14ymedio

Cuban Migration Part 9 — They Put 15 of Us on our Knees in a Raft to Cross the Rio Grande

Already very close to the river, three or four people arrived, one of them with a raft with capacity for six people. They told 15 of us to get in. (CBP/File)

14ymedio, Alejandro Mena Ortiz, 1 May 2022 — We were very afraid in that thicket. We didn’t know what was going to happen, we didn’t have phones, helicopters were flying overhead. If they saw us, we had to run, but… there was nowhere to run. We were there for three or four hours. I wrote with a toothpick on a nopal cactus plant “patria y vida” [homeland and life] and drew a little Cuban flag. If a Cuban comes here tomorrow and sees this plant, he will know that another one of his compatriots was here.

After three or four hours, the truck came again and someone shouted the password to the code they had assigned to us and we had to come out running. At that time, we turned into a group of 40, at least, because they had brought others who had the same instructions, and that’s when the chaos started.

Everyone started running through the thorns to try to get a seat in the truck. Fortunately, my Nicaraguan friend was grasping me, because all the while it felt as if I was about to fall down, especially when the driver accelerated.

When we were very close to the river, three or four people arrived, one of them with a six-person capacity raft. They told fifteen of us to get in. I placed myself in the group with the first ones, because I thought that my female Honduran friend was part of that group. However, it didn’t turn out that way. When I looked back, my friend had already remained behind and I would never know what happened to her.

They explained to us what the crossing entailed: they were going to throw the raft into the river, we were going to have to get in and kneel down, so that the 15 of us and the man who was rowing could fit. And that’s what we did. We had to get wet, up to our ankles more or less, and the water was very, very cold. We got in, the man got in, the guide too, in the front, and all of us started to row with our hands so it would take less time. We rowed and rowed… until we reached the other shore.

We quickly walked a few meters. I threw myself to the ground, sank to my knees, pressed my forehead to the ground and was grateful for having arrived alive, not having been scammed, not having been kidnapped and many other things that many migrants unfortunately experience throughout their journey to the United States.

Tears came to my eyes and I called my cousin to tell him that I had already arrived, but I couldn’t even speak, because I had a lump in my throat. continue reading

If a Cuban comes here tomorrow and sees this plant, he will know that another compatriot was here. (14ymedio)

There were many emotions at that moment, but, returning to reality, the men who were helping us cross from the other side of the river yelled at us: “Run, run!” We thought that the immigration officers were coming and we started to run. We went up some hills, down some hills, until we reached a place and said: “Let’s stay here and see if the others come.” But they never did.

When immigration agents arrived, they stopped about 50 meters from us. One, who sounded Mexican, says: “Come, come, come closer, don’t be afraid.” We started running again, because we thought it had to be the Mexicans, but in the end, we heard them speaking to the officers in English and we finally surrendered.

That was very emotional. There were soldiers with AR15 machine guns, but they made nice gestures, like welcoming us, just like the Border Patrol, who were very kind.

They took us to a baseball stadium, where they took our information. One of them, Officer Alvarado, distributed us in vans and, along the way, asked us about our situation, our countries, and we told him. He was very sympathetic.

At the stadium, they removed our belts and shoelaces and took us to a location in McAllen, Texas, where we were sorted, fingerprinted and photographed. They searched us and threw almost everything in the trash, except for the essentials. Then they placed more than 66 people in some cells they call ice coolers for about 24 hours. Horrible, very cramped.

Some Cubans tried to ask me to come closer, but we couldn’t, we didn’t fit. In the end, thanks to them, I was able to sit on a small bench and make room for my Nicaraguan friends. One of the Cubans was from Holguín and the other from Cienfuegos. They told me that one normally stays there for about three days and then goes out with a phone so you can be in contact every week with an immigration officer, to whom you have to send a current photo and the location of the device. In other words, as if you had an electronic ankle bracelet, because you cannot move away from the delimited area.

The food was pretty good, so I thought we could hold our own, but happiness in a poor man’s house is short-lived. They didn’t let us out with a phone, period. They put us on a bus, almost 60 of us, back to another ice-cooler. And the Border Patrol officer intimidated us. In his rather broken Spanish, he said, “Who are the Cubans here?” Almost 20 of us raised our hands. Then he added: “Ok, just so you know, I don’t like Cubans and I’m the boss here. Cubans think that this is Disneyworld, so whoever cracks a joke with me, I’m going to put his face against the floor.”

There are cold or indifferent guards, but not one like this one, none. He had to check on me and even kicked me in the ankle so that I would separate my feet even more. I decided to shut up and suck it up, because, if I had protested, it would have been worse. But he had no right; he did ugly things to us and we felt afraid. He slammed a Nicaraguan into the ground and locked him up because he tried to ask him something. To an older man, who was not feeling well and asked to go to the infirmary, he said: “Drop dead.”

The day they took me out of that “ice-cooler” was my birthday. I felt very bad because they handcuffed us, and I had never been put in handcuffs, not even in Cuba

In this prison, in this cooler, we spent five days that traumatized me. The diet was meager: a burrito in the morning, juice and some cookies at noon, another juice and other cookies at six in the afternoon, another burrito at ten at night and that was it. I lost 17 pounds, but another guy, who stayed for nine days, lost 20. We know this because they weighed us at the next place when we arrived. The change was incredible.

In this other place there were quite a few Cubans, and one day, I heard one debating with a Venezuelan, to whom he said: “You can criticize anything in my country, but not its education, because it is the best in the world.” I slowly turned to where that young man was and faced him. I told him that that was a lie, that how could he say that after having fled from a dictatorship, he was so indoctrinated.

Many there supported me and, well, we had a discussion, just a debate, nothing violent.

The day they took me out of that cooler was my birthday. I felt very bad because they handcuffed us, and I had never been handcuffed, not even in Cuba. They put handcuffs on my hands, feet and waist: they chained us up and made us go out towards a bus where they took us to a closed prison. I did not understand that, I did not expect it. It seems they were doing this because there was such a large volume of migrants.

There, we feel imprisoned, but with better conditions. Much better. We had a dormitory with 80 bunk beds. Hot showers too, and 55-inch televisions in the bedroom. In addition, the guards treated us very well. Many hardly spoke Spanish, but I acted as an intermediary.

In that place, I was able to call my cousin and tell him: “Buddy, I’m in prison, buddy, I’m in prison,” and I couldn’t speak anymore, because I burst into tears.

