CubaDebate 166

Hegemony is at stake every day

2 days ago CubaDebate, Translations,

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Hegemony is at stake every day

Javier Gomez Sanchez
19 January 2022
Translated by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

Ernesto Estévez Rams (Havana, 1967) is a full professor at the University of Havana, a member of the Cuban Academy of Sciences and a writer on scientific, political, philosophical and social issues. This is part of the interview conducted for the documentary La Dictadura del Algoritmo, which has been included in the digital book La Dictadura del Algoritmo: Entrevistas y artículos sobre redes sociales y guerra mediática en Cuba (Ocean Sur, 2021) available for free download.

Given the massive arrival of the Cuban population to digital social networks, how is the conquest of the subjectivity of this new mass of politically significant users being structured?

Cuba is immersed in a war of ideological type, and when I say ideological I mean a war of ideas, not from now, nor from the use of digital social networks, but for 60 years.  Even before that, when our country, then a neo-colony, turned out to be a field of ideological experimentation of U.S. imperialism. We were one of the first Latin American countries where radio, television and comics penetrated. We were one of the first countries in the region where television advertising was used and experiments were made to measure its effectiveness.

This made it possible to test the ways of introducing certain ideas in the population, to influence a significant mass of it with certain messages and that these became, in a “natural” way, part of the common sense of that population, becoming part of its referents.

Therefore, this is not a new phenomenon, it has been around for many years. What has been changing are the scenarios and the means, to the extent that technology has been advancing, and when I say technology I am not only referring to equipment, but to techniques of psychology, sociology, anthropology. To the extent that these have been developing, to the same extent the way of making that discourse with the same objective of producing a desired state of affairs has been changing.

But it is a phenomenon that is exacerbated when the Revolution triumphs, and also changes its nature. What was a general mechanism of ideological influence, becomes a very concrete objective, which is the overthrow of a social movement and a structural revolution in a Latin American country. This completely changed the way in which the issue was being approached and the US began to see the Cuban state as its enemy for the first time since the first US intervention.

US imperialism had been an enemy of the people as a social factor, but the Cuban State had been its accomplice, and from then on it was its enemy. Therefore, it implements all its tools against them, both physical and symbolic violence.

At a moment within this historical scenario, another very important change occurred, when Soviet socialism and its environment -the socialism that really existed, as Eric Hobsbawm called it- was defeated. That implied an important change because many of the references that had existed up to that moment collapsed. Globally, all the heterogeneous ideas that had been grouped together for years under a generic name: postmodernism, began to expand much more in the cultural and social science framework.

Because we are in an era to which many names are given and one of them is the postmodern era. Here many ideas are instrumentalized by capitalism that were being worked on mostly in academic spaces. They come out of those spaces and instrumentalize them as ideological weapons in a context of euphoria, where they had won, and in which, therefore, they considered that the superiority of capitalism over socialism had been made clear.

Then, what they proposed was a final offensive against what was left, the remnants of what those ideologues of capitalism saw as the last strongholds of resistance of that enemy they had had for many years.

Shortly afterwards came the Internet revolution, which produced a tool that had not existed until then and which allowed a socialization of information unparalleled in the history of mankind. Then the whole postmodernist ideological discourse is adapted to the nascent reality of the Internet, and then to the apparently global dynamics of social networks.

Digital social networks – I like to point out that social networks have always existed – give the illusion of being global, but in reality they are not, although they bring together millions of people who otherwise would not have had communication between them, nor would they have known each other, and make them find points of convergence in common aspects that make these people identify themselves in certain areas, such as fashion, music, literature, as well as politics.

As it is a difficult tool to prevent it from reaching people, because censoring the Internet is something that obviously does not make any sense, that old ideological war then puts its fundamental weight on the networks.

*** 

Nor can one forget the fact that behind this there is a machinery, which in the case of Cuba is financed, with very specific objectives. Sometimes we say: “The United States in its budget has put a certain amount of money for subversion in Cuba and has created a task force for the issue of the networks”, but we leave it in the abstract. Well, where does this money go? What is done with it? They don’t tell us that. But what is clear is that this money is not to buy water bottles. That money is to create particular products, to reach particular people.

The use of algorithms -although on more than one occasion their political use has been revealed-, in the case of other countries could be aimed at a commercial advertising use, to sell a soccer jersey or a trip on a cruise, what would they sell us Cubans?

What are they selling us? They sell us the defeat of our social system. What they want to sell us is that our social system is inoperative, that our State is inoperative, and that the objectives of the Revolution are meaningless. Therefore, what they want to defeat is the illusion.

The collapse of a national project that Cuba has been building for 60 years. That is what they want to sell us. And look, you were talking about the fact that in other places what they sell is a certain commercial product. Part of that ideological message also goes through there.

They sell us commercially certain symbols, such as success, prosperity. They sell us that the goal in life is reduced to those things on the basis of the exacerbation of individualism, of personal success as the summun of human aspirations. The message that any social illusion is dangerous, any illusion that is not an individual illusion.

The idea that all human narratives and aspirations that have been on the basis of grand aspirations, on the basis of universal social values are dangerous and are also failures, they lead nowhere. There is one element on which I always insist and that is that capitalism as a system stopped selling itself a long time ago.

Since the 18th Brumaire, Marx said it: Capitalism stopped selling us that a better world is possible. Now it is selling us the idea that there is no better world than the one we have: the capitalist one. Therefore, it is insisting on showing us that any alternative is worse than what we have today.

Capitalism has managed to perfect its working tools a lot, they are always hijacking the things that are happening in their environment to take away the transforming edge and to turn it into an instrument of the reproductive system. They did it with the famous Arab Spring, which is something they are desperately trying to reproduce in Cuba, taking the successful example of what happened in other countries, a kind of spring that will destroy the State and the Revolution.

They want to send us the message that a society is possible, which is not ours, a society which, of course, they do not call capitalist, because capitalism does not like to be mentioned. That a society is possible in Cuba that has the social benefits that our society has, but in a context that is not socialist. This idea is constantly sold to us. It is an illusion. It is false.

That has not been achieved in any country in Latin America, in any country in Africa. If it were possible to maintain the education indexes, if it were possible to maintain the health indexes, our social services, and we could make a longer list. If that is possible, why haven’t they done it in other places, why haven’t they done it in… Honduras? But they sell us the idea that it would be possible in Cuba.

That brings us to one of the most common things today in this war against Cuba: the creation of extremes. They want to create the idea that there are two extremes: One, the recalcitrant right-wing extreme that would like to collapse this in a crude way and take us back to a semi-feudal reality or something like that, and therefore frightens people; and the other, a radical left-wing extreme, which is also an enemy and touches the other extreme.

And that therefore the truth is in the center, the way is in the center. It is precisely that center who says: “We could take the good of Cuban socialism, combine it with the elements of bourgeois liberal democracy and create an ideal society that has all that”.

I already told you the first lie to that: Why have they not done it?  No country has done it, every time a country has proposed something like that it has had no result. The developed capitalist countries that have achieved high standards of living have done so in contexts that no longer exist and on the basis of inserting themselves in world systems of inequality. No developed capitalist country is alien as a product of global capitalist exploitation of the underdeveloped world.

Check the financial flows, to which banks the financial flows go; check where the global arms export companies are from; check who are -apart from the US banks- the creditors of Third World debts; check where some of the most predatory companies acting in Africa or Latin America are from; check the NATO members and US allies in their adventures since the fall of the Soviet Union. There are many surprises to be found there, among them several countries that like to present themselves as free from exploitation and as havens of social fulfillment.

The role of the “opinion leaders”, of the “independent journalists”, who present themselves as a supposed alternative, would then be to act as transmitters and spokespersons of these ideological messages?

There is a media construction in Cuba of things that were tried in other places, for example, the opinion leaders in the color revolutions, virtual leaders, who called for certain social and political action in the networks, but many of them were not real actors. Many times they are only virtual leaders, because that leader of the networks, in real life and in the daily context of what is happening, that person is not a leader. It is a false leadership constructed in the networks.

How do I build that alternativity? One of the curious things about alternativity is that it is constructed in terms of opposites, that’s why you need the two extremes. They need to build their alternativity based on the construction of enemies, firstly, to victimize themselves: “I am the victim of the extremes”, secondly, because they need those extremes to be able to place their discourse, if the extremes do not exist, that discourse is completely empty.

Today there is a phenomenon that had never happened before in this way, which is unprecedented, and that is to naturalize what until a few years ago in this country had a tremendous stigma: counterrevolutionary. When someone received financing from abroad to influence Cuba, to influence public opinion, to carry out counterrevolutionary activities, that carries a tremendous stigma in this country.

They are trying to erase that stigma, to present that it is no longer important to receive money from private and public entities from the United States, or from other countries – because they have also diversified the sources, the money no longer comes directly from the US, it comes from NGOs from European or Latin American countries, and so now we want to naturalize it: “That is not important, that has not taken away my independence” and one hears it and asks oneself: “From when did he who pays not rule? But you see how they make the discourse that this does not take away their independence: “They never tell me what I have to say”. Of course not, because they don’t need to be told, nor do they need to force them, they simply know that if they don’t follow that editorial line they won’t have the financing.

