Apparently yet another movie that explores the legend of Ernesto "Ché" Guevara and the power of a solitary photograph has been made. And surprise, surprise, based on this description, it gives no shrift to his legacy as a cold-blooded murderer.
But there was this acknowledgement by filmmaker Trisha Ziff of the challenge faced by those of us who try to inform others of the real Ché Guevara.
Kids wear Che T-shirts, she continued, "and they don't know who the hell's on their T-shirt. They just wear it because it's cool. And what kind of culture do we live in when that level of ignorance is permissible? I think the only image that still isn't (able to be used) that way is the swastika. Punks wear it on one level to be outrageous, but it doesn't transcend its meaning. It's still locked in its meaning. Skinheads in England wear it because they aspire to Fascist ideas, but it's never lost its meaning. It's always locked in that history. It's almost like the only untouchable film symbol."
"Korda was a fashion photographer and I think he saw through the lens with a very specific kind of aesthetic. The picture's taken from below looking up in this kind of socialist realist heroism. Che was a very good looking charismatic guy with great eyes. I think Korda because of his history photographing beautiful people saw that moment whether consciously or not and he got it. I think part of the allure of Che is that he is an attractive man. The image has that (movie star) quality. He also was a very uncompromising man and he did something that a lot of people don't do -- he lived by what he said and he died for it."
Carlos Serpa Maceira, one of the workhorses of Cuban independent journalism — his work appears regularly at Miscelaneas de Cuba — was arrested Sunday and released a few hours later but only after he paid a 30-peso fine for causing a "public disorder." Furthermore, Serpa said he is under investigation for being a "social danger;" if convicted of that, he faces up to 4 years in prison.
The thing is, the charges are true, but not in the way the dictatorship might have you believe. With his work, especially his reporting on the efforts of the Damas de Blanco, Serpa informs the world of how brave Cuban men and women are resisting their captors. He is causing the dictatorship disorder and posing a danger to its continued survival as one of history's worst tyrannies. Serpa is guilty as charged.
Serpa, 41, was arrested Sunday in Havana's Central Park. As he walked with his wife, Serpa noticed how some police officers were harassing a group of youth. When he approached to see what was happening, an officer demanded to see his identity papers.
Since his ID listed a home address on the Isle of Youth Isle of Pines, the officer accused Serpa of being in Havana illegally, placed him in a patrol car and drove him to a police station. Eventually, he was accused of being a "public disorder," fined the 30 pesos and warned that he was under investigation for being a "social danger." He was then released.
Serpa rejected the charges, noting that his wife is from Havana and that Cuban laws restricting travel within the country violate an international human rights treaty the dictatorship recently signed.
"At the park, I protested that I had the right as a Cuban to reside wherever I want in my homeland," Serpa wrote.
To mark the one-year anniversary of his release from jail, former political prisoner Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez", one of the giants of the Cuban opposition, gave an interview to independent journalist Yoel Espinosa Medrano. The translation to English isn't perfect, but it is still worth a read.
The money quote:
As everyone knows Cuba is a big prison. Being in the streets does not mean you live freely. I left a small prison and now live in a bigger one. This period is a continuation of the struggle for human rights and the much needed changes the island needs through a transition to be able to implement a true democracy.
You can read the whole thing in English here, and in Spanish here.
And their sons. And their brothers. And their nephews.
Because their loved ones — journalists, librarians, democracy activists and other dissidents — have been silenced by the Castro dictatorship and its gulag, the Damas, or "Ladies in White," have committed their lives to testifying on their behalf and demonstrating for their liberty.
Each Sunday, they attend Mass and then march down one of Havana's busiest streets in silent protest on behalf of Cuban political prisoners. On Monday, 10 Damas upped the pressure by trying to take their case straight to the top, straight to the office of dictator Raúl Castro.
"We are here to demand the release of our husbands and won't leave until they are free or they arrest us. We have waited long enough, we want to talk to the new president," group leader Laura Pollan said.
