Tag Archives: Human Rights

Reporters Without Borders: Again Cuba’s “Freedom of the Press” is the Worst in the Henmisphere

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Arch Ritter

No surprises here. Once again, Cuba unfortunately comes last in the Hemisphere in a ranking regarding human rights. In this case. Reporters without Borders annual Freedom of the Press Report for 2011 comes to the conclusion that observers of Cuba are familiar with, namely that freedom of expression in Cuba exists only in the minds of the members of the Politburo of the  Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.

The full report can be found here: Reporters without Borders, Press Freedom Index, 2011-2012. The Website for the Report is here: http://en.rsf.org/. The Reporters without Borders coverage on Cuba is here: Cuba Page.

Below is a quick summary of the methodology used by RWB for the calculation of its index.

“The ranking reflects the situation during a specific period. This year’s index takes account of events between 1 December 2010 and 30 November 2011. It does not look at human rights violations in general, just press freedom violations.

To compile this index, Reporters Without Borders prepared a questionnaire with 44 main criteria indicative of the state of press freedom. It asks questions about every kind of violation directly affecting journalists and netizens (including murders, imprisonment, physical attacks and threats) and news media (censorship, confiscation of newspaper issues, searches and harassment). And it establishes the degree of impunity enjoyed by those responsible for these press freedom violations. It also measures the level of self-censorship in each country and the ability of the media to investigate and criticize. Financial pressure, which is increasingly common, is also assessed and incorporated into the final score.

The questionnaire takes account of the legal framework for the media (including penalties for press offences, the existence of a state monopoly for certain kinds of media and how the media are regulated) and the level of independence of the public media. It also reflects violations of the free flow of information on the Internet.

Reporters Without Borders has taken account not only of abuses attributable to the state, but also those by armed militias, clandestine organizations and pressure groups.”

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Brazil’s President Flexes Clout in Cuba Trip

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Arch Ritter

Rousseff Offers Closer Economic Ties, Reflecting Nation’s Bid for Greater Regional Leadership; Human Rights Remain Issue

By JOHN LYONS And JOSÉ DE CÓRDOBA

Wall St. Journal, 1 February 2012

SÃO PAULO, Brazil—President Dilma Rousseff offered closer economic cooperation to Cuba during a visit to the communist island on Tuesday, marking Brazil’s highest-profile bid to transform its growing economic might into diplomatic leadership in Latin America.

Brazil’s state development bank is financing a $680 million rehabilitation of Cuba’s port at Mariel. Work on the port is being managed by the Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht SA, which may also provide support for Cuba’s sugar industry, Brazilian officials have said.

CUBA

Cuban President Raúl Castro, left, and his Brazilian counterpart, Dilma Rousseff, review the honor guard at Revolution Palace in Havana on Tuesday.

Ms. Rousseff’s closer engagement of Cuba—she is visiting the island before a trip to the White House— is the latest example of Brazil’s strategy to expand its regional influence by offering subsidized loans to poorer nations. In recent years, Brazil has disbursed tens of billions of dollars around Latin America, and as far away as Africa.

But none of these efforts have the same symbolic resonance as in Cuba, which has opposed the U.S. since shortly after Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution and remains a lightning rod in U.S. domestic politics and a sticking point for U.S. relations with other Latin nations.

“This is about growing Brazil’s soft power on the international scale and raising Brazil’s role in the world,” said Matthew Taylor, a Brazil specialist at the American University’s School of International Service. “Brazil is taking on a bigger role in the hemisphere in terms of aid and finance, and by helping out Cuba they really draw attention to this new role they are playing.”

Although the U.S. has been the predominant power broker in Latin America since the introduction of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, experts say the U.S. doesn’t oppose Brazil’s bid for regional influence. Many analysts say they believe Brazil could become a stabilizing force in a region known for political and economic volatility.

In Cuba, for example, Brazil may provide a more moderate alternative to the impoverished island’s main economic benefactor, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Mr. Chávez, a self-described foe of the U.S., delivers some 100,000 barrels of oil and refined products to Cuba a day in exchange for the services of Cuban doctors for Venezuelans in poor neighborhoods, along with other barter arrangements.

Cuba, meanwhile, is desperate for economic lifelines. Raúl Castro, who has taken over the presidency from his ailing brother Fidel, has experimented with limited economic overhauls in order to bring life into a moribund economy, where citizens are still issued ration books that allow them access to some basic foods at subsidized prices.

“The more normal Cuba’s economic relations are, the easier normalization with the U.S. will be in the future,” said Archibald Ritter, an expert on the Cuban economy at Canada’s Carleton University.

“I would imagine that the U.S. would privately hope that Brazil will play a mediating role in issues that concern us, like human rights,” said Cynthia Arnson, the director of the Latin American program at Washington’s Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Still, during Tuesday’s visit, Ms. Rousseff criticized the existence of the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, where terror suspects are held, and the U.S. trade embargo, which she said contributes to poverty on the island.

And it is unclear how far Ms. Rousseff might go to nudge Cuba toward a more democratic society. She declined requests for meetings by Cuban dissidents, and has said she won’t press the Castro brothers on the island’s human-rights record.

“Human rights aren’t a stone to be thrown from one side to another,” she said in Havana on Tuesday. This week, Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota said human rights aren’t an “emergency” issue in Cuba. Last month, Cuban political prisoner Wilmar Villar died in jail after a 50-day hunger strike. Activists said he was protesting being jailed for taking part in a political demonstration. The Cuban government has said Mr. Villar was a common prisoner and wasn’t on a hunger strike when he died of complications from pneumonia.

