Reports are still coming in from the Cuban capital to the editorial desk of this newspaper, confirming that the mobile telephone service is still not operating. (Perioódico Cubano)
14ymedio, Havana, 16 February 2023 – An outage of internet and mobile data was reported in Cuba this Thursday afternoon at 6.45pm, according to reports to 14ymedio from various parts of the country, after a mass gathering at the Grand Packard Hotel in Old Havana, where the American rapper ’Tekashi 6ix9ine’ was staying.
“Only landlines were working, and, in some places Nauta Hogar (Cuban telecoms company), but there was no data or mobile signal”, a phone user from Sancti Spíritus told this newspaper at 7.40pm when the signal returned to his phone.
“We inform our customers that at the present moment there is a problem with mobile services. We are working as fast as we can to identify and fix the problem”, said the Cuban Telecommunication Company (Etecsa) after the service had been down for an hour.
Reports are still coming in from the Cuban capital to the editorial desk of this newspaper confirming that the mobile telephone service is still not operating. continue reading
Before the regime cut off the service, there were reports on social media of a mass gathering in front of the Grand Packard Hotel, mostly of young Cubans who had heard about Tekashi’s arrival there.
Several sources reported the moment when dollar bills were thrown from the hotel and this was video’d by a number of people.
Tekashi has gone viral on several occasions for throwing dollar bills to his fans or for giving large sums of money to poor families.
Translated by Ricardo Recluso
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
In the last two years, Cuba received several donations from Russia, the United States, Japan, Nicaragua and Vietnam. (Prensa Latina)
EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 15 February 2023 — On Wednesday, Cuba received 25,000 tons of wheat donated by the Russian Government for food production on the Island, which is going through a serious economic crisis.
The Cuban Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Ana Teresita González, thanked Russia for the donation, which arrived in Cuba by ship and joined other shipments from Moscow in recent months.
“This donation is a demonstration of the Russian nation’s historic support for the Cuban people in complex moments like the one our country is experiencing today,” González said in an act of gratitude at the port terminal located in Regla (Havana).
She added that the aid “reaffirms the bonds of brotherhood and the mutual commitment to strengthen economic and cooperative relations.”
Meanwhile, Russia’s ambassador to Cuba, Andrei Guskov, stressed that his country continues to “support the brotherly people of this heroic country in the extremely complex situation it is facing.” continue reading
“I am sure that this wheat, in addition to being a symbolic gesture, will be a support for many people in Cuba,” he said.
The Russian diplomat mentioned in the reception of the cargo that “the unprecedented resurgence of the inhuman and criminal blockade (embargo) imposed by Washington” is one of the causes of the crisis.
“Another negative factor is the global food and energy crisis largely caused by the unilateral and illegitimate sanctions of the West against Moscow,” he said, referring to the measures taken in retaliation for the invasion of Ukraine.
Guskov stressed that “despite everything, Russia and Cuba continue to develop their strategic relationship based on the historic foundation of friendship, solidarity and mutual sympathy.”
In this regard, he said that “Russian companies will continue to participate in bilateral projects that contribute to the fulfillment of the Island’s national economic and social development plan until 2030.”
In the last two years, Cuba received several donations from Russia, the United States, Japan, Nicaragua and Vietnam, among other countries, from both the governments of those countries and from private groups.
The island has been going through a serious crisis for more than two years due to the combination of the COVID-19 pandemic, the tightening of the US embargo and failures in national macroeconomic management.
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
Frame from the music video for the song Te pienso [I Think of You], by Beangel, Randy Malcom and Kelvis Ochoa. (Screen capture)
14ymedio, Madrid, 15 February 2023 — Since this Tuesday, Te pienso is part of the list of songs dedicated to Cuba and its situation. Composed by the duo Beangel, formed by Beatriz César and Ángel Pututi, the theme, they say in a press release, is “a declaration of love” for the Island.
“We pay respect to the rafters, to those who never arrived and died at sea,” say the Beangel musicians, who have composed for, among other singers, Marc Anthony and the duo Gente de Zona.
Member of this ensemble and special guest in the video clip, Randy Malcom adds: “The song is dedicated to the land that I love so much and where I cannot perform.”
Cuban singer-songwriter Kelvis Ochoa, author of Hidden Havana and winner of a Goya Award in 2006 for the best original music for the film Havana Blues, also participates in the song, which is available on all digital platforms.
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
Cuban children remain with their parents in Panama to wait to continue the route to the US. (Silvio Enrique Campos, a Cuban immigrant in Panama)
14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 15 February 2023 — For some time, Cuban communists have been facing a serious problem that, due to its permanence and worsening, they don’t know how to address. We are referring to the rapid demographic aging that has made Cuba, with more than 20% of the population over 65 years old, into one of the oldest countries in Latin America, and possibly in the world.
The Cuban demographic winter, the aging of the population and a simultaneous decrease in birth and growth with a fall in population is not a recent phenomenon, but has been part of a long-term dynamic in Cuba since the 1950s. That the authorities now wake up in amazement and consider doing something is anecdotal.
By the mid-twentieth century, Cuba had joined the demographics of advanced countries, without the negative consequences of today. Since then, external migration compensated for the lower internal growth. The revolution disrupted this process, and except for specific oscillations in certain years, the trend was the same again, with the aggravating circumstance that foreign migrations disappeared while the nation bled with more than two million Cubans abroad.
These guidelines have been exacerbated recently, and this has led Díaz Canel to declare that “we have to give a blow to all these issues of demographic dynamics that affect us so much.” The question is the same as always, how do they plan to do it, with the paradigm of the communist model? Failure is inevitable.
