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No Disappeared or Tortured in Cuba
There are no disappeared or tortured people in Cuba (+ Video)
Following the riots that took place on July 11 and 12, as part of the political-communication operation encouraged and paid for by the U.S. government against Cuba, alleged lists of missing persons have begun to circulate on the Internet.
Photo: Taken from Internet
After the riots that took place last July 11 and 12, as part of the political-communicational operation encouraged and paid for by the US government against Cuba, supposed lists of missing persons have begun to circulate on the Internet.
But, are there really missing persons in the country? Are such lists real? What is the procedure for the detention of a person? What limits are there to the actions of the authorities?
In answering these questions, during an appearance this Tuesday on the program Hacemos Cuba, Colonel Victor Alvarez Valle, second chief of the Specialized Body of the General Directorate of Criminal Investigation of the Ministry of the Interior (MININT), categorically assured that in Cuba there are no missing persons, neither of the processes referred to the recent disorders, nor of any other that has been carried out.
“We have as a principle, in the Revolution, and it is also what characterizes the actions of the authorities, the right to life, to freedom, the right to the preservation and security of people,” said the colonel, while informing that Cuba is a signatory of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
This position, he said, was also recognized in the Constitution approved by the majority of Cubans and, although in our legal system it is not characterized as a crime, there is a group of figures that cover and punish those who commit these actions, in the event that the occurrence of an enforced disappearance is proven.
Furthermore, he added, “there is no secret establishment for the processing of persons who, for any reason, or for the commission of crimes, are taken to one of the dependencies of MININT”.
Regarding the process of detention of a citizen, José Luis Reyes Blanco, head of the Department of Supervision of the Directorate of Criminal Proceedings, of the Attorney General’s Office (FGR), explained that “the records of this process, the detention record that is signed by the person involved, the information on the detainee and the presence of the Prosecutor’s Office throughout the criminal process from the beginning, contribute to control the investigation and allow us to ensure that in our country after 1959 there have never been missing persons”. Evidently, if there were events of this nature in the country, the number of denunciations in the Prosecutor’s Office, through all its channels of attention to the citizens, would be considerable.
However, commented Reyes Blanco, in the year 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, the Prosecutor’s Office attended more than 129,000 people throughout the country; during the first semester of this year, the attention exceeded 49,000 and, as of July 12, for events associated to the riots, 63 people have addressed to this organ, mostly through face-to-face channels.
“But none of these complaints or claims have been related to disappearances”, he stressed, but to arrests, that is to say, in search of certain information, which they have received in the places to which the interested parties have gone.
Today, he commented, the Prosecutor’s Office is investigating five claims related to general non-conformities in the process, but no case is pending to define the place where the person is located. There is information and, more importantly, the family knows it”.
In this sense, Colonel Alvarez Valle pointed out that when a person is taken to a police unit, the first thing that is done is to register him/her in a logbook, manually, and the arrest record is drawn up. Therefore, the person knows why they are being taken to the station.
Then, he continued, there follows a process that can take place in the first 24 hours, which contemplates his first statement, and the measures that, depending on the crime, can be imposed.
“In the first 24 hours, the family generally knows where the person is because, in addition, MININT has a system of attention and information to the population, automated and interlinked among all units, where each of the detained persons is recorded.
“In recent cases, all the families know where their detainees are, they have gone to the places, they have delivered belongings with personal hygiene materials or specific medicines; in other words, the information on the whereabouts of the people is established and auditable by the control bodies of the Prosecutor’s Office”, he explained.
Subsequently, he also referred to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, to which Cuba is a party and was reviewed in 2017.
As applied in the country, Article 17, specifically, establishes, among other elements, that:
No one shall be secretly detained.
Without prejudice to other international obligations of the State party regarding deprivation of liberty, each State party, in its legislation:
Shall establish the conditions under which orders of deprivation of liberty may be issued.
Determine the authorities empowered to order deprivation of liberty.
Guarantee that any person deprived of liberty shall be held only in officially recognized and controlled places of deprivation of liberty.
Guarantee that any person deprived of liberty shall be authorized to communicate with and be visited by his family, a lawyer or any other person of his choice, subject only to the conditions established by law, and in the case of a foreigner, to communicate with his consular authorities, in accordance with applicable international law.
It shall guarantee the access of any competent authority and institution empowered by law to places of deprivation of liberty, if necessary with the prior authorization of judicial authority.
For his part, the prosecutor clarified that all persons detained after the events of July 11 are able to appoint a lawyer, that some do not have one is up to the choice of each individual.
And to totally deny the mentioned lists, at another moment of the program, communication was established with one of the alleged missing persons, who also spoke of other colleagues who swell the records circulated on the Internet and who are in perfect condition.
