Mary Anastasia O’Grady: Cuba’s Democrats Need U.S. Support
Mary Anastasia O’Grady, The Wall Street Journal
Obama has helped the dictatorship but ignored the dissidents.
Cuban dissident leader Antonio Rodiles has been harassed, beaten, imprisoned and may have been injected with a foreign substance—more on that in a minute—by Castro goons. Yet he is calm and unwavering: “They are not going to stop us,” Mr. Rodiles recently told me over lunch here with his wife, Ailer González.
Soviet-style Cuban intelligence is trained to crush the spirit of the nonconformist. Yet the cerebral Mr. Rodiles was cool and analytical as he described the challenges faced by the opposition since President Obama, with support from Pope Francis, announced a U.S. rapprochement with Castro’s military dictatorship in December 2014.
One of the “worst aspects of the new agenda,” Mr. Rodiles told me matter-of-factly, “is that it sends a signal that the regime is the legitimate political actor” for the country’s future. Foreigners “read that it is better to have a good relationship with the regime—and not with the opposition—because those are the people that are going to have the power—political and economic.”
The Cuban opposition is treated as superfluous in this new reality. U.S. politicians visiting the island used to meet with dissidents. Now, Mr. Rodiles says, “contact is almost zero.” When the U.S. reopened its embassy in Havana last year it refused to invite important dissidents like Mr. Rodiles or even Berta Soler, the leader of the Ladies in White, to the ceremony.
Mr. Rodiles said the mission of pro-democratic Cubans is critical and urgent: “We need to change the message,” making it clear that the regime is “not the future of Cuba.” And this, he says, is the defining moment.
If the Castros hope to transfer power to the next generation—be it to Raúl’s son Alejandro or a Cuban Tom Hagen—as Russia’s KGB forced Boris Yeltsin to yield to KGB veteran Vladimir Putin, they need to do it soon.
Yet at the same time, Mr. Rodiles says, “if they give the country to their families in the condition it is in right now, it will be like handing them a time bomb” about to go off. That’s why, he tells me, this is a unique opportunity for freedom to emerge: The odds of successfully passing the baton in the current economic meltdown are low.
Or at least they would be if Mr. Obama were not offering the regime legitimacy and U.S. greenbacks while refusing to officially recognize the opposition.
Mr. Rodiles has a master’s degree in physics from Mexico’s Autonomous National University and a master’s degree in mathematics from Florida State University. The 43-year-old returned to Cuba in 2010 and is a founder of Estado de SATS, a project to “create a space for open debate and pluralism of thought.”
The police state views this as dangerous and has come down hard on the couple. Amnesty International was among those that called for his release when he was jailed in 2012 for 19 days. In July a state-security agent punched him in the face while his hands were cuffed behind his back.
On Jan. 10 he and Ms. González, along with other government critics, were again attacked by a rent-a-mob on the streets of Havana. This time they were left with what looks like identical needle marks on their skin.
Those wounds are worrisome. More than once the former leader of the Ladies in White, Laura Pollán, was left with open wounds after being clawed and scratched by plainclothes government enforcers. After one such incident in 2011 she mysteriously fell ill and died in the hospital. The government immediately cremated her body and the dissident community has long suspected that she was intentionally infected with a fatal virus by the regime.
Under normal circumstances, the Castro family would have reason to fear the future. Totalitarian regimes collapse, Mr. Rodiles reminds me, “when the people inside the system, not just the elite, but the people who are in the middle, the ones who sustain the system, start to go and look for another possibility.” They do this because they recognize the future is elsewhere so they “move or at least they no longer cooperate.”
Today young Cubans are looking for that alternative. The regime’s promise to Mr. Obama of economic opportunity and growth through small-business startups is a farce because the Castro family operates like a mafia, “and always has,” says Mr. Rodiles. To do well in the current environment the young have to join the system, or else they flee.
Those who join are not ideological but only seek power. “If we can show that we are the ones with the power to transform the country, then these people for sure are going to prefer to be with us.”
Failure is unthinkable for Mr. Rodiles. “We cannot allow the transfer of power because if they transfer the power, we can have these people for the next 20 or 30 years.”
Cuban artists still condemned to silence
By Ryan McChrystal / 12 January 2016
Dissident artists are no better off post-Fidel, and renewed relations with the US haven’t helped as many hoped or claimed they would
“[T]he fault of many of our intellectuals and artists is to be found in their ‘original sin’: they are not authentically revolutionary.”
— Che Guevara, Man and Socialism in Cuba, 1965
— Che Guevara, Man and Socialism in Cuba, 1965
Last year was a good one for Cuban artists. With renewed diplomatic relations with the US, a boom in Latin American art and Cuba’s exceptional artistic talent — fostered through institutions such as the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana — works by prominent Cuban artists fetched top dollar at international auctions, and the Cuban film industry was firmly in the international spotlight.