The diagnosis is clear. In 2022, demographic dynamics showed that Cuba continues with an accelerated demographic aging process, which is also present in all sectors of society, with a negative total and natural population growth, which has its origin in an increase in the number of deaths and the decrease in live births. continue reading
Indicators have caused the alarm, in the face of what is described as an increasingly complex situation (another one) in the words of Cuban Prime Minister Marrero, who, to this end, has announced the creation of a “governmental commission to look into it.”
The situation is aggravated by other coincident and surprising factors, such as the decrease in the working-age population and the economically active population, the increase in urbanization, despite the decrease in the urban population, and the increase in the average number of people per household.
The combination of factors is so negative that now the communist leaders also recognize that “in many places there is a lack of attention, beyond the absence of resources, and these are extremely sensitive issues.” There is the feeling that, once again, they arrive late for problems and will not succeed if they don’t make a 180-degree turn in their performance.
Because getting out of the demographic winter in a nation as economically committed as Cuba is not just a matter of pulling public spending and having material and financial resources incorporated into the state plan and budget, by agencies and territories. Those who think that the 2,113 million pesos, recorded in the public accounts for 2023, will be of some use are wrong.
But when you look at the destiniation of that money, the immediate question is: What does it have to do with the recovery of the population that is needed? Let’s see. There is public money for “resources for stomatological prostheses, hearing aids, care for the infertile couple and modernization of equipment for assisted reproduction centers.” Also for the training and attention to the education of the elderly, development of workshops, events and other improvement actions. Are there resources? Yes, of course, the earnings and salaries of employees who serve people. And little else. Current expenditure.
This plan of the regime coincides with the one that aroused our attention a few days ago when the recovery was announced by territorial governments of childcare centers, nursing homes, maternal homes and grandparents’ homes, the construction of homes for mothers with three children or more, as well as housing needs in rural areas, taking advantage of abandoned communist infrastructures such as schools in the countryside.
Who can think that the increase in children’s facilities can be used to increase the birth rate, when the Cuban woman knows that it makes very little sense to bring children into a country where they will have no other future than fleeing into exile when they are older? Despite the systemic waste of expenses, the regime is to blame for having only met half of the requests for childcare centers. The solution is easy: stop building hotel rooms.
The initiative of the opening of children’s homes in labor entities, that is, companies, will be subject to inequalities because it will only be possible for those workers who provide their services in those companies with the capacity to create these classrooms. Before incorporating companies into the service, availability must be ensured for everyone. Communists think of companies rather than of setting up a form of self-employment as a childcare assistant. A formula that they don’t like because they say it’s unfair according to their ideological code. One yes, the other no.
At the meeting of the authorities, an evaluation kit in geriatrics and gerontology was also presented for use in health institutions, to address aging, which contains a glucose meter, a digital equipment to take pressure and an oximeter, among others, prepared by the company Combiomed Digital Medical Technology. It is thought that this is a basic module that should exist in any population care center, because it is not only for the sick, it is also for studying population, early diagnosis and follow-up.
At the meeting, the proposal for the improvement of care schools was also presented, which will have the responsibility to train caregivers, paid or unpaid, to provide them with the knowledge, skills and aptitudes, that allow them to provide care with the highest possible quality.
Flailing around. Not one on the target. The fight against the fall of the population does not depend on these kinds of laboratory initiatives, but on the basis of a prosperous economy in which everyone takes part. Curving the depressive dynamics of the population does not depend on public spending, but on the creation of powerful and solvent private activities and sectors that pay good wages and improve the quality of life and prosperity of the people. Communists entertain themselves with their resource objectives, pecking here and there, but in this type of action, the only thing that matters is the results.
However, the leaders assure that demographic problems will be solved in the medium and long term with some euphoria, but they also say that “the fight will be difficult and discouragement must be avoided if the population patterns are to be changed” to which the governors, the mayors and the councils of the administration of municipalities and provinces must remain attentive. More work. Will it work?
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
The writer and director of the Mexican publishing house Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE), Paco Ignacio Taibo II, in Mexico City (Mexico). (EFE/José Méndez/Archive)
EFE/14ymedio, Havana, February 15, 2023 — The director of the emblematic Mexican state publisher Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE), Paco Ignacio Taibo II, gave an interview to EFE in which he asked the official journalism of the Island to “increase the critical level that expresses what people say on the street.”
The writer, a militant of the Mexican left, who is in the Cuban capital within the framework of the Havana International Book Fair, considered that there is a “disconnection” between the discourse related to the Government and the vision of the common Cuban.
“We have to lose fear of critical capacity,” continued the journalist, who gave value to “the criticism to the left from the left.”
For Taibo II, author of titles such as Ernesto Guevara, también conocido como el Che [Ernesto Guevara, also known as Che], the digital transition of Island magazines, books and newspapers “has stopped” the “critical spirit” that “unfolded, for example, in the eighties.”
The Cuban Constitution establishes that the media of the Island can only be of “socialist property” and its Criminal Code punishes with up to three years in prison “whoever disseminates false news” for the purpose of “disturing international peace or endangering the prestige or credit of the Cuban State.”
Regarding the economic situation in Cuba, a country he has visited numerous times, the director of the FCE believes that it will be “very difficult to get out of” the crisis, which he directly links to the blockade (the US economic embargo) and the pandemic.
