Global Voices » Janine Mendes-Franco

Cuba: The State of Human Rights

Janine Mendes-Franco — Sat, 26 May 2012 19:35:45 +0000

The recent request for information by the United Nations‘ Committee Against Torture with regard to alleged human rights abuses in Cuba has got bloggers talking.

Diaspora blogger Uncommon Sense said that despite the fact that “the United Nations has far from a pristine history when it comes to holding the Castro dictatorship accountable for its 50-plus years of repression…the UN's Committee Against Torture deserves applause…” Why, exactly? For causing the Cuban government to deny that anyone “has been persecuted or sanctioned for exercising their rights, including those of free expression and association” - to which the blogger responded:

No one, except the thousands of political prisoners, past and present, who have languished in the Castro gulag because they exercised the rights given to them by God.
No one, except the activists who every day risk what little liberty they enjoy to ensure that one day they and their successors enjoy those rights freely.
No one, except those Cubans, like Zapata and Villar, who were permanently silenced, who were murdered by the Castro regime because of the threat that they, and their commitment to those rights, posed to the dictatorship's survival.
That one of the dictatorship's flunkies would stand before the world and deny the undeniable, is evidence enough that whatever action the UN takes against Cuba as result of the latest inquiry, the Castros live in fear that their time is up.

The Cuban government's position is at loggerheads with two different reports, one by the U.S. State Department and the other by Amnesty International, about the human rights situation on the island. Havana Times blogged about Amnesty's findings, reporting that:

According to Amnesty, the Cuban government continued its ‘repression' on freedom of expression, association and assembly with hundreds of arrests and brief detentions, although it freed the last 11 prisoners of conscience who had been held since 2003, as well as another 62 ‘political prisoners,' some of whom had been in jail since the 1990s.

The NGO human rights defender, which hasn’t been allowed to enter the country since 1990, also expressed its opposition to the US embargo and highlighted the negative impact the measure has on the health of the Cuban population, especially marginalized groups.

Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter, meanwhile, addressed “two (of the many) misstatements by the Castro regime at the Committee Against Torture”:

First false statement, the claim that “the persons mentioned in these questions and the rest of the list of questions are supposed ‘human rights defenders', do not qualify as established in the The Declaration on Human Rights Defenders adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations” on December 9, 1998 citing article 3.

The Cuban Black Spring of 2003 in which the majority of the organizers of the Varela Project, an initiative that sought to reform the current Cuban constitution to bring it into line with international human rights obligations, were imprisoned and sentenced in summary trials to up to 28 years in prison for engaging in a legal right recognized by the Constitution. The claims made by Rafael Pino Bécquer are demonstrated as patently false by the above mentioned crackdown and the numerous cases of dissidents being imprisoned with the sole purpose of the dictatorship enforcing political conformity.

Second false statement, the regime's representative claims that the facts have been misrepresented in order to serve a shadowy conspiracy. At the same time the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture was formally invited by the regime on January 28, 2009 and to the present day the dictatorship has not agreed on a date for the visit. International human rights organizations have requested permission to visit the island and be able to study the situation on the ground to be able to arrive at their own conclusions on the human rights situation, but the Cuban regime has denied them all permission to visit the island. Human rights organizations are relying on reports from human rights groups operating inside and outside of Cuba that are slandered and libeled by the dictatorship.

The United Nations and human rights watchdog organisations may be waiting for answers, but diaspora bloggers continue to highlight instances of persecution and repression.

The thumbnail image used in this post, “United Nations”, is by Christopher Chan, used under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Creative Commons license. Visit Christopher Chan's flickr photostream.

Jamaica: Re-introducing Calabash Litfest

Janine Mendes-Franco — Fri, 25 May 2012 23:24:49 +0000

Two Jamaican litbloggers are thrilled that the Calabash Literary Festival is back!

Trinidad & Tobago: Same Sex Issues

Janine Mendes-Franco — Fri, 25 May 2012 23:22:38 +0000

Globewriter comments on a Senate debate about a clause of the Children's Bill “involving a clause that includes buggery”; B.C. Pires adds: “The People’s Partnership of UNC [United National Congress] MPs [Ministers of Parliament] yesterday refused, despite urgings from Independent senators, to decriminalize same gender sexual activity between minors - even while ploughing ahead with decriminalizing the same activity between boys and girls. If ever there were a plain human rights issue, sexual orientation is it.”

Trinidad & Tobago: Government Partnership a Leaky Ship?

