Justina Temozán Bernal -  interviewed by her granddaughter Yoamaris
She is 85 last birthday, Black, Christian, descendant of Haitians
from a poor family, the youngest of 6 brothers and sisters who lived with their mother in La Curva, in Holguin Province
Out of necessity, to help her mother, she began working at age 8, harvesting coffee beans...
J.  I spent 3 or 4 years harvesting coffee until I got tired of it and started to sell breakfasts.
Y¿¿?? (she could see from my face that I didn't understand.)
J.  Yes, I sold breakfast during harvest time to the sugarcane workers and the coffee pickers; I sold little turnovers, coffee with milk, fried food, and sweets.  I had to get up at 4 in the morning and I finished selling at 9.
Y. Who made those things?  How much $ did you make?
J.  Well, I made them, I went to Cueta and bought butter, flour, fried fish, milk, which used to sell for 10 cents a liter.  I bought coffee in a little envelope that said Oquendo and made coffee with milk with it.  I continued until I was 16, when I was placed (as a servant) in Cueto.
Y. what did that mean - placed?
J.  Wash and iron in the house of people who had more resources than we did.  I washed, ironed, ran errands, and cleaned the house too, all for 6 pesos a month.
Y.  and what could you do with 6 pesos?
J.  Nothing
Y.  What do you mean nothing?  Couldn't you buy clothing and other things?
J.  Yes.  (smiles)  By luck they were very nice to me and gave me many little gifts, but with 6 pesos I really couldn't do much, well back then things were cheaper, you could buy some little article of clothing or shoes, for example  - a pair of shoes cost 1 peso 80 centavos and would last me 6 or 7 months.  I couldn't support myself with this money but my mother helped me out as much as she could, in reality we helped each other - she took care of animals and my brothers cut cane at harvest time and when it wasn't the sugarcane harvest, they went out to the coffee plantations - my older brothers.
Y.  Oh! so your placement was a way of helping out the family's finances?
J.  Yes, but later I asked for 2 hours off every day in the house where I worked and in this time off I learned to sew and embroider with a person who gave private lessons, who charged me 2 pesos a month.  I continued doing this until I learned to sew and embroider and I left my "placement."
Y.  so you began earning  your own money with what you had learned?
J.  Yes, I was 18 already.  I charged very little but made good clothes; I was able to buy my sewing machine on time with 10 pesos down and 5 pesos a month, paying for it with the same money I made sewing.  I still have that sewing machine.  So that's more or less how my life went.
Y.  did you have any direct connection with the revolutionary struggle.
J.  Yes.  Well, not so direct, but it was my contribution.  about 1956 or 57, I don't remember exactly, I lived in La Curva, close to where Fidel Castro lived in Birán.  The rebels passed through there, near my house, my boyfriend was working with them, driving a jeep.  I began to sew armbands with the symbol of the 26th of July Movement.
Y.  Why did you do this?  Was it secret?  Wasn't it dangerous?  Weren't you frightened, being a woman?
J.  They needed them, they asked me and I made them and sent them to the rebels in the mountains.  The police never found out that I did this, they were Batista's people so it was dangerous but I did it.  And I saw being a woman as an advantage because this knowledge of sewing, which the men lacked, was precisely what I could offer as my contribution to what they were doing; it was my share.  Do you understand?
y.  January 1 1959 arrived - where were you then?
J.  At the time of the triumph of the Revolution I was in Cueto, they broadcast the news on the radio, everyone was pleased, I was sewing, everyone with great joy, they started to jump around in the cane plantation, shouting that the revolution had triumphed, that Batista had fled, there was a lot of happiness in the town, really.
Y.  and what did you do?
J.  I?  I was happy because we knew that the war was ending, or rather that it had ended.
Y.  What then would happen in your life?
J.  I knew that my boyfriend would marry me and that we would come here, to Havana, and that's what happened.
J.   After the triumph of the Revolution, I began to study in night school, near my house, in Gertrudis de Avellaneda in Marianao and I was able to get to 6th grade.  I couldn't keep studying because I started my own family, and also cared for other family members who were frequent visitors but I had the chance - many of my companions continued and got to 9th grade and got good jobs.  At that time with 9th grade you qualified for a good job.  Afterwards my economic situation and stability of the family improved.  I'll tell you - my sons grew up, one went to the Soviet Union to study accounting and the other became a tool and die maker and worked in the Central Toledo.  This is my pride as a mother.  I won't tell you about grandchildren because that's another story, right?