“As much as I look and see initiatives, it’s not easy at all. And I lack the Cuban perspective, which I don’t have. After all, I am a Mexican who comes to Cuba,” he told EFE. continue reading
Taibo II inaugurated last August the Tuxpan bookstore of the Economic Culture Fund in the well-known Havana area of Vedado. Originally, the opening was going to be in April, after the closing of the last Havana Book Fair, in which Mexico was the guest country of honor, but an inexplicable delay in the works also delayed the inauguration.
The director of the FCE sees the operation of the branch in the Cuban capital as a “success,” although he admits that “the only problem is to maintain it with those prices.” Unlike other foreign publishers, the Fund decided to sell its copies at affordable prices for Cubans.
This Tuesday, the writer led a talk in Old Havana about the “Vientos del Pueblo” collection, with short books with an average price of 40 Cuban pesos ($0.32 at the official exchange rate).
“I can’t see the Cuban branch as a branch to produce money. I have to find ways (to compensate for the losses),” he told EFE, the precise reasons for which previous Mexican administrations did not finish opening a Fondo bookstore in Cuba. Taibo added that for this he is looking for agreements such as the purchase of copyright translations made on the Island of books in Eastern Europe. “We are bartering, imagine,” he says, laughing.
The writer also took the opportunity to criticize foreign publishers present at this year’s Fair, such as those in Colombia — a guest of honor this time — with prices that most Cubans cannot access, even in foreign exchange. “Compadre, that’s not worth it. Do you work for buyers or for readers?” he asked.
Last Saturday, López Obrador decorated his counterpart Miguel Díaz-Canel with the order of the Aztec Eagle, the Mexican State’s highest recognition of a foreigner, during the Cuban’s visit to Campeche.
The opposition National Action Party (PAN), as well as other politicians and intellectuals from the democratic left, criticized the decoration of the Cuban president, whom they described as a dictator.
“The act is deplorable and denigrating for Mexicans and Cuban citizens who live under a regime that keeps them in oppression,” said the right-wing party.
Regarding this controversy, Taibo II said that “the Mexican right no longer knows what to say.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
A group of Cuban doctors is received in Mexico, hired by the Government of Andrés Manuel López. (IMSS)
14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico, 13 February 2022 — The Government of Mexico announced the purchase in Cuba of medicines for anesthesiology, pulmonology, ophthalmology and cancer treatment. According to the Secretary of Health, Jorge Alcocer Varela, for the “already consolidated” acquisition, the Island will receive 84,425 dollars as part of the new health agreement that was ratified with Miguel Díaz-Canel’s visit to Campeche.
This agreement also provides for the extension of the hiring of Cuban specialists. The plan, which has not yet been detailed, foresees that another 100 health workers will arrive in Mexico this year, in addition to the more than 641 doctors for which the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador disburses $1,308,922 per month.
The state company Comercializadora de Servicios Médicos Cubanos S.A. is in charge of managing the shipment of doctors. For each specialist, the Cuban Government receives $2,042 per month, while for the services of general practitioners, $1,722 per month enter its coffers. Health professionals are only granted a stipend in Mexico that will be kept by the Cuban Government during their year of service.
Although there are intentions to continue with the purchase of the Abdala vaccine against covid-19, this has not yet been ratified by Mexico. 14ymedio was able to confirm that, of the 9,000,000 doses already sent to Mexico, less than 3% had been used up to February 7.
About the Cuban specialists who have been distributed in various states, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard proclaimed this Sunday on his social networks that thanks to these professionals “162,000 Mexican lives have been saved.” And so he said goodbye to Díaz-Canel. continue reading
However, one day before the enthusiasm of the Mexican chancellor, the data provided by the Mexican Secretary of Health, Jorge Alcocer Varela, reveal something else. Cubans had provided 242,000 services as of Friday, of which, he stressed, 110,246 were specialty consultations.
In detailing part of the activities of physicians in Mexico, Health Secretary Jorge Alcocer explained that Cubans have “coordinated laboratory services”; that is, they have taken samples for the performance of 46,191 clinical analyses and performed 41,418 X-rays for radiological studies.
The general director of the Mexican Social Security Institute, Zoé Robledo, explained that Cubans who arrived in Mexico have a specialty in internal medicine, pediatrics, general surgery, family medicine, ophthalmology, nephrology, intensive care, imaging, cardiology, dermatology and otorhinolaryngology.
Robledo mentioned that doctors are currently in large general and civilian hospitals, as well as in small community health centers “where their arrival often meant the first time there was a specialist available.”
He mentioned that they are located in the most remote areas such as La Mesa del Nayar, (Nayarit), the Costa Chica (Oaxaca), the desert of Baja California Sur, Cananea (Sonora), Tlaxcala, Colima, Tierra Caliente (Michoacán), in the Huasteca Alta (Veracruz), in Zacatecas, Morelos, Campeche and La Montaña de Guerrero, where 11 specialists arrived just this Sunday to make a total of 29.
“There are no ’acceptable left-wing dictatorships’ and ’abhorrent right-wing dictatorships’,” they said in a public statement, signed by members of the opposition party Movimiento Ciudadano, including Martha Tagle Martínez, as well as the Party of the Democratic Revolution, Cecilia Soto González, and the academics, Diego Petersen Farah, José Woldenberg, the Cuban academic based in Mexico and Armando Chaguaceda, among others.
“We condemn the president of Mexico for turning a deaf ear to the repression that the citizens of Cuba endure on a daily basis and even for hanging on the chest of the Cuban dictator the highest distinction that a foreigner can receive from our country,” the signatories endorsed.
