14ymedio

A New Type of Business Springs Up in Cuba

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, 11 April 2023 — The writing, in capitals and painted in green on the wall at 464 Calle Belascoaín / Zaina in Central Havana, caught the eye. “I buy women in poor condition”, read the astonished passers-by.

With all the security about, that wouldn’t last long, we thought, here at the 14ymedio office when we saw it for the first time last Thursday — given the speed with which the authorities get rid of spontaneous signs on the streets. Nevertheless, three days later it was still there. On Sunday, an old man was sitting on the ledge just underneath the writing — on a wall belonging to a hardware store, and covered in carpenter’s marks. He seemed to be just resting there, whilst, just further up, the street vendors were spreading out their wares under the arcades.

“I buy women in poor condition”, read the astonished passers-by. (14ymedio)

On Monday, in the same place, the same guy and the same sign. The old man was dressed just the same — in light blue teeshirt and jeans, with the same bag he’d carried days earlier. Is he selling something? Is he some kind of link with another seller ’por la izquierda’*? Building materials? Or, quite the opposite, does he have something to do with the actual sign? Is he guarding it? Is he waiting for its “author” to turn up?

“Is he the one who buys women in poor condition?”, commented a young girl sarcastically, to what appeared to be her mother, as they passed by. “I don’t know, my girl, but he ain’t gonna find them here. It’s him that’s in poor condition, along with the whole country”.

On Sunday, underneath the writing, an old man was sitting on the ledge which formed part of the wall. (14ymedio)

Despite the misogyny of the sign, neither the Federation of Cuban Women nor Mariela Castro — official champion of the cause of equality — have commented on the matter. Apart from that, clearly the capital’s government itself hasn’t seen the necessity of removing it. Obviously because it doesn’t say: “No to the Communist Party“, “Down with the dictatorship“, “homeland and life“, or “Diaz-Canel motherfucker“.

*Translator’s note: ’Por la izquierda’, literally ’on the left’, is the equivalent of the English ’under the counter’.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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Cuba: Putting Makeup on the ‘Setbacks in Victory’

Instead of turning setbacks into victory, Cuba is living in a time of total make-up, of crude cosmetics applied to reality. (14ymedio

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, Havana, 11 April 2023 — Few phrases are as illustrative of Cuban voluntarism as the one that calls for “turning setbacks into victory.” Fueled by the whim of Fidel Castro, the maxim has summed up, since 1970, a way of doing politics in which boasting of victory was more important than achieving the results. It doesn’t matter if people lose their lives in the fight, if the country sinks into crisis or the economy is destroyed, but each failure must be transformed into a new, more ambitious goal to celebrate at full speed.

There was a time when that ideological compass was oriented towards delirious campaigns that presented the passage of a hurricane as a battle against nature, in which we pretended that we had the upper hand in the face of strong winds that left houses collapsed and fields devastated. After the passage of a meteor, one had to boast that the houses would be rebuilt, even more spacious and beautiful than when the cyclone knocked them down. We stuck out our tongues at the gusts and taunted the downpour with a one-finger salute.

Before each blow or setback, the response was revolutionary arrogance insisting that that misfortune was nothing compared to the “strength of a people.” Thus, we accumulated misfortunes for which we were not even allowed to mourn because we had to raise our fists and laugh from ear to ear as if we were engaged in eternal revelry. The failure of the sugar industry, the successive mass exoduses, the deterioration of the housing fund and the economic crisis received, indistinctly, the arrogant response of the ruling party and its consequent strategy to make the fiasco invisible.

Over time, this obsession with winning at all costs has led to putting makeup on the disaster in a more clumsy and ridiculous way. Thus, we have heard the Cuban leaders assure, after the explosion of the Saratoga Hotel, that the building will be rebuilt “better than before,” although from the results of the expert investigation that determines responsibilities for the death of 47 people, no one has had any more to say. Something similar to the tragedy in the Matanzas supertanker base, where the disaster has been covered with the triumphalist headlines about the reconstruction of the tanks. continue reading

The excesses of conceit came to celebrating the Team Asere players as champions, after they lost in the game against the United States in the World Baseball Classic, with a score of 14 to 2, or ensuring that the result of the recent electoral process to ratify the deputies to Parliament was a boost to the system although there was a marked abstention. Each time, the distance between what is applauded and what actually happened widens more and more. Instead of turning setbacks into victory, we are living in a time of total make-up, of crude cosmetics applied to reality. But, unlike a few decades ago, the regime no longer even wants us to believe it.

With smeared mascara and grotesque lipstick, Castroism does not want us to see it as a triumphant system, but prefers that we fear it. In the end, it is a repressive machine capable of crushing lives while pretending to save them, of sinking a country while pretending to have rescued it.

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‘El Gato de Cuba’ is Freed After Two Years in Jail, ‘They Did Not Extinguish Me’

El Gato de Cuba, during his livestream on Wednesday. (Captura)

14ymedio, Madrid, 6 April 2023–Yoandi Montiel Hernández, known as El Gato de Cuba, left prison on Wednesday after obtaining a pass to visit his family last weekend.

He shared the news himself immediately via a livestream. “They thought they’d extinguish someone and they did not extinguish me”, said the influencer who was sentenced to two years in prison for contempt after lobbing criticism against the regime on his social media livestreams.

“I just bounced and I’m overwhelmed,” apologized Montiel in the video in which he was grateful for all the support received from outside and stated that it wasn’t easy for him inside prison. “The didn’t give me the slightest conditional freedom, they didn’t reduce my sentence by two months as they were supposed to, nothing, I served every minute.”

In the video the activist asserted that he will “speak with everyone” and “will tell all.” “They didn’t change me, I came out the same,” he repeated. “I didn’t give in.” continue reading

The influencer was arrested at his home on April 12, 2021 during a Ministry of Interior operation that included about twenty police officers. The trial took place a year later. At that time, there was the possibility that the attorneys and the Prosecutor might reach an agreement to release him in three or five months, but that never materialized.

Montiel was initially at Villa Marista, the general quarters of State Security in Havana, and was later transferred to the Valle Grande prison, where he remained until Wednesday. During that time, the regime rejected efforts by his family for him to be released conditionally and, instead, in May 2022 they appealed his case to increase his sentence.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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In Guantanamo, Cuba, Crowded Bus Stops and Empty Buses With Signs Saying ‘Leased’

These buses are subject to the same difficulties experienced by the entire transport sector, such as the need to replace tires and lack of spare parts. (Venceremos)

14ymedio, Havana, 29 March 2023 — The leasing of 26 “underutilized” state vehicles, with which the Guantánamo Urban Bus unit planned to cover the transport deficit in the province, has been ineffective. The drivers often fail to comply with schedules and skip mandatory stops, and managers have threatened more than once to terminate their contracts, according to the local press.

