14ymedio

‘Cuba, the Future Under Debate,’ a Chronicle of Former Mexican Correspondent on the Island

Mexican writer and journalist Gerardo Arreola says that increased repression is not the way to solve the island’s problems. (Secretary of Culture in Mexico City)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Gustavo Borges, Mexico City, 20 March 2022 — The Mexican writer and journalist Gerardo Arreola, author of the book Cuba, the Future Under Debate, said this Sunday that the lack of decisions to solve the economic crisis and the increase in repression are not the way to solve the problems on the island.

“An absence of political decisions in economic matters and a reinforcement of repression through the courts does not seem to be the best way to move forward, said Arreola in an interview with EFE, reflecting on his work, a chronicle of the time of Raúl Castro in power and the challenges of the transition.

The volume, edited by Penguin Random House, is an analysis of the situation in Cuba by Arreola, a correspondent in the Caribbean country for more than 15 years.

As a witness to the events before and after Fidel Castro handed over power, Arreola recounted the Cuban reality in the last three decades, and focused on the death of the leader of the Revolution and its consequences.

“I tried to reflect that Cuban society is plural, there are those who are absolutely supporters of the government and do not admit criticism and there are critics of the government, without the possibility of dialogue, but in the middle there is an observant, polemicist, critical and active society; this is one of the novelties of the current Cuban situation,” he said.

Referring to the current economic crisis, the journalist considered that it may be greater than the ’Special Period’ in the 1990s which was a consequence of the collapse of the socialist camp, and he believes that the Government has lacked the will to apply measures that help the people. continue reading

“There is an absence of political will to accept proposals from researchers close and distant from the government, which are technically very similar,” he said, referring to debates by economists calling for freedom for state-owned companies, freeing economic space for agricultural producers and other alternatives.

When he was about to finish the book, Arreola had to extend it to refer to the massive protests on the Island against the Government, which occurred on July 11, 2021, repressed by the Government, which described the rebels as being at the service of the CIA, instead of acknowledging the disagreements.

“It is striking that the demonstrations of July last year have led to trials with high sentences, if one takes into account what happened. The background of the situation, recognized by the Government itself, is that there were dissatisfied people, outraged by the increase and spectacular rise in prices and shortages of basic products, perhaps aggravated by the pandemic,” he explained.

Arreola accepted that among the protesters there were violent ones who broke windows, but he wonders if, even in the case of the aggressive ones, they deserved harsh prison sentences.

“There are 16-17 year olds on trial,” he noted.

In his book, Arreola avoided judgments. He portrayed the Cuban situation from different angles, with topics such as the government’s relationship with the Church, the 2019 Constitution, the rise of the military in key government positions, and the issue of emigration.

Unlike other times, the internet has allowed the reality of Cuba today to appear on social networks, a blow to official censorship, on which the correspondent reflected.

“The criticism and observation of reality multiplied because there was a shot in the accounts on social networks. It is enough for something to happen in a corner of the Island for someone to record it,” he said.

Arreola believes that Cuba is bleeding to death with the departure of young people abroad, many of them high-level professionals, to which is added the aging of society, which in a few years will be the oldest in Latin America.

Another current issue is that of corruption in the Government, which Raúl Castro acknowledged in his presidency.

“Raúl pointed to corruption as something serious and over time it was identified as a national security problem. It has been recognized that corruption at high levels, with a considerable level of resources, is something that could become a political and governance threat,” he concluded.

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US Judge Says Cruise Ships Violated the Helms-Burton Act by Serving Cuban Ports

The ’Adonia’ cruise ship, which in 2016 made the first trip of this type in 50 years between the US and Cuba. (14ymedio/Rodolfo Hernandez)

EFE/14ymedio, Miami / Havana, 22 March 2022 — A US federal judge determined that the cruise companies Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian Cruise Line and MSC Cruises violated the Helms-Burton Act by using ports in Havana that were once confiscated from their owners after the triumph of the Revolution.

“By using the Terminal and one of its docks in various ways, Carnival, MSC SA, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian committed acts of trafficking” (usufruct), said a court document by the the Miami federal magistrate Beth Bloom, to which the Spanish agency Efe had access on Tuesday, .