The Second Chief of the Specialized Body of the General Directorate of Criminal Investigation of MININT reiterated that these lists lose credibility due to the lack of data, and because it has been proven that many of those registered therein have never been arrested or even interviewed by the authorities.
Reyes Blanco commented that, among the detainees, a group has already been released because it has been confirmed that they have had no criminal participation, others are under a non-detaining precautionary measure, and there are defendants in the preparatory phase, with a precautionary measure of provisional imprisonment.
TORTURE WILL NEVER BE A PRACTICE OF THE CUBAN AUTHORITIES.
Another matrix that has been tried to be positioned in the social networks puts the dart in the occurrence of torture with those involved in the destabilizing actions.
Colonel Alvarez Valle said, “just like forced disappearances, torture is not a practice in Cuba. The history of the Revolution proves it, and it is not and will not be the practice of the combatants of the Ministry of the Interior to use force against those being prosecuted”. He also said that Cuba is a party to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
José Luis Reyes detailed that, after the riots, the presence of prosecutors in the units has increased, because it is in the interest of hearing the opinion of the detainees, and this is a favorable scenario for dialogue and to convey any concerns or complaints.
The broadcast of Hacemos Cuba also called attention to a complaint of a young man who has escalated in recent hours in social networks, referring to acts of violence committed against him, after being detained after the riots.
This person, the colonel pointed out, is subject to a precautionary measure of house arrest for a previous process, which implies requirements that he has to comply with; however, he was in the street, outside the vicinity of his home, in the middle of the disturbances of the order, which breaks the provisions, of which he was informed.
Prosecutor Reyes Blanco added that, among the complaints in progress at the Prosecutor’s Office, there is that of this young man, since his father presented himself at the said body. All the data were taken and the pertinent inquiries and investigations will be carried out, with total transparency.
Should any irregularity arise, said the colonel, the circumstances in which the facts occurred would be clarified and the corresponding measures would be taken, either in the disciplinary order, if he were a combatant, or in the criminal order if the conduct were to be in violation of the law.
Therefore, arguments were sufficiently clear that in Cuba there are no disappeared or tortured persons, and, if any irregularity occurred or had occurred in the actions of the Ministry of the Interior or the Prosecutor’s Office, it will be investigated, the results will be made known and, if violations are found, measures will be taken to allow the restitution of legality.
Lester Mallory, The Influencer
Lester Mallory, The Influencer
Presented as an unprecedented social explosion, the events of this Sunday in the country constitute a chapter -and not a premiere- of the so-called non-conventional war.
Author: Juan Antonio Borrego | internet@granma.cu
July 13, 2021 23:07:00 PM
Translated by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
With the accumulation of more than six decades of blockade, the impact of the 243 measures adopted during Donald Trump’s administration -all in force until today- and the wear and tear of the already prolonged confrontation with the coronavirus crisis, now at its worst moment since its appearance in the archipelago in March 2020, it would seem that Cuba is witnessing the “perfect storm”.
Lester Mallory, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, who died in 1994, would be rubbing his hands and boasting that it has been worth waiting 61 years to reap the fruits of the doctrine that he and his advisors conceived, drafted and did not hesitate to put on the table to the Eisenhower administration so that it could be applied.
Faced with the undeniable support of the people for the nascent Revolution, which is precisely the same that keeps it alive and well to this day, the official provided the US government with a secret memorandum containing the essence of the genocidal policy to be followed to the letter in order to overthrow the surprising revolutionary project, which by then (April 1960) was already a thorn in the empire’s side.
“The only foreseeable way to subtract internal support from it (he refers to Fidel and the Revolution) is through disenchantment and dissatisfaction arising from economic malaise and material difficulties… all possible means must be quickly employed to weaken the economic life of Cuba…. a line of action which, being as skillful and discreet as possible, will achieve the greatest progress in depriving Cuba of money and supplies, to reduce its financial resources and real wages, to provoke hunger, despair and the overthrow of the Government”, reads verbatim the document which, with greater or lesser rigor, has guided imperial policy against Cuba up to the present day.
In the fruitful television appearance this Monday, at the request of the First Secretary of the Party and President of the Republic, Miguel Diaz-Canel, Rogelio Polanco, a member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee and head of its Ideological Department, confirmed an irrefutable truth: although it is presented by certain media as a social explosion, what we have experienced this Sunday in Cuba constitutes a chapter of the unconventional war.
Indistinctly called hybrid warfare or color revolutions, fourth-generation warfare, or soft coup, the strategy followed against Cuba is part of a manual that has been rigorously applied in several countries, both in the Middle East and in Europe and also in Latin America -Venezuela, for example-, a perverse system, scientifically conceived, which, as it is easy to notice, has communicating vessels with the famous Lester Mallory’s memorandum.
