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Odds and ends
- Mercifully, this has been the hurricane season that wasn’t…this storm, now southwest of Cuba, could graze the island’s western tip but would first have to take a more easterly course.
- EFE reports that the Spanish business community is pressing Cuban officials to pay their debts: “According to Spanish sources, apart from Cuba’s 2-billion-Euro official debt to Spain, with 700 million in arrears and various payment commitments not honored by Havana, there are 600 million in arrears to [Spanish] commercial enterprises that provide products to the island. These figures do not include the freezing of the accounts of Spanish businesses with investments in Cuba, nor the commitments to joint ventures.”
- An interview of Juanita Castro by Daniel Viotto on CNN Spanish.
- Herald: President Obama may get his State Department Latin America chief confirmed after all.
30 comments:
WARNING: The following comment can be found scary. Do not read it unless if you are scared easily!
Spain tries engagement with results? EFE is not reporting great results for Spanish business interests in Cuba.
Vecino de NF
Penultimos Días has a recording of two "ladies" who are/were taunting the people in Vladimiro Roca's home to exit the home so they can become martyrs like those who were killed under Batista's repression. Brown shirt stuff by any measure!
Can anyone confirm if the dissidents are still inside Vladimiro Roca's home? If that's the case, they have been there over a week.
Also PD has an article by Mr. Pardo detailing his experiences using the Internet from a hotel in Cuba.He calls it NNN (National Narrow Net).
Vecino de NF
"EFE reports that the Spanish business community is pressing Cuban officials to pay their debts"
Phil, I am laughing so hard my stitches are about to bust.
Maria Elvira had a phone interview with Vladimiro Roca in her program Wednesday. (It's on YouTube) Vladimiro Roca claims that the Cuban government died over the weekend because it has no ideological content just threats of violence against the dissidents. Vladimiro Roca is the son of the late Blas Roca, founding member of the Cuban Communist Party, and writer of the first Cuban communist constitution.
I would ask allies or sympathizers of the Cuban government to urge it to stop these tactics. They do not serve any purpose. The dissidents should be allowed their political and social space.
Vecino de NF
The quote:
"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown," can very well be translated to:
"Forget it, Vecino, It's Cuba."
Vicente A.
Vicente A.,
No, I can not forget it.
Do you have any news about the current situation around Vladimiro Roca's home? Under current circumstances, this situation can easily degenerate into a lynching.
Vecino de NF
Yoani Sanchez, Claudio Cadelo, Ciro Diaz, Orlando Luis Pardo, and other bloggers were detained and released far from the place of detention as per Penultimos Dias. They were in the process of walking together to some sort of street performance.
Vecino de NF
Though I admire and accede with your convictions, the current situation or state has not changed in decades.
Dissident Lynching? They will be lucky not to be committed to asylums for electric shock, or to become targets of a firing squad. That sounds more like the Cuba I know. The people mean nothing to the regime; the people are caged and tamed animals on the Island of Dr. Fidel. As Roca announced, this is not an ideological war against the government; rather quite physical warfare. Once the people awaken from their spell, nothing can triumph over them. But, the thing is, these very same people (the majority) are the ones who presently wish to dispose of those dissidents in the Roca home. Oh, Vecino, what does this all mean?
My prayers go out to the dissidents. They are the very few and vociferous. May they be successful and proliferating tools of insurrection. If only they had had wiser parents.
Vicente A.
As per Penultimos Días, Yoani Sanchez was beaten up during her detention by Cuban security forces. She was told that the authorities will not tolerate anything else from her. Brown shirt stuff!
Phil, Leftside, others time to tell the Cuban government that this torpedoes any raprochment efforts!
Vecino de NF
Phil, where are you? You should be covering this one. Penultimos Dias is doing a swell job at covering it. So swell it's becoming a hamper to upload the comments page.
Yoani also spoke to Reuters and there is a very curious lack of any mention of a beating, violence, karate holds, judo, punches, blows or being violently thrown on the street. None. The closest detail is that she says her PURSE was "thrown on the street as they drove off." The article, in fact, clearly states that Yoani "had no injuries, she said."
Another critical inconsistency is that she says "there was no time to resist" getting taken in the (presumably) security services car, in the Reuters account. In the Herald and AP accounts, she says she resisted and refused to get in the car, and that is when the violence occurred. That and also when she took a piece of paper with information on it from the agents pocket, and put it in her mouth to destroy it.
