Ellen Bernstein is a leader of Pastors for Peace, which has been fighting the U.S. government’s policies toward Cuba since 1992. She said:
We’re challenged the economic blockade, which we think for 50 years has been absolutely, unnecessarily, immorally, illegally, mean-spiritedly, pettily, foolishly, stupidly, counterproductively hurting the Cuban people.
Economic sanctions against Cuba should have ended decades ago, she said. See interview on the Cuba Money Project’s Vimeo channel. (more…)
Enrique Ubieta Gómez is a Cuban essayist, journalist and blogger. According to his biography, he is the author of a number of books, including “Ensayos de identidad” (1993), “De la historia, los mitos y los hombres” (1999), “La utopía rearmada” (2002) and “Venezuela rebelde” (2006).
He founded and directed the magazine Contracorriente from 1995 to 2004 and the Contracorriente Video Library from 2003 to 2007.
His blog is called La Isla Desconocida. See 12-minute interview with Ubieta on the Cuba Money Project’s Vimeo channel.
Reinaldo Escobar met Yoani Sánchez when she was just 18. She came to his house and wanted to borrow a book. Escobar said he quickly realized Sánchez was “an extraordinary person…someone for whom it was worth risking everything.”
Nearly two decades later, Escobar, now 64, said he never expected they’d be caught up in a civic movement to try to bring peaceful, democratic change to Cuba. He said:
This was unimaginable.
Before meeting Sánchez, Escobar wrote for a magazine called Cuba Internacional. He watched in the 1980s as perestroika took root in the Soviet Union. He and some of his colleagues thought a similar restructuring might take place in Cuba. See 28-minute interview on the Cuba Money Project’s Vimeo channel.
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Agustín Valentín López says he almost cried when he started blogging for the first time because it was such a moving experience.
He barely knew how to operate a mobile phone and suddenly he was immersed in the blogosphere, writing essays for the world to see. He said:
I started to live again. I was reborn. It was a rebirth.
He calls himself a member of Cuba’s “lost generation.” Born in 1955, he once believed in the Cuban revolution. He thought that Fidel Castro had great charisma, but later he lost faith in his government.
He says his country’s leaders didn’t fulfill promises they made to the Cuban people and now he feels “betrayed.” See 11-minute interview on the Cuba Money Project’s Vimeo channel. (more…)
The fight over U.S. policy toward Cuba intensified in November.
Hardline U.S. lawmakers demanded that the Obama administration take stronger and more effective action to speed the transition to democracy in Cuba.
Their critics called for an end to U.S. Agency for International Development programs that are carried out on the island in violation of Cuban law.
About the only thing that the two sides agreed on was that Cuban authorities ought to release Alan Gross, but Cuban officials said that isn’t going to happen anytime soon. (more…)
The United States will have an “immense” role in Cuba’s future, but Cubans must lead the country’s transformation, said Antonio Rodiles, director of Estado de SATS, a civil society project based in Havana.
The U.S. government should promote dialogue among Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits and try to improve Cuban activists’ ability to shape the nation, Rodiles said. See 6-minute interview with Rodiles on the Cuba Money Project’s Vimeo channel.
He said he agreed that Cuban dissidents and democracy activists needed financial and material support from off-island sources because “resources don’t exist” for civil society work in the country.
Many activists need support because their opposition to the government often ruins their chances of keeping a job. Rodiles said:
The Cuban government is the only employer. (more…)
Recipient of Pulitzer Center travel grants in 2010 and 2011. |
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USAID in the blogosphere
