Cuba

A very controversial job at McDonald’s

Sophie Team Observers — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:18:03 +0100

This is a recruitment ad for a position at the Cuba branch of McDonald's. Strangely enough, they seem to have forgotten to mention, that the only McDonald's on the island, is in the Guantanamo Bay prison...

Six thousand hungry staff work at the controversial prison, seen below in 1994. Photo taken by a Navy Officer and published in Joint Task Force Guantanamo's in-house magazine.

“This country is one big prison with walls built of ideology”

Sophie Team Observers — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:24:10 +0200

Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez was awarded Latin America's most prestigious prize in journalism in July of this year. Going to pick it up however, has proved impossible. Yoani is forbidden from leaving the country. Just before the awards ceremony was due to take place, she went to the immigration centre - to no avail.

Writer, blogger and linguist, Yoani Sanchez was named one of the most influential people on the planet by Time Magazine in 2008. A year later, she received the Maria Moors Cabot Prize from Columbia University - a reward highly aspired to by Latin American writers.

Her blog, Generación Y, generates more than 14 million page views per month. According to the Cabot Prize jury, "Generation Y has put the rest of the world in touch with Cuba - at least digitally. (...) It is a pitch-perfect mix of personal observation and tough analysis which conveys better than anybody else what Cubans' daily life - with all its frustrations and hopes - is really like."

She filmed this video on a trip to the office of immigration and migration in Havana, October 12. At 00:25 the image stalls. The audio recording continues. Translation and subtitles by FRANCE 24.

Yoani posted the video on her blog along with the following comment:

I was naive. Right up to the last minute, I thought that the government would change their mind and let me out in time for the awards ceremony, which took place yesterday [Oct. 16].

I'd saved this footage from a trip to the immigration office on October 12. Today, seeing as the situation hasn't changed [Yoani has been prohibited from travel for a year now]; I decided to publish it, in particular for all those who have gone through similar situations. Due to high emotions and having so much to get out, it's quite hard to understand what I'm saying. But I feel better for having told those people in uniforms exactly what I think of them and their absurd restrictions."

Video: Colombian rock star Juanes's outburst against Cuban concert censorship

Team Observers — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:17:18 +0200

The Colombian rock star Juanes gave a much anticipated concert for peace in Havana, the Cuban capital, along with 14 other Hispanic artists on September 20. But the concert was nearly cancelled when the singer realised his every move was being spied on by Cuban authorities. A cell-phone video captured Juanes exploding before the Cuban concert producers hours before the show.

In an intensely emotional breakout in the lobby of the hotel where the artists were staying, Juanes and the Spanish singer Miguel Bosé denounced the behaviour of Cuban authorities after discovering several "preventive" measures taken to avoid any controversial incident during the concert (see Observer Ernesto Hernandez Busto's detailed explanation below).

After they repeatedly threatened to cancel the show, the Puerto Rican singer Olga Tañón, and a member of Cuban rap group Los Orisha, intervened to calm them down and convince them to perform.

The video was leaked by an exiled Cuban radio journalist, Leticia del Monte, who filmed the outburst on her iPhone. She later gave her interpretation of events in a TV interview. "Juanes paid a high emotional price for singing in Havana. For the first time, the reality of the oppression and fear that 11 million Cubans experience every year hit him in the face," she said.

Jailed for crying out his hunger

Team Observers — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:59:34 +0200

An unemployed drunkard shot to fame last month in Cuba when a video of him storming a TV report to demand food began circulating on the Web. His outburst got him a prison sentence, making him a symbol of Cuban poverty and repression.

Juan Carlos, nicknamed Pánfilo (dimwit in Cuban slang), never expected his impromptu interruption of a report on Cuban hip-hop to make such an impact. But after his tirade was posted on YouTube (presumably by one of the video reporters, although it is not known who is behind the initial upload) his life was never going to be the same again.

"We are hungry! What we really need is jama (Cuban slang for food)!", he repeated over and over for the camera. His words resonated with thousands of Cuban Web users, spreading like wildfire on the blogosphere. They also landed him in jail for two years, after authorities branded him a "danger" to society.

Cubans at home and abroad have rallied for his liberation, though a petition on the website Jama y Libertad (food and freedom). So far, however, Pánfilo remains behind bars.

Raul Castro: “We no longer see him”

Sophie Team Observers — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:46:33 +0200

Saturday marked the Cuban Revolution's 56^th birthday and Raul Castro's third time in celebrating the event with a televised speech. One of our Observers there, Yoani Sanchez, watched the speech on her TV at home. Here are her thoughts...

French student deported from Cuba for befriending political dissidents

Julien — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:17:50 +0200

Foreigners are welcome in Cuba, as long as they stick to the beaches and don’t meddle with local politics. A young French student learnt this the hard way, when she was forcibly deported from the island after she befriended local political dissidents.

