By: Enrique Ojito
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Suicide, considered a health problem in the world, reports an increasing annual rate in Sancti Spíritus, which is above the average in Cuba. Illustrative image.
Elena was never this far from life. She opened the window of the apartment where the unexpected drizzle came in. At that time, her mother was enjoying the adventures on TV in the living room. At that time, her daughter sought to escape for good. Before, there was an overdose of psychopharmaceuticals and intensive therapy; there was a train, an infinite whistle and the hand that pulled her off the railway line at the exact second. She wanted to get rid of her 22 years and her stormy marriage, which was not so. She climbed into the chair to say goodbye, too, from the window. And she stumbled upon the wet emptiness of the night.
Attempts and consummated suicides are not exclusive to Sancti Spíritus or Cuba. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that every 40 seconds a person is deprived of life on the planet; the number of deaths from this reason per year even exceeds the number of deaths due to armed conflicts and homicides in that period.
As international and Cuban experts maintain, this problem is not just a phenomenon of today; in the course of humanity, suicide has been valued from different cultural angles, not a few modified over time.
In ancient times, it was reasonable for Vikings and Gauls to take their own lives because of illness or old age; the Japanese resorted to it for atonement or defeat. In the Greco-Latin world, there is an extensive list of recognized figures who proceeded in this way: Socrates, Marco Antonio… In Cuba, first, the indigenous people; then, the Africans brought to the island appealed to hanging before the impotence and bitterness provoked by the Spanish colonizers, according to the book The Psychological Sutopsy: Suicide or Homicide? by Dr. Teresita García Pérez.
For the WHO, suicide – a word coined by the English writer and doctor Thomas Browne in his work Religio Medici in 1642, based on the Latin terms sui (oneself) and caedere (to kill) – is “death resulting from a suicidal act”, conceptualized by the organization itself as “any act by which an individual causes himself an injury, whatever the degree of lethal intent and knowledge of the true motive”.
The object of analysis from clinical, psychological-psychiatric, epidemiological and sociological perspectives…, such action constitutes a global phenomenon and affects both the most industrialized and the least developed nations, a reality that led to joint research between academics from the United Kingdom and the United States, who considered the high mortality rates for this cause in the “happiest countries” paradoxical; understood as happiness, essentially, as having enough money to make and buy what the person wants.
Regardless of this reductionist view, it also reveals the loss of human lives -even more so due to suicide-, whether in Japan or Switzerland, or in Cuba, with high annual rates per 100,000 inhabitants in the Americas.
This pitiful truth has been manipulated for political ends by the media to create opinion matrices against the Revolution, a project that can be improved and which has had the human being as its cornerstone, as demonstrated by the recent presentation of the report of the Greater Antilles to the Universal Periodic Review, a mechanism of the United Nations Human Rights Council, based in Geneva.
Despite the State’s efforts to guarantee the right to existence – as the infant mortality rate of 4.0 reported last year attests – 8,954 people took their own lives in the country from 2013 to 2017, a period in which suicide was among the top ten causes of death – similar to the world trend – according to the Statistical Yearbook of Cuba and Health.
Specifically, Sancti Spíritus recorded 389 deaths for this reason from 2013 to 2017, 90 of them the previous year. The latter figure, in addition to tripling the number of deaths caused by traffic accidents in 2017 here, represents the highest of the five-year period, when annual death rates from intentionally self-inflicted injuries always exceeded the national average in that period and were among the top 10 causes of death in the territory, according to the Statistical Yearbook and sources of the Provincial Health Directorate.
From previous centuries to the present day, scholars have delved into the manifestations of suicidal behavior. As early as 1820, the French psychiatrist Jean Pierre Falret stated that suicide was the result of a mental disorder; in 1838, the Frenchman Esquirol argued that it was the result of an emotional crisis. The sociologist Émile Durkheim argued in his book The Suicide in 1897 that it was the result of the interaction between the social facts and the individual motivations of the victim.
In Sancti Spíritus, each completed suicide leads to the analysis of the Provincial Technical Advisory Commission on Suicidal Conduct, which determined that the cases of 2017 were linked, to a greater extent, to personal and family conflicts.
In order to save the lives of those who demonstrated suicide attempts and, fortunately, survived, the commission itself, with the support of the municipalities’ Mental Health departments, also evaluated the attempts, which amounted to 468 last year, a number that is often distanced from reality, given the stigma that acknowledging it arouses in the social imaginary.
More than half of these events were due to family friction, conditioned by dysfunctional homes, misunderstandings and communication problems. Couple and personal conflicts also led to the attempt, significantly present in the female group of 20 to 39 years old.
However, it is a matter of concern that more than a third of the attempts in 2017 in Cabaiguán – the municipality with the highest suicide rate in the province during the period – were among adolescents, events related to the lack of communication in the family, according to Orlando Ríos Taño, head of the Mental Health Department there. This commentary is in line with the evidence found in the inquiry about the causes and factors associated with the suicide attempt in that age group in Sancti Spíritus – it would deserve a particular analysis – published in the Cuban Journal of Hygiene and Epidemiology.
Knowing that the greatest number of suicides in 2017 was concentrated in Sancti Spíritus among people aged 60 years and over, “differentiated actions are carried out in elderly people who are alone, fragile and in a state of need, with adequate follow-up of psychiatric pathologies, especially those with a high suicidal risk,” according to Ledanay Aquino Pérez, Mental Health Coordinator at the Provincial Directorate of the sector.
Orlando Ríos warns of this vulnerability when he examines it in a scenario marked by the gradual increase in the number of single-person families due to migration abroad, especially of children, a phenomenon that has plunged many of those who remain on the island into depression.
Experts have assessed the influence of depressive disorders on suicidal behavior, associated with factors such as psychological functioning and personality factors (low self-esteem, hopelessness) and the presence of psychiatric pathologies and family conditions (divorce from parents, pressure from parents on children).
The relationship includes socio-demographic, biological (terminal illnesses, somatic deformities and amputations) and social reasons: poor support and acceptance of peers, school problems, interpersonal losses, alcoholism…
Several national studies refer to the incidence of disadvantageous economic conditions in interaction with other causes, a criterion supported by the increase shown by the suicide rate in the most dramatic years of the special period in Cuba.
Prior to this, in 1989, the Cuban State implemented the National Program for the Prevention of Suicidal Behavior, a reference in the world, but not executed with similar quality in the different areas of health in the country, according to the research consulted.
This program gives primary care a leading role in the identification of individuals at risk, as noted by this reporter at the Family Physician’s Office No. 20, from Polyclinic 2, in Cabaiguán; but it can be improved in other units of this type in the same territory.
In order for the program to leave the role and be corporated, there are Technical Advisory Commissions from the national to the municipal level, in charge of systematically evaluating manifestations of suicidal behavior, followinf-up of detected cases, intervention of the Mental Health teams and training, without forgetting the certainty of Martí: “It is a crime not to oppose all possible obstacles to death”.
The WHO insists that prevention transcends the borders of health systems and its approach must be multifactorial, with a focus on causes, in order to mourn death. At the same time, it warns of the consequences of suicide: the loss of human beings, family trauma and economic costs.
These expenses include the three operations that Elena underwent at the Camilo Cienfuegos Provincial General Hospital during her two months of admission. Only a miracle saved her life after she threw herself into the void that night. Only the skill of the specialists gave back the freshness to my friend’s new face.
(Taken from Escambray)
Posted: Saturday 17th March 2018 | 10:52:43 PM
Author: Alina Perera Robbio
This reflection begins with a true story: in a certain pharmacy in the capital, a patient asks for the medicine that will take him out of the crisis in which his digestive system has fallen and out of an almost unbearable pain that has caused him to go out into the street despite the fact that the doctor has ordered absolute rest.
