Cuban blogger Reinaldo Escobar, husband of Yoani Sanchez was today prevented from debating an agent who he had challenged to a public debate. A violent mob organized by agents of state security dressed in civilian clothes (seen taking Reinaldo Escobar away) seized Escobar and led him away before he was able to meet the man he was going to debate in public.
This is the second attack on Cuban bloggers in just over a week. It also comes on the heels of the report released by the Human Rights Watch which criticizes the Cuban government and Raul Castro of doing nothing to change the policies of Fidel Castro. the report can be found here: http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/11/18/cuba-ra-l-castro-imprisons-critics-crushes-dissentCuban blogger Reinaldo Escobar, husband of Yoani Sanchez was today prevented from... more
Don't need you anymore so go to jail.
A retired US state department official and his wife have admitted spying for Cuba for nearly three decades.
Under a plea deal, Mr Myers will spend the rest of his life in jail while wife Gwendolyn, 71, will serve a term of no more than seven-and-a-half years.
She pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of conspiracy to gather and transmit national defence information to Cuba.Don't need you anymore so go to jail.
A retired US state department official and his... more
Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez has developed quite a following in the US for her blog Generacion Y. Apparently now she can count President Obama among her fans. Sanchez managed to submit seven question to the President, which he answered this week and she posted on her blog. Obama congratulated her on her work:
"Your blog provides the world a unique window into the realities of daily life in Cuba. It is telling that the Internet has provided you and other courageous Cuban bloggers with an outlet to express yourself so freely, and I applaud your collective efforts to empower fellow Cubans to express themselves through the use of technology. The government and people of the United States join all of you in looking forward to the day all Cubans can freely express themselves in public without fear and without reprisals."
The questions focused on US-Cuba relations and the possibility of future dialogue. Obama kept the door open to dialogue with Cuba's government but said it would have to come with the chance to "create opportunities to advance the interests of the United States and the cause of freedom for the Cuban people." Sanchez also asked him specifically about the role of the internet in Cuban lives.
"QUESTION 6: YOU STRONGLY SUPPORT THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES. BUT, CUBANS CONTINUE TO HAVE LIMITED ACCESS TO THE INTERNET. HOW MUCH OF THIS IS DUE TO THE U.S. EMBARGO AND HOW MUCH OF IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CUBAN GOVERNMENT?
My administration has taken important steps to promote the free flow of information to and from the Cuban people particularly through new technologies. We have made possible greater telecommunications links to advance interaction between Cuban citizens and the outside world. This will increase the means through which Cubans on the island can communicate with each other and with persons outside of Cuba, for example, by expanding opportunities for fiber optic and satellite transmissions to and from Cuba. This will not happen overnight. Nor will it have its full effect without positive actions by the Cuban government. I understand the Cuban government has announced a plan to provide Cubans greater access to the Internet at post offices. I am following this development with interest and urge the government to allow its people to enjoy unrestricted access to the internet and to information. In addition, we welcome suggestions regarding areas in which we can further support the free flow of information within, from, and to Cuba."
Vanguard's Adrian Baschuk was in Cuba earlier this year and though he was unable to meet with Yoani Sanchez, found that internet access for her, possibly Cuba's best-known blogger, was achieved by sneaking into hotels and uploading her posts. http://current.com/groups/vanguard-cuba-revolution/
Thank you for this opportunity to exchange views with you and your readers in Cuba and around the world and congratulations on receiving the Maria Moore Cabot Prize award from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism for coverage of Latin America that furthers inter-American understanding. You richly deserve the award. I was disappointed you were denied the ability to travel to receive the award in person.
Your blog provides the world a unique window into the realities of daily life in Cuba. It is telling that the Internet has provided you and other courageous Cuban bloggers with an outlet to express yourself so freely, and I applaud your collective efforts to empower fellow Cubans to express themselves through the use of technology. The government and people of the United States join all of you in looking forward to the day all Cubans can freely express themselves in public without fear and without reprisals.
QUESTION #1. FOR YEARS, CUBA HAS BEEN A U.S. FOREIGN POLICY ISSUE AS WELL AS A DOMESTIC ONE, IN PARTICULAR BECAUSE OF THE LARGE CUBAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY. FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE, IN WHICH OF THE TWO CATEGORIES SHOULD THE CUBAN ISSUE FIT?
All foreign policy issues involve domestic components, especially issues concerning neighbors like Cuba from which the United States has a large immigrant population and with which we have a long history of relations. Our commitment to protect and support free speech, human rights, and democratic governance at home and around the world also cuts across the foreign policy/domestic policy divide. Also, many of the challenges shared by our two countries, including migration, drug trafficking, and economic issues, involve traditional domestic and foreign policy concerns. Thus, U.S. relations with Cuba are rightly seen in both a foreign and domestic policy context.
