Enrique Ubieta Gómez on Prague, revisionist history, and the Cuban Five

Czech resistance hero Julius Fučík

In Prague: first impressions – español

Enrique Ubieta Gómez

Translation: Machetera

I’ve been invited to participate in the Fifth Regional Meeting of Cubans Residing in Europe, to be held this weekend in Prague.  Without a doubt it will be quite a rich experience, because with the advent of transnational corporate “freedom,” this capital, one of Europe’s most beautiful, has transformed itself  into a city that is deaf, mute and blind.   The Czechs no longer believe, hope, or care.  Its politicians are the most corrupt in Europe.  With the exception of the fiercely stigmatized communist paper, the ordinary press in the new country belongs to foreign consortia.  But the “free” citizens don’t want to think.  An editor here was sued for re-issuing Julius Fučík’s “Notes from the Gallows.”  History has been re-written, to the extreme of changing the date of the victory over Nazi fascism in order to attribute the honor to U.S. troops.  The current Chancellor, son of someone whose property was nationalized by socialism, had to learn his “native” tongue in order to re-insert himself and re-appropriate half of the country.  First, he made an investment: he was one of Havel’s principal financial backers.  I promise to write more, later.

Heroes and complete history.  Reflection on the Cuban Five, from Prague - español

Just a few hours ago an act of solidarity with the five anti-terrorist Cubans being held as political prisoners in the United States took place, attended by Rosa Aurora, the wife of Fernando, one of those heroes.

I’m familiar with the discussions that sometimes arise between historians and academics on the greater or lesser social visibility of certain heroes (sometimes even on the qualification itself) and of people and events in history.  The counter-revolution doesn’t care for the revolutionary pantheon.  I suppose that this includes Mella, Villena, Jesús Menéndez and José Antonio Echevarría, among others diminished or made invisible in the pseudo-republic.  In the frankly rightwing newspapers such as Spain’s El País or Miami’s El Nuevo Herald, they’ve tried to present Che Guevara as a murderer and Fulgencio Batista as a democrat who made mistakes.  Miami’s circumspect historians (no matter where they live, whether in México or Barcelona, there’s a Miami mentality that marks and defines a person) sometimes call for “a complete history” in which Julio Lobo and Orestes Ferrara – two millionaires with dubious ethics – return as heroes in the social pages of a press made for the purpose of reproducing their values precisely.

Mario Vargas Llosa’s Iraq Chronicles

 

War Trophies - español

Santiago Alba Rico

Translation: David Brookbank, Machetera & Manuel Talens

(From the book “Crimes of War” published by the Committee in Solidarity with the Arab Cause, which includes the report written by brigade members about civilian victims.)

 

Sometimes things are so simple that one allows oneself to be carried away by discouragement; they are so simple and function with so few elements that there is no way to change them.  The worst that can be said about relationships of domination – conjugal, economic or colonial – is that they enormously simplify the mental universe of those involved, reducing it to the two perfect pieces of evidence that have accompanied and legitimized forceful triumph for thousands of years: the superiority of the victor and the inferiority of the vanquished.

In part for reasons of pedantry and in part out of superstition – and with the hope of increasing the fragility of the scenario by exaggerating its complexity – I have searched over much time for more complex and elaborate similarities with more ramifications.  But I give up.   Everything is so simple that it will endure, so plain that it will not fall apart: every one of those gestures that we call “Western,” each and every one of its parliaments and chatter, its toys, its depressions, its newspapers, its shopping baskets, its values, each one of its Christmas decorations and each of its electro-domestics, presuppose and reinforce the most simple and virtuous contempt for everyone else; the most generous, friendly, genuine and proper minimization of the Other; the sweetest, most intelligent, and most moderate negation of our neighbor.  

Yoani Sánchez losing her groove: latest lie smacked down in record time

Anti-Cuban Campaign Fails: Twitter Acknowledges That it Blocked Cuba – español

Rosa Miriam Elizalde, Cubadebate

Translation: Machetera

In a brief message posted at the Havana Note blog, Twitter has acknowledged that it was the blocker of messages sent from cellphones in Cuba to Twitter and that it was not the Cuban government, as suggested by a malicious campaign against Cuba distributed on the Internet. “We have disabled “long” coding for sending tweets via SMS,” said the Twitter message, cryptically alluding to a purely technical problem on the social network and promising to correct the issue.

The communiqué was released a day after the EFE News Agency as well as many press outlets worldwide repeated the statements accusing Cuba of censoring the social network, without bothering to cross-check sources.

Ecuador: Life brings surprises

A Note About the Failed Coup in Ecuador - español

Atilio A. Boron

Translation: David Brookbank

1. What happened Thursday in Ecuador?

There was an attempted coup d’etat.

It was not, as various Latin America media reported, an “institutional crisis”, as if what happened had been a jurisdictional conflict between the executive and the legislature rather than an open insurrection by one branch of the executive, the National Police, whose members make up a small army of 40,000 men, against the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Ecuador, who is none other than the legitimately elected president.  Neither was it as U.S. Under Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Arturo Valenzuela claimed, “an act of police insubordination”.  Would it have been characterized this way if the equivalent of the Ecuadoran National Police in the U.S. had beaten and physically assaulted Barack Obama, injuring him?  Or if they had kidnapped him and held him in custody for 12 hours in a police hospital until a special army commando unit liberated him following a fierce gun battle?  Certainly not.  But given that we are talking about a Latin American leader, what in the U.S. would sound like an intolerable aberration is made to appear like a schoolyard prank here.

A peek inside Heather Hodges’ jewelry box: From Franco to Quito and all points in between

Hodges received a medal identical to this one. The image is from an online auction of fascist memorabilia: http://www.intariamilitaria.com/CatJun09.htm

The U.S. Ambassador in Quito, Heather Hodges, Knows All About Coups D’Etat as Well as Blockades – español

By Jean Guy Allard

Translation: Machetera

The United States Ambassador in Quito is “distinguished” for her numerous links with USAID, the public face of U.S. intelligence which dedicates scores of millions of dollars annually to the attempt to destabilize progressive governments in Latin America.  In her diplomatic career, she had the “privilege” of personal familiarity with the bloody dictatorship of the putschist Guatemalan Rio Montt and of conspiring as a high level official in the U.S. State Department’s Office of Cuban Affairs.

Heather Hodges is the former U.S. Ambassador to Moldova, a country that was part of the former USSR, where she dedicated herself to exacerbating the differences that Moldova had with Russia over the Trans-Dniestr region.

In Ecuador, it’s known that “Her Excellency” has not lost any opportunities to foment the sordid work of her intelligence personnel and exacerbate controversy in the debate about a separatist Guayaquil, promoted by certain rightwing elements.

Behind the Coup in Ecuador

Behind the Coup in Ecuador – The Rightwing Attack on ALBA - español

By Eva Golinger

Translation: Machetera

The latest coup attempt against one of the countries in the Bolivarian Alliance For The People of Our America (ALBA) is attempt to impede Latin American integration and the advance of revolutionary democratic processes.  The rightwing is on the attack in Latin America.  Its success in 2009 in Honduras against the government of Manuel Zelaya energized it and gave it the strength and confidence to strike again against the people and revolutionary governments in Latin America.