With this decision, the judge sided with the plaintiff, the Havana Docks company, which filed a lawsuit against these four large cruise companies for using the Havana Cruise Port Terminal, also called Sierra Maestra Terminal, which had been confiscated by the Fidel Castro regime.

The plaintiff firm, which operated that terminal until its confiscation, alleges that by using the port facilities the four companies violated Title III of the Helms-Burton Act of 1996.

This title, activated by then President Donald Trump, in 2019, allows US citizens to sue for monetary compensation for the use of properties expropriated from their families and that have been used especially by shipping and hotel companies from third countries. continue reading

In his brief, filed in court on Monday, Bloom further notes that the four companies engaged in these acts “intentionally and deliberately.”

Havana Docks alleges that with these activities that occurred between 2015 and 2019, the four companies obtained up to 1.1 billion dollars in income and paid 138 million to Cuban government entities.

The firms defended that their cruises to Cuba were framed under the guidelines established by the US Department of the Treasury within the “thaw” process with Cuba established by the Administration of President Barack Obama (2009-2017), but the magistrate rejected those arguments.

She noted that this was fixed in 12 categories and that they did not include those related to tourism, nor those that could threaten the embargo against Cuba imposed by the United States.

After the judge’s decision, which thus rejected the motions presented by the four companies to dismiss the lawsuit, the case will continue in a jury trial that will begin in May and in which the financial compensation to the plaintiffs must be determined.

This judicial process may have implications for the lawsuits that dozens of Cuban-Americans have filed in United States courts seeking compensation for their assets expropriated by the Revolution.

At least 37 lawsuits against companies, especially tourist companies, many of them Spanish hotel companies, have been filed in United States courts, most of them in Florida, since Title III was activated in 2019, according to the Commercial and Economic Council USA-Cuba.

Trump activated the norm that has allowed these legal processes and that his predecessors, Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, never wanted because of the legal and commercial implications with third countries.

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The Claws of ‘Correos de Cuba’ in my Correspondence

I should be used to mail arriving at my house in Havana in these conditions, but no, I’m not used to it. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, Havana, 22 March 2022 — The violation of my private correspondence is systematic and gross. This is how these two letters have arrived, one torn on the side and the other evidently opened and sealed later with adhesive tape, sent to me from the offices of the German chain Deutsche Welle with which I collaborate professionally as an opinion columnist and television presenter.

I know they will tell me that I should be used to the fact that the mail does not arrive at my house in Havana or arrives in these conditions, but no, I do not get used to it. No one should get used to the horror.

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Cecilio Aviles Montalvo, Creator of ‘Cecilin y Coti’, Dies in Havana

Cecilio Avilés Montalvo passed away this Sunday in Havana. (OnCuba)

14ymedio, Havana, 21 March 2022 — The popular creator of Cecilín y Coti, Cecilio Avilés Montalvo, died this Sunday in Havana, according to the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (Uneac) after making it known on social networks by friends and relatives of the painter, advertising cartoonist and artist, animation, caricaturist and cartoonist.

The artist was awarded the National Award for Community Culture in 2010 and was a member of the Union of Journalists of Cuba (UPEC), whose former vice president, José Dos Santos, described him in these terms: “Excellent plastic and graphic journalism artist, as well as affable person, full of ideas that we shared on many occasions during my time at Upec. On more than one occasion I suggested that he group his participations from Wednesdays on Good Morning, of a great didactic nature, to collect them in an introductory volume to the caricature. I wish he had done it or that someone would do it because of its value as training for future followers of that complex although apparently simple art, of which he was a teacher.”

Avilés was born in Cienfuegos on December 5, 1944 and graduated in Art History at the University of Havana, in Painting and Modeling at the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts, Commercial Drawing and Graphic Design at the Diego Rivera Academy and in the School of Directors of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (Icrt). He also studied music and harmony at the Ignacio Cervantes Center.

However, his career began linked to journalism, at Juventud Rebelde and Pionero, where he was between 1968 and 1983. His book, Historietas, Reflections and Projections: 60 Cuban Graphic Narrators, also shows his interest in theorizing the cartoon and caricature.

In addition to the popular Cecilín, who has adventures with his parrot Coti and came to film and television, he created Marabú and Yami, a young journalist.