As a young woman, Ms. Rousseff participated in a Marxist guerrilla group in Brazil that was inspired by the Cuban revolution. But the fact that she was jailed and tortured by Brazil’s military dictatorship had raised hopes that she might be more sympathetic to the plight of political prisoners than her predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who over the years disparaged Cuban hunger strikers.

Observers said the case of Yoani Sánchez, a Cuban blogger who criticizes the Castro regime, may offer clues to changes in Brazilian human-rights policy. Brazil granted Ms. Sánchez a visa, and observers said if Cuba allows her to visit, then Ms. Rousseff may be using engagement to yield some human-rights advances.

In a blog post on Tuesday, Ms. Sánchez said she hoped Ms. Rousseff would meet with human-rights activists in Cuba and in so doing keep faith with “the many voices of democracy rather than opt for a complicit silence before a dictatorship.”

For generations, Brazilian leaders have yearned for prominence in foreign affairs commensurate with its population of 190 million and sprawling geography. The country has lobbied, unsuccessfully, for decades for a seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Such aspirations were the butt of jokes during generations of economic and political turmoil. That started to change a nearly a decade ago, when Brazil began an economic expansion that lifted millions out of poverty and transformed the resource-rich nation into what some economists estimate is the world’s sixth-largest economy—a notch ahead of the U.K.

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Castro Rights Record Intrudes on Rousseff Trade Mission to Communist Cuba (Bloomberg)

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Arch Ritter

Bloomberg; 30 January 2012

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who was inspired by Cuba’s revolution to take up arms against Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1960s, is making the two-day visit to Havana as Castro takes steps to ease state control of the economy.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who was inspired by Cuba’s revolution to take up arms against Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1960s, is making the two-day visit to Havana as Castro takes steps to ease state control of the economy. Photographer: Adalberto Roque/AFP/Getty Images

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff will meet today with her Cuban counterpart, Raul Castro, to promise more trade and investment as human rights issues intrude on her first state visit to the communist island.

Rousseff, who was inspired by Cuba’s revolution to take up arms against Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1960s, is making the two-day visit to Havana as Castro takes steps to ease state control of the economy. Tomorrow she’ll travel to Haiti, where Brazil is leading a United Nations peacekeeping force.

Dilma Rousseff befor a military court, 1970

The death this month of jailed dissident Wilman Villar after a 50-day hunger strike has drawn attention in Brazil’s media to Castro’s rights record and the government’s refusal to criticize it. While Rousseff has so far ignored requests for a meeting from pro-democracy activists, her government last week granted a tourist visa to Yoani Sanchez after the Cuban blogger invoked the president’s experience surviving prison and torture in an appeal to be allowed to leave the island.

“Rousseff is going to be in a very awkward situation by choice,” former Brazilian Foreign Minister Luiz Felipe Lampreia said in a phone interview from Rio de Janeiro. “She didn’t have to go to Cuba.”

Rousseff vowed to make human rights a priority of her foreign policy, and in condemning abuses in Iran distanced herself from the policies of her predecessor and mentor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Urged on by his Workers’ Party, some of whose leaders were exiled in Cuba, Lula refused to criticize Fidel Castro or his brother’s government while in power from 2003 to 2010. Following a visit in 2010, which coincided with the death of another hunger striker, the former union leader compared the country’s dissidents to “criminals” in Sao Paulo jails.

While Rousseff, 64, is unlikely to address Cuba’s human rights situation publicly, she’s able to talk productively to Castro about his government’s record behind the scenes, said Julia Sweig, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations.

“There won’t be the kind of back-slapping that we saw when Lula was there,” said Sweig, who is the author of several publications on Brazil and Cuba. “Precisely because of Dilma’s history and her explicit sensitivity to human rights I think she is well positioned for political dialogue.”

Cuba’s government relies on beatings, short-term detentions, forced exile and travel restrictions to repress virtually all forms of political dissent, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report this month. Cuba denies it’s holding any political prisoners and considers dissident activity to be counterrevolutionary.

In the run-up to Rousseff’s arrival, Brazilian newspapers published almost-daily interviews with Sanchez and activists from groups including the Ladies in White, in which they called for a meeting with the president’s delegation.

Any such requests will be studied by Brazil’s Embassy in Havana, the foreign ministry said in a statement. Rousseff’s agenda doesn’t include any meetings with activists, and underscoring the commercial nature of the visit, her human rights minister is not among the cabinet officials and business leaders making up her delegation.

Cuba’s rights record won’t necessarily improve if Rousseff speaks out, Brazil’s Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota said.

“There doesn’t appear to be an emergency in Cuba,” Patriota said Jan. 27 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “There are other situations that are very worrisome, including Guantanamo,” he said, referring to the U.S. detention camp for suspected terrorists on Cuba’s southeastern tip.

While Cuba isn’t among Brazil’s 30-biggest commercial partners, trade between the two countries has been expanding at a 30 percent annual pace since 2006, reaching $642 million last year, according to Brazil’s Foreign Ministry. Together with China and Venezuela, which provides the country with subsidized oil, Brazil has emerged as one of Cuba’s biggest foreign investors.

Rousseff will visit today the deepwater port at Mariel, which is undergoing a nearly $1 billion renovation led by Odebrecht SA with funding from the Brazil’s state development bank. The Salvador, Brazil-based construction and raw materials conglomerate said yesterday that it will also sign an agreement to expand a sugar-cane mill operated by state-controlled Azcuba.

