Best wishes to the people of Cuba-

[ElJavi76]

Just got back from an SOSCubaNYC March. I had the bullhorn for a few minutes to tell my story and why I'm there to support. So many amazing Cubans marching as one. We walked from Times Square to Union Square Park. It rained from the minute the March started to the minute I got in my car. (Which coincidentally got ticketed in a spot where I paid for parking.) Soaked thru and thru but I hope our voices travel farther than we did. Like Hamlet wrote in his sign... it feels like it's now or never!

The least we can do is raise awareness. May God bless our Cuban family and friends. Que Dios los cuide y los acompañe!

Viva Cuba Libre!

[Kaptain Karl]

3 hours ago, ElJavi76 said:

Just got back from an SOSCubaNYC March. I had the bullhorn for a few minutes to tell my story and why I'm there to support. So many amazing Cubans marching as one. We walked from Times Square to Union Square Park. It rained from the minute the March started to the minute I got in my car. (Which coincidentally got ticketed in a spot where I paid for parking.) Soaked thru and thru but I hope our voices travel farther than we did. Like Hamlet wrote in his sign... it feels like it's now or never!

The least we can do is raise awareness. May God bless our Cuban family and friends. Que Dios los cuide y los acompañe!

Viva Cuba Libre!

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

[DanWil84]

@Nino think the article is spot on, but a tourist who thinks everything was and is fine and dandy in Cuba before and while visiting it should pull is head out of his butthole. Hope these protests will make life better, but we have seen what the Arabic revolutions have a brought a couple of years ago, the dictator gets pulled of and replaced by someone who is even worse.....

Verstuurd vanaf mijn VOG-L29 met Tapatalk

[Nino]

17 hours ago, dgixxer252525 said:

That post Niño reads very familiar to what I posted a couple of days ago and got censored. Either way, I agree with the article. 
 

In other news, internet is cut again in certain places in Havana and in San Antonio de los Banos…

Might be because your "accent" was ..... slightly misplaced.

Like in your above post - it's Nino and San Antonio de los Baños ... 🙂

[Nino]

No idea if this works but I have seen it in many posts and articles now and have sent it to my Cuban friends to avoid cuts and censure in Cuba :

Para toda Cuba:
_Instalar VPN Psiphon
_Desactivar los datos móviles.
_Poner teléfono en modo de avión por 16 segundos.
_Quitar modo de avión.
_Entrar en aplicación VPN Psiphon.
_Pone en el usario: estadosunidos.
_Contraseña: canada
Así estarán conectados a Internet.....

[Ryan]

VPNs do seem to be working there. I've had contact with a few friends today on Facebook messenger in Havana and Jaimanitas, all were using VPN. They say things are peaceful for the moment in Havana.

[Ryan]

Two good bits today. One from the Guardian, one from NPR, on the current situation, and what might be coming. Strong hints that this might be a beginning of something bigger.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/18/im-surprised-it-took-so-long-cubans-find-anger-in-their-souls

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/18/1017366924/unrest-continues-in-cuba

[Nino]

1 hour ago, Ryan said:

VPNs do seem to be working there. I've had contact with a few friends today on Facebook messenger in Havana and Jaimanitas, all were using VPN. They say things are peaceful for the moment in Havana.

Yes they do work, just confirmed it with my friends in Havana.

PS : The Guardian article is very good and accurate, recommended.

[Jimmy_jack]

The people need to grab the batons an beat those guys asses. Plain and simple. 

[Cigar Surgeon]

7 minutes ago, Jimmy_jack said:

The people need to grab the batons an beat those guys asses. Plain and simple. 

From what I just read on research from Erica Chenoweth, non-violent protests have been more successful than violent protests for the past 100 years, and that gap is only widening. I'm assuming because modern Governments have access to an overwhelming amount of military force that can come down on the protestors. 

Quote

“Countries in which there were nonviolent campaigns were about 10 times likelier to transition to democracies within a five-year period compared to countries in which there were violent campaigns — whether the campaigns succeeded or failed.”

 

[Jimmy_jack]

15 minutes ago, Cigar Surgeon said:

From what I just read on research from Erica Chenoweth, non-violent protests have been more successful than violent protests for the past 100 years, and that gap is only widening. I'm assuming because modern Governments have access to an overwhelming amount of military force that can come down on the protestors. 

