Opinion

Cuban Dissidents: Behind the Dreamed of Paradise

“My name is Barbara Duenas. I’m one of the relatives of the former Cuban political prisoners who arrived in Spain in August 2010. I’m the ex-wife of Marcelo Cano, from the “Group of 75″ [imprisoned in 2003]. I live in Tarragona and I’m alone with my daughter. Since February 19, I haven’t received any assistance and I don’t know what to do.”

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The Internet in Cuba and a Sense of Guilt

In Cuba, access to the Internet is a privilege held by a small group that includes foreign residents on the island, PhDs in any field, senior political leaders, military officers, reporters, a few artists and writers, and people with sufficient money to pay for an illegal account.

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Concerning Chilean Student Leader Camila Vallejo’s visit to Cuba

The visit by the Chilean student leader Camilla Vallejo (CV) to Cuba has been an opportunity to make mistakes that were well taken advantage of by everyone. It’s unfortunate that a woman as brave and as smart has been put in contact with a reality so reprehensible without her being able to raise her own criticisms.

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Supporting the Cuban Revolution at a Distance

Something strange often happens when I am with a foreigner and I criticize the system in my country. They’re taken aback and rebuke me for being ungrateful, naive, and ignorant, in daring to criticize the reality in which I live because I don’t know what the reality is like in other countries.

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Is There Really An Opposition In Cuba?

Those who receive money from a foreign power — one which is also the self-declared enemy of the Cuban Revolution — cannot be regarded as a simple opponents. They are mercenaries and counter-revolutionaries.

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The Oil that Bleeds Cubans Dry

Whenever I’m forced to come to grips with our waning cooking-oil ration (even though I pour it in a bottle whose eyedropper cap allows me to manage it carefully), I think back to an incident that I experienced years ago with a tourist from Curacao, a friend of the family.

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Openings for Free Expression in Cuban Society

Last week I first attended a discussion at the Felix Varela Cultural Center, an organization that operates under the auspices of the Cuban Catholic Church. Frankly, never in my two decades of living in Cuba had I seen such a variety of political views, at least not in the same room.

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The Pope, Marxism and a Murder

I want a Cuba without discrimination or exclusionary vetoes; one without monopolies of posttraumatic accompaniments, because the country belongs to everyone and should be for the good of all.

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Listening to My Police

Since I come from a Catholic family, as a child I remember my mother telling me to always have my guardian angel accompanying me. Later I realized that, thanks to the revolution, my guardian angel had been transformed into a repressive police presence that wouldn’t let me express myself.

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