Amigos de Cuba en Canberra

Monday, 30 December 2013

AN AUSTRALIAN IN HAVANA (continued)

SOME GENERAL BACKGROUND ABOUT CUBA:

Location

If you don’t much like admiting in public that you failed geography in high school, you can quietly mumble to yourself: ‘So, where the bloody hell is the Republic of Cuba, and what do they do over there?’

The US and Mexico about to gulp down Cuba - the "little red shrimp"

Cuba is located at the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico, or to put this in another way, at the confluence of the Gulf of Mexico and the big Atlantic Ocean. That is, it is in the Western Hemisphere (or the ‘American Hemisphere’). For the nautically minded it lies between latitudes 19 degrees and 24 degrees north and longitudes 74 degrees and 85 degrees west. Some time ago, its location made it, and especially its capital city, La Habana, very vulnerable to attack from pirates and armies seeking treasure and conquests in the then so-called New World. To protect itself it then became very heavily fortified.

In a nut shell : Cuba, which is officially known as the Republic of Cuba, is an island[1] about 1,200 kilometres long (or about 750 miles if you live in the US) and on average about 90 kms wide (say, about 55 miles). In 2009 the UN estimated that 11.2 million people lived over there, and Havana is their capital. It is located near the coast on the north-west part of the island.

The Republic of Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean Sea, or in the West Indies - which are also known as the Caribbean Islands. The United States are to the north-west, the Bahamas are to the north, Haiti is to the east, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands are to the south, and Mexico (where the men wear large hats called sombreros) lies just opposite Cuba to its west.

The West Indies, or the Caribbean Islands if you insist on it, is actually a great long bridge of islands, just like the tail of a long snake stretching in an arc of about 3,000 kilometres long between Florida in North America on one side and Venezuela in South America on the other. On a map it looks like an arc of mountain tops poking out of the sea, which most of the islands probably are. This bridge of big and small islands consists of three separate groups or archipelagos. ’Archipelago’ is an old word meaning a ‘group of islands’.

Now that you have finally opened an atlas, the Republic of Cuba is that big island running from west to east (or east to west - if you insist on standing on your head). It has 1,600 quite small islands surrounding it; the biggest of these is the Isla de Juventude, or ‘Island of Youth’, just underneath Cuba to the south. All the Cuban islands apparently lie in the Greater Antilles archipelago; which is fairly near to the USA.

To someone who has smoked far too many Havana cigars, Cuba looks a bit like a giant hammer head shark swimming up from the depths of the turquoise Caribbean Sea (and man-eating sharks do exist around there) and about to bite the western side of the neighbouring island of Hispaniola, of which Haiti along with the other two-thirds of the island (called the Dominican Republic) also looks somewhat like a big fish with its mouth wide open (no doubt about to scream).

Another way of looking at things is to say that Cuba is located just under the Tropic of Cancer; hence it is within the balmy tropics and less than 200 kilometres from the barmy Florida peninsula. It is opposite Mexico and closer to it than to the USA - but, unlike the United States of America, few people in Mexico seem to worry very much about it! (to be continued)

[1] Cuba is the 16^th largest island in the world. Australia being the largest- so big, in fact, that it’s been made a continent!

Saturday, 14 December 2013

AN AUSTRALIAN IN HAVANA

A while ago a member of our group went to Cuba as part of one of the “Southern Cross Brigades” and recorded his experiences, plus a bit of his own musing and some historical notes and travel advice.

He has sent this material on to us and we thought that it has anecdotes which some of you may enjoy and information which could be of interest to those of you planning to visit Cuba, as part of a future “Southern Cross Brigades” or free-lancing it.

So from this post onward we’ll serialise our friend’s travel notes on a more or less weekly basis.

Enjoy the reading.

**************************************************************************************

AN AUSTRALIAN IN Havana

AN INTRODUCTION: i.e. Why I wrote this silly Blog:

After saying that the average middle-class Australian really only goes on a seven-day package holiday to safe places within his (or her) comfort-zone, places like Bali or maybe New Zealand (and to Fiji a few years ago), but never, ever to Cuba; that same nameless person told me that these Australians would be much happier if they had lived in a European village some few hundred years ago.
In those distant times people like them, I was told, never ventured out of their tiny communities. So they never got air miles, either. Today in Australia, these very same village idiots absentmindedly put compact disks and fish-fingers into their electric toasters in the morning.

That very same cynical person also once said that I should write a ‘travel guide for these types of Aussie Homer Simpsons. You know the type of conceited and small-minded guy who maybe packs tea-bags and powdered milk with his clean underpants, and who can write awfully sweet postcards home, and think bigoted thoughts ever-so pleasantly. Of course I refused to write such a guide, even a small one, for Aussies who don’t like any evidence that contradicts their prejudices.

