Y vaya si les ganó de nuevo. Apenas una semana antes de cumplir los 96 años de nacido, y cuando ya lleva más de un lustro ausente, su nombre volvió a levantarse como el monumento que expresamente prohibió que se le hiciera.

Cubanos de todas las edades que salieron a batirse con una catástrofe accidental sin pensar en los riesgos, llevaban su nombre en los labios y lo citaban como si estuviera de cuerpo presente.

Se le ha querido culpar de todo lo que nos falta (tecnología, insumos, mercadería, lujo…), es decir, cosas, muchas, infinitas cosas, que de tanto faltarnos casi nos matan. Pero su nombre no suena entonces sino cuando se habla de todo lo que nos lega (salud, educación, cultura, ciencia, conciencia, coraje, unidad), que es casi todo lo que nos salva.

Atrapados en la enfermiza obsesión de matar y vencer a un enemigo con el que no pueden ni después de muerto –y muerto cuando él quiso y no cuando ellos quisieron–, los creadores de aquel lapidario designio para una era, sin ellos saberlo, también levantan monumentos a la memoria de Fidel, constantemente.

Lo hacen cada vez que hablan del régimen Castro-Canel, como si no pudieran decir Cuba sin zafarse del apellido de los dos hermanos que derrotaron la leyenda bíblica de Abel y Caín, hasta convertirse en símbolo de su reverso.

O como si reconocieran el espíritu de los Castro en todo lo que el nuevo liderazgo del país hace con más pasión que recursos, casi milagrosamente.

Ay, nuestros adversarios de afuera, ignorantes y prepotentes, fatal mezcla que no los deja ver. Ay, nuestros adversarios de adentro, ignorantes y sometidos, ridícula mezcla que no los deja ser.

Lo mejor de la era pos-Castro es que lleva muchos apellidos y una diversidad tremenda de genes. Blancos, mulatos y negros, mujeres y hombres, jóvenes y viejos. Profesionales, obreros, intelectuales, artistas, deportistas, campesinos, empresarios, cuentapropistas, inversionistas extranjeros y hasta ¡emigrados! de todas las épocas.

Fidel solía decir también que la política era un juego de ajedrez de 500 piezas. No tengo la menor duda de que su jugada más brillante fue plantar la unidad como destino ineluctable en “la era pos-Castro”. Jaque Mate.

René González

Arleen Rodríguez Derivet

Translation: Machetera

Two notes associated with the case of the Cuban Five which happened to be published recently by various Cuban media outlets on the same day, deal with issues so obvious, and at the same time so ignored by U.S. authorities, that it’s worth comparing the headlines.

The first had to do with the new motion presented by Rene González’s attorney, asking once again for the same thing that was called for before he left prison: that he be allowed to return to Cuba, where his home and family are. The news here was that he would renounce his U.S. citizenship in exchange for meeting his petition.

The other blindingly obvious event, never before mentioned by a legal authority in relation to the case of the Cuban Five is contained in the statements of Gabriela Knaul, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on independence of judges and lawyers. Concerned by the extremely serious irregularities in the legal process against the Five, such as the defense’s lack of access to all available evidence, she also issued a warning, finally, about something that has seemed absurd to many of us since the beginning of the appeal process: that the habeas corpus appeals presented in the defense of the Five are being considered “by the same judge who was previously in charge of the case.”

Rene doesn’t want to be a U.S. citizen. He has no interest in being one. Surely he loves and respects the place where he happened to be born due to his parents’ temporary stay in the U.S. for economic reasons, but it’s senseless for him to remain a citizen of a country that uses his citizenship to punish him over and over again, including the most cruel of all punishments: preventing him from reuniting with his family after completing nearly 14 years of unjustified incarceration, as an exemplary prisoner.

How and why does a country that pursues and deports thousands of immigrants daily assign itself the task of forcing a man to prove he is “worthy” of a citizenship he has publicly said he wishes to renounce?

Anyone can see that behind the absurd imposition of supervised parole on Rene within U.S. territory is the deliberate proposition of continued punishment for him, while allowing the world to believe that he’s already free. And that is another abuse.

Rene is being held in a territory against his will, where there are no guarantees for his life. Doesn’t the U.S. citizen Rene González have the right to demand such guarantees during the three years of supposed freedom in which he is being prevented any possibility of rebuilding his family life? Who pays for the psychological effects of these abuses?

Regarding the statements from the U.N. Special Rapporteur, it’s extremely significant that a declaration of this nature be made about an issue that, in Cuba, even adolescents recognize as a problem. That is, every time there is any mention of another step in the appeals process for the Five, we hear again that the decision is in the hands of the same judge who handed down the maximum sentences in a trial so plagued with irregularities that three judges from the Appeals Court in Atlanta in August of 2005 ordered that it be declared a mistrial and begun over.