Janine Mendes-Franco — Fri, 25 May 2012 23:15:09 +0000

A handful of Trinidadian bloggers seem disillusioned with the People's Partnership government and are being rather vocal about their reasons. aka_lol, for instance, noted yesterday that:

There is a a 16-page color pullout in all the daily newspapers today boasting of the accomplishments of the Government over the last two years. This pullout is funded by taxpayers. Didn’t we vote against this foolishness? Nothing has changed.

The blogger continued:

I thought any political party that replaced a corrupt and vindictive regime like the Manning administration would have at least appeared, without even trying, competent and honest during its first two years in office. Sadly, that has not been the case. All the Peoples Partnership has appeared to have done was to replaced once set of corrupt, vindictive and incompetent people with another set…the lack of performance is due to fighting at all levels of the party and parties for the spoils of the land.

He also referred to yesterday's anniversary celebration of the party's two years in office:

The anti-productivity, falsely self-righteous MSJ [Movement for Social Justice], a nearly severed arm of the PP [People's Partnership], has cited favoritism and nepotism as two of the reasons for not celebrating tonight with the other Parties that make up the PP – UNC [United National Congress], COP [Congress of the People], TOP [Tobago Organisation of the People], NJAC [National Joint Action Committee]. Regardless of the reasons the MSJ gave for pulling out of the celebrations (and not the Partnership as yet), the main but unsaid reason is probably the massive failure of the TCL [Trinidad Cement Limited] strike – the failure of the OWTU [Oilfield Workers Trade Union]. Next to the Government, the OWTU might be the biggest bully in the country and bullies tend not to get along well together.

The big celebration was also top of mind for The Eternal Pantomime. Yesterday, she wrote:

The Prime Minister is saying this is not a fete in here…She maintains that this is actually the Government (sans the MSJ [Movement for Social Justice]) coming to account to the people…This is the same Government that won’t answer our questions in the Parliament, or when the media interrogates them in post-cabinet meetings or over the phone. But tonight, yet another year later…the PM plans to account to the country for her government’s achievements in the past year.

You will no doubt hear about the numerous mini-projects that they put on fast track in the last month to allow them to have things to report.

She went on to document all the topics that would (and would not) be covered at the event:

What you…won’t hear is a proper comparison of crime statistics between last year and this year (minus the lull period of the SoE) and a breakdown of how the removal of certain National Security infrastructure has led to murders and gang activity once again being on the upsurge.

You will hear about all the sweeping changes being planned for SEA. You won’t hear why the indecent haste to change this exam in this way and the impact it’s likely to have on our failing education system.

You will hear talk of how the trip to India and all the other numerous trips have yielded trade and investment possibilities. You will never get details on what those possibilities are or what the trips really cost us…you also will not hear that they met a stable economy, and a treasury that was not in debt and they have now managed to screw the entire economy up.

I wish I could think of all the other areas they are going to list as achievements, but their numerous and glaring failures are far too apparent to me.

The blogger had a slightly different perspective from aka_lol's, however, when it comes to the legacy of the People's National Movement (the country's first post-independence government, now occupying the opposition bench in Parliament) - especially against the backdrop of Trinidad and Tobago's upcoming 50th anniversary of independence:

The architect of this nation will always be recognised as Eric Williams…it is Williams’ ideas, programmes and implementation that built and developed the idea of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago: for better or for worse. And this is where every other political party will always stumble!

The PPG [People's Partnership Government], the UNC [United National Congress], the COP [Congress of the People] will fail simply because none of their leaders or any member of leadership is the calibre of historian that Williams was. In this year of our 50th anniversary the PPG have tried to avoid all mention of Eric Williams, because it will mean having to mention the PNM and therefore having to acknowledge that much of the infrastructure they have come and met, and regularly use and abuse was developed under Eric Williams, and then maintained under Chambers and then Manning. Indeed every government since 1981, whether it was PNM-led or not, has been coming to terms with the Williams legacy. Every regime we have had lives under his shadow….both in terms of his achievement and his failures.

An important part of any nation’s imagination is its Independence story. Last year the SoE [State of Emergency] denied us a celebration. This year’s celebration will be a disappointment. Mark my words. The country is frustrated, disillusioned, broke and bitter. Come August the people’s minds will turn to Eric Williams, which invariably means they will turn to the PNM and their thoughts will force comparisons. Many will still recoil at the thought of Manning, but many more will continue to think of Williams and what he stood for…no country forgets the architect of their Independence.

In today's follow-up post, The Eternal Pantomime gave an update on last night's celebration:

The PP [People's Partnership] dropped two bombs last night, but one was more obvious than the other and will be talked and beaten to death over the water coolers today, while the other bomb, might well remain in stealth mode for a while.