That is, until I thought about it a little more. After all, I am basically a bit of a nerd (and my 17 year-old daughter wrongly thinks that I am also a control freak) and I have always been secretly fond of Cuba and their Revolution, their rum and unkempt beards, plus their women and (especially) their official defiance of Uncle Sam. Beside all this, the Republic of Cuba opened a consulate in Canberra in 2012, and the Cubans were apparently cooperating with our Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (usually known as DFAT) in a Pacific Region Medical Program, this includes East Timor which has/d 300 volunteer Cuban health workers helping build the country’s health system, plus 850 Timorese students are studying medicine in Cuba.

Well, even without a bottle of Cuban brown rum at hand, I do like Cuba - it may come out now and again in this blog - if you read on. But, if you do go off to Bali and you disagree with my fondness for this defiant and controlled little island in the Caribbean that tells near-by Uncle Sam to p*ss off, then don’t read this any further.

If however, you want to read more about socialism in action, Cuba, and especially La Havana, the capital of Cuba, which is now a World Heritage area to be restored and conserved; and if you think that the ‘life’ of an average Australian capitalist consumer is perhaps a little empty and that you are secretly looking for a different type of holiday experience, a wee bit outside of your usual comfort zone, then read on because (my friend) I have written this blog especially for you...

tbc

Friday, 6 December 2013

Vale, Nelson Mandela

The death of Nelson Mandela is grieved by every human being who has ever cared for decency and political progress.

There are virtually no other political leader in history who can rank beside him. Western leaders such as Winston Churchill who earned a place in history were milk compared to Mandela.

Even Australia’s conservative politicians who publicly branded Mandela as a terrorist are now voicing their respect for his life and work. The present British Prime Minister, David Cameron, had to rely on an echo of the words of Nehru following the death of Mahatma Ghandi. Few world leaders have a vocabulary of such sensitivity to describe the man and his values.

To evaluate Mandela would require the stature of a Mandela. They don’t exist. We are floundering in the flotsam of bean counters.

For members of ACFS, and in fact, anyone who has ever been interested in Cuban history will remember the glorious scenes when Mandela visited Fidel and demanded the Cuban leader make an official tour of South Africa. Fidel accepted the invitation and in an emotionally charged filming, Fidel addressed the South African Parliament and to be given a roaring-dancing, standing-effervescent ovation. Everywhere Fidel went in South Africa he was followed by vast crowds of cheering and forever-dancing black and white Africans. Unfortunately, respect for both men did not overflow into Australia.

The former Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Downer, constantly defended the savagery of the Apartheid regime to keep Mandela in Jail. Downer declared that all Mandela had to do was to renounce terrorism and he would be set free. We hope he chokes on the memory of his puerile words. Long after the memory of Downer, Howard and Abbott are gone from history, the name Nelson Mandela will shine like a lighthouse through the gloomy seascape of their time.

The political brotherhood of Fidel Castro and Nelson Mandela will validate, and guide, our need to change the world - away from the money-polluting systems under which we now exist.

Tony Abbott and John Howard will mouth platitudes about Nelson Mandela. It is their duty to do so.

We will grieve the passing of Nelson Mandela from the profound keep of our being.

Sunday, 5 February 2012

In an address to Cuba's National Assembly of People's Power on December 23, Raul Castro made the struggle against corruption a key focus of his speech, indicating that this is one of the revolutionary leadership's top priorities and vowing "to put an end to this parasitic plague" of "corrupt bureaucrats, with posts obtained through pretence and opportunism, who use the positions they still occupy to accumulate fortunes, betting on the eventual defeat of the Revolution", among others.

He gave indications of the depth and scope of the problem and of the offensive against corruption that is now underway. He considers corruption to be "one of the principle enemies of the Revolution, much more harmful than the subversive and interventionist activities of the US government and its allies within and outside the country."

These comments would seem to vindicate Esteban Morales, a respected Cuban academic expert on US politics and race relations in Cuba. Morales was "separated" from the PCC – a disciplinary measure one step short of expulsion – after he published an April 2010 commentary titled "Corruption: The true counter-revolution?", in which he warned:

Without a doubt, it is becoming evident that there are people in positions of government and state who are girding themselves financially for when the Revolution falls, and others may have everything almost ready to transfer state-owned assets to private hands, as happened in the old USSR...[There are] corrupt officials, not at all minor, who are being discovered in very high posts and with strong connections – personal, domestic and external – generated after dozens of years occupying the same positions of power.

Morales launched a successful appeal and his full PCC membership was reinstated in July.

While the Spanish text of Raul's speech has been published, there is not yet an official English translation. When one becomes available I'll post it to this blog.