QUESTION 2: SHOULD YOUR ADMINISTRATION BE WILLING TO PUT AN END TO THIS DISPUTE, WOULD IT RECOGNIZE THE LEGITIMACY OF THE RAUL CASTRO GOVERNMENT AS THE ONLY VALID INTERLOCUTOR IN THE EVENTUAL TALKS?
As I have said before, I am prepared to have my administration engage with the Cuban government on a range of issues of mutual interest as we have already done in the migration and direct mail talks. It is also my intent to facilitate greater contact with the Cuban people, especially among divided Cuban families, which I have done by removing U.S. restrictions on family visits and remittances.
We seek to engage with Cubans outside of government as we do elsewhere around the world, as the government, of course, is not the only voice that matters in Cuba. We take every opportunity to interact with the full range of Cuban society and look forward to the day when the government reflects the freely expressed will of the Cuban people.
QUESTION 3: HAS THE U.S. GOVERNMENT RENOUNCED THE USE OF MILITARY FORCE AS THE WAY TO END THE DISPUTE?
The United States has no intention of using military force in Cuba. The United States supports increased respect for human rights and for political and economic freedoms in Cuba, and hopes that the Cuban government will respond to the desire of the Cuban people to enjoy the benefits of democracy and be able to freely determine Cuba’s future. Only the Cuban people can bring about positive change in Cuba and it is our hope that they will soon be able to exercise their full potential.
[rest of questions provided below][President Obama responds to 7 questions posed to him by Yoani Sanchez from her blog... more
Mr. President made his comment about not reaching the January 2010 deadline while in Asia. He says he's "not disappointed" because he "knew it would be hard".
Obama told Fox News: "It's hard not only because of the politics. People, I think understandably, are fearful after a lot of years where they were told that Guantanamo was critical to keep terrorists out."
While an exact date was not given, he says it'll be sometime in 2010.
While U.S. policy toward Cuba has opened up since President Barack Obama took office, a new report from Public Campaign, an organization dedicated to reforming campaign financing, raises the question of whether hard-line Cuban Americans will succeed in stifling further changes in U.S.-Cuba relations through their campaign contributions to members of Congress.
According to the report, the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee, along with a "network of hard-line Cuban American donors," have made over $10 million in campaign donations since the 2004 election cycle, with 337 federal candidates receiving funds through the PAC.
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough falsely claimed that it is "unprecedented" to try foreign terror suspects through the United States' judicial system, stating, "It's unprecedented to afford constitutional rights to, basically, prisoners of war." In fact, during the Bush and Clinton administrations numerous foreign terrorists have been tried and imprisoned by our federal system, including 9-11 conspirator Zacarious Moussaoui and 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Ahmed Yousef.MSNBC host Joe Scarborough falsely claimed that it is "unprecedented" to try foreign... more
"Pingpong diplomacy" thawed relations between the United States and China in 1971. Can "baseball diplomacy" help do the same for the U.S. and Cuba?
Americans ranging from 12-year-old ballplayers to softballing senior citizens are visiting the communist island to engage in their own kind of field work, and there's talk of another trip by a major league team.
These bat-and-ball initiatives come as the Obama administration takes steps toward improving relations with the Cold War rival, such as loosening financial and travel restrictions on Americans with relatives on the island.
Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos, who staged exhibition games with the Cuban national team in Havana and Baltimore a decade ago, told The Associated Press that he hopes to so again next spring. Two groups of baseball youngsters from Florida are planning to visit next year as well.
Baseball enthusiasts feel the time is right for this type of outreach. In September, the U.S. sent a senior diplomat to Havana for unannounced meetings with Cuban officials — believed to be the highest-level talks between the two nations in decades. And last month, Cuba's foreign minister said his country is willing to hold talks with the United States "on any level."
If Angelos gets his way, next spring his Orioles will play in Cuba, as well as host the Cuban national team, in a repeat of the exhibition games staged in 1999 during the Clinton administration. He said he decided to do so now because of the Obama administration's overtures toward Cuba.