I certainly can not explain why one account sounds like an episode from a low budget mafia movie and the other sounds rather typical what has happened in Cuba forever - a dissident is not arrested, bus is prevented from attending a particular anti-Government rally or event. In this case, it seems pretty clear to me that the Yoani seemed to indeed resist the security forces and then play the aggressor, in taking something from the agents pocket. Whether any true abusive blows were leveled, or whether the act of forcing a resistant person into a car and trying to defend a piece of security information in a pocket is all we are talking about, can not be known at this point
I will not argue whether security forces ought to be preventing certain well known activists from attending demonstrations. I hope for a day when that is not seen as a necessary tactic. But Yoani has appeared to cross a line. Whether through her sheer celebrity, her moxie and conjones or too many exaggerations (or lies). Maybe it was visiting too many foreign Embassies? Maybe her cooperation with US Government run entities like Radio Marti? Maybe the Miami friends she's met?
Leftside you are a big cobarde!
Right again, Lefty! Clearly, that hulking bruiser Yoani assaulted innocent members of the secret police who just happened to be srolling by when she launched her brutal attack against them!
Lefty's chief source of information: Granma
Lefty, I want to put your head on my wall, you mariquita.
Alfonso
Lefty, you are a "zurullo".
On Planet Leftside, Yaoni Sanchez is an aggressor.
On Planet Leftside, Yaoni Sanchez is an aggressor.
Considering the context, I'll admit saying she "play(ed) the aggressor" was probably not the best way to describe reaching into the pocket of a State security officer to take something.
But going beyond non-violent resistance into a (alebeit strange) offensive gesture, ups the ante and increases her own responsibility in the forceful attempts to get her to spit out the paper (for example). Same with resisting getting into the car.
The law of ([I'm pretty sure) any country is the same in this regard. If you get hurt in resisting arrest, the State is not liable. That is certainly what I was told (by my pro-bono lawyer) when I complained about injuries related to a very violent arrest I suffered in Chicago (for sticking up for the rights of a homeless person). Like Yoani, I cursed at the cops and resisted as much as I thought I could. I certainly felt like a victim of police abuse that day. But I was told I had no case because I had resisted arrest.
I was charged with disorderly conduct (later dropped), and spent a freezing night in jail. Yoani was on her way to a protest. Thousands of Americans have been charged with disorderly conduct in recent years for taking part in demonstrations.
My intent is not to compare my episode to Yoani's because there are obvious differences. I only bring it up because I think it sheds light on what we are really talking about here - something that unfortunately happens every day in America. A physical altercation with police that any court would find legally defensible.(2 dozen LAPD cops who were on tape beating the crap out of immigrant protesters were just cleared of all charges).
And I am not excusing the incident. People should, in any normal circumstance, obviously be allowed to participate in protests. But I don't think there is any question that if Yoani would have went along into the car and not started going after testicles and pieces of paper, she probably would have arrived somewhere 5 minutes later without a hand laid on her.
This episode was clearly not what the Cubans wanted. Yoani's defiance created a new reality. One that certainly adds to her lore.
Ida que pase y se lleve todo lo malo
por que no?
Lefty, I pray that you, and all men of your kind, are incapable of breeding, for you are the least moral of the human/animal race.
Your Mother
ah the gusanos and their outrage. who the hell do you think you're kidding. where the outrage for the criminal embargo and the thousands killed by terrorism against cuba. give your heads a shake.
"ah the gusanos and their outrage. who the hell do you think you're kidding"
Exactly! And let's not forget all the food shortages, plant diseases, human plagues and hurricanes steered toward Cuba by the genocidal CIA-Illuminati Conspiracy! Or the poisoned wells, either!
Yoani Sanchez has two new posts. One describes her ordeal. The other talks about those who blame the victim of violent acts (the woman who deserves to be raped because she was too sexy, etc). Vladimiro Roca said that the Cuban government lost all ideological credibility when it engaged in these type of acts. BTW does anyone know what is the situation around Vladimiro Roca's home, and the wellbeing of the dissidents that were laid siege there?
To justify these brown shirt tactics is to endorse them and therefore to loose the ideological high ground. Yoani Sanchez and the other fellow bloggers were not charged with any crime. They were just kidnapped and beaten.
Vecino de NF
Claudia Cadelo also has details of the Friday incident in her blog Octavo Cerco. One thing is obvious both Yoani Sanchez and Claudia Cadelo are working through post traumatic stress syndrome. The Cuban government has yet to arrest those who kidnapped them.