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
The reconnection of the National Electricity System came around 9 p.m., but total reestablishment was not planned until 11 pm. (@OSDE_UNE)
14ymedio, Madrid, 14 February 2023 — A fire in a cane field was the cause of the disconnection of the National Electricity System (SEN) that affected half of Cuba this Monday from the center to the east of the Island. The disconnection, from Ciego de Ávila to Guantánamo, occurred around 2 in the afternoon and lasted until 9 pm.
“When they burn the cane field, the air ionizes and can cause failures between the phases of the transmission lines. When the two lines left the system, the power transfer between the western-central-eastern area was cut off and caused the failure of the system from Ciego de Ávila to Guantánamo,” said a note from the Cuban Electrical Union (UNE).
The failure began to be noticed on a 220 KW line that links Sancti Spíritus and Vicente through two substations that left the network. Yoanni Acosta, director of the Electric Base Organization in the province, told the official newspaper Escambray that around 5 pm the damaged part of the system could be reconnected when the transfer from the western to the eastern part of the Island began to be restored.
The electricity company indicated that, due to the generation deficit at peak hours, “the province had 20 megawatts open,” which caused breakdowns in several circuits that remained until 8 pm. “As long as the generating plants in the east are incorporated, the impact will also progressively decrease in all the localities of those territories,” Acosta added.
After the announcement of the reconnection, several people warned on social networks that the blackout continued for them, complaints corroborated by the words of Lázaro Guerra Hernández, technical director of the UNE, who told state television that the service would recover “gradually” and that the total restoration was estimated for 11 pm. continue reading
The official added that, in addition, 240 megawatts of the generating capacity were damaged. For this Monday, in fact, an estimated electricity deficit of at least 112 MW had already been planned, reaching 182 at peak hour.
Yesterday’s blackout is the largest since September 27, 2021, after the passage of Hurricane Ian, when the National Electricity System completely collapsed and the country was left in the dark for several hours. It was the culmination of a summer of cuts that exceeded 14 and 16 hours at times and provoked protests almost daily in many municipalities.
The failures in the thermoelectric power plants, which provide most of the electricity to the Island, have been constant these months due to the lack of maintenance and obsolescence of the plants, which mostly exceed their useful life.
With the arrival of cold fronts, the fall in demand last December provided relief to the situation, to which was added the arrival of two Turkish floating power plants and the recovery of some thermoelectric units. However, the authorities have already warned that from January and, especially February, some plants would return to maintenance in an “organized” way to be ready in May and ensure an adequate volume of electricity generation.
At the moment, Unit 1 of Felton and 4 and 6 of Renté are in that situation. But to this must be added the breakdowns in blocks 6 and 7 of Mariel, 1 and 2 of Santa Cruz del Norte, 4 and 5 of Nuevitas and 2 of Felton.
The arrival in February of an eighth Turkish power plant, much more powerful than the previous ones with its 240 MW capacity, has not been enough to put an end to the instability of the system.
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
The Ministry of Agriculture affirms that it cultivated 6,000 hectares this year and recognizes as a failure “the lack of inputs during the cultivation cycle.” (ACN)
14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 11 February 2023 — Communist leaders bet on foreign capital rather than national capital. They admit that private entrepreneurs come to Cuba to make a profit and do business, but they prevent it for nationals. The last thing has been the expansion of the so-called Portfolio of Opportunities to attract foreign investment to the agricultural sector. It seems like a lie. Any government interested in defending the interests of its citizens would never act this way. The investment of foreigners is the last resort when all possible options have been explored with nationals. This commitment of Cuban communists to foreign capital is a sign of the distrust they have in Cuban private entrepreneurs, who are relegated to the background.
Apparently, it has now occurred to them to allow agricultural cooperatives to be associated with foreigners, but they limit the possibility to businesses of production and marketing pork, chicken, milk and others aimed at local development. Obstacles and more obstacles in a country that works at 20% of its potential due to the ideological obsession of the communist economic model.
Many of us think that the Cuban agricultural productive sector could work much better if it had the freedom to do so, if it were privatized and the means of production were directed to generate national wealth and employment. For the development of a country, foreign capital can be a good option when national investment cannot function. But in Cuba in the last 64 years, they have not wanted to explore this option, and there is a prostrate, weak, inefficient economy, controlled by the state and subject to communist interests.
Faced with this situation, Law 118 was devised, but it has not yielded the desired fruits because its definition was incorrect. It is not possible to attract foreign capital to a country if its national companies are dead, as is the case in Cuba. The regime’s efforts to increase the number of projects in the so-called Portfolio of Opportunities have not borne fruit except in very specific sectors. The vast majority of Cuban economic activities are on the margins of foreign capital and, of course, far from the real possibility of use by the Cuban private sector.
The attraction of foreign investment to the agricultural sector does not depend on the flexibility of conditions or on opening the projects to cooperatives. This works only for those who are determined to fulfill the plans but don’t care about the results. Attracting foreign capital to the cooperative sector in certain businesses goes against the very concept of a cooperative, which is an entity that organizes work activities where, coincidentally, capital takes a back seat. continue reading
You have to ask what foreign investor would want to form a cooperative with Cubans or what the point would be of opening this organizational form to capital, when its priority is the labor factor. In fact, the cooperative distributes its benefits among the workers for its own raison d’être. How can the foreign investor gain income as one more cooperative participant? Who came up with this absurd idea?
We are not against foreign capital, which is fundamental for technology, organization, finance and many aspects of the economic process. But what we are against is the regime’s policy of royalties to foreign investors from the nation’s productive capital, until now, 90% state. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for that productive capital to be privately owned by establishing a respectable legal framework for property rights?