Tomorrow:

Final chapter: A few days in jail in Texas and the unknown taste of freedom

Translated by Norma Whiting

The Trial of Cuban Artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara is Set for May 30

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, in a file image. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 23 May 2022 — More than ten months after sending him to jail, the authorities have finally set a date for the trial of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, leader of the San Isidro Movement (MSI). The trial will be this coming May 30 and 31 at the Municipal Court of Marianao, in Havana

This same Monday, the curator Claudia Genlui published a voice message from the artist from the maximum security prison of Guanajay, Artemisa, dated May 17, in which she says that “in these months the regime has given me, as the only way out of prison, the option of exile outside of Cuba, otherwise I will spend seven years in prison.”

About this, Alcántara recounts the “inhuman persecution and repression” that he has suffered from the regime in recent years – which include not having been able to spend more time with his mother and grandmother, who died, and not being able to be with his son, and that his family and friends have lived “terrified,” and that his works of art have been destroyed — to assert: “We have endured all this and more in search of a dream and for the responsibility for the Cuba of today and tomorrow. And they are dreams that nothing has erased even today.” For those dreams, he says he is willing “to sacrifice the artist’s flesh, my artist’s flesh, my freedom-loving spirit.”

“I want to teach my son to fight for his ideas, for love and for a dream and for his dreams, despite everything,” he says in the message, implying that he will not give in to the regime’s offer.

The artist begins his audio offering condolences for “the victims of the Saratoga Hotel,” something that he affirms affected him a lot and filled him with impotence. In addition, he assures that his health “is well within what is possible.”

At the end of last April, Amnesty International denounced that, due to the hunger strikes carried out by Alcántara and the lack of medical attention in the maximum security prison of Guanajay, where he is located, the artist lost the sight of one eye. continue reading

In this regard, Alcántara apologizes to those who have been concerned about his strikes. “These are born of moods in the face of the aberration of the dictatorship. But luckily, until today, I have found spiritual answers that make me reborn,” he says.

Similarly, he says goodbye asking “not to lose faith in the triumph of good, truth and freedom.” At the same time, he exhorts: “Don’t leave me alone. Let’s not leave Cuba’s course in the hands of a dictator or in the course of destiny.”

“For my part, as long as music gives me strength, even if they put me in the most hidden dungeon in Guantanamo or under a stone, I will find a way for my art to reach them and continue betting on all freedom,” he continues. “These are not the words of a clinging male who wants to play the tough, the bastard or the one who can do everything. On the contrary, I am a vulnerable guy, but, above all, I am a dreamer artist of ’homeland and life’ who He’s super connected.”

The artist also has words for the protests of July 11 (11J), the date he was arrested before he could participate in a demonstration. “Soon it will be a year since the last peaceful and unprecedented mobilization of the Cuban people in search of their freedom. This year I had not said how proud I am to be Cuban and of this people inside and outside the Island. I am I’m sure freedom will come very soon, very soon.”

Despite being arrested on 11J, Alcántara’s case is part of the same file under which the musician Maykel Castillo Osorbo is also accused, whose appearance before the court could be the same day 30 or the next, May 31 .

Both are prosecuted for events that occurred on April 4, 2021, when they went out to Damas street, headquarters of the MSI, in Old Havana, to sing Patria y Vida, before the eyes of the neighbors, who then helped the prevent the police from arresting Osorbo.

The Island Prosecutor’s Office requested seven years in prison for Alcántara for aggravated contempt, public disorder and instigation to commit a crime, and ten years for Osorbo, for attack, public disorder and escape of prisoners or detainees. The musician, arrested on May 18 of last year and transferred on May 31 to the maximum security prison of Kilo Cinco y Medio, in Pinar del Río, where he remains, still does not have a trial date.

In addition, Alcántara carries the weight of the accusation of ’outrage to the patriotic symbols’, for carrying out the work or art Drapeau with the Cuban flag.

To defend him from this accusation, his lawyers have called as witnesses other artists, friends of the MSI leader: Julio Llópiz-Casal, Lázaro Saavedra and Amaury Pacheco.

Both he and Osorbo won, earlier this May, the 2022 Freedom Award granted by the human rights organization Freedom House.

The president of this NGO, Michael J. Abramowitz, declared then: “As we face enormous challenges to freedom around the world, it is an honor to celebrate the incredible courage of this year’s laureates to stand up to tyranny.”

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Biden Changes his Policy on Cuba and Venezuela

14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami, 22 May 2022 — What’s going on is very strange. According to an American dictum, one does not change horses in midstream. According to the analysis of Politico – an online portal that is much closer to the Democrats than to the Republicans – the recent announcement of a change in strategy by Joe Biden in his perception of Cuba and Venezuela, means that he is giving up the next election in Florida. Compromising with these two dictatorships means leaving the way clear for the Republicans, as US senator Bob Menéndez and Florida senator Annette Taddeo, both from the Democratic Party, complain.

Something fishy is going on here. The politicians – and Biden is the quintessential “politician” – or the president know something of which we have no idea, perhaps because Juan S. González, the person who manages the foreign policy of the White House in that area of the world, has told him directly. Or perhaps because Biden is going through a stage of dangerous naiveté, unbecoming of a 79-year-old man who has seen the entrails of the authoritarian monster.

Cuba and Venezuela know that they have to move towards democratic change, but there is not the slightest symptom of that. Cuba has just approved a Criminal Code that is infinitely more restrictive than the previous one. The new code increases the “reasons” for which the State can execute people, while keeping in jail hundreds of demonstrators who protested peacefully on July 11, to the tune of the excellent song Patria y Vida (Homeland and Life). continue reading

Spain is the model, although each one must do it in its own way. Neither Díaz Canel nor Maduro have to think much about it. Everything starts with a general amnesty. They speak to opposition parties discreetly. An electoral calendar is established, and the chimera of socialism is buried. In fact, it doesn’t work. It never has and never will. If they want to protect the change with a referendum, it is possible to hold one. Society desperately wants to get rid of those chains.

How many people don’t want change? In Spain, which was an orderly nation, unlike Cuba and Venezuela, they were about 15% or 20%, despite the fact that in 1975, the year Franco died, it had a little less than 80% of the GDP of the leading nations in the European Economic Community. In the end, only less than 10% voted against or were against the change. If they dare, those numbers will be confirmed.