The needy person, who has to update his or her home address papers, carries a certificate with him or her where the word “transit”, written by the doctor, can be read, but the pharmacy technique explains that the term is only applicable to transfers between provinces.
The dialogue between the needy and those who can help becomes a dead end. At some point the technique says vaguely: “Let’s see if we understand each other, let’s see if we can “solve…”. The patient gets confused and just asks, “Will they give me the medicine or not? Suddenly someone remembers that there is only one box left with the pills that they are urging and that are destined for a very critical case in the community. The patient feels almost guilty, and without having solved his problem he leaves with a bitter and surprising memory of the phrase in which he had hinted at the possibility of a solution.
Among Cubans there are terms that allude to our incessant effort to make our way through multiple difficulties: the “battle” or “struggle”, for example, serves to remind us of the enterprising eagerness, often positive, of the children of this island. But there are words that speak to us of less clean attitudes – such as the “search” – or of invitations to “solve”, to mediate in circumstances that, so humanly delicate, do not allow the inclusion of intentions of sale and purchase.
This last word is often disconcerting to the listener, who does not know the language of “help me, I will help you”: No one who has in his soul an ethical protocol in which cheating and pillaging add to the list of anti-values will be able to comfortably assume that complicity in which “aid” has a price and in the end the feeling remains that, to the right, solutions either arrive late or never arrive, unless there is a commercial option.
To tell the truth, the desire to “seek” (i.e. to find monetary or material advantages where there are resources), or this desire to “solve” – whether from the person who charges or from the one who pays – could find multiple explanations in reality: In three decades of increased economic and social difficulties, we have seen a lot of weeds grow in the shadow of emergencies and needs; life, like water seeking to run its course, has become for many a long-distance race in which almost everything is done against the clock, desperately, in a context marked by a lack of resources, bureaucracy and inefficiency in providing services, in a country that for much more than three decades has suffered the handshake of the empire through a commercial and financial blockade.
To these known and accumulated problems we must add the new challenges arising from the reconfiguration of the country in the economic and social spheres – a stage that, as a friend told me, is reminiscent of the movement of the bowels of the Earth, that rearrangement in which many customs and moral compasses seem to be dislocated while the scenarios, like the flakes of the planet, are being rearranged.
The fact that “resolving” lives among us as a style places us as a society, since it reminds us of the importance of the right-wing paths – that is, the entities that are responsible for the well-being of all – working together and doing so with agility. The other thing is that everything we design in terms of the necessary control must implicitly bring about the natural flexibility of life: rigidity and excessive restrictions are overwhelming and lead many to wonder what to do to “resolve” problems, and how to do it.
There is another inescapable aspect to this: even the ugliest attitudes can find an explanation, which does not mean that they deserve to be justified. Therefore, even if the most diverse distortions fuel the search for shortcuts, it would not be good for the dream country to wait for everything to go well in the target world to start looking inside. To rebel against brazenness and unscrupulousness at this moment seems to me to be an act of responsibility insofar as it limits the denial of virtue; it even seems to me to be an act of faith in the best possibilities for our fellow beings.
Although clients in our country can claim and assert their rights against any violation, it is worth asking what mechanisms and norms exist today to protect them.
——————————————————————————-
Author: Yaditza del Sol González | yadidelsol@granma.cu
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
The consumer has the right to choose, which gives him the possibility to satisfy his needs. Photo: Alberto Borrego
Of course, these evils are compounded by others that affect trade in our country. These include irregularity in supplies, price-quality balance, insufficient information provided to buyers on the terms of product guarantees, few strategies and promotional initiatives, or the symptoms of apathy and mistreatment sometimes shown by staff working in stores and other establishments.
One thing is clear: to leave it to spontaneity or good faith to solve this problem would be to be naïve. The country is aware that, more than a glance, the most important thing is to take precise action, without delay, to eliminate the culture of abuse. It is not a favor to attend to the people and provide them with the service they request.
SOME OF THE COMPLAINT MECHANISMS AND CHANNELS THAT EXIST IN THE COUNTRY:
The Assemblies of Accountability of the delegate of the People’s Power of the district or private attention by this delegate.
The Attorney General’s Office and the Legal Consultations, which deal with complaints and issue consultations to citizens.
In the Councils of the Municipal and Provincial Administration, and in the companies located in the different territories where the Departments of Attention to the Population operate.
The Offices of Attention to the Population of the Communist Party of Cuba, in all its instances.
The mass media is another way for the population to lodge complaints.
SOME CONSUMER RIGHTS ESTABLISHED IN RETAIL ENTITIES.
To the satisfaction of their basic needs, through access to essential basic goods and services through the different modalities established in the country and according to their income.
The protection of the life, health, and safety of the consumer against risks caused in the supply of products and services considered dangerous, harmful and against poor quality and false or misleading advertising.
To the protection of their economic income, through fair, just and respectful treatment in the purchase and sale and contractual transactions and against coercive commercial methods or methods involving misinformation about products and services.
To the information, that is, to receive all the truthful and timely information on the different goods and services, with correct specification of quantity, characteristics, composition, quality, and price, as well as on the risks they represent.
To education and dissemination on the appropriate consumption of goods or services that ensure freedom of choice, fairness in the conduct of exchange and the preparation of the consumer to engage in responsible consumption.
To choose, which gives the possibility to satisfy the needs of consumers according to their expectations, tastes, preferences, all within a national framework and in accordance with the specific possibilities and conditions of the national economy.
To ensure that the conservation and preservation of the environment is not undermined.
To full, timely and adequate compensation for damages resulting from the purchase of the goods or services offered on the market and to effective compensation, whenever feasible, as regulated in the event of the supplier’s default.
To have access to the corresponding bodies for the protection of their rights with a view to presenting their opinions and complaints in the different instances, creating the conditions for their analysis, through agile and efficient procedures.
By Luz Maria Martinez Zelada
March 31, 2018
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The display of many jewels at the same time is reminiscent of street vendors who used to put them on their bodies for marketing purposes, which does not reflect good taste and is shocking to most people.
But the wearers of so much shininess will say that they like to show off the brilliance of the metals and it is still a childish truth.
There is another example of the financial capacity of the ostentatious, referring to audio equipment: the more powerful, the more expensive.
Owners of powerful devices go out on the street or place them in front of the window, not so much for the purpose of listening to the music but so that everyone [in the neighborhood] knows so much about their property that they cannot sleep, hear the television or talk at home.
Other demonstrations abound, such as the dogs, man’s best friend. Some make the noble animal the object of display, dogs that must be the most expensive to walk wearing a shiny chain too.
Boasting about one’s advantageous financial situation makes one think of the sentences of José Martí, in the letter he wrote to Maria Mantilla, from Cape Haitian on April 8, 1895.
“…Too much shop, not enough soul. He who has much inside needs little outside. Whoever has a lot on the outside has a little on the inside, and wants to hide what little… ” “.
“…it is a human duty to cause pleasure instead of sorrow, and he who knows beauty respects and cares for it in others and in himself. But he will not put a jasmine in a Chinese vase: he will put the jasmine, alone and light, in a crystal of clear water. That’s the real elegance: that the glass is just the flower.
In the face of so much showing off, one might wonder if these ostentatious people lost their ability to admire the flower, influenced by the consumer society, which was alien to the roots and idiosyncrasies of the Cuban people.