Cuban Medical Internationalism

CUBA SHARES THE LITTLE IT HAS, CARING FOR PEOPLE ALL OVER THE WORLD
When Lucius Walker said, "I don't need a license to love my neighbor,"  some people said "You have lots of neighbors.  Why Cuba?"  and  Lucius said, "Because Cuba is such a good neighbor."

What is it that makes Cuba a good neighbor to so many countries in the world?  Cuba has a policy of internationalism.  Cuba believes that solidarity means sharing what you have, not what's left over.  Over the years, millions of people in the world have reason to be grateful to Cuba, perhaps after their sight was restored by removing cataracts in Operación Milagro, perhaps when a Cuban doctor went to their remote village where local doctors wouldn't practice and cared for people in a way that expressed solidarity and community, not charity.  Perhaps because Cuba fought to free Africa, they might say, as Nelson Mandela did (thanking Cuba for the defeat of the South-African mercenaries at Cuito Cuanvale), " The decisive defeat of the apartheid aggressors broke the myth of the invincibility of the white oppressors! The defeat of the apartheid army was an inspiration to the struggling people inside South Africa!"  

Lázaro Ostelaza Peña, volunteer in Angola (2nd from right)

The time of Cuban assistance with armed struggle has passed.  Now when people think of Cuban internationalist cooperation, they think of medical care, of Cuba's medical cooperation, which over the last 55 years has been present in 117 countries with more than 160,000 professionals.
  Cuba's medical missions began with a provision of aid to Chile after an earthquake in 1960. In the 1970s and ’80s it offered wartime assistance to South Africa, Algeria, Zaire, Congo and Ghana. More recently, Cuban doctors went to Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami and treated victims of the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan and the 2010 quake in Haiti. In 2013, Cuba sent 4,000 doctors to remote rural areas of Brazil. Cuba offered assistance to the U.S. in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but the offer was rejected.

A recent example is the Cuban medical brigade in Nepal, which  cared for  thousands of patients in 2015,  after the 7.9  earthquake that devastated regions of that country.  The 49 person brigade, part of the Henry Reeve international contingent specializing in disasters and major epidemics, arrived in Katmandu just 2 weeks after the earthquake and collaborated with Nepali doctors and other health professionals in various regions of the country to deliver services in mobile clinics.
The Henry Reeve medical brigade in West Africa, totaling about 250 Cuban  doctors and nurses, worked for six months of providing direct care for patients with Ebola.  Two members of the brigade died of malaria during their period in Africa; in addition to their heroic sacrifice, this points out that malaria, without making headlines, kills almost one million people annually in Africa.  The Cuban Medical Brigade in West Africa was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

On the 2016 Pastors for Peace Caravan to Cuba we had the good fortune to hear from 3 doctors who took part in the struggle to save people from Ebola.
One of them was Dr. Jorge Juan Delgado, deputy director of the Central Unit of Medical Cooperation and head of the brigade that fought against ebola in Sierra Leone, who said there are currently 49,500  Cuban health workers in 62 countries.  Two younger doctors, Dayron Ramos and Enrique Betancourt, who were on the front lines in pediatric units in Sierra Leone and Liberia, spoke of their experiences.  
Dayron as a child had dreamed of becoming a doctor and doing medical aid overseas.  He had just finished a shift when his director asked if he would volunteer to care for patients with Ebola.  He joked that perhaps it was fatigue that made him say yes.  He was assigned to a pediatric unit, where initially 9 out of 10 child patients died.  IV treatment, even for hydration, was prohibited due to the risk of needlesticks to health care workers.  The Cubans worked to change these protocols and, with good supportive care, were able to cut the death rate to "just" 35%.  It may be hard for even the most experienced doctors to realize the impact of losing 3 or 4 child patients out of every 10, the exhaustion of wearing the elaborate personal protection equipment in the heat and yet the anxiety of worrying if this was the day you contaminated yourself with the deadly virus.