The overt bomb was of course the appearance of Sugar Aloes at the Eat Ah Food Fete. And if Aloes’ presence didn’t emphasise for use the extent of trough feeding going on under this regime then we are truly misunderstanding the ethos of this government. The whole point of producing Aloes onstage was of course to undermine the confidence of PNM supporters. It was the PP’s way of saying, ‘Look, even all yuh biggest critics joining us.' Then I get up this morning and see a Guardian story that says the Calypso Revue is looking for a home… this is the tent Aloes belong to…I wonder if land for the tent owners was part of Aloes’ contractual arrangement last night? The battle for Elections 2015 is well underway folks. Indeed it never stopped. This is a government that has not yet begun to rule, and has certainly never stopped campaigning.

The other bomb though, got lost in the fireworks of Aloes’ presence….and that was Prakash Ramadhar’s speech…but Ramadhar’s COP [Congress of the People] made a bold move last night and dropped some fighting words.

The blogger republished the speech in her post.

Facebook and Twitter were busy today with commentary about the event (and extensive marketing thrust surrounding the government's second anniversary), with @IamCoffeedude saying, tongue-in-cheek:

There is a remote controlled parachute flying over the Queen's Park Savannah towing a massive picture of Kamla. We real reach boy. ‪#Trinidad‬

WUZDESCENE echoed his sentiment in a post titled “Wha really goin' orn in T&T bwoy?!”, at the end of which the blogger commented:

all ah dat tralala goin' orn ….. while Kamla an' she Pee Pee …. in Central ….. galleryin deyself …. in celebration of …. two years …. of ….. screwin' de country!!!!!!

aka_lol made a prediction about what citizens should expect from the People's Partnership government for the rest of its term:

Over the next three years I expect an increase use of the smoke-and-mirror technique while there will be more pick pocketing of the taxpayers’ purses by those who are friendly with those on the top…there will be no improvement in the way the country is governed…”

The thumbnail image used in this post, “Trinidad and Tobago flag”, is by quillons, used under an Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0) Creative Commons license. Visit quillons' flickr photostream.

Cuba: “Mob” Attack Linked to Heart Attack?

Janine Mendes-Franco — Wed, 23 May 2012 17:54:03 +0000

Further to this, babalu reports that another elderly lady “suffered a fatal heart attack after her home was violently attacked by a paramilitary mob.”

Barbados: The Jaws of Justice

Janine Mendes-Franco — Wed, 23 May 2012 17:48:35 +0000

“Bajans deserve the truth, all the truth and nothing but the truth. It is not enough for the Court of Appeal or the news media to gloss over this story”: Barbados Free Press is curious about a case in which a man who bit a police officer apparently got off scot-free.

Cuba: Diaspora Bloggers Blame “Aggressive Acts” in Grandmother's Death

Janine Mendes-Franco — Tue, 22 May 2012 20:57:47 +0000

Two Cuban diaspora blogs are talking about the death of a senior citizen that took place in the region of Santa Clara this past weekend. Despite the fact that the woman was in her nineties, bloggers are speculating that the elderly woman's fatal stroke may have been brought on by “violent acts of repudiation”. Pedazos de la Isla reported that:

Antonia Rodriguez, the grandmother of activist Idania Yanez Contreras died after suffering a stroke following a drastic rise in her blood pressure. According to several sources in the internal Resistance, her blood pressure spiked after several aggressive acts of repudiation occurred over a period of two days.

The post went on to give some background about the situation:

The violence erupted on Wednesday, May 16th, when about 30 human rights activists managed to reach Idania Yanez Contreras’s home in Santa Clara for a meeting about their opposition activities. Among those present was the opposition leader Jorge Luis Garcia Perez “Antunez,” who had to circumvent many police cordons to reach the house from the city of Placetas.

During the act of repudiation, the mob began shouting insults at the dissidents present, as well as making obscene gestures…Antunez published photos of these actions through Twitter. One of the most violent moments in the repudiation was when the mob started throwing stones at the house of Yanez Contreras. One of these stones penetrated the house and hit Aramilda Contreras, Yanez Contreras’s mother.

The “second day of repudiation” allegedly went like this:

The police beat several activists including Rolando Ferrer Espinosa, Maria Martinez and Barbara Portieles in the house of Damaris Moya Portieles, which is located directly across from the house of Yanez Contreras.