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Cuba Celebrates World Water Day With More than 6,000 Leaks in its Pipelines

Almost a million Cubans are supplied with water by trucks. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Madrid, 22 March 2022 — Almost a million Cubans have water supply problems, Cuban authorities admitted this Monday, the eve of World Water Day. In the official press, José Antonio Hernández Álvarez, general director of Water, Sanitation and Storm Drainage, has broken down what kind of circumstances occur in each case and has provided an alarming fact: the leaks have doubled with respect to the historical record.

There are more than 6,000 failures through which water is lost. And that only includes those that have been accounted for. The figure is almost double the record previously provided and 50% are in the capital. In 2015, the president of the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources (INRH), Inés María Chapman Waugh, stated that each year some 3,400 million cubic meters of water are lost through these cracks. Although these data have not been updated, taking into account what was confirmed this Tuesday, some 7,000 million cubic meters of water could be lost in this way.

As a result of water management problems, around 140,000 inhabitants are affected by broken pumping equipment. Hernández explained that the international norm establishes that each year 10% of the equipment in operation must be replaced. Since there are more than 4,000 in Cuba, around 400 should be bought, but “in the last three years not even a hundred have been acquired,” she points out.

The cause lies in the economic problems of the country that, as usual, are ascribed to a responsible party: “the intensification of the economic, commercial and financial blockade of the US Government.” Added to this is the pandemic, now also a classic, and, as a novelty, “the international financial crisis.” No examination of conscience, quite the contrary. The official and the head of the official press do not point to the serious problems that afflict the population due to the lack of basic necessities, but to the presumed solutions that the Government offers. continue reading

Among them, Hernández Álvarez spoke of maintenance and repair operations in hydraulic networks and pumping equipment, and mentioned the promotion of “linkages with national industry, particularly the military” to replace imports with domestically produced equipment. In this sense, the Technological University of Havana José Antonio Echeverría (Cujae) is studying alternatives for “some parts” of the pumps.

The official also specified that they hope to find collaboration in the private sector for the manufacture of pieces “especially in the range of 20 to 25 millimeters, which are usually the measures most affected.”

Added to the 140,000 people affected by the pumping, there are the 418,000 who do not receive the service at the usual times and cycles “due to the drought.” Although the situation affects several provinces, among which were mentioned Guantánamo, Holguín, Las Tunas, Camagüey, Sancti Spíritus and Havana, in Artemisa the greatest concern is focused on San Antonio de los Baños.

In recent days, the residents of San Antonio were informed of the lengthening of the water distribution cycles, although many maintain that currently the water does not arrive on the current schedule when it is their turn. The inhabitants of this town denounced to 14ymedio the unsustainable situation they suffer with regard to water supply and which contributed to the outbreak of the July 11 protests in this municipality, protests which spread to the entire country. Months later there has been no progress, on the contrary, they allude to the problems of drought to lentgthen the distribution schedule, without mentioning the infrastructure problems that, no matter how many rains fell, would continue to be there, allowing water to be lost.

Hernández Álvarez also placed the number of people who receive water by tanker trucks at 400,000 and considered it an achievement, noting that the service is maintained “despite the complex situation in the country.” However, it is barely maintained since, as the official indicated, the lack of batteries and tires and “the need for a capital repair of the equipment” hamper the task.

In 2016, Cuba signed agreements with Saudi Arabia worth 80 million dollars, one of them specifically providing 29.1 million dollars for financing with long-term credits for the construction of a pipeline and distribution networks for drinking water to Cárdenas, province of Matanzas. Also in 2014, a similar contract was signed between both countries for the improvement of the aqueduct and sewage system of Camagüey for a value of 40 million dollars.

For this, the Water and Sanitation company has received financing – the amount of which has not been specified – that will allow it to activate around 108 tanker trucks while “it continues negotiating with importing companies to acquire the necessary supplies.” This truck-delivered water service should supply some 800,000 Cubans in the coming months, he specified.

The data was released in the hours prior to World Water Day, whose Council is meeting at a Forum in Dakar to address the general situation in the context of climate change. In an interview with EFE, its president, the Frenchman Loïc Fauchon, has assured that water is poorly managed by political leaders, who do not make it a priority and do not contribute to making the population aware of the seriousness of its lack. “We lose sight of the fact that water is life, without water there is no life, without water there is no peace, without water there is no development,” he said.