 

Guess I’m more of a guerrilla then. I think Cuba can do With a visit from some Irish brothers and sisters.

[chris12381]

Found this on Twitter via Project Inventario @invntario

They've been compiling the dates and locations of all the protests and corrobrating them with video and photos.  Here's a link to their Google Map.

Manifestaciones en Cuba, domingo 11 de julio 2021

One of the issues they are dealing with is placing the photos and video with the correct dates since a lot of dropped well after the protest occured - when ETECSA turned data back on. So each mark on the map is only placed once they have actual evidene that it occured at a specific date and time.  

They have also been doing some pretty impressive OSINT to place some videos.  As one example:

Este video que circula desde ayer en #rrss como una manifestación ocurrida el 17

And asking for help...and getting it:

[Ryan]

3 hours ago, Cigar Surgeon said:

From what I just read on research from Erica Chenoweth, non-violent protests have been more successful than violent protests for the past 100 years, and that gap is only widening. I'm assuming because modern Governments have access to an overwhelming amount of military force that can come down on the protestors. 

 

Governments also, importantly, control communications. There was a time when armed revolutions would start (after getting some weapons) by taking ports, train stations, telegraph offices and General post offices. Later they started with radio stations and airports. Now, whoever controls internet access in a country, controls access to information. How is that switched off. I'd imagine that it's multiple locations in Havana and well guarded by loyalists. Especially now. 

[Jimmy_jack]

2 hours ago, Ryan said:

Governments also, importantly, control communications. There was a time when armed revolutions would start (after getting some weapons) by taking ports, train stations, telegraph offices and General post offices. Later they started with radio stations and airports. Now, whoever controls internet access in a country, controls access to information. How is that switched off. I'd imagine that it's multiple locations in Havana and well guarded by loyalists. Especially now. 

All that internet goes through cables or dishes and is run by servers. Very simple for those in charge to kill data ports and connections. Same way other regimes run off Twitter but leave other connections on. Key strokes.

[Habana Mike]

From a friend in Havana

"[7:35 PM, 7/18/2021] +53: Yes, Mike, since the demonstrations occurred last Sunday, the government removed the internet and we didn't have internet again until the day I made the video call ... I have internet through a VPN because the news spread and that information It came to me a few days ago ...
The internet is still off except for people using a VPN
[7:35 PM, 7/18/2021] +53: the problem is that every day it gets worse ... it is slower and I can hardly connect only at certain times and I fear that the government has discovered this and is blocking it"

I think it is more likely due to the fact more and more now know and are using this avenue, thus eating up the available bandwidth more so than anything else...

[Ryan]

25 minutes ago, Jimmy_jack said:

All that internet goes through cables or dishes and is run by servers. Very simple for those in charge to kill data ports and connections. Same way other regimes run off Twitter but leave other connections on. Key strokes.

It hasn't been that simple in Cuba yet. A million Cubans, and growing, are using VPNs, and they don't seem to be able to stop that. I just got off a two hour Whatsapp call with a friend in Havana.

When Cubans got access to mobile internet in December 2018, I'd say that one Cuban person, that I knew then, knew what a VPN is (probably lots of under-30s knew but I don't know many of them). Now, everyone I know in Cuba knows what a VPN is, I was talking to a retired 65 year old cigar roller yesterday using one. 

I know there is no mechanical switch, or probably not. There probably should be given the success the Cuban government have had in shutting it down, not that I'm calling for that, of course I'm not. But key-strokes act as a switch and I'd guess a limited number of people have access to them. 

[Jimmy_jack]

1 hour ago, Ryan said:

It hasn't been that simple in Cuba yet. A million Cubans, and growing, are using VPNs, and they don't seem to be able to stop that. I just got off a two hour Whatsapp call with a friend in Havana.

When Cubans got access to mobile internet in December 2018, I'd say that one Cuban person, that I knew then, knew what a VPN is (probably lots of under-30s knew but I don't know many of them). Now, everyone I know in Cuba knows what a VPN is, I was talking to a retired 65 year old cigar roller yesterday using one. 

