#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #ITALY #ANARCHISM #News #Journal #Update - (en) #Italy, Galatea FAI: #Cuba: requests for solidarity and support (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 We forward two letters from two comrades (one of our collaborators and a Cuban

comrade from Taller Libertario Alfredo López y el Centro Social y Biblioteca
Libertaria ABRA) requesting help to deliver medicines to Cuba - and thus bypass
the Cuban state inefficiency. ---- To the comrades of the Italian Anarchist
Federation, ---- My name is Boris Milián Díaz, I am a Cuban anarchist active
since 2015 and I live in the libertarian social center and library ABRA. I suffer
from Werdnig-Hoffmann type II muscle atrophy, a disease that causes me severe
disability. In the last two years, due to the coronavirus pandemic and the
general worsening of living conditions in Cuba, I have limited myself to online
organization activities, coordinating actions aimed at alleviating the effects of
the repression, denouncing the actions of the Cuban state and supporting the its
most direct victims. Talking about the causes of the current situation in Cuba
can lead to a sterile debate on the history of the "Cuban Revolution", on the
geopolitics and on the legitimacy of the "revolutionary states", which is
resolved with the deterioration of living conditions in the country and with a
progressive but unstoppable collapse of institutions. In summary, we could say
that the pandemic has catalyzed the already complex socio-political situation in
a scenario of popular discontent in the face of the impoverishment and
radicalization of the government towards more authoritarian and violent practices.
Havana, as the seat of the central government and the most populous city in the
country with almost a fifth of the total population, is privileged in terms of
resource allocation, despite the evident general shortage of basic products (e.g.
bread), or their high price, as well as the low quality of the products
themselves. Or the general lack of medical supplies in the midst of an
inflationary crisis. The immediate context is that of a series of neoliberal
measures that have increased the vulnerability of the most fragile groups in an
attempt by the state to save national capitalism at the expense of investment in
social programs.
The situation in the provinces is much more critical. There is talk of a
twelve-hour blackout, an almost total shortage of food, hygiene products and
medical supplies, as well as a greater presence of police and military in the
places where the protests took place. Accompanying Caterina on the journey she
intends to make to deliver the drugs would allow me to verify the reality in the
area, identify specific problems and establish a network of contacts that could
help alleviate the difficult situation.
It is almost as important to underline the anarchist presence outside Havana, as
a counterweight to the rise of anti-communist discourse and the radicalization of
a large part of the population to the right. Ultimately, it could serve to make
an autonomous breakthrough that catalyzes protests, even if that would require
more extensive and careful work. Another concern would be the safety of
Catherine, who, as a woman and a foreigner, is more vulnerable to economic and
gender predation. Finally, it would be a question of leaving a graphic and
written trace of everything we will find and observe.
To this end, we would like to be joined by another partner, to assist me and also
to increase our working capacity in this short period. All in all, I think it
would be a very worthwhile trip. From our small and precarious refuge of freedom,
health and anarchy.
Boris Milián Díaz
===================================
Carx Companx,
my name is Caterina Camastra, I am Italian, I am 46 years old and I have lived in
Mexico for more than twenty years. I am an anarchist individuality and for the
moment I am not part of any collective. As a "loose cat" I have collaborated in
recent months with the blog of the Anarchist Group Galatea - FAI Catania and with
Umanità Nova Online. (*)
Starting in 2014 I started going to Cuba quite assiduously, for professional
reasons, and I had to end up noticing and admitting the crudest reality, that of
a ruthless Stalinist dictatorship that has nothing to envy to the assortment of
oppressive capitalisms installed in Latin America (and in the world). I saw with
my own eyes a series of injustices, incompetence, corruption, police and military
repression, socio-racial discrimination and suffering, in total contrast with the
rhetoric of the playground of Caribbean socialism that the Cuban dictatorial
regime sells to the world, in particular to European and Latin American left-wing
tourism. A dictatorial regime that promoted the enrichment of the Castro family
and a small military dome from the outset.

Since the pandemic, the situation has worsened. All over the world the seams of
injustices of their respective national health systems have broken out,
highlighting shortcomings and mismanagement. Cuba was not far behind, despite the
official rhetoric about local research regarding the development of a "sovereign"
vaccine.
The exact mortality data for COVID-19 are uncertain, given the lack of
independent and transparent information about it; what is evident is the
proliferation of a whole series of avoidable pathologies due to malnutrition and
the lack of medicines, as well as to increasingly deteriorated hygienic and
structural conditions: among others, skin diseases, dengue, leptospirosis.
To the dire health situation, we must add a bad management of extreme climatic
events. A succession of accidents and natural disasters has highlighted the
serious structural defects as well as the incompetence of the authorities:
referring only to 2022 we can count the explosion of the Hotel Saratoga in Havana
in May, the fire of the Antonio Guitera thermoelectric plant in Matanzas in
August, the passage of Hurricane Ian in September. The US embargo, which still
exists, is not the main culprit for the situation on the Caribbean island, which
instead suffers the incompetence, neglect and corruption of the regime. The
number of Cuban people who emigrated illegally to the United States during this
year is around 200,000, and this is not counting those who arrived in other
countries.
In this situation, the solidarity response of organized civil society inside and
outside Cuba has been fundamental to alleviate the humanitarian crisis. More than
non-governmental organizations structured as such, those that have been activated
are basic solidarity networks. Hilda Landrove, mentioned later in this same
letter, is an example with the group "Hilos de solidaridad"
(https://www.facebook.com/hilosdesolidaridad).
In this order of ideas, I will go to Cuba in December starting from Mexico with
the aim of delivering 46 kg of medicines (two suitcases of 23 kg each, the
maximum allowed by the airline) to civil society contacts (whose identity is
confidential for security reasons, we are talking about a totalitarian state that
looks at self-organization with suspicion) who deal with distributing them to
people who need them, without going through any official state channel, since
cases of theft of humanitarian aid are sadly known, then sold or distributed in a
clientelist way, or in any case of hyper-bureaucratic management, inefficient and
not very transparent (for example, with reference to the case of the Hotel
Saratoga[1]and more generally on the trafficking of medicines[2]).
Since getting help out of the capital is increasingly complicated, as the means
of transport are scarce and highly inefficient, the two suitcases will be
delivered in the cities of Ciego de Ávila and Camagüey, about six to seven hours
away from Havana. For this reason, I intend to rent a car to be able to move more
easily and reach some of the places that usually benefit less from humanitarian aid.
To cover the expenses that will arise, and which predictably will not be low, I
decided to launch a subscription.
A partial list of the expenses to be covered is as follows:
* land and air transport, € 550;
* transport of two extra suitcases, € 50;
* 5 days car rental, € 600;
* 46 kg of medicines (including suitcases), cost yet to be defined.
The collection and packaging of medicines will be organized by Hilda Landrove, a
Cuban anthropologist, journalist and activist based in Mexico City; *
* gas;
* room and board for three people for four days, since my partner Boris Millán
Díaz, from Taller Libertario Alfredo López y el Centro Social y Biblioteca
Libertaria ABRA, and one of his caregivers will accompany me from Havana (Boris
is suffering from muscular atrophy ).

https://gruppoanarchicogalatea.noblogs.org/post/2022/11/01/cuba-richieste-di-solidarieta-e-supporto/
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