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Six Years in Jail for Yoan de la Cruz for Streaming the July 11 Protests in Cuba

Yoan de la Cruz was nearly isolated in Melena del Sur prison, in Mayabeque, until the day of his trial. (Cubalex)

14ymedio, Havana, March 22, 2022–Yoan de la Cruz, who last July 11th livestreamed the first protests in San Antonio de los Baños, which then spread throughout the country, has been sentenced to six years in prison by a tribunal, according to statements made on Tuesday by his mother, Maribel Cruz, on her Facebook profile.

“So that all my friends and family, who have always worried about Yoan, know. Today we learned his sentence: they gave him 6 years. As a mother, I feel like dying, it is very sad and difficult, the feelings for so much injustice, but God is great and one day such great injustice will be paid for,” she wrote. The Prosecutor asked for eight years.

Until the day of his trial, the young man remained nearly isolated in Melena del Sur prison, in Mayabeque province, where he will serve the rest of his sentence.

The sentencing for the 11J protesters in San Antonio de los Baños was delayed by three months. The trial began on December 15th and the sentences were expected last week.

The deployment of a broad operation in the city made some activists think that the sentences would be made public on Wednesday, March 16th, but ultimately it was due to the presence of Cuban Communist Party officials in different zones of Artemisa. continue reading

The case of Yoan de la Cruz led to a broad mobilization on social media of organizations, family and friends since he was arrested on July 23rd. The main argument in his defense was the strictly peaceful presence of the young man.

“They believe they are so big, yet a young man with a little phone in his hand has made the house of cards in which they live tremble,” said one of his friends a few days after his arrest.

“He did not throw a stone, he did not break a glass, he did not hit anyone, did not yell, ‘down with’ anyone. Please release him already,” said another one of the many colleagues who mobilized for his release. “You are making a mother, a grandmother, a family and thousands of friends, suffer.”

De la Cruz’s sentence, as well as those of the other 128 defendants in Havana, show how the regime is enraged with the protesters from the most symbolic places of 11J. These last sentences, made public last week, add up to 1,916 years in jail. The 128 were present in Toyo, where the protesters managed to overturn a patrol car and in La Güinera, where a policeman fatally shot Diubis Laurencio Tejada in the back.

According to estimates from Justicia 11J, which works with Cubalex, there are still 158 outstanding sentences, which should be handed down soon. They have documented 333 notifications affecting 518 people and at least 1,442 were arrested at some point. For all those who have yet to be tried, they demand immediate release.

In contrast, Yoel Sosa Gómez, who managed to escape the island before receiving his sentence, avoided a penalty of five years of correctional labor with internment. The young man from Vegas, Mayabeque, who granted an interview to América TeVé, is the father of a five-year-old girl and fled Cuba by sea. He is now in Miami waiting for his political asylum to be processed.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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The Young Cuban Brandon Becerra is in a Punishment Cell for Singing ‘The Fools Fair’

Brandon David Becerra Curbelo, sentenced to 13 years in prison for demonstrating in Havana on 11J. (Cubalex)

14ymedio, Havana, 21 March 2022 — Brandon David Becerra Curbelo, a July 11 [11J] protester sentenced to 13 years in prison, spent three days in a punishment cell at the West Youth Prison in Havana, where he is being held. According to Cubalex the reason was for singing The Fools’ Fair, by Carlos Varela [see below for video with English subtitles].

“Godfather, from this darkness in which they think I am, I have a lot of clarity,” wrote the 18-year-old – who was not yet that age when he was arrested – in a letter to his godfather, identified on social networks as Miki Gómez. In the letter he emphasizes: “Do you know why? Because I am free. FREE, FREE. My mind is free, I am free.”

Becerra Curbelo, originally from Santos Suárez, Havana, insists that “the prisoners are them, of their forced and obligatory slavery” and concludes the letter wishing for a “free Cuba” and with the motto “Patria y Vida” [Homeland and Life].

Becerra Curbelo is one of the 17 defendants who, the Cubalex organization confirmed, received higher sentences than those requested by the Prosecutor’s Office in the 11J trials, some of them disproportionate, such as the 30 years received by Dayron Martín Rodríguez, Wilmer Moreno Suárez and Miguel Paez Estiven. continue reading

The 128 sentences published last Wednesday add up to almost 2,000 years in prison, and show the fury of the regime, in particular, with the protesters who were in two of the most symbolic points of the protests that day: in Toyo, where the protestors managed to overturn a police patrol car, and in La Güinera, where the police killed Diubis Laurencio Tejeda, shooting him in the back.