"Corruption is one of the principal enemies of the Revolution"

Extract from Raul Castro's National Assembly speech, December 23, 2011

Translation: Marce Cameron

[...] Moving on to another matter, very closely linked to the functioning of the national economy is the paramount role of contracts in the interrelations between state enterprises, budgeted entities and the non-state forms of management of social property.

Despite having been taken up on various occasions, including in the Main Report to the Sixth Communist Party Congress and in the Economic and Social Policy Guidelines, in Guideline No. 10, in interventions in the National Assembly and in a number of meetings of the Council of Ministers, we are not seeing the necessary progress. This is reflected in the deficient situation regarding receipts and payments, with the consequent disorder in internal finances and the facilitation of criminal activities and corruption.

This is apparent, to cite just one example, in the fraudulent deliveries of agricultural products, that did not exist and were never cultivated, to the Havana produce markets. This resulted in the embezzlement of more than 12 million [non-convertible] pesos through the criminal activities of directors, functionaries and other workers of the state distribution firms, as well as peasant farmers that acted as proxies, all of whom will face administrative and criminal liabilities in correspondence with the seriousness of their deeds.

I bring this up in order to illustrate the urgent necessity for all of us in leadership positions at the various levels, from the base up to the highest posts in the country, to act with firmness in the face of indiscipline and lack of control over receipts and payments, which is one of the principle causes and contributors to crime. I am convinced that today, corruption is one of the principal enemies of the Revolution, much more harmful than the subversive and interventionist activities of the US government and its allies within and outside the country.

The office of the Comptroller [i.e. auditor] General of the Republic, the office of the Attorney General and the special branches of the Interior Ministry have been instructed to combat this scourge, with all the severity allowed for by our laws, just as we successfully dealt with incipient drug trafficking beginning in January 2003.

In this strategic battle, the degree of coordination, cohesion and rigour in confronting crime has been increased and we’re beginning to see some results, both in terms of so-called white collar crimes, committed by Cuban and foreign directors and functionaries linked to foreign trade and foreign investment, and in terms of crimes carried out by common criminals in collusion with administrative leaders and workers of state firms involved in production, transport and distribution in entities of the food industry, retail trade, food services, housing and the ministries of Basic Industry and Agriculture.

Indeed, in the agricultural sector, beginning on August 1, the fight against the theft and slaughter of livestock, and the subsequent commercialisation of the meat on the black market, was stepped up in a sensitive manner. This is a phenomenon that flourished for years with a certain impunity with serious negative consequences for both state and private producers, not only from an economic point of view but also from the moral and ethical standpoints.

The National Revolutionary Police, together with other agencies of the Interior Ministry, in close coordination with the political and mass organisations, have assumed with professionalism and a systematic approach the task of eradicating, once and for all, livestock theft in the Cuban countryside. These crimes are carried out with the complicity of the butchers, managers and specialists of state enterprises, agricultural cooperatives, peasant farmers, veterinarians and the municipal directors and other functionaries of the institution that is supposed to ensure a growing supply of meat in the country. I’m referring to the Livestock Control Agency, known by its initials, CENCOP.

It should be clarified that we’re not talking about one more campaign, as has certainly happened in the past, when actions taken to re-establish order were discontinued after a while and routinism and superficiality ensued, proving correct those who waited for everything to go back to how things were so they could continue to prosper at the expense of the wealth that belongs to our people.

I can assure you that this time the cattle thieves in Cuba are done for, just as we put an end to drug trafficking, and they will not reappear, because we are determined to carry out the directives of the government and the decisions of the Communist Party Congress. I say the same to those corrupt bureaucrats, with posts obtained through pretence and opportunism, who use the positions they still occupy to accumulate fortunes, betting on the eventual defeat of the Revolution.

This Wednesday, in the Communist Party Central Committee Plenum, we analysed in depth these factors and screened a series of documentaries and footage from the interrogations of white collar criminals. In due course these will be shown to all you compañero National Assembly deputies, and also to other leaders, in your respective provinces.

We keep in mind Fidel’s warning on November 17, 2005 in the Great Hall of Havana University, just over six years ago, in which he said that this country could destroy itself by itself, that today the enemy could not do it but we could, and it would be our fault. That’s what the leader of the Revolution said on that occasion. This is why we agreed two days ago, in the 3rd Central Committee Plenum that I just mentioned, that we would put an end to this parasitic plague.

In the name of the people and of the Revolution we warn that, within the framework of the law, we will be implacable.

Thursday, 2 February 2012

Friendly advice from the US Embassy in Canberra -
"Q: Am I allowed to visit the United States after I've been to Cuba?
A: Entry (even with a valid visa) is determined by U.S. Immigration officials at the port of entry. You may wish to take supporting documents about the purpose of your trip."

Tim Anderson