The Cuban economy cannot reach its potential if the assets aren’t private. There is no point in nonsense activities such as vegetal charcoal, honey, cocoa and coffee, or nature tourism. The Foreign investor wants to know with whom he will risk his money and technology, and this does not depend only on the qualification of the experienced workforce or the existence of research centers. The legal framework of property rights is fundamental, and if the multiple unknowns that exist are not clear, foreign investment will not grow.
The Cuban agricultural sector is far from attractive to the foreign investor, but if it were exploited by the private sector as a whole, the results would be very different. It is unheard of that in 2023 and with the problems of lack of food in Cuba, almost 20% of the farmland is not in use. Long-term leases have not served to grow production, because the farmer and rancher want the means of production to be their property. Why is the foreigner allowed to take over the means of production for investment while nationals are prohibited? How long can this discrimination that doesn’t exist in any other country in the world be maintained?
The regime should be aware that increasing production, reducing imports and creating more exportable resources is not achieved with foreign investment. There are the results of tourism. The national private sector must assume ownership of property rights and lead the national economy. Vietnam did it and left its famine behind.
Foreign capital doesn’t give a damn about reducing the gap between the countryside and the city, creating better living conditions in rural areas or fixing the problem of housing and infrastructure. This could be driven by an economy of private agents, oriented by private property and the market to allocate resources.
There is no alternative model because communism went into crisis after the collapse of the Berlin wall, and no one gives it the least viability. Turning 180 degrees and beginning in the Cuban countryside makes perfect sense. It would be a good way to forget about that traumatic experience of the Agrarian Reform Law and start over. It’s never too late if the ideas are the right ones.
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
The Uruguay sugar mill, in Jatibonico, Sancti Spíritus. (Escambray)
14ymedio, Mercedes García, Sancti Spíritus, 15 February 2023 — Jatibonico’s colossus no longer roars as it used to. Instead of the rattling of its machinery, the Uruguay sugar mill is silent and prepares for the arrival of its new managers, a Russian company that will try to revitalize what in its day was one of the greatest Cuban sugar mills. Meanwhile, the neighbors are questioning whether the town will experience a new economic opportunity with the change of industry administration.
“This place is more dead than the cemetery,” Luis Manuel tells 14ymedio. He is one of the many employees who in the middle of last year lost his job due to the closure of the mill, because “technological obsolescence and lack of investment became, along with the shortage of cane, dangerous threats to the continuity of the industry,” according to the local press at the time.
“In that time the only thing that has happened here is that young people have gone to sea. The family that does not have a balsero [rafter] child is because they have two,” he says. “Now the Russians are preparing to repair the plant and start producing. They say that although they bring their own workers, there will always be some places for us.”
In October 2022, four months after this newspaper first recounted the closure of the Uruguay sugar mill, the news was confirmed by the official provincial newspaper Escambray. The article hinted that the hope for hundreds of workers who were unemployed was in Moscow, because a Russian entourage visited Jatibonico and expressed the intention to create a joint venture that would save the moribund mill town. continue reading
Of the 424 workers that the plant had at that time, 192 began to undertake repair work to make improvements, and 102 were inserted into another “eight labor groups with payment systems adjusted to activities that generate income for them and the company.” Those areas ranged from carpentry to painting, sheet metal work and preventing ice, all of them dependent on the plant.
Then, Eddy Gil Pérez, director of the Uruguay Agroindustrial Sugar Company, expressed enthusiasm with the possible Russian management: “We are among the nine sugar mills of the country chosen for these businesses,” he revealed. More than half a year later, this February, workers in the sector have been informed that the agreement has been finalized with Moscow, and the Uruguay mill should not be counted on for the current harvest because it is being remodeled.
“It all ended quickly,” admits Luis Manuel. “Those of us who were relocated, for example, in agriculture, ended up returning to our homes because there are not so many other crops in this area nor does the State pay what was promised.” After several months, the family of the former Uruguay mill employee survives thanks to an emigrated daughter and the sale of guava candy on the side of the road.
“The Russians are already here,” says an employee of the Zaza hotel, a nearby accommodation with an architectural style of the Soviet era and very similar to the so-called schools in the countryside. The place, which had been deteriorating for years, is now undergoing “capital repair,” says the woman. “The investment is great because this is made of wood, but you can see that the Russians come with resources and with their own people for repairs.”
“They arrived, signed the contract and are already working. They are staying here, and we are no longer accepting national customers,” says the accommodation worker belonging to the Islazul chain. “This place is not very nice but as it is set aside, it was cheap and close to the dam. People came here to spend a few days, but the word has already spread that we are not accepting Cuban guests.”
The idea is that the Zaza hotel will function as temporary accommodation for Russian technicians who will try to revitalize the Uruguay mill, operating since 1905, which has undergone endless transformations and repairs since its foundation. In recent years, stops due to breakdowns have multiplied, and the mill spent more months shut down for repair and maintenance work than grinding cane.
“This was the pride of our people and now it’s better not to mention it,” says María Elena, who worked at the beginning of the century in the administration of the mill, one of the largest sources of employment in the province historically. “We were like a family but all that was lost, and now no one tells us if with the Russians we are going to benefit from the Uruguay grinding again.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
The electrical disconnection stretches from Ciego de Ávila to Guantánamo. (Twitter/@EmpresaElctric2)
14ymedio, Havana, 13 February 2022 — Half the Island is without power this Monday, as reported by the Cuban Electric Union (UNE) itself on its networks and confirmed to 14ymedio by sources in several affected provinces.