I know there is no mechanical switch, or probably not. There probably should be given the success the Cuban government have had in shutting it down, not that I'm calling for that, of course I'm not. But key-strokes act as a switch and I'd guess a limited number of people have access to them. 

It just really depends on the signals intelligence and electronic warfare capabilities of the Cuban govt. clearly and thankfully they arent very good. 

[BrightonCorgi]

10 minutes ago, Jimmy_jack said:

It just really depends on the signals intelligence and electronic warfare capabilities of the Cuban govt. clearly and thankfully they arent very good. 

China will be willing to help if Cuba signs the dotted line.  Maybe the Cuban leadership is smart in at least that regard to decline.

[ATGroom]

Looking at this map, the only internet cables to Cuba are one from Venezuela that lands in Sibony, and another from Jamaica that lands in Santiago. (aside from the two that land in Guantanamo Bay)

Those cables would terminate in a building with some servers. If you control those servers, you can set any rule you like for the network, ie, block Facebook, Youtube, Whatsapp, or disconnect certain areas or groups within Cuba.

The way a VPN works is that you route your connection to a server outside of Cuba first, and then that server looks up Facebook (or whatever) for you. As far as Sibony is concerned, you're only talking with the outside VPN server and not with Facebook, so they don't block it.

If instead of blocking certain sites, they decide to disconnect your area entirely, or even cut off the whole island, they can do that and a VPN won't help you.

Cuba is close enough to Key West, Jamaica, The Bahamas, Haiti and so on that if you had a tallish building with an ocean view, and a friendly neighbour across the sea, it would be possible to set up a microwave dish and get a direct private connection to one of these places. This would be a true private network, and the Cuban government would have no control or oversight over it. You could share it with your neighbours to the extent that you could run network cable around. There would probably be pretty harsh consequences if anyone was discovered operating this kind of a network.

The other option would be satellite internet, which requires just a dish pointing at the sky. Embassies and so on would use this kind of thing, but it would be too costly for the average Cuban. Once SpaceX's Starlink and other proposed affordable fast satellite internet come online in the next few years, it will be a game changer for places like Cuba. If SpaceX chose to not allow connections from base stations in certain areas, they could do that, but it would have to be something they chose to implement, not something a government could implement on top of them. The Chinese government can probably make life miserable enough for them that they would cave to the pressure. The Cuban government doesn't have the same leverage.

[Corylax18]

6 hours ago, ATGroom said:

The other option would be satellite internet, which requires just a dish pointing at the sky. Embassies and so on would use this kind of thing, but it would be too costly for the average Cuban. Once SpaceX's Starlink and other proposed affordable fast satellite internet come online in the next few years, it will be a game changer for places like Cuba. If SpaceX chose to not allow connections from base stations in certain areas, they could do that, but it would have to be something they chose to implement, not something a government could implement on top of them. The Chinese government can probably make life miserable enough for them that they would cave to the pressure. The Cuban government doesn't have the same leverage.

I work for a satellite internet provider here in the states and this wont be an option for Cuba under the current regime. For many reasons. 

The biggest is the military contracts that my company and most major satellite communications providers, have with Governments and Militaries. We provide communications for Air Force 1 and 2, ground fighters in the middle east and Africa and the Navy all over the planet. Those contracts are worth hundreds of billions more than Cuban internet over the life of the contracts. Their isn't even a discussion to be had. 

We provide in flight WIFI to commercial airplanes flying over Cuba every day. We could have provided high speed ground services there almost a decade ago, Same with Hughes net, Eutelsat, and plenty of other providers based al over the globe. 

Cuba expressly prohibits the importation and possession of almost all radio equipment to prevent the Microwave dish scenario you described. It also prevents most if not all SatCom ground stations from making their way into the country. 

While it would theoretically be possible, the size of the dish required to shoot that distance and the size structure required to keep that dish from moving in Hurricane force winds (even a strong thunderstorm) would not be easy to get into the country or hide from the government once it was built. 

Even if you where able to sneak in a ground station from my company (or the scam that is Starlink) you need a trained technician with a $15,000 piece of equipment to point the dish to the right satellite, which is over 22,000 miles away. Its not something you can just "eyeball". 