Rubén Pico Judiones, director of this organization, lamented the origin of the problem: of the 74 buses that Guantánamo has, only 33 work. This forces the them to look for alternatives and to request the rental of “paralyzed” buses from several companies — under Resolution 207/2021, which facilitates the rental of vehicles — to cover several routes in the city and others that lead to the peripheral towns of Paraguay, Cecilia, Maqueicito, Maquey, La Jabilla, Boquerón, Cayamo and Hatibonico.

In addition, Pico details, four “private sector” vans were rented to connect some areas, and help was requested from various sectors to “support” the transportation of workers. “All that is still insufficient,” the manager admitted.

Pico indicates the conditions under which the drivers of leased vehicles operate. They must charge a fare of five pesos and make three trips in the morning and three in the afternoon. In addition, they have the duty to cover certain routes at a set time. “Once they comply, they have the freedom to perform other work to increase their income,” he says. continue reading

However, that kind of gap in their obligations allows them to treat the work schedule with “flexibility.” Ómnibus Urbanos began to take measures, such as inspections and “intermittent” controls, Pico says, aimed at surprising the drivers during their non-compliance. But even that hasn’t solved the problem. “They were warned about the possibility of losing their jobs if violations of the regulations persist, but we are certainly still dissatisfied with the results,” he says.

The New Complejo Zapata y 12 Cafe, a Public-Private Partnership in Havana, Is Never More than Mediocre

“[The waiters] are slow, unfriendly and take their time bringing out orders,” complains one customer. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, 6 April 2023 — Complejo Zapata y 12, an “all-terrain” cafe, does not live up to the hype that Havana’s state-run media heaped upon it a few weeks ago. A public-private partnership, it was supposed to be the flagship of a “culinary revival” in the island’s capital. Though it struggles valiantly under the constraints imposed on it by the Provincial Food Industry Company, the results are never more than mediocre.

According to official media, the state provides the location, the workforce and the technological infrastructure while the private-sector partner provides all the raw materials and, presumably, handles the production process. It is the same formula used at Grocery, a recently opened food store in the Miramar Trade Center, and at branches of the Sylvain bakery chain before that.

The ice cream at Complejo Zapata y 12 is made onsite using imported ingredients and some domestically produced flavorings. Ivan Avila Lopez, director of private-sector side of the operation, claims it can produce up to 400 liters a day in five different flavors.

The reality is quite different as 14ymedio found out on Thursday. Customers must deal with inattentive waiters who come up with excuses as to why someone cannot order the flavor of ice cream he or she wants. “We don’t have chocolate,” an employee told one customer, who then had to point out that it was advertised on the menu.

“O.K., we do have it,” the waiter admitted, “but it’s too hard to scoop out.” Frustrated, the customer had to settle for coconut, which itself was not properly frozen. continue reading

“It’s edible,” said a woman seated at one of the cafe’s white tables, “but you can’t really say it’s good ice cream.” Someone else pointed out, “The worst thing is the service, which on television they said was the best thing.”

Parsimonious and ill-tempered, the waiters take their time getting to the tables. Gone is the dynamism of opening day, when a squadron of local leaders, led by Havana communist party chief Luis Antonio Torres Iribar, made an appearance at the facility and checked out the public-private ice cream parlor’s “production line.”

Things are different now. “[The waiters] are slow, unfriendly and take their time bringing out the orders,” complains one customer, who was waiting for a hamburger, one of the specialities that was touted on television with great fanfare.

The prices are also hardly worth celebrating. A plain hamburger costs 150 pesos, a double 300. A single scoop of ice cream goes 40 pesos. Soft drinks are not well chilled while the water borders on being hot. To top it off, the salt shakers are filled with coarse salt so you have to unscrew the tops to be able to use them.

Customers have drawn their own conclusions about the public-private experiment. “Supposedly, they put the word complejo (complex) in the name to indicate it’s a joint venture,” says one woman, “but the only thing complex about this place is trying to get good service.”

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Poverty and Hunger are Spreading in Cuba

The scenes are comparable to the previous great crisis, which at least was baptized with one of the greatest euphemisms that Castroism ever came up with: “the special period in time of peace.” (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez / Olea Gallardo, Havana, 30 March 2023 — The crisis that Cuba is experiencing is not only reflected in the official data, independent reports and the unstoppable exodus. In the streets, at every step, the poverty is evident. Ana María, a middle-aged neighbor of Central Havana, mentions an example: “A few days ago, on Infanta Street, a man in his 50s was going to pick up some croquettes from the floor, and when he saw that I saw him, he was embarrassed. The truth is that I was more ashamed than he was.”

These scenes are comparable to the previous great crisis, which was at least baptized with one of the greatest euphemisms that Castroism ever came up with: “the special period in time of peace.” It was common then, in the 90s, to see its imprint on the wrinkled and emaciated bodies of Cubans. Thousands of them suffered from diseases like neuropathy, which left them blind and was caused by malnutrition and the abuse of homemade alcohol.

Today’s crisis has no name, but it does have the same face: the increasingly empty cities, especially of young people and those who fall down unconscious from drinking “train-spark” (homemade alcohol), and the elderly (and not so old) who rummage through containers or beg on the street.

And it doesn’t just happen in Havana. Jorge, from Holguín, says he encounters a similar situation every day. “It has increased a lot, but a lot, the number of people on the street who are rummaging through the trash and asking for money. Today I was having a pizza and soft drink in a private place and a 70-year-old man with crutches, who couldn’t even walk, came in begging, and I bought him the same thing I was eating. Yesterday a woman who saw me counting some money on the street approached and said: ’oh, give me something for the peas’. Right after, another woman asked me if I could buy her some cassava fries. I wanted to give her 100 pesos but she asked me to buy them for her: ’They scammed me,’ she told me crying. And what breaks my heart the most is the children who implore: ’could you give me five pesos?’” continue reading

Jorge attributes the scarcity mainly to inflation, which does not let up: “One pound of pork is 400 pesos ($16.70), and you buy four pounds and they are two of meat and two of bone and fat, which doesn’t work. A carton of eggs here is worth 1,500 pesos ($62.50), a liter (33.8 ounces) of cooking oil is 1,300 ($54). People make it to the end of the month almost without oil, without rice.”

To have something to put in their mouths, people even eat the impossible.. (14ymedio)

Caption – The scenes are comparable to the previous great crisis, which was at least baptized with one of the greatest euphemisms that Castroism ever came up with: “The special period in time of peace.” (14ymedio)

Thus, families are reducing the quantities. They eat rice with a little bit of vegetables, they eat only a banana, they get used to not having animal protein. “I have a neighbor who stops having lunch to give it to her son, who is in high school. Many times I see that they eat rice cooked in bean sauce with two tomato slices because they don’t have a main course,” Jorge explains.

