement does not refer to any particular person or fact, they occur just when there are moments of tension on the island because of the situation of the artivist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, on hunger and thirst strike since last Sunday, who protests the state of siege that has lived for several weeks.
Otero Alcántara also requires the Cuban regime to respect its individual rights and freedoms and to return to it the works of art that State Security agents took from their home, in Damas 955, also the seat of the San Isidro Movement.
Several users on the social network responded to undersecretary of state. The curator and activist Yanelis Núñez, resident in Spain, shared a video of the break-in to the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement and home of Otero Alcántara.
"I share the video of the break-in of the artist's @LMOAlcantara on April 16, 2021. Luis is today on his 5th day of hunger and thirst strike. Luis is besieged by Cuban police and without the possibility of receiving friends or religious service," Nuñez wrote.
For its part, the Cuban artists' and intellectuals movement 27N made an urgent call through a statement to stand in solidarity and support Luis Manuel in the face of deteriorating health.
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