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Andrés Pertierra

@andrespertierra.bsky.social

4.7K followers 390 following 800 posts

Historian of Cuba and Communist systems. LatAm & Caribbean History PhD candidate at UW-Madison. U of Havana BA, UW-Madison MA. Bylines in The Nation Mag & Dissent Mag, among others.

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Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · Jun 5

Happy to announce my feature article on the current Cuban crisis is now no longer paywalled!

Please feel free to read & share

Dissent Magazine @dissentmag.bsky.social · Jun 5

From our spring issue: @andrespertierra.bsky.social on the mass emigration from Cuba.

www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-...

The Cuban Exodus - Dissent Magazine

So long as Cubans’ rage and despair remain, the government cannot afford to curtail emigration. And there is no end in sight.

www.dissentmagazine.org

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Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 1d

Maybe the backlash people like Zohran receive for saying true things about Cuba and Venezuela is healthy, in the mid to long term, because it forces us to have this conversation again and again, which can help well meaning but low info people to wake up

Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 1d

It’s a country of 9 million people with a diaspora of millions more. It’s not just a symbol or rhetorical device. Asking that you keep your use of it grounded in reality isn’t asking much, and it’s what Cubans deserve

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Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 1d

It pisses people off but I don’t think it an especially high bar for entry re: Cuba for people to adhere to basic, patently obvious, facts rather than being able to perform a Cuba that is rhetorically useful to whatever point they want to make

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Reposted by Andrés Pertierra

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 2d

crazy that one of the most storied institutions in american journalism is going to be run by two people with basically no experience to do it

Exclusive | CBS News taps Adam Rubenstein — once ostracized at NY Times for liking Chick-fil-A — as new deputy editor

Sources expect Rubenstein will effectively run the Free Press now that Weiss will be busy steering the editorial direction of shows like “60 Minutes,” “Face The Nation” and …

nypost.com

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Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 2d

(Also, obviously, explaining perspectives =\= validating them or defending them, they’re just helpful to me in understanding how various factions and parties saw themselves and their opponents)

Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 2d

A little over halfway through the recent insider history of Israel-Palestine negotiations, Tomorrow is Yesterday

I don’t know if the book will provide actual solutions in the latter half, but it’s been really helpful so far in understanding both perspectives & why previous negotiations failed

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Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 2d

Wrote a short post over on my substack on Mehdi’s recent interview of the Cuban deputy foreign minister

Interview was great but I wanted to add context which further solidifies Mehdi’s claims

open.substack.com/pub/pertierr...

On Cuban Elections and Dissidence

On the Mehdi Hasan interview of Cuban Vice Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío

open.substack.com

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Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 3d

Btw, this isn't me implying that the 1-5k figure is also going to collapse. That figure honestly sounds much more reasonable. It's the eye watering 20k figure that made me skeptical.

If we're talking hundreds or low thousands, it wouldn't surprise me at all

Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 3d

Back when the story first came out a few weeks ago, I urged caution around the 20k figure because it seemed really, really high.

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Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 3d

Not the central point of this Reuter's piece, but it seems significant to me that the Cuban mercenary presence in Russia's invasion of Ukraine is currently being pitched by the US gov as 'up to 5,000', a fourth of the original 'up to 20,000' figure in Ukraine's estimate

t.co/nC88z11q5d

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Reposted by Andrés Pertierra

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 4d

Jesus Christ. DHS has held this guy in the hospital handcuffed to a bed and under constant guard for over a MONTH without ANY warrant or even ANY steps taken towards putting him into the removal system!

Petitioner’s counsel has requested documentation of a judicial warrant for his arrest, any charging documents, or other authority supporting his detention. See Santiago Decl. ¶¶ 18–20. ICE has provided no response. Id. To date, ICE has not placed Petitioner in removal proceedings, charged him with violating immigration law, set bond, issued a Notice to Appear, or otherwise processed him. See Pet. ¶¶ 16, 49. In Respondent’s Opposition brief, the government states “ICE intends to take further action consistent with the laws prescribed under the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”) once Petitioner is released from medical care and it can conduct the examination as [prescribed] in 8 C.F.R § 287.3.” Opp. at 4. Neither Petitioner nor Respondents have provided the Court with information about Petitioner’s citizenship, whether he has violated any law or regulation, or any information that would suggest that Petitioner is a flight risk.

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Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 6d

Might be something to pitch to Audible if Bloosmbury lacks interest or infrastructure to do it, since Audible will take a bigger cut if they make the audiobook exclusive version but will also provide another way people can access it.

Either way, looking forward to reading it! I'll bring one to Berl

Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 6d

Super exciting! Will there be an audiobook version?

Reposted by Andrés Pertierra

Ned Richardson-Little @historyned.bsky.social · 6d

35 years ago today, the German Democratic Republic ceased to exist and its territory was absorbed into the Federal Republic. If you want to learn more about the rise and fall of the GDR on this auspicious #TagderEinheit, you can check out my new book: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/german-de...

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Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 8d

Like with Cuba, you also have the despair of all the suffering to bring about a revolution being made worthless

One man who worked as a carpenter all his life sets himself on fire in the 90s as his life savings goes from being worth a really nice car to a new pair of boots and a funeral wreath

Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 8d

One of the things that I keep coming back to as I make my way through this excellent oral history of everyday life the USSR is not just how Cuba may produce a similar one but how some of the very arguments are already present in Cuba

They even had their own ‘éramos ricos y no lo sabíamos’ myth

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Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 9d

Obviously this doesn’t counteract the magnitude of the losses to Cuba’s economy in the 90s either

Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 9d

Even at the island’s “loneliest” following the loss of billions in annual Soviet subsidies, it was never truly alone in terms of foreign assistance period

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Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 9d

Cuba got almost half of all Spanish aid anywhere between 1980-1992, even as the total amount of aid Spain donated abroad multiplied geometrically

From Joaquin Roy’s book La Siempre Fiel (history of Cuba-spain relations)

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Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 12d

Worth watching this interview for Mehdi’s pushback re: criticisms of Amnesty International’s reports on Cuba

t.co/0WKDtDb07T

https://zeteo.com/p/exclusive-cuba-is-very-worried-about

t.co

Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 14d

While Franco's continued diplomatic relations with Cuba are still the exception, it seems that from 1969 there was a sort of thaw re: Eastern Bloc

Orella, José Luis. "The Ostpolitik of Francoist Spain". Przegląd europejski 2017 (46), 4 (2017): 98-117. doi.org/https://doi.or….

Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 15d

I would be surprised if the Cuban government knew and gave explicit blessing to this, rather than a 'don't ask don't tell' sort of policy, but I'd also be surprised if an operation this big was going on and they didn't know about it, regardless of whether they gave blessing

Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 15d

Fourth & finally, none of the players in this are disinterested, so I am not endorsing this uncritically or suggesting anyone else do so.

What makes this newsworthy to me are not just the alleged allowance of recruiters to operate in Cuba but that claims seem specific/verifiable

Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 15d

Third, one of the key allegations is that hacked Russian emails of a recruiter allegedly say he was given go-ahead to recruit, presumably by someone representing Cuban gov

This is a huge claim that changes quite a bit if true, but I'd also need more reporting to confirm this bit

Andrés Pertierra @andrespertierra.bsky.social · 15d

Second, enough specific cases are available that I think the claims in this piece are at least verifiable rather than vague allegations that may or may not be true, which is always a good sign for a blockbuster report.

Lots of specific Cubans identified as joining the Russians

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