Will they dare? I don’t think so. The conditions for change are there, but I don’t think they will. There is the conviction of the most resounding failure. There has been a generational change, because the original leaders have already died – Raúl Castro and Ramiro Valdés are near the end – and those who follow are supporters of change. And if, in some cases, they don’t support change, their wives and children want to change destiny and not remain tied to the ghostly mandate of the dead leaders, nor to the emotional blackmail of “what Fidel Castro would have done.” Nobody knows what he would have done and, even better, almost nobody cares.

What does the support of China or Russia mean? Almost nothing. The only support Cuba has is based on anti-Yankeeism. Neither one nor the other are Marxists. Both systems have abandoned collectivism in favor of private property, although in China they continue to praise Mao. They provide a real lip service, to him and to his Party, hiding all his crazy things. That is why Fidel brought up the Chinese example, but, as far as I know, he died disappointed in both China and Russia, and he didn’t forgive Putin that his first gesture of independence, when he began to reign alone, without the shadow of Boris Yeltsin, was to close the Lourdes base, without prior explanations.

Why don’t they abandon economic collectivism, the one-party system, and make truly democratic reforms? In truth, out of cowardice. For that reason and because they are very comfortable with immobility. I suspect that in eighteen months Joe Biden and Juan S. González will meet again to examine the results of the change in strategy. It will be a moment of reassessment. Nothing will have happened. They will remain paralyzed. There will be, of course, more sanctions. More hostility. And then, back to square one.

Blackouts Push Cubans’ Patience to the Limits

The dreaded blackouts have returned to the gates of a summer that is perceived as uncertain and difficult. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 23 May 2022 — “This looks more and more like the 1990s,” was the phrase with which a resident of Jovellar Street in Central Havana described the power outage suffered by the area since nine in the morning. The dreaded blackouts have returned to the gates of a summer that is perceived as uncertain and difficult.

“I couldn’t work because I got to a client’s house and there was no light,” laments Mamito, an air conditioning repairman who lost the morning due to the blackout. “Without electricity I can’t test the equipment or show the owner how the fix turned out.” Around the area, in the Cerro neighborhood, the cafeterias were also closed and the traffic lights were off.

Local stations try to broadcast the blackout schedule but sometimes the blackouts come without warning. Those received worst are those that appear in the middle of the night, because the heat of May forces us to use fans or air conditioning equipment to be able to sleep. It is common for shouts to rise with swear words or insults against Cuban leaders when the blades of the fans stop moving in the middle of the night.

But the geography of the blackouts is irregular and reveals the ruling party’s fears of new popular protests like those of last July. “Why don’t they take electricity away from Havanans as much as from us?” asked a resident of the city of Sancti Spíritus on Facebook this weekend. Most of the comments pointed to the authorities’ fear that “people in the capital will throw themselves into the streets.”

“I’m editing and… boom! blackout. Impossible to work like this. I can speak for Pinar del Río, which is where I live, and here in this city there are (minimum) 10 to 12 hours a day without power,” published the influencer Daguito Valdés, a soccer expert with thousands of followers on social networks. continue reading

“You have to wait because we have the guard brigade on the street with several reports,” answers a female voice on the other end of the Unisa Elevator Company line. Reports of elevators getting stuck with people inside and due to a power outage have skyrocketed in recent days. “We are taking longer because we have more calls,” concludes the employee.

In the buildings of Nuevo Vedado, an area of buildings built during the Soviet subsidy, the fear is that “they will remove the electricity and they will not be able to pump the water,” a neighbor of the building known as the pilots’ building next to the street explains to this newspaper. Tulip. “It’s crazy to carry the water up the stairs if we don’t have electricity,” says the man who lives on the 12th floor.

“Call before coming because we don’t know if we’re going to have electricity at that time,” warns Nayaare, a hairdresser from a place leased to individuals near San Rafael Boulevard. “We have had to hurry the turns of several clients because yesterday we had no electricity from the morning until after four in the afternoon.”

Everything slows down when the blackout hits. In the state offices, the employees take the opportunity to paralyze the service to the public, most of the restaurants and cafeterias put up a closed sign and transportation is complicated by the lack of traffic lights. In areas on the outskirts of the city and in the province there is also the problem of mosquitoes.

“You can’t sleep here for three days,” says a young woman from Ciego de Ávila with a small child, in a WhatsApp group. We have to go to the front door of the house and I sit with my son on my lap all night in the armchair, between the rocking and the fan so that the mosquitoes don’t bite him, I can’t sleep a wink.”

A tweet from Lis Cuesta, wife of the Cuban ruler, has added vinegar to the wounds by assuring that he had “his heart in scrubbing mode due to the overwhelming blackouts.” The reaction has not been long in coming and the text has generated an avalanche of responses in which Cuesta’s “cynicism” is criticized and transparency is demanded about the reasons for the current energy disaster.

This same Monday, President Miguel Díaz-Canel acknowledged that “the country’s energy situation continues to be very tense” due to “breakdowns in some plants and the scheduled shutdowns of others for maintenance.”

However, the fault of these “two extremely hard years,” for the president, is not the lack of maintenance of the plants, but the covid-19 pandemic and “the intensified blockade.”

Last Friday, the Cuban Electrical Union (UNE) explained in a note that, despite the fact that the Lidio Ramón Pérez thermoelectric plant, in Felton, in the Holguin municipality of Mayarí, was put back into operation after a breakdown, it was not able to manage to supply the country’s demand because “six thermal units continue to fail and maintenance is planned at Feltón 2, Mariel 8 and Talla Piedra.”

For the UNE, the situation is “complex” and, as does Díaz-Canel, it blames the situation on the US embargo on the island, which has prevented “carrying out the required maintenance in a timely manner.”

Of the 20 electricity generation blocks that the country has, 16 are “out of the cycle of capital maintenance, and also burning fuel very aggresively.”

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Cuba: The Power Behind the Penal Code

Extraordinary session of the National Assembly of People’s Power in which the new Penal Code was approved. (Granma)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 20 May 2022 — The recently approved Penal Code punishes with sentences of up to ten years the citizen “who arbitrarily exercises any right or freedom recognized in the Constitution of the Republic” if that exercise has as its purpose “to change, totally or partially, the Constitution of the Republic or the form of government established by it.”

The previous paragraph is the result of reading articles 119 and 120 of the aforementioned code, which I recommend reading in full and not partially, citing as I do here.

Article 119.1 allows punishing even with the death penalty “whoever takes up arms to obtain by force,” among other things, a total or partial change of the Constitution of the Republic or the form of Government that it establishes.

