Indalla is a shantytown located in the heart of the Cuban capital, whose existence even the president of the municipality where it is situated was unaware of. This marginal neighborhood was discovered a few months ago by the mayor of its own local government, while sanitation units were conducting a health inspection in the area.
I have just found out that Antonio Castro, one of the sons of Cuba’s revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, was the winner of an event at this year’s Copa Montecristo golf tournament in Varadero. As you can well appreciate, the “socialist” golf played in Cuba is not too different from its capitalist brother.
On April 26, during an online debate held through the web-site of the Cuban Association of the United Nations (ACNU), I asked Reverend Oden Marichal, representative of Cuba’s Council of Churches, the following three questions related to the issue of human rights.
The “Proposals for Our Immediate Future” published by the CASA-CUBA Laboratory (Laboratorio CASA-CUBA,) have furnished us with a magnificent tool for collective action.
The US Interests Section in Havana just denied me a visa to travel to that country, where I was invited by the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) to make a presentation at its upcoming congress in late May.
We’re so used to being the center of the universe here that I was surprised a few days ago when neither Cuba, nor the Cuban revolution, nor Fidel Castro were mentioned in a listing of Latin American leaders and revolutionary processes.
Regarding our confiscated magazines, through Resolution No. 92-2013, the Cuban customs office declared in its fifth “whereas” that “the penalty was correctly applied by the authority in charge in that it detected literature directed against the revolutionary process in Venezuela and its leader.”
By the way, could it be that among those interests is the right of citizens to receive diverse, plural, updated, national and international information? I don’t think so, because if that had been the case they wouldn’t have seized the newspapers. Maybe they think Granma daily is enough.
Typically, acts of censorship by officials of various ranks on the island are carried out with care taken not to leave evidence that can later be used for legal claims. Examples of this include numerous firings of members of independent collectives for what are always explained as administrative reasons.
It was a little strange for me to learn that one of Pink Floyd’s best albums — The Dark Side of the Moon — is marking its 40th anniversary this year. To me, this music seems like it reaches back ten centuries into the past and will be around for another ten centuries in the future.