(Taken from ACN)
By Liudmila Peña Herrera
digital@juventudrebelde.cu
Posted: Saturday 17th March 2018 | 09:38:34 PM
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Horseback riding was one of her favorite activities, until her doctor told her not to. Author: Liudmila Peña Herrera Published: 17/03/2018 | 09:12 pm
BÁGUANOS, Holguín: There’s no one who can turn ripe cherries into quince jelly that can be stored almost all year round like she does. She knows the secret of the rarest natural juices and the properties of each of the fruits as thoroughly as she knows laughter and friendship.
If you’re ever introduced to her, she never forgets you. And if you offer her your phone number, even if she doesn’t have enough money to pay for long-distance calls, she will manage to stay on the phone on all special dates and even those that may seem inconsequential to more earthly beings.
And I say earthly, because this artist of happiness, named Norma Bárbara Peña Sánchez, has a spirit only comparable to that of the angels. In the Holguin municipality of Báguanos – and far beyond its borders – everyone knows her as the Super Grandmother, because, even in her 80s, the old, cheerful and vivacious woman was still able to ride a horse (although her doctor had forbidden her to), climb up a ladder to the roof of her house and slide down the TV antenna tube (for fun and laughs), jump rope or do the “bicycle” exercise with her legs up.
She was 87 years old when I heard her sing for the first time, with her very delicate soprano voice and a passion for Carlos Gardel that overflowed her chest. It turned her, once again, into the 15-year-old girl who made her debut in the Supreme Court of Art with the songs Estrellita de Ponce and Silencio en la noche.
“Gonzalo Roig himself told me that I would win the competition, but I had no money to pay for applause, and the other two who were fighting for the prize were better off. Regretful about that, he gave me a role recommending me for the National Conservatory, where I was awarded a scholarship. I couldn’t study because I didn’t have any clothes and the classes were in Havana. Besides, one of my brothers got sick and I came to take care of him until he died,” Norma told me about seven years ago. That was when I went into the shrine of her room, where she venerated an image of Jesus Christ and another of the author of The Day When You Love Me on the same altar.
Friends say that in her house there has always been a space ready for any visitor, a sweet dish held for dessert and an unconditional refuge for art. And, Super-grandmother did not give her her own grandchildren, because life or destiny – she does not explain it very well – she was not given her the privilege of her own children. In the home where she spends her old age, she has never lacked the warmth of a hug and the tenderness of affection.
This very simple and funny woman has been tested by life on many occasions. The joy of her youth was struck by the final departure of many of her loved ones, including her young husband, whose death left her in deepest sorrow.
For a long time she visited the cemetery daily to remain motionless, with her little body curled up behind a cypress tree, waiting…. When she could no longer see anyone around her, she would lie face down on the tombstone. Night after night she did the same, and even slept over “to be near my dead”.
But that last time she did not hear the squawking of the doomsday bird, nor the crackling of the grass under the coarse boots of the spy. She only felt a big, bony hand holding her tightly over her shoulder:”Norma, come with me,” a familiar voice demanded. It was psychologist Fernando Martinez, who took her out of the cemetery to help her get rid of loneliness and depression through singing. Thanks to him – and many other friends – before she became his great-grandmother, Norma Peña became a community artist.
“I had no one else in the world, so I talked to her a lot and invited her to rehearse some songs to perform in front of a small group of people. Afterwards, we opened the doors to a wider audience and there was Báguanos in one piece, welcoming her with its applause,” recalls Fernando Martínez.
On the eve of her 95th birthday, this architect of joy no longer has the vitality of the past. Some ailments try to mortify her smile from time to time. Although her face is embroidered with the marks of the love and sorrow of the time she has lived to the fullest, Norma retains her soul as a dreamy girl. And for the children of the neighborhood, even without being able to throw cherries off the roof or slide down the antenna, she’s already a living legend. That must be why when they see her appear on the porth they tell themselves:”Look, there’s the Super Grandmother!”
Norma Peña became a community artist to overcome depression and nostalgia. Photo: Liudmila Peña Herrera
At the age of 87, Norma Peña did acrobatics such as jumping jacks and cycling. Photo: Liudmila Peña Herrera
One of the jokes that made her unforgettable was her mischievous way of sliding down the TV antenna to entertain the children. Photo: Liudmila Peña Herrera
By Lázaro Barredo. Cuban journalist. Former director of Granma newspaper and co-author of the book “El Camaján”. He now works as a journalist for Bohemia magazine.
February 26, 2018
Translated by machine with some hand editing by Walter Lippmann.
It’s too long to go over manually. You’ll get the idea as you read it.
https://walterlippmann.com/corruption-the-danger-which-threatens-us-all/
Political, judicial and administrative corruption is among the main problems that concern the vast majority of the nations of the planet today. It is the cause of social crises and discrediting of governments and parties, whose economic damage reaches worldwide, only in payments of bribes, the impressive figure of more than one billion dollars annually, according to investigations of specialized international organizations, such as the World Bank.
For Cuba, this scourge concentrates the fundamental aspects of business and administrative management. And, although it does not jeopardize its governance, it is not just an economic loss. Corruption constitutes a potential threat to national security. This is because those who practice it take advantage of, and use for their own benefit, the resources that the State has put in their hands for the development of its functions. It seeks to satisfy individual interests for profit and ostentation. In the degeneration of ethical, moral and political values, their commissars end up alienating themselves from the revolutionary process, even going so far as to prepare conditions for links abroad and to begin the path of treason against the homeland.
Corruption is a process or behavior that manifests itself is closely linked to crime. Their extended actions in the rendering of services provoke serious moral damage to the nation. It seriously undermines the credibility of the Revolution before public opinion and which the counterrevolutionary opposition attacks the desired effect in the maintenance of order, discipline, and institutionality of the country.
It is such a polluting phenomenon that it can generate apathy in many sectors of society. The greatest danger is that both the population and the economic actors do not give these facts with much concern, do not perceive the risk they represent to the nation, live with them and do not act with the necessary firmness.
Without citizen participation, there will be no effective pressure against corrupt actions that can often only be detected based on the living standard of those involved (hence the importance of transparency) because a large part of the resources resulting from criminal acts they market in the State’s own establishments, where they are introduced by those involved, who thus involve more people, and simulate the legality of sales, making it difficult to face them.
The honest citizen who goes out into the streets today in his efforts, does not always have a way of feeling defended as a consumer neither in the prices nor in the peace of mind that he will find solutions in the State entities themselves. Just go to a store to realize the kind of business that exists to prevent people from directly accessing state sales and are forced to careen in the “outsider” that is at the door of the same mall and offers you the human and the divine, many times out of the store’s own stores. Worse still is the process before administrative entities in which there are people who abuse their public function to those who must be given money “by the left” to be able to find solutions at the right time.
Novel ways of acting unlawfully
Since before the special period, we have been confronted in certain service areas with this degeneration, which has become increasingly acute due to the lack of administrative demands, and the intentional or negligent non-compliance of the control function by those responsible at different levels, which is the true source of causes and conditions that make it possible to divert resources, bribes and abuse of positions.
The measures in progress to update the Cuban economic model, essentially the new forms of non-state management of property, have generated pressure on the entities and their managers due to the demand for resources and services (in the absence of a wholesale market for raw materials to develop their activity), coupled with the dissatisfaction of essential needs, which undoubtedly affects the permissibility and acceptance of these facts.