Something similar is told by Lisandra, from Sancti Spíritus. “I recently brought a friend a picadillo that I cooked, after lunchtime, and I realized that her boy had been given rice with beans and she had not eaten anything.”

To have something to put in their mouths, people even eat the impossible. “My mother discarded a horrible picadillo that she had boiled in hot water because someone told her that it looked like ham and she wanted to give it to the neighbor’s dogs. The neighbor let it dry because she wanted it for herself.”

Sometimes, as happened to Ana María with the man who picked up the croquettes in Centro Habana, there is shame for both parties. “When I went to say hello to a friend from the university, at lunchtime, her children interrupted her all the time while we talked: ’Mom, I’m hungry’. And I realized that she didn’t want me to see what they were going to eat,” continues Lisandra, who says: “People don’t say it, but they are going hungry.”

From San Antonio de los Baños, Artemisa, the epicenter of the mass protests of July 11, 2021, Caridad recounts: “The famine is widespread. Soon we will not exist, because we’re going to starve, and we won’t have a doctor to help us.”

The woman, in her thirties with a young daughter, lashes out at the Government: “They can’t solve anything, and they want us to keep electing people we don’t even know. Last week the power didn’t go out because there were elections, and now that there are no elections? If only we could eat all the blackouts.”

Caridad’s list is long, from electricity (“without electricity you can’t live”), to water (“we haven’t had it for five days”), food (“milk is a forbidden product and soon we’ll be talking about beans at 200 pesos [$8])” to increasingly precarious health services (“there is no medical assistance because doctors have no medicines and they are not magicians.”) “I can’t really explain how we are still alive,” she concludes.

“It has increased a lot, but a lot, the number of people on the street who are rummaging through the trash and asking for money.” (14ymedio)

“My sister and I bought a yogurt that cost us more than 250 pesos [$10] for 1.5 liters [53 oz.], and we had to pay on the informal market. When a state truck comes, it’s a slaughter, with the cost of yogurt close to 100 pesos [$4], or 70, 80, 90 pesos. You don’t have any meat, a chicken thigh, or a piece of pork. There is no onion even if someone can pay for it,” she lets fly and continues with her litany of sorrows.

Rice, she says, is a “hot item.” “Here in this town they are selling a speckled rice, I don’t know where they get it, which contains transparent pebbles. It’s enough to make God weep. Not only do you have to spend two hours removing these particles, but on top of that they can break a tooth, and then where do you find a dentist? Everything is a stack of dominoes, and now the game is over.”

For Caridad, the moment that Cuba is experiencing could be called “minute zero,” because “we have no options at all.”

There is another widespread comment: what is most worrying are the children. “I suffer bitterly because I have a girl under the age of seven and I worry about the day to day. Even the schools don’t function now. The teachers don’t want to work because they are also hungry,” says Caridad.

For Ana María, the situation with the children is “a disaster,” and she recounts the torment of her grandchildren, who not only have to endure an insipid rice with peas every day but all kinds of propaganda in their classes. “My girl has to show something tomorrow, after a week sick with asthma,. One homework was about the tax system, nothing more and nothing less, and another about Fidel’s life as a child until he was a revolutionary leader,” the woman says. “And the boy had to talk about the Zanjón Pact and Martí’s attitude at that time and also about the elections. Tell me something I don’t know!”

Neither propaganda nor servility nor ordinary work frees Cubans from suffering. “A relative of mine, retired military and doctor, that is, with an above-average retirement, has just celebrated his 80th birthday, and between his brothers-in-law and nephews they collected something to celebrate, because he barely has any money,” says Ana María. She gives another example, her own sister, now retired from the state sector, who was “once pretty but now is skin and bones.”

Another neighbor of Ana María, a health worker, went to her house recently to implore her for something to eat, even if it was only chicken skins, because she couldn’t buy anything.”

As if that were not enough, it’s no consolation to have money to spend in stores in freely convertible currency (MLC): “Even those who have people abroad [who send them hard currency] can’t get food, because the stores are empty. Everything has to be paid to the people who steal it from state places, buy it in Havana or I don’t know where and sell it here so that people can live,” protests Caridad, the young woman from San Antonio de los Baños.

All in all, she, like Ana María, Jorge and Lisandra, are part of that 30% of Cuban families that differ from the rest because they receive help from abroad, the most paradoxical inequality created in 64 years of communism. The rest, most of them, have to settle only for what comes through the rationed market, which is not enough to last the month.

Ana María, who has no way to leave the Island, laments: “I’m now depressed when I go out on the street, the poverty, the grime, the miserable people, the starving animals. I want the aliens to take me, because it makes me want to cry.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Election Results are the Fruit of Repression

The lack of enthusiasm marked the March 26th elections, the preliminary results of which point to the lowest participation since 1959. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 27 March 2023 — It is not possible to scientifically or judicially prove that the official results of the voting to approve the delegates to Parliament were fraudulent, but it is difficult to believe them. Even believing it to the letter, the conclusion is that they are the fruit of neither revolutionary enthusiasm nor of the conviction that those candidates will represent the interests of the population.

There will be plenty of time to analyze the numbers in detail and to calculate how much the abstention results were influence by the prior “scrubbing” of the voter registries to reduce them by almost four percentage points relative to the voters registered during the referendum on the Family Code.

In the municipal polls, where the results of the district votes are reconciled, a report is drafted which goes “up to the province.” These proceedings are not public, but the provinces cannot alter their data to achieve a deceitful total without counting on the complicit silence of the members of the electoral polls. The same thing occurs when the provinces submit their reports to the National Electoral Commission. Alina Balseiro, the president of the National Electoral Council cannot inflate the sum of the data that are sent by the provinces, which also are not public, without hundreds of people knowing and maintaining their silence.

It may not qualify as “fraud” that the oppressive atmosphere that sent an undetermined number of voters, who attended for fear of being labeled disaffected, to the polls. But the degree of pretense required to attend that parody of an election knowing that the preferred candidates are not being elected, without believing one bit of the electoral process, being intimately in disagreement with the political system that declares itself valid by “the majority presence at the polls” is evidently fraudulent. It is most similar to those marriage of convenience that the judicial system of most countries annul when the pretense is discovered. continue reading

The submission occurs when faced with the lack of alternatives, or worse, to keep the escape hatch open to the desired alternatives. We will never know how many of those who did not dare abstain opted for behaving well because they are awaiting the conclusion of their parole process to leave to the U.S., or desiring to be sent on an internationalist mission or a sporting or cultural event where they plan on deserting.

Or because their child aspires to go to university or because they are that child; because they cannot survive on their salary, but rather from what they call the “hustle” and their work place offers a way of surviving on corruption and, for that, one must be as invisible as possible.