More @ link"Pingpong diplomacy" thawed relations between the United States and China in 1971. Can... more
Joe sez, "The McDonald's franchise at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba is looking for an assistant manager. The ideal candidate will have previous restaurant management experience, a valid U.S. passport and a willingness to relocate to Cuba. Apparently, no special security clearance is required. Perks include great weather, potential tax free status for year-round residents, and half of the successful candidate's stateside rent paid by the company. The Gitmo McDonald's has been in operation since 1986, and serves the base's 6000 inhabitants, including military personnel, their families, Jamaican and Filipino guest workers. and 215 detainees, who can make take-out orders for Big Macs, fries and other items."
Out of work and willing to relocate? McDonald's is advertising for an assistant manager for its sole franchise in Cuba -- serving up burgers and fries that sometimes feed detainees at the prison camps at Guantánamo Bay.Out of work and willing to relocate? McDonald's is advertising for an assistant... more
The Cuba regime denied several times the authorization to Yoani Sanchez to leave the country: she is a counter-revolutionary because she owns a blog where she talks about Cuba. But on saturday the police was more violent and they even kidnapped her. http://www.inaltreparole.net/en/journalism/yoanisanchezsequestrocuba071109.htmlThe Cuba regime denied several times the authorization to Yoani Sanchez to leave the... more
Near 23rd Street, just at the Avenida de los Presidentes roundabout, we saw a black car, made in China, pull up with three heavily built strangers. “Yoani, get in the car,” one told me while grabbing me forcefully by the wrist. The other two surrounded Claudia Cadelo, Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, and a friend who was accompanying us to the march against violence. The ironies of life, it was an evening filled with punches, shouts and obscenities on what should have passed as a day of peace and harmony. The same “aggressors” called for a patrol car which took my other two companions, Orlando and I were condemned to the car with yellow plates, the terrifying world of lawlessness and the impunity of Armageddon.
I refused to get into the bright Geely-made car and we demanded they show us identification or a warrant to take us. Of course they didn’t show us any papers to prove the legitimacy of our arrest. The curious crowded around and I shouted, “Help, these men want to kidnap us,” but they stopped those who wanted to intervene with a shout that revealed the whole ideological background of the operation, “Don’t mess with it, these are counterrevolutionaries.” In the face of our verbal resistance they made a phone call and said to someone who must have been the boss, “What do we do? They don’t want to get in the car.” I imagine the answer from the other side was unequivocal, because then came a flurry of punches and pushes, they got me with my head down and tried to push me into the car. I held onto the door… blows to my knuckles… I managed to take a paper one of them had in his pocket and put it in my mouth. Another flurry of punches so I would return the document to them.
Orlando was already inside, immobilized by a karate hold that kept his head pushed to the floor. One put his knee in my chest and the other, from the front seat, hit me in my kidneys and punched me in the head so I would open my mouth and spit out the paper. At one point I felt I would never leave that car. “This is as far as you’re going, Yoani,” “I’ve had enough of your antics,” said the one sitting beside the driver who was pulling my hair. In the back seat a rare spectacle was taking place: my legs were pointing up, my face reddened by the pressure and my aching body, on the other side Orlando brought down by a professional at beating people up. I just managed to grab, through his trousers, one’s testicles, in an act of desperation. I dug my nails in, thinking he was going to crush my chest until the last breath. “Kill me now,” I screamed, with the last inhalation I had left in me, and the one in front warned the younger one, “Let her breathe.”
I was listening to Orlando panting and the blows continued to rain down on us, I planned to open the door and throw myself out but there was no handle on the inside. We were at their mercy and hearing Orlando’s voice encouraged me. Later he told me it was the same for him hearing my choking words… they let him know, “Yoani is still alive.” We were left aching, lying in a street in Timba, a woman approached, “What has happened?”… “A kidnapping,” I managed to say. We cried in each others arms in the middle of the sidewalk, thinking about Teo, for God’s sake how am I going to explain all these bruises. How am I going to tell him that we live in a country where this can happen, how will I look at him and tell him that his mother, for writing a blog and putting her opinions in kilobytes, has been beaten up on a public street. How to describe the despotic faces of those who forced us into that car, their enjoyment that I could see as they beat us, their lifting my skirt as they dragged me half naked to the car.
