Rafael Román Martel

Muy pocos cubanos cuentan con capital para levantar una vivienda nueva. Los que pueden, edifican en una porción de terreno supuestamente de su propiedad, o sobre una construcción familiar. Es otra falsedad condicionada por la rigidez estatal. Lo mismo que ocurría con los ocultos negocios de casas, antes de ser autorizada la compraventa, en octubre pasado, la gente se salta hoy la flamante Ley para comprar y vender solares y azoteas.

¿Cómo se concibe aliviar el grave déficit habitacional (de unas 600.000 casas, según cifras oficiales de 2011, aunque el número real podría ser mayor), sin legitimar también el traspaso del suelo para construir. Esa es una pregunta que la Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular parece que ni siquiera se formuló en su última sesión, en diciembre de 2011.

La mayoría de los inmuebles del país se encuentran en mal estado, los planes gubernamentales de construcción se incumplen casi sistemáticamente. En 2011, el incumplimiento llegó a 50%, según ha señalado, en días atrás, el periódico oficial Juventud Rebelde.

A pesar de los galopantes desfalcos y robos ocurridos en las empresas estatales, este sector sigue teniendo la supremacía sobre el todavía embrionario sector no estatal.

Los materiales para construir utilizados en las obras del Estado son prefabricados de hormigón armado, estructuras metálicas, de fibra plástica o madera, aparte de otras opciones comunes en el mundo de hoy, por su rápido montaje, ligereza, confort y abaratamiento. Mientras, para el sector no estatal (entiéndase la población), la oferta sigue limitada únicamente a escasas cantidades de bloques y ladrillos.

Incluso, para aliviar la carencia en determinadas zonas urbanas, el olvidado tráiler-vivienda sería de una gran ayuda. Asimismo, aliviaría de penurias la venta de unos módulos habitables conformados con metal y plásticos, semejantes a los contenedores, por supuesto que a precios más razonables que en la actualidad.

Pero COMETAL, la empresa estatal que los fabrica, sólo los comercializa con empresas estatales. Esos módulos tiene varias dimensiones, el de mayor tamaño es el modelo M6, mide 5,83 metros de largo por 2,44 de ancho; hay también otros modelos más pequeños: M5, M4, M1… El M6 cuesta 9000 pesos convertibles (CUC), más otro por ciento en moneda nacional.

La industria de materiales de la construcción debe diversificarse, abriéndose al sector no estatal. Y de ser necesario –aunque de hecho lo es-, a la inversión extranjera, respetando siempre todas las garantías por igual y el derecho a la compraventa del suelo.

Su Santidad debe denunciar y actuar, Occidente debe denunciar y actuar, los Castro deben ser parias en el ámbito politico de Occidente.

Hay una discordancia en la conducta de Su Santidad si visita la sede de los tiranos, que ayer, una vez más, han asesinado a un hijo de María de la Caridad del Cobre pues el arzobispo Pedro Maurice Estiú declaró en la anterior visita papal que: Ella es la Madre cuyo manto tiene cobija para todos los cubanos sin distinción de raza, credo, opción política o lugar donde viva. ¿No era-es-Wilman Villar hijo de María? Su santidad debe estar al lado del crucificado, no del crucificador. De producirse esa visita debe ser para acompañar a la esposa e hijos de este mártir a quienes les esperan días impredecibles. Lo mismo debe hacer la presidenta de Brasil.

Es la discordancia de todo Occidente que no acorrala a estos perros con rabia que aprisionan y asesinan a los cubanos impunemente.

As most members of the peaceful resistance movement in the island, Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, leader of UMPACU, holds the Cuban government directly responsible for the demise of this peaceful human rights defender. Numerous activists across Cuba declared themselves in mourning and said this sad event unites them even more to continue defending the cause of human rights in Cuba.

The death of Wilman Villar Mendoza did not come about fortuitously nor is it an isolated case. The same terror tactics of mental and physical torture to subdue a political prisoner that have been systematically applied in Cuban prisons and which were applied to Orlando Zapata Tamayo, (who died on February 23, 2010 following a prolonged hunger strike) were also practiced on Wilman:

· Accused of being a common criminal

· Isolated in a humid punishment cell

· Confined naked

· Deprived of water and medical assistance

· Transferred to a medical facility once he is in a critical state of health

Wilmar’s widow, Maritza Pelegrino Cabrales, who is a “Lady in White”, is presently being denied access to her husband’s body and the Cuban government has unleashed a wave of repression throughout Cuba as members of the peaceful resistance movement are trying to pay their last respects to their compatriot. The Juan Bruno Zayas Hospital is surrounded by military guards. Liudmila Rodriguez Palomo reported that State Security agents in patrol cars, carrying sticks and stones, violently arrested activists in the Eastern city of Palma Soriano. The house of Jorge Luis Garcia Perez Antunez and his wife, Yris Tamara Perez Aguilera in the Central city of Placetas is surrounded by State Security agents.