Who knows how many other absurdities in this long absurd process will continue to arise in the short term? They are as abundant as the abuses of the Five, including the fact that Rene is no longer behind bars but neither is he free.

p>A Playa Girón hero told me a couple of days ago that he frequently felt nostalgic about those days when at only 20, he manned a mortar battery and went to battle with a smile, because all his utopias were intact.

Even I felt infected by his feelings as I reviewed images and memories with Silvio´s Preludio and Sara´s La Victoria, playing in the background.

The history, our history is so strong, so powerful, so real, that it plays those tricks on us quite frequently. Then we embrace it and feel that the years of glory are already in the past. The nefarious tendency to think our offspring will not have the opportunities or the utopias to feed their nostalgia come old age depresses and paralyzes us.

But on this April 16th., nostalgia took a leap forward; it jumped into the future. The utopias of the Girón hero must have experienced a greening just like mine, even when there is an almost 20 year age difference between us, and more or less twice that between him and the young kids who changed my perspective.

Fifty years are an entire life: it has been a long and hazardous journey among scarcities, ambitions and enemy aggressions, but the country that rallied in the morning of April 16th was the country in the dreams of the hero and in the dreams of those of us who never were heroes but had always aspired to become one.

Let anyone show me in the map of today’s world a place where a sea of children makes the waves for a historic yacht, where people of all ages and races who have never met before come together in sweat and joy shouting the same slogans; where all who expected a brief and quick popular parade, because spontaneity was its only mobilizing force, were astounded by a wide and infinite human wave.

Let them show me so I can believe it that there is another geography where the martial step of the military is suddenly replaced by the merrymaking of a beehive of singing children led by a young man whose father was taken by an act of terrorism and whose revenge is to create with joy.

But most importantly, however, apart from all of this, after all of this; let somebody find a country whose destiny is determined by consensus, where after collecting millions of opinions from its people, more than two thirds of the guidelines projected by the Executive were transformed to consider what the common people recommended.

Naturally, for nostalgia to settle definitively in the future another fundamental component is required; to have our President standing up before the nation delivering his account and galvanizing all of us with his improvised remarks and his profound and at times painful self-criticism.

That in his report that President brings to us time and time again the leader that is seemingly not there but is in fact present in every idea he put forward and was not materialized. And from that exercise of governance –another exclusive feature of our tenacious history– we all learn that nothing is perfect, that everything is improvable and that we believe in man and his material environment, but that we would be nothing without that deep spirituality which was handed down to us by Varela and Marti, by Cintio Vitier and Fidel Castro.

The fact remains that in spite of the errors of some and the deviations of others our guidance has never lost its track. And all the utopias are intact though their names may have changed and are not always found in the same places where we used to know them.

James Carter in Havana. Photo: Alex Castro

Translation: Machetera

Arleen Rodríguez: Hello!  A greeting to all of those who are watching Cuban Television right now.   I welcome all of you, along with the former President of the United States, James Carter, who just moments before leaving to return to his country has graciously agreed to give us an interview, and an exclusive statement for our television broadcast.

Welcome.  Thank you for accepting our invitation.

Jimmy Carter: It’s a great pleasure to return to Cuba, to Havana.

Rodríguez: It’s a great pleasure to have you here as well.  You told me that you’d like to say something to the Cuban people before our interview.

Carter: Yes.

Rodríguez: The camera is yours.

Carter: To the people of Cuba I would like to say that I am very grateful for the chance to return to your wonderful country once again.  My wife and I enjoy being here with the Cuban people, to meet with the government leaders, to meet with some of those Cuban citizens who disagree with the government.  We met with all of them.  We are very excited about the prospects for the upcoming Congress that will begin next month.  We also had a chance to meet with the parents of the so-called Cuban Five, with two of the mothers and also with the wives.

My hope is that in the future we will see normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States.  I would like to see at the time all the restraints on travel from the United States to Cuba and Cuba to the United States lifted, and also have freedoms in both our countries, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom to travel as you wish, these are very important for the entire world and for the people of Cuba.

We had meetings with the foreign minister, with the President of the National Assembly, with President Castro, with the former President, Fidel Castro, an old friend of mine, to learn all we can about the economic changes in Cuba.

This morning I was also able to meet with Mr. Gross, who has been sentenced to a long term in prison in Cuba, and we believe he is innocent of any crime.  I hope in the future we’ll see his freedom along with the freedom of the so-called Cuban Five who have now spent 12 years in prison in the United States.

