Villa Marista is the main operations center of the Cuban Ministry of the Interior. Its huge structure was built to house a school run by a religious order, but since 1963 it has been home to the most feared jail cells in the country. At the beginning of the Revolution there was talk about "converting barracks into schools," but at this complex just the opposite happened. The worst nightmare of many Cubans is to be put in one of the cells at this Island Lubyanka, and end up under the bright light in one of the interrogation rooms.
A few, very few, have been able to resist the psychological pressure exerted by its officials, trained in the harsh methods of the KGB and East German Stasi. The whole design of long corridors, cold metal bunks, and cells where you can hardly tell if it's day or night, is intended to break even the bravest and make them talk. One might think there is only room behind its bars for those opposed to or disaffected with the system, but every day it is home to more people being investigated for corruption or diversion of resources.
When several minivans accompanied by Department of Technical Investigation (DTI) cars come to a neighborhood, the neighbors already know what will happen. Most likely the dreaded entourage will park outside some freshly painted house with a wall around it and glass windows. The uniforms will enter and execute a thorough search, in order to then take -- handcuffed and in full view of the curious -- the frightened administrator of some corporation or a scared company manager.
These raids have become so frequent that it's enough to say, "Yesterday they collared a guy..." for everyone to know what that means. Later the detainee is taken to Villa Marista, to spend some weeks incommunicado and without the right to an attorney. His family cannot see him, and can barely bring him a toothbrush and the medications he relies on.
Even foreigners can't save themselves from such shocks, as demonstrated in the case of several British executives from the Coral Capital Group Ltd., arrested for alleged bribery while working on a golf course project. Another alarming example was the case of the Chilean brothers Max and Marcel Marambio, who escaped to their country after being accused of bribery, fraud and falsifying bank documents in the management of the food business Rio Zaza.
The crusade against corruption displayed by Raul Castro keeps in suspense those who think they are protected by the lack of control and political will to end the illegalities. The raid touches the doors of wealthy construction bosses, powerful directors who manage, according to their own whims, imports of merchandise, and others who fill their pockets from the hospitality industry.
The only ones saved from a court date are those who belong to the inner core of the government. Having participated in the struggles of the Sierra Maestra, or in the first moments of the Revolutionary process, is now the best protection for not ending up in prison. An olive-green uniform, the ranks of general or comandante, ward off any investigation of mismanagement.
Even the Comptroller General of the Republic, Gladys Bejarano herself, stops dead and turns back when a thread from the skein of corruption reaches too high. This was demonstrated in the scandal at the Civil Aeronautics Institute, where the principal responsible -- General Rogelio Acevedo -- was simply removed but did not face the courts, though several of his employees did.
These dishonest businessmen accumulate status symbols, ranging from the gift of a house or car for their lovers, to paying for their children to study at universities abroad. They no longer resemble their former selves, now they drink whiskey instead of rum and eat salmon instead of pork.
When they started their new jobs they arrived repeating the iron discourse of austerity and discipline, but now their bellies hang over their belts as they smoke their cigars. Some came from the military sphere or Party structures, and moved to the business sector after finishing a tour of duty... in the land of the enemy. Over time they were enriched and believed that their contacts with foreign firms, or their commercial travel around the world, were sufficient guarantees of impunity. A good share of them were born after 1959 and knew the rules of the market only through books on socialist economy and scientific communism that demonized them.
They were molded to be what Che Guevara called the "New Man," but in the end did not manage to be the "Honest Man" free of the scourge of theft and the temptation of embezzlement. Now they are falling, shivering with cold and fear in some cell at Villa Marista, confessing their misdeeds under the incandescent bulb in the interrogation room.
Outside, away from the feared headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior, the web of corruption remakes and reweaves itself. Lurking in wait for the most difficult moments to pass, before falling, once again and with greater force, on the tasty Cuban cake.
Follow Yoani Sanchez on Twitter: www.twitter.com/yoanifromcuba
Yoani Sanchez: What Does a President Do? And What Does Raul Casto Actually DO?
"It is a sad day today as we receive crystal clear confirmation that not a single change has taken place in Cuba under the reign of the Castro brothers.
Here in the United States we stand on the belief that every citizen has the right of free speech. So, when a brutal regime beats its own citizen in response to the expression of that right, we should see an outpouring of disgust and outrage from the U.S. Administration.
I call on the Obama Administration to do everything within its power, and the powers of our close allies, to defend the health, safety and freedom of the brave, pro-democracy leader Jorge Luis García Pérez 'Antúnez', as well as U.S. citizen Alan Gross and other fighters of freedom who currently languish under the all-powerful hand of Raul Castro."
There is a high degree of corruption, fraud and public use of funds by the party apparatchiks. Managers of state enterprises divert good to sell on the black market. In June 2011, fifteen top executives of Cubana de Aviación were sentenced to prison for fraud. In April the vice president of Habanos S.A. and 10 others employees were under arrest for selling cigars illegally to foreign distributors. Pedro Alvarez, former head of Alimport, under investigation for corruption, escaped from the island in late December 2010.
Mario Faz.
Obviously the Cuban security services have an establishment specifically for the detention and interviewing of miscreants, but which country doesn't. Certainly not the US or any of its allies.