La Feria de los Tontos / The Fools’ Fair [with English subtitles]

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Cuban Prosecutors and Judges, Willing to ‘Trade their Robes for Rifles to Defend Revolutionary Justice’

Officials of Cuban Tribunals confirm feeling threatened by the sharing of their faces on social media. (Capture)

14ymedio, Madrid, 21 March 2022 — Cuban judges confirm feeling threatened for their work on the cases against the July 11 (11J) protesters and assure that they are willing to “trade the robe and dais, if necessary, for a rifle and trench.” The Union of Cuban Jurists (UNJC) held an assembly on Sunday in Havana during which they supported the declaration of its capital branch in which they state that they are victims of “slander and smear campaigns, after presiding over the judicial proceedings associated with the events last July.”

The president of the organization’s Provincial Board of Directors in Havana, Osmín Álvarez Bencomo, maintained that some are discrediting the work of attorneys and prosecutors who, “closely adhered to due process” by taking on these “extremely serious” cases associated with the “collective and violent uprising of a group of people against authorities and the public order with the goal of toppling it.”

According to the Havana jurists’ declaration, as soon as the sentences were made public, some have attempted to discredit the behavior of the judges and prosecutors, most of whom are young. “We categorically reject and will confront any attempt at media manipulation, and we warn that, all those who attempt to subvert justice — administered in the name of the Cuban people — through threats, discrediting or simply making information available, will bear the full weight of the law,” says the text.

Last Friday, the president of the People’s Supreme Court of Cuba, Rubén Remigio Ferro, warned that some people were distributing photos and the full names of the judges and prosecutors who presided over the cases and shared screenshots of these remarks from a tweet. “What moral sampling do they have, who from anonymity or from afar, dare to threaten Cuban judges? What do they intend? Who acts like this, are they even decent and good people? They are mistaken!” he writes. continue reading

Some activists who have shared the photos of officials claim they do not hide under any anonymity. “Here, we don’t hide to demand justice. We publicly accuse those judges and prosecutors of the crime of prevarication because the sentences came ’from above’ and the trials were a farce. We seek penalties,” responded activist Salomé García Bacallao.

The declaration published yesterday echoes these facts and offers support to their colleagues. “To our prosecutors and judges, we say, faced with these threats, Havana’s National Union of Jurists will accompany you permanently during this historic confrontation, which from the Law you are the first line of defense of the homeland. Long live our invincible and eternal Senior Jurist, Commander-in-Chief, Fidel Castro Ruz!” says the text.

Luis Antonio Torres Iríbar, First Secretary of the Party in Havana, confirmed that a campaign has been unleashed against these workers, though the target is not them, but rather, “to destroy the Revolution’s judicial system.”

“There will not be hatred, there will only be justice. We support and endorse the declaration of the Cuban jurists. Revolutionary justice is the guarantor of the Revolution,” claimed the official.

Also present was Ludmila Collazo Rodríguez, Vice President of the People’s Provincial Tribunal of Havana, who, in addition, bemoaned the apparent campaign against the judges and reiterated the close adherence to the law maintained by the jurists, such as, “the principle of popular participation that governs the administration of justice under the principles of impartiality, transparency and an eminently humanistic character.”

She also reiterated that defense attorneys praised the compliance with due process and that the sentences were not yet firm and could be appealed. “Being a prosecutor is a pride and a very difficult task, because responsibility, justice and human sensibility must be treated equally,” declared one prosecutor to the state news outlet Cubadebate, to which she added: “Their questioning of us is not fair. We do our job adhering to justice on behalf of the people to which we belong.”

Last week, the Provincial Tribunal of Havana published six sentences handed down to the July 11th protesters at the corner of Toyo and La Güinera. In these, 128 people were sentenced to a total of 1,916 years in prison, after being convicted of sedition, one of the most serious crimes within the Cuban Criminal Code. Furthermore, those Havana-based judges proved themselves particularly harsh, especially in two of the six proceedings, which included many cases where the penalties exceeded the prosecutors request, which is not very common.