In the future I hope that we can see unimpeded trade and commerce as well as travel back and forth between our two countries and I’d like to see the economic embargo lifted completely…it doesn’t just affect the government but it hurts the people.  My views on the Cuban American relationship are that it needs to change.

When I became president I immediately lifted the travel restraints between both my country and Cuba and I have worked very closely with your former President Fidel Castro to establish diplomatic exchange through Interests Sections.  Now the United States and Cuba have about 300 people employed in the Interests Sections, both in the United States as well as in Cuba, and there are Cubans who work in the Interests Section in Cuba and vice-versa, and I think that this can contribute to normal diplomatic relations between the two countries.

This has been a good opportunity that I’ve been given by Cuban TV to address you and say how marvelous your country is.

Rodríguez: Thanks.

I’d like to take advantage of this opportunity to ask you a few questions.

First of all, I’d like to congratulate you for the respect and sympathy that you’ve generated as the only U.S. President in 50 years to do something to normalize relations.  You recalled some of the important steps.  Also for the fact that you have come to Cuba twice already, and for doing so with your hand extended and with respect.  The Cuban people, who have a lot of pride and dignity, receive such visitors sympathetically.

I believe that, getting down to the substance of this interview, you’ve relieved me of having to do an introduction, by expressing once again your desire and willingness for the blockade against Cuba to be lifted.  It’s known that there’s a majority consensus in U.S. society on this, even among the Cuban community in the United States, and that, furthermore, the international community has overwhelmingly demanded this for the last twenty years, the same way that its efforts are supported by a vast majority in Cuba and the United States.

As you yourself acknowledge, the blockade remains in place, and the Cuban people know, furthermore, that it remains in place as stiffly as ever, sometimes even more rigorous than before.

I ask: What prospects do you see for relations between Cuba and the United States and for this blockade, that the whole world opposes?

Carter: As you know, the majority of Cubans want to have normal relations with the United States, and the overwhelming majority of North Americans also want to have normal relationships with Cuba.  Unfortunately there are a few radical leaders in my country, some in prominent positions in Congress, mostly Cuban Americans, who insist on keeping the relationship between our two countries separate, these representatives of the old Cuban American community, whose main goal was to overthrow the Castro regime; even among the Cuban Americans now in my country they are a small minority now, but they’re very powerful, in our political circles.  I believe that in the last few years, I’ve seen public opinion polls even inside Miami … testifying that the younger members of that community want to move the economic blockade against Cuba and want to have normal opportunities to travel in both directions: from the United States to Cuba and also from Cuba to the United States. This is a change.  In my opinion, it’s a change that is going to continue into the future and I hope that my small voice, and the opinion of many American, can make this a reality.

Rodríguez: Mr. Carter, I was very moved as I listened to you in the press conference, and here in your statement, when I heard you also ask for, demand, freedom for the Five Cuban Heroes imprisoned in the States, who Cuba considers heroes, because they faced terrorist groups and were able to prevent the list of 2,099 wounded and 3,478 dead from terrorist attacks on our country from growing any larger.

I don’t know how aware you are of how deeply the Cuban people feel about the demand that the Five be released.  However, I didn’t hear you say they should be pardoned.

You said that according to U.S. law you expected that they would be freed.  They have appealed to the Supreme Court, which refused to hear their case, despite the fact that more than 10 Nobel laureates and hundreds of political personalities and intellectuals around the world had demanded it.  In other words, all the legal steps have been exhausted.

The process has been extremely arbitrary, as you said, judges have acknowledged this, and two of them have been subjected to the additional punishment of being denied regular visits from their wives, as well as having the visits from their family members made very difficult.

To arrive at this point with the Supreme Court and not allow even for the review of such a complex case is what made these Nobel prizewinners and political personalities demand that Obama grant a pardon.

You were the President of the United States.  You exercised the right to pardon, as a humanitarian gesture, that I tell you – as a Cuban – the Cuban people would deeply appreciate a pardon.  Are you inclined to add your name to the other Nobel prizewinners who are asking Obama to pardon the Five?

Carter: As you know, I’m not only a former president, but I’m also a Nobel laureate.

Rodríguez: That’s why.

Carter: Well, in my private talks to President Bush and also with President Obama, I have urged the release of these prisoners.

I recognize the restraints within the American judicial system, and my hope is that the president might grant a pardon, but you have to realize that this is a decision that could only be made by the president himself, it would be presumptuous of me to try to tell another president what to do; but the presidents, now and before this, have known that my own opinion is that the original trial of the Cuban Five was very doubtful, it violated standards, and also some of the restraints on their visitation were extreme.

Now I know that all of the people have been able to visit them in jail, and it is my wish in the future that before a pardon might be granted is that there could be more access by these families to these prisoners .