Nowadays it is often said that “Cuban society is very diverse”. What situations inherent to that diversity have helped the expansion of this type of war?

We have to be very clear and honest about these things, that is why I have to say that many of these phenomena occur and have developed on the basis of our own mistakes. On the basis of not realizing that there is a different context, that many times we have not worked in the right way to win over and to keep people, certain groups, on the side of the Revolution and what we have done is to scare them away because of the attitudes of people who have been incorrect, who have been sectarian, this has happened and one cannot turn one’s back on that.

But also, within all this sea of ideas, there is an intentionality to make contentious speeches that can be very revolutionary, very correct at a given moment, end up being speeches that are passed on to the enemy and in those battles we have lost a few of them.

We have not lost them because the enemy has been more effective than us -which it has been-, we have lost them because we have not known how to face those battles. So, gradually they pass it to the enemy and something that emerged as a possible alternative not channeled through the mass organizations or political organizations of the country, which is a valid alternative independent from them -if we are going to see independence in that sense-, ends up being something that falls into the nets of another officialdom, of the officialdom that finances you, which is not Cuban, it comes from somewhere else.

Thus there are blogs and digital media, in which the discourse is transformed little by little, sometimes in a very calculated way, their transformation process has been designed, they are transformed until they reach a certain editorial line, because the people who run these media already have a clear purpose of going over to the enemy.

And the fourth generation war sometimes we see it as the enemy, the enemy, the enemy. Look, that enemy can’t get its head in if we don’t let it, but it succeeds because we have vulnerabilities and we make mistakes. We will continue to make them because making mistakes is something inherent to the fact of acting.  The biggest mistake is to do nothing.

We make mistakes in the functioning of society, facing very complex social dynamics. This occurs in the midst of the tension in which we all live on a daily basis, including the people who have to make decisions. The vast majority of our civil servants, those who are so vilified, are subjected to the same levels of daily stress that we are subjected to.

They are people who, when they leave work, have to stand in the same queues, face the same problems, their electricity goes out as it does for anyone else, therefore, many of these errors are part of the fact that there is no ideal social dynamic and that people are individual beings who arrive at a certain moment in their lives with a whole cultural backpack behind them.

We have worked badly on what is called – I do not like the word, but for lack of a better one I repeat it – political-ideological work. In the first place, because we mix the political and the ideological, to begin with, in the same sentence we are mixing them as if they were the same thing and they are not. Secondly, because we codify it, we think, for example, at the level of formal education, that the political-ideological work has to be transferred and translated into the number of hours we teach in universities, in other levels of teaching of certain subjects, such as History, Social Sciences, etc. We think that this is a mechanism to reach us with political-ideological messages.

But I am often amazed to see students who have passed a degree course and have received dozens of hours of Marxism, History of Cuba, etc., and then you see them on the networks repeating amazing ingenuities and one wonders: “But did they really pass the courses? Yes, they passed the courses and passed them, and one wonders, “And where did that leave them?”, “What is the result of this that we have given them?”. Look, the result seems to be minimal.  We must realize that there are dynamics that it is necessary to adopt in this political-ideological work, that we have to convey our message in new ways without simplifying it, without making it superficial. We do not have to give in to the enemy, we have to create our own discourse, sometimes you hear: “Nowadays you have to give short messages to the youth”, but that is a sacrifice according to what the hegemonic discourse is imposing.

Would this hegemony of simplification be the greatest intellectual and political challenge in the face of social networks?

The problem we have had is that the importance of the networks was not sufficiently appreciated. We thought that the traditional means we had to reach the population were enough and that we were not going to lose that hegemony.  But hegemony is at stake every day.

The good thing about these battles is that they make us become active, hegemonies are built every day, because let us begin with a concrete fact: the greatest hegemony that exists today is the world hegemony of capitalism, let us not deceive ourselves, and to think that Cuba can escape from that hegemony is an illusion.

What we have to build is a counter-hegemony, because despite the fact that this counter-revolutionary discourse wants to present us that the hegemony of ideas in Cuba is the one managed by the State, as a dictatorial and totalitarian element, that is not the reality.  The totalitarian hegemony is the global capitalist hegemony. We are paying in some way the consequences of being a rock of resistance in a global capitalist hegemony and the consequences that the socialism that really existed collapsed, and that suddenly the balance of the hegemony of ideas at world level was no longer that of socialist ideas. That is our context. In which the offensive in favor of capitalism is assaulting our socialist rock with everything.

So we cannot reproduce the discourse of “The message has to be brief” or “The youth is only interested in the brief”, we want the youth to read and to go deeper. We do not make our ideas superficial as much as the contrary ideas are superficial.

We must always remember Fidel’s phrase: “We do not tell people to believe, we tell them to read”. Let us translate “read” to mean that we tell people to think, to go deeper, that their conception of the world is based on having thought. 

Violence, repression and summary trials…

4 days ago CubaDebate, Translations

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Violence, repression and summary trials… depending on where they occur

By Iroel Sanchez, Cuban engineer and journalist. He works at the Office for the Informatization of Cuban Society. Former President of the Cuban Book Institute. On twitter @iroelsanchez

Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

“Since Monday, more than 1,100 people arrested for the riots have been on trial…”
(…)
“At the rate of about 10 detainees per hour, the judges cannot cope. According to one of the lawyers, between 11:30 a.m. Monday and noon today, a hundred youths had already filed through the courts. The influx is such that several police vans full of defendants are queuing up in front of the courts, which do not have enough space in the building’s dungeons.”

Contrary to what the believing reader of the international mainstream press might think, the above are not reports on the trials, intensely and very critically covered by Western media, of people involved in the riots that occurred in Cuba on July 11 and 12 last year. I have taken them from the coverage by the same press of the events in London and other British cities in August 2011.

The events of 2011 in Great Britain occurred on a Sunday and already on Monday the trials were taking place, but the media I have quoted (El País) did not call them “summary”, despite deciding on the accused at the rate of “ten detainees per hour”. Using as evidence the recordings of TV cameras installed in the streets and expressions on social networks, only six minutes were enough on average to convict.

The Western media then did not question the procedure and never used the word repression, but rather applauded the repressive action against those who receive nothing from a democracy and a justice system that excludes them.

None of the voices that, from the U.S. government and some international agencies, are now raised against Cuba for trying people accused of acting violently, protested when ten years ago the young people of London, hit by unemployment and exclusion, were prosecuted and sentenced at the pace of a sausage factory.

Speaking of young people, not 18 years old, as the British press now cites a case in Cuba, but 11, 15, 16, half of those 1100 prosecuted at conga pace, according to a headline in El Pais, were minors. Unlike in Cuba, in Great Britain children over 10 years old can be prosecuted with criminal responsibility in case they have committed crimes such as theft, arson and violence, but the good guys of the Madrid newspaper wrote about it in positive terms by introducing the word SOLO “In the UK minors between 10 and 17 years old can only be prosecuted with criminal responsibility in case they have committed crimes such as theft, arson and violence”.

For its part, El Mundo. has collected some examples of young people involved in the protests taken from the British press, not to condemn that they were repressed, but to recommend “parental control over young people”, passing over the repression against those who called for the protest from networks such as Facebook and the use by the repressors of “rubber balls” (really rubber bullets), while qualifying as “alleged” the culpability of the police in the death that unleashed the riots, police that preempting the recommendations by Covid-19 only called bonhomously to “be at home”, nothing like a curfew. They call for parental control, but not a single parent of the defendants is interviewed, something the press can do when the trials take place across the ocean.

It is worth reading the whole dispatch because it is a real gem: how to describe repression without seeing it anywhere (the bold letters are from elmundo.es):

“The Metropolitan Police recommends not to leave home to the youngest and, through a local newspaper, has made “an appeal to parents and those responsible for young people to work together with the Police to ensure that the latter are not immersed in the kind of disorder that we have seen.”

“Riots sparked by the death of Mark Duggan, allegedly caused by local police, has landed an 11-year-old boy in jail, as Skynews reports, over the altercations in the capital.

“Strathclyde Police in Glasgow, Scotland, have arrested a 16-year-old boy for sending a Facebook message allegedly inciting disorderly conduct, reports the BBC. Police have said they will be keeping a close eye on social networking sites and will take what they call “decisive action” to prevent violence in the Strathclyde area by copycats.

“The person responsible for the link to ‘Let’s start a riot in Glasgow’, which is no longer available on the aforementioned social network, is due to appear in court tomorrow.

“In Folkestone, within the county of Kent where the prestigious University of Canterbury is located, two 18-year-olds have been arrested for spreading inflammatory messages via Facebook. In addition, a 16-year-old girl is being questioned in Glasgow for the same reason, reports the English newspaper BBC.

“Finally, police in Essex have arrested a 17-year-old boy after encouraging others via Facebook to gather in the county and take part in riots.

“Robbery, fire and police charges have also been seen in Manchester, where 70 to 80 youths have clashed with Police. In West Bromwich they are smashing windows. Meanwhile, in London, the 16,000 officers that Cameron has highlighted for the fourth day are getting ready. In the Islington neighborhood, the Islington gazette newspaper picks up a Police warning: “Be at home”.