Article 120.1 provides sentences of up to ten years for anyone who “with any of the purposes stated” in article 119 “arbitrarily” exercises any right recognized in the Constitution.

What does it mean to arbitrarily exercise a right granted by the Constitution? continue reading

Article 80 of the Constitution says that Cuban citizens have the right, among other things, to “exercise legislative initiative and constitutional reform.”

Title XI of the Constitution approved in 2019 has four articles on the subject of constitutional reform. Subsection F of article 227 specifies that citizens are recognized for the constitutional reform initiative “through a petition addressed to the National Assembly of People’s Power, signed before the National Electoral Council, by at least fifty thousand voters.”

Just in case, so that no one is mistaken, article 229 makes it clear that “in no case are pronouncements on the irrevocability of the socialist system reformable.”

Neither by hook nor by crook does the Constitution allow the socialist system to be discarded. But the Penal Code goes further, by punishing the intentions of those who hide behind their constitutional rights to expose the reasons for taking the definitive step that leaves behind the socialist system, or what remains of it, which is nothing more than monopoly of power by one party.

It is clear that the purpose of those who argue in favor of a transformation will always be to make it happen. But you cannot condemn the one who proposes a change as if he were imposing it. It would be like punishing the one who proposes to remove a traffic signal with the fine that falls to the one who does not respect it.

Citizens who prefer another economic or political system should be left no choice but to move to another country. The fear that is evident in this Penal Code is that if dissidents are allowed to express themselves and organize, they will end up convincing the rest of the population that their goals are legitimate and, then, those who rule Cuba today would lose power.

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‘That Secret Symphony’, Holguín’s Poetic Dissidence

Reinaldo Arenas, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Delfín Prats, Rafael Vilches, Luis Yusef y Jamila Medina. (Collage)

14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 21 May 2022 — Holguín exists thanks to a plague of ants and bibijaguas [leaf cutter ants]. It is the strangest and most enigmatic region of the Island. Columbus entered Cuba through it and in Nipe – the largest bay in the archipelago – the Virgin of Charity was found. In that province, according to Cabrera Infante, a dangerous “Bermuda triangle” was formed: Banes, Birán and Gibara. Batista was from Banes, Birán was the Galician fief from which the Castro brothers would emerge, and the writer himself was born in Gibara.

To that list of people from Holguin – both brilliant and disastrous – should be added General Calixto García, the pianist Frank Fernández, the great poet Gastón Baquero, Arnaldo Ochoa – the most famous person executed by the revolution – and even the current Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz.

Holguín, with its warmth and mystery, is also the city of “rebel” poets, the uncomfortable, imprisoned and exiled ones par excellence, such as Reinaldo Arenas and Delfín Prats. Both have gone down in history for their dissident vocation and because they did not remain silent in the face of power. The two were marginalized and deprived – in their time – of the place that corresponded to them in national literature.

Arenas – the best Cuban novelist after Carpentier – opened up the possibilities of a nonconformist and harsh voice, which embodied all marginalizations: homosexuality, “illiteracy” according to the parameters of its censors, drama, the drive towards death, and its eastern and guajira origin. Like a protective ghost of his own, the example of Arenas returned to his land and was fruitful. continue reading

Offering a testimony of that dissident tradition of Holguin writing is Esa secreta sinfonía [That secret symphony]. More than 30 “heir” poets are grouped around a common and imaginary space: the intimate homeland, the city of the Cruz and the parks, and the lands and towns that surround it.

The anthology, with a selection by Beatriz Torrente and edited by Orlando Coré, reviews the most significant authors of the province, whose generations are clearly outlined: the first, inaugurated by Arenas himself, involves already classic and renowned poets, such as Delfín Prats, who lived their youth at the beginning of Castroism.

The second is that of the “sons of the revolution” – such as Ghabriel Pérez, Rafael Vilches or Luis Yussef – who see the Berlin Wall fall and write during the Special Period, with blackouts and shortages.

And the third is that of those who are now 30 or 40 years old, born of disappointment, and many of them exiled or about to be: Moisés Mayán, Javier L. Mora, Camilo Noa, Yunior García Aguilera and Jamila Medina, perhaps the voice most important of this time.

Beyond the usual themes – time, sexuality, death, passions – they all share a meditation on History that often turns into anxiety: “Hemlocks, gallows, crucifixions, bonfires, exiles, castrations, executions and torture, and you impassive,” claims Arenas in the poem that opens the book.

But even when the denunciation, the prophecy, is demanded of him, the poet remembers that they are watching him and they will come looking for him, without anyone defending him: “How to speak of smells and times – of another terror – / when there on the corner / perennially a patrol car pulls up.”

Other poets, such as Orlando Coré, transform personal memory into writing, and offer evidence of their youth in the capital: “From the University of Havana they expelled / birds and diversionists. / Furtively, the / some recognized each other; / surreptitiously , the others, / passed the proscribed titles: / we conspired.”

The motif of the Great Journey, the Journey of Initiation – from east to west, from “the hill” to “the plain” – is frequent in provincial writers, but the generations after Arenas and Coré seek their horizon in exile.

Holguín, like Cuba, is scattered around the globe. As Yunior García notes: “We are not an island, damn it / We are an archipelago / One that holds on with brittle threads / Its unconnected parts / One that has already lost islets at night / And keys in the fog.”

The anthologists place between the pages of That secret symphony an old map of Holguín. In this symbolic space, poets, living and dead, exiled or insular, gather to share their painful memory. This book not only fulfills the role of a poetic collection, but also represents the spirit of that yellowish map of the city: a compass with which to find the deep, lucid and anguished voice of Holguin, which is also Cuban.

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Editor’s Note: That secret symphony. Cuban poets from Holguín, selection by Beatriz Torrente and edition by Orlando Coré, Loma de la Cruz Ediciones. Holguín-Miami, 2022, 312 pages.

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The Electric Union of Cuba: ‘We Did Not Manage to Cover the Demand’

For many Cubans, power outages also mean greater difficulties in cooking. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 21 May 2022 — Summer is approaching and Cubans are losing patience with the Electric Union (UNE). After months of constant breakdowns and long blackouts, the state monopoly is unable to “cover demand” and has announced this Friday that “electricity service will continue to be affected in the coming days.”

In a brief note, the UNE explains that Unit 1 of the Lidio Ramón Pérez thermoelectric plant, in Felton, in the Holguin municipality of Mayarí, managed to turn on its boiler from 2:00 p.m. this Friday after a repair that lasted more than three days. .