Brazil’s role in helping Cuba create jobs, contrasting with longstanding hostility from the U.S., reinforces positive, albeit slow-paced changes taking place on the island of 11.2 million under Castro, said Sweig.

Since the 85-year-old Castro began handing power to his brother in 2006, the former defense minister has taken steps to open up the economy, which placed 177 out of 179 countries, ahead of only Zimbabwe and North Korea, in a ranking this month of economic freedom by the Washington-based Heritage Foundation.

For the first time in a half-century, Cubans can now buy and sell property and cars. After the 80-year-old Raul Castro began slashing state payrolls with a goal of eliminating 500,000 jobs, they’re able to seek self-employment as janitors and taxi drivers.

The overhaul comes amid declines in tourism and the price of nickel, the country’s biggest export, caused by a global economy whose prospects for recovery have dimmed, according to International Monetary Fund projections. The government expects Cuba’s gross domestic product to expand 2.7 percent this year, below the IMF’s 3.6 percent forecast for Latin America and the Caribbean region.

Political change has been slower. Speaking at a Communist Party summit on Jan. 29, Castro vowed to maintain single-party rule, adding that multi-party democracy would buoy U.S. “imperialism” in Cuba.

Still, the government last year freed the remaining 12 political prisoners that made up the so-called Group of 75 journalists and rights activists who were jailed during a 2003 crackdown. The Roman Catholic Church helped negotiate the release, and Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to visit the once anti-clerical island in March.

The 36-year-old Sanchez, a critic of Castro’s government on a blog called Generation Y, referred to Rousseff’s persecution by Brazil’s 1964-1985 dictatorship in her appeal for a visa to attend a screening in Salvador of a documentary she appears in. Sanchez has been blocked from traveling abroad for the past four years.

“I saw a photo of young Dilma, sitting on a bench blindfolded as men accused her,” Sanchez wrote Jan. 24 on Twitter. “I feel that way right now

 Yoani Sanchez

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Human Rights Watch, WORLD REPORT 2012, Chapter on Cuba

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Arch Ritter

Human Rights Watch published its WORLD REPORT 2012 on January 22, 2012.The full report can be seen here: Human Rights Watch, WORLD REPORT 2012.

The Chapter on Cuba is presented below.

Summary

Cuba remains the only country in Latin America that represses virtually all forms of political dissent. In 2011 Raúl Castro’s government continued to enforce political conformity using short-term detentions, beatings, public acts of repudiation, forced exile, and travel restrictions. In 2011 the Cuban government freed the remaining 12 political prisoners from the “group of 75”  dissidents—human rights defenders, journalists, and labor leaders who were sentenced in 2003 in summary trials for exercising their basic rights—having forced most into exile in exchange for their freedom. Also in 2011 the government sentenced at least seven more dissidents to prison for exercising their fundamental rights, and human rights groups on the island said dozens more remain in prison.

The government increasingly relied on arbitrary arrests and short-term detentions to restrict the basic rights of its critics, including the right to assemble and move about freely. Cuba’s government also pressured dissidents to choose between exile and continued repression or even imprisonment, leading scores to leave the country with their families during 2011.

Political Prisoners

Cubans who criticize the government are subject to criminal charges. They are exempt from due process guarantees, such as the right to a defense or fair and public hearings by a competent, independent, and impartial tribunal. In practice, courts are “subordinated” to the executive and legislative branches, denying meaningful judicial protection. Dozens of political prisoners remain in Cuban prisons, according to respected human rights groups on the island. In June 2011 the Cuban Council of Human Rights  Rapporteurs issued a list of 43 prisoners whom it said were still incarcerated for political reasons. In May 2011, four dissidents from Havana—Luis Enrique Labrador, David Piloto, Walfrido Rodríguez, and Yordani Martínez—were prosecuted on charges of contempt and public disorder for demonstrating in Havana’s Revolutionary Square and throwing leaflets with slogans such as“Down with the Castros.” They were sentenced to three to five years in prison. The council estimates that there are many more political prisoners whose cases they cannot document because the government does not let independent national or international human rights groups access its prisons.

Arbitrary Detentions and Short-Term Imprisonment

In addition to criminal prosecution, Raul Castro’s government has increasingly relied on arbitrary detention to harass and intimidate individuals who exercise their fundamental rights. The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation documented 2,074 arbitrary detentions by security forces in 2010, and 2,224 between January and August 2011. The detentions are often used preemptively to prevent individuals from participating in meetings or events viewed as critical of the government. Security officers hardly ever present arrest orders to justify detentions, and threaten detainees with criminal prosecution if they continue to  participate in “counterrevolutionary” activities. Victims of such arbitrary arrests said they were held incommunicado for several hours to several days, often at police stations. Some received an official warning (acta de advertencia), which prosecutors may later use in criminal trials to show a pattern of delinquent behavior. Dissidents said these warnings aimed to dissuade them from  participating in future activities considered critical of the government. For example, on July 24, 2011, state security agents arbitrarily detained 28 human rights activists for 4 to 30 hours in Palma Soriano, Santiago de Cuba province, when they tried to participate in a religious service to pray for the release of political prisoners.

Forced Exile

The death of political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo in February 2010 following his 85-day hunger strike, and the subsequent hunger strike by dissident Guillermo Farinas, pressured the Cuban government to release the remaining political prisoners from the “group of 75,” who were detained during a 2003 crackdown on dissent. Yet while the final 12 prisoners from the group  were released in March 2011, most were forced to choose between ongoing prison and forced exile. Since that time dozens of other prominent dissidents, journalists, and human rights defenders have been forced to choose between exile and ongoing harassment or even imprisonment. For example, Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina, an outspoken human rights activist, former political prisoner, and president of a dissident youth group in Guantánamo, was arrested in December 2010. Held for months while awaiting trial, he said authorities told him that unless he agreed to go into exile, he would be sentenced to five years of prison. He accepted forced exile to Spain in April 2011.