Enrique Betancourt, volunteer against Ebola in West Africa

Enrique Betancourt was also in a pediatric unit. He is the son of Enrique Betancourt  Nenínger, the revolutionary who began as a young literacy worker after the revolution, studied medicine, carried out many internationalist missions as a doctor, finally becoming the personal physician of Moisés Zamora Machel, president of Mozambique, and dying with him in 1986 when their plane was  blown up in an assassination.   Enrique's mother is a Cuban nurse who also carried out international medical work in Africa.   When he was asked how his family felt about his volunteering for the care of Ebola patients, he responded, "That  was how I was raised."  "Así me criaron."

Literacy Volunteer - Campaña de Alfabetización

Carmen en Realengo, con su linterna

Maria del Carmen Calderón, age 13 in 1961, wanted to go teach literacy with the Conrado Benitez Brigade.  They passed out forms in school - she was in 6th grade - that parents had to sign to give consent.  At first her parents refused because she was very young and also asthmatic, but  some of her cousins who also wanted to be literacy volunteers finally convinced her parents to agree.  They thought she would be working near Yaguajay ( in Santi Spiritu Province) where they lived, but the girls were sent first to Varadero to do a one week training course.  There they learned how to use the teaching cards and manuals that would teach from and also how to light their lanterns.  Since they were going to places without electricity, they would need light in order to teach, and the lanterns became the symbol of the literacy volunteers as well as a necessity. They were also given their uniforms.  Twenty-one girls and an adult teacher were sent to Realengo, part of San Ramón Sugar Plantation, in Oriente Province.  They traveled to Bayamo by train, then by bus the rest of the way, over several days.  They were distributed among the 50 or 60 households of Realengo; Carmen was sent to a married couple with 3 children.  Because of the rebels in the mountains who descended at night to threaten and destroy, the literacy teaching was done by day only, and at night they did not light their lanterns or wear their uniforms.  If the counter-revolutionaries - the rebels or bandits - had come the couple planned to say that Carmen was a relative staying with them.  The food they ate was mostly balls of cornmeal, boiled.  Carmen says she was a slender girl without much interest in food, and she didn't mind the diet.  What was important to her was the affection they offered her.  When she left, it was a sad farewell, with everyone crying.  Over the years she stayed in contact with the family through news and letters carried by people traveling in the region.  The married couple are still alive, both over 90 now.  One of their sons got an engineering degree, but he was killed in a car accident.  The surviving two live in San Ramon.

Con la familia campesina

Carmen was there from April to the 22nd of December.  She taught 5 people to read and write, all adults, the youngest of them 17.  Her parents came to visit her twice during these months, bringing things to eat.

On December 22, all the literacy volunteers met with Fidel in the Plaza of the Revolución in Havana, and Cuba was declared a country free of illiteracy.  All the volunteers shouted, " Fidel, Fidel, what do we need to do now?"  and he responded,  "Now what you have to do is study."  They all received scholarships.  In January the schools opened.  Carmen gave up her scholarship in Havana because she had asthma attacks; she studied to be a lab technician with a hematology specialty in Santa Clara and did this work for many years.

Carmen hoy, en su casa

It was a great experience, she says.  It gave an opportunity to meet new people, see the difficult conditions of their lives and the desires they had to learn and to improve.

from the Decalogue of the Brigadista ( on the back of the ID card.)
1.  We will honor Cuba teaching reading to the most isolated campesinos.   Marti's slogan is ours: "No martyr dies in vain, no idea is ever lost."