Moments later, a bus pulled up and about 20 female corrections officers tried to arrest the women, who sat on the sidewalk, clasped arms and refused to move.
"They are dying, they are dying," one women yelled with tears in her eyes.
A mob of about 100 government supporters, mainly women from nearby government buildings, quickly entered the fray, yelling insults while pushing the women, picking them up and shoving them into the waiting bus.
"After forcing them into the bus they dropped the Havana residents at their homes and sent the others back to their homes in the provinces," Marta Bonachea, a spokesperson for the women, told Reuters in a telephone interview
It's easy to explain why the Damas were treated this way: Castro got scared. So he not only didn't give these women an audience, he sent his goons — that they were women doesn't make them less deserving of the moniker — to do his dirty work. It's standard operating procedure for the dictatorship, turning the Cuban people on each other.
In doing so, Castro, who has yet to show the same P.R. acumen as his big brother — didn't anyone notice the foreign journalists on scene to cover the protest? — did a big favor for anyone trying to convince others of the evil, vile nature of his regime.
Many days, it is frustrating challenge to crystallize the fundamentally cruel nature of the Castro dictatorship to terms that even the biggest fool or the biggest apologist can understand and maybe even accept. I confess I sometimes make myself numb as I try to describe the latest outrage committed against a political prisoner or other dissident, wondering if I am making a difference.
It gets even harder when the dictatorship changes the rules about what Cubans can buy and where they can spend their vacations, and those who don't know better accept it as genuine reform. "It sures seems like Raúl is changing things for the better," they say, "so why doesn't the U.S. end the embargo?"
On Monday, Castro did those of us who write about Cuba and testify for the cause of Cuban liberty an invaluable favor. The whole story — of what the Damas are demanding, and of Cuba for almost 50 years under tyranny — is on the faces of the women, both the Damas and the goons, captured in the attached photographs.
What more is there for us to say?
Except, thank you, Raúl, you piece of shit.
As the Castro goon squad demonstrated and the Damas de Blanco suffered Monday, nothing has changed under Raúl Castro. He is the same ruthless, bloodless, soulless bastard as his big brother, just not as slick.
And freedom in Cuba — for the brave men on whose behalf these women were protesting, and for all Cubans — remains absent.
UPDATED, April 22, 2008
The women detained were five Damas and five supporters. The Damas were identified as Laura Pollán, Berta Soler, Dolia Leal, Alejandrina García y Noelia Pedraza.
"The dialogue began on the subject of journalism," Delat told Encuentro En la Red, a Spanish-based Web site. "They told me they wanted me to stop making allegations about the health of Jesús Mustafá Felipe, that they were not going to let me and that what I was saying were lies."
A warning like that from the Cuban police cannot be taken just as an idle threat. More than two dozen journalists are in Castro's prisons for doing just that, reporting stories the dictatorship doesn't like. In fact, during their "conversation" with Delat, which lasted more than 90 minutes, two police officers warned Delat he could be prosecuted under the notorious Law 88 if he continued working as a journalist.
Not part of the "conversation," according to Delat, were his work as independent librarian or a "training center" he runs that offers courses about independent journalism, human rights and the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. All they wanted to talk about was Mustafá Felipe, a democracy activist sentenced to 25 years in prison during the "black spring" of 2003.
The officers said they were giving Delat a "wake-up call because they couldn't make any more concessions to the 'counter-revolution,'" Delat told the Web site.
"I responded that I didn't consider myself a counter-revolutionary. I told them I didn't even like the terms counter-revolution or revolution because what revolution in this world has not brought bloodshed, violence, widows?"
At the end of this "conversation," the officers came back around to asking whether Delat planned to continue writing about Mustafá Felipe, who suffers from a cardiac condition requiring surgery.
Obviously, the officers need to work on their "conversational" techniques.