“The reason, the rubber balls that will be taken out tonight against the youth mob. For this reason, in the same writing they recommend a parental control over young people, to keep them away from the street so that they are not immersed in the riots.”

But let’s talk about Cuba. Cuban press reports after July 11 listed one by one 44 stores assaulted and looted, which were not the only ones, information that none of those media objected to because it was useful for them to talk about the extent of the protests.


Images of several overturned police and civilian cars and Molotov cocktail throwing have also circulated profusely in the networks. Calculating in a very conservative way the number of people involved in some of these events, which undoubtedly can be described as violent anywhere in the world, there would be several hundred participants in them, but for the Western press all those tried in Cuba for these events are peaceful demonstrators (!).

A little context, memory and logical thinking, please, gentlemen who enlighten us in this so-called free journalism and this so-called rule of law.

(Taken from La Pupila insomne)

Wonderful repercussions of Abdala in Mexico

9 days ago CubaDebate, Translations, ,

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Wonderful repercussions of Abdala in Mexico

By Luis Alberto Rodriguez Angeles
January 11, 2022

Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

The Cuban ABDALA vaccine arrives in Mexico. Photo: CD Archive

The Revolution celebrates 63 years in an unprecedented scenario, yes, but what does not change is the result: triumph in the face of adversity, resistance in the face of war and the balance undefeated from 1959 to date. I can hardly imagine the size of the embarrassment that the Empire must feel as the years go by without being able to defeat, with all its dollars, that small socialist island that does not account for even 10% of the total population of the United States. What anger. What a shame. And how good.

So, despite the millions coming from the money of the American working class that the White House throws year after year into subversion projects against Cuba, the island goes. The results of Cuban science in the face of covid-19 are the new Playa Girón of the imperialists. What before was defended with rifles, today was won with vaccines.

First Donald Trump and then Joseph Biden tried to take advantage of the terrible health crisis to choke the country’s economy. In a strategy that evoked the sinister Harry Truman, who unleashed the atomic nightmare on Japan in order to “save lives”, these presidents occupied the pandemic to sow unrest with the aim of promoting the counterrevolution. And again, they failed.

Today, Cuba is one of the few countries in Latin America and the world to vaccinate its entire population. With two exceptions: the island also vaccinated its children and did so with its own vaccines.

Indeed, unlike nations like Mexico, which met the goal with imported biologicals, the largest of the Antilles forged its solutions. In this way, the country is about to sell to the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador a good shipment of doses of Abdala, the work of the Center for Genetic and Biotechnological Engineering that has astonished the world.

At the end of December, the Federal Commission for the Prevention against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris), of the Mexican Ministry of Health, approved the use of Abdala. In 2022, many people in Mexico will be vaccinated with the fruit of revolutionary medical science, just as they will in other countries such as Venezuela or Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

The repercussions of this news are great. It is the most influential country in the Latin American continental area, placing the Cuban biological in the same range of the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccines (something that the prestigious magazine The Lancet had already done ).

The event constitutes a blow to the ego of the Empire which, for months, has tried to undermine the prestige of the island laboratories. And a hard lesson to the media monopolies that continued the post-truth game by attacking vaccines made in Cuba. It is therefore expected that many more countries will join this example.

For Mexico, the use of Abdala is a very important reinforcement in its fight against covid-19. The country has made an effort to immunize the majority of its population over 15 years of age, and it has succeeded, but, in its eagerness, it has had to deal with the governments of the United States and Europe, as long as there are no shortages of immunizations. A painful case happened to him with Russia, a country that never complied with the shipment of 25 million Sputnik vaccines, forcing the federal government to negotiate even more with Washington.

So Abdala will help supply the necessary arrests that López Obrador has had to carry out in obtaining biologics, buying Cuban vaccines at a lower price, with results equal to or greater than their US and English counterparts.

Even following the example of Havana, the country could vaccinate boys and girls, which it has not been able to do since only the Pfizer dose is approved for that purpose. Thus, the friendship between Mexico and Cuba scores another success.

(Taken from From Below MX )

Printed article from: Cubadebate: 

http://www.cubadebate.cu/especiales/2022/01/11/las-maravillosas-repercusiones-de-abdala-en-mexico/print/

Right-wing extremists threaten US civil war

17 days ago CubaDebate, Translations,

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Right-wing extremists threaten US civil war 

By David Brooks 
January 6, 2022
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

Pro-Trump protesters storm the grounds of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, USA, January 6, 2021.

The increasing political violence promoted by anti-immigrant extremists is threatening a “civil war”, as part of their strategy to regain national political power.

The threat of political violence, even armed, is open and explicit, broadcast daily on social networks, radio, television by right-wing forces sheltered by a Republican Party now subordinate to Donald Trump and his allies.

Authorities, from the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and other intelligence and national security agencies repeat that the greatest threat of “terrorist” violence in the United States comes from extremist US forces, many clustered around white supremacy and anti-immigrant doctrines , including neo-Nazis.

Racist symbols and references prevail in rallies and communications of these forces, such as the flag of the pro-slave Confederation of the First Civil War, along with neo-fascist images and slogans. Many were carried by some of those who participated in the assault on the Capitol on January 6.

“It seems that a civil war will be inevitable” and “we will have a civil war in the streets before Biden is president”, were some of the multiple versions of this type of message that flooded social networks at the end of the 2020 presidential election.

According to a new investigation by ProPublica and the Washington Post, more than 650,000 such messages were uploaded to Facebook threatening civil war, executions of politicians (including Trump’s vice president and the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives) and others. of violence, between the day of the presidential elections, in early November, and January 6 with the assault on the Capitol.

Those messages have not stopped, more than a year after the elections, while Trump and an overwhelming majority of Republicans – including several legislators – continue to promote the version that Joe Biden won by a large fraud in which undocumented people participated.

The majority of Republicans, according to polls, reject that the assault on the Capitol was an illegal act, and consider instead that it was a legitimate protest against “tyranny”, and even against “radical left Democrats.” Some, including legislators, refer to the more than 700 arrested for their participation in that assault in terms of “political prisoners.”

Trump insists on employing rhetoric designed to justify political violence, calling anyone who disagrees with him an “enemy” of the homeland, and for this he even uses the now outdated, but apparently still effective, rhetoric of the cold war. 

The House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States, in emergency recess before the entrance of protesters supporters of President Donad Trump to the Capitol, the headquarters building of the federal Congress in Washington. Photo: Saul Loeb / AFP

Democrats, including Biden, “are vicious, violent and brutal on the radical left,” Trump wrote to his supporters a few days ago, criticizing the handling of foreign and domestic policy stating that “they are letting criminals and murderers into our country. country ”, referring to migrants. He concluded: “friend, this is what happens in communist countries and dictatorships. I will never stop fighting to save America. “

In other words, this is not a political dispute between opponents, but a struggle to “save” the country from the “enemy”.

This rhetoric is directed at the same forces that not only express their willingness to use violence, but are also armed. At least 23 million firearms were purchased in 2020, an increase of 64 percent compared to 2019 (other estimates estimate a total of 40 million weapons purchased by 17 million people). In 2021 millions more were added to that citizen arsenal in which there were already more than 300 million weapons (there are no official figures). Most buyers identify as either Conservative or Republican. Although before the most frequent justification for its purchase was for hunting or sports use, that has changed, as many more argue that it is for “self-defense” or citizen protection against “abuses” by governments.

Furthermore, at political rallies, demonstrations and marches, Trump supporters and / or right-wing groups proudly display their weapons. Some have used them with fatal effects, others have appeared in protest actions where they threaten opposition politicians, even in government offices, from the Capitol, in Washington, to official state facilities.

Political analysts continue to express surprise that, suddenly, a significant sector of this country is apparently ready to dispute the policy with bullets. “The idea that people would take up arms against an American election has gone from being utter nonsense to something we have to prepare for,” Professor Adam Winkler of the University of California, Los Angeles, told Newsweek. expert in arms and constitutional law.

The House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States, in emergency recess before the entrance of protesters supporters of President Donad Trump to the Capitol, the headquarters building of the federal Congress in Washington. Photo: Saul Loeb / AFP

“America today, again, is headed for civil war … the political problems are both structural and immediate, the crisis is long-term and accelerating,” said commentator Stephen Marche, author of the new book The Next War. civil, to The Guardian. He pointed out that the political system could collapse due to a crisis of legitimacy, nurtured by a right wing that promotes violence to conquer power.

Democrats, including Biden, “are vicious, violent and brutal on the radical left,” Trump wrote to his supporters a few days ago, criticizing the handling of foreign and domestic policy stating that “they are letting criminals and murderers into our country. country ”, referring to migrants. He concluded: “friend, this is what happens in communist countries and dictatorships. I will never stop fighting to save America. “

In other words, this is not a political dispute between opponents, but a struggle to “save” the country from the “enemy”.

This rhetoric is directed at the same forces that not only express their willingness to use violence, but are also armed. At least 23 million firearms were purchased in 2020, an increase of 64 percent compared to 2019 (other estimates estimate a total of 40 million weapons purchased by 17 million people). In 2021 millions more were added to that citizen arsenal in which there were already more than 300 million weapons (there are no official figures). Most buyers identify as either Conservative or Republican. Although before the most frequent justification for its purchase was for hunting or sports use, that has changed, as many more argue that it is for “self-defense” or citizen protection against “abuses” by governments.