The victory declared by the dictatorship feeds off of those individual defeats.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine Distributes $100 Bills in a Town in Cuba

Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine in a moment of his video recorded in Cuba. (Captura)

14ymedio, Madrid, 31 March 2023 — Ten days after being beaten in a Miami gym for which he was hospitalized, rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine has reappeared with a video clip recorded in Cuba. The song, which is titled Bori, has the collaboration of the Cuban singer Lenier Mesa, and just an hour after its premiere on YouTube, it already had about 200,000 views.

In the images, the musician is seen in a rural area of Pinar del Río, near the Viñales valley, with the results of the injuries he received visible on his face, especially in his right eye. At several times, he appears in a hospital center that looks like a Cuban clinic for foreigners.

At another moment, the rapper is seen smiling, covered with a Cuban flag, surrounded by people and handing out $100 bills.

Giving away money in the streets has not been looked on well by the Cuban authorities when it is done by a national. Earlier this month, Cuban YouTuber Hilda Núñez Díaz, known as Hildina, broadcast a video on YouTube in which she claimed to have received the sum of 34,000 pesos — about 200 dollars — from a subscriber of her channel residing in Germany. With that money, she took to the streets to buy food and delivered it to several disadvantaged people in Santiago de Cuba.

It is worth remembering, in the same way, that for using the flag in his work Drapeau, the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, sentenced to five years in prison, was prosecuted for insulting patriotic symbols.

Also, the Spanish agency EFE reported that the Police arrested three people in connection with the beating that Tekashi received on March 21 in Miami, where he had also been expelled from a game of the World Baseball Classic. continue reading

Local media reported this Friday the arrest of three individuals, identified thanks to the disclosure on social networks of a video in which it is observed how Daniel Hernández, the real name of the artist, is violently beaten on the ground.

The detainees, aged 23, 25 and 43 face charges of assault and robbery and are in a prison in Palm Beach County, in southeastern Florida.

Some media pointed out that the aggression may have been related to the artist’s alleged enmity with members of the gang Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods.

The rapper smiles while distributing money among the entire population of a Cuban town. (Screen capture)

The rapper’s lawyer, Lance Lazzaro, told TMZ that several men attacked his client while he was inside the gym facilities and that the artist could not defend himself.

The rapper, who was taken to a hospital by ambulance with cuts, a jaw injury and blows to his ribs and back, showed on social media how his face looked after the beating.

At various times on the video, Tekashi appears in a hospital center. (Captura)

This incident is in addition to another that occurred recently during the World Baseball Classic match between Mexico and Puerto Rico, when he was allegedly drunk and expelled for blocking the vision of other spectators, according to some media.

The son of a Mexican and a Puerto Rican, Tekashi was born in the United States and lives in New York. At the age of 26 he has achieved great popularity, especially on Instagram, where he has more than 21 million followers.

However, his personal life is very controversial. In 2019 he pleaded guilty to nine criminal charges, including conspiracy to commit murder, and agreed to a reduction in sentence that led him to be released from prison in 2020, after having served a good part under house arrest due to the pandemic.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Twelve Questions for the National Electoral Council About Voting in Cuba

he president of the National Electoral Council (CEN), Alina Balseiro. (Twitter/Elecciones en Cuba)

14ymedio, Bueno Aires, 1 April 2023 –The president of the National Electoral Council (CEN), Alina Balseiro, held a press conference to give the final results of the elections for the National Assembly of People’s Power (ANPP) of Cuba held last Sunday, March 26. In it she reported that the electoral roll changed during the day of voting, something common in Cuba, increasing by about 9,000 voters due to the “compatibilization”of the lists of electors.

She pointed out that according to official data, the participation increased to 75.89% (6,167,605), and that “all deputies were elected with more than 61% of the valid votes cast as required by the electoral law, with free, equal, direct and secret voting.”

She reiterated on several occasions that the electoral process was transparent and even said that “for us it’s not a problem if they want audit us.”

Electoral Transparency took the floor and officially requested a comprehensive audit of the different phases of the electoral process. continue reading

Despite the statements of the head of the CEN, the Cuban elections are essentially autocratic — by clauses established in the Constitution: a single-party regime and the irrevocability of socialism — and technically opaque.

By their nature they are non-competitive elections, which only serve to seek to legitimize the candidates previously selected by the mass organizations subordinate to the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC). Procedurally they are inscrutable, because there are no cross-checks, independent audits or national and/or international electoral observation.

So Electoral Transparency proposes to carry out an audit that can respond to issues such as:

1. What are the criteria used by the National Candidacy Commission for the selection of the 470 candidates from a universe of more than 19,000 that had been initially announced?

2. What are the selection criteria for election officials?

3. What are the criteria for the selection of the vote counting authorities, what type of training did they receive and how were they evaluated?

4. What is the criterion for the selection of polling places? How is accessibility guaranteed?

5. What are the security measures for deploying the electoral material? Do the ballots have any identification? How do you make sure they are authentic? Which agency is in charge of reporting on the operation?

6. How is the electoral roll made up and how is it checked?

7. How do you ensure that a person does not vote in two or more polling centers? What is the procedure for crossing out those who have already voted? How is the consolidation carried out?

8. What are the protocols for the transfer of the ballot box once the election is over? How is the chain of custody of the material guaranteed in case a recount is necessary?

9. What are the reasons for reopening a ballot box?

10. How can observers appeal the count if they don’t agree with it, and for what reasons?

11. Where are the minutes for the count? Why aren’t they published and open to the public in digital format?

12. What is the system of transmission and consolidation of data? Who audits it?

These are just a few of the issues that could be analyzed in a comprehensive audit, which, although it would not reverse the anti-democratic mood of the election, could account for its technical solidity.

Electoral Transparency asked the National Electoral Council to open up to an independent audit after the 2022 municipal elections with the aim of making the aforementioned points clear before holding the March 26 elections. However, there was no opening on the part of the electoral body.

Given that on this occasion the head of the CEN, Alina Balseiro, publicly expresses that they are open to an audit, and considering that the results have generated justified doubts because there is no relationship between the percentage of participation announced and the number of voters in the voting centers, Electoral Transparency reiterates the request to audit the process. The technical team of the organization is available to travel to Havana and implement a comprehensive audit.

Unfortunately, the CEN website is not in operation at the time of publication of this statement, so Electoral Transparency communicates the proposal via Twitter.

Translated by Regina Anavy
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Will It Be Possible To Act Against the First Usurper of the Cuban Communist State?