"I told them that was a question that I would decide, and that I didn't it was appropriate to give them my explanation on that subject," Delat said.
Columnist Miguel Perez wants to see a movie about musician Carlos Barberia, who befriended Guevara and Fidel Castro after they took power but then had the guts to stand up to them and their murderous ways, and live to tell about. When the secret police came for Barberia, he had gone into hiding so they took his father and Guevara had him shot.
Perez writes:
Take that story into account when you consider that on the main commercial road in the town where Barberia lives (Bergenline Avenue in Union City, N.J.), there are boutiques selling T-shirts with Che Guevara's face.
Barberia, now 72, has made strides in the United States, both as a bandleader and as an advertising salesman for New York Spanish-language radio stations. But when he is confronted with images of Guevara, Barberia is visibly affected. His face turns red. His eyes shed tears. When he sees young Americans who don't know Guevara's true history blindly following a murderer who has been turned into a pop-culture icon, Barberia makes a visible effort to restrain himself.
Not long ago, when Barberia waited for a bus on Bergenline Avenue, he spotted a Guevara T-shirt on a rack at a sidewalk sale. And he couldn't take it. They had brought the T-shirt out too close to the comfort zone. He grabbed the T-shirt, took it inside the store and paid for it. And then he took it back outside and set it on fire.
When police arrived, Barberia said he was honest in explaining his outburst. "Che Guevara killed my father," he told the officers. "He had my father shot by a firing squad in Cuba."
As luck would have it, Barberia said one of the cops was a young Cuban-American. "He told me, 'I have not seen anything,'" Barberia said, "and he walked away."
Think of it as a movie — one with real memories and real pain.
Read the whole column, which was originally published last fall, here.
More recently, Perez opined that despite all the "reforms" taking shape in Cuba, not much has really changed. You can read that column here.
Maybe thinking "The Sopranos" is some sort of reality show, the programmers at Cubavision decided that Cuban TV watchers have an appetitie for a show about a murderous gang leader with an assortment of family issues.
Also debuting on Cuban airwaves will be "Grey's Anatomy," the perfect cure for those who have to live with the disaster that is the Cuban health care system.
There's a buzz in Cuba this weekend that the dictatorship is about to lift the requirement that Cubans obtain government permission before they can travel overseas. If the change comes to pass, that will be almost 15 years too late for political prisoner Jorge Pelegrín Ruiz.
Pelegrín and two others Juan Ramirez Gonzalez and Alejandro Mustafa Reyes were arrested in August 1993 for trying to illegally leave the country. When they were finally brought to trial 6 months later, Ramirez and Mustafa were each sentenced to 20 years in prison, and Pelegrín was sentenced to 36 years in prison.
In 2000, the three prisoners addressed a letter to the president of the National Council of Churches of Christ USA in which, in part, they described why they were trying to leave Cuba:
Dear Sir, our country talks about human rights but employs violence and repression when one of its citizens claims his/her human rights. In their speeches and lectures they (our rulers) equally speak of social justice but in reality use injustice as a bastion of reason.
We are honest men, simple, peaceful and hard workers. We have been imprisoned for the simple reason of trying to achieve in foreign lands that which is denied us in the country where we were born as slaves: liberty.
None of us have stolen anything or raped or murdered anyone. We are men who have dissented with the ruling regime in our country. Our intentions were to leave behind this miserable life and go in search of a better life for our loved ones.
Let's keep in mind that Jesus proclaimed that happy are the poor, but not because they were forced to be poor as is the case in our country, but because they believe in the kingdom of God.
Cuban authorities, in their disordered state of hard dogma, consider every opposing opinion not only as something different but as treason and thus punish it with the cold fist of an inquisitor. They treat as heretics all those who deviate from the official dogma, confining them to psychiatric hospitals and/or prisons or both.
I could not find recent accounts how Pelegrín is doing. About five years ago, CubaPP.info reported that he was suffering from chronic hepatitis, bleeding ulcers and gallstones.