I managed to see, however, the degree of fright of our assailants, the fear of the new, of what they cannot destroy because they don’t understand, the blustering terror of he who knows that his days are numbered.[From Generacion Y Blog, by Yoani Sanchez]
Near 23rd Street, just at the Avenida de... more
Il governo cubano ha negato più volte a Yoani Sanchez il permesso di uscire dal paese: è una controrivoluzionaria perché ha un blog e racconta Cuba. Ma oggi la polizia è stata molto più violenta e l'ha anche sequestrata. http://www.inaltreparole.net/it/giornalismo/yoanisanchezsequestrocuba071109.htmlIl governo cubano ha negato più volte a Yoani Sanchez il permesso di uscire dal... more
The UN general assembly has overwhelmingly condemned the US economic embargo against Cuba, adding pressure on the Obama administration to abandon the 47-year-old policy.The UN general assembly has overwhelmingly condemned the US economic embargo against... more
"I think this would be a good time for a beer," Franklin D. Roosevelt said upon signing a bill that made 3.2-percent lager legal again, some months ahead of the full repeal of Prohibition. I hope Barack Obama will come up with some comparably witty remarks as he presides over the dismantling of our contemporary forms of prohibition—laws that prevent gay marriage, restrict cannabis as a Schedule I Controlled Substance, and ban travel to Cuba. "You may now kiss the groom," perhaps, or—a version of the comment he once made about smoking pot—"I inhaled—that was the point."
Prohibition now is different from Prohibition then. When the 18th Amendment went into effect in 1920, it was a radical social experiment challenging a custom as old as civilization. Its predictable failure—the gross insult to individual rights, the impossibility of enforcement, the spawning of organized crime—came to an end when Utah, of all places, became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment in 1933. Today prohibition is a byword for futile attempts to legislate morality and remake human nature.
Our forms of prohibition are more sins of omission than commission. Rather than trying to take away longstanding rights, they're instances of conservative laws failing to keep pace with a liberalizing society. But like Prohibition in the '20s, these restrictions have become indefensible as well as impractical, and as a result are fading fast. Within 10 years, it seems a reasonable guess that Americans will travel freely to Cuba, that all states will recognize gay unions, and that few will retain criminal penalties for marijuana use by individuals. Whether or not Democrats retain control of Congress, whether or not Obama is re-elected, and whether they happen sooner or later than expected, these reforms are inevitable—not because politics has changed but because society has.
Cuban human rights activist Darsi Ferrer, imprisoned since July 21, is two weeks into a hunger strike he started to protest the unjust way the dictatorship is handling his case. Ferrer, a physician, human rights activist and journalist, started his protest Oct. 13, and as of Oct. 23, it was continuing, according to a report from independent journalist Jaime Leygonier.Cuban human rights activist Darsi Ferrer, imprisoned since July 21, is two weeks into... more
The actor Sean Penn has flown to Cuba to chase what would be the biggest scoop of his career as a part-time journalist: an interview with Fidel Castro.
The Oscar winner, who last year bagged interviews with Raúl Castro and Hugo Chávez, is reportedly on assignment for Vanity Fair in his quest to meet Cuba's former president.
In a sign of Havana's approval the communist party newspaper Granma covered Penn's visit yesterday to the Island of Youth, where he visited a gallery and met artists.
According to the online magazine tmz.com Penn hopes to ask Fidel about Cuba's evolving relationship with the Obama administration.The actor Sean Penn has flown to Cuba to chase what would be the biggest scoop of his... more
[From Yoani Sanchez's blog Generation Y, from Cuba]
No one knows the mechanisms of censorship in Cuba better than those who write in the few newspapers of national circulation. The press here has been turned into a delicate profession required to measure adjectives, carefully weigh topics and often to hide personal opinions in order to keep a job. It is a life decision to be a journalist for the official media, I know, but I also know some who have been trapped in the twists and turns of complicity, waiting for the day when they can write what they think.
From the Juventude Rebelde newspaper office where Reinaldo Escobar (His blog: http://www.desdecuba.com/reinaldoescobar/) worked until 1988, there is very little left because most of his colleagues now live in Miami, Mexico and Spain. Others have retired from the profession, disillusioned with the aborted glastnost and the consecutive calls for criticism, which ended up being bait for the most daring. José Alejandro Rodríguez survived all this and carried his personal battle into the “Receipt Requested” section where he published readers’ letters with their complaints and questions. Every time I read his crusade against bureaucracy and poor work, I sense the regressive countdown that will probably culminate in his professional silencing.
A few days ago José Alejandro could take no more. He took everything he has accumulated about the “excessive centralization” that the press on this Island is subject to and condemned the secrecy surrounding government decisions. In his article “Against the demons of kidnapped information” he used the language of an honest man who always believed in the possibility of humanizing the current system through the transparency of information. I respectfully differ with him, because what has been built on a foundation of hiding, condemning and filtering cannot survive the clear light that emanates from an incisive and free journalism.
The three pages of his harangue lasted just a few hours on the on-line version of Juventud Rebelde. The article was kidnapped by the shrewd hawks of orthodoxy, who know well the danger of a Nation that begins to learn everything you have hidden.