Unconventional war has an important media component, now increased with the development of social networks that facilitate the generation of false news, misrepresentation, manipulation of facts and so-called half-truths, a world in which Cuba puts the news day after day and almost minute by minute, under the protection of a flourishing colony of media that presume to be independent and impartial and always have at hand the voice of an influencer or “a source who preferred not to reveal his identity”.
In this concept, nothing is more important than discrediting institutionality, denying the impact of the blockade and presenting the shortcomings that the world’s greatest power has been creating for 60 years with its web of laws, obstacles and threats to third parties, as the exclusive result of the ineffectiveness of a supposedly corrupt and obsolete government.
Another element consubstantial to this foggy but equally cruel and effective war modality is the promotion of street violence, which showed its hairy ear this Sunday in some places of the country -Güines and Cárdenas, for example-, with images of youths assaulting a store or overturning a police patrol car, the same photos that these days were on the front pages of important news media.
Provoking the forces of law and order, inducing repressive actions, seeking international condemnation, all secured from the media point of view, are also part of the ABC of unconventional war. It has been applied against the island and sustained with not inconsiderable sums of money, a “financial courtesy” whose most recent amount has just been made public in these same pages.
President Joe Biden, who pledged, not to us, but to the American electorate, to review the Trump administration’s policy towards Cuba -the last of whose measures was to include it once again on the list of state sponsors of terrorism-, then diluted along the way with the statement that it was not a priority or that he was conducting a detailed study of relations, something that six months ago seemed even logical, but today sounds very different.
What is suspicious is that only a few hours after Sunday’s events, originated in the first place by the policy of asphyxiation that his administration may not have designed, but has assumed as its own, officials of his government, and he himself, are sticking their noses into the neighbor’s problems.
Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, a member of the Political Bureau of the Party, recently told the United Nations General Assembly: “Cuba’s demand is to be left in peace”, and President Miguel Diaz-Canel reiterated it, in other words, this Monday: “We are not interested in what may happen within the conception of how the government and the American people want to make their system of government, but we do demand that they respect our self-determination, sovereignty and the way in which the majority of Cubans have agreed to defend socialism”.
The haste with which these characters came out to show solidarity with the vandals, while blaming the Cuban government, reveals the interventionist approach that is being promoted and financed from abroad:
Here is the Mallory Memorandum of 1960:
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v06/d499
No Democracy Without Sovereignty
You Can’t Have Democracy Without Sovereignty
By Manuel E. Yepe
April 16, 2021
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
In Latin America, the U.S. control of the media euphemistically identifies as “return to democracy” or “democratic opening”, the return to civilian hands of the governments of those countries that were subjected to bloody military dictatorships promoted by the United States in the last five decades of the last 20th century.
It must be recognized that, technically, this has been a great achievement of imperialist propaganda because the outgoing military dictatorships had been imposed by the United States when the peoples could no longer stand the reigning order and a period of rebellion for independence was on the horizon.
The peoples were not then rebelling against idyllic democracies as one might think now when one speaks of a “return to democracy” but against the humiliating subordination to the dictates of Washington which had put an end to their patriotic dreams of independence.
The triumph of the socialist and pro-independence revolution in Cuba stimulated the hope that the objective of feeling that they were the owners of their sovereignty was viable.
In reality, except in glorious historical moments -which as a rule were cruelly repressed- what existed in these lands before the barracks imposed their order on the oligarchies, were sad caricatures of democracy. They were, in truth, semi-colonial enclaves headed by oligarchs servile to the United States that the empire itself replaced by military tyrannies when it saw its interests in a given country endangered.
On a regional scale, the strategy outlined by the U.S. power elite was based on the consideration that the oligarchies were not in a position to stop the generalized popular struggle that was then approaching. This was due to the worn-out political model designed in the image and likeness of the U.S. and imposed as the only democratic and acceptable one in the hemisphere.
Those traditional parties without any popular base and burdened by corruption and banditry, which were the protagonists of the model, had nothing to do with a true democratic system.
The Latin American majorities wanted the return of civilians to government. The bloody military dictatorships only had the support of the small segment of society that fattened its coffers in the conditions of security and impunity provided by the repression of workers, students and intellectuals.
But the laboring majorities cannot see a “return” to democracy in the return to the situation of lack of opportunities for education, decent work and medical care or the continuity of poverty, marginality, violence, corruption, forced emigration and so many other ills. In any case, the positive aspect has been the opportunity to resume the civic struggles truncated by the military coups.