In a brief note on its Facebook account, which did not allow comments, the UNE says that “there was a failure in the 220 KW network” between Sancti Spíritus and Nuevitas that caused a “total disconnection” of the electrical system “in the Central-Eastern area, affecting the provinces from Ciego de Ávila to Guantánamo.”
Subsequently, the Ministry of Energy and Mines explained in a tweet that “the cause of the disconnection was a fire in a nearby cane field,” without specifying where it was, and said that “work is being done on the restoration of the system,” which “will take between four and five hours.”
The city of Camagüey ran out of electricity shortly after 1:00 p.m., an interruption that paralyzed life in a town that had some hope that there would be relief from the blackouts it had experienced in recent weeks.
This is the biggest breakdown in the national network since last September 27, when the National Electricity System collapsed completely and the Island was left in the dark for several hours. continue reading
After the continuous and prolonged blackouts of the second half of 2022, which provoked massive protests on the Island, the Government sold as a triumph that at the beginning of the year there were hardly any affectations to the network. But the optimism did not last long: since then, the authorities announced that between January and April there would be cuts, so that the electricity system “is prepared for the large demand during the summer.
Although the regime had promised “short” blackouts, some provinces experienced cuts of up to six hours in a row at the end of last January.
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
Delivery of the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, in the degree of Collar, to Díaz-Canel. (Twitter/Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez)
14ymedio, Mexico, 11 February 2023 — Mexicans did not welcome the reception of Miguel Díaz-Canel by his counterpart Andrés Manuel López Obrador this Saturday in Campeche, in the southeast of the country. The rejection increased when it became known that the Cuban president will be decorated with the degree of the prestigious Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, with the rank of Collar, which Fidel Castro also received in 1988.
“More and more Cubans are fleeing their homeland because the dictator starves them and imprisons them. López Obrador insults Cubans and Mexicans by giving the Aztec Eagle to Díaz-Canel, a human rights violator,” Mexican Senator Lilly Téllez, one of the most critical rulers in López Obrador’s administration, wrote on Twitter.
In addition, several media outlets published criticism of the visit, including journalist Manuel Lopez San Martín, of the ADN 40 chain, who pointed out: “The dictator of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, should not be welcome in Mexico. A repressor, who tramples freedoms and violates human rights, should not be decorated by our country. There is nothing to applaud or recognize in an authoritarian anti-Democratic leader.”
The Cuban president, a few minutes after deplaning in Campeche, said that he came to “ratify the will” of the Cuban people and government, “to continue strengthening and deepening relations with Mexico, not for reasons of protocol, but as an expression of the brotherhood” that unites both countries.
On his fourth trip to Mexico, since he occupied the Cuban presidency, Díaz-Canel, said that he is happy to return to meet again with his “friends” and share a few hours with López Obrador. continue reading
“We came to return in person the embrace we received in difficult times along with the material help and technical advice in vital areas and activities from the Mexican Government,” Díaz-Canel added, referring to Hurricane Ian, which left two dead in the country last September.
One of the objectives of Díaz-Canel’s visit is to supervise, together with López Obrador, the construction of the Maya Train, which passes through Campeche in the Yucatan peninsula. For the construction, rajón stone, a type of gravel extracted from a Cienfuegos quarry, will be used. The infrastructure, converted into a small lifeline for the Cuban economy, is a 900-mile railway that will connect the main tourist cities of the area. To accomplish this, it will be necessary to eventually send more than 200,000 tons of rajón per month from the Island.
In addition, the Cuban ruler said that the current relationship between Mexico and Cuba managed to concretize several programs and actions “for mutual benefit,” such as the sending of Cuban health specialists to Mexico.
“In less than a year we have complied with what was agreed, and there are results to show,” said the president, who will leave for Belize on Sunday. He was referring to the more than 500 health professionals who have arrived in Mexico to provide services as part of an agreement signed between the two governments.
For his part, López Obrador said that Díaz-Canel is a “distinguished, admired, and fraternal guest.”
The presence of hundreds of Cuban doctors in hospitals in the Mexican capital hired to combat the COVID-19 pandemic aroused a controversy in the country in 2020 because of its cost and the activities carried out.
Currently, more than 600 Cuban health workers are working in several urban health centers in Mexico, and so far it has not been revealed whether they will be transferred to hospitals in remote areas, which was the initial purpose for which they were allegedly hired by the López Obrador Administration.
At the same time, the Mexican Government has used less than 3% of the nine million Abdala vaccines purchased from Cuba for boosters, since distrust of the drug prevails among the population. It does not have the approval of the World Health Organization, nor are there studies that certify its effectiveness.
El dictador de Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, NO debería ser bienvenido en México
Un represor, que atropella las libertades y violenta los derechos humanos, no debe ser condecorado por nuestro país
No hay nada que aplaudirle ni reconocerle a un autoritario antidemócrata
Text of Tweet: Cuba’s dictator, Miguel Díaz-Canel, should NOT be welcome in Mexico. A repressor, who tramples freedoms and violates human rights, should not be decorated by our country. There is nothing to applaud or recognize in an authoritarian anti-democratic leader.
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
The murder of Mercedes Vasallo Herrera took place in the town of Carlos Rojas, municipality of Jovellanos (Matanzas). (Mapcarta)
14ymedio, Havana, 13 February 2023 — Mercedes Vasallo Herrera, 51, is the most recent victim of femicide in Cuba, according to the unofficial count kept by the Cuban Women’s Network. Its activists, Marthadela Tamayo and Annia Zamora, have warned of the discovery of her body this Saturday, February 11, in the town of Carlos Rojas, in Jovellanos (Matanzas).