While the end of the embargo brought with it hope for political liberalization on the island, as with previous periods of promise in Cuban history cases of repression and censorship of dissident artists were rife in 2015.
So let’s begin again: Last year was a good one for Cuban artists who adhere to the country’s long-established revolutionary narrative and don’t embarrass the regime.
The fear of censorship for art that is critical of the government has been fostered through decades of laws and repression that limit freedom of expression. This can mean stigmatization, the loss of employment and even imprisonment. Charges such as “social dangerousness” and insulting national symbols are so vague they make convictions very easy.
“Artists are among the most privileged people in Cuban society — they make money in hard currency, travel, have frequent interaction with foreigners and they don’t have boring jobs,” explains Coco Fusco, a Cuban-American artist, 2016 Index Freedom of Expression Awards nominee and author of Dangerous Moves: Performance and Politics in Cuba. “Artists function as a window display in Cuba; proof of the success of the system.”
“Artists are among the most privileged people in Cuban society — they make money in hard currency, travel, have frequent interaction with foreigners and they don’t have boring jobs,” explains Coco Fusco, a Cuban-American artist, 2016 Index Freedom of Expression Awards nominee and author of Dangerous Moves: Performance and Politics in Cuba. “Artists function as a window display in Cuba; proof of the success of the system.”
But if an artist engages in political confrontations, they can draw unwanted attention, says Fusco.
One artist accused doing just that is critically-acclaimed Cuban director and fellow nominee for this year’s Index Awards Juan Carlos Cremata. In 2015, he staged a production of Eugene Ionesco’s Exit the King, about an aging ruler who refuses to give up power. The play lasted two performances before being shut down by the National Council of Theatre Arts and the Centre for Theatre in Havana.
“Exit the King was banned because according to the minister of culture and the secret police we were mocking Fidel Castro,” Cremata told Index on Censorship. “This wasn’t really true; what they fear is real revolutionary speech in theatre.”
When he spoke out against the move, Cuban authorities terminated his theatre contract, effectively dissolving his company, El Ingenio.
Cremata, whose career spans three decades, confesses the shutting down of Exit the King took him by surprise. “We are living in the 21st century, and according to the official propaganda, Cuba is changing and people can talk about anything,” he says. “This, as it turns out, is a big lie by people who are still dreaming of the revolution.”
“With their censorship, they show how stupid, retrograde and archaic their politics are,” he says.
As so much funding for artists comes from the state, non-conformist artists often find themselves in difficult financial situations. “I’ve had to reinvent my life,” Cremata says. “I’m trying to receive some help from friends who offer to work with me for free, but this will not be eternal, as they have families.”
Cremata himself has an adopted daughter and has her future to think about. “I truly believe life will change and better times will come with or without their approval, but it is very, very hard.”
Art has always been at the centre of Cuban culture, but under Fidel Castro it became a tool for spreading socialist ideas and censorship a tool for tackling dissent. Evidently, Cuba isn’t entirely post-Fidel, explains Fusco. “Fidel is still alive, his brother is in charge and his dynasty is firmly ensconced in the power, with sons, nieces and nephews in key positions,” she says. “Although I don’t think anyone over the age of 10 in Cuba believes the rhetoric anymore.”
Very few may believe the rhetoric, but going against it can still land you in prison, as was the case with Index Awards nominee Danilo Maldonado, the graffiti artist also known as El Sexto. Maldonado organiz
ed a performance called Animal Farm for Christmas 2014, where he intended to release two pigs with the names of Raúl and Fidel Castro painted on them. He was arrested on his was to carry out the performance and spent 10 months in prison without trial.
ed a performance called Animal Farm for Christmas 2014, where he intended to release two pigs with the names of Raúl and Fidel Castro painted on them. He was arrested on his was to carry out the performance and spent 10 months in prison without trial.
International human rights organizations condemned his imprisonment — during which he was on a month-long hunger strike — as an attack on freedom of expression.
The prospect for improving political freedoms doesn’t look good, and anyone who expected any different due to Cuba’s normalization of relations with the US is naive, says Fusco.
“Washington is not promoting policy changes to improve human rights,” she says. “Washington is promoting policy changes to 1. develop better ways to exert political influence in Cuba; 2. to revise immigration policies and control the steep increase in Cuban illegal migration to the US; 3. to give US businesses and investment opportunity that they need (particularly agribusiness); 4. to avoid a tumultuous transition at the end of Raul Castro’s term in power that would produce more regional instability (i.e. the US does not want another Iraq, Libya or Syria).”
Even within Cuba there is an absence of discussion about civil liberties, strong voices of criticism of state controls and collective artist-based efforts to promote liberalization.
“Artists are generally afraid to mingle with dissidents,” says Fusco. “There are a few bloggers who post stories about confrontations with police and political prisoners, a few older human rights activists who collect information about detentions and prison conditions, a handful of opposition groups who advocate for political reforms, but they have virtually no influence on the government.”