Furthermore, at political rallies, demonstrations and marches, Trump supporters and / or right-wing groups proudly display their weapons. Some have used them with fatal effects, others have appeared in protest actions where they threaten opposition politicians, even in government offices, from the Capitol, in Washington, to official state facilities.

Political analysts continue to express surprise that, suddenly, a significant sector of this country is apparently ready to dispute the policy with bullets. “The idea that people would take up arms against an American election has gone from being utter nonsense to something we have to prepare for,” Professor Adam Winkler of the University of California, Los Angeles, told Newsweek. expert in arms and constitutional law.

“America today, again, is headed for civil war … the political problems are both structural and immediate, the crisis is long-term and accelerating,” said commentator Stephen Marche, author of the new book The Next War. civil, to The Guardian. He pointed out that the political system could collapse due to a crisis of legitimacy, nurtured by a right wing that promotes violence to conquer power.

 

Kyle Rittenhouse, a new “American hero”?

22 days ago CubaDebate, Translations, ,

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Kyle Rittenhouse, a new “American hero”?

By Dalia González Delgado, Professor at the Center for Hemispheric and U.S. Studies (CEHSEU) of the University of Havana.
November 29, 2021
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

Last November 19, he was acquitted of all charges, after a highly publicized trial, the result of which has left many people unhappy.

Kyle Rittenhouse is the new hero of the radical right in the United States. The acquittal of the young man, accused of killing two people during protests in Wisconsin, has provoked mixed reactions and fuels the long-running debate about racism, violence and gun ownership.

Beyond the controversy surrounding the judicial process, I am interested in focusing on other fundamental questions: Why were there protests in the first place? What was a 17-year-old teenager doing there with an assault rifle, in a state where he does not even live? What consequences could this event have?

The drama began on August 23, 2020 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, was shot seven times in the back by police as they attempted to arrest him. He was left partially paralyzed as a result. The officer who fired the shots has not been prosecuted.

That spark reignited a flame in a country rife with cases of police brutality against African-American citizens. A few months earlier, in May, the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer spurred massive protests by the Black Lives Matter movement and other activists.

Kenosha, as with much of the smaller communities and rural areas in the United States, is majority white in population and has a very strong history of racism. Donald Trump won there in both the 2016 and 2020 elections.

Donald Trump said Rittenhouse is a “fine young man,” after they met at his Mar-a-Lago residence.

 

In that heated scenario, further complicated by the health crisis, with a Trump in the White House that stoked feelings of hatred towards minorities and gave wings to white supremacism groups, Kenosha became a place of protests and confrontation. On the one hand, demonstrations against the shooting of Jacob Blake; on the other, vigilantes seeking, they say, to “defend” private businesses and other property.

Among them was Kyle Rittenhouse, then just 17 years old, who traveled 20 miles from his home in Antioch, Illinois, to Kenosha. Despite being a minor he had acquired a semi-automatic rifle; specifically an AR-15, a weapon linked to several mass shootings such as the one at a school in Parkland, Florida, in 2018. In the midst of protests on August 25, 2020 Rittenhouse killed two men and wounded a third. He was charged with multiple counts of manslaughter, but his lawyers argued that he acted in self-defense.

Last November 19, he was acquitted of all charges, after a highly publicized trial whose outcome has left more than a few people unhappy. Meanwhile, the radical right not only defended him, but praised his actions. Some now feel they have a kind of “license to act”.

This case combines several issues of contemporary American society: racism, white supremacy, police violence, gun ownership, militias and so-called vigilantism, the idea that individual citizens apply what they consider justice on their own, outside – and sometimes against – the law, Batman-style.

Among those celebrating is Kevin Mathewson, a private investigator and former Kenosha City Councilman. According to the New York Times, he is known for being the creator of an organization called the Kenosha Guard, an armed group that declared its intention to “deter riots/looting” in the context of racial justice demonstrations. After the Blake shooting, he urged his supporters to take to the streets. “I felt vindicated,” he said after Rittenhouse’s acquittal. “It vindicates people who say, ‘Look, nobody’s coming to help, we have to help ourselves.'”

That idea that, regardless of the actions of the authorities, citizens should take up arms to defend themselves even from their neighbors, has deep roots in American history and connects with the individualism that is for them a virtue. The self-made man, the American hero, the lone ranger who conquers the frontier and annihilates Indians in his path, the comic book superhero, feed a mythology according to which it is “normal” for a teenager to go out into the street with a gun to confront a group of demonstrators, protected also by the right granted by the Second Amendment of the Constitution.

The issue has been interpreted from the point of view of opportunism and political polarization and has even crept into the electoral environment for next year’s mid-term elections. For example, Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke told CNN that the incident in Kenosha shows that Americans should not be allowed “guns designed for battlefield use.”

Meanwhile, Donald Trump said Rittenhouse is a “fine young man,” after they met at his Mar-a-Lago residence. That meeting ended up catapulting him into the hall of fame of the radical right, which has not only celebrated the young man’s acquittal but is trying to present him as a “moral example,” a new “American hero.”

Several Republican lawmakers have offered him internships to go to work in Congress. Representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene – connected to the QAnon movement – went further in the praise and introduced a bill to award him the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest distinction offered by that institution and which has been received by the likes of George Washington, Rosa Parks and Nelson Mandela.

“Rittenhouse’s acquittal will add fuel to the fire of armed radicalization in the United States,” wrote Margaret Huang, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an institution dedicated to tracking extremist groups in the United States. She criticized “systemic racism” in a country where “a young white man can travel across state lines, armed with an assault rifle, and engage in an armed confrontation resulting in multiple deaths without facing criminal liability.”

“Those on the far right have already published an avalanche of propaganda extolling Kyle Rittenhouse, and his acquittal is likely to further encourage them to pretend that his violent actions were somehow heroic,” she added.

For its part, the Party of Socialism and Liberation said in a statement that what happened gives racist vigilantes a “license to kill,” and that the deadly tradition of far-right militia-style violence in the United States has received a huge boost. “Rittenhouse’s acquittal is a clear signal from the government that vigilantes who kill anti-racist protesters – or any kind of progressive protester – will enjoy impunity. All they have to do is say they feared for their lives and claim self-defense.”

Experts say the combination in 2020 of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic crisis led to an increase in conflict. Approximately 23 million weapons were purchased in that year, a 65% increase over 2019, according to a report by Small Arms Analytics, a consultancy that tracks the arms and ammunition market.

At the same time, although armed militias in cities have a long history, they also gained prominence in 2020. Recall those images of storming the Michigan Capitol to protest against confinement measures. Some were even arrested for organizing a plot to kidnap the Democratic governor of that state.

Taking into account all this panorama, in a context of accumulated social debts and problems, expansion of the arms market and a pandemic scenario full of conflicts and frustrations, decisions such as the acquittal of Rittenhouse will probably stimulate the occurrence of incidents like the one in Kenosha, and even more serious ones.

For homes without violence

22 days ago CubaDebate, Translations,

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For homes without violence, the other successes of a Code

Posted in: Gender Letters
 
Translated by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

Image: Morphart / El Colombiano.

I wish we didn’t have to write more about gender violence. I wish there was no need to organize activism days against it or designate orange days. I wish November was a month to celebrate its end and not to remember the many ways in which it manifests itself, how much it hurts. I wish it was no longer a problem, not here or anywhere. But it persists, also in Cuba. And hurts.

Therefore, because we cannot remain silent, because it is necessary to make their many faces visible and build collective solutions … again this column takes advantage of November – the month in which the 16 days of activism against gender violence begin – to carry out a series of works on the subject.

We intend to continue denouncing a conflict that affects one in three women in the world, even more in times of pandemic. But also explain its characteristics, contact experts, cross opinions and identify experiences of activism and confrontation. During the next few weeks, we will approach this phenomenon from different perspectives, we will explain some of its manifestations and above all, we will look for ways to put an end to it. Your doubts, opinions and experiences are welcome here.

When violence happens at home

Ana María Álvarez-Tabío Albo. Photo: Roberto Garaicoa

“Although we are sorry, gender violence is a phenomenon that is still present in Cuban society, also that which occurs in the family sphere. Consciously or unconsciously, we are a little complicit in its various manifestations, ” Ana María Álvarez-Tabío Albo, professor at the Law School of the University of Havana (UH), commented to Cubadebate.

Beyond physical attacks, he has many ways of expressing himself just as harmful. From the perspective of this jurist, when we passively observe verbal abuse, disqualification and other psychological aggressions that occur against women in the street, in a certain way we contribute to their permanence.

“All of this becomes even more acute inside the home. There are not so many witnesses there, but it is a palpable reality. There is gender violence in the family space in all its manifestations, including verbal, psychological, economic or patrimonial ”, the expert specified.