Likewise, the increase in the prices of basic necessities, and the decrease in the purchasing power of salaries, are objective factors that impact on the actions of unscrupulous people, who justify their loss of values with what they have called “luchando” {literrally, “struggling”, but here meaning on the black market] Hence, the economic crimes associated with corruption maintain their negative impact on the sectors of the economy related to the production, distribution, marketing and the sale of food and other products in great demand. These range from criminal chains that involve managers, workers and security and protection forces, the self-employed and disengaged people who want to maintain a high standard of living with this “trapicheo” [slang term for illegality] The violation of functions, ethical norms, besides weak internal control and the apathy in the action within some workgroups, today constitutes the fundamental source of supplies to the illegal market.
Under these conditions, new forms of unlawful acts are repeated or have arisen through fraud, tax evasion, money laundering, falsification, obtaining illicit profits during commercial transactions or in the exercise of asset management, among others, with negative impact on the state economy, where officials and state employees are linked by their complicity.
Also in this context, authorities of the Office of the Prosecutor indicate the detection of a growing link with the exterior in the occurrence of criminal offenses. These are sometimes due to the use of new technologies and financial availability of some criminals, including emigrants, returnees and foreigners. Several of them have been linked to forms of non-state management, with a marked corrupting character towards managers and officials of state entities.
The most affected sectors are departments of local People’s Power entities, Commerce and Gastronomy, Agriculture, Transport, Food Industry, Housing System and Physical Planning, national importing companies and the activity of foreign trade and foreign branches in the country. This is where, In general, directors, economic and productive deputy directors, heads of basic business units, heads of legal departments and specialists are involved.
Now, in addition, a new nuance appears. Sometimes managers are not always the organizers of the illicit business, but in their place employees, drivers or other non-labor related debating as organizers of the events, using the financial power they possess. By exception, there have been cases of managers in agencies and the most unfortunate thing is that almost all are sold for trifles to benefit the corrupters.
The Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic has indicated that the reiteration of causes and conditions reveals the flaws in the internal control systems. There are also irregularities in economic planning and in the execution and liquidation of the budget, as well as the insufficient definition and non-compliance with the general regulatory mechanisms of the economy.
In addition, vulnerabilities are added to key activities, such as investments, negotiation processes and national and international contracting, which are violated in different ways, as well as cracks in social and labor discipline, and the loss of the value of work as the main way to make a living.
According to the last report by the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic and the Supreme People’s Court to the National Assembly, it was reiterated that there is still little response from agencies, companies and the rest of the administration in detecting the facts. This implies that the external control actions carried out by the specialized entities of the Ministry of the Interior, the General Prosecutor’s Office and the General Comptroller are carried out when the event occurred and the affectation to the state patrimony was generated.
The main modus operandi identified as 1) falsification of documents to justify the diversion of products and goods during their subsequent commercialization in state markets, stores and the illegal market; 2) adulteration of documents to legalize the adjudication of real estate or land, in exchange for cash or other personal benefits; 3) realization by cashiers of foreign exchange operations through Cadeca, without accounting them for carrying them out with particular cash; 4) payments to self-employed workers for work results that are not real; 5) Acceptance of benefits granted by executives of foreign firms during the process of negotiating and concluding contracts, consisting mainly of the acceptance of commissions, payments of trips abroad, dinners, gifts, among others; 6) illegal collection of medical services; 7) obtain benefits to delay or breach the execution of judgments of the courts and 8) organize and maintain particular illegal businesses parallel to the commercial activity of Cuban entities abroad.
When a person is corrupted, they can cause severe damage to the economy, not only to steal one or another resource, but to commit crimes that promote subversive activity and put the execution of strategic projects at risk.
Specialization in confronting corruption
Army General Raul Castro Ruz warned in July 2013 before the National Assembly of Popular Power: “The gradual implementation of new measures in the economic field that include forms of non-state management, experiments of different types and other decisions, will condition the manifestation of crimes and illegalities with different methods of organization, aimed at violating the accounting and administrative and legal criminal confrontation systems, such as investments by Cubans living abroad or through their families, and the use of of illicitly obtained capital, which becomes a variant of money laundering or money laundering “.
Talking about these issues in the Attorney General’s Office with Pedro Pablo Cutiño Diéguez, prosecutor-Chief of the Directorate for the Fight against Corruption and Illegalities, and with Alina Montesinos Lee, the chief prosecutor of the Information and Analysis Department, went out to It should be noted that in the Cuban legal system tools have been foreseen to prevent the occurrence of corruption.
These include from the elementary rules of accounting, internal control, auditing, the realization of fiscal verifications, all of these of eminently prophylactic and preventive character, up to those that allow the confrontation to the concrete fact detected, that go from the typical crimes, provided for and sanctioned in the Penal Code, up to the application of confiscatory administrative procedures of the goods obtained in an improper manner.
The crimes that are manifested in general and that concentrate acts of corruption are the following:
1) embezzlement; 2) bribe; 3) influence peddling; 4) tax evasion; 5) prevarication; 6) money laundering; 7) act to the detriment of the economic activity or contracting; 8) scam; 9) illicit negotiations; 10) disclosure of administrative secrets of production or services; 11) abuse in the exercise of position or employment in an economic entity; 12) disclosure of tests for teacher evaluation; 13) abuse of authority; 14 ) hiding or omitting data; 15) misappropriation and 16) illicit enrichment.
In our opinion, it may be unavoidable to accelerate the thinking about the need to work for an anti-corruption law in Cuba. This would strengthen the codification into a single legal norm of the principles, the relations between the institutional factors involved in combating and establishing norms basic actions of obligatory observance by all, which would increase the institutionality of the confrontation.
For the time being, the aforementioned tools are of vital importance in the adoption of the corresponding measures with the immediacy required to demand direct and collateral responsibility.
In the evaluation of the years 2016 and 2017, several dozen criminal proceedings have been conducted for acts of corruption. The main perpetrators were punished with severe prison sentences. The courts imposed the accessory penalty of the prohibition of the exercise of a profession, office or occupation, confiscation or confiscation of the acquired patrimony, as well as the requirement of civil liability derived from the crime, which was quantified in millions in total currency.
In carrying out the punishments, the location of the defendants in the prisons is monitored to ensure rigor in the fulfillment of the sentences.
Likewise, the Attorney General carried out control actions through investigations and verifications. These were mainly directed at activities related to Agriculture, Domestic Trade, Transportation, Food Industry, local bodies of People’s Power and non-state sectors (non-agricultural cooperatives and self-employment) in which violations of legality were detected, and for which disciplinary pronouncements were made against offenders and accomplices.
Also, between the end of 2015 and 2017, 23 confiscatory procedures were carried out under the Decree-Law 149 of 1994 for a total net worth of 135 million pesos, in the provinces of Pinar del Río, Mayabeque, La Habana, Matanzas, Cienfuegos, Sancti Spíritus, Las Tunas, Granma and Santiago de Cuba, where 25 people were recorded, among them several officials, and another 126 as third beneficiaries (some who acted as figureheads).
Among the main illegalities in which the expedited and their third-party beneficiaries intervened, are the falsification of notarized documents to evade tax obligations (mainly in the acquisition of vehicles and homes); subtraction of electricity for private businesses, granting of gifts to inspectors and other public officials, in order to gain the benefit and impunity of their actions.
In this period, there was an increase in popular participation the exercise of the constitutional right to address complaints and denunciations to state bodies and entities and the obligation of these bodies to offer the corresponding response.
In 2016, the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic received 196 complaints about corrupt phenomena through the different alternative means of communication established in that institution. This was part of the improvement of attention to citizens, both in personalized contacts, by telephone, mail, personal delivery, and website.