Martínez Ferraté, que ha aterrizado en el aeropuerto madrileño de Barajas en un vuelo procedente de La Habana, ha sido recibido en el aeropuerto madrileño de Barajas por sus compañeros y por su hermano, así como por el ministro de Asuntos Exteriores y Cooperación, José Manuel García-Margallo, a quien ha agradecido su “trabajo” para lograr sacarle de la Isla. “Tengo que agradecer el trabajo del ministro porque creo que sin su trabajo no se habría logrado lo que se ha logrado en tres semanas”, ha asegurado, al tiempo que ha confesado sentirse “muy emocionado” por volver a ver a su familia y por haber conseguido salir de Cuba, experiencia que, ha afirmado, le ha dejado “deprimido” y “castigado”.

La detención de Martínez Ferraté se produjo en el aeropuerto de La Habana en julio de 2010 cuando realizaba un viaje de negocios a la isla como director gerente de la empresa turística mallorquina Marina Hotels, en relación a un reportaje que grabó sobre la prostitución infantil en la isla en 2008 y que posteriormente emitió la cadena de televisión Telecinco.

“NO TENÍA NI PIES NI CABEZA” Según Martínez Ferraté, quien ha relatado que ya había viajado a la isla sin incidentes en una ocasión anterior a su detención, las autoridades cubanas le acusaron de los delitos de proxenetismo, trata de personas y corrupción de menores, y le sometieron a un proceso judicial sin ni siquiera realizar una instrucción correcta de estos delitos. “No tenía ni pies ni cabeza. A medida que pasaba el tiempo se iban inventando cosas”, ha criticado en relación a los delitos de los que se le acusó. Además, ha denunciado que tras ser arrestado y trasladado “al Departamento Técnico Investigativo”, las autoridades cubanas le mantuvieron 17 días incomunicado y engañado, al hacerle pensar que la Embajada española no estaba interesada en hacer las gestiones necesarias para liberarle.

“Me decían que la Embajada no quería venir a verme, pero cuando llegaron, me dijeron que no les habían dejado venir”, ha explicado. No obstante, Martínez Ferraté ha asegurado que durante los 17 meses que ha permanecido en la prisión cubana antes de ser liberado, algo que se ha debido, ha confirmado, por razones “de salud y humanitarias”, no ha perdido “la esperanza”, pero que la ha tenido que “administrar continuamente para que no se volviera en locura”. Asimismo, se ha mostrado sorprendido de que las autoridades cubanas hayan accedido a liberarle después de que la justicia cubana decidiera finalmente condenarle el verano pasado a siete años de prisión -la Fiscalía pedía el doble-, al considerar que su documental ofrecía “una imagen distorsionada acerca de la juventud, los estudiantes y las instituciones cubanas”, y después de que el recurso que su defensa presentó tras conocer la sentencia fuera rechazado.

Escenas «de corte contrarrevolucionario»

En el auto de procesamiento, el fiscal relataba las gestiones que Martínez Ferraté emprendió para hacer entrevistas a chicos y chicas de la isla sobre si practicaban la prostitución que luego se incluirían en el reportaje, y denunciaba que contenía escenas “de corte contrarrevolucionario mostrando la intención de los autores de desmentir y denigrar la Revolución Cubana”.

Miguel Valdés Tamayo was born in Havana on December 20, 1956 and passed away in his native city on January 11, 2007. He worked in television, and was married to Barbarian Elisa Collazo. He was founder and president of the Movement of Brothers for Dignity and member of the Assembly to Promote Civil Society in Cuba.

Shortly before his detention in March of 2003, he had survived two heart attacks. In the month of April, he was condemned to 15 years of imprisonment and sent to the Kilo 8 Prison – 533 kilometers east of the capital. Fourteen months later, on June 4, 2004, he was released under an extra penal license, due to his serious health problems.

Valdés Tamayo suffered from heart problems and had to be hospitalized four times. The last time, he remained for 21 days in the intensive care unit of the hospital for inmates of the Combinado del Este Prison, in Havana, where they transferred him thanks to the continuous requests of his wife.

Prison after imprisonment

One week after Tamayo’s release, on June 11, 2004, a woman named Eva, from the governmental Federation of Cuban Women, carried out an act of repudiation in front of his home. She shouted “worm and mercenary of the U.S. government,” and warned him: they would not allow him to live there.