Considering their Level of sophistication the Government has a pretty firm hold on things, they don't have the technology or the resulting efficacy of the great Chinese firewall, but they're trying.  

[Jimmy_jack]

6 hours ago, ATGroom said:

Looking at this map, the only internet cables to Cuba are one from Venezuela that lands in Sibony, and another from Jamaica that lands in Santiago. (aside from the two that land in Guantanamo Bay)

Those cables would terminate in a building with some servers. If you control those servers, you can set any rule you like for the network, ie, block Facebook, Youtube, Whatsapp, or disconnect certain areas or groups within Cuba.

The way a VPN works is that you route your connection to a server outside of Cuba first, and then that server looks up Facebook (or whatever) for you. As far as Sibony is concerned, you're only talking with the outside VPN server and not with Facebook, so they don't block it.

If instead of blocking certain sites, they decide to disconnect your area entirely, or even cut off the whole island, they can do that and a VPN won't help you.

Cuba is close enough to Key West, Jamaica, The Bahamas, Haiti and so on that if you had a tallish building with an ocean view, and a friendly neighbour across the sea, it would be possible to set up a microwave dish and get a direct private connection to one of these places. This would be a true private network, and the Cuban government would have no control or oversight over it. You could share it with your neighbours to the extent that you could run network cable around. There would probably be pretty harsh consequences if anyone was discovered operating this kind of a network.

The other option would be satellite internet, which requires just a dish pointing at the sky. Embassies and so on would use this kind of thing, but it would be too costly for the average Cuban. Once SpaceX's Starlink and other proposed affordable fast satellite internet come online in the next few years, it will be a game changer for places like Cuba. If SpaceX chose to not allow connections from base stations in certain areas, they could do that, but it would have to be something they chose to implement, not something a government could implement on top of them. The Chinese government can probably make life miserable enough for them that they would cave to the pressure. The Cuban government doesn't have the same leverage.

Dont want to go to far down this rabbit hole. Just to address a couple things. Without US govt permission, nothing from SpaceX or Elon will be on that island. Not through traditional means anyway, it would be illegal. So that is out. 

Using P2P microwave would be possible, but it would be fairly obvious. The access points would be seen pretty quickly and the network would be at risk. IF you could get around that...you would need to mask the ssid(name of the wifi) and make sure people are quiet about it. Not sure how long that would last. 

I could see that option working but it would have to be guerilla/clandestine comms that only a few people know of. Their whole purpose would be getting information off the island for the rest of the world. It would not be for people to check FB and Twitter. Hell I would go so far as to make it a small foot print in the hills that you have to travel to in order to connect. Go into town, meet up and get whatever news/details/reports you need, get back into the hills and send that information out. 

There are off the shelf options that will shoot 80miles. 

Anyway...thats what I would do. 

[Corylax18]

9 minutes ago, Jimmy_jack said:

Dont want to go to far down this rabbit hole. Just to address a couple things. Without US govt permission, nothing from SpaceX or Elon will be on that island. Not through traditional means anyway, it would be illegal. So that is out. 

Using P2P microwave would be possible, but it would be fairly obvious. The access points would be seen pretty quickly and the network would be at risk. IF you could get around that...you would need to mask the ssid(name of the wifi) and make sure people are quiet about it. Not sure how long that would last. 

I could see that option working but it would have to be guerilla/clandestine comms that only a few people know of. Their whole purpose would be getting information off the island for the rest of the world. It would not be for people to check FB and Twitter. Hell I would go so far as to make it a small foot print in the hills that you have to travel to in order to connect. Go into town, meet up and get whatever news/details/reports you need, get back into the hills and send that information out. 

Anyway...thats what I would do. 

That's what Fidel Did!! It was Radio only at that point, but they built their own Com's station at the top of the hill they were hiding out on. Baustista knew they where somewhere in that mountain range, but no one thought they where dumb enough to setup where they did. 

Notice the block of slightly different colored Jungle at the top of the peak, just North and West of CdLP. There is still rusted out towers and equipment up there from the 50's. 

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Comandancia+de+la+Plata/@20.0102343,-76.9137418,2942m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x8ed1b749aa7615ff:0xb1286fd097761930!8m2!3d20.0107374!4d-76.9098068

[Nino]

On 7/17/2021 at 5:02 AM, PigFish said:

BIG F'N Bingo!