Freedom of Expression

The government maintains a media monopoly on the island, ensuring there is virtually no freedom of expression. The  government controls all media outlets in Cuba, and access to outside information is highly restricted. Limited internet access means only a tiny fraction of Cubans can read independently published articles and blogs.

Although a few independent journalists and bloggers manage to write articles for foreign websites or independent blogs, they must publish work through back channels, such as writing from home computers, saving information on memory sticks, and uploading articles and posts through illegal internet connections; others dictate articles to contacts abroad. Independent journalists and bloggers are subjected to short-term arrests and harassment by police and state security agents, as well as threats of imprisonment if they continue to work. For example, independent journalists  Magaly Norvis Otero Suárez and Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez were detained and beaten in Havana on February 23, 2011, as they walked to an event with two members of the Women in White—a respected human rights group comprised of wives, mothers, and daughters of political prisoners—to honor the one year anniversary of Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s death. They later said they were  transported to a police station, where they were assaulted and held incommunicado for roughly 14 hours.

Bloggers and independent journalists have also been the victims of  public smear campaigns, such as a March 2011 episode of a government-produced news program—broadcast widely on public television—which referred to independent bloggers as “cyber-mercenaries” and “puppets of the empire.”

The Cuban government uses the granting of press credentials and visas, which foreign journalists need to report from the island, to control coverage of Cuba and punish media outlets considered overly critical of the regime. In September, for example, the government refused to renew the press credentials of a journalist from Spain’s El Pais newspaper, arguing he presented a biased and negative image of Cuba.

Human Rights Defenders

Refusing to recognize human rights monitoring as a legitimate activity, Cuba’s government denies legal status to local human rights groups and uses harassment, beatings, and imprisonment to punish human rights defenders who try to document abuses. For example, Enyor Díaz Allen, Juan Luis Bravo Rodríguez, and Óscar Savón Pantoja—members of a human rights group in Guantanamó — were trying to enter a hospital on March 10 to visit a dissident on a hunger strike when security forces detained and transferred them without explanation to a police station and held them for three days in solitary confinement, Díaz Allen said.

Travel Restrictions and Family Separation

The Cuban government forbids the country’s citizens from leaving or returning to Cuba without first obtaining official permission, which is often denied. For example, well-known blogger Yoani Sanchez, who has criticized the government, has been denied the right to leave the island to accept awards and participate in conferences at least 16 times in the past four years. The government uses widespread fear of forced family separation to punish defectors and silence critics, and frequently bars citizens engaged in authorized travel from taking their children with them overseas, essentially holding the latter hostage to guarantee their parents’ return. The government restricts the movement of citizens within Cuba by enforcing a 1997 law known as Decree 217. Designed to limit migration to Havana, the decree requires that Cubans obtain government permission before moving to the capital. It is often used to prevent dissidents from traveling to Havana to attend meetings, and to harass dissidents from other parts of Cuba who live in the capital.

Prison Conditions

Prisons are overcrowded, unhygienic, and unhealthy, leading to extensive malnutrition and illness. Prisoners who criticize the  government, refuse to undergo ideological “reeducation,” or engage in hunger strikes and other protests are often subjected to  extended solitary confinement, beatings, and visit restrictions, and denied medical care. Prisoners have no effective complaint  mechanism to seek redress, giving prison authorities total impunity.

Key International Actors

The United States’s economic embargo on Cuba, in place for more than half a century, continues to impose indiscriminate hardship on Cubans, and has failed to improve human rights in the country. At the United Nations General Assembly in October, 186 of the 192 member countries voted for a resolution condemning the US  embargo; only the US and Israel voted against it. In January 2011 US President Barack Obama used his executive powers to ease “people-to-people” travel restrictions, allowing religious,  educational, and cultural groups from the US to travel to Cuba, and permitting Americans to send remittances to assist Cuban citizens. In 2009 Obama eliminated limits on travel and remittances by Cuban Americans to Cuba, which had been instituted during George W. Bush’s administration. In March US citizen Alan Gross—a subcontractor for the US Agency for International  Development—was sentenced to 15 years in jail for distributing telecommunications equipment for religious groups in Cuba. Gross was detained in December 2009 and accused by state prosecutors of engaging in a“subversive project aiming at bringing down the revolution.” Cuba’s highest court upheld his sentence in August. He remains in prison.

The European Union continues to retain its “Common Position” on Cuba, adopted in 1996, which conditions full economic cooperation with Cuba on its transition to a pluralist democracy and respect for human rights. At this writing Cuba’s government had yet to ratify the core international human rights treaties—the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights—which it signed in February 2008. Cuba is currently serving a three-year term on the UN Human Rights Council, having been re-elected in May 2009

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Poor Fidel: Repudiated by his Own Brother and Reduced to Playing “Chicken Little’”

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Arch Ritter

 

Fidel Castro and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
Holding Hands, January 12, 2012:

By Arch Ritter

I almost feel sorry for Fidel – but not quite.

His own brother Raul, the National Assembly, and the last Party Congress have repudiated the various economic programs, policies and institutional structures that he implanted in Cuba for almost half a century. The Communist Party Conference on January 28 will implicitly reiterate what the Congress has already approved. Raul Castro’s economic reform agenda is steadily, inexorably and permanently reversing Fidel’s economic heritage – though not his political institutions.