But the confrontation with the participation of citizens could be greater. There is confraternity before certain facts that are very difficult to face because there are no complaints or they are scarce. For example, it is evident that inefficiency reduces the quality of the entities that provide services to the public. Therefore, this encourages the client to offer money in exchange for receiving them. However, there are people to whom it is proposed to hand over gifts to public officials to resolve a management problem or a procedure, and they do not denounce it, so it is not possible to act. These facts are the ones that most demoralize and question the honesty of the country and the morality of most of its officials.
During one of the sessions of the National Assembly that analyzed the confrontation with crime, Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz pointed out: “… the question of the struggle for legality, for discipline and against those who commit crimes against the State property, it has to be very firm and very consistent … if not, it turns out that we will have defeated imperialism and the thieves will almost defeat us … “.
Confiscatory processes
In a case prosecuted in Havana for money laundering, forgery of public documents and tax evasion, an administrative confiscatory procedure of five houses and one farm, 23 cars, was applied to the main defendant. This was in accord with Decree Law No. 149/94. and multiple effects such as household appliances, furniture and other sumptuous objects for a capital valued at 25 million CUP.
The former warehouse manager of the Habana Bucanero SA branch, for crimes committed with the sale of beer, had confiscated an illegitimate patrimony valued at over five million 487,000 CUP, which included three highly comfortable buildings, a car and more than one million CUP in cash.
Part of the property confiscated, due to serious economic crimes, belonged to the ex-manager of the Habana Bucanero SA branch and her husband. He was a former sales manager of the Habana Bucanero branch. They were estimated an illegitimate patrimony valued at more than five million CUP, which included two buildings, modern cars and movables valued at more than two million 138,000 CUP. In this image, we can see the facade and general space of the floor and ceiling of the entire living room.
The alienation to which the profit and ostentation lead led the ex-manager of the Habana Bucanero SA branch and her husband, former sales manager of the Habana Bucanero branch, to give her son this Hyundai car purchased at 77,000 CUC, when he turned 18 years and enrolled in the University of Havana. The young man’s room had the following announcement on the door: “This room will not be a hotel, but it has everything included.”
Cases tried
We present to the readers some cases judged and punished with firm sentences. These have been published in bulletins on the website of the Supreme People’s Court (www.tsp.gob.cu).
The Court handed down judgment against nine officials of Etecsa, the integral construction company of Guantanamo and an intermediary of a foreign entity for the crimes of acts in detriment to economic activity or contracting, breach of duty to preserve the assets of economic entities, misappropriation and illicit economic activities, imposing punishments of deprivation of liberty between nine and four years, and a case with one year of deprivation of liberty subsidized by correctional work without internment. All the accessory measures of the case were also applied to all of them.
In the process, it was proven that the defendants, who worked as director of the East Territorial Directorate and head of logistics, respectively, in a dependency of the Cuban Telecommunications Company, in Havana (by its acronym, Etecsa), knew that the contract should not be done. It contained ambiguous clauses about the functions that each entity had to fulfill, because it defined the executor of the contract (the business unit of base Brigade No. 1, belonging to the Integral Construction Company of Guantánamo) as a supplier of materials, when, in fact, they knew that it was the foreign entity Jaba-Balear SL, which played that role.
In addition, the process of negotiating and concluding the contract was not accompanied by all the documents required by current legislation. This was because, had it been done so, the foreign representation could not have agreed to business, as it had no registration in the Chamber of Commerce nor did it contain any reference in the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Trade for its operation in the national territory, and that lack, which was known to all the signatories, invalidated its existence.
On the other hand, the general director of the Integral Construction Company of Guantánamo made models of request of purchases of foreign currency, together with another defendant, even though in that institution there was no copy of the contract with Etecsa and, in addition, he knew that this payment it had not been approved by the Currency Committee, of which they were the most responsible.
However, they encouraged payments to be made to Jaba-Balear SL that did not have documentary or accounting support, which is why this lack cannot be understood as an act of no importance or significance because those responsible were aware of its content and cooperated effectively with your result
Other defendants also had full knowledge of the illegality of the negotiation when the liquidation process of the construction company took place and, nevertheless, they continued with it and consented to accounting procedures regarding offers, invoices and advance payments that caused economic damage to the company.
The continuation of works execution by an extinct brigade resulted in the issuance of work certifications for a contract that was not audited and did not have financial backing.
Several punished workers had working links with Cuban companies, where they had to ensure the material and financial resources that made up the patrimony of these entities, and in the exercise of their functions, they failed to the integrity of their positions because they took pride in their performance indifference, harmful conduct and reprehensible.
One defendant, who worked as an accountant, had among her obligations to verify the relevance of the anticipated payments from the fulfillment of the contracts that were made in her entity. However, when issuing a check requested by another of the recipients, he did not review the documents that protected it. Thus it worked, in a deliberate way, in spite of that, in previous occasions, they had returned others to him not to be pertinent.
One of the defendants was also severely punished for other illicit acts that damaged the monetary funds of several Cuban entities. Personal greed and the purpose of benefiting the foreigner for whom he worked, caused losses of vital resources for the economic development of the country.
For the crime of bribery, two customs officers were sanctioned in Havana with eight and six years of deprivation of liberty, respectively, to whom the corresponding accessory measures were also applied, for having acted in concert in the demand for money, violating its functions, to obtain economic advantages.
Both defendants asked for money to pass the items of certain travelers in the place of review, evading the surveillance cameras, and required the tickets to deposit them inside the passports. With this behavior that violated the law, they attacked the probity, honesty and transparency of the institution and the country.
Another case filed by the Court some time ago occurred in Mayabeque, where a group of people developed a sequence of events with the common goal of seizing an important amount of money simulating a fictitious agricultural production. In that way towards the crime they elaborated false documents to obtain the capital disbursement in each operation.
For this reason, six officials and employees with deprivation of liberty between 15 and five years were punished, and the corresponding accessory measures were imposed for the crimes of embezzlement, forgery of banking and commercial documents of a continuing nature, breach of duty to preserve property. in economic entities, falsification of continuous public documents, reception, and illegal possession and possession of weapons or explosives.
In this case, a quality control technician of a company was discretionally appointed to make purchases of garlic and became the central axis of the criminal activities that took place: had the idea, nucleated the participants, looked for mechanisms to organize a fruitful business for all those involved.
The implicated committed the head of balance of the Base Business Unit so that, in common agreement with the other defendants, he participated in the defalco. The contribution of this official was a precedent so that the illicit business could be executed. The same was done with the head of establishment of Batabanó, who processed the invoices of garlic not produced, bought, balanced and signed the fictitious purchases with the active complicity of other operators or controllers, who in turn falsified the reception reports to originate the financial reimbursements.
As part of the political-criminal evaluation of the case, it was also proven that the main responsible person carried out other actions such as committing the head of operations of a basic business unit in Batabanó, subject to the electricity company, to deliver three transformers and 1,500 meters of wire, which was recorded in official documents as having been placed in the irrigation system in agriculture. In addition, he ordered a driver to take them to his home, an act that in itself was a crime.
The Court declared the facts against a civil servant of the municipal directorate of Housing in Artemis accused of the crimes of bribery, fraud and falsification of documents, and imposed the sanction of 10 years of deprivation of liberty, with the accessory of the case.
This official demanded gifts to perform acts inherent to their functions of interviewing and taking statements, measuring boundaries and investigating procedures and litigation, as well as preparing conclusive reports of the investigation. All this work is the basis of the draft resolutions and decisions that are adopted in the municipal direction of Housing. In the process, it was demonstrated that in this criminal offense the civil servant demanded remuneration for her benefit and then, in the procedures and documents, “legalized” the illegalities committed by certain citizens.