from my interview with Carmen Calderón Navarro, October 2016

Water

The Cuba Report

Who's reporting and from where?  I'm a middle aged physician, fluent in Mexican-American Spanish, who has been to Cuba many times - I think 17 - and has developed close ties there.  It isn't really a Cuba report in the sense of all Cuba,either.  I spend most of my time in Havana, in Municipio Marianao where I stay and where most of my friends live, with side trips to Yaguajay, a town in Santi Spiritus province where my god-child lives with his family, now mine also as these things go.  Marianao is a "barrio marginal" in Cuban terms - not a place where upper class people ever lived.  It's poorer, Blacker, more revolutionary than, say, Vedado, for example.  Nonetheless, like most Cuban neighborhoods, it's entirely mixed. (It's not just neighborhoods - in Cuba it is not unusual at all for Black families to have White members and White families to have Black members. Plus - many people considered White in Cuba would be considered "Latino" here.  And many people considered Black here would not be considered Black in Cuba.  Life is very complicated and race is a social and cultural construct, which doesn't make things any easier for those on the negative side of the constructs.  That's another report, which I am not qualified to write.) There are no tourists in Marianao, nor any services for tourists, which makes it very easy and comfortable - I'm just another person on the street, the bus or in the market.  When I open my mouth people say "Mexico."  When I keep it closed I'm just there, though I've been asked twice if I was Russian. In Yaguajay, small enough so that everyone knows everyone's business, people know know exactly who I am.  It's an unusual place in that there was a strong socialist-Communist movement there before the revolution.  When the Revolutionary Army arrived, they were ready, and the older members of my family there were active participants.  So that's my Cuba.  Your mileage may vary.

I have lots to say about the US blockade of Cuba, but not right now.  This report is about water.  When I'm at home, I live in the mountains.  Our water supply is a well, with pumps and pressure and storage tanks.  We are, needless to say, suffering from severe drought, trembling as we watch trees die by the hundreds.  Many people have had their wells run dry and the water delivery truck runs along the roads at all hours.  We're still OK but  the water table is a box of unknown size and fullness.  All we know is that we are taking more out than goes in.
Cuba is also suffering from drought.  The most obvious effect has been on agriculture, but what I know about is how people manage at home.

Water in Yaguajay.  It comes straight from the aqueduct and is good to drink, is the first thing I was told, and it seems to be true.  Different parts of the town get water at different times of the day.  It comes to the center of town about 9 PM and lasts overnight.  This means that either you have a watertank on the roof and a pump, or you need to fill enough containers for the next day's water supply during the evening or early morning hours.  You have to remember not to leave taps open after you check to see if the water came yet, or you'll have a flood to clean up.  In the daytime, you flush the toilet with a bucket.  The majority of toilets in Cuba flush this way anyway.  If you have a pump, you need to wake up and shut it off once the tank is full or it will just keep on splashing water down all night, driving the neighbors crazy, though they probably won't say anything because they've known each other all their lives.  To take a shower, you use a big bucket and a smaller container to pour the water on yourself.  Most people heat the water, on the stove, of course.  Washing clothes - backyard washboard/sink or Asian-style washing machine - 2 tiny wash/rinse and spin tanks filled and/or drained by hoses controlled manually.

Water in Havana - Marianao, remember.  It's every other day.  Either you have a pump and a watertank on the roof (manual  turn-on  and shutoff, again), or someone has to be home when there is water running to fill enough containers for the next day and night.  The pressure and volume isn't much either - usually not enough to reach the sink faucet - so  buckets have to be  filled at the knee-high tap in the courtyard, and used  to fill a bunch of 5 gallon buckets in the yard and kitchen.  Somewhere between 2 and 3 hours, typically.  Filtered water for drinking is available at the Martin Luther King Center, about 1 1/2 miles from this particular home.  Most people just drink tap water if they are this far away.  Toilet - bucket all the time.  Shower - bucket and dipper.  There's a drain in the bathroom floor, you just mop up after.  Washing vegies or dishes - tin pitchers, dip and pour.  You can see why it is common to peel the root vegetables first, then wash them after.  The water is probably good quality when it enters the system but after traveling though old leaky city water pipes which are probably near the sewer pipes, who knows?  It's common to freeze some drinking water; it thaws fast enough in tropical temperatures and the freezing process may kill some microorganisms and precipitate out some impurities.