Leonardo Pérez Gallardo, president of the Cuban Society of Family Law, confirms this. During an interview with the Women’s News Service in Latin America and the Caribbean (SEMlac), she expressed that although physical abuse is the most obvious and identified, there are “other, more silent forms that do as much or more harm, and which are also present in Cuban daily life, such as psychological violence and manifestations of economic violence. “

Inside Cuban houses, all these attacks are observed that lead to the spiritual collapse of the victims and the disqualification of their potentialities. In addition, it is common for women to bear the greatest amount of domestic responsibilities and care work.

“They are the ones who usually stop working to take care of their children, the elderly and other family members, they are the ones who abandon their personal and professional projects and almost never receive the necessary collaboration. This implies that women in Cuba, although they have the same salaries as men, in the end, do not receive the same remuneration because they have to miss their jobs or leave them,” Álvarez Tabío explained.

Experts confirm it: gender violence is still a latent issue within many homes. Precisely because of the implications it has there, we decided to start this series of works by talking about one of the resources that could help put a stop to it. The project of the new Family Code, which our country is discussing these days, has a marked objective in confronting this matter.

“This Code is not for the violent”

Since version 22 of the draft of the new Families Code was published last September, the challenges facing legislation that defines, regulates and protects all households, regardless of their differences, have been high points on the agendas. media, political and of course, public.

The document put up for discussion is in line with article 85 of the Constitution of the Republic, according to which “family violence, in any of its manifestations, is considered destructive of the people involved, families and society, and it is sanctioned by law “.

Therefore, it expresses the right to a family life free of violence in any of its manifestations -whether it is gender, against older adults or people with different capacities or against girls, boys and adolescents- and presents protective formulas against these situations.

Yamila González Ferrer, vice president of the National Union of Jurists of Cuba (UNJC) and member of the drafting commission of this document, told Cubadebate that it maintains the spirit of the National Program for the Advancement of Women (PAM) and the Comprehensive Strategy Against Gender Violence, approved by the Council of Ministers . Above all, it clearly raises the possible consequences for those who carry out this type of aggression.

“This Code is not for the violent. If we talk about affections as the axis of family relationships, the document seeks to promote a harmonious way of solving conflicts ”, he said.

According to Álvarez Tabío, who is also a member of the drafting commission, his first achievement is to clearly identify the existence of the problem. “ In Law it is very important to name things: now we have identified gender violence in the family space, it already has a place in the draft Code. Everything that means physical, verbal, psychological, sexual, economic abuse, negligence and neglect, whether by direct or indirect action or omission, is recognized there. This allows us to take effective measures for the protection of the victims ”.

The regulations establish responsibilities and palpable consequences for those who attack others, in each of the defined institutions. In addition, it states that all matters regarding family violence must be of urgent judicial protection.

Among the protective formulas that it resorts to, it stands out that the legal obligation to provide food can cease when the obligee engages in violent behavior. “If I am the person legally obliged to provide food to another and that other has manifestations of violence in any of its expressions against me, that obligation cannot be maintained,” explained the UH professor.

Within couple relationships, respect and non-violence are explicitly recognized among the duties of the spouses or people together; and the possibility of separating the assets during the validity of the marriage is established when violent acts are present, systematically or not and according to their magnitude.

In addition, among the impediments to adopting, we have been punished for crimes related to gender violence. Exercising mistreatment also constitutes a limitation for the denial, suspension or modification of family communication regimes. ” You cannot promote communication, much less with children and adolescents, if the person in question is violent, ” Álvarez-Tabío insisted.

Related to this principle, the document identifies aggressiveness as a possible cause of deprivation of parental responsibility, even if it is not directly exercised against children.

“If a father or mother mistreats their partner and that exchange is witnessed by the children, it may be cause for the deprivation of parental responsibility. Similarly, the guardianship established in favor of a minor can be removed in cases of gender violence ”, he added.

Confronting violence, beyond the norm

Yamila González Ferrer. Photo: Roberto Garaicoa.

Although the project of the new Families Code recognizes the acts of violence present in that space and establishes a response to them, it is not enough to resolve them, Álvarez-Tabío said.

Yamila González Ferrer agrees. In her opinion, the legislative improvement in this matter should also cover areas such as family criminal law and civil, family and criminal proceedings, which would strengthen the spectrum of protection in situations of violence. “Similarly, ongoing and systematic awareness and training of legal professionals is essential to guarantee an interpretation and application of our legal norms from a gender perspective.”

It is clear, the Code will not come with a magic wand. It cannot solve by itself a phenomenon that, moreover, transcends legislative resources. “Although from the legal point of view we will be able to solve something when each normative body makes an express mention and foresees legal consequences in the face of these types of events, the battle goes much further,” said the UH professor.

To the actions from the Law must be added the confrontation from the social, educational and cultural aspects, among other perspectives. It is urgent to assume that violence in the family space is not a private matter, it is not an individual problem; rather, it affects us all as human beings, as a society.

“A lot of communication is necessary, talking with our sons and daughters so that they do not reproduce these behaviors, making them aware that they cannot remain undaunted in the face of abuse in any of its manifestations. It is also the work of teachers, doctors, of any professional who from within its scope, it can contribute ”, Álvarez-Tabío pointed out.

Ultimately, it is about articulating efforts so that violence does not continue to hurt inside homes. And on that path, luckily, the new Code can be a great ally.

The three battles of 2021

26 days ago CubaDebate, Translations, , , ,

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The three battles of 2021

By Agustín Lage Dávila
December 28, 2021

Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

Photo: AP

This (No. 25) is the last note of 2021 and it is unavoidable to use it to summarize the message of what we appreciate has been essential in this difficult but also glorious year.

Cubans, each one from his or her position, with his or her ideas and values, but essentially all of us, have been involved in three great battles that will decide our future:

The control of the COVID epidemic.
The confrontation of the media and cultural aggression against our project of society.
Economic development, even in the context of the blockade.

These posed enormous threats to us: the first one threatened our health, the second one, our thinking, the third one, our material sustenance. The three together threatened our Nation.

In the first two we won, unquestionably. We must consolidate them and project them into the future, because they can continue, but they are essentially victories. In the third one, we managed to resist, which is no small thing, and it is the indispensable step to win, but the great victory still requires a lot of effort and intelligence.

The control of the epidemic of COVID-19 was achieved this year with biotechnology, science, the strength, and the experience and universality of our health system, and the educated participation of the people and their institutions. It validated the fertility of the scientific development strategy implemented by the Revolution for decades, and the importance of the connections between science and production that were built since the founding moments of the Scientific Pole, under Fidel’s leadership.

It validated the concept that health cannot be merchandise, and that the budgeted or entrepreneurial institutions on which health services depend have to be the socialist property of all the people. This is not only for moral reasons (which is the main thing) but also for reasons of efficiency. This battle will leave experiences for the improvement and development of both actors, industry and the health system, which we must apply immediately because the global pandemic context will continue in 2022.

The media and cultural aggression, with which, especially this year, an attempt was made to divide the people and erode their collective capacity to respond to the challenges of the moment, was defeated. Its implementation and financing (we know well by whom), in combination with the reinforcement of the blockade, precisely at a time when we were facing a dangerous epidemic, will go down in history as one of the greatest political immoralities of this century. It will be remembered in the gallery of shame, together with the Weyler reconcentration, the Nazi holocaust, the nuclear bombing, the Vietnam war, the support to the dictatorships of the South American cone, the South African apartheid and the murders of teachers by counterrevolutionary gangs in Cuba. History will not absolve its articulators.

The media and cultural aggression against Cuba is a war of thought. We defeated it, as Martí wanted “with thought”. The encouragement of violence, the promotion of selfish appetites, the distrust in the future of the country, and the dissemination of intellectual superficialities, crashed against the wall of Cuban culture, now solidified by six decades of massive and free access to education. They gambled on finding many influential fools in Cuba, and it turned out that there were very few.

This battle also leaves us experiences for the improvement and development of political and cultural work, which must be well analyzed because this episode of 2021 is part of an historical dispute of more than two centuries.

The third battle, that of economic development, has not yet been won. And it would be superficial to attempt a simplifying analysis in the space of 4 pages of a blog. But there are some things to say:

The first is that we have resisted the longest economic onslaught in world history (60 years), articulated by the largest economic and military power in world history; and we continue to resist 30 years after the collapse of the allies we had in Eastern Europe. And here we are, our people without hunger, without mafias, without housing evictions, with all their children in school, with our people’s government functioning under the socialist Constitution that we made and approved ourselves. This capacity dor resistance makes us proud, not only because of the resistance itself, but also because it indicates our capacity for development. Without sovereignty and national unity, no economic strategy, no matter how “technically brilliant” it might be, could work.

The second is that we are not frozen in old economic strategies, which worked at the time but have already fulfilled their historical role and exhausted their capacity to adapt to the changes in the world economy. We are in a moment of legislative and organizational creativity to adapt our development model to the new realities, without ceasing to be sovereign, equitable, educated and socialist.

The third is that the road to economic and social development must be traveled in a world context that is not the one that existed in the 1960s, when the Revolution made its first plans for economic take-off. We must now work in a globalized economy, which depends much more on the external economic balance, and on the capacity for international insertion, especially for small countries. It is also in an economy of rapidly changing technologies, which demands a higher dynamic of creation of diverse enterprises and connections between enterprises and scientific and educational institutions, as well as a higher dynamic of diversification of products and services of high added value.