It is impossible to speak of democracy in countries where the organizations that are part of the Intelligence Community led by the Director of National Intelligence, who reports directly to the President of the United States, operate with impunity in defense of interests alien to those of the country. The CIA, the DEA and other known intelligence, espionage and counter-espionage bodies; where embassies, consulates and other U.S. offices openly pay followers, recruit mercenaries and corrupt officials and politicians.
If Latin America could show a panorama of progress, freedom and justice prior to the takeover of governments by the barracks, it would be possible to speak of a return to democracy. But nothing could be further from the truth.
The true democracy is the one that is yet to come, the one that will mean, for the Latin American nations as a whole, their second and definitive independence.
In fact, this popular democracy has already begun to arrive and the countries of the continent that are marching in the vanguard along this route are those that today face the most powerful media campaigns of discredit, demonization, intrigues and threats.
To those who advance cautiously, they apply the subtle methods of “soft” diplomacy in order to remove them from the leading contingent, although without renouncing the crude method of the military coup when the door remains ajar and the circumstances are propitious, as happened in the shameful case of Honduras.
Latin America has lived under the neoliberal sign of capitalism for almost four decades, has reaped very little economic and social development, and many vices and apocamientos that have stagnated with respect to the rest of the world, making this region the most unequal on the planet.
The “representative democracy” imposed by the empire is false, is not rational, promotes differences, widens the gap between rich and poor, encourages wars, disunity and discrimination based on race, creed, ethnicity and gender.
In Latin America, democracy must be preceded by independence and the unity of internal anti-imperialist forces.
Latin America needs a democracy of solidarity based on equality and friendship among its nations, not on competition and greed.
Manuel E. Yepe
Manuel Yepe Menéndez (Havana 1936), since 1954 was an insurrectional fighter in Havana as a member of the 26th of July Youth Brigades at the University of Havana. He worked in the reproduction and distribution of Fidel Castro’s defense plea “La historia me absolverá” (History will absolve me). In 1958 he edited the clandestine magazine of the M-26-7 ACCIÓN, which was published weekly in Havana and identified itself as the Organ of the Cuban Youth. He has a degree in Law, Economics Management and Social Sciences. He has served as Protocol Director at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cuban Ambassador to Romania. He was General Director of Prensa Latina news agency; Vice President of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT); Director of the Guerrillero de Pinar del Río newspaper, and National Director (founder in Cuba) of the UNDP TIPS project. From 2000 to date he has been a member of the Secretariat of the Cuban Movement for Peace. He was a commentator on international issues for the daily newspapers POR ESTO! (2008-June 2020). August 2020
Malicious Interests Against Cuba in the USA
Malicious interests behind U.S. campaign against Cuba denounced
No study provides scientific evidence that there were radiofrequency waves of high intensity in areas where diplomats were located, stresses Johana Tablada, deputy director-general of the U.S. Directorate of the Cuban Foreign Ministry (MINREX).
Author:
Juventud Rebelde |digital@juventudrebelde.cu
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Tablada said that the group of experts from Cuba that investigated this issue explained why the thesis put forward most recently is an unlikely hypothesis Author: MINREX Published: 12/05/2021 | 08:49 am
Malicious interests are behind the campaign on the alleged Havana Syndrome, Johana Tablada, deputy director-general of the U.S. Directorate of the Cuban Foreign Ministry denounced today.
No report or study published in the United States, Cuba or the world provides scientific evidence that there were radiofrequency waves of great intensity in the area where the diplomats who reported health symptoms were located, said the official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX).
The only ones who won with this story are the members of a minority and reactionary group of politicians desperate and willing to resort to any means to try to impose and perpetuate the course of confrontation, lies and injustice in Washington’s policy against the Cuban people and the Americans themselves, she said.
Tablada maintained that the group of experts from Cuba that investigated this issue stated and explained why the thesis exposed most recently is an unlikely hypothesis, and certainly not a proven fact as the media and unidentified sources try to fix in people’s imagination.
She added that the Cuban Academy of Sciences disagreed on this possibility which she described as speculation presented as one more hypothesis, not supported by arguments in the body of the published report of the U.S. Academies of Sciences. The Americans themselves cannot assure what is the cause of the reported symptoms and the absence of information requested to the Washington government is critical, which limited their study.
The diplomat reiterated that the Academy of Sciences and the team of Cuban experts reject the politicization of the issue and recently reiterated the call for collaboration between both countries to solve the matter and establish the truth.
Tablada stressed that up to now the most concrete and factual thing we have seen is that symptoms were reported with such a diversity that even the State Department doctors explained, as well as the Cuban scientists, that so many elements cannot be attributed to a common cause.
The official recalled that the unfounded accusation against her country of the attacks served as a pretext for the withdrawal of most of the staff of the United States Embassy in Havana, in 2017, coupled with an unprecedented sequence of actions of hostility and setbacks in relations between the two countries and peoples.