It's a lot of work being Cuban, compared with a middle class life style here.  As 3rd world countries go, it's a walk in the park, though.  But other 3rd world countries aren't the ones trying to kill the Cuban economy and make people miserable through embargo/blockade of trade and denial of access to finance everywhere in the world.  We are, us with our  24 hour running water, and huge washing machines, and hot water heaters, and master baths and garbage disposals in the sink and all.  Aren't you kind of ashamed to let this go on?  I know I am.

A Cuba Kitchen
The 5 gallon buckets under the counter are the household water supply for 2 days.
They were filled at a knee-high tap in the courtyard.

Men who cook!
The difficulties of daily life don't slow down the Cubans when they are ready to have a good time.

RESISTANCE, SOLIDARITY AND HOPE

Resistance, Solidarity, and Hope.

For more than 50 years, the US has maintained a trade, economic and financial blockade against Cuba.  We don't trade with Cuba.  We try to prevent other countries from doing so.  We attempt to cut off their access to credit and normal international markets.  Food and medicine and medical devices - heart valves, medication for children with cancer - are included in this.  The plan is to pressure the Cubans into changing their government by causing suffering.  The suffering has been real, most intensely during the Special Period  of the '90s.  It hasn't made the Cubans back down

The response of IFCO Pastors for Peace was to organize Friendshipment Caravans to Cuba.  These caravans bring aid, mostly medical equipment and supplies, which are a drop in the ocean of needs, but a sincere expression of solidarity. Solidarity isn't charity and it isn't support.  Support can be given and taken away.  Solidarity is finding and acting on the goals and interests that we have in common.  

The caravans allow us to defy the blockade and the US travel ban and see Cuba for ourselves, to share our information with others and advocate for change. As people of conscience we travel to Cuba without a license as an act of civil disobedience.  We are calling attention to the US blockade of Cuba, which uses denial of essentials like food and medicine as political weapons, and working to change that policy.  We advocate a policy based on mutual respect, morality, and justice, not domination and repression.

The Pastors for Peace Caravan is "people to people" and for me that has been true and important, not a slogan.  On my first Caravan, I went with the group to the Camilo Cienfuegos Museum in Yaguajay, and a group of veterans of the Cuban Revolution spoke to us there.  I was delighted that one of them was a woman; we began a correspondence which became a friendship. My husband and I visited her and her family the following year and I've been able to stay in touch and visit at least once a year since.  

An introduction: this is my friend Zaida Navarro Fernandez.  She joined the Young Socialists when she was in her teens, and was part of the Clandestine Struggle during the revolution - taking arms, supplies, and information to the fighters in the mountains, while pretending to ride around visiting friends on other sugar plantations.  This was desperately dangerous.  Those who were caught were tortured and killed.  Shortly before the triumph of the revolution she was at the Central Narcisa (a central is a sugar plantation, with its processing plant) which had been captured by the revolutionary forces and was under attack by Batista's army.  Many families had taken refuge there and people were hiding in the huge vat of the clarifier to shelter from gunfire.  An airplane circled overhead for a bombing run, went around once, twice and then dropped its bomb on a field nearby where there were no people, making a huge crater - it would have wiped out the Central and everybody in it.  After the victory of the revolution, this pilot was found and questioned, and he said that he had seen children's clothing strung on the line outside the central and just couldn't bring himself to bomb them.  This shows, Zaida said to me, that you can sometimes find good people in every situation of life.  She was not quite 21 when the revolution was won.

Before I come to Cuba I write and ask what I should bring and she writes back that in Cuba they are used to doing without and that she doesn't need a thing.  She owns her home, there is electricity, and some food on the rations, though it's not varied or interesting.  In terms of consumer goods and choices, her life is incredibly sparse compared to mine.  A substantial part of this is due to the US economic blockade of Cuba.  I think that it is wrong and wicked for your government and mine to try to starve and deprive my friend Zaida to force her to give up the revolution she helped make and is so proud of.  When I asked Zaida and other Yaguajay veterans of the revolution why they risked so much, they said, "Things were terrible here before the Revolution.  The plantations owned the land and they could just kick you out any time.  There were no schools, there were just a few doctors for the rich and people died all the time from diseases that could have been prevented or cured."

