This is not a German concentration camp in Auschwitz, 1944. It’s a psychiatric clinic in , 2010. Fernando, a skinny Cuban journalist, jumps to an obsolete computer. “Will you take this to Europe,” he asks me while opening brutal looking pictures taken in a Cuban morgue. “Oh, my God, what is it?” “OK, you don’t […] Read more
Granma is ruled by Granpa Raúl Castro has made promises about the issue of freedom of the press. So far, though, the only noticeable change has been the extension of the number of pages of the two main daily newspapers Granma and Juventud rebelde. The usual eight pages of the Friday edition have been replaced with sixteen. Today’s […] Read more
“In this country we fear silence,” says Dagoberto Valdés as a way of explaining why he stopped talking just after the loudspeakers went silent. Instead of music, the restaurant in an old part of Havana suddenly fills with the voices of customers and the clattering of their silverware. Dagoberto only waits until the waitress takes […] Read more
The redistribution of lands to Cuban farmers was delineated as a part of the Moncada Program in Fidel Castro’s plea titled “The History Will Absolve Me” in a swift trial, which followed failed attacks on military headquarters Moncada and Carlos Maule de Céspedes de Bayazo. Later on it became known as the “Agrarian Reform Law”, […] Read more
The demise of Fidel Castro and the ascendancy of his brother, Raúl, to power in Cuba have prompted certain expectations of regime reform.[1] In mid-2007 measures touted as “Raúl’s reforms” were announced with much international media fanfare. Their impact, however, was disappointing. They consisted primarily of allowing citizens to own cell phones and enter tourist facilities, but […] Read more
It is no easier today than it was fifty years ago to gauge the state of play within the Cuban nomenclatura. In fact it is now even more difficult to assess how decisions are being made, how power is shared and delegated, and who in the leadership tiers below the Castro brothers may be rising […] Read more