But the good news has not lasted very long: “With its synchronization the situation of the National Electric System improves,” but it is not possible to supply all the country’s demand because “six thermal units continue to fail and the planned maintenance in Feltón 2, Mariel 8 and Talla piedra,” says the text.

The situation of the electrical system is classified as “complex” by the UNE, which once again points out that the main culprit is the financial limitations derived from the US embargo “which have prevented the required maintenance from being carried out in a timely manner.” continue reading

At this time, of the 20 electricity generation blocks in the country, 16 are “out of the capital maintenance cycle, also burning a very aggressive fuel.”

The use of this raw material “shortens the cycles of operation between maintenance and requires an intensification of the cleaning, washing and replacement of ducts that are subject to high corrosion,” the note details.

All these factors make “the system very sensitive, many breakdowns occur and creating many limitations. The blocks when they are in service do not reach their maximum power and require interventions because they lose their charge very quickly,” justifies the UNE.

The text concludes by assuring that work is being done “continuously to solve breakdowns in the shortest possible time” and that the population will be informed about “the levels of damage in each of the provinces.”

However, the explanations of the Electric Union have failed to appease the spirits of the monopoly’s customers. Last week has been especially hard on the island with blackouts of more than six hours in numerous locations in the west, center and east.

The high temperatures that are experienced in the country in May force families to keep the fans or air conditioning equipment on all night and the consumption of refrigerated food multiplies. In the midst of the economic crisis that the country is experiencing, the greatest fears are focused on July and August, months in which power cuts traditionally grow.

The blackouts, coupled with food shortages and poor sanitary conditions, fueled the demands of many Cubans who, also tired of the lack of freedoms, took to the streets on July 11, 2021 in the largest anti-government protests on the island in decades.

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San Isidro Movement Receives the Pedro Luis Boitel Award for its Struggle in Cuba

Antúnez collected the award for the Free Yoruba Association of Cuba, given that the leaders of this group are imprisoned on the island. (EFE)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Miami, 20 May 2022 — The opposition groups Movimiento San Isidro [San Isidro Movement] the Opposition Movement for a New Republic and the Yoruba Free Association of Cuba received the Pedro Luis Boitel Freedom Prize this Thursday for their fight for freedom and democracy in Cuba.

The awards were presented in Miami by Cuban dissident Jorge Luis García Pérez Antúnez, who in turn collected the award for the Free Yorubas Association of Cuba, given that the leaders of this group are imprisoned on the island.

Within the framework of the 50th anniversary of the death of Pedro Luis Boitel, Antúnez said that with these recognitions delivered this Thursday, tribute is paid to all the “martyrs” who have “fallen in the fight against oppressive communism.”

Antúnez stressed that the “hardened” San Isidro Movement represents the “civic consciousness of society” and embodies the “loss of fear” of confronting the Castro regime that exists on the island.

The singer and co-founder of the San Isidro Movement, Eliecer Márquez Duany El Funky , one of the interpreters of the song Patria y Vida, received the award and said he is “sad” to learn that his “brothers are in prison,” referring to Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Osorbo Castillo. continue reading

As José Díaz Silva, president of the Opposition Movement for a New Republic, is also in prison in Cuba, Ramón Saúl Sánchez, president of the exile group Movimiento Democracia, received the award on his behalf.

The prize was awarded to the Opposition Movement for a New Republic for being one of the “most combative organizations within Cuba”, its “impressive convening power” and its “unquestionable influence in awakening and raising awareness among the Cuban population,” Antúnez said. .

The Pedro Luis Boitel Freedom Prize was created in 2001 by a coalition of non-governmental organizations from Eastern and Central Europe together with the Cuban Democratic Directorate.

The award is presented annually to recognize the exceptional work and leadership of a representative of the resistance within Cuba who promotes a change towards democracy.

It is called the Pedro Luis Boitel Freedom Award in memory of the activist who fought against the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and later against the regime of Fidel Castro who died during a hunger strike on May 25, 1972, while serving a prison sentence.

On this occasion, the award was presented during a meeting in Miami of the Hemispheric Front for Freedom, made up of politicians, NGOs, former diplomats and academics from several Latin American countries.

One of the Latin American deputies who participated in the summit, the Uruguayan Martín Elgue, asked the European Union and the Government of the United States not to “finance the regimes that help the Sao Paulo Forum,” a mechanism for coordinating parties and leftist and progressive social movements in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Regarding the controversy over whether the United States should invite Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua to the Ninth Summit of the Americas, to be held in June in Los Angeles, California, the Mexican René Bolio, president of the Cuba Justice Commission, assured that the governments of These three countries should not attend since they do not “legitimately” represent the peoples of these countries.

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The Quadruplets Have a Birthday

Two plumeria rubra plants, common name frangipani, in the editorial office of the newspaper ’14ymedio’.

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchéz, Generation Y, 21 May 2022 — I have made some vital decisions that fill me with pride. The list would be very long but here I leave some of the most important on this day to remember one of them:

- At age 16: Choose a humanities degree despite also having a strong attraction to Physics.

- At 17: Meet a “crazy and long-haired” journalist named Reinaldo Escobar, and go live with him.

- At 19: Give birth to Teo, although most of my friends and acquaintances told me that it was too early to be a mother.

- At 26: Emigrate and taste the pleasant taste of freedom.

- At 28: Return to my country and, against all odds, raise my critical voice within the island’s borders.

- At 31: Write the first post of my Generation Y blog.

- At 38: Found the newspaper 14ymedio.

- At 43: Inaugurate the Cafecito informativo podcast.

Today our “quadruplets” are turning eight. This is what we say, in the privacy of the home, to the newspaper 14ymedio, because since it was born, on May 21, 2014, there has been no early morning in peace in this house, and when the news “screams” all rest is over. Our lives have come to be at the mercy of news emergencies, the ups and downs of reality and the vertigo of a newsroom.

Nothing to regret, I cannot imagine a better existence.

This is the eighth month of May in which I blow out the candles of this newspaper and in which I am grateful to be surrounded by excellent reporters, essential journalists and sharp editors.

Family, being with you is one of the best decisions of my life. I have no doubt.

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Cuba: The Great Exodus

On the road, Cubans leave the phrase that gives them hope, “Patria y Vida” [Homeland and Life]. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchéz, Havana, 21 May 2022 – One eats more roast pork and black beans in Miami than in Havana, the mojito has become a drink selling better in Berlin bars than in Varadero taverns, and the founding anniversary of the Republic is a date that is celebrated more in exile than within the Island’s borders. Cuba has become a country on the run and the current migratory exodus continues to atomize the nation, spreading its human capital and its traditions throughout the planet.