For Sale or Trade. With today’s massive migration, many Cubans find great difficulty in selling their homes. From martinoticias.com

14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 3 April 2023 — The illegal occupation of homes and premises is a symptom that things are not going well in an economy. It is also a process that has been growing in Cuba in recent years, which has led communist leaders to get out of the collectivist and egalitarian script. Let’s see how. After the triumph of the so-called revolution, when the most devastating action against private property rights in the world was perpetrated by a country, the usurpation of homes became commonplace in Cuba, encouraged by revolutionary leaders. Families who fled the country, leaving all their assets behind by the confiscatory actions and the political persecution unleashed by Castro terror, contemplated from a distance how their homes and premises were occupied by other people who had nothing to do with their family or heirs.

The illegal occupation became legal due to the de facto acceptance of the new regime. In other cases, the new leaders were “giving away” the homes left by their former owners to people for the mere fact of being faithful to the new political leadership of the country. Without records, notaries, or anything like that, there was a real usurpation of the old housing property in Cuba, first by the state and then by people who were never its owners. The phenomenon reached such a dimension that for many years the regime played with the false image of the threat that a massive return of exiles could pose for the precarious occupants of the homes that were not theirs.

The chaos caused in revolutionary times was maintained until the approval of the communist constitution of 2019, in which article 42 recognized the right of people to the protection of the home, establishing the prohibition of the entry of others without the authorization of the person who inhabits it, unless such entry was made by express order of the competent authority and with the formalities of the law.

Subsequently, Criminal Code Law No. 151 of 2022 was published, which introduced the crime of usurpation, provided for in article 421, to address the increase in housing occupation by some individuals or groups, who, taking advantage of the temporary absence of the owners or cohabitants, committed the crime. A phenomenon that seems to have grown exponentially in recent years, as a result of housing shortages, the deterioration of existing homes and the low incomes of the population, especially among vulnerable groups. The alarm has reached the regime, observing that not only supposedly private homes are occupied, but also state premises where services for the community are provided, such as medical offices, social housing and warehouses, among other properties that have been abandoned by government neglect. continue reading

In this way, the regime wants to face the crime of usurpation with an approach commensurate with its interests. For example, before the entry into force of the current penal code, only those who entered other people’s homes or premises through violence or intimidation were prosecuted for said crime. Not those who didn’t do it in that way. The housing officials and the commissions to confront the illegalities managed their extraction from those places after declaring them illegal occupants, which was interpreted as a softer and more comprehensive treatment toward practices that they now want to eliminate.

And why this change? Well, basically because of the spectacular increase that has been occurring in these occupation practices and, with it, the harmfulness and aggressiveness of behaviors in any modality, which requires an intervention of criminal law in the solution of these conflicts aimed at protecting property as a legal asset. Yes, everything is very correct, but the protection of what property? Of the property previously usurped by the same regime that governs the destinies of Cubans? No. It’s not something to celebrate. It’s unbelievable that this type of approach emanates from an economic system in which private property, although recognized, continues to have a marginal role in the economy as a whole, where the collectivist mentality prevails overwhelmingly.

Thus, the authorities understand that ensuring and strengthening the inviolability of the home, recognized in the constitution of the Republic, is an objective that is related to the current socioeconomic conditions in which Cuba operates, where private ownership of housing is still limited to a maximum of two. It would be good if this measure were applied to all kinds of interference in homes, such as those that state security maintains in the form of repression against dissidents, for example.

But the regime seems to be clear about what it wants and that’s why it gets straight to the point. Only in this way can the publication by the Governing Council of the Supreme People’s Court be interpreted, through Opinion No. 471, of February 15, 2023 (published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Cuba, no. 17, extraordinary edition, of March 2, 2023) of judicial practice in the processing and solution of these matters. An extensive document that is worth reading in detail.

When the illegal occupation or seizure of a house takes place in Cuba, the authority, once the complaint has been formalized, will immediately inform the administrative bodies responsible for the system of housing, territorial and urban planning, the community prevention bodies and the municipal administration councils, so that, together with the National Revolutionary Police, they adopt the measures to extract the illegal occupants, thus restoring, with identical immediacy, the broken legality.

We would have to ask ourselves at this point, what is the legality? The fiction created by Raúl Castro or the one before 1959 that continues to be documented in the historical property deeds of the Cuban economy? Remember that the law does not state which one, much less the law of property. The communists have gotten into a good mess, they alone. Will the historical owners of the homes be able to exercise this right of complaint or are they still excluded? Are the squatters the ones who were established without an acquisition or rental operation in the homes and premises confiscated by the revolution?

It is also stated that, against those who execute these illegal acts of seizure, the prosecutor’s office or the court will have one or more precautionary measures provided for in the law, which can be provisional imprisonment in cases where the property is not immediately abandoned, in order to avoid the continuity of the allegedly criminal conduct committed and the restitution of legality. The perpetrators of this crime can have penalties imposed that run from six months to two years, or a fine of 200 to 500 pesos, or both.

If the occupation is carried out with force, violence or intimidation, or the act was a consequence of gender or family violence, or for discriminatory reasons of any kind, the penalty increases from two to five years, or a fine of 500 to 1,000 in installments, or both. A similar procedure will apply when the occupation or empowerment takes place with premises belonging to state entities, and the administrative authorities, holders of these, are responsible for restoring legality, in conjunction with the other groups or institutions that are deemed relevant. What could happen when a holder of historical rights takes action against the state for the premises that have been confiscated and occupied since revolutionary times?

The rule states that criminal responsibility increases if the crime is committed against children under 18 years of age, people with a mental disorder or taking advantage of that situation, or the occurrence of a disaster, public calamity, or any other situation of that nature, or under the ingestion of alcoholic beverages, drugs or substances of similar effects.

When the occupant leaves the property voluntarily, without the need for the aforementioned administrative and preventive bodies to act, the court, at the time of adjusting the sanction, may assess the positive conduct of repentance and, consequently, apply a reduced penalty.

The court, in the execution phase of the sentence, if necessary, will be assisted by the administrative, preventive and police bodies, to extract the person who has illegally usurped a property, and will restore legality, returning it to its owner or legal possessor.

There is no doubt that the situation in Cuba must be very complicated for the regime, the authority, to try to face it with a procedure like this, which has nothing to envy compared to the one that is applied in privately owned market economies. The procedure described circumvents this legal right with ambiguous references to the inviolability of the home and uses dubious concepts, such as “owners or cohabitants.” There is no doubt that the owners of the property usurped by the regime can apply this procedure in defense of their rights. This is another issue that creates important gaps and inequalities in Cuban society. Some Cubans will be able to resort to the procedure in case of occupation or usurpation of their homes; others will continue without a recognition of their rights. In the Cuban communist regime, some things change, but, unfortunately, never in the right direction.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Responding to Cuban President Diaz-Canel’s Boasting ‘D Frente’ Suggests That One Third of Cubans Do Not Support Him

Attendance was low at the polls not only in the capital but also in other provinces. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Madrid, 30 March 2023 — Although the votes on March 26 “reaffirmed revolutionary convictions”, according to a statement by Miguel Díaz-Canel on Wednesday in a meeting of the Council of Ministers, the official had to devote several minutes to defend the legitimacy of the process after 2.5 million Cubans who live on the Island were left without representation.