Perhaps it's time they called on Ms Sánchez and ask her where she got her information - but only if they feel sure that it came from somewhere other than her over active and over fertile imagination.
http://ctp.iccas.miami.edu/FACTS_Web/Cuba%20Facts%20Issue%208%20February%202005.htm
SECTOR EXTERNO / EXTERNAL SECTOR - 8.4 - Intercambio comercial de mercancías por países seleccionados y áreas geográficas (Conclusión) Trade in goods in selected countries and geographical areas (Conclusion)
Estados Unidos de América (USA)
2004 = $443,900,000
2005 = $476,311,000
2006 = $483,591,000
2007 = $581,657,000
2008 = $962,767,000
2009 = $675,420,000
http://www.one.cu/aec2009/esp/08_tabla_cuadro.htm
REUTERS: Cuba says U.S. climbs to 5th leading trade partner-HAVANA | Thu Aug 14, 2008
(Reuters) - The United States ranked among communist Cuba’s top five trading partners for the first time in 2007 despite the decades-old U.S. trade embargo, as U.S. agriculture sales increased by $100 million. Trade data for 2007 posted on the Web site of Cuba’s National Statistics Office (www.one.cu) placed the United States fifth at $582 million, compared with $484 million in 2006, including shipping costs.
The United States, which began selling food to Cuba in 2002 under an amendment to the embargo, placed seventh in 2006 and 2005.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/08/14/us-cuba-usa-trade-idUSN1447847620080814
Cuban schoolchildren begin their classes each day with the following slogan of indoctrination: “Pioneers for Communism, we will be like Che.” They will be then the new men; fanatics, liars, assassins and failed men, reaching the total realization of being like Che. Hatred to the enemies of the revolution is inculcated to the children in scholastic age. This quote of José Martí condemns hatred: “The haters should be declared traitors to the Republic. Hatred does not construct.
Link: http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y09/enero09/23_O_3.html
“Show this video to the international community, how this miserable dictatorship commits cruelties against humanity,” says the videos’ main narrator, an India citizen serving a 30-year sentence in Havana’s high security Combinado del Este prison.
Havana dissident journalist Dania Virgen García, who writes the blog “Cuba por Dentro” — Inside Cuba — said the videos were shot in late January with a digital camera smuggled into the prison “so that everyone can see Cuba’s reality.”
The videos — which also showed several inmates, including a U.S. citizen complaining about prison conditions — appeared to be the first ever smuggled out of Cuba’s 200-plus prisons. Their views of prison buildings matched those of the Combinado del Este prison.
VIDEO #1: La cárcel por dentro - 1ra parte (The prison from inside part #1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYJewyAtEcY&feature=player_embedded
VIDEO #10:Testimonio del reo Marcos Damián Rafael Fernández Rodríguez (cubano)- Testimony of prisoner Marcos Damián Rafael Fernández Rodríguez (Cuban man with no hands)- (Cuba) -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skdaI3VTBtE&feature=player_embedded
There exist almost no television or newspaper reports about their sad fate.
Very rarely a few dissidents are released from jail - but immediately they are sent into exile without their families. For the first time since years dissidents in this video tell the free world how badly they have suffered in the jails of Cuba.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Aiar3W_BIY
http://tinyurl.com/bscjra3
MIAMI HERALD: UN panel on torture wants information on Cuban prison deaths and dissident arrests - The same day the Cuban media published stories defending the island’s prison system - By Juan O. Tamayo
Sánchez and Vivanco also have noted that Cuba does not allow the Red Cross to inspect its prisons. “If Cuban prisons are model institutions, why prevent people from seeing them?” Vivanco asked. Cuba now has 57,337 inmates, including 31,494 “in locked conditions” and 25,337 “in open installations,” Granma noted, without explaining the meaning of those terms.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/22/2812521/un-panel-on-torture-wants-information.html#storylink=cpy
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/22/2812521/un-panel-on-torture-wants-information.html
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: Prisoners generally are confined in poor and abusive conditions, often in overcrowded cells. Officials frequently punish political prisoners who complain about poor conditions or do not obey prison rules with long periods in punitive isolation cells, restriction on visits, or denial of medical treatment. Cuba does not permit the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to visit prisoners in Cuba; the last ICRC visit to a Cuban prison was in 1989.
http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/features/hrc2009/cuba/cubasummary.html
Is there any country on the planet where there is no corruption? I'm not aware of any, and if one could be pointed out, it would be useful to know how they do it.
One interesting difference between Cuba and the US in recent years is that people accused of corruption in Cuba seem to find themselves behind bars, at least in the cases Yoani Sanchez cites here. In the United States we have a much better system, of course: the corrupt don't go to jail. Not a single one of the perpetrators of the financial melt-down of 2008 have seen the inside of a prison or a pair of maching stainless-steel bracelets. They have that in common with Yoani Sanchez.
No wonder she writes about them with such enthusiasm.
p.s., in one other country I'm aware of the crooks have gone to jail: Iceland. Readers here might enjoy a Cuban commentary on how Iceland deals with its corrupt bankers and politicians:
Manuel E. Yepe: No news from Iceland
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs3434.html
Note that Villa Marista is more of an interrogation center than a "jail". It is the main facility of the Cuban "state security".
http://cubasde.impela.net/
I agree that lots of countries have corruption, but haven't Castro apologists like you not always claimed that communism and the creation of the "new man" by the Castro regime would end all that?
She is making the point that the "new man" Fidel Castro has created over the last 50 years is not "morally superior" and more a "black marketeer" and corrupt official.
All Cubans are reduced to "resolver": using illegal means to solve the problems they have. The extensive powers given to members of the regime and the elite have opened lots of opportunities of corruption starting from the president of the local CDR to the top of the regime.
The current "crackdown" on corruption is - at the highest level - no more than a means for the military clan, around Raul Castro to eliminate the others pillars of power that compete with them. The regime can not eradicate corruption as by now it is part and parcel of the "revolution". It is, to use Octavio Paz words, the "oil and glue" that keeps the system running and that holds it together.
Lots of news about corruption in Cuba:
http://cubacorrupcion.impela.net/