If Fidel Castro understands what is going on, he can’t be too happy that a major part of his life’s work is being cancelled. On the other hand, he likely is pleased that the political system that he imposed on Cuba remains pretty much intact. There is virtually no sign that political reform may be forthcoming.

Fidel Rejected; Critics Vindicated

For almost half a century, Fidel constructed dysfunctional institutions and pursued counterproductive economic policies. (See Fidel’s Phenomenal Economic Fiascoes: the Top Ten) Worse still, he implanted and maintained an authoritarian regime that denies authentic participatory democracy and fundamental human rights to Cuban citizens. One result has been poverty for most Cubans by any international standard, though obscured by creative statistics.  Moreover, two million Cubans have left Cuba and many have made fine contributions to their new countries.

While Fidel’s economic visions, strategies and policies are being continuously repudiated by the current economic reform process, many of his critics have been vindicated. In the past, Fidel responded to criticism by incarcerating the critics (e.g. Oscar Chepe.) Others were demoted, fired, shunned, ostracized and pushed into exile. But the ongoing reform process is an official Cuban certification  that many of the critics were on the right track while Fidel was taking Cuba down a blind alley. Silencing criticism and commentary damaged economic policy and the Cuban economy, because errors could not be “nipped in the bud” or reversed quickly.

If only Fidel had taken and understood an “Economics 100” explanation of how markets operate and can serve as a mechanism for the social control of economic activity, Cuba’s economic experience surely would have been much better.

“Henny Penny” the Blogger

At this time, fortunately for Cuba, Fidel seems to have been pushed aside into a role where the real economic damage he can do is minimized. His principal activity now is to write “op-eds” or “Blog entries” or as he calls them, “Reflections”. (See Reflections of Fidel Castro) Fidel seems to be trying to reinvent himself as a seer or clairvoyant pronouncing sagely on the future of the human species and the significance of the events of the day. Though excluded from domestic governance and policy making, his ego perhaps may be assuaged by having his “Reflecciones” widely distributed through all the media which are still monopolized by the Communist Party. Following 50 years precedence, no-one else has access to the media in order to contradict or criticize his assertions or to make alternate arguments and analyses.

Fidel has made himself a prophet of doom – or perhaps an re-incarnation of “Chicken Little” or “Henny Penny”, running to tell the world “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” Why is the world headed for disaster and the human race bound for extinction? Well, financial crisis, nuclear war, global warming, NATO, the G20 and now, Fidel’s latest concern, “fracking” (or hydraulic fracturing for natural gas and oil.) Who is responsible for all of this? Why of course the United States.

Fidel also comments on issues of the day such as the high quality of Hugo Chavez speeches and the perversions practiced especially by the United States but also the G20. While his commentaries have been “over the top” for a long time, they now seem to be increasingly incomprehensible. His latest Reflection for example (See The Best President for the United States) argues that a robot would do a better job than Obama as President. It includes the following sentence:

“I imagined Obama, very articulate with words, for whom, in his desperate attempt to be reelected, the dreams of [Martin] Luther King are more light years away than the closest inhabitable planet.”

This is not a mistranslation. At least Fidel could be provided with better editors. Otherwise, it will seem to readers that he may be losing out to Father Time rather quickly.

See also: Fidel’s Phenomenal Economic Fiascoes: the Top Ten

Cuba’s Achievements under the Presidency of Fidel Castro: The Top Ten

Fidel’s No-Good Very Bad Day

The “FIDEL” Models Never Worked; Soviet and Venezuelan Subsidization Did

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Yoani Sánchez on the January 28 Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Arch Ritter

Original Essay in Generacion Y here:  “Conference Rhymes With Patience” (…well in Spanish it does…)

This January seems like an October, a July, a November, anything other than the first month of the year. If anything characterizes beginnings it is making plans, projecting what is to come, outlining proposals even later if they aren’t completed. But because we grew up among so many slogans forecasting the future, today we resist talking about tomorrow. Exhausted from imagining a distant future that could be delayed five years or a decade, we no longer want to even predict the coming week. So we focus on this minute, on an immediacy that doesn’t allow us to raise our sights to look ahead. We live in the moment, because for too long they made us wish for a far off time that existed only in their speeches, in the pages of their books.

The next Communist Party Conference is also marked by this skepticism toward the future. Not surprising, then, are the low expectations Cubans show regarding a party meeting on January 28, the little that is said about it in the streets. The trifling comments are limited to an assurance that “this isn’t going to change anything,” or the glimmer of hope that “this will be the last chance for the ‘historic generation’.” Less than three weeks before it begins, even the official television isn’t showing any enthusiasm for the event. In the ranks of the Party itself there are many illusions and more than one militant will turn in his or her party card if the meeting ends with poor results. The time “purchased” last April during the Party Congress is about to end. The political reforms are urgent and even the system’s most faithful have begun to despair.

The most improbable, and yet the most desired, is that in this conference the first priority would be to put the nation ahead of partisan interests. But this would be asking the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) to commit suicide… and they are not going to do that. They are not going to open themselves to citizen participation without exclusions, nor are they going to dismantle the criminalization of disagreement. They bet their power on it. The reforms would have to be so clear, the change in discourse so marked, that instead of simple adjustments they would need to erase the slate and start again… and most likely they will refuse to do that. So, for a long time January hasn’t seemed like January, the Revolutionaries don’t behave that way and the future is a subject only for soothsayers and fortune-tellers.