This last data point has been claimed by D Frente, an opposition organization, which published a statement that same day suggesting that the sum of those who either abstained, left the ballot blank, or annulled their ballot indicates that 33.8% of the electorate “were not in favor of the continuity of the current Cuban political order.”

Conscious that the elections resulted in an historically high abstention rate (24%) since 1959, Díaz-Canel centered on minimizing the importance that one in four Cubans did not show up at the polls by comparing it with another geographic context (the U.S.), while refusing to compare it with another temporal context, that of the legislative elections five years ago, where only 15% of registered voters abstained.

“The comparison the enemy attempts to make between these results and those obtained in the 2018 national elections is opportunistic, as they are completely different electoral contexts,” he said, and went on to state how the situation on the Island has worsened in the last five years, presumably due to the tightening of the blockade, its supposed consequences — from the lack of electricity to lack of credit in international markets — and the U.S. media “campaign to discredit”.

More importantly, in exchange, Díaz-Canel seemed to compare the data with the elections in democratic and multi-party systems which have little to do with the Cuban context. “The same press that covers up electoral results in first world countries which aren’t even blockaded, nor attacked, nor subjected to enormous media campaigns, and the participation is barely above 60%,” he said. continue reading

The government official also spent a good part of his time justifying the electoral transparency. Activists and opponents — relying on images published by citizens, independent, and even official media — have cast doubt on the participation rates offered by the National Elections Commission (CEN), but Díaz-Canel defended that there is no proof that there were illegalities in the process.

“Even though the counterrevolutionary campaign was intent on presenting the elections as lacking transparency, the truth is that they do not have a single bit of evidence, not one bit of evidence of any irregularity,” he said. From there, he continued with an explanation on the different processes required to approve candidates and in which, in his opinion, everything is open to the citizenry.

That there is no independent candidate nor one that does not subscribe to the official discourse does not surprise the General Secretary of the Communist Party, for whom international observers are unnecessary; even in democracies well-recognized and funded by the population, such as the U.S. or Spain, the electoral process is supervised. “We don’t need international observers, everyone has the right, the possibility and the authority to be an observer, and they do it.”

The government official presented as extraordinary, events that are common any election, such as showing empty ballot boxes as the polls opened or counting the in front of those who attend–a half-truth, since the director of this very daily, Yoani Sánchez, attempted to exercise that right in 2019 and was only able to do so following an act of repudiation and many obstacles.

For Díaz-Canel, however, Cuba couldn’t be more proud. “We’d have to ask ourselves, why the biased and tendentious view — simply, colleagues, because we are an example for the world. And we must continue to defend that example, and that example must also be defended with the encouragement give of the people who produced results during these elections,” he added.

The government official also puffed his chest recounting the percent participation which, in his opinion, offer “the demonstration of civility, but also patriotism, of loyalty to the Revolution,” by the people amid the difficulties. “There is expectation, trust, and I believe we all must work as part of that learning in search of, above all else, an economic response to the country’s current situation,” he said before enumerating the long list of the day-to-day problems for Cubans, which span lack of food, housing or water, deficiencies in education, health and transportation, or the alarming increase in violence of all kinds.

Faced with these, he did not offer any solutions, beyond aiming for a change was based on magic realism that will result in “tremendous energy to continue advancing because in these elections, Cuba won.”

One vision that differs from that detailed by D Frente in its statement, in which it considers the vote a “a confirmation of delegates previously designated to those posts.” The organization denounced the harassment and arrests against those who attempted to promote abstention, something which is prohibited by Cuban law although it is legal in most countries where voting is not obligatory, as well as direct or indirect coercion of voters for them to cast their vote and to do so in the convenient sense.

“Even when the process didn’t benefit from the supervision of independent observer institutions nor with the minimum guarantees of a democratic electoral process, the public results by CEN show the continued erosion fo the current political regime,” stated D Frente, which urges the elected delegates to take on the issue of the system’s representativeness and demand “that all political prisoners be released; that the human rights of all Cubans be respected without political discrimination; recognize political pluralism; and begin a process of transition to save the country from the crisis it is currently living.”

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Professor Alina Barbara Lopez Denounces an ‘Attempted Kidnapping’ by Cuba’s Political Police

The Matanzas professor Alina Bárbara López Hernández. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Madrid, 7 April 2023 — Professor Alina Bárbara López Hernández, who was detained for several hours after protesting the arrest of the writer Jorge Fernández Era, has announced that she plans to demonstrate peacefully on the 18th of each month in the Freedom Park of Matanzas, where she was approached by State Security yesterday.

She put a long post on Facebook, where she describes in detail what happened to her for exercising “a constitutional right in a country without political rights.”

“I first sat down in the park, but I understood that I had to make the reason for my protest visible,” she says. “I wrote a very simple sign with my terrible hand writing and began to walk around the park.”

The historian says that several people came to read it and asked who Fernández Era was, and she explained it to them briefly. “Two ladies approached me and asked me kindly what I was doing, and when I told them, they introduced themselves as officials of the Provincial Government, which is in the area. They said that if I accompanied them to talk maybe they could call Havana and intercede. At that same moment, Osbel Sánchez, the provincial director of Culture, approached. He was obviously alerted because his headquarters is several blocks away,” her story continues. She accompanied the officials.

At the government office, she asked the dozen people there to introduce themselves. “Most were from the Provincial Bureau of the Party. One was the official in charge of the political-ideological sphere (very poorly prepared for that function, by the way); another was the official who deals with the issue of defense, plus another two from those areas; four were government officials and then the director of Culture, who went in and out constantly, supposedly finding out on the phone about Jorge’s situation, which was my main objective,” she explains.

The teacher realized then that the person she was talking to was “with three agents who were parked outside, who were evidently insisting that she convince me to give up.” Her answer was the same every time: “I will give up when you let Jorge go.”

López Hernández highlighted several anecdotes. When “a government lady, half annoyed, asked why if Jorge had been arrested in Havana I was demonstrating in Matanzas, I replied: ’As far as I know, no one ever objected to Fidel that Batista was in Havana when he decided to attack the barracks in Santiago de Cuba’.”

They asked her what what she was trying to do. “I’m exercising a constitutional right, that of peaceful demonstration,” was her response. continue reading

Similarly, she recounts that the officials wanted to know “about the financing” of the magazine La Joven Cuba (LJC), with which the professor had collaborated, but she clarified that she no longer worked there. “The problem with a magazine is not financial support, because everyone needs that to function, from Granma and Cubadebate to LJC. What should not happen, at least ethically, is a conflict of interest when receiving money from US government agencies with funds for regime change, but there were agencies that many times also financed projects of the Cuban Government, and there was not any conflict of interest, since alternative media are necessary, especially in the case of Cuba with its discriminatory political system.”