All this requires managerial as well as technological creativity, and it is necessary to create the regulatory context that allows and stimulates it; and to train the young cadres who will play a leading role in it.

The fourth is that, with few natural resources and scarce domestic demand, and with a blockade that will continue (because our historical adversaries do not know how, nor can they do otherwise), our audacity to build material prosperity based on social justice and access to knowledge is essentially a cultural challenge. It will be culture, ethical, legal, scientific and technical, that determines our capacity to decouple economic growth from the expansion of inequalities, that expands the space of the possible, and establishes the speed of our progress.

The battles of this year 2021 prepare us to continue building the possible country that we Cubans want. Not the one that others want to impose on us, but the one we Cubans want.

Agustín Lage Dávila is a prominent Cuban scientist. He was the Director of the Center of Molecular Immunology in Havana for 25 years. Advisor to the President of BioCubaFarma. He has received numerous national and international distinctions. He was Deputy to the National Assembly for several legislatures.

US maintains remittance restrictions

2 months ago CubaDebate, Granma, Translations, ,

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White House decides to maintain restrictions on remittances to Cuba

Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

People wait to be served at a Western Union office on its last day of operations in Havana, Cuba, Monday, Nov. 23, 2020. Photo Credit: AP.

The U.S. government said Friday that the ban on sending remittances to Cuba will remain even longer, with which the White House hinders the right of families to help their loved ones living in the Caribbean nation.

A White House official told the media on Tuesday that the administration of President Joe Biden continues to study how to ensure that the money sent to the island does not favor the government of the largest of the Antilles, according to Reuters.

According to the source, the objective is to ensure that the benefits reach the Cuban people directly, although he did not mention how the U.S. economic blockade has been suffocating the inhabitants of the Caribbean country for six decades, even in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In July, Biden asked the Treasury and State Departments to suggest options for remittances to reach the beneficiaries, under the argument that the Caribbean nation’s executive appropriates between 20 and 40 percent of the remittances.

Last August, the manager of the Cuban commercial company Fincimex, Yamil Hernández, denied that the government of Havana or the armed forces obtained part of the amount sent from U.S. territory.

That theory repeated by politicians of the North American nation put an end to the relations of the Western Union company with the Cuban financial institutions in charge of processing remittances, specifically Fincimex, in October 2020.

The measure – imposed by former President Donald Trump (2017-2021) and maintained by the current administration – unilaterally ended the flow through regular and institutional channels, on the basis of totally unfounded pretexts, Hernandez asserted at the time.

The current U.S. president promised during his election campaign to change the hostile policy of his predecessor against Cuba, however, so far the 243 coercive measures imposed by Trump to reinforce the blockade remain unchanged.

(With information from PL)

US Govt November provocation

2 months ago CubaDebate, Translations, , ,

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The United States government is the true organizer and promoter of the provocation mounted for November (+ Video)

 | 24 | 
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

The Round Table transmitted a special presentation by compañero Rogelio Polanco Fuentes, a member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, as part of the public complaint made by the First Secretary of the Party at the closing of the Second Plenary Session of the Central Committee on the plans of the US government and its political operators in Cuba to try to overthrow the Revolution.

At the beginning of his statement, he recalled the words of the First Secretary of the Party in the conclusions of the II Plenary of the PCC:

“Now they appear with a supposed peaceful march. It is nothing more than an escalation in the way of acting against the Revolution and a challenge to the authorities and to the socialist rule of law endorsed in our Constitution; (…) It is a provocation as part of a “soft blow” strategy. Its purposes coincide with the main lines of attack, slander, lies and threats used by those financed by the United States Government who oppose the Cuban political system and try to destabilize it and restore capitalism.

“We are not going to legitimize the imperialist actions in internal politics or give way to the desire for neocolonial restoration that some have accumulated and that are reinforced in crisis situations. It is not an act of civility, it is an act of subordination to the Yankee hegemony ”.

Special remarks by Rogelio Polanco Fuentes, Member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Party. Photo: Abel Padrón Padilla / Cubadebate.

The Head of the Ideological Department of the Central Committee recalled that between September 20 and 27, a small group of citizens delivered similar texts to the headquarters of the municipal or provincial governments of eight provinces of the country announcing the decision to hold a supposedly peaceful march. .

“He underlined ‘the decision to hold a march’ because it was not a request: the holding of this march was being taken for granted. The action was conceived with a national scope in evident coordination by its promoters ”, he emphasized.

Later it was referred to as on October 12, the authorities of the municipalities where the aforementioned documents were delivered , gave a personal response to the senders. “On that occasion, the precise arguments were offered on the illegal nature of the march according to articles 56, 45 and 4 of the Constitution.”

“Among the reasons expressed, it was clearly established that the public projections of the promoters and their links with subversive organizations or agencies financed by the United States government have the manifest intention of promoting a change in the political system in Cuba, so that the the announced march constitutes a provocation as part of the regime change strategy tested by the United States in other countries,” he said.

Polanco Fuentes drew attention to how as soon as the march was announced, it received public support from US legislators, political operators and the media that encourage actions against the Cuban people, try to destabilize the country and urge military intervention. “It is something recurrent and permanent as these media and political operators from the United States urge military intervention in our country,” he said.

The Member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba said that from the beginning it was evident that it was a destabilizing plan orchestrated from abroad through internal political operators with violent intentions.

“Faced with the challenge of the promoters of the provocation in their attempt to ignore the refusal of the authorities, on October 21 the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic at its headquarters in several provinces began a process of warning these citizens; stating that if they did not comply with the authorities’ decision, they would incur the crimes of disobedience, illegal demonstrations, instigation to commit a crime, and others provided for and sanctioned in current criminal legislation ”.

In this sense, he explained that the action of the Prosecutor’s Office was based on article 156 of the Magna Carta, which establishes that “it is the State organ whose fundamental mission is to exercise control of the criminal investigation and the exercise of criminal action. on behalf of the State, as well as ensuring strict compliance with the Constitution, laws and other legal provisions by State bodies, entities and citizens ”; as well as Law 83 of 1997 “Law of the Attorney General of the Republic” in its article 7.

A new chapter in the Unconventional War against Cuba

It is evident that we are facing a new chapter of the unconventional war, the soft coup or the manual of non-violent struggle that the United States has carried out during contemporary times in several countries, Polanco Fuentes pointed out.

“Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Nicaragua, Venezuela are some of the examples where these unconventional war actions have been carried out. There is sufficient doctrinal information on how the United States has carried out these actions “

As explained, circular TC-1801, one of the main documents of the United States Special Forces, urges taking advantage of the possible vulnerability of the government to overthrow, distance itself from the population, displace the portion of the citizenry that acts in a neutral manner to positions against them, to exploit these elements through subversion and when this does not lead to the desired strategic results, resort to armed conflict, through the promotion of the insurgency.

“For that they use all the elements of the model, the economic and psychological point of view, actions of subversion, as well as the massive use of information and communication technologies with the aim of overthrowing those governments with a lower economic cost, political and military ”.

In his speech he referred to his personal experience in Venezuela, a country where he served as a diplomatic official. In this sense, he recalled that in 2013, 2014 and 2017 the so-called guarimbas were developed. These were violent actions by representatives of opposition sectors in Venezuela to overthrow the Bolivarian government that caused innumerable economic and human damage to society.

“There is a report from the Venezuelan state ‘The truth of Venezuela against infamy: data and testimonies of a country under siege’ published in September 2020 that has elements that are related to the actions that are intended to be carried out in our country. This report states that the total number of deaths during the violent protests in February 2014 was 43 people, while in the protests from April to July 20174 the Public Ministry registered 121 deaths and 1958 injured, however, in relation to the protests of 2014 the then secretary of states of the United States John Kerry issued a statement in which he affirmed that “the demonstrations were peaceful and accused the Venezuelan government of confronting peaceful protesters by force,” he said.

“A detailed examination, says the report, of the events that occurred reveals that most of the demonstrations provoked and promoted by opposition leaders between April and July 2017 were carried out in violation of current national and international legislation. These demonstrations led to actions of extreme violence characterized by the use of firearms, Molotov cocktails, mortars and homemade weapons, the placement of barricades, death traps on public roads, damage to institutions, schools, health centers, and siege against military and police facilities. There were three unprecedented practices in the recent history of the country: setting fire to people designated as supporters of the government, using children and adolescents to prepare firebombs,guarding barricades and attacking the security forces, as well as the combination of high levels of violence with religious and patriotic symbols ”.

The official also highlighted how the report itself acknowledged with concern the fact that the media intended to present these events as peaceful demonstrations. “Some here are beginning to look for so-called non-violent methods of struggle to obtain advice and carry out some of these actions in Cuba.”

Special remarks by Rogelio Polanco Fuentes, Member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Party. Photo: Abel Padrón Padilla / Cubadebate.

Abundant funding for subversion

Regarding financing for subversive actions in other countries, he warned that it has been a systematic practice of the governments of the United States, which is why a network of institutions with multimillion-dollar funds has been created.