She said that after the change of administration in the White House we are facing a new cycle of articles and leaks on the alleged existence of attacks, a word not used by official spokespersons of the Washington government in their most recent statements, according to PL. She pointed out that the common denominator of this set of publications is political speculation, manipulation and absence of primary sources and the misleading reference that assumes and presents as a true fact an alleged syndrome that was not proven by science.
The Deputy Director-General of the US Directorate of MINREX pointed out that there is no such thing as the Havana Syndrome outside of propaganda, but we live in a world, she stressed, in which perceptions matter more than realities.
She said that the investigations of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Ministry of the Interior (Minint) of Cuba were serious and conclusive in ruling out the existence of ultrasonic or infrasonic sonic attacks.
Tablada stressed that Cuba has not questioned the existence of health symptoms, has investigated the issue from the police, medical and scientific spheres and has made many attempts and calls to cooperate by delivering information of its investigations to the U.S. government.
The diplomat concluded that the main victim of this whole saga seems to be again the truth. The measures taken on the basis of unconfirmed speculation have not been reversed and the suffering they have caused to the Cuban people, families and bilateral and people-to-people relations has only been aggravated, she said.
Recently, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that agencies and departments across the federal government are working to address “unexplained health incidents” that are sometimes reported by different agencies and did not occur in one place.
Marco Rubio, of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, insist on the so-called Havana Syndrome despite Cuba’s denial, supported by scientific studies, which categorically distances itself from such actions.
The CIA and hatred in the social networks
The CIA and hatred as a weapon in social networks
No one who, in the networks, opposes the patterns defended by their paymasters, escapes the fury of the salaried haters. For this purpose, the CIA’s cash register has no limits, nor does the low morality and the dastardly ethics of its mercenaries.
Author: Raúl Antonio Capote | internacionales@granma.cu
May 4, 2021 23:05:02 PM
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The Political Action Group (GAP), which is part of the Special Activities Center, a division of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), carries out, among other missions, analyses based on Big Data, processes profiles of subjects of interest and draws up action plans that are sent to the Internet Task Force, in charge of executing them.
Through Big Data, information is obtained that can be used for subversive work, it allows to better organize the forces to mobilize them in the fulfillment of a certain objective and, above all, through the micro-segmentation of the public, they manage, in a particular and specific way, the concerns of each neighborhood, of each family, of each person.
Enemy analysts can build models capable of predicting hidden attributes, including political preferences, sexual orientation, how much you trust the people you relate to, how strong those relationships are, all thanks to the information that users themselves upload to the networks.
In February 2018, following orientations of former President Donald Trump, the so-called Internet Task Force for Cuba or Internet Task Force for Subversion in Cuba was created, subordinated to the gap, which is the same as the CIA.
It is in charge of hiring the so-called netcenters, who execute the campaigns against Cuba, through the recruitment of specialists who, in turn, gather around them dozens of cyber-sicarii. They also have the mission of coordinating the actions of counterrevolutionary platforms and media, and of searching for collaborators on the island, among other tasks.
In cyberspace there is also a sordid specimen, feared by many, the hater. The term, imported from English, refers to those people who are dedicated to harass others through social networks.
They use their victims’ physical characteristics, sexual orientation, race, ideology or religion to carry out their harassment. They use the pain, fears and insecurities of those who take their claims seriously.
Some act out of fun, resentment or envy, but there are others who are true mercenaries, people hired to conduct smear campaigns or character assassinations. That is why they are called cybersicarii.
Character, civic or reputational assassination, as it is also named in the psychological warfare manuals of several intelligence agencies and organizations in the world, is part of the methods used by the US special services to destroy the adversaries of the empire.
The cyber-assassassin seeks to make the person subjected to the aggression feel helpless, think that he is not in control of the situation, wear himself out in useless defenses, become exhausted and try to isolate himself, to get as far away as possible from his harassers. The purpose is to make the victim try to justify herself publicly, and self-censure, which does not necessarily put an end to the attack, and may even intensify it.
They use repeated sending of offensive and insulting messages, highly intimidating, to a given individual, including threats of harm that make the person fear for their own safety; circulate rumors about someone, to break their reputation; manipulate digital materials, photos, recorded conversations, emails, steal passwords to impersonate identity; circulate fake news and cruel “gossip” about their victims; perform economic blackmail… Nothing, no matter how dehumanizing, stops the cia’s hired hands.
When multiple harassers participate in the act of cyberbullying, the action is called mobbing, and is part of the strategy against Cuban Internet users, especially public figures. Hundreds of trolls, digital hitmen, cyber-mercenaries, all trained and paid by the CIA, participate in the attacks, which are perfectly planned and scripted in the U.S. psychological warfare laboratories working for the Task Force.