Yanez explains that her family actually made a decision to sneak her grandmother out and into the home of another relative who lives just a few houses down the block while the act of repudiation had still not escalated into such a violent event. On the 18th, when Antonia Rodriguez came back to the house, there were still mobs screaming obscenities at her family. Meanwhile, she had witnessed all of the other violence from the relative’s house she was staying in. Nervous for her loved ones, her blood pressure spiked. A few moments later, Antunez reported that she suffered a stroke and during the afternoon of Saturday May 19, activists reported that she had died (Twitter: @ alambradas, @ LibradoLinares, @ maritovoz).

Pedazos de la Isla also noted that:

Antunez, who been able to return to his home in Placetas, was being prevented from leaving to show support for the family of Yanez Contreras and to attend the funeral of her grandmother.

Capitol Hill Cubans placed the blame for the death of the 94-year old grandmother, squarely at the feet of the Cuban government, even posting a photograph as evidence of the “mob” presence outside the elderly woman's home:

Last week, the Castro regime ordered a two-day siege of the family home of Cuban pro-democracy leader Idania Yánez Contreras, head of the Rosa Parks Civil Rights Movement.

For 48 hours, regime-organized mobs yelled insults and hurled rocks at the home. The family was not even permitted to go purchase food.

As a result, Idania's 94-year old grandmother, Antonia Rodríguez Mirabal, suffered a stroke and died.

The Castros must feel real proud of themselves.

Pedazos de la Isla shared this sentiment, saying:

This has been another death in which the guilt lies with the Cuban dictatorship, which sends mobs to repudiate and beat the elderly, children and any Cuban who dares to think differently and in favor of freedom.

The thumbnail image used in this post, “Santa Clara, Cuba”, is by roofofeurope, used under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Creative Commons license. Visit roofofeurope's flickr photostream.

Trinidad & Tobago: Film Strategy

Janine Mendes-Franco — Tue, 22 May 2012 18:23:24 +0000

Mark Lyndersay blogs about some of the issues facing the local film industry, here.

Bahamas: Bringing Balance to the “Corruption Narrative”

Janine Mendes-Franco — Fri, 18 May 2012 23:07:21 +0000

An interesting read on the Bahamas “Corruption Narrative”, here.

Trinidad & Tobago: Laws for LGBT Too

Janine Mendes-Franco — Fri, 18 May 2012 23:02:53 +0000

Globewriter applauds the contribution of Senator Corinne Baptiste-McKnight “in response to a Clause in the Children Bill that criminalized same sex intimacy among youth”, saying: “Give that woman an award!”

Barbados, Cuba: Prisoner's Rights

Janine Mendes-Franco — Fri, 18 May 2012 22:59:04 +0000

“Raul is clearly going to be a thorn in the flesh of any government in power unless passage can be found for him somewhere”: Barbados Free Press expresses concern for Cuban-born prisoner Raul Garcia's safety.

Bermuda: Austerity Reasons

Janine Mendes-Franco — Tue, 15 May 2012 20:25:59 +0000

Two Bermudian blogs discuss government austerity measures, here and here.

Caribbean: Supporting Our Mothers

Janine Mendes-Franco — Tue, 15 May 2012 20:18:40 +0000

Mother's Day, celebrated this past weekend all across the Caribbean, was a hot topic of discussion with regional bloggers - or rather, mothers were. From posts of admiration and thanks to accounts of how women regularly defy oppression, it was a mixed bag, but one that mothers everywhere would have been happy to sample from…

To mark the occasion, TALLAWAH “rang up a few Jamaican celeb moms to get responses to the day’s most pressing query: Is having a child the best thing you’ve ever done?” The responses are worth a read.

Compatriot Nadine, Unscripted referred to her mother as “the epitome of self-sacrifice”:

We’ve had our share of ups and downs, and butted heads on some occasions. Yet, at the forefront of my mind, despite all that we’ve been through, I always remember everything she has given to us, simply because she cares.

She also took time to acknowledge “all the mothers, mothers-to-be, grandmothers and greats, the fathers who have a double role as mothers, and the mothers whose children grew in their hearts instead of their wombs”:

Wherever you are on this planet, I give thanks for you and your bright legacy. Know that you are blessed, honoured, loved.

Guyanese-born Tastes Like Home echoed her sentiments:

Thank you for loving me.
Thank you for caring about me.
Thank you for listening to my rants.
Thank you for supporting me.
Thank you for encouraging me.

Parenting is such a huge responsibility and I admire the grace with which you balance your life, work and everything else in-between. I join in the chorus of applause and salute you on this your very special day.