Read about that recent head of BLM (self-proclaimed Marxist) buying millions dollars of real estate with BLM proceeds. Typical Marxist. Would be nice if neo-Marxist actually told the truth about it. What it really is. Their actions speak plain as day!!!

There, I said it. -Piggy

Here is a Cuban view about the BLM statement supporting the Cuban regime - if it is too "US political" feel free to delete, I don't want to start a BLM discussion here.

https://www.cubanet.org/english/the-black-lives-matter-movement-the-lives-that-really-matter/

 

The Black Lives Matter Movement: The Lives that Really Matter

It should suffice to watch the July 11th videos to corroborate just how many Black-and-Brown Cubans were beaten by the police, and how many were mobilized to repress their brothers and sisters

Javier Prada

lunes, 19 de julio, 2021 8:00 am

en English

 

(Photo: AFP)

HAVANA, Cuba. ─ When George Floyd was assassinated in May 2020, many Cubans trimmed their Facebook profiles with references to the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM). Up to that moment, little was known about the organization, founded in 2013, aimed at defending the rights of African Americans and fighting against white supremacy and police violence against Black communities. Allegedly, it was a not-for-profit organization, with a deep humanistic mission that went beyond the issues of race to include also, as part of its premise, the plight of the downtrodden classes and those who are marginalized and whose rights are violated.

In the wake of Mr. Floyd’s brutal death, Cubans of all races expressed their solidarity with the movement, although they never raised their voices or wrote a post on social media, to condemn Cuban police violence when two uniformed cops shot young Hansel Hernández Galiano in the back, in a still-unexplained incident in the Guanabacoa municipality. That attitude revealed the ambivalence of “anti-racist” Cubans, and the same has happened with the leadership of Black Lives Matter in their recent statement about the July 11^th protests.

In their declaration –which will forever shame the leadership of the movement- the organization’s spokesmen have aligned themselves with the official discourse of the Cuban dictatorship, blaming exclusively the U.S. embargo for the vulnerable situation facing the island, thus exonerating the Cuban regime from all responsibility for its 62 years of failed tenure. It would seem that no Blacks and no poor Cubans took to the streets in so many neighborhoods throughout Havana. The Cubans who demonstrated up and down the rundown streets of La Cuevita –one of the poorest neighborhoods where Cubans of all races live, but mostly Black and Brown individuals- apparently were not Black.

It’s not about the left or the right. It’s about human decency to take the side of an oppressed people who have endured for years severe social traumas only to watch them swept under the rug because “the time is never right” to discuss them. It should suffice to watch the July 11^th videos to corroborate just how many Black-and-Brown Cubans were beaten by the police, and how many were mobilized to repress their brothers and sisters. This has revealed the terrible conflict that confirms just how effectively Cuba’s white government elite has “divided and conquered” and sown hatred between people who once shared a common cause.

With its pronouncement, the present leadership of the BLM has betrayed the organization’s principles. That their agenda is eminently political has become self-evident. Far from a progressive movement, it has become a breeding ground for doctrines that endanger American democracy.  An entity that supports the Castro dictatorship leaves no room for speculation. The progressive side which won BLM so many sympathizers seems to bear the seeds of totalitarianism, a persistent DNA print that spreads everywhere individual liberty shows the slightest weakness.

The lives that matter to the BLM leadership are olive green, the ones that don neat guayaberas to whitewash a corrupt and expansionist military regime. The last thing that seems to concern that leadership is a Black man who has been humiliated, no matter where it may happen. We are confident that many BLM sympathizers do not agree with the organization’s support of the Cuban dictatorship. However, in eight years, BLM has gone from being a true social movement to being a lucrative business, their present leadership bent on reviving resentment between the races, and buying mansions where they can concoct their next campaign, or wait until the next African American is killed by a while policeman to go for the jugular of power in order to impose a single, distorted and virulent vision of a problem that is very complex.

The BLM leadership has shown itself to be like the Castro dictatorship. To choose only one aspect of the truth is not to defend truth, least of all when the aim is to please a political ally. Its statements have deeply disappointed honorable Cubans, both in the island and abroad, who today demand freedom and count many of their brethren among the wounded and disappeared following the protests.