Yoani Sánchez

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Espacio Laical: Debate on the Future of the Communist Party of Cuba

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Arch Ritter

Espacio Laical has published a debate on the future of the Communist Party in Cuba. The full document is located here: Espacio Laical, EL PRESENTE Y EL FUTURO DEL PARTIDO COMUNISTA DE CUBA.

This discussion is courageous and challenging, as it pushes the realm of public discussion of political issues further along. Espacio Laical makes a valuable contribution to political discussion in Cuba. The concluding commentary and some questions from Lenier Gonzalez are included below as well. It is worth a careful reading., but unfortunately it is available only in Spanish at this time.

A DEBATE EL PRESENTE Y EL FUTURO DEL PARTIDO COMUNISTA DE CUBA

Próximamente se celebrará la Primera Conferencia Nacional del PCC, institución que tiene a su cargo, según la constitución vigente, orientar y dirigir al Estado y a la sociedad. Este acontecimiento ocurrirá en un momento de especial trascendencia para la nación cubana, porque de sus entrañas –hoy mismo- emanan los más diversos imaginarios acerca de hacia dónde, y de qué manera, se deben conducir los destinos del país. Por esta razón, la revista Espacio Laical ha convocado a un grupo de analistas para que ofrezcan sus criterios al respecto. Estos son: Víctor Fowler, poeta y ensayista; Orlando Márquez, director de la revista Palabra Nueva; Ovidio D´Angelo, investigador social; Alexis Pestano, miembro del Consejo Editorial de la revista Espacio Laical; Ariel Dacal, educador popular; y Lenier González, vice-editor de la revista Espacio Laical.


Lenier González,, Ariel Ducal, Ovidio D´Angelo, Orlando Márquez y Víctor Fowler

Lenier González:

Si nos atenemos a las contradicciones, dogmatismos e incongruencias contenidas en el Documento Base, no creo que la Conferencia esté en condiciones de replantearse el papel del PCC de cara al presente y al futuro de Cuba. Sin embargo, seguramente de la Conferencia saldrán líneas de acción para perfeccionar algunos aspectos del funcionamiento del PCC, pero sin constituir cauces programáticos para reconstruir y relanzar su hegemonía política.

Esto sería realmente lamentable, pues la llamada generación histórica que hizo la Revolución cubana, y específicamente el presidente Raúl Castro, tienen las condiciones materiales y simbólicas necesarias para desatar y llevar a vías de éxito un proceso de este tipo. Toda reforma que aspire a ser exitosa necesita de una fuerza política que cumpla el cometido de construir consensos en torno a un proyecto común. El éxito de las reformas del presidente Raúl Castro y su continuidad en el tiempo dependen de la capacidad que tenga el actual gobierno de concertar a toda la diversidad nacional en su seno. Un partido político renovado, inclusivo y aglutinador de los más amplios intereses nacionales sería una garantía para la estabilidad nacional y el éxito de las transformaciones en curso. El redimensionamiento y democratización interna del PCC -con el consecuente ensanchamiento de la participación ciudadana- es el gran tema pendiente en la agenda del presidente Raúl Castro. Y en ello podría radicar el éxito de su mandato.

Además, no podemos desestimar el gran costo político que tendría para el gobierno no atender de manera suficiente el anhelo generalizado de democratización del sistema político. Un amplísimo sector nacional percibe a la Conferencia del PCC como la última oportunidad de la generación histórica para moverse en ese sentido. Por tanto, desestimar este anhelo de seguro impactará con fuerza sobre el campo político cubano. Es muy probable que de no darse cambios en ese sentido, el amplio sector moderado-reformista, cansado ya de esperar hasta la eternidad, verá cómo se vacían sus filas definitivamente. Ello quizá no provocará un fortalecimiento de la disidencia interna, pero sí propiciará gran frustración, apatía y distanciamiento en las fuerzas vivas nacionales del gobierno cubano. Para ese entonces, al gobierno le será ya muy difícil reconectarse nuevamente con estos sectores.

¿Será capaz el gobierno cubano de propiciar un debate abierto y horizontal donde las fuerzas patrióticas puedan consensuar libremente un “proyecto de país” en el que quepamos todos?

¿Será capaz la Conferencia del PCC de reinventar, con creatividad, la rigidez actual de los marcos que dictan qué es revolucionario y qué contrarrevolucionario?

¿Podrá el gobierno cubano implementar reformas modernizadoras que conjuren definitivamente la posibilidad de un escenario de desestabilización interna y una potencial (e inaceptable) intervención militar extranjera en Cuba?

¿Seremos capaces los cubanos de acompañar un camino de reformas graduales y ordenadas si el actual gobierno cubano (o sus sucesores) iniciasen esta gestión de forma seria y responsable?

Como ciudadano comprometido con los destinos de mi patria, aspiro a que la Conferencia del PCC y el presidente Raúl Castro asuman sin dilaciones esta responsabilidad histórica y salden este desafío (enorme) satisfactoriamente, por el bien de Cuba y de los todos los cubanos.

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Cuba in the Economist Intelligence Unit, “Democracy Index 2011: Democracy Under Stress”

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Arch Ritter

The Economist intelligence Unit recently published its annual White paper on Democracy in the World. The full report is available here: Economist Intelligence Unit, Democracy_Index_December_2011

As expected, Cuba fares poorly in this international comparison of participatory democracy, placing last in Latin America and #126 of 167 countries internationally, with an “authoritarian” label, the only one in Latin America.