Hardly a month after this incident, on July 3, 2004, another sinister character from the neighborhood, known as “the Coyote,” entered Miguel’s backyard, and began to insult him with obscene words in front of the window where he was with his wife. Miguel stood at the window and replied, “I am under conditional freedom, and am sick, and do not wish to have problems with anybody”.

Upon hearing these words, the aggressor looked for a sharpened machete and brandishing it he said, “I do not believe in tough guys from prison.”

Thanks to the intervention of his wife, father-in-law and several neighbors the incident did not end in bloodshed. Miguel and Barbara decided to move to another home within the same town: San Agustín Street, no. 691, between San Miguel and Gustavo, Párraga, Arroyo Naranjo. But the provocations did not stop.

In October, two months before dying, he was detained. Previously, Valdés Tamayo had made Cuban regime responsible for anything that could happen to him and indicated that all the harassment towards him was orquestrated by Cuban State Security.

During the fourteen months that Miguel remained in the Kilo 8 Prison he did not stop denouncing the beatings and continuous human rights violations.

In a letter written to his wife, he says: “they continue violating our personal correspondence, we do not get letters from our relatives, they lose them, they disappear or they withhold them. The few letters we are allowed to receive are already opened.”

In another letter he speaks of the threats that political prisoners are given by a band of common prisoners that follow orders of prison authorities in exchange for personal benefits. He also narrates the suicide attempts and auto-aggressions of prisoners due to bad treatment and inhumane conditions in the prisons.

My way is straight and firm

On February 19, 2004, Miguel Valdés Tamayo informed the public that he had been unable to seen his wife for three months, and when she went to visit, she was turned away and had to return home, which was over 500 km away.

On February 20th, Barbara was informed that Miguel had been admitted onto the Amalia Simoni provincial hospital. She did not think twice, and returned to see her husband. The trip was a true odyssey: due to transportation difficulties, she took 24 hours. Finally, on a Saturday night she arrived at Camagüey, and was in the hospital lobby by dawn on Sunday.

After much pleading, a guard granted her ten minutes with her husband. When she entered, she immediately saw him lying on bed number 33.

“He looked very thin. He is of black complexion and was too pale. He said to me that heart was not working properly, and they did were not giving him the treatment necessary for his condition. That was all we could speak, because just a few minutes later a military official came to look for me. I do not know which is worse, the prison cell or the hospital room.”

Miguel always detailed his life in the prison to his wife: “The medicines that you sent me have not been given to me. They do not take my blood pressure. I live with seven other prisoners in a cell that is six by three meters wide, adjacent to a bathroom and washroom. The television set is located in a hall where 88 people meet, and the disputes are repeated, especially if the baseball game and the soap opera are on at the same time. I have only received religious attention once. They lie to the priest, and tell him that we do not want his presence, and they tell us that the priest does not want to visit us. There is a single telephone for 600 inmates. The daily food is boiled maize flour, mashed potatoes with unknown vegetables, bland soups, and when there are inspections in the prison, they give us meat in extremely small rations.”

In one of his letters, he finished with a declaration of principles: “My way is straight and firm, until Cuba is free. Long live human rights!”.

Over a year ago, Valdés Tamayo and his wife had received a visa to travel as political refugees to Holland and the United States. But Cuban authorities did not grant them permission to exit to either country.

The 30-year-old gave birth to a baby girl at Manhattan’s Lenox Hill hospital Saturday night and the couple rented out an entire floor for which they reportedly shelled out $1.3 million.

However, on the delivery day, the couple decided to throw out other patients from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, which was on the same floor as Beyonce’s delivery “suite”, reports New York Post gossip column Page Six.

“They just used the hospital like it was their own and nobody else mattered,” said Neil Coulon, whose efforts to see his premature, newborn twins in the neonatal ICU were disrupted by the birth of the superstar’s first child.

Guillermo Fariñas, psicólogo, periodista independiente, ex preso político, es una de las figuras más conocidas de la oposición pacífica cubana. Premio Andrei Sajarov en el año 2010, Fariñas es director de la agencia Cubanacán Press, y ha publicado los libros Retazos de un ayuno (2006), y Radiografía de los miedos en Cuba (2009). Es conocido también por las huelgas de hambre que ha protagonizado, que lo han puesto al borde de la muerte.

CubaNet: El año pasado el gobierno dictó varias medidas, como la autorización del trabajo por cuenta propia, la compraventa de casas y automóviles, y cierta liberalización del sector campesino.