Revolutionary leaders, journalists, artists, musicians, personalities from different areas of the social, cultural and political life of the country have been subjected to intense attacks of this type.
No one who, in the networks, opposes the bosses who defend their paymasters, escapes the fury of the salaried haters. To this end, the CIA’s cash register has no limits, nor does the low morals and dastardly ethics of its mercenaries.
The CIA and hatred as a weapon
The CIA and hatred as a weapon in the social networks
No one who, in the networks, opposes the patterns defended by their paymasters, escapes the fury of the salaried haters. For this purpose, the CIA’s cash register has no limits, nor does the low morality and the dastardly ethics of its mercenaries.
Author: Raúl Antonio Capote | internacionales@granma.cu
May 4, 2021 23:05:02 PM
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The Political Action Group (GAP), which is part of the Special Activities Center, a division of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), carries out, among other missions, analyses based on Big Data, processes profiles of subjects of interest and draws up action plans that are sent to the Internet Task Force, in charge of executing them.
Through Big Data, information is obtained that can be used for subversive work, it allows them to better organize the forces to mobilize them in the fulfillment of a certain objective. Above all, through the micro-segmentation of the public, they manage, in a particular and specific way, the concerns of each neighborhood, of each family, of each person.
Enemy analysts can build models capable of predicting hidden attributes, including political preferences, sexual orientation, how much you trust the people you relate to, how strong those relationships are, all thanks to the information that users themselves upload to the networks.
In February 2018, following orientations of former President Donald Trump, the so-called Internet Task Force for Cuba or Internet Task Force for Subversion in Cuba was created, subordinated to the gap, which is the same as the CIA.
It is in charge of hiring the so-called netcenters, who execute the campaigns against Cuba, through the recruitment of specialists who, in turn, gather around them dozens of cyber-criminals. They also have the mission of coordinating the actions of counterrevolutionary platforms and media, and of searching for collaborators on the island, among other tasks.
In cyberspace, there is also a sordid specimen, feared by many, the hater. The term, imported from English, refers to those people who are dedicated to harass others through social networks.
They use their victims’ physical characteristics, sexual orientation, race, ideology or religion to carry out their harassment. They use the pain, fear and insecurities of those who take their claims seriously.
Some act out of fun, resentment or envy, but there are others who are true mercenaries, people hired to conduct smear campaigns or character assassinations. That is why they are called cybercriminals.
Character, civic or reputational assassination, as it is also named in the psychological warfare manuals of several intelligence agencies and organizations in the world, is part of the methods used by the US special services to destroy the adversaries of the empire.
The cyber-assassassin seeks to make the person subjected to the aggression feel helpless, think that they are not in control of the situation, wear themselves out in useless defenses, become exhausted and try to isolate themselves, to get as far away as possible from their harassers. The purpose is to make the victim try to justify themselves publicly, and self-censure, which does not necessarily put an end to the attack, and may even intensify it.
They use repeated sending of offensive and insulting messages, highly intimidating, to a given individual, including threats of harm that make the person fear for their own safety; circulate rumors about someone, to break their reputation; manipulate digital materials, photos, recorded conversations, emails, steal passwords to impersonate identity; circulate fake news and cruel “gossip” about their victims; perform economic blackmail… Nothing, no matter how dehumanizing, stops the CIA’s hired hands.
When multiple harassers participate in the act of cyberbullying, the action is called mobbing, and is part of the strategy against Cuban Internet users, especially public figures. Hundreds of trolls, digital hitmen, cyber-mercenaries, all trained and paid by the CIA, participate in the attacks, which are perfectly planned and scripted in the U.S. psychological warfare laboratories working for the Task Force.
Revolutionary leaders, journalists, artists, musicians, personalities from different areas of the social, cultural and political life of the country have been subjected to intense attacks of this type.
No one who, in the networks, opposes the bosses who defend their paymasters, escapes the fury of the salaried haters. To this end, the CIA’s cash register has no limits, nor does the low morals and dastardly ethics of its mercenaries.
Interview with Adriana Pérez
Interview with Adriana Pérez
I live proud of being a woman and Cuban
By Magaly Cabrales – Cuba | lajiribilla@cubarte.cult.cu
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
“As time goes by, you gather strength, willpower, resources and energy to face the new challenges that life imposes on you”. Photos: Courtesy of the interviewee. Taken from the family album
“Gerardo always taught me that: live each day as if it were your last. And that’s what I did.”
During the relentless struggle for the Five’s release, did you ever feel alone?