The EIU Index is about as rigorous as they come, including 60 indicators five general dimensions, namely electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. The basic EIU definition of democracy and methodology is outlined below together with a description of the results for Latin America and a Table of the Latin American results.

The Economist Intelligence Unit measure

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s democracy index is based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. The five categories are inter-related and form a coherent conceptual whole. The condition of having free and fair competitive elections, and satisfying related aspects of political freedom, is clearly the sine quo none of all definitions. All modern definitions, except the most minimalist, also consider civil liberties to be a vital component of what is often called “liberal democracy”. The principle of the protection of basic human rights is widely accepted. It is embodied in constitutions throughout the world as well as in the UN Charter and international agreements such as the Helsinki Final Act (the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe).

Basic human rights include the freedom of speech, expression and the press, freedom of religion; freedom of assembly and association; and the right to due judicial process. All democracies are systems in which citizens freely make political decisions by majority rule. But rule by the majority is not necessarily democratic. In a democracy majority rule must be combined with guarantees of individual human rights and the rights of minorities. Most measures also include aspects of the minimum quality of functioning of government. If democratically-based decisions cannot or are not implemented then the concept of democracy is not very meaningful or it becomes an empty shell. Democracy is more than the sum of its institutions. A democratic political culture is also crucial for the legitimacy, smooth functioning and ultimately the sustainability of democracy. A culture of passivity and apathy, an obedient and docile citizenry, are not consistent with democracy. The electoral process periodically divides the population into winners and losers. A successful democratic political culture implies that the losing parties and their supporters accept the judgment of the voters, and allow for the peaceful transfer of power.

Participation is also a necessary component, as apathy and abstention are enemies of democracy. Even measures that focus predominantly on the processes of representative, liberal democracy include (although inadequately or insufficiently) some aspects of participation. In a democracy, government is only one element in a social fabric of many and varied institutions, political organisations, and associations. Citizens cannot be required to take part in the political process, and they are free to express their dissatisfaction by not participating. However, a healthy democracy requires the active, freely chosen participation of citizens in public life. Democracies flourish when citizens are willing to participate in public debate, elect representatives and join political parties. Without this broad, sustaining participation, democracy begins to wither and become the preserve of small, select groups. At the same time, even our “thicker”, more inclusive and wider measure of democracy does not include other aspects–which some authors argue are also crucial components of democracy–such as levels of economic and social well being. Thus our Index respects the dominant tradition that holds that a variety of social and economic outcomes can be consistent with political democracy, which is a separate concept.

Methodology

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s index of democracy, on a 0 to 10 scale, is based on the ratings for 60 indicators grouped in five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. Each category has a rating on a 0 to 10 scale, and the overall index of democracy is the simple average of the five category indexes. The category indexes are based on the sum of the indicator scores in the category, converted to a 0 to 10 scale. Adjustments to the category scores are made if countries do not score a 1 in the following critical areas for democracy:

1. whether national elections are free and fair

2. the security of voters

3. the influence of foreign powers on government

4. the capability of the civil service to implement policies.  …..

Full democracies: Countries in which not only basic political freedoms and civil liberties are respected, but these will also tend to be underpinned by a political culture conducive to the flourishing of democracy. The functioning of government is satisfactory. Media are independent and diverse. There is an effective system of checks and balances. The judiciary is independent and judicial decisions are enforced. There are only limited problems in the functioning of democracies.

Flawed democracies: These countries also have free and fair elections and even if there are problems (such as infringements on media freedom), basic civil liberties will be respected. However, there are significant weaknesses in other aspects of democracy, including problems in governance, an underdeveloped political culture and low levels of political participation.

Hybrid regimes: Elections have substantial irregularities that often prevent them from being both free and fair. Government pressure on opposition parties and candidates may be common. Serious weaknesses are more prevalent than in flawed democracies–in political culture, functioning of government and political participation. Corruption tends to be widespread and the rule of law is weak. Civil society is weak. Typically there is harassment of and pressure on journalists, and the judiciary is not independent.

Authoritarian regimes: In these states state political pluralism is absent or heavily circumscribed. Many countries in this category are outright dictatorships. Some formal institutions of democracy may exist, but these have little substance. Elections, if they do occur, are not free and fair. There is disregard for abuses and infringements of civil liberties. Media are typically state-owned or controlled by groups connected to the ruling regime. There is repression of criticism of the government and pervasive censorship. There is no independent judiciary.

Latin America

There was little change in this region between 2010 and 2011. The average score for the region declined slightly in 2011 as rampant crime in some countries—in particular, violence and drug-trafficking—continues to have a negative impact. In most countries free and fair elections are now well established. The recent evidence from surveys on attitudes towards democracy is mixed. In some countries, surveys indicate a slow shift in public attitudes on many issues in a direction that is conducive to democracy. However, a recent UNDP report (UNDP 2011) found that the sustainability of democracy in Latin America is being endangered by the concentration of power, the world´s highest social and economic inequalities, and mounting insecurity and violence. While most Latin American countries (14 out of 24) fall within the flawed democracy category, there is wide diversity across the region. For example, Uruguay is a full democracy with an index score of 8.17 (out of 10) and a global ranking of 17th, while Cuba, an authoritarian regime, ranks 126th.

Although the region was adversely affected by the 2008-09 recession—with the US-dependent

Central American and Caribbean sub-regions hit particularly badly—most countries avoided social unrest and a rolling back of democracy. However, a key issue that is undermining democracy in much of the region is an upsurge in violent crime, linked in large part with the drug trade. The corrupting influence of organised crime and its ability to undermine the effectiveness of the security forces and the judicial authorities are a serious problem.