This special series, under the title of Cuba, The Island in Flight, is the story of a rafter-on-foot who made the route from the Cuban capital to Florida, crossing a good part of Central America and Mexico. His journey was full of very tense moments, through border crossings, bribes to police and military to turn a blind eye, intimidating coyotes and frugal meals. But above all, it was a journey marked by the dreams of reaching the United States.

The country where Alejandro Mena has his roots is not the place to harvest personal or professional fruits, much less civic ones. He had sensed that for years, but it was after the popular protests on July 11 that he confirmed what he feared. That Sunday, the 34-year-old young man joined a river of people who cried out for freedom through the streets of Havana. It was one of the happiest days of his life, as he later told his friends and family. But the joy of seeing people react and call for democratic change in the country was short-lived. continue reading

Mena saw how a friend who was at his side was violently arrested shouting ‘Patria y Vida’ [Homeland and Life]. Although he managed to evade police operations and return to his house, his young friend did not suffer the same fate. He was beaten, his whereabouts were unknown for several days and, finally, when he was released, the police pressure and threats had been so great that he decided to emigrate as soon as possible. That young man, enterprising and patriotic, was one of the most loving people of history and national identity that Mena had ever known. Seeing him leave was very painful to process and convinced Mena that there was no future on the Island for people like his friend and neither for him.

Then came the goodbyes. Saying goodbye to his family, his neighborhood, his dog Kathy and getting on a flight to Managua. The rest of the route is told in detail in these articles. Despite his light baggage, Alejandro Mena took with him a part of the country that he now tries to rebuild from exile. Recipes, music, memories and dreams make up part of those suitcases that every migrant carries on his shoulders. He took the Island with him to ensure that it could be freer and here he tells us about the enormous weight of carrying a country for thousands of kilometers.

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The Great Masonic Temple Building Also Falls Apart in Havana

“Do not pass, danger,” reads a sign on Saturday, that barely indicates a pile of debris. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 21 May 2022 — Pieces of the structure are falling from one of the most emblematic buildings in Central Havana, the Great National Masonic Temple of Cuba. Due to the lack of maintenance, the building shows fragments of part of the roof in its large portal that can be fatal for any passer-by.

“Do not pass, danger,” reads the sign, this Saturday, that barely indicates a bundle of debris that fell a few hours earlier. The sign is hanging from a rope that marks the space with the remains of the roof, on the corner facing the street. Santiago.

The eleven-story building, considered by many as one of the most solid in this area of the capital and whose construction was carried out by the architect Emilio Vasconcelos Frayde, on the ground floor houses a Cuban Post Office and the Security and Protection Company of the Ministry of Communications. continue reading

Very close to the busy corner of Belascoaín and Carlos III, where the Yumurí store is located, countless people pass through the portals of the Great Temple every day and others line up to buy postage stamps or get a money order. Also, very close by, there is a bus stop for routes such as the P12 and A65, as well as several primary schools.

Some passerby could have been the victim of the falling of a piece of the building. (14ymedio)

Each of these passers-by could have been the victim of a piece of the building detaching, although chance meant that at the moment it fell to the ground there was no one close enough to be injured. A coincidence that some fear will not be repeated in the next building collapse if the state brigades do not do something to stop the deterioration.

The building of the Grand Lodge can be seen from different points of the city and is clearly identified by its dome, a terrestrial sphere with the symbol of the Freemasons. With a mixture of styles in which rationalism and Art Decó coexist, until recently the property raised sighs among the residents of a neighborhood where housing deterioration is the most common.

The Lodge, with its spiritual connotations and its sober entrance from which a peculiar sculpture of a seated José Martí, was one of the few constructions that survived with some dignity the onslaught of time and lack of maintenance. But for years it has been playing its own turn in the decline that marks the passage of the entire city.

Countless people pass through the portals of the Great Temple every day and others line up to buy postage stamps or make a money order. (14ymedio)

The globe of the world crowning the building stopped working for years after a fire, the granite floor of the portal is full of scars left by hydraulic repairs and even the map of the continents that was displayed on one side has seen the tiles tiles that make up the countries fall off. The clock over the entrance stopped ticking the hours long ago, something that few have noticed in a Havana where time is of little value.

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Baptist pastor Who Fled Cuba with his Children Arrives in the United States

Cuban pastor Carlos Sebastián Hernández Armas with his wife and two children. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 21 May 2022 — On Friday, after having requested refuge in El Salvador, Pastor Carlos Sebastián Hernández Armas and his two children have been reunited with his wife in the United States.

“For known reasons, I have been discrete about my departure from Cuba and the way I arrived in the US with my children. The Lord kept me away from all contact on social networks, emails, and telephone lines during the last months, He is wise,” the pastor wrote on his Facebook profile.

Hernández Armas thanked the friends, family and organizations that have helped him during this time, since his flight from Cuba.

On March 1, Hernández Armas made public that he was stranded at the San Salvador airport with his children, after prohibiting them from entering Nicaragua, on a connecting flight. At that time, he denounced that the airline explained to them that they could not continue with their trip to Managua because they did not comply with “certain protocols” due to covid-19. However, he was convinced that “it had been a deal” between Cuba and the government of Daniel Ortega, to boycott his trip. continue reading

The known causes to which the pastor now refers are that, before leaving, “he was being persecuted, monitored by the Government of Cuba,” as he recounted two months ago. He was the general secretary of the Baptist Convention of Western Cuba and although he has been questioning the Cuban repression for more than 20 years, as a result of the demonstrations of July 11, he increased his claims more vigorously.

Last March and after four days of waiting at the Salvadoran airport, Hernández Armas and his two sons, Carlos and Enoc, 17 and 10 years old, respectively, accepted a refugee process in the Central American nation. They were taken to a hostel where they stayed for the last two months and then the pastor had to explain to the Salvadoran State the reasons why he could not return to the Island. He said that he was in danger of being imprisoned.

As he had said in his publications, his wife left the island by another route that was not revealed, until she reached the United States.

In January, journalists and activists Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho and Esteban Rodríguez were also stranded at the Salvadoran airport, denied entry to Nicaragua. Both managed to be admitted to that country, but abandoned their refugee process and chose to leave without legal papers, making their way to Mexico where they were detained; however, there they were granted a “visitor’s card for humanitarian reasons,” which helped them to reach the United States.