Zaida didn't have much, but she had the experience of helping create a revolutionary transformation of her country.  I deeply envy her that experience.  This is the hard part - she died of cancer July 16, 2013, one day before I arrived in Cuba.  She had had chemo  and surgery and had fought it out; she really wanted to live. 

Normally when we corresponded we would write about family and life events and so on.  Her last letter was different.  (My husband asked " Why is Zaida writing to you about these things; that's not the kind of things she usually writes?" and we had looked at each other, realizing that she had understood that she might not survive.)  She wrote - the translation is mine -

" About the revolution:

Everything is well, I'm not saying that it's perfect since as you know even in revolutionary governments there are those who are really opposed and who try to do damage.  Also, the CIA has its people here.  In the early years this did affect us greatly; they did a lot of big things, so I don't know how we were able to resist.  But now what they do doesn't really affect us, and as time goes on we keep getting stronger and more secure in what we have achieved.  Every day there are more countries that have diplomatic relations with Cuba and all those who come here for the first time are enchanted with Cuba, which always tries to help countries in need with what little we have.

In the United Nations Assemblies of the last few years there are only 3 countries who vote against Cuba: the US, Israel, and another that I forget; eighty-something other countries vote in favor of Cuba and for ending the blockade, but the government of the US isn't interested in truth or justice but only in taking over other countries with bombs from unmanned aircraft, using terrorists as an excuse to kill off people in those countries, whether they are children, women, or old people who have nothing to do with the affair of terrorism.  They are just interested in accumulating more millions and not in the lives of human beings.

You know that because of the blockade they can't sell anything to Cuba.  But don't be angry and upset by this because, as I've told you, we've been living like this for many years, with many unmet needs, so that it's normal for us now - it's been 50 years and we've adapted.  They thought they would get rid of the revolution in this way but now they know that this is completely impossible.  That we live happy and secure in what we have.  Here no one has died of hunger or for lack of medical attention.  All children go to school and are well cared for. There are no old beggars, for they are well cared for by the state.  Over there it's not like that.

When you get this letter I may be in the hospital since on the 21st (May) I'll be going back to the oncology clinic for the first time since my operation.  Greetings to Barry and your sons, and love  from one who won't forget you - Zaida

Zaida's daughter dressed her body in her Asociacion de Combatientes shirt and pinned her medals on,  because making the revolution  - and she continued to do so in many different ways; even in her 70s she was a poll worker for every election - was central to her life.  

Her funeral cost was 0.  Her medical bills were 0.  Her grandson's wife graduated from medical school the week after Zaida's death and her education was free.  The young doctor started her family right away - my godson Lian Carlos was born in February, and his mom is now taking the one year maternity leave to which she is entitled.  

As Zaida said, the revolution is not perfect, but it's good enough to terrify those who want you to believe that the US's savage economic mess, environmental disasters, and violence both within our country and directed at others is the only reality and the way things have to be.  I would suggest to you that you try to find a way to see this other world that is possible and that you join me in trying to end the blockade of Cuba.

Not Afraid

One of our Fresno participants in the Pastors for Peace Caravan to Cuba commented about his trip to Cuba: I've never felt so safe.  He was at the Black Lives Matter demonstration on August 10 when he said this; remarkably, all four Fresno area participants in this year's Caravan independently went to this action without any prior communication or arrangement.  For the Caravanistas, our most recent prior demonstration was in Mexico City on July 16 when we joined in a  Cuba Solidarity demonstration in front of the US embassy.   The large crowd listened to speakers like the Bishop of Saltillo and Rosario (Chayo) Hernandez, the head of the Organización Popular Francisco Villa de Izquierda Independiente, our hosts.  Then the police began to arrive in huge numbers, lined up shoulder to shoulder behind their riot shields, completely surrounding this peaceful gathering. Fr. Luis Barrios, of Pastors for Peace, took the mic: "I have a direct line to God and to the President of Mexico," he said, "and I told him to send all the Communist police and all the Christian police, so they could hear this message and join our ranks..."