As usual in this type of case, “the exchange was respectful, sometimes even kind,” a deference that the three agents who were parked outside and who approached her when she left did not have.

This is how López Herndández tells it: “They were rude: ’Alina, come with us’. I categorically refused, I told them that I do not recognize the SE [State Security] as an interlocutor and that, according to the criminal procedure law itself, this was an illegal arrest. They insisted. ’You know you have to come with us’. I told them that they didn’t know me very well.”

Then they tried to take her to the car by force, and her daughter and son-in-law, who were nearby, defended her: “That was a demeaning moment: three trained men trying to force three peaceful people by violence. They used a neck-hold on my son-in-law to immobilize him; with my daughter Cecilia, who is a love of a person, they broke her umbrella and watch, but they did not manage to separate us. Even a dear friend who was there tried to mediate. I yelled for help and I think they were worried, because they stopped grabbing us. They didn’t hit me in the face or body, nor did they hit my daughter, but they pushed us, pulled us, threw us against a wall in the kidnapping attempt, which was what they were trying to do at the end of the day.”

By resisting, López Hernández managed not to be transferred and sat down to “talk” in the same office where she had previously met with the officials. The least aggressive of the police. She narrates: “He said that he had read my last book and noticed that I was even a little ’pro-Fidel’. I clarified that this was not the case, but that I have always recognized that, even founding and directing a system without political rights, Fidel gave great importance to sectors such as Health, Education and Social Assistance, currently abandoned, first by the Government of Raúl Castro and currently by that of DC [Díaz-Canel]. I suggested that he review the budget report to see the huge cuts.”

The teacher reproached them for the way they had treated her and said they violated the law they claimed to defend. The agent’s argument was that the demonstration “could bring problems.” “Well, they should have thought about that before approving a Constitution that grants such rights,” she replied, claiming that they had put this in “to give a certain image internationally,” while within the country “they frightened citizens who didn’t dare to exercise their rights,” which in her opinion was “perverse.”

It was at that moment that they informed López Hernández that Fernández Era was already free, but the teacher could not retire to her home as she wished, since they had sent a patrol of the National Revolutionary Police to take her to the Playa station, in the same city. “They told me that they heard on the radio that there was a public scandal in the park, and I said that indeed, I had resisted an illegal kidnapping and that the scandal had been provoked by three security agents.”

“I asked that they call me a lawyer if they were going to accuse me of something. I was told no, they would only give me a warning. I said that not only would I not sign it but I do not recognize myself ’warned’ because none of them, neither the aggressor agents, nor the President of the Republic, was above the Constitution,” she points out in her text. “Then we entered into an interesting exchange when he explained that the warning was not because I demonstrated, but because other people could try to join in. Answer: If they do, they would also be exercising their rights. He argued then that acts of violence could occur. Answer: That’s what the police would be for, to take care that peaceful protesters do not go overboard, although I clarified that I knew of violent incidents sometimes organized by undercover agents for situations like this.”

When she told the agent that on the 18th of each month she would continue to demonstrate, the conversation ended and they released her. “I didn’t even read the report.”

Once outside, her daughter was waiting for her and said that two agents asked her to convince her mother to give up the protest. The anecdote is revealing: “Not that the man was so friendly. He asked if my mother has ever given me medicine or ten pounds of rice. My daughter’s answer: Oh, so do you defend what you defend because you allow us a box of chicken? They hurried to say no and Ceci told them: Well, you must understand that not everything has a price, that my mother acts out of principles and convictions.”

The professor began to get attention from State Security at the same time as the young artists who took part in The Worst Generation, censored last October. López Hernández was going to write the preface to a book that would have the same title and which the regime also prevented from being published.

She herself denounced the harassment, asserting: “In Cuba, a perverse logic has been enthroned that establishes pressure on people whom there is no reason to prosecute and who are threatened and coerced for political reasons. I won’t lend myself to it. I think it’s necessary to put an end to it.”

López Hernández’s protest did not remain on social networks, because, after receiving several requests from the political police to be interrogated, she presented to the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office of Matanzas a “formal complaint and nullification action against the official summons.” She managed, with this, to have the summons canceled.

Three months later, inspired by her action, Jorge Fernández Era filed a similar claim for violation of the Criminal Procedure Law after receiving a summons from the political police, and he did not attend his hearing.

The collaborator of La Joven Cuba said at that time that the officer who addressed him expressly reminded him not to be inspired by the case of Alina Bárbara López Hernández, warning him that “Matanzas is not Havana.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Political Police Detain Cuban Writer Jorge Fernandez Era for Six Hours

Professor Alina Bárbara López Hernández during her protest in a park in Matanzas. (Screeen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 6 April 2023 — The Cuban political police arrested journalist and writer Jorge Fernández Era on Thursday in Havana for about six hours, according to family and friends on social networks. After learning of Fernández Era’s arrest, Professor Alina Bárbara López Hernández went out to protest peacefully for his release in a park in Matanzas and was arrested shortly after. Currently her whereabouts are unknown, her daughter Lilian Borroto reported.

“I have just been informed that she was arrested along with my sister Cecilia Borroto López, after a physical assault by State Security. I don’t know their whereabouts and I hold State Security and the PNR (National Revolutionary Police) responsible for their physical integrity,” the young woman said in a message sent to 14ymedio.

For its part, La Joven Cuba, of which Jorge Fernández Era is a collaborator, reported on Facebook that, after several hours “since his arrest and a wave of solidarity on social networks, as well as peaceful demonstrations,” the writer was released.

“La Joven Cuba thanks all those who were aware of Jorge’s situation and who expressed their support. It also rejects the arbitrary detentions of the Cuban authorities and the violation of citizens’ freedoms and rights.”

After learning of the arrest of Fernández Era, Professor José Manuel González Rubines indicated that the arrest happened around 12:30 p.m. for “disobedience” in response to the recent “summons to an interview” from State Security. The intellectual was taken to the Aguilera Police Unit, at Calzada de Luyanó and Porvenir. continue reading

Laideliz Herrera Laza, wife of Fernández Era, let González Rubines know that the summons was appealed to the Prosecutor’s Office, but the writer did not receive a response from that body.

Faced with the arrest of the journalist, Alina Bárbara López Hernández wrote a post on Facebook saying that “if he is not immediately released” she would come out in public protest. “If other people join, I won’t be opposed. Stop repressing freedom of expression in Cuba,” she said.

She gave details about her demonstration on Facebook. “I went immediately to Matanzas Freedom Park. I will be there to protest until Jorge is released. I warn you that if they try to stop me I will resist, so bring reinforcements.”