Two persons in charge of an entity in Santiago de Cuba were sanctioned for the crimes of embezzlement and falsification of bank and commercial documents, and deprived of liberty with 12 and eight years, respectively, with the accessory measures of the case, after the execution of unlawful acts to profit with the appropriation of certain sums of money.
They used their functions and work content to falsify the payroll of their work center when making the payment of the money extracted from the banking agency for wages and vacations of the workers. In this case, it was about salaries of doctors left to earn.
The Supreme People’s Court heard and ratified the criminal proceedings against 12 citizens, officials and bank employees sanctioned by the People’s Provincial Court of Havana for the crimes of bribery, forgery of bank and commercial documents, embezzlement, illicit economic activities, breach of obligations in economic entities and falsification of private documents. The sentences of deprivation of liberty ranged between 15 and two years, with the accessory of the case.
To achieve its purpose, the main defendant devised the complex criminal phenomenon and achieved the joint participation of individuals with certain levels of organization and distribution of tasks, which is classified within the modern forms of organized criminal association.
In this case, two citizens linked to a foreign firm were the perpetrators of the crime of bribery when they handed over sums of money and other material benefits to officials and employees of Banco Internacional de Comercio SA to facilitate their efforts. This assured them a privileged treatment, the streamlining of information and management in the financial and commercial operations they developed.
A bank business manager in that entity, violating its functions, facilitated the disappearance of funds by means of payment formulas because, without verifying the file and not complying with the most elementary banking rules, it made four different messages with a letter of credit and a single recipient, action that led to the embezzlement of one million 134 278.89 euros.
Then, despite being required by reason of its position to verify that the amounts transferred were debited in favor of the entity accredited in the file at Banco Internacional de Comercio SA, it did not review the pertinent documentation and without previously issuing notice of payment to the Position Department, which was to authorize the movement of funds. He ignored the procedures on the advice of his boss, as he justified.
According to the court, if it were accepted as justification that the subordinates always do what the superiors command, it would not make sense to establish the functions and content of work for the intermediate positions. The truth is that the accused allowed with their actions that the State be embezzled the aforementioned sum of money.
Another defendant, the letter of credit manager of that institution, consciously authorized the final withdrawal of funds from the accounts of Banco Internacional de Comercio SA abroad, after the previous manager had prepared the four payment messages separately, broken down into 300 569.72 euros, 266 569.72 euros, 250 000.00 euros and 317 139.45 euros.
Another manager was sanctioned before the visible violation of the elementary norms of computer security, because, knowing the transcendence of the operations that could be done from his computer, he left it on, abandoned his job and neglected the security measures, which provoked that someone unknown issued a fictitious payment message in the amount of 861 525.25 euros.
Another manager was also sanctioned for the same reason, once leaving his office, leaving the computer on with the open system, and in another, for going to a beauty salon and leaving his access code activated, which led to that people outside your position used your machine to make transfers.
Meanwhile, the main defendant, with the unlawful support of other defendants, knowing the legal prohibitions, created a fictitious company with the objective of financing, handed out photocopies of passports for that purpose and signed a request stating the need to obtain finance for said company.
On January 29, 2008, he went, together with another of the defendants, to the Representative Office of Republic Bank Ltd. in Havana, where they created in favor of B & B Finance Ltd. the bank account number 003111120739, with Amicorp Management Limited as rector that would allow a third defendant to be a signatory and sole shareholder.
The documentary and banking procedure for the creation of false entities was executed with the purpose of acquiring illegitimate capital gains from commercial operations, consisting of financial intermediation actions, loans and discounts of credit documents, in favor of foreign financial companies that operated in Cuba.
As the judgment of the Supreme People’s Court expresses this situation of corruption affects the credit of the banking institution and the officials who represent it.
The owner of all these belongings was enriched by acts of corruption abroad and upon his return to Cuba incurred in money laundering, tax evasion, forgery of public documents and bribery, so it was processed an administrative confiscation file against him and eight frontmen resident in Baire and Havana, for an illegitimate patrimony calculated in seven million 42,000 CUP, which includes several real estate, auto and other goods, and a warehouse of electrical household appliances.
(Taken from Bohemia )
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE:
In English, a billion is a thousand million: 1,000,000,000
in Spanish, a billion is a million million: 1,000,000,000,000
It’s so interesting to be here during the time of nomination (January) and now consideration of the candidates for 6 weeks until the March 11 elections for National Assembly. While everyday life goes on seemingly unperturbed, there was a strong undercurrent of hopefulness and anticipation as the candidates were rolled out at the start of the month. This is the big one, the one where there will be a new president. More it is the first generational change in top leadership since the start of the Revolution.
A lot of hard work at all levels has gone into preparing for these elections over the past year or year and a half and the rollout was accompanied by a lot of fanfare.
There are a number of things the elections are not.
These are slate elections, not competitive elections. These are not party elections with varying platforms from which to choose. The Communist Party sets the direction and goals for the country and so voting the party up or down is not at play. Not all candidates for the National Assembly are in the Communist Party or even in the Communist Youth. As membership in the party is considered a badge of honor and merit rather than an affiliation (see below as to how people join the party), it is weighed among other criteria as the electoral commission tries to achieve a balance of representation of the existing society. A complicated concept for those of us with a different set if criteria.
(In Cuba, joining the party is a rigorous process of nomination, review, probation, and approval. Obviously, some bad apples slip through but it is considered a privilege and responsibility, not a bene to be in the party, not a right of position or privilege, and there are as many simple workers in the party as so-called elites).
There is no individual campaigning. The fact that these are block (slate) elections, of course, makes such competition unnecessary. You are voting up or down.
Here is what the elections are.
The first step in the national election process took place late January, as I said. 12,000 candidates were proposed in 970 meetings of the mass organizations — Cuban Central Trade Organization, Committees for Defense of the Revolution, The Cuban Women’s Federation, The National Small Farmers’ Association, the University Students Federation, and the High School Students Federation.
The Election Commision with subcommissions throughout the country at the provincial and local levels then sifted through the 12,000 visiting the institutions, organizations and work centers of the nominees as well as the neighborhoods in which they live, conducting interviews and collecting opinions and impressions. The goal was to ensure the proposal included 50 % municipal assembly representatives, members of civil society, candidates representative of the varying interests at the local, provincial and national level.
The findings then went district by district to the 168 Municipal Assemblies (12,515 local representatives who been voted in at the municipal level in the fall elections ) who then made the final nominations for their districts. All voters 16 or over in each district will be voting (up or down) for the candidates to represent their district in the National Assembly. Voting is not compulsory but usually is between 87 and 95%.
And if you think this sounds complicated, it sure seems so to me too and I hope I haven’t gotten any of it wrong. (You can see the Cubans national elections site on the web, with charts and graphs, www.cubaenelecciones.cu or at www.cubadebate.com)
So where have we ended up?
287 of the 605 candidates to National Assembly (47.4%) are currently local delegates to the municipal assemblies. Every district has at least two candidates, one of which is a local delegate.
338 of the nominees are first-time candidates
The average age is 49, with 80 candidates between 18 and 35 years of age.
53.2% of the candidates are women.
38% are considered Afro Cuban or mestizo.
The historic generation of the Revolution is well represented but 89.25% of candidates were born after the Revolution, that is after Jan 1, 1959.