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Cuban Rafter Who Fled a Conviction for July 11th (11J) Protests Must Show ‘Credible Fear’

Yariel Alfonso Puerta left the Island with a friend last Friday. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 19 May 2022 — The 27-year-old Cuban Yariel Alfonso Puerta, who jumped into the sea last Friday along with his friend Alioski Quintero González and left the island to avoid a trial for his participation in the July 11 demonstrations in Matanzas, is on a US Coast Guard Cutter conducting his “credible fear” interview.

América TeVé journalist Mario J. Pentón confirmed the information directly with the United States Coast Guard this Tuesday, after Yariel Alfonso was in custody for several days in Florida waters and after pressure from the Cuban community in exile not to return the two young men to the Island. If they manage to show that their personal integrity is in danger (“credible fear”) should they be deported to Cuba, the two rafters will be able to continue their political asylum process to stay in the United States.

Yariel Alfonso’s mother, Yamilé Puerta, confirmed to 14ymedio that Democratic congresswoman Federica Wilson, who is helping in the case, has asked the family for permission to inform the press about the current situation of the young people and whether they will be able to continue with their legal process for asylum.

Alfonso Puerta set sail from the Island with his friend in a homemade raft with a sail and four oars. That same day, the police went to look for him to take him to court for having participated in the 11J demonstrations. continue reading

His desperate mother hopes that the US authorities will not return him to Cuba. “If they return my son, his life is going to be miserable,” she told 14ymedio from the Valencian town of Villarreal, in Spain, where she arrived more than six years ago with her husband, Yoenis Martín González.

The woman was in contact with her son until Saturday at nine in the morning, when the young people were already in international waters. Until then, she maintained communication with him.

She even broadcast a video call with the young man at the precise moment that the Cuban coastguard intercepted them, the day before. “They have them in the water, they aren’t letting them move,” the mother denounced, but later they were able to continue their journey.

According to the Cubalex legal organization, an NGO, Alfonso Puerta faces a six-year prison sentence for the crimes of public disorder, disobedience and resistance.

On August 2, when a rafter who was a police officer in Cuba managed to pass the “credible fear” interview on the high seas, lawyer Willy Allen told América TeVé that these types of migrants do not continue their asylum process in US territory.

“Let’s be clear, he has no entrance to the United States,” he said, referring to the rafter identified by a relative as Ernesto Urgellés, who had been intercepted along with other Cubans by the Coast Guard. “Under the rules that exist, no person who is found to have credible fear in the Coast Guard cutter enters the United States.”

Allen explained that rafters who manage to pass the first “credible fear” interview are transferred to the Guantánamo naval base where they are processed for asylum. The lawyer said that being admitted for this reason does not make the migrant an asylum seeker, it only allows him to argue his case and then carry out the entire process before Immigration. In addition, he added that they can send the rafter to a third country while their request is analyzed.

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Cuban Migration Part 8 – In Monterrey, Each Cartel Assigns a Code to its Migrants

They dropped us off at a gas station in mid-trip, and again they put us back in a minibus. (EFE/Juan Manuel Blanco)

14ymedio, Alejandro Mena Ortiz, 30 April 2022 — Three hours into the trip, on the way to Monterrey, I had cramps on my buttocks. Imagine eleven more hours. Luckily, I took a paracetamol which relieved the pain, but after a few hours the pain was back again. I asked them to please let me stretch out my foot but I couldn’t: there was no room.

There, I heard a very interesting story. There was a Nicaraguan who worked in a Managua restaurant, where President Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo love to eat. Although he did not like what the leaders were doing to the country, he was very happy when they came to the restaurant for dinner, because they left each one of the servers a 100-dollar tip, and according to what he told me, there were sometimes as many as 14 to 16 servers. The Ortegas went to eat at the restaurant as often as once a week, the Nicaraguan declared, and he told me that when Díaz-Canel was in Nicaragua for the inauguration, they asked them to close the place, because he was going to go with Ortega, although at the end, they changed plans and went somewhere else.

The individual I was talking to was also one of those who were not running away from the political situation. Only one of the ones I met was leaving for that reason. The rest were leaving to make some money and then return.

They dropped us off at a gas station in mid-trip, and again they put us back in a minibus. We spent an hour waiting for some guards to leave the area we had to cross, and from there, we went to a small desert town, with a sun so strong that it burned you, although it was not as hot as in Cuba.

They put us in a warehouse at that location, with a swimming pool; they call those rural houses in Mexico una quinta (a country house). They had divided us into two groups: we were going to Monterrey, and the rest, to another place. Then a woman told us: “Look, please, those who have swimming suits may change and go swimming; the rest, stay around here. Let’s put on a little music. In case inspectors come, you guys rented this property and are celebrating a birthday.

Those who went swimming had a nice day, but in the end, everything was so-so, because they told us that we could not drink the tap water, so we were not able to drink anything until around three in the afternoon, when they showed up with two 5-liter water bottles of water, but there were more than 60 of us! Then they brought two tacos per person and some weird beans, with a little bit of meat, but it was terrible. I looked at it and thought: “Well, I’ll have to eat it, who knows how long we will be here and if they will bring us food again.” Good thing, because we were there all day, all night, and until late the next dawn.

The vans that were to pick us up at 10 o’clock had to go to the other place, because half of the people in the other group had been put in a container and they didn’t want to go because they were suffocating. They started banging and banging, and, luckily, the driver stopped and about 20 or 25 got out: they complained that they had paid thousands of dollars and they didn’t want to continue in the container where they were suffocating. continue reading

“The others, stay around here. Let’s put on some music. In case inspectors come, you guys rented this and are celebrating a birthday“

The vans finally appeared at our location at 5:00 in the morning. Only women and children slept in the house, the men had to mostly sleep outside. In the desert it is terribly sunny during the day, but at night it’s three times worse, because it turns very cold.

The vans, thank God, did have heating, and we were able to take off our coats for a little while. The trip turned out to be much longer than anticipated, because we had to avoid several control points, and the trip, supposed to be completed in five hours, took us about eight.

Upon arrival in Monterrey, we waited at a place in the city for some taxis, in which they divided us up to finally board a closed truck, which had openings on the roof, at another location. There were 42 people there, and we stayed together until the end. I was the only Cuban, the rest were Honduran, Nicaraguans and Guatemalan. There was a warehouse where we stayed locked-up for a day and a half, and it was also very cold and the conditions were bad. There weren’t enough sleeping matts for all of us, and we squeezed in as best we could.