In response to the tribunal’s “cruelty”, dozens of people, family members of the 11J prisoners, announced on Monday the creation of the Association of Mothers and Family Members for Amnesty (AMFA) protected by the right to free association recognized in the Constitution of 2019. “There is nothing more legal and legitimate than the shared defense of those whom we conceived, loved and raised,” says the statement.

The association announced that its objectives are the release of all 11J prisoners, which they consider political, with special emphasis on minors. In addition, they aim to promote amnesty for their family members, promote peaceful activities which will sensitize the population to the situation and seek support among international organizations in solidarity with their cause. They also announced their intent to participate in workshops or activities on legal and constitutional issues and promote assistance among affected families.

“We were not formed as a political organization, but rather a civic association respectful of the law. Despite the harshness and cruelty against our children and family members, we hold out hope that the government will reconsider and revert to respect of a Constitution, conceived and approved under its authority,” they state.

The announcement was made a few days after news broke that J11 protester, Rowland Jesús Castillo Castro’s mother, Yudinela Castro Pérez, was admitted to a Havana hospital following a suicide attempt. Castro, who is out of danger, has become, among the mothers, one of the most active in the fight for her son’s cause, to which authorities have responded by arresting and repressing her.

The arrests linked to protesting the arrests and sentences of the July 11 protesters apply to any citizen. Berta Soler and Ángel Moya were arrested on Sunday, and it is already the ninth consecutive Sunday since they announced in January that they’d resume their outings (suspended during the pandemic) to demand the release of political prisoners, now centered on those detained for 11J.

Moya himself detailed the arrest that occurred at 10:50 am and was released at 11:35 pm with two fines of 10 and 30 pesos, one for not carrying his documents and another for damages, for writing “patria y vida” on the cell wall.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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How to Overthrow the Cuban Regime from a Havana Barbershop

Facade of a private barbershop in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 20 March 2022 — Regardless of the more than a thousand political prisoners, the surveillance of any place where a riot could take place – the latest one, the Embassy of Panama – the harassment of any discordant voice, the discrediting of activists and opponents in the official media, small corners of freedom of expression are proliferating more and more in Cuba.

They do not shout in the streets, as in the unexpected demonstrations of July 11^th, silenced with repression, threats and trials with disproportionate sentences; nor do they confront the authorities directly. But an insinuation on a bus, in a taxi or in the chicken line is enough for Cubans to launch their opinions, in many cases against the government, without any type of censorship.

The next scene took place in a barbershop in a Havana neighborhood. The names are pseudonyms, but the conversation happened, word for word. It is a sign that ordinary Cubans not only feed on information outside the state press and television, on social networks and independent media, but that they are no longer silent.

Roberto: Do you remember when Marrero said that the repair and construction of hotels were for the good of our people? Later, they recorded a telephone call that his sister was on, they posted it on social networks, detailing everything she had for sale: aluminum marquetry, windows and several other things in MLC (freely convertible currency). continue reading

The other day he was reading that he reduced the tobacco quota for all tobacco growers, and I asked myself, what does Murillo know about tobacco? Just smoking it and nothing else

Yuri: And there it is, nothing happened to him. Look at Murillo, they took him out of a volcano and put him in Tabacuba. He will become a millionaire now. The other day I was reading that he reduced the tobacco quota for all tobacco growers, and I wonder, what does Murillo know about tobacco? Just smoking it and nothing else.

Ernesto: We have what we deserve, neither more nor less. We are like this because it is what we want. Look at Ukraine, they are fighting with a power and the whole town is out on the streets, the ordinary people fighting, mixed in with the tanks so as not to let them pass, and they send us a bunch of wormy policemen who are but a quarter of a man and we go silent. We are very damaged as citizens.

José: It is that our ideological politics of so many years has paralyzed us. Since you are a child at school, they are indoctrinating you to be like Che. Fidel was a genius of evil: what of the CDR, the surveillance, the snitching among neighbors… All of this has penetrated very deeply into the Cuban subconscious.

Alexander: The Ukrainians have already tasted freedom. Cubans do not know what that is. Here, the only Cubans who know a little about freedom are those who came out on July 11^th and let off steam.