Joe Biden was not the president who called for civil war. It wasn’t the “blockade” that clubbed Cuban citizens on the head. It was not “imperialism” that summoned the pack of special-forces thugs to attack unarmed people, artists, intellectuals, students, physicians, teachers. The White House did not provoke the pain that shakes all of Cuba today, and the present BLM leadership is very cynical to deliberately ignore the excesses of a regime that last July 11^th reenacted the abuse perpetrated against George Floyd with hundreds of Cubans.

It matters not whether it was a knee choking the life out of someone, or a club smashing the head of a young man. They were defenseless human being against squadrons of regime supporters willing to kill. If BLM’s leadership cannot see the similarities, then their principles and purpose are false. Humanism has no political color, and it is, by its very nature, immune to brainwashing.

Today’s Black Lives Matter movement has shown a lamentable face.  We will never forget its position against the Cuban people and democracy, shamelessly supportive of the white-supremacist agenda of a dictatorial regime that has kidnapped their country and punished its citizens mercilessly.

 

[El Presidente]

Another Latin betrayal of Cuba’s people — but who’s counting?

July 19, 2021 by asombra

 

In an aggravated version of the recent failure by LASA (Latin American Studies Association) to unequivocally support the oppressed and abused people of Cuba, reported here, the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), an association of over 700 academic centers, has publicly addressed the current crisis triggered by the July 11 protests. Although CLACSO officially champions human rights, social justice and democracy, its formal pronouncement on the situation (signed July 12, as if by reflex, and issued July 13) may as well have been written by the Cuban dictatorship (and explicitly had input from Cuban academic centers belonging to CLACSO, of which there are 34).

The CLACSO document speaks, nay, screams for itself. Unlike LASA’s relatively nuanced though clearly compromised statement, issued this May, the CLACSO missive is completely and categorically pro-regime, blaming the pandemic and especially the US “blockade” (an unmistakable dog whistle) for the protests, which are described as acts of vandalism and terrorism, and whose presentation abroad is classified as “fake news.” There is NO criticism, let alone condemnation, of the 62-year-old totalitarian tyranny which has turned the once prosperous and thriving Cuba into a dystopian third-world hellhole.

In response, a group of 84 academics in the field of Latin American studies have expressed their dismay and indignation in a bilingual petition to CLACSO to rectify its position, which they consider complicit with Cuba’s dictatorship, ideologically biased, hypocritical and a form of “moral hemiplegia.” Alas, this is the same sort of thing that happened with the LASA declaration, which was not rectified to my knowledge, and I seriously doubt CLACSO will change its even more rabidly leftist and toxic tune. 

While this is no great surprise, since Cubans victimized by Castro, Inc. have been stabbed in the back by their supposed Latin brothers countless times, it remains appalling and contemptible — a grotesque indecency. Speaking as a Cuban, whoever makes or supports a statement like this CLACSO one, faced with the enslaved and long-suffering Cuban people risking their lives to finally break free, is NOT my brother and not even of my species, but rather a perverse alien. To paraphrase a medieval text which Yale professor of religion Carlos Eire will recognize, my response to such a person is Vade retro me, Latine, sunt mala quae libas–get thee behind me, Latin; what you offer me is evil. 

P.S. The top official of CLACSO is its Executive Secretary, currently Karina Batthyány, a sociologist from Uruguay whose surname suggests she is of Central-Eastern European (!) extraction. CLACSO was founded in 1967 on the initiative of UNESCO, with which it remains associated. Fittingly enough, UNESCO put out a tweet last month essentially honoring the bloodthirsty and hateful fanatic Che Guevara on the anniversary of his birth, which brought to mind that the noted Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas referred to UNESCO as UNASCO.

Really, you can’t make any of this stuff up. Talk about miseria humana.

[Bijan]

18 hours ago, Corylax18 said:

Even if you where able to sneak in a ground station from my company (or the scam that is Starlink) you need a trained technician with a $15,000 piece of equipment to point the dish to the right satellite, which is over 22,000 miles away. Its not something you can just "eyeball". 

I am pretty sure I installed a satellite internet link a decade and a half or two decades ago maybe not the same speed but definitely no $15,000 equipment involved.