Other than ensuring that every district has at least one delegate? The further breakdown on the election website mentioned previously is
28 are farmers or members of farming cooperatives
24 are in scientific and other kinds of research
12 are in sports
47 are in education
22 in the armed forces
4 are small private business entrepreneurs or self-employed
39 are local, provincial or national leaders of mass organizations (such as CDR, FMC)
11 are leaders of social or civic organizations
9 are student leaders
4 are members if religious organizations
46 are political body leaders
7 are judges or other members of the justice system
41 are members of the government, meaning ministers or similar kinds of posts
22 are members of fiscal, administrative and other types of bureaucratic offices
That may not add up to 605 as I may have missed some. You can go yourselves to www.eleccionesencuba.cu and see anything I’ve missed. For instance, I haven’t noticed who’re candidates from culture and the arts, and I won’t have a chance to sort that out before sending this.
So there is no campaigning as I think I said.
Still, as everyone is voting for candidates from their own district, if people have gone to any of the neighborhood meetings, or pay attention to sports, news, or television many of the candidates will be known.
Candidates have been posted in the newspapers with their pictures, age, occupation and organizational affiliations, and in special voting supplements. All candidates are also posted in multiple locations in the district where they are candidates, with the same information and alongside, a list of voters in that district (everyone over the age of 16). All candidates are also posted on television repeatedly throughout the day, province by province, 3 at a time.
The big question, of course, is who will be president. The president is elected by the new National Assembly once seated, so it will be April.
Speculation is rampant, centering not just on the so-called obvious successor, Vice President Diaz Canal but on two others in leadership, one in Havana and one in Santiago, both young and very well liked.
What we do know (we think) is that for the first time in Cuban history since the Revolution it won’t be a Castro. And it won’t be a member of what’s known as the historic generation.
It’s a very exciting time to be in Cuba. No one can be sure what’s ahead and while the country is moving ahead slowly along its chosen path, too slowly for many, moving ahead it is. Despite the local defeatists, cynics and naysayers one encounters, there’s still a sense of peace and stability rather than uncertainty and not either a sense of resignation. As a friend and strong supporter of the Revolution told me yesterday after a heated discussion with his 35-year-old son, “He told me, ‘look, Dad, we don’t agree on a lot of things but it’s still my country and my Revolution too. When push comes to shove, if anything happens you know I will be with you on the same side.'” Which he took to mean that even for the discontented youth, dignity, sovereignty, peace and well being are the paramount values and vision.
As I face going home to the cynical cartoon of government in Washington, the aftermath of another mass shooting in a school, and all the uncertainties we face on a daily basis, it’s a vision I wish I could look forward to too.
Merri
Havana February 16, 2018
As written with one finger on a phone, please excuse all typos. Please also excuse and feel free to forward verified corrections.
Please also forward to anyone you feel will be interested
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
Cubans are going to the polls on Sunday, March 11th to elect members of the Provincial Assemblies of People’s Power and deputies to the National Assembly of Cuba.
From this democratic exercise will emerge the new Cuban parliament and its superior body, the new Council of State, which in turn will elect the new president of the Republic of Cuba, the successor to General Raúl Castro Ruz who has been in charge of the government of the nation since 2008.
Raúl initially occupied the position by a statutory substitution, as President Fidel Castro Ruz became ill and it was incumbent upon him to replace him in accordance with his duties as First Vice-President. During the two consecutive presidential terms that followed, he was elected by the will of the citizens expressed at the ballot box, President of the State Councils and Ministers.
But this time Raul has announced his decision not to run for re-election.
Raúl Castro has been, since the beginning of the armed struggle against Batista’s tyranny, the second figure in the leadership of the revolution. His performance at the head of the government has earned him an increase in the prestige he already had for his performance at the head of the country’s defense.
No one questions his authority and the enormous popularity among the people that would enable him to continue in the presidential office in a new period. But Raul Castro himself has advocated the need to work for the renewal of the leaders of the revolution and the government, which, in the eyes of the people, has made it necessary to abide by his decision not to continue in office in the payment of a debt of gratitude to his President.
For more than six decades, Cuba has been engaged in a permanent war of resistance with the American superpower, in which an extraordinary trust of the island’s population in its historical leaders has been forged.
Neither Raul nor any other figure of great revolutionary authority in the population has indicated his preference for any individual for the highest state office, abiding by principles that the historical leadership of the revolution has defended and practiced of preferring the progressive renewal of leaders and cadres from the roots.
The design of the Cuban electoral system was based on contributions from constitutional lawyers and other specialists committed to the independence and respect for the will of the Cuban people. It is not a copy of other systems, although it is based on the results of the analysis of texts prepared by the founding independentistas of the Cuban nation. It’s also based on a study by Cuban experts of electoral systems of many countries in Latin America and other nations of the world. All this was systematically enriched by the practice of a population with an incomparably higher level of education and culture than before the revolutionary triumph of 1959.
In Cuba there exists, by constitutional requirement, a single party that, however, is not an electoral party nor does it participate at all in the electoral processes. Rather, it acts as the binding authority of all the people in order to defend the independence of the nation and prevent its absorption by the neighboring imperialist superpower. This is a latent danger since Cuba ceased to be a Spanish colony after bloody liberating wars from 1868 to the ending of the 19th century, based on many heroes and great sacrifices.
Election advertising is prohibited on the island today. Neighbors of the communities elect their delegates from among themselves, who are members of the municipal assemblies, an exercise that is the essential basis of the system’s total democracy.
In the municipal assemblies made up of delegates from the base, candidates are elected to be members of the provincial assemblies and deputies to the National Assembly of People’s Power.
The latter elects the Council of State, composed of some twenty members, and the latter elects its President, the Head of State, who is also the head of the Government.
All elected representatives, from the base delegates to the President of the Republic, are required to report on their performance several times during the year to those who elected them.
The initial inspiration has been Greek democratic assemblies. However, unlike those, from which slaves were excluded, the voters are men and women; white, black and mestizo; civil and military: the whole range of Cuban society. There are no no limits other than those that restrict the rights of some whose legal sanction, determines it, and which is imposed by the corresponding judicial authorities.
The system is still perfectible. But its statutes require that any modification must always be aimed at bringing the country’s political leadership closer to the people, bearing in mind the essential fact that the hegemonic power in Cuba is always and only in the hands of the Cuban people.
March 8, 2018
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
By Leyanis Infante Curbelo
leyanis@juventudrebelde.cu
Translated and edited by
Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Our history is still being written. The story of three Chinese-Cuban generals in the Cuban Revolution is the proposal with which the American publisher Pathfinder brought to the 27th edition of the International Book Fair of Havana, in a second edition of the text, in this case with versions in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Originally published in 2006, the volume was enriched with new photographs and updated context information, according to Martin Koppel, editor of the Spanish-language version, during Tuesday’s presentation at the Casa del Alba Cultural.
The protagonists of these pages are Cuban generals Armando Choy, Gustavo Chui and Moisés Sío Wong (already deceased), all of Chinese descent, who, through a series of interviews, conducted by members of the publishing house for several years, share their experiences in the revolutionary struggle and important moments of the Cuban Revolution, such as the war in Angola or the harsh years of the Special Period.
Cuban generals Armando Choy and Gustavo Chui. Photo: Maykel Espinosa Rodríguez
Something is very clear from the very first lines of this book of testimony: one cannot talk about the history of Cuba without mentioning Chinese participation in it.
The book is divided into three main thematic and historical sections. The first tells about the future of three young people and their incorporation into the struggles against the tyranny of Fulgencio Batista and the Revolution led by Fidel Castro. In addition, it offers a panorama, always from a personal dimension, of the formation of the Chinese community in Cuba.
A second chapter covers the years of Angola’s epic era between 1975 and 1991, and the implementation in Cuba of the concept of war of the whole people in the 1980s, following the aggressive escalation of the US government led by Ronald Reagan.