The victim, who was found under her bed by her grandson, was killed with a knife and had a strong blow to the head, according to Tamayo’s Facebook profile. The activist has added that the alleged murderer is the husband of the victim, who has been detained by the authorities. Vasallo was buried this Sunday morning in the local cemetery.
With Vasallo, the number of femicide victims recorded so far this year in Cuba has increased to ten, a number that could be higher, since there is no official count. Last Friday, when the murder of two more women became known, the official press published an extensive note in which, among many other things, pondered if there really were more victims or if now the cases are being made known, an inexplicable inaccuracy, since the Ministry of the Interior is the only body that has strict control of all violent deaths that occur in the country. continue reading
The activist has added that the alleged murderer is the husband of the victim, who has been detained by the authorities. Vasallo was buried this Sunday morning in the local cemetery
Cuban officials have kept statistics of murders, robberies and violence of all kinds hidden for decades, preventing the importance of these problems, as well as mapping the crimes and addressing the solutions.
The associations Red Feminina de Cuba and Yo Sí Te Creo [Cuban Feminine Network and I Do Believe You] have been monitoring femicides since 2019, which is allowing these cases to be brought to light, some of which reveal gross negligence by the authorities, such as that of Neisa López, a 29-year-old, allegedly killed by a former police officer convicted of killing his wife and attacking his sister-in-law. The man was on probation, since he was a cancer patient and stabbed the young woman, who was his nurse.
The previous femicide occurred on February 3 in Camalote, Camagüey, an event that generated great commotion among Cubans due to the conditions and the escalation of violence in the province. Leidy Bacallao Santana, 17, sought refuge at the police station after threats from her ex-partner, Elesvan Hidalgo, a 50-year-old man, but he chased her and ended up killing her with a machete in the police unit.
The alarm generated by the multiple known femicides in barely a month has reactivated the request of the Women’s Network in Cuba to promote a comprehensive law against sexist violence. The group ensures that it’s essential to classify the crime or consider it as part of an aggravating circumstance, but also that there are transversal measures that involve police officers, judges, communicators, health workers or educators, in raising awareness of this specific phenomenon.
In addition, they consider that a transparent record of the victims should be kept, and solutions should also be provided for relatives, particularly minor children of the murdered individuals. In the last three years, 102 women have died as victims of male violence in Cuba.
Translated by Norma Whiting
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
Dried peas from Portugal, pasta from Turkey and rice from Guyana distributed in the ’module’ in Havana stores. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 13 February 2022 — Among the terms most misused by the Cuban regime is “food sovereignty.” The official press repeats it over and over, as though it were an incantation, as though simply saying were enough to magically make domestic production a reality and eliminate the need for imports.
It is always spoken as something just out of reach, in a future that never arrives: “Cuba moves forward in implementing the National Food Sovereignty and Nutritional Education Plan… Despite all adversity, Cuba strives for its food sovereignty… Food sovereignty and nutrition, one of the keys to Cuba’s economic and social strategy.” There is even a law, decreed last May, guaranteeing it.
The “module” also includes canned sardines from Venezuela. (14ymedio)
The results of these efforts are on full display in Havana’s government-run stores in the form of so-called modules: rice from Guyana, pasta from Turkey, dried peas from Portugal, canned sardines from Venezuela and — perhaps most embarrassing of all considering it used to be Cuba’s most iconic product, sugar from Brazil.
These days, sugar as well as salt are are in short supply on the island, adding to popular discontent. Few people here believe that all these plans intended to benefit local producers, urban gardens or the local market amount to anything more than fairy tales. It takes more than two words to grow stuff.
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
“The only remote way for a candidate not to be elected is for people in that location to agree to vote for another candidate and that isn’t going to happen,” says Yunior García Aguilera. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Madrid, 14 February 2023 — D Frente [D Front], an opposition group, born from an agreement among distinct organizations, is urging Cubans to abstain from the next elections for delegates to the National Assembly of the People’s Power on March 26th. In a statement issued on Tuesday, they invite citizens to participate in a campaign they are calling “Your abstention is your voice,” which consists of sharing on social media “one reason” for which they will abstain from participating in the election.
For D Frente, data from the last two elections, the referendum on the Family Code and the municipal elections in September and November 2022, respectively, in which abstentions reached record numbers, provided evidence of a “pretty clear trend” in the current political system: the “accelerated loss” of representative capacity. “It does not represent their own followers, because these cannot select from among a plurality of their supposed representatives, and they do not collectively represent society because it cannot freely select from among alternatives truly present in the country,” they state.
For this reason, they say that on March 26, 2023 “this new reality” will be verified: the divorce of “the official representative model” and “the real country.”
“When, of the 8 million voters, 3 million cannot find channels for representation, the problem lies with the system,” states the group, which highlights that the 470 delegates that will be selected on that day do so as a result of a proposal of “organizations registered in the State’s organigram.”
D Frente says that the electoral process, which began on January 30th, began by “violating the election law at least twice,” by “failing to publish the voter census and with a full-fledged electoral campaign.”
This, they continue, is an indication of “two deep realities”: on the one hand, emigration, which is assumed to be 3% of the Island’s electorate though the government “avoids exposing and verifying” that, and on the other hand, the obligation the regime has to “fight, through every possible public media outlet, for the participation at the polls of every single Cuban voter,” given the “progressive rupture of the so-called revolutionary consensus.” continue reading
Faced with these data, the organization demands with urgency “a new political contract for Cuba that will express its new plural, social and generational dynamic.”