Vecino de NF
And no one will be arrested, for the kidnappers were commissioned by the Cuban government. What's new? Such few with grand cojones on the Island of Cobardes--and they're women. It all helps us see the real enemy here.
Papi
Papi, (is this some fantssy handle? Well whatever turns you on, Papi!)
The tactic of attacking the women but leaving the men alone is meant to demoralize the men. This operation was meant to destabilize the bloggers' psychologically. Penultimos Dias has very interesting video of the supposedly State Security contingent: a very tropical version of the SA brown shirts. It is doubtful that these young ones have any idea what happened to their MININT predecessors when Abrahantes' was purged nor that they know what was the night of the long knives. They naively think that their true enemies are the young people marching for peace and non-violence in Havana last Friday whom they are ordered to keep under surveillance, and to repress as needed.
As far as your admonition to grow "cojones", please remember the discretion is the better part of valor. The most tragic incidence in Cuban history was the goading of Jose Marti to his death by Maximo Gomez' and Antonio Maceo's questioning of his virility because he was not a soldier. Similar incidents have been repeated since 1895.
Vecino de NF
Vecino,
Do you really feel as if the battering of women counter-revolutionists "demoralizes" the will of men in the society? And if so, why is that? Would you have felt demoralized or disparaged in your goal to achieve liberty, or would such corruption invoke those inherent human qualities within you, such as hostility against such aggressors? Let us say that Yoani was your wife.
Tell me, please, when has pacifism ever triumphed over violence? Such philosophies are commonly possessed by women, naturally so, as most are predisposed to such a nature. What kind of punishment do you believe Yoani's assailants merit, irrespective of their naivete?
Dr. Cruz
Dr. Cruz,
So many questions, such complicated prose!
"Do you really feel as if the battering of women counter-revolutionists "demoralizes" the will of men in the society? And if so, why is that? Would you have felt demoralized or disparaged in your goal to achieve liberty, or would such corruption invoke those inherent human qualities within you, such as hostility against such aggressors? Let us say that Yoani was your wife."
Your hypothetical premise is flawed. Yoani is too cool to be my wife. But in all seriousness hurting those a person cares for with impunity has a demoralizing effect on the person with the emotional attachment. You have to be very sure of yourself to deal with this situation. This demoralization can be temporary or permanet but it is there. To your hypothetical I would pose a more political neutral one. Let's say you are faced with a home invasion situation, and the home invaders require information from you in exchange for stopping hurting your family (I assume you have a family), wouldn't you feel demoralized? Further more, wouldn't it be reasonable to collaborate in the short term to exact justice in the long term?
"Tell me, please, when has pacifism ever triumphed over violence?"
Pacifism triumphed over violence in at least two instances in the XX century: the fight for India's independence, and the demise of communism in much of Eastern Europe (Romania being the partial exception).
"What kind of punishment do you believe Yoani's assailants merit, irrespective of their naivete?"
I am not a judge but I would venture a guess that Yoani's and other bloggers' assailants committed crimes under Cuba's current criminal code. I would humbly suggest that they be tried and punished under current Cuban legislature sans the get-out-of-jail provisions dealing with state security personnel.
Vecino de NF
Vecino, I fail to discern the many victims in this scenario that you wish to devulge. I see a few: those like Yoani and company, those who were roughed-up. Your comparisons (home invasion) does not hold any proportions to this case.
You are a highly disillusioned and overly sympathetic Cuban/individual.
I don't know whether to laugh or sigh.
Dr. Cruz
Dr. Cruz,
You appear utterly confused ("I don't know whether to laugh or sigh.")
"Your comparisons (home invasion) does not hold any proportions to this case."
Both the roughing up of the bloggers and the home invasion speak to the case of hurting some to demoralize others. For example the fact that Yoani Sanchez was roughed up but not Claudia Cadelo may have been planned to create a sense of recrimination from the former to the latter, and a sense of guilt from the latter about the former. The fact that the men in each women's life were not touched (they were not even present) was a not subtle way to tell them we are holding your women hostage, so behave. Both perpetrators (both real and hypothetical) behave criminally. I am afraid that Yoani's son may become a target in this macabre manipulative repression.
As far as being "a highly disillusioned and overly sympathetic Cuban/individual." Disillusioned, and overly sympathetic about what?
Vecino de NF
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