Fariñas: Estas medidas significan, de acuerdo a mi criterio, el reconocimiento del gobierno de que no había justicia en lo referente a estos asuntos. Pero sobre todo, son medidas prácticas destinadas a comprar tiempo para mantener el poder, y desviar la atención de la ciudadanía de los desmanes que han cometido durante 53 años. Quieren que el pueblo piense que existe la posibilidad de “hacerse ricos”. El trabajo por cuenta propia es un arma de doble filo, porque se imponen demasiadas limitaciones; por ejemplo, no conceden dos o tres años de gracia, sin pagar impuestos, a los cuentapropistas, lo que les permitiría obtener más ganancias y fortalecerse como negociantes. Por otra parte, no se han creado almacenes mayoristas en cada provincia, donde se puedan comprar los insumos necesarios para mantener los negocios. Estas medidas responden al oportunismo político del régimen, desacreditado hasta la médula.

CubaNet: ¿No cree que las medidas alivien un poco la situación de la población, fundamentalmente en lo que respecta a su alimentación?

Fariñas: Eso de aliviar está en dudas, porque los precios son muy altos, debido precisamente a que los cuentapropistas (que son empresarios) imponen precios elevados al consumidor porque tienen que comprar los productos para su actividad empresarial en las tiendas recaudadoras de divisas, a precios desproporcionados. Por eso la población no se beneficia; los servicios son muy caros. En lo que respecta al año que acaba de iniciarse, no vamos a ver cambios sustanciales. El régimen no va a reconocer al adversario político, y continuarán la brutalidad policial, las amenazas, la coacción contra los opositores. Por estas razones no veo un panorama esperanzador. En el ámbito internacional, con el triunfo de Mariano Rajoy en España, se sabe que la Unión Europea no se hará cómplice de los desmanes y el autoritarismo del gobierno. Lo que se vislumbra para el régimen es una situación más difícil de la que ya tiene.

CubaNet: ¿La visita del Papa puede cambiar en algo ese panorama?

Journalists, elected officials, doctors, police officers, teachers, municipal workers, and overall hard-working people of West New York, Union City, Guttenberg and the other municipalities of Hudson County patiently waited in line to share the Roque’s grief this Tuesday night.

Jorge Roque, 51, worked in Union City for 20 years, where he was supervisor. Jorge was a hard-working man, exemplary of the industrious Cuban community that settled in the North of the US. He was “always happy,” “always willing to help others”– almost an identifiable seal for the Roque last name.

Jorge was a hands-on man with strict principles when it came to his friends, his native country, and his adoptive land, which he came to love as his own. He was true to his principles when he had to defend his friends against evil and envy and bullying, sometimes against so-called Cubans who had been born in the island by geographical mistake. He enjoyed the friendship of Cuban patriots like Virgilio Cabello, and many others.

He stuck to his democratic principles when it came to his enslaved island of Cuba. He was a man, which is enough. He was a good man, which is a rare and praise worthy virtue.

Overwhelmed by the grief of losing his beloved brother, Mayor Roque still had words of love for his friends and supporters, as well as his brother when he was approached by mourners.

I, standing in front of the mayor standing in front of his brother’s casket, could only reach out for my faith. “God be with you,” I said.

Strategy and politics were a world apart from our embrace, even though we’ve been only allies through out his short and brilliant political career.

It goes to show that caring for the human condition and human loss surpass the political agendas that professional politicians rehearse to perfection. Ninety-nine percent of the grief people showed to Mayor Roque and his family tonight was authentic. The rest is both opportunism and falsehood: politics.

The funeral will be tomorrow at Our Lady of Grace Church, 400 Kamena St., in Fairview. Roque will be buried at Fairview Cemetery.

May the Roque family find strength in the Lord on this difficult time. Tonight in Union City, genuine people gave enough sympathy and love to reinforce the values Christians live by.

Jorge Roque, who was a supervisor and maintenance engineer for the Union City Housing Authority for 20 years, and would have celebrated his 52nd birthday on Jan. 14.

“He (Jorge Roque) worried about everybody, but the last thing he did was worry about himself,” Felix Roque said. “He is the most caring guy I’ve ever met in my life.”

Jenny Roque, Jorge’s wife for 31 years, shared the same sentiment about her husband.

“Jorge was a very giving man to everyone; he helped everyone else before he helped himself,” she said. “He was always a very happy person and he was a great husband and father.”

Jorge Roque is also survived by three daughters – Jelissa, 22, Christine, 16, and Alexandra, 14.

Felix Roque told The Jersey Journal that early indications are that his brother died after suffering a heart attack, but no conclusive autopsy results were available yet. Jorge Roque suffered from high blood pressure and diabetes, his brother said.

Visitation will be held Tuesday evening at 5 p.m. at the Morgado Funeral Home in Union City, located at 625 45th St.