My life strategy was to prepare for the future day by day, even though I had no idea when it was going to come. But I still did what I could every day. Gerardo always taught me that: live each day as if it were your last. And that’s what I did, even though I felt that all the sentimental burden I was carrying was hardening me. I got so hard that I reached the last stage of the campaign terribly exhausted from a sentimental point of view. Despite that exhaustion, I found the strength to welcome Gerardo, Ramon and Tony when they finally arrived in their homeland on December 17, 2014.
“Just because of the perseverance (…) that characterizes Cuban women, I managed to get here with all my dreams turned into a beautiful reality”.
“Today, she says excitedly, she is immensely happy because ‘I have Gerardo and my children by my side'”. Photo: Taken from the Facebook profile GEMA – from Cuba.
Anesthetized by technology
Anesthetized by technology
No parent should be happy with this fatal prophecy, with the idea of raising their children to become manipulable automatons, only interested in fun and entertainment.
By Mary Luz Borrego, February 28, 2021 – 3:09am
Master’s Degree in Communication Sciences. Specialized in economic issues. Winner of important awards in national journalism contests.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
First, the technologies flirted. Then they dazzled us. Now they seduce and cajole us to open the way to a dependence that is perhaps as harmful as that of alcohol and cigarettes. Science has already begun to speak loud and clear about the harmful influence of their excess, particularly for children and young people born in the digital age.
Neuroscientist Michel Desmurget, Director of Research at the French National Institute of Health, recently published the book The Factory of Digital Cretins, where he offers ample evidence of how the current excessive use of screens and devices of this nature seriously affects, and for the worse, the neural development of the newest ones.
Too many hours in front of the TV, videogames, cell phones; too much time embraced to the Internet and the banality offered on a silver platter from social networks. The result? According to studies conducted in various parts of the world, for the first time, the so-called digital natives are the first generation in history with a lower IQ than the previous one.
Such information has been documented in several nations, even with remarkable socioeconomic stability such as Norway, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, France, among others.
With technological dependence -say several international pieces of research -, the main foundations of human intelligence are affected: language, concentration, memory, general culture…; all impacts that, at the very least, inevitably lead to a significant drop in academic performance.
Quite a few Sancti Spritus parents can attest to this, after facing daily disputes with their children in this regard to get them to put down their phones and pick up their books, at least for a few minutes each day, in colloquial language.
And many parents, busy with their daily survival, have not even noticed that some of their children, either because they are clever or naive, have begun to sell or give away their identity on Facebook so that others can publish God knows what content, also presumably for a fee.
The cry in the sky at this time is not only because the addiction to digital media causes body ailments such as sedentary lifestyle, pain in the neck or back due to poor posture; because the screens can cause dryness and eye damage; because the headphones lead to deafness and even traffic accidents.
This barrage is not only related to the risks of someone manipulating an image or distorting personal data to denigrate another with physical or psychological harassment; to the alienation and avoidance of the problems that this excess of technology generates; to the emergence of models far from reality and linked to controversial prototypes of success and reputation; nor to the fact that these media are demonstrably used in the subversive war against Cuba.
It happens that now, in addition, experts assure that recreational screens underestimate the intellect and influence brain maturation, especially in the areas related to language and attention. In other words: the excessive use of digital media stultifies, affects writing and spelling, undermines the ability to think deeply and even turns children into half-wits.
It is not a matter of demonizing or renouncing the development and the obvious possibilities that technology offers by allowing access to a range of content not available to previous generations. It is essential to teach fundamental computer skills in schools, as the use of these options in a deliberate and balanced way can contribute a lot to teaching and research.
However, not infrequently, Saint Google makes it so easy for students to do research that they put aside logic and reasoning to copy any answer, without deciphering, composing, or judging the contents.
In truth, it is difficult to find a middle ground, especially during this last year, when social confinement has restricted sports and cultural practices; when it is known that children have at least their cell phones, televisions and computers at hand almost all the time; and not precisely for knowledge, but for impoverishing trivialities or recreational interests, seasoned with the distraction of endless alerts and notifications.
While it is true that during the months of pandemic these powerful digital tools have contributed a lot to work, study and socialization at a distance, it is also evident that circumstances have made humans increasingly dependent on technology.
According to international estimates, the hours spent in front of the screen vary with age, but before reaching the age of 18, children have spent the equivalent of three school decades in front of these media.
Based on the criterion that the fewer screens the better, experts recommend parents and teachers to use technology, but in moderation; to discuss its proven adverse effects with the new generations and to lead by example because it is often those who should be correcting this distortion who are the first to practice it.
France and some Asian countries have gone even further and have begun to legislate against these devices in childhood and adolescence because they consider that abusing them constitutes irresponsibility that young people will pay dearly for.