Over at My big, fat, Cuban family, the blogger's kids apparently logged in and shared some of the most meaningful things their mom has taught them over the years - from “[having] great adventures” to “[being] fearless.” Cuban bloggers were by far the most vocal about the sacrifices mothers - and women on the whole - have to make. Havana Times published an account of “a Cuban mother's drive”…

When you have a child who looks up at you in desperation and says: ‘Mommy, I’m hungry,' and you know full well that two salaries aren’t enough to satisfy that basic request…then you’ll know where my strength comes from.

…but balanced the perspective in another post that explains why motherhood is so rewarding:

Most of all there are the kisses, the kisses and hearing ‘I love you, mommy.' Those are the things that make me remember that being a mother is no sacrifice. Motherhood is simply a blessing.

So why aren't Cubans having more babies? This post offered some insight. Pedazos de la Isla uploaded a video tribute to Cuban women, explaining:

On Mother’s Day 2012, a number of Cuban mothers- most of them members of the Ladies in White- have been arrested and beaten by the Cuban political police, and yet they continue carrying out their activities and RESISTING against the repression.

These face harassment, acts of repudiation, beatings, and arrests for demanding the rights of an entire nation. Regardless, they still find time to protect and educate their children and families. They are examples of courage and inspiration.

Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter reported on a march in honour of the memory of Laura Pollan:

Despite threats, harassment, and scores of women detained by State Security 68 Ladies in White following mass walked through Fifth Avenue in the west of Havana. They marched and chanted ‘Viva Laura Pollán!' and ‘Freedom for the political prisoners!'

The blogger (along with others) went on to describe several cases of women being detained and threatened, adding:

It is also important to remember that Cuban mothers are spending Mothers Day in prison for defending the human rights of the Cuban people.

Haiti Chery, meanwhile, spared a thought for Trayvon Martin's mom, explaining:

Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Matin, released a public service announcement…timed for Mother’s Day this [past] weekend, asking viewers to ‘call the governor of your state' and encourage them to reconsider ‘Stand Your Ground' laws like the one cited by the man who killed her son.

Trinidadian diaspora bloggers also marked the occasion, albeit in different ways. Fashion blogger Afrobella gave a few suggestions for the best Mother's Day gifts (hint: stay away from the irons!) and wished “anyone who's motherly” a wonderful day:

Whether you’re a mother with your own kids, or you’ve adopted a family, or if you’re a loving sister or aunt or grandma who really plays a motherly role in the lives of little ones, I wish you a very happy Mother’s Day. Thank you for all you have done to shape a child’s life! It ALL counts. Thank you for being part of someone’s village. You’re more appreciated than you may know.

Photoblogger chookooloonks meanwhile, confessed that:

I always feel just a tiny bit strange accepting gifts on Mother's Day…I don't ‘mother' so that I can get gifts once a year for my efforts. I mother for a lot of selfish reasons: because I wanted to be a mom. Because I get a hell of a lot out of my relationship with my kid. Because that's what I'm wired to do.

But you know what would be nice?

If we moms could use Mother's Day as a day of focus to help support each other. It seems to me so strange that an experience that is so universal — raising a child — can also at times feel so solitary. And, frankly, so guilt-ridden: we get messages daily, from the media, from corporate culture, from our communities and even from other mothers saying you're doing it wrong. Judgments on issues like how you should become a parent — ‘natural' or C-section or adoption or surrogacy. Whether you should work outside of your home. Or not. Or breastfeed. Or Not. Or how long you should breastfeed. Or what to feed you kid. Or how to dress your kid. Or what organizations you should get your kid involved in. Or when you should send your kid to school. Or where. Or homeschool. Or … or … or ….

AAAAUUUUGGH.

So this year, here's an idea: in addition to the moms in our families, let's take a moment out of our day to send a message to peers — moms who are neither our mothers nor our partners — and just say, ‘good job.' Send an email to someone (even someone you only know online) just to say, ‘You have great kids,' or ‘you're an inspiring parent,' or ‘your children are lucky to have you.' An unexpected note of encouragement letting a mother know to keep on keeping on.

The thumbnail image used in this post, “Mother, daughter”, is by Bread for the World, used under an Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0) Creative Commons license. Visit Bread for the World's flickr photostream.

Cuba: Dissident Ferrer Garcia Re-Released

Janine Mendes-Franco — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:33:04 +0000

Havana Times reports that dissident Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia was released by authorities late last week “after being held for more than 24 hours without his whereabouts being made known.”

Guyana: Creator of “Cuffie” Statue Dies

Janine Mendes-Franco — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:25:37 +0000

Demerara Waves acknowledges the passing of “internationally acclaimed artist and sculptor, Philip Moore”, who was perhaps best known for sculpting the 1763 Monument, a tribute to Cuffy, a former slave who is recognised as a national hero in Guyana.