The Cuban Observatory of Cultural Rights denounced the arrest of the writer and journalist while warning that last January he was summoned by State Security and threatened with criminal proceedings against him. His arrest is part of the repression exercised by the Cuban government for his work.

The Cuban Observatory for Human Rights warned about the growing criminal violence against Cuban artists and will continue to follow closely the current repression against Fernández Era.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cabaiguan Has It All: Cubans, Canary Islanders and Commerce

Among the city’s most prosperous private businesses is La Cuevita, which takes its name from a big open-air market in Havana.

14ymedio, Mercedes García, Sancti Spíritus 3 April 2023 — “There have always been people with money here,” says a vendor of household utensils in Cabaiguán, a town in Cuba’s Sancti Spíritus province. He is talking to a recently arrived visitor from another province, who is surprised both by the wide range of products the vendor has for sale as well as their high prices. “Everything here is imported. What the ’mules’ don’t bring in, we get from mipymes (small and medium-sized private businesses, or SMEs).”

Among the merchandise in the store, which is located in a house dating from the early 20th century, are small metal shelves for food storage, kitchen utensils, wall decorations, clocks and containers to store everything from food to tools to cosmetics. “Tell me what you’re looking for and we’ll have it in Cabaiguán,” he tells the visitor, whose only interest is finding a matchbox. “A simple one or a flashy one?” asks the merchant.

The wide selection of goods in Cabaiguán is due, in part, to the large number of area residents who have Spanish nationality. “This is the Canarians’ Cuban perch,” says Leopoldina, an 82-year-old retiree who was among those who met last February with the Canary Islands’ president, Angel Victor Torres, during his trip to Cuba. Having a Spanish passport has changed people’s lives here because it allows them to bring things over and sell them.”

Among the city’s most prosperous private businesses is La Cuevita, which takes its name from a big open-air market in Havana. The business is located in a very large house, which extends across and entire block. Each room houses a different shop, each specializing in clothes, dishes, shoes or household appliances. There are no dark or dangerous corners. The store has ample lighting, smiling employees and a wide variety of products. continue reading

“They’re well stocked. The clothing stores are all very well designed so people don’t leave without buying something. They’re cozy, well organized and easy for customers to find what they’re looking for,” says Jorge, a resident of Sancti Spiritus who is on a short visit to the town. He admits he is impressed by the wide variety of products, things he cannot find in the provincial capital. “I’ll be coming here every time I need to buy something.”

“I’ll be coming here every time I need to buy something,” claims a resident of Sancti Spiritus, who was impressed with to the wide variety of products for sale in Cabaiguán. (14ymedio)

La Pinta, named for one of Christopher Columbus’s ships, is one of La Cuevita’s main competitors. Customers enter through what was once a family’s living room. Subsequent rooms display hardware, women’s clothing, children’s toys, mobile phone accessories, imported coffee, vitamins and nutritional supplements. Most of the merchandise comes from Mexico, Panama or other neighboring countries.

“In this town we’re advanced,” boasts a resident who is selling a wide range of bathroom hardware items: sinks, hoses, drains, and sanitary fittings. “Before, people here used to live off the land but now they live off this,” he says, pointing to packages of white cement and some silicone tubes that are part of his extensive stock. “We’re the town of the three C’s: Cuban, Canarian and commercial. A list to which one snarky passerby adds, “And costly too.”

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Citizen Insecurity Is Growing, According to the Cuban Conflict Observatory

A total of 363 repressive actions of the regime were registered by the organization in March, of which 64 occurred during the voting. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 5 April 2023 — The Cuban Conflict Observatory (OCC) recorded 372 demonstrations against the regime during the month of March. In its most recent report, the Miami-based organization also documented numerous cases of repression against activists and human rights defenders.

In its report, the Observatory highlighted the reappearance of graffiti with slogans offensive to the Government, such as “No to the Communist Party” or “Down with the dictatorship.” In addition, it detected an increase in protests by 60.3% compared to the 232 registered in March of the previous year.

However, taking into account the 711 demonstrations reported in February 2023, there has been a decrease that the OCC explains: the organization has decided not to include in its inventory, as they have been doing so far, the permanent campaigns of 200 activists.

The Observatory reported protests in 15 provinces of the Island, of which Havana, with 126 incidents, accumulated the majority. According to the report, of the demonstrations that took place in March, 189 were related to the claim of political and civil rights (50.8% of the total), while 183 were caused by demands for economic and social rights (49.2%).

During the month of March there were also several events related to the elections of deputies to Parliament, the ones with the lowest attendance since 1959. At least 8.1 million people were called to participate in the process, but 70.92% of the electoral roll attended, a figure that the Observatory finds unreliable. continue reading

The report also points out that the regime took advantage of the elections to repress several dissidents and independent journalists. In the middle of the electoral process, journalist Julio Aleaga Pesant was arrested and handcuffed for two hours inside a police car. Days later, a car with a military license plate rammed the car in which he was traveling through the capital. One of the collaborators of Diario de Cuba in Santiago de Cuba, Amado Robert Vera, was also harassed by State Security.

In addition, three CubaNet reporters — Enrique Díaz, Ángel Cuza and Osniel Carmona — were monitored in their homes and told to stay inside on election day. Finally, the organization stated that the regime prevented independent observers from monitoring the voting and observing the counting in the polling stations.

The Observatory stressed that crime and citizen insecurity intensified in Cuba in March. “What is most worrying are the violent crimes, especially by gangs of adolescents and children.” In the different provinces, in the first three months of the year, 10 murders took place in an attempt to steal a phone, a gold chain or an electric bike.

Femicides were also an alarming issue, the report said, with 19 murders between January and March (half of the total number of victims registered on the Island in 2022, which closed with 36).

In its report, the organization reiterates that insufficient wages and rampant inflation exacerbate social discontent, while mental illnesses increase, in a panorama of lack of medicines. “A one-off case revealed the apathy of people who witnessed the spectacle of an elderly woman with mental disorders who came out naked to protest. Those around her laughed or filmed her with their cell phones, but it took time before someone deigned to help her.”

The repression in the context of the parliamentary elections also occupied a central place in the report of another NGO, the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH), based in Madrid. A total of 363 repressive actions of the regime were registered by the organization in March, of which 64 occurred during the voting.

Of these cases, 93 corresponded to arbitrary arrests and 270 to “other abuses.” There were 27 acts of harassment against political prisoners, and multiple police arrests were also reported, including that of Cuban YouTuber Hilda Núñez, alias Hildina.

Another notable case, the OCDH added, was that of activist Aniette González, arrested on March 23 and prosecuted for “outrage” to the Cuban flag in Camagüey. As for the political prisoners, they denounced the lack of medical attention to Maikel Puig and the violence of the jailers against Yuliesky Méndez, both in the Quivicán prison, in Mayabeque.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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