What does it cost to connect to the Internet?
In Cuba, the Internet is not free for all, it is only for the offices of the party-state and people with permission to access the rest of the population is forced to buy the pre-paid cards. It is not even allowed to connect to the Internet from home, only a few authorized persons can install in their family home, the other must go to the centers for use by the Internet.
How can cost for a Cuban worker?
One hour of internet costs 8 CUC (convertible Cuban peso currency, much like the U.S. dollar).
What is the "libreta"?
Today "the libreta (ration book) is a joke, already found less and less food in the" bodegas "in the district (shops managed by the State and used for the sale of food), yet for large sections who earn meager wages ($ 11 to $ 15 per month) and / or are unemployed, "the libreta" continues to be a way to secure a small number of basic food at moderate prices. Formerly a control method to prevent the hoarding of food and a way to regulate food prices, but in the present situation which sees the transition from state capitalism to private capitalism, the party-state remains firm in his proposal to eliminate "libreta," arguing that "it is time to do with paternalism" and that not all people who buy at prices subsidiary really need it. The most ridiculous of these arguments is that no worker or employee who receives a minimum wage that has a purchasing power to buy in the supermarket paying in CUC (managed by senior army officers) where are all the foods but at very high prices.
Who are the White Lady?
The white Ladies are (although I should say were, because in the mediation state-church, the latter has undertaken to put an end to these protests) the mothers, wives and daughters of political prisoners of the group of 75, arrested during the wave of repression known as the "Black Spring". They were given this name because demonstrating peacefully to demand the release of their relatives.
Prisoners freed after the intervention of the bishop of Havana had been convicted of common crimes or for political dissent?
Prisoners freed after dialogue between the church and the state were all "common" political prisoners, as the party-state defines the rest of the prisoners with contempt of society. All the freed prisoners belonged to the group of 75, were the last to remain still in jail since then because someone had been released from prison with the eyedropper due to serious health conditions.
But according to human rights organizations - illegal, of course - some group of political prisoners who did not fall within the agreement remains in prison. The truly alarming fact is the amount of social prisoners (which they call "common") in every part of the island. There are no official data, we are not allowed to know exactly how many people we are talking about but, according to submissions by former inmates, family members and the data collected from illegality Human Rights Commission, the number of prisoners would be around one million, consisting for the majority of young people between 16 and 30.
In the Italian bourgeois press there is much talk of Yoani Sánchez. They say it is paid by the CIA. What do you think?
It makes sense that the bourgeois press will talk a lot about Yoani Sánchez, while there are many other voices silenced. If there weren’t censorship and lack of freedom of expression that the party-state imposes on us we may feel even more critical voices. To this we must add the "self-censorship" so frequently pursued by the left-wing organizations that instead of representing their peers of ideas and help bring other critical positions, come together to castrating silence that the State requires us. It's really an unusual but is what happens in reality. Almost all of the international "left" game lends itself to censorship and all merely repeat like parrots what he is ordered from the upper echelons of the Cuban party-state. It is absurd to even managed to convince individuals and organizations suspected of "anarchist" affiliation who represent an extraordinary exception when addressing specific issues such as Cuba or Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and forget the old motto, "Neither God, nor state, nor master," and begin with endless semantic somersaults to justify the unjustifiable.
Ah, sorry ... I forgot the alleged employee of the CIA. What do I think? Well, we all seem to play a tremendous, certainly not anything we share in the positions and assumptions that are clearly Yoani liberal petit-bourgeois, proto-capitalists, but from here to believe the story that "a CIA agent" a "mercenary", etc.. you really need a lot of imagination. Although he has received awards abroad, if the major media of the bourgeois press pay for his journalistic work and when it receives funding from foundations and other organizations of this kind, the really surprising thing is that the rest of the world and many organizations individuals who adhere to the "left" receive this type of funding from foundations and other institutions, without anyone's reproach of being mercenaries. In fact we believe that when in Cuba will be waived any law which violates the free expression, at the same moment as those statements Yoani lose all their specific weight, because there will be a wide range of newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, proclamations, with revolutionary libertarian socialist, anarchist positions that can contribute to the criticism.