Marie-Bérengère Ruet, a graduate student in the Parisian Institute of Political Science (Sciences-Po), spent two months in Cuba last spring to gather material for her thesis on Cuban opposition and resistance groups. During her stay, she met with, interviewed and befriended several opposition activists, considered as dangerous delinquents by the Cuban authorities. Their crime? Filtering information about the situation in Cuba outside the country, and generally expressing their dissent more vocally than most.

Yoani tests Cuban censorship with a hidden camera

Julien — Thu, 14 May 2009 10:05:14 +0200

Our Observer in Cuba, blogger Yoani Sánchez, has decided to test Cuban Web censorship with a hidden camera.

Subtitles by France 24.

Obama gesture leaves Cubans hopeful but wary

Sophie Team Observers — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:43:20 +0200

"An open road for travel to Cuba". Front page of the Puerto Rican-based "El Nueva Dia" on Tuesday. Image: "juan787".

After 50 years of strict sanctions, Barack Obama's gesture towards Cuba on Monday will allow exiled Cubans to travel and send money to their homeland. Fidel Castro however, scoffed at the plans, saying that Obama should lift the "cruel" commercial embargo rather than hand out "charity". What do our Cuban Observers make of the news?

"Obama should read Granma"

Sophie Team Observers — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 11:40:54 +0100

Image: "Pexi" on Flickr.

Gaja Pellegrini is a communications consultant in Belgium. She's been following the situation in Cuba since a visit to the country two years ago, during which she met one of Che Guevara's travelling companions (Polito Torres).

When you pick up an issue of the Cuban national paper Granma you expect nothing less than to find anti-imperialistic propaganda articles that leave little room for bipartisan sentiment. Perhaps. Or perhaps bipartisan information is there, once the propaganda veneer is stripped away, to reveal itself as a terrific tool to identify what needs to change in US-Cuban relations and bring us into the new era of political responsibility we have been promised by President Obama.

The Obama administration has repeatedly stated the importance of a review of US policy on Cuba. While the president is expected to attend the 5th Summit of the Americas on 17 April in Trinidad and Tobago, which will focus on "Securing Our Citizens' Future by Promoting Human Prosperity, Energy Security and Environmental Sustainability," and to announce new policies on Cuba, there is a lack of alignment in the bills that are being passed in Congress on the one side and embargo measures that are being reinforced on the other.

On 11 March Congress passed a bill that will ease restrictions against travel and medicine on Cuba, making it easier to sell agricultural and medical goods to the island and effectively reversing limits imposed under the previous Bush administration in 2004. This would seem to indicate the intention to eventually drop the embargo which has been repeatedly condemned by the UN and other worldwide institutions. Although President Obama for the moment has maintained that the embargo will remain in place.

On the same day, 11 March, Granma published a thought-provoking article on this issue, highlighting what would seem to be a contradiction in current US policies towards the Caribbean island. The US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has sanctioned the company Lactalis USA, Inc. (the US branch of Lactalis France) to pay US $20,950.38 [€16,000] for not complying with embargo rules. Lactalis was charged with making six unlicensed wire transfer payments in which Cuba or Cuban nationals had an interest.

This is the first sanction that the US Treasury Department has imposed on Cuba since President Obama took office. The reason is politics as usual. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has confirmed Stuart Levey as the first Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, a role he held since 2004 under the Bush administration. We must not forget that Cabinet Defence Secretary Robert Gates is Republican. This is a post which in the past has traditionally been given to Republican party representatives. As undersecretary, Levey oversees the OFAC, which explains the apparent inconsistency with the administrations' announced change in policy towards Cuba.

Interestingly, the Cuban government views this apparent dichotomy as part of the last-ditch efforts of the remaining Bush staff to block the new administration's policies. The Cuban government is leaving the door open for new relations with the US, an opportunity not to be missed for both governments after a 47-year-old US embargo."

Yoani sends a thank you note to her spies

Sophie Team Observers — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:45:00 +0100

Yoani Sanchez, our Observer in Cuba, is under permanent surveillance. She decided to photograph the men who camp outside her house.

Yoani lives in the capital Havana, from where she writes the blog Generacion Y. She was voted one of Time's most influential people for 2008.

I can only thank these courageous 'compañeros' who plant themselves on my doorstep day and night. Thanks to them, there's no more vandalism, fewer clothes stolen from the washing line, no more pissing on the steps, no more flashers exposing themselves to adolescents. Even the dogs have been booted out.

I've got nothing against the watchmen, they're only soldiers. But I do wonder if there's a better way to spend state money, at a time when production is crumbling. There nothing to see at my house. I've got nothing to hide. Everything I think, I write on my blog. You only need to read it..."