Electoral democracy, for the most part, remains firmly entrenched in Latin America, but media freedoms have been eroded in recent years in several countries. Aside from Cuba (the only state in the region without any independent media), Venezuela has been the worst offender. The failure to uphold press freedom in some countries in the region in part reflects inadequate oversight bodies—a symptom of broader institutional weaknesses in Latin America. The executive remains very strong in many countries, the legislature is comparatively weak in many cases and most judiciaries suffer from some degree of politicization.

National Assembly, Cuba

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“Reflections” … on Vaclav Havel, Kim Jong Il, Fidel Castro and Raul Castro

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Arch Ritter

By Arch Ritter

On December 18 and 19 2011, the world witnessed the passing of Vaclav Havel of Czechoslovakia and Kim Jong Il of North Korea.


Vaclav Havel

Kim Jong Il

Vaclav Havel will be remembered as the courageous dissident who stood up against a monolithic totalitarian regime, backed by the armed forces of the Soviet Union which had suppressed the “Prague Spring” of 1968, as well as uprisings in East Germany and Poland. Havel’s audacity in the face of overwhelming odds is an inspiration to all of us. But let us remember also Lech Walesa as well as the innumerable citizens who early on led the uprisings in most of the Eastern European states. Despite numerous incarcerations and suppressions, Havel persisted, providing ethical insight and guidance to the Czechoslovak democracy movement. In Havel’s words, from Living in Truth (1986):

It is, however, becoming evident—and I think that is an experience of an essential and universal importance—that a single, seemingly powerless person who dares to cry out the word of truth and to stand behind it with all his person and all his life, ready to pay a high price, has, surprisingly, greater power, though formally disfranchised, than do thousands of anonymous voters. …..…. It is becoming evident that politics by no means need remain the affair of professionals and that one simple electrician with his heart in the right place, honoring something that transcends him and free of fear, can influence the history of his nation.

How will Kim Jong Il be remembered?

Unfortunately Fidel Castro and his government threw their lot in with the totalitarian dictators of this world such as Kim Il Sung and his just-departed son Kim Jong Il, Gustaf Husak, Wojciech Jaruzelski etc. Even in 2008, Fidel was pronouncing his admiration for the Kims and their despicable, dysfunctional, dynastic despotism. (See Fidel Castro’s Reflections of Fidel Castro about Korea, from Cuba News Agency, August 22 and 24 2008.)

Who can forget and forgive Fidel Castro’s justification of and support for the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 – that took four tightly packed pages of Granma (August 24, 1968)?

Who in Cuba today rules with similar institutions to and in the style of Gustáv Husák, (Czechoslovakia), Leonid Brezhnev (USSR), Erich Honecker (East Germany), Wojciech Jaruzelski (Poland), Janis Kadar (Hungary),  Nicolae Ceausescu (Rumania) or Todor Zhivkov (Bulgaria) ?

Who in Cuba today wields the moral authority and insight of Vaclav Havel?

Perhaps Raul Castro is or should be thinking of the significance and legacies of Vaclav Havel and Kim Jong Il. Could Raul redeem himself at this late date and generate a legacy that will not be reviled in future? He could conceivably, if he were to phase out the old political regime and phase in a pluralistic democratic political system that fully respected political and civil liberties and labor rights as these are articulated in the various United Nations Declarations and Covenants. Perhaps there is still time. But the chances of this occurring are possibly 1 in 1,000. We most likely await the beginnings of an inevitable resolution that will be provided soon by Mother Nature and Father Time.

Granma, 24 de agosto de 1968, Front page

Yet Another Medal, this one from Kim Il Sung

With Jarulzelski

Holding hands with Quaddafi

 

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From EFE: “Political arrests on rise in Cuba, opposition says”

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Arch Ritter

The intensification of “low level” political repression in Cuba in the last year or so is disturbing. It reverses the mild “net” tendency towards greater liberalization – with fits and starts, and ups and downs – that I thought I saw occurring some time ago. (see Freedom of Expression, Economic Self-Correction and Self-Renewal.)

(EFE) Published December 19, 2011

Havana –  The opposition Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation said Monday that in December there have been 388 temporary detentions for political reasons in Cuba.

“We are very disturbed by the increase of what is called ‘low intensity’ political repression consisting of being kept in custody for hours, days or weeks,” Elizardo Sanchez, spokesman for the illegal but tolerated commission, told foreign correspondents.

“We have absolutely confirmed – up to yesterday, Dec. 18 – 388 detentions for political reasons, many of them violent,” he said.

Sanchez said that the political, economic and cultural situation and that of civil rights in Communist-ruled Cuba “continue to deteriorate.”

As an example of his complaint he presented the case of Henry Perales, who appeared at the same press conference to report that he was violently arrested and jailed by police together with a group of dissidents when they tried to carry out a peaceful march on Dec. 2 in the eastern town of Palma Soriano.

Perales, 27, said that he and his friends were beaten by security agents and, in his case, by the driver of the bus they put him in.

“When I got on (the bus) I yelled ‘Long live human rights!’ The driver had a tool in his hand, he struck me with it and when I called him a murderer he hit me again,” Perales said.

He said police took him to a medical post where he was given nine stitches to close the wounds caused by the blows. Afterwards he was jailed for nearly five days and was later released without charges.

Perales said he intended to present a “formal accusation” against the bus driver, and Sanchez confirmed that the commission will aid the dissident in his efforts to obtain justice.

Elizardo Sanchez Santacruz, Director of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation

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