LIBERATED JOURNALIST RATIFIES COMMITMENT

      Havana – Independent journalist Lamasiel Gutiérrez Romero, conditionally released on parole by the Cuban authorities, on March 22^nd, after a five-month imprisonment in the Western Prison for Women, expressed her decision to continue practicing independent journalism, in spite of the threats she has received. Gutiérrez Romero, wife of prisoner of conscience Rolando Jiménez Pozada and mother of a 7-year old child, worked as a reporter for the ¨New Cuban Press¨ agency, when she became the only independent woman journalist to be sent to jail in Cuba by Fidel Castro’s government.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN ORGANIZATION SHOWS DOCUMENTARY ON CUBA

Los Angeles-  "Adiós Patria", a 180 minute film, was shown at the Western Region Headquarters of the National Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) last  Saturday, April 22, 2006 at 1pm. The documentary explores the reasons more than one million Cubans have left their homeland since the 1959 triumph of the revolution. It mixes poignant footage from the island with personal testimony from exiles and commentary by historians, politicians, and anti-Castro activists. CORE seeks to raise awareness of the plight of rafters’ or balseros and the desperation that leads them to brave shark infested waters to seek freedom on America’s shores. Many face an uncertain future to flee from Fidel Castro’s island prison. CORE (www.core-online.org), is a 64 year civil rights organization known for its 1960s demonstrations and the murder of three of its members as depicted in the movie “Mississippi Burning". Carl McGill is Assistant Western Regional Director of CORE and a candidate for the 35th California Congressional District. From Saturday, April 22 through Saturday, June 2, 2006 Carl McGill will sponsor weekly showings of "Adiós Patria". Mr. McGill, a former police officer, is a Democrat who has consistently opposed the Castro dictatorship. A good friend of the Cuban exile community, Mr.  McGill traveled from Southern California to Miami’s Little Havana in 2000, to protest Congresswoman Maxine Waters and the Congressional Black Caucus’ support of Fidel Castro. This, and other issues, prompted Mr. McGill to run against Ms. Waters in the upcoming Democratic primary.

IN SPITE OF PROMISES, POPULATION STILL WITHOUT TRANSPORTATION

      Havana – Information from the official press notified the arrival of five modern planes bought from Russia. One of these air ships will function as presidential plane and the rest will be used to transport sportsmen and other government’s beneficiaries. However, the expected city buses which it is said were acquired in China have become quite conspicuous for their absence, while the passenger transportation service has become more and more critical. The verbal incontinence coming from the galleries as well as the mass manipulation by the media conform a very ungratifying reality for the Cuban people, that are already aware of an evident lack of correlation between promises and their fulfillment.

PORK’S MEAT HAS DISAPPEARED

      Morón – Pork’s meat, that up to now could be obtained in some state markets for a differentiated price (some $18 Cuban pesos per pound), has totally disappeared, without any official explanation by government officers. Sources that asked to remain unidentified said that the problem started when, following ¨superior orders¨, the sale of pork’s meat was forbidden to private producers, who till then had guaranteed that the product could found a place in the markets, even at a price above the population’s average acquisitive level.

DAMAGE TO THE ENVIRONMENT

      Camagüey – The indiscriminate transfer of the vegetal layer from the fertile grounds around the city of Morón, toward the tourist areas of Cayo Coco and Cayo Guillermo, has provoked new damage to the environment in the Camagüey plains ecosystem. This vegetal layer was extracted from the rural cooperatives ¨El Carmen¨ and ¨Eulogio Fernández¨, whose areas border the city of Morón, by the east. The enormous ¨furnias¨ (holes in the ground) that remain in the zone, as a result of such extraction, are about 40 meters in diameter by one meter in depth, also representing a latent threat to the nearby neighbors, since in the next rain season soon to come, those holes will turn into actual nurseries for mosquitoes transmitting dengue and other diseases.

FREEDOM DEMANDED FOR INDEPENDENT LIBRARIANS

      Isla de Pinos – Residents of this territory, who supported the ¨Julio Tang Texier¨ independent libraries project, carried out a vigil to demand the immediate and unconditional release of eleven independent librarians imprisoned by Fidel Castro’s government, for promoting uncensored reading in Cuba. At the civil activity, which took place in the ¨Micro 70¨ Quarter in Nueva Gerona, Isla de Pinos’ capital, a banner was displayed saying: ¨Freedom without banishment for the Cuban political prisoners¨.

PRISONERS WITH AIDS UNATTENDED

      Villa Clara – More than a hundred AIDS patients are without any specialized and efficient medical assistance in the provincial penitentiary where the AIDS seropositive patients in the city of Santa Clara are confined. According to Juan Carlos González Leyva, President of the Cuban Human Rights Foundation, the imprisoned patient Yosvani Carrillo Rodríguez issued a S.O.S. to the international community, in order to be concerned about the shortage of food, the maltreatment, the lack of medical attention and even the constant beatings the sick men are suffering, as well as for the improvement of the internment conditions inflicted to these AIDS patients, hundreds of which die before their time, due to the lack of medicines and food and the cruel treatment.

UNCERTAIN FUTURE FOR ARTISANS IN TOURIST ROUTES

      Havana – Official authorities decided to retire the selling stands of private artisans on tourist routes, in order to accommodate them in other places, even if they have the necessary licenses to practice their trade. Salesmen operating their selling stands in areas of great tourist affluence, like Havana’s Cathedral surroundings and Malecón Avenue, in Vedado neighborhood, were relocated into the intermediate floor of an old department store in the Cuban capital, where they try to adapt to the small space assigned to them, but the drastic reduction of sales have left them in a situation of total bewilderment.

DRINKING WATER SHORTAGE IN CAMAGUEY

      Camagüey – More than 120,000 persons in this province, some 550 Kms. east of Havana, have been affected, for two years, by a severe drought, with none other option than receiving the drinking water supply by means of water tanks. The situation has become more difficult during the first quarter of 2006, when the amount of rain has been lower, as an average, than last year’s, and the dams are hardly filled with 28% of reserve water. The eastern region of Cuba has been historically affected by drought, especially the Las Tunas and Santiago de Cuba provinces, and the cities of Camagüey and Holguín, where the greater problems of supplying the population have been registered.

Arriba (up)
April 26, 2006
Represion-Ferrer