The worst theories predict that digital natives will not even understand computers well and will barely be able to use basic digital applications, buy products online, download music and movies, among other minor trades because they will grow up blinded by bland entertainment, incapable of thoughtful and intelligent attitudes, uncreative and not revolutionary at all.
Then, nothing seems more sensible than adult mediation to show, teach and guide the youngest in the fascinating world of technologies, with an eye to take advantage of their excellent advances in terms of personal growth, educational quality and intellectual development.
Without being alarmist, something urgent must be done because no parent should be happy with this fatal prophecy, with the idea of raising their children to become manipulable automatons, only interested in fun and entertainment, so that they act like mediocre fools, without dreams or thoughts of their own.
The Challenge of Breastfeeding in Cuba
The Challenge of Breastfeeding in Cuba
By
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Breastfeeding, as a challenge, requires teamwork, a collective effort. Photo: Justin Paget/ Corbis.
Breast milk is the best food an infant can receive. It satisfies all the vital needs of the newborn, while also benefiting mothers.
“Breastfeeding is a social process and everyone must be involved. When the father, the family and the community intervene, the results will be better and represent a guarantee of health,” said pediatrician Pablo Carlos Roque.
The Coordinator of the National Breastfeeding Commission of the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) said that “in Cuba we have the opportunity for successful breastfeeding, but many parents do not take advantage of it. The family’s own lifestyles sometimes hinder responsible breastfeeding”.
For the pediatrician who also holds a Master’s Degree in Comprehensive Child Care, old feeding patterns ingrained in Cuban society are also incorporated into the baby. “Some people think that it is correct to start feeding the newborn at 15 days of age and then give him juices and other complementary foods,” he said.
“Favorable views still continue around cow’s milk and many think that the child will be stronger if he/she drinks it. That mistake is still present today. The best milk is mother’s milk and it marks a person for life,” he added.
According to the doctor, cow’s milk can cause diseases and many imbalances in the long term. “Our country is affected by ailments such as hypertension, diabetes, myocardial cerebral infarctions and all this has to do with early feeding”.
In this context, the specialist assured that breastfeeding is related to social inclusion and to the role played by the father from the moment of birth.
As an objective, the Island seeks to promote the early initiation of breastfeeding -in the first hour of life-, achieving the accompaniment of the father and his equal participation in parenting issues.
Similarly, there are other barriers to an optimal procedure, and among them prevails the lack of support for mothers, fathers and families at work.
Maternity leave in Cuba is at the level of the most advanced countries, but on many occasions, women are unaware of their rights as workers and the laws that protect them in the important work of caring for the new member of society, the pediatrician stressed.
The protection of breastfeeding and support to promote more flexible and family-friendly workplaces is also the responsibility of the workplace as part of this joint process.
“Not only maternity leave, but also paternity or parental leave, are important tools to stimulate adequate breastfeeding in the best conditions,” added Roque Peña.
The specialist also mentioned the importance of milk banks, a new experience for Cuba. “A mother who is able to donate raises her child better, will give it more time to breastfeed, and will have more milk in her breasts”.
In this scenario, the campaign ‘Empoderémonos, ¡Hagamos posible la lactancia materna!’ [Let’s empower ourselves, let’s make breastfeeding possible!] invites to reflect and act so that families assume this healthier lifestyle in all senses.
Breastfeeding, as a challenge, requires teamwork, a collective effort, an alliance that supports the couple in the difficult and surprising journey of parenthood.
Breastfeeding is, above all, an act of love for our children. Photo: Ivette Ivens
Taken from Prensa Latina
To breastfeed is to love
To Breastfeed is to Love
August 5, 2015
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
More than 600 liters of breast milk have been collected since the opening four years ago of the Mother’s Milk Bank of the Doctor Agostinho Neto General Teaching Hospital, the only one of its kind in the province, which have been distributed among hundreds of Guantanamo’s children, mainly those admitted for low birth weight.
“Since last April, the collection was put into practice in the communities of the provincial capital, thanks to which there are currently about 125 donors, and only in July 15 newborns benefited from this important food,” said nurse Ada Lidia Leyva Crespo, head of this Bank.
Precisely because of the importance of exclusive feeding of newborns up to six months of age with this milk, the World Breastfeeding Week is being celebrated from August 1 to 7, which includes talks in the health areas, projection of audiovisual materials, dissemination campaigns, among other activities.
During the first six months of life, breast milk is the ideal food for children, since it provides all the nutritional substances necessary for healthy growth and protects them from infectious diseases, allergies, anemia and malnutrition; it also contributes to brain development, so it is not advisable to include other foods during this period.
Breastfeeding also helps to reduce bleeding after childbirth, to lose the fat acquired during pregnancy, prevents ovarian and breast cancer, and provides emotional satisfaction to the mother.
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