I have been informed by officials, for instance, that the shooting down of the small planes over Havana, that caused the death of two pilots, was done after the President of the United States informed Cuban leaders that no more flights would take place.  And I was informed by Cuban officials that they notified the President of the United States, very clearly, that they could not permit a plane to fly over their capital city…dropping leaflets…but that they would protect the sovereignty of Cuba.  So even those more serious, allegations, in my opinion are very doubtful, about their need or cause of the extensive sentences that have been granted to one of the prisoners; but in every way, in my private report with Obama when I return to the United States, in my public statements like today, in my previous conversations with American leaders, I’ve called for the release of the Cuban Five. One of the reasons is that, guilty or not, is they’ve served a long prison sentence already, more than 12 years, and the fact that they’ve been punished adequately, even if they are guilty.

Rodríguez: Recently a person very closely connected to the case, who you knew very well, Leonard Weinglass, passed away.  I know that you know he was a man with a love for justice, who fought for justice, and his last words, his last work, even, on his deathbed, was to prove that the Five had nothing to do with the downing of the planes.

Carter: Yes, I know.

Rodríguez: To go further into the case would make this conversation much longer, but what the Cuban people know, what can be proven, what is known, even by U.S. authorities, through the reports that Cuba sent, is that the only thing these young people were doing was looking for information to prevent terrorist actions.

I am confident that you will be able to convey the insistence on a pardon, as a humanitarian gesture.  These men have suffered a lot, and have lost family members without being able to be at their side; finally, I don’t insist, I thank you for your interest and your statements in the name of the Cuban people.

Mr. Carter, you also said this morning at the press conference that you had a friendly meeting with Comandante Fidel Castro, who has expressed in his Reflections a great deal of anguish about the risks faced by the human species, about the huge nuclear arsenals that keep on growing and that are capable of destroying the world several times over, and also about the nefarious consequences that climate change might have for the human species.  These are subjects in which I believe you have broad agreement.

As a nuclear physicist, you know what nuclear weapons mean for the human species, when you were President, you worked hard to educate your people against consumer culture, promoted rational policies, defended the environment, even though it made you unpopular among certain sectors.

Well, quickly, I’d like to know if you still think there is a chance to do something to save humankind.

Carter: Well, when I was president, we negotiated with the Soviet Union to reduce the level of nuclear weapons, through the so-called SALT II Treaty, and since then I’ve been a strong advocate of reducing productions in nuclear arsenals on both sides.  Also I believe very strongly that there is a real threat to the wellbeing of all human beings through global warming, and as you probably know, President Obama and his predecessor, President Bush, attempted to work with other nuclear powers on reducing arsenals, and that they have been monitoring very closely the agreements that have been signed by these governments.

I think the United States has not been adequately strong in its potential leadership in addressing the global warming issue.  Cuban officials, since I’ve been here, have pointed out me that the old city in Havana is in danger of destruction… I have been to Bolivia to meet with Evo Morales, and maybe Bolivia will be the first country that will have major damage to its economy, because the glaciers in the mountains of Bolivia are melting…their source of drinking water.  So I’m hoping that in the future, this issue, and the global warming issue, can be addressed by my country and all nations, and I know that Fidel Castro is addressing this now, at least in his Reflections.  I talked to him about inviting … more definitively about his actions at present, as related to the United States … what goes on in current affairs, and he wants to use his voice as a senior statesman for the wellbeing of all humankind.  We’ve had good conversations, we basically agree on many things, and above all, we also talked about global warming, and I believe that there might be a possibility between our two countries.  Now I’m afraid I have to leave, to get on my airplane, I don’t have an Air Force One any more.

Rodríguez: I’m very grateful for your time.  Thank you.  Every time you come to Cuba, hope is awakened, although the blockade continues to make relations so difficult.

Carter: Espero que podemos volver otra vez, muchas veces.  En la oportunidad traer toda mi familia.  Hay muchos de nuestra familia.  Tenemos treinta y seis miembros… [I hope that we can return again, many times.  I'd like to bring all my family.  There are a lot of us.  We have thirty-six members...] grandchildren, great grandchildren, spouses, children, we’d like to have all of us come to Cuba.

Thank you very much.

Rodríguez: Thank you, Mr. Carter, very much.

James Carter visit Fidel Castro in Havana. Photo: Alex Castro

Carter, his wife Rosalynn and Fidel in Havana. Photo: Alex Castro

James Carter during an interview with Arleen Rodríguez. Photo: Jenny Muñoa

Machetera is a member of Tlaxcala, the international network of translators for linguistic diversity: http://www.tlaxcala-int.org