 



  A group of us, mostly African-American women from New York via Haiti, took the Cuban flag and displayed it in the faces of the police line.  It didn't feel safe, but it was Mexico DF, not Ayotzinapa, and we're OK.  Fresno didn't feel safe with police surrounding the demonstration, but they decided on a "deferred bust" policy this time.  The bogus charges were delivered later or will be in the mail.













So what feels so safe in Havana?  

Part of it is just the general non-violence of ordinary Cuban life.  This is even more obvious for a woman: you are just not at risk out late on the street, or on the bus, or even in a  jitney cab when the other women get out.  This at first can be hard to get used to.  Why is it like this?  Not only the law but the general organization of society is protective, for fairly complex reasons like education and accountability, and the relative absence of violence used as entertainment, and the absence of drug sales.  (This doesn't mean Cuba is crime-free; keep a hand on your wallet in the bus.)

Part of it is the absence of official violence.  Police exist, and they  do "card" people and check what folks are up to, sometimes when they shouldn't.  Although there is no structural racism, attitudes may persist, and young Black men (who is considered Black in Cuba is a whole other complex subject) are most likely to get questioned by police.  But as my friend Manolo ( young, Black, male), originally from NY but now living in Cuba while he attends seminary in Matanzas, pointed out, "I'm in the demographic that has most contact with police, but I've never had a policeman in Cuba threaten me, point a gun at me, make me lie on the sidewalk, hurt or sexually abuse me.  All these things have happened in the US."  Police in Cuba are not an alien hostile occupying force in the communities.  And don't say that 'the press in Cuba is controlled; you wouldn't know if it happened.'  The press in the US is controlled and the way we know what really happens is by communicating with each other.  Ever hear of "Radio Bemba"?  Cubans have some of the loudest mouths in the  world, and not much gets past them.

Part of it is the absence of the violence of poverty.  The violence of poverty includes all the illness and deaths from preventable causes and untreated medical conditions, all the malnutrition deaths, the people who suffer from having no work and no place to live, and those who are imprisoned victims of the war on drugs.  It includes the "austerity" and "structural adjustment" that destroy public health systems and school systems and worker organizations and safety and health regulations, that throw people out of work and leave them no hope and no future.  The financial rulers of the world don't get excited about the suffering and death from the violence of poverty, and they don't want you to notice these things either.  They want you to think violence is a broken window, while their policies kill millions.  Cuba is poor enough; it's an under-developed country economically.  But it is one which has placed the highest value on the social debt - meeting the needs and demands of the people for education and health care and housing. 

So come take a look for yourselves.  Don't worry about "seeing Cuba before it changes."   Cuba has been changing ever since the Revolution, which is a work in progress.  And they've been thinking for all of that time how to deal with the US, and it never did, doesn't now, and never will include letting corporate capital take over Cuba.

Before we forget: THE BLOCKADE IS STILL IN PLACE.  It's long past time to end this cruel immoral policy.  Tell Obama, and your senators and representatives: end the blockade, and meanwhile strip it out leaving a hollow shell; support  Senate Bill 491 - Lift the Trade Embargo on Cuba, Senate Bill 299 - Freedom to Travel to Cuba; HR 664 - Freedom to Travel to Cuba, and Executive actions including instructing the US representative to the UN to vote to condemn the blockade in the yearly UN vote. 

And to end where we started: BLACK & BROWN LIVES MATTER.  Assata Shakur, living in freedom in Cuba, refers in her autobiography, ASSATA, to the Cuban people - 

"They stand with their hands on their hips, acting like they own the place.  I guess they do.  They're not afraid."

 

Assata, An Autobiography, by Assata Shakur, is published by Lawrence Hill Books.

IN CUBA ON DECEMBER 17, 2014 - THEY'RE FREE!

          

  

¡Feliz cumpleaños, Lázaro!  ¡En este día San Lázaro nos ha hecho un milagro!