At least they did bring us good food, and the things they sold us were cheaper than in Mexico City. However, I had another anxiety crisis, because everything was closed, and when I called my family, I exploded: “This can’t be real. I don’t understand what’s happening, they didn’t tell me it would be like this.” They always paint everything in rosy colors, that’s the hook, and, despite everything, I can’t complain, because there are people who have a worse time of it.

From there they took us to a small field where there were three or four trucks, in which we already knew there were some people, although not how many. We got the biggest truck, one like the ones used in Cuba to transport sugar cane, with high railings in the back. When we got on, there were already almost 200 people there. We were all pressed as tight as possible, without the possibility of holding on. It was a short but hard trip. There were several people who injured their ankles, including me, although nothing that prevented me from continuing.

At midnight we arrived at a point near Reynosa where we stopped, because there was a checkpoint with seven patrols. Apparently, a truck like ours, trafficking undocumented immigrants, had overturned. They allowed us to get out of the truck, the temperature was zero degrees, but we were able to smoke and eat some cookies, until we were able to continue at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning.

Then we got to another place where we were divided into two groups. Each of us had a code that they gave us in Monterrey, which the cartels assign to you, and it is the one that you have to give the cartel, so that you are allowed to continue or to take you to the border. There were many, many of us, in several trucks. There had to be more than 400 people, because I was number 367. We looked like merchandise.

Forty-two of us were picked up at that warehouse, in two vans. That was the last warehouse before crossing, the one in Reynosa. In it, I met a Honduran who had been waiting three months for a supposedly special trip, because he was physically disabled, but his son, who was in the US and was paying for everything, was taken and sent back to Honduras. The guy had been there for three months, waiting for his son to have enough money again, because he couldn’t go around like the others to avoid controls.

It was extremely cold in that place too, although the coyote treated me very well. They were not used to Cubans and they asked me about many things, and they treated me differently because I was from Cuba. We stayed there for three or four days. The conditions were not the best, the food was not the best, but at least we were relaxed after so much travel.

When they came for us, they separated us into lists: Cubans, Nicaraguans, and women and children, one from El Salvador and the other women from Honduras. They are handed over because they are not rejected: if they are accompanied by small children, they are allowed entry. The Hondurans and Guatemalans had to stay and wait for another list to make their escape. They cross and begin to circle to avoid the migration guards; quite the opposite of what we do, those of us who are delivered. We cross and we have to look for the guards to turn ourselves in, so they can take us prisoner.

When they came for us, they separated us into lists: Cubans, Nicaraguans, and women and children, one from El Salvador and the other women from Honduras.

On the fourth day it was my group’s turn. They came for us in a van, we were nine adults and two children, and they took us to a place very close to the Rio Grande. They screened us through a person who gave us some numbered blue bracelets with the word “delivery” on them. For each migrant who crosses, the coyote has to pay the cartel, and that is carefully controlled, because sometimes they try to pay less, which has resulted in many deaths. That’s why now they do it like this, all square: person for money.

I was lucky, because a few days ago I was able to talk to the guy who used to be my barber in Havana, who now lives in the US, and I noticed he acted very strange. This is not the David I know, I thought. The point is that he crossed through Piedras Negras, Coahuila, with about 120 others, at 3:00 in the morning. He says that they threw a small raft for the children and a rope from one side to the other. That’s where adults had to go. The deepest part of the river covered his nose, and he is about five-and-a-half feet tall. He was helping a girl who, at one point, became very nervous, but she was holding on well to the bottom and they managed to cross about 70 meters of river. Ahead of them was a Nicaraguan woman who started to say: “I’m drowning, I’m drowning”… And before they could see her, she was gone. She vanished.

He was traumatized, and, at that moment, his legs did not respond, he could not cross, he lost consciousness. Luckily, the immigration officers caught him and wrapped him in blankets, but he told me that he thought he was going to die. His journey was shorter than mine, but it was less safe: they took him prisoner in Honduras, they had a bus accident, then this last thing on the river… Everything was quite ugly.

Then they made us hide in a bush and wait for them to come and give us the signal.

Tomorrow

They put 15 of us on our knees on a raft to cross the Rio Grande

Translated by Norma Whiting

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Stabbed and Mutilated, the Latest Femicide in Cuba

Meanwhile, the Network denounces in a statement, “the Cuban Parliament approved a new Criminal Code that includes increased penalties for dissidence, but does not explicitly condemn femicide.” (14ymedio/Archive)

14ymedio, Havana, 17 May 2022 — The latest confirmed femicide on the Island, the eleventh so far in 2022, shows unusual cruelty. As denounced on Monday by the Red Femenina de Cuba [Cuban Women’s Network] the young Yusleidy Aguilera Fernández, 21 years old and with two small children, was viciously stabbed to death and had her breasts cut off. The information was confirmed by the feminist magazine Alas Tensas, which specified that the children are 2 and 5 years old.

According to the independent platform, the events occurred in the Vuelta del Caño district, Granma province, and the murderer, originally from Havana, was arrested in Manzanillo.

Meanwhile, the Network denounces in a statement, “the Cuban Parliament approved a new Criminal Code that includes increased penalties for dissidence, but does not explicitly condemn femicide, and maintains the death penalty.”

On April 30, Odalys Lavin, 55, was murdered at the hands of her husband, who committed suicide after the crime. On the 12th of that month, Yamilka Silva died in Báguanos, Holguín, murdered by the father of her daughter, in her parents’ own home, where she had taken refuge, according to the observatories of the magazine Alas Tensas and #YoSiTeCreo in Cuba. continue reading

Before her, the femicides of Eriday Soto Martínez, 26, and her five-month-old son were reported, which occurred on March 24, in the Argentina Sur neighborhood, in Jobabo, Las Tunas.

Up to then, Alas Tensas had verified six femicides in Cuba, those of Mailén Guerra García, Mislaidis Carmenate, Darlín García, Lisbet Machado and a 21-year-old girl in San Luis, Santiago de Cuba, and another of a 24-year-old from Cárdenas, Matanzas, whose names were not provided.

In 2021, the same organization recorded 36 murders of women, of which 29 were committed by partners or former partners. In 2020, the figure was 32, although it is impossible to verify if the number has increased or the problem is becoming more visible since there are independent organizations that keep the count, since the Government does not have a public record of this type of murder.

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