He emphasized that among the emblematic institutions are the NED and USAID. Polanco recalled that the first was born in 1983 within the so-called Democracy Project to openly do what the CIA had been developing for decades in a covert manner. “The objectives of the NED have always been political subversion and the so-called regime change from a network of organizations that promote courses, events, awards, scholarships, the foundation of NGOs, think tanks, foundations and university centers.”

In his presentation, he explained that among those organizations born in Latin America is CADAL (Center for Democratic Aperture in Latin America) , which is part of a wide network of non-governmental organizations that the United States uses to finance and channel financing. for its political operators through the NED and USAID.

“There are many public references to the financing of the NED to CADAL as part of the tentacles for the framework against progressive processes in Latin America and other parts of the world. The NED awarded CADAL $ 107,000 in 2017 and $ 100,000 in 2021 for the project called “A regional approach to promote democratic values ​​in Cuba.”

The links between the United States and its political operators in Cuba

He revealed that two Cuban citizens are part of the generous beneficiaries of the funds of these US organizations: Manuel Cuesta Morúa and Yunior García Aguilera, signatories of the documents delivered to the Cuban authorities regarding the intention to carry out marches in various cities of the country.

Both, he explained, traveled to Argentina in 2018 to participate in an event of this CADAL organization coordinated by the project “Times of change and the new role of the Armed Forces in Cuba.”

Among the objectives of this course, Polanco pointed out, were to give continuity to the FAR stadium to transmit possible scenarios and supposed future allies to activists, cooperate with Cuban actors in order to link with members and former members of the FAR open to change processes. “The subversive, conspiratorial and coup intentions of these projects are clear. You have to be delusional to make a dent in the dignity of our undefeated Revolutionary Armed Forces ”, he prevailed.

The Cuban politician denounced that both CADAL and its director Gabriel Salvia have been very active in supporting the provocations for next month in Cuba.

“In 2019 Cuesta Morúa and García Aguilera continued their preparation in a workshop sponsored by the Universidad San Luis Campus Madrid. There they received lessons from Richard Youngs, an expert on public protests as a method of political change ”.

As Richard Youngs points out, riots are increasingly a major route through which ordinary people seek to achieve social, political and economic transformation. “Protesters must make tough decisions, do they just disengage from politics or build new kinds of civic campaigns? Do they join existing political parties or do they move away from mainstream politics altogether?

The Member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba listed that among the new types of civic campaign are the so-called political prisoners, violence, the formation of organizations, as well as the creation of conditions to carry out new demonstrations and the proclamation of new dates for these mobilizations. Actions are also promoted to evade police control and prevent police forces from preserving peace in the country.

He added that the Cuba Money Project website revealed that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded at the end of September about $6,669,000 dollars for subversive projects in Cuba, out of a total of $18,000,000 that it can allocate until 2023. for these purposes.

“Among the main beneficiaries are the Cuban Democratic Directorate, led by Orlando Gutiérrez Boronat, which has received $617,500, as well as the media created for the media campaign against Cuba, including ADN Digital with $2,031,260 and Cubanet $783,000. There are more than 70 million dollars that were dedicated during the Trump administration for subversion, to which should be added the more than 100 million the broadcasting office for Cuba of the misnamed Radio and Television Marti ”.

These organizations, he said, have served as financing for politicians and mercenaries living under the generous spill in Washington. He also recalled that these organizations continue to receive support and funding from the United States authorities, the State Department, the National Security Council and the Embassy in Havana, as denounced by the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. of Cuba in the recent plenary session of the party organization.

The United States is the organizer of the provocation

“The United States government is the true organizer and promoter of the provocation mounted for November, the facts and statements prove it. They have not taken care to hide it. Senior government officials participate directly in its conduct ”, he stated.

Special remarks by Rogelio Polanco Fuentes, Member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Party. Photo: Abel Padrón Padilla / Cubadebate.

Similarly, he added that recently the US government threatened new measures against Cuba, if the local operators of its anti-Cuban strategy are not allowed to act with impunity in the country, as stated in an interview by Juan González, director for Western Hemisphere affairs of the National Security Council. He pointed out that his administration will act if Cuba processes the organizers of the march “Cuba does not accept threats, nor is it intimidated. Our history of resistance and dignity confirm this ”.

“Save your threats as our people say. Nor are we surprised by the support for this alleged march by violent organizations and notorious terrorists of the anti-Cuban mafia and the hate-generating media center in Miami. We have all witnessed that since it was announced by its organizers, the march received the public and notorious support of US legislators, political operators and the media that encourage actions against the Revolution, ”he highlighted.

The enthusiastic support of Miami’s anti-Cuban mafia

Polanco stated that tweets, statements, resistance assemblies and other frenzied actions that have occurred these days in Miami, as if the actions were to take place in that city. “Regime change, government overthrow and military intervention” are once again the prevailing narrative in South Florida. Among the most fervent have been some of the congressmen, already known, as active promoters of the blockade and its subversion against Cuba and defenders of the violent riots of July 11.

Among the first to speak is the reconverted terrorist Orlando Gutiérrez Boronat, who has declared that this action will serve to overthrow the regime. This is the head of the so-called Cuban Democratic Directorate, leader of the self-styled Assembly of the Resistance. On December 4, 2020, after the events of November 27, he advocated an armed intervention in Cuba to overthrow the government. After July 11, he has repeatedly called for military intervention in the country.

The USAID and the State Department have awarded the organization at least $6,970,979 from 2006 to 2019, public records show. This character coincides in some platforms for the capitalist restoration in Cuba that have a certain academic profile with one of the promoters of the supposedly peaceful march

Another of the march’s enthusiasts is the Cuban-American National Foundation, the spearhead of anti-Cuban policies since the 1980s. Besides being the organizer of numerous terrorist acts against Cuba and several attempted attacks against Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz. In 2019, this foundation received $1,385,637 dollars of US taxpayer money to “empower Cuban civil society to build a lasting democracy in Cuba that is free from human rights violations, by improving awareness, the effectiveness of civil society on the island, in non-violent activism and facilitating training materials, communication equipment and technical knowledge ”. These days on its Facebook page, the foundation is giving guidance – he pointed out – on how to go and what to do in the supposedly peaceful and independent march.

One of the promoters of the violent provocation, Polanco indicated, is the Cuban citizen Saily González Velázquez who recently recognized the support of the Cuban-American National Foundation through its human rights director, Omar López Montenegro.

The alleged marchers also have the encouragement of the mercenary network of Brigade 2506, whose president on duty declared in Miami that “with these steps, an explosion will be promoted within Cuba, so that new us brothers take to the streets and this lead us to the collapse of the regime ”. These are the external political operators who call for overthrowing the Revolution, violence and chaos.

Special remarks by Rogelio Polanco Fuentes, Member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Party. Photo: Abel Padrón Padilla / Cubadebate.

The head of the Ideological department in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba warned that another of those who is applied among the promoters of the provocation is the terrorist Ramón Saúl Sánchez, whose violent record is such that he has not even been able to receive official asylum in the States United, although he has never stopped having the protection of its authorities.

“He has been linked to a dozen terrorist organizations since he was 16 years old, including the Organization for the Liberation of Cuba, Omega 7, Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), Alpha 66, National Front for the Liberation of Cuba, Youth of the Star and the Democracy Movement. With Alpha 66 he participated in more than 20 terrorist acts, mainly against ships and diplomatic missions ”, denounced Polanco Fuentes.

It also indicated that Ramón Saúl Sánchez was the second head of CORU, an organization that carried out more than 90 terrorist attacks against Cuban facilities in various countries, including within the United States. The most notorious was the bombing of the Cubana de Aviación plane over Barbados, where 73 people died.

Documents dated between 1979 -1982 link this terrorist to the attack on the Cuban Interests Section in Washington and the repeated assassination attempts on the then Cuban ambassador. “The so-called Democracy Movement has been a promoter of flotillas that have violated Cuban territorial waters on several occasions,” Rogelio Polanco revealed.

Provocation is doomed to fail

“The provocation of November 15 is doomed to failure, it was never authentic. Its attempt to cover itself with some legality is a perverse manipulation. The Constitution of the Republic is a genuine creation of the people, there is no plot that it can hide. The promoters of the alleged march follow the Yankee script, carry out their orders, surround themselves with violent men and terrorists and dream of carrying out their destabilizing actions with impunity,” he said.

With our first party secretary and president of the Republic of Cuba we proclaim that “there are enough revolutionaries here to confront with intelligence, with respect and in defense of our constitution; but also with energy and courage any manifestation that tries to destroy the Revolution ”.

On November 15, he said, Cuba will open its doors to the world and will also open schools to children, that explosion of joy, happiness and hugs so far contained by the hard months of the pandemic. That is the joy that the promoters of hatred intend to frustrate, “but they will not be able to prevent Cuban mothers from enjoying that sublime moment of accompanying their children to the classrooms, nor the tender smiles of the teachers with the return of their longed-for students. They will not be able to prevent Cuba’s triumph in the face of the pandemic thanks to their own vaccines created with the ingenuity of scientists trained in Revolution. Vaccines made possible by the visionary thought and action of Fidel, founder of a genuinely Cuban biopharmaceutical industry ”.