Up to the most current moments of the Revolution, the third and last section approaches, beginning with the start of the so-called Special Period. In this book, the reader will find anecdotes and reflections on the deep economic crisis that the Cuban nation went through in the 1990s, after the fall of the Socialist Camp, the search for alternatives and the relationship with the Bolivarian Revolution since 1998.
A fundamental principle is at the heart of the book’s pages, because from the fiber and the actions of its protagonists, we discover some Cuban-Chinese who believe that a better world is possible, but only with a socialist revolution.
One of the greatest merits of the text, according to Koppel, is the possibility of bringing together millions of men and women who changed their social reality and became different human beings.
Mary-Alice Waters and Martin Koppel, editors of the English and Spanish versions respectively. Photo: Maykel Espinosa Rodríguez
What began as an interview for the Socialist Workers’ Party newspaper in the United States in which the editors are active, became a major project, which lasted for several years and more than 12 interviews and ended up as one of Pathfinder’s best-selling and most popular books.
Mary-Alice Waters, editor-in-chief of the English-language edition and chief interviewer, spoke of the tremendous impact the book has had outside Cuba, mainly in the United States, Canada, Britain and Australia. No book published by Pathfinder in recent decades has been so widely disseminated internationally,”he said.
The work already has a significant track record, with presentations in more than 25 countries. More than 15,000 copies have been sold and it has translations into English, Chinese, and soon French, which guarantees its acceptance. In the case of the United States, it has presented itself in more than 20 cities and as many universities.
Along with all of the above, the editors consider that there are other reasons that make the book relevant: Through its pages readers will discover that Cuba was the first destination of large-scale Chinese emigration in the nineteenth century, will be surprised by the great participation of Chinese in the wars of independence against Spain between 1868 and 1898 and, Above all, it is clear that, unlike many countries in the world, discrimination and prejudice against Cubans of Chinese descent no longer exist, thanks to the social revolution that triumphed in Cuba in 1959.
Additionally, they point out that the Cuban Revolution, its beginnings, and most recent history continue to capture the interest of many people around the world, especially from a working class that seeks answers and alternatives to the crisis situation they have recently experienced and are still experiencing.
For General Gustavo Chui, this book is a tribute to Chinese emigration to Cuba in the 19th century, which fought tenaciously to settle in our country, assume its customs and participated in its wars of independence and social struggles in the compromised Republic. That’s why we say that our history is still being written, because from the contribution of our ancestors until today, we continue to be intertwined in every stage of Cuban history.
Chui added that although at first, they thought it was a book for Cubans, then they understood the importance that it could have outside the country, as it was a way to tell the story of the Cuban Revolution and transmit its message.
Cuban readers approached this publication through the Political Editor of the Party’s Central Committee in 2006, so this new presentation of Our History… offers the opportunity to acquire this title, currently sold out in Cuba, at Pathfinder’s booth in the San Carlos de La Cabaña fortress.
The presentation of this second edition was also attended by Caridad Diego, member of the Party’s Central Committee and president of the Friendship Society Cuba-China; General Harry Villegas (Pombo) and members of the Cuban Revolution Fighters Association and the community of the Asian country in the country.
Pathfinder publishing house brings together more than two decades of work with Cuban authors and has published more than a dozen books on our Revolution – which Martin Koppel considers an example for workers and young people in the United States – and its protagonists.
Other titles brought to the Fair this year by the publishing house. Photo: Maykel Espinosa Rodríguez
An avalanche of readers waited for the signing of these heroes in their books. Photo: Maykel Espinosa Rodríguez
By Author: Ricardo Ronquillo Bello
ronquillo@juventudrebelde.cu
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Which is most important in a modern, interconnected society: the prevalence of a broad system of public ownership of the media or the confidence of its recipients? Does the type of media ownership itself guarantee the much-contested credibility? These, like others, are among the questions we must ask ourselves in Cuba, which has begun the path towards updating its model of socialism.Or perhaps the question should be rephrased: does the monopoly of public ownership of the media guarantee it a monopoly of credibility, influence and authority?
The degree of public exposure and information currently available requires that discourse, in order to be effective, legitimize itself before public opinion.
Julio García Luis, Doctor in Communication Sciences, maintained that, of course, there are monopolies on media discourse, big monopolies, part of a grotesque tyranny, with different scales, local, regional, world-wide; but these subsist for their apparent porosity, for their ability to blend, for their feigned independence from the real power. On the contrary, what is difficult today would be a monopoly of airtight claims such as those already known.
He added that ideology, whether or not carried out through discourse, is what allows the world to be perceived –with deforming prisms or sharpness-. It is what makes it possible to organize the power and exercise of hegemony, and it is what gives the capacity to control the components of society.
In the Cuban case, he said, this control cannot be based on deception, on the manipulation of symbols, but on adequate information, interpretation, persuasion and conviction of the great majority of the public.
Social networks, citizen journalism, among other phenomena, are radically changing the traditional ways in which so-called public opinion and consensus is formed.
So, other questions we must ask ourselves are: How do we build consensus in the information society in which we inexorably enter? What role does journalism play in the construction of an authentic and credible hegemony of revolutionary ideology? How can communication systems appropriate the new tools to move towards more democratic and participatory forms? How can we guarantee greater authority and influence in front of increasingly dispersed audiences?
The truth is that [today] Cuba’s public communication system is challenged to reformulate its authority before the public, based on the only thing that guarantees it: credibility. It is something that is possible not only with a change in the media model, but in the entire communicational model of society, and with a truly revolutionary conception that would define the press as one of the forms of popular control.
Research in recent years shows that this structural weakness has different dimensions, and therefore what is at issue in the new conjuncture is to consider a structural change, as was outlined on the last congress of the Union of Journalists (UPEC) and on successive professional and political meetings.
In order to overcome these tendencies, in addition to trained professionals, we have the strength of a journalistic and revolutionary tradition based on the deepest vocation of service inherited from the nation’s founders. Among them was Father Félix Varela, who, in approaching the function and scope of journalism, pointed out: “I renounce the pleasure of being applauded for the satisfaction of being useful to the fatherland”. His brilliant and faithful follower, José Martí, though the press should be the keeper of the country house: “He must disobey the appetites of personal good, and pay impartial attention to the public good”.
That legacy should also be useful for those accustomed to apology, silences and the twists and turns that never failed to arise in the complex path of building socialism.
There are basic reasons to consider the unfeasibility of our continuing with the model of institutional dependency and reaffirmation journalism that prevailed as a rule until today, and to grow towards another one of confrontation of the best revolutionary ideas.
Verticalist and reaffirmation journalism*, –although it allowed the great consensus that the country needed to forge against the aggressiveness of the US, and to structure a model of society under very specific historical conditions– distorted media’s function as a check and balance, which occurred alongside that of other structures of democratic confrontation in the country.
This happens at a time when the Revolution is updating its economic model, as the first step towards gradual transformations, on which, as we are already doing -not without difficulties and misunderstandings. We have a historical responsibility to help create the necessary political consensus and professional vigilance, in order to avoid distortion of its scope.
We cannot ignore the fact that the Revolution is about to go into its toughest test of fire: the relay of the historical generation, while the Cuban media gradually, albeit inexorably, loses its monopoly of influence, as a result of the rise of new technologies.
In this readjustment, the Cuban public press must have an expedited path to support civic debate and revolutionary counter-attack.
*TRANSLATOR’S NOTE:
Verticalism means, roughly, decisions made from above.
Reaffirmation, means, roughly, supports the Revolution.
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