What is your relationship with the Osservatorio Critico? They are Marxists, intellectuals or libertarians?
The Osservatorio Critico Network is an amazing and wonderful umbrella under which many projects come together, and many collective initiatives that start at critical positions - as its name suggests - although these critical positions are not necessarily of any ideological color. I want to clarify that this is not a political organization.
It is undoubtedly a confluence of ideas in which they find critical intellectual Marxists, organized from a discussion of participatory and democratic socialism, which support this International, and fellow libertarians, anarcho-syndicalists, libertarian socialists, anarchists, etc.. A good example is the Libertarian Laboratory Alfredo López. It should also clarify that we are not officially part of the Centre, although we know many friends and participated in many of their activities, perhaps for reasons related to their age or interests, perhaps because we are not members of the so called intelligentsia, despite some of our comrades are artists.
There are contacts with other opposition groups?
No, we do not have the slightest contact with groups of so-called "opposition", we recognize that there are many positions within this great melting pot that is called "opposition", but we do not share the principles of "general", to call in somehow. We agreed when these groups launched alarms about the lack of freedom, the lack of direct democracy, the absence of participatory support their criticisms of the historical direction, the verticality of the party-state, the reports of absolutist authoritarianism, we agree on the general claim of an urgent need for change but can not agree on the direction, on the way they want to take these changes. We do not want to switch from state capitalism to private and neo-liberal capitalism, as many of these groups do, but would like and we want to go to the libertarian socialism, democratic and participatory, and for this we work, for this we fight.
In Cuba there are difficulties to buy food?
In Cuba, it’s obviously very difficult to buy food but for the items on the margins, for those I mentioned earlier, who earn between $ 11 and $ 15 per month and for the unemployed – for which I do not have a specific figure, but which are estimated to be hundreds of thousands - for Cubans poors, the difficulties are truly many.
What is the situation in hospitals, schools, agriculture, industry and civil construction?
It is the same thing in the building, the common problem of housing, those who have money build their house without much difficulty, they buy all the material in any way, even with stolen material, but for most Cubans, this continues to be an impossible dream. As for hospitals, as for many other issues, things are not much different. It is undeniable, hospitals and medical care are free, but there are major shortcomings, there are no medicines, etc..
This does not always depends on the enemy or the embargo ... The same also applies to schools: it is undeniable that education is free from primary school to university for a long time but we have believed that this was a unique achievement of the revolution and one would always say, well, the party-state will make many mistakes but at least the education is free. But then we discover that there are many countries where education is free and we are not talking about the developed countries of Europe, no country but here, in the Latin American continent. Some fellow Mexicans who are featured here on a visit told us that even beyond the school, the university, is free, and have a system that achieved through the struggles of students, and also ensure that the transition from pre- university college. In fact, many times we do not know much of the world ... is a large prison, we are isolated without the possibility of communicating with the outside. It is an isolated island. It is not just for the U.S. embargo issue, is the embargo which they impose on us and with which we are condemned to live in ignorance, not knowing anything other than what "daddy" party-state-government wants to tell. .. Now came the mania of the war, the nuclear apocalypse between the capitalist powers and is a point of view that you can not put into question, no one can question this madness even if the world is convinced that the capitalist powers are happy using the excluded of the world and not think at all to jump into a nuclear holocaust, this does not mean you do not continue the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.., those of low intensity in Africa, this is the logic of capitalism.
Well, I hope you're satisfied were you, I can not help but thank you for the interview and recommend to San Bakunin that it is widespread and reflect a bit 'more about the meaning of the word "Solidarity". Thanks! A strong fraternal embrace to all comrades and fellow Italian.
anno
40 n. 357