I did not think I would see this day.  The US has a tendency to imprison political prisoners forever, or as close to that as can be managed. Examples are Mumia Abu-Jamal, still imprisoned after more than 30 years, Leonard Peltier - almost 40,  Sundiata Acoli still not released after 40 years, Oscar Lopez Rivera - about 33 years. 

            The Cuban 5 are five Cuban men who were in U.S. prisons, serving disproportionately long sentences, after being wrongly convicted in U.S. federal court in Miami, on June 8, 2001.   They are Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González.  The Five were falsely accused by the U.S. government of conspiracy to commit espionage against the United States, and other related charges.  But the Five pointed out in their defense that they were involved only in monitoring the actions of Miami-based terrorist groups, in order to prevent terrorist attacks on their country of Cuba.  For more than 40 years, anti-Cuba terrorist organizations based in Miami have engaged in countless terrorist activities against Cuba, and against those who advocate a normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba. The Cuban Five infiltrated the terrorist organizations in Miami to inform Cuba of imminent attacks. The Cuban government informed the FBI. But instead of arresting the terrorists, the FBI arrested the Cuban Five anti-terrorists in 1998.

            The release of the Cuban 5, or 5 Heroes, as they are called in Cuba, was a first priority goal - dream, I thought - for the Cuban people.  Many people internationally and some in the US have been involved in the campaign to free these political prisoners.  An effective news blackout in the US meant that few people knew about this case.  Rene and Fernando were recently released after serving their full sentences.  Gerardo, who was sentenced to 2 life terms plus 15 years, Ramon, sentenced to 30 years, Antonio, sentenced to 21 years and 10 months were released on December 17, 2014, as part of the deal involving a US intelligence agent imprisoned in Cuba. 

            I was in Cuba when the news of the release of the remaining 3 of the 5 Heroes was announced.  People were in the streets cheering, crying, hugging and kissing strangers, delirious with joy.   They had taken this personally.  Cubans are very family oriented and these men who had sacrificed their freedom, their youth, their family life, and potentially their own lives to protect their fellow citizens - they were family members who had suddenly and unexpectedly been freed.  Some religious people said that San Lázaro had made this miracle, since it was his saint's day, a major religious holiday in Cuba.  Everyone knew that it was a victory for the Cuban people. The Cuban 5, truly 5 Heroes, never gave in despite solitary confinement, deprival of family visits, and the possibility of dying in a US prison.  They never surrendered or denounced the Revolution for the sake of their own freedom, but won that freedom as a result of their own courage and the courage of the Cuban people and their supporters worldwide.

           

            What did Obama actually do?

*He "traded" the remaining 3 prisoners of the Cuban 5 for a US intelligence agent, probably Rolando Sarraff Trujillo. Alan Gross, another US agent, was freed by the Cubans on humanitarian grounds, clearly part of the deal although not technically part of the trade.

*He announced the establishment of diplomatic relations.

*He announced a policy of cooperation on specific mutual interests, like disaster response, drug trafficking, and health.

*He stated that Kerry would "review" Cuba's being on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

*He suggested that licenses for travel, commerce, telecommunications, and financial dealings with Cuba  will be easier to obtain.

What he did not do:

*The blockade of Cuba continues in force.

*US citizens still do not have the same freedom to travel to Cuba as elsewhere in the world; a license is still required.

*Guantanamo remains in the hands of the US, and prisoners who have never had trials remain imprisoned there, subject to torture.

*He did not end the overt and covert attempts to destabilize Cuba.

            What else is going on?

Cuba has proved to be too tough a bone to crack, as the Cubans have always said it would be. In Latin America some countries have organized alternatives to FTAA "free trade" agreements proposed by the US.  ALBA is an intergovernmental organization of socialist and social-democratic governments, based on a vision of mutual aid.  Venezuela is key to this alliance, as it is to UNASUR and MERCOSUR, other attempts at regional cooperation without US domination among Latin American nations.  The US sees Venezuela as vulnerable, and will intensify its efforts to destabilize a progressive government there.