For that, they propose that the “strategic roadmap” pass through “a constitutional reform that would institutionalize popular sovereignty as a cornerstone principle that would establish the rule of law without ideologies and where the Communist Party would no longer be the sole party,” as a first step toward “democratic, free, multi-party, just and inclusive” elections.
In addition to participating in the “Your abstention is your voice” campaign, D Frente suggests that Cubans request a certification of their voter status from the Electoral Council in each municipality, one step, they explain, “that is legally necessary for those who have supported or would like to support with their signature the diverse legislative and constitutional initiatives promoted by organizations that make up our group.”
In Madrid, exiled playwright Yunior García Aguilera, a member of D Frente, speaking for himself, told 14ymedio that establishing abstention is the right thing to do and that the campaign for a rejection vote must double down, but warned that the regime has thousands of ways to ensure those 470 delegates will ultimately be elected.”
For example, in contrast to the municipal elections, “now anyone could vote in any polling location,” which “could lend itself to them inflating the numbers and they could present results that are better than the previous elections.” This is how, in some municipalities, they aim to achieve 90% or 95% participation.
The artist and opponent does not believe that level will be reached, but he does believe they “can surpass the last estimate, from the municipal elections.” In any case, he says, it won’t make a difference, given that delegates only need 50% plus one vote to be elected.
“The only remote way for a candidate not to be elected is for people in that location to agree to vote for another candidate and that isn’t going to happen,” he says, but insists in the symbolic value of the abstention. “If we exceed the number from previous elections it would be a resounding response to the regime, although it will not change the results at all.”
Translated by: Silvia Suárez
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
Miguel Díaz-Canel and his Russian counterpart, Vladímir Putin, in front of the statue of Fidel Castro unveiled in November in Moscow (EFE/EPA/Sergei Savostyanov)
14ymedio, Pedro Corvo, Miami, 13 February 2022 — In the late 1990s, times when spy Ana Belén Montes successfully insisted that Castroism was not dangerous for the United States — an assertion that resonated with some US officials who have always looked on the island dictatorship with fondness — a considerable number of Cubans rejected that assertion, arguing that the aggressive nature of the regime did not allow it to overlook any opportunity that would allow it to affect US interests.
However, everything seemed to indicate that after Fidel Castro’s death, the imperialist influence of the project he sponsored would lose momentum. This because, during Raúl Castro’s term of office, there was a notable decrease in Cuba’s participation in the international arena. This a situation that has been slowly changing since the hand-picked dictator, Miguel Díaz-Canel, “received,” at least apparently, “the baton,” as the head of government was identified by the compatriots of the beginning of the last century.
Island totalitarianism has taken at least two particularly intense initiatives. One towards the interior of the country, through which it controls power and the other towards the exterior, in order to gain political clients and associates, who have been particularly useful to it over the years. In addition, the Castro regime has masterfully used its real or supposed successes abroad, making them an essential part of its coliseum or circus with the aim of manipulating the population, aware of the chauvinistic vision that many Cubans suffer from. continue reading
Díaz-Canel’s first trip as head of Cuba’s failed state was to Venezuela, a visit that ensures the mutual dependence of both regimes. The island supplies repressive experience and social control and Caracas continues to provide vital oil. This was shown by an agency report that the Venezuelan government bought approximately 440 million dollars worth of crude oil abroad and shipped it to Cuban ports under very favorable payment conditions.
There is no doubt: it is increasingly easy to conclude that the ties between these countries are a kind of parody of the relations between Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, both autocrats of the same ilk.
It must be acknowledged that the hand-picked President is adapting to the times and, contrary to what his predecessors did, he travels with his wife, Lis Cuesta, who, it seems, enjoys the advantages of being the “First Combatant” as they say in our beloved Venezuela.
To this difference with the Castro brothers we must add a similarity, and that is that the despot travels with a bodyguard who, moreover, is his stepson, a situation that shows that nepotism is a constant in that old dictatorship.
The island’s press, always loyal to the boss, has highlighted Díaz-Canel’s numerous trips abroad since he was appointed dictator, describing him as “tireless president,” a title not as distinguished as those granted to Fidel Castro.
The international exposure of this most faithful servant, a label deserved because he took other distinguished vassals out of the game, such as Carlos Lage,Roberto Robaina and Felipe Pérez Roque, among others, has been constant, if we bear in mind that in his first eight months in office he made 11 trips abroad. He demonstrated on one of them, to Jamaica, that he is as much a liar as the Castro brothers, because he brazenly said that Cuba was “perfecting socialism” and building a “prosperous and sustainable” nation, while in his appearance at the United Nations he spoke cynically about his commitment to fight chronic hunger, a constant in his government, as in that of his benefactors.
One of his most recent trips was to Algeria, Russia, Turkey and China, countries he visited in search of vital aid for his regime, while reiterating to Colonel Vladimir Putin his unrestricted support for the invasion of Ukraine, a support that Kiev should evaluate, if it is true that “the friend of my enemy is my enemy”.
Díaz-Canel is irredeemably faithful to the Castroist route of being an ally of countries hostile to the United States, as evidenced by the Iranian Foreign Minister’s visit to the Cuban capital and Pyongyang’s vaunted and invincible friendship with Havana.
Translated by: Hombre de Paz
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
14ymedio, Havana, 16 February 2023 – An outage of internet and mobile data was reported in Cuba this Thursday afternoon at 6.45pm, according to reports to 14ymedio from various parts of the country, after a mass gathering at the Grand Packard Hotel in Old Havana, where the American rapper ’Tekashi 6ix9ine’ was staying.