“They will not be able to prevent the transition towards a new normality, a responsible normality that will allow us to gradually open up our economic and social life in the coming weeks. They will not be able to prevent the feat of Cuba, of its health professionals, of its workers, of its youth, of an entire people that in creative resistance advances optimistically over colossal adversities. They will not be able to prevent Cuba’s victory in the face of subversion and the criminal blockade of the United States, intensified in the midst of the pandemic, which magnifies our glorious epic ”, he pointed out.

Like our National Hero José Martí, whom some seek to outrage with their neo-annexationist pretensions, we proclaim “… What should true lovers of the country do…? We are here to prevent the enemy from cornering the standard-bearer, or the flag falling into the wrong hands:… Here we are vigilance and love, cordiality and sentinel, passion, reasoned by judgment, of everything that bears the name of decorum. Cuban”.

These are our reasons, the reasons of Cuba!

[No English subtitles in this 45 minute video.]

Mandatory quarantine ends November 7

3 months ago CubaDebate, Translations, ,


Cuba eliminates mandatory quarantine of international travelers upon arrival in the country from November 7 (+ Video)

By: Lissett Izquierdo Ferrer, Journalist from Cubadebate. Graduated from the University of Havana (2014). She worked at the Cuban News Agency from 2011 until September 2018. Contact: lissett@cubadebate.cu
October 19, 2021
Translated by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

As of November 7, the mandatory quarantine of international travelers upon arrival in the country is eliminated. Photo: Ariel Ley Royero / ACN.

The 10 international airports are already ready for the reopening of the Cuban borders on November 15, Tourism Minister Juan Carlos García Granda reported on Tuesday at the International Press Center.

“It will be a controlled and staggered reopening, with the guarantee that in the next month more than 90% of the population will have the complete vaccination scheme,” he said and commented that in the last 15 days there has been a decrease in the number of positive cases to covid-19, with the same behavior in all provinces.

García Granda specified that as of November 7, the mandatory quarantine of international travelers upon arrival in the country is eliminated.

Other measures announced by the minister:

  • By day 15, the border entry PCR is eliminated.
  • All travelers (Cubans or foreigners) who enter the country must present a health passport or international anticovid certificate of those vaccines certified by the corresponding regulatory agencies.
  • Those who do not have these documents are obliged to present a covid-19 negative PCR certification at the arrival of the country with no less than 72 hours before traveling, carried out in a certified laboratory in the country of origin.
  • Epidemiological surveillance of international sanitary control will be maintained at all entry points, as well as in hotel facilities, for which medical assistance is strengthened with the location of basic health equipment in the facilities themselves.
  • Children under 12 years of age, regardless of their nationality, will be exempt from presenting a vaccination schedule or PCR test upon arrival in Cuba.
  • The presentation of the Declaration of Health of the Traveler (Affidavit of Health) will be required for all those who arrive in the country.
  • The mandatory use of the nasobuco is maintained within the air and port terminals, as well as throughout the country.
  • To board the flight at origin, airlines will require their passengers to provide evidence of a vaccination scheme or a negative PCR test applied within 72 hours beforehand.
  • The International Sanitary Control staff will randomly take samples for PCR at the airport.
  • Any traveler who arrives in the country and shows signs and symptoms of covid-19 or another communicable disease will be referred to a health institution and a PCR test will be performed.
  • The owners of rental houses or people who host non-resident travelers in the country are responsible for immediately informing the corresponding health authorities of the appearance of any symptoms that they present.
  • The health areas in the community will maintain epidemiological surveillance of tourists staying in private homes.
  • For Cuban travelers residing in the country, the obligation to appear at the family doctor’s office or health area is restored within a period of no more than 48 hours after their arrival, to be followed up by the family doctor.
  • All Cuban travelers residing in the country, if not vaccinated, will be performed an antigen test on the seventh day of arrival in their health area and if they present symptoms, they will be treated as a suspected case.
  • The protocols in the facilities are reinforced: the use of the mask in closed places and in the presence of other people, physical distancing, constant sanitation, hand disinfection measures, taking temperature and others.

 

The minister recalled that workers in the tourism sector and workers in transport, customs, immigration and aviation, together with those of Public Health, were among the first to be vaccinated, and it was agreed that before November 15 they would be vaccinated. apply a booster dose.

“We work for a responsible recovery of tourism in Cuba: All the facilities that will provide service will have the Tourism + Hygienic and Safe certification, guaranteeing compliance with the sanitary protocols established by Public Health”.

García Granda highlighted that a second training cycle is currently being developed on hygienic-sanitary protocols in the tourism sector, with the participation of state and non-state workers.

Varadero opens its doors to domestic tourism from next October 25

 

Varadero opens its doors to domestic tourism from next October 25. Photo: Ismael Franciso / Cubadebate.

As they announced in a press conference, as of November 15, the domestic market, complying with the established protocols, will be able to fully enjoy the country’s tourist offer.

The minister announced that starting next Monday, October 25, the Varadero tourist center will receive domestic tourism and the marketing of all open facilities is authorized , including those that operate today for the international market, such as Cayo Santa María, Cayo Coco and Cayo Guillermo.

The owner specified that there are provinces such as Matanza and Havana whose tourist facilities already receive customers, and “as inter-provincial and inter-municipal mobility increases and taking into account the situation of each territory, this activity will grow.”

“We are in a favorable moment of de-escalation, which means to begin to recover our customs, to be able to visit relatives and go on vacation, as well as to recover the economic activity of the country, not only in the state sector, but also in the non-state sector.”

Cuba expects to receive 100,000 international travelers in the remainder of the year

 

The 10 international airports are already ready for the reopening of the Cuban borders on November 15. Photo: Ariel Ley Royero / ACN.

According to the minister, so far this year some 200,000 travelers have entered the country, and another 100,000 are expected before the end of 2021. “It is a challenge, because it depends on how the markets react, but we are optimistic.”

“We do not think that on the 15th (November) the country will be full, but we estimate that we can have an early winter,” he predicted.

The owner said that since the announcement of the opening of the Cuban borders, a great expectation has been created among tour operators and airlines and thanked the commercial partners for their confidence in the Cuban destination.

“Our expectations have been exceeded, because the tour operators of the traditional destinations in Cuba have requested more requests than planned.”

There are, he said, requests for flights from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and from other European countries, as well as from Mexico, Panama, the Dominican Republic, essential to connect the markets of the Southern Cone and some European customers who are in those Destinations.

As for Russia, he specified that it plans growth for the winter season and announced that it has already been authorized to fly from different cities in that country to Cuba.

García Granda pointed out that today there is air connectivity through the regular lines that have historically flown to the Island, such as Air France, Iberia, Air Europa, and charter flights with Evelop. Recently “WorldToFly was incorporated, in which we have placed a lot of trust”.

For its part, Cubana de Aviación will soon resume its traditional routes to the markets of Argentina and Spain, said the minister and argued that for those customers who wish to come from Asian countries and the Pacific area, they can do so through Turkish Airlines, which has restored frequencies to Havana.

Regarding flights from the United States, the minister emphasized that Cuba is open to all countries, “no one is discriminated against,” and it is even expected that American airlines will be among those that will rejoin when the borders are reopened. “There will be the option of traveling to any of the 10 international airports, everything will depend on what they are allowed to do.”

Asked about the losses suffered by the sector due to the pandemic , García Granda recalled the impact that tourism activity has on the national economy and said that currently the focus is on reversing the situation as soon as possible. “More than looking back, looking forward; how much more needs to be done to attract travelers; what must be foreseen so that the level of satisfaction is higher ”.

Tourist offer will have 4,000 new rooms

 

The minister informed that 4,000 new rooms will be incorporated and asserted that the country is open to more negotiations, air operations and even to cruises from any destination.

In these last two years, he commented, the sector has taken the opportunity to increase e-commerce and its necessary infrastructure, as well as to increase “the participation of all economic actors that complement and enrich the tourism product and enable new life experiences for those of us. they visit ”.

Likewise, he added, work is being done on the possibility of offering Cuban anticovid vaccines to international visitors.

  • At airports, the client will have access to free WiFi for 30 minutes.
  • The facilities have improved their comfort, and those with a five-star category already guarantee Internet connection from the rooms, public areas and beach areas, while working in four and three-star hotels.
  • New platforms and APKs are incorporated to serve the client in airports, transport and hotel facilities.
  • The information will be digitally available and online payment facilities are enhanced.

The owner recalled the ban on using the US dollar in cash in Cuba, and reiterated that transactions may be carried out in freely convertible currencies authorized in the country such as the Canadian dollar, the euro, the British pound, the Japanese yen and the Mexican peso. .

For months, prepaid cards in freely convertible currency (MLC) have been available, which can be purchased by tourists in the exchange offices of airports, marinas and tourist areas, and used to pay for services in Cuban territory.

These cards are valid for two years and the amount that the traveler has not spent upon leaving the country will be reimbursed if he wishes.

Prepaid cards available in freely convertible currency (MLC). Photo: Ariel Ley Royero / ACN.

 

“We work for a responsible recovery of tourism in Cuba.” Photo: Ariel Ley Royero / ACN.

On video, press conference


https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1059060618236269

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