In the past, Cuban authorities used the US embargo as an excuse to justify restrictions on freedom of expression. Now that the excuses are running out, it is time for the Cuban government allow its dissidents the same freedoms as its conformists.
Political Repression Increase in Cuba Criticized by Opposition Group
A known opposition group in Cuba, the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, recently released its latest report on the increased political repression happening in the communist government.
In light of the recent actions by Washington and Havana diplomatic reconciliation, according to AFP, which freed five dissidents, the group urged that the government has sustained the political repression last 2015.
According to the report of the opposition group, which is known to be outlawed but tolerated in Cuba, they clarified that the five of the 53 listed prisoners, as part of the reestablishment of the Cuban-U.S. diplomatic relations, were freed but were previously “confined in high-security prisons in the second half of 2015.”
The group also stressed that the five prisoners — Wilfredo Parada Milian, Jorge Ramirez Calderon, Carlos Manuel Figueroa, Aracelio Ribeaux Noa and Vladimir Morera — were jailed “as a result of rigged trials and without due process.”
Furthermore, Morera was in a hunger strike for the past few months starting Oct. 9, 2015 and just started eating again on Dec. 31, 2015.
“All I know is that he is eating again, and that he is speaking incoherently because the doctors say he was very weak,” Morera’s son said as quoted by the news agency.
And while the Cuban government remains silent on the matter, the commission reports that in January 2015, there have been 178 cases of political arrests. Meanwhile, throughout the past year until December 2015, the commission reported 930 arrests for political reasons, which is considered the third highest number of the year, EFE reports.
The group further clarified that the repressive acts include “acts of vandalism and the extrajudicial confiscation of toys for distribution to poor children, plus the seizing of cash, computers, cell phones and other legally acquired work devices from detained opposition members.”
The commission revealed that the country has encountered an increasing amount of “poverty and despair” because of such political repressive actions and that the people have been illegally migrating to other places away from Cuba to escape the troubled situation.
According to the news agency, the Cuban government has considered the commission as the most dissident since the U.S. funded mercenaries. The most current news from the dissident group revealed that “political repression” continued in 2015 “despite the well-known expectations awakened by the announcement of the re-establishment of diplomatic relations” between Havana and Washington, AFP reports.
No further statements have been released from the Cuban government.
Vladimir Morera Bacallao, a Cuban dissident allegedly freed as part of President Obama’s deal with Cuba but sentenced to four years in prison shortly after being released, is currently on his 81st day of a hunger strike that has left him in critical condition.
“He does not recognize us,” his wife told the U.S.-based Martí noticias, and is in extremely grave condition in a hospital in Villa Clara. He reportedly weighs 93 pounds, and relatives expressed little hope for his survival. “He is very grave… [but] they say he is a prisoner so we are not allowed to see him,” Morera’s sister told AFP.
Morera was arrested in April for hanging a sign on his window condemning the communist Castro dictatorship. The sign read “I vote for my freedom, and not in one of those elections where I can’t even choose a president.” The sign was mocking Cuba’s legislative elections, in which only Communist Party officials are allowed to compete. After his second arrest, family members described the incident, noting that his children and wife were also beaten by state police.
Morera had been freed in January from prison, where he was serving an eight-year sentence for defending a fellow dissident from a violent communist mob, as part of President Obama’s “normalization” deal with Cuba. International supporters of the Cuban government and human rights groups that oppose isolating the Castro regime celebrated the liberation of 53 political prisoners that months as a sign that President Obama’s attempt to make concessions to the regime would help dissidents. Most of those dissidents, however, have been rearrested for crimes similar to Morera’s act of disobedience.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner issued a statement saying the United States is “profoundly concerned” for Morera’s health.
In the year since President Obama announced that the United States would make a series of concessions to dictator Raúl Castro, including removing Cuba from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, in exchange for, in the words of Castro, “nothing at all,” the situation for political dissidents has deteriorated significantly. In addition to the re-arrests of dozens of prisoners of conscience, leaders of dissident groups such as the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) and the Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco) are arrested on an almost weekly basis, most for attending Sunday Catholic Mass. Political arrests increased by 70 percent between January and March 2015 in the immediate aftermath of the announcement. The announcement also triggered a flood of Cuban refugees attempting to flee to Central America, fearing that the Obama administration would repeal the Cuban Adjustment Act, which allows the federal government to treat all Cubans as political refugees. About 8,000 Cuban nationals are currently stranded in Costa Rica after relying on a human trafficking ring shut down by the Costa Rican government.
Morera previously survived a 68-day hunger strike in April 2014, which he was forced to end after doctors found a tumor in his stomach.
Dissidents using Twitter have reported that a congregation of anti-communist activists that had gathered in front of the hospital currently treating Morera have been violently arrested.
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