Most who argue for the United States to lift its ban on most travel by Americans to Cuba rarely acknowledge that the dictatorship restricts the ability of Cubans to travel to the United States — and anywhere else in the world.
But there is no moral equivalency here.
The U.S. ban is designed to restrict the spending of money certainly headed straight to the Castro brothers' bank accounts, via tourist hotels and other facilities designed for foreign visitors. (I support lifting limits on travel by Cuban Americans visiting family members, concluding the Castros' financial gain is outweighed by the humanitarian value of allowing such trips.)
The Cuban ban is just another way for the dictatorship to tyrannize its own people, to maintain control.
One of the surest indicators of the repressive nature of the Castro regime is the jailing of several hundred political prisoners. To illustrate that reality, Uncommon Sense each week profiles one prisoner. There also is a Political Prisoner archive on the right sidebar. To suggest a prisoner for a profile, send me an e-mail.
For profiles of imprisoned Cuban journalists and related information, read the March 18 Project.
Cuban political prisoner Juan Bermúdez Toranzo doesn't need any political "re-education."
He knows what his rights are — life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, free expression, etc. He doesn't need the Castro dictatorship trying to teach him otherwise.
For his resistance, however, Bermúdez is paying a heavy price.
Human rights activist Juan Carlos González Leiva is reporting that officials at the Valle Grande prison in Havana are denying Bermúdez medical care — he suffers from chronic duodenitis — because of his refusal to participate in political activities at the prison. On April 16, the prison's political captain told Bermúdez that "counter-revolutionaries" like him don't have any rights, and guards can do whatever they want to their captives.
Bermúdez, national vice president of the Cuban Foundation of Human Rights, was sentenced in March to 4 years in prison, for the supposed crime of "threatening." Read more about him here.
Add New York to the list of American states eager to earn the Cuban dictatorship's business.
State Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker — a name perfect for someone both appointed by former Gov. Eliot "Client No. 9" Spitzer and wanting to get paid by a pimp like Raul Castro — next week is leading the delegation's first trade mission to Cuba.
I have written it before, but it's worth repeating: This kind of trade is about the almighty dollar and nothing about changing the behavior of the Cuban dictatorship towards its own people — most of whom will never eat a New York apple.
Of course, it is better to have money flowing out of Cuba, rather than in. But decades of trade between other nations and Cuba have demonstrated that all the commerce in the world will not better the behavior of the dictatorship in Havana. It has not bettered the material lives of Cuba, nor has it set them free, which is what the goal of American policy and actions towards Cuba must be.
The 2000 law allowing agricultural sales to Cuba — as long as the Cubans pay in cash, in advance — ripped a huge loophole in the so-called embargo, resulting in the U.S. becoming the No. 1 foreign supplier of food to the island. But there still is value in not allowing the Cubans to have easier access to the American market — especially as long as the dictatorship continues to oppress and repress its people.
Until Havana tilts towards democracy, releases political prisoners and dismantles its police state, the restrictions, and other elements of the "embargo" serve as a valuable negotiating stick with which the U.S. in the future might be able to affect change on the island.
Allowing trade deals like New York's with Havana does not help that cause nor the cause of freedom for Cuba.
UPDATED, 8:31 p.m. EDT
New York officials might want to consult with their counterparts in Idaho, who made a similar trip to Cuba last April. As a return on the $14,000 cost of the trip, Idaho ag interests have netted $0 — as in nada. Falls Brand Independent Meats thought it had an order for $100,000 in pork products, but the cost of shipping the product and Cuban red tape scuttled the deal.
"We've moved on," said company CEO Pat Florence.
New York officials might also want to consider the comments of Jason Schweizer, an economist with the College of Idaho, who said it makes better economic sense for a state to target a larger nation, like Brazil, then an island-state of only 11 million people.
"It's hard for me to see what economic value it has," he said.
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