Damien: The Ukrainians are anti-Russian because the Soviets did a lot of damage to them. Too much oppression time, that’s why they don’t want to have anything to do with Russia. The same thing is going to happen here, too much accumulated resentment and hatred. When this system fails you will see how much anti-communism, reckoning and revenge we will manifest.

Fidel was a genius for evil: what of the CDR, the surveillance, the ‘snitching’ among neighbors

José: Speaking among ourselves, who understand each other, don’t you think that these guys here shit their pants on July 11^th? Everyone saw that. They were left not knowing what to do, but then the hand-picked one [Díaz-Canel] said that they had to hit the people with all they got and gave the combat order.

Yuri: The problem is that we behaved well, despite all the lies that are told on television. The protests were too peaceful. If they had been violent, as they say, there would no longer be a dictatorship in Cuba. I was there, I saw it with my own eyes: people shouted “freedom,” “down with communism”. The violent ones were the ones [police/security forces] who hit the people with crushing blows.

José: They never saw it coming, never. It was all of Cuba, a chain reaction, city by city, town by town, started to rise. Oh, and without organization, it was something spontaneous.

Yuri: I say that it will happen again. When the people get tough, they are not going to be able to stop them, when a whole people squares off there is nothing they can do, they cannot put everyone in prison, nor do they have the space.

José: They were born again, that day they were born again.

The problem is that we behaved well, despite all the lies that are told on television

Roberto: Did you see people in a town in the interior on December 31^st, how they shouted “Díaz-Canel singao” [motherfucker] at a party, a ton of people shouting loudly, listening to and singing Patria y Vida [Homeland and Life]?

José: And in the Las Tunas game, in the stadium, they insulted the Police, to their faces: “cocksuckers Police, cocksuckers Police.” I saw it on Facebook.

Yuri: I keep saying that if everyone stands up, they’ll have to go. They are at a disadvantage. Even the Communist Party is a minority in this country. They have no chance against a million people in the streets, sitting on the ground, doing that is all that there is to do. Nothing else.

Alexander: If they could put everyone in prison, all of us who went to the protests would be in prison. Yomil would have been in prison, since he was there too. They charged those who stood out the most, those in whom they saw leadership potential, those who shouted the most and went into the fire.

Damián: They say that young people don’t want the PCC [Cuban Communist Party] card, I saw it on 14ymedio. Nobody is for that, who is going to want to get entangled to eat fire while the Party bosses are becoming millionaires. They are a gang of thieves and hypocrites.

Take advantage, because what we’re doing, now in April will be a crime, in the new Penal Code

Roberto: The problem is that we have not become aware that we are the ones in charge here, and not them. The day we realize that, they will be finished. When the people want, the people want, and when the people don’t want, the people don’t want. What happens is that we Cubans don’t know about that, the people of Ukraine know that, they took a dictator out, on the streets, camping in the streets.

Gilberto: Take advantage, because what we’re doing, now in April will be a crime, in the new Penal Code. If a repressor sits here and gets all over your face, you go there.

Roberto: Well, I want to see that, compadre, they will have to build many prisons for that.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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Cuba’s Potato Harvest Will Fall to Record Lows This Year

Lines of Cubans to buy potatoes in Trillo Park. (14ymedio)

14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 18 March 2022 — The long lines to buy potatoes will continue to be the scene in Cuban neighborhoods, after the Ministry of Agriculture recognized this Thursday that the national production of the tuber will not cover the internal demand in 2022 and, in the best of cases, it will be at last year’s levels.

Potato consumption in Cuba in 2019 was 151,668 tons, of which 35,272 were imported from the Netherlands and Canada; 2019 is the last year for which international statistics are available since there are no national data.

This bad news comes while deliveries are being made, this week, allowing 4 pounds per person at 5 pesos a pound in various neighborhoods of Havana.

As explained by specialist Enel Espinosa to the Cuban News Agency (ACN), the estimated harvest for this year is 116,396 tons, which falls “far short from national demand.”

Of the area dedicated to this crop, 56% was planted “outside the ideal calendar,” mainly due to lack of inputs,” which will make it difficult to meet the objectives. continue reading

According to data from the National Statistics and Information Office (Onei), this objective is similar to the harvest obtained in 2020 (115,385 tons), the last year for which there is a record, and which was the worst year since 2017. If the official projection is achieved, it would be the fourth worst result of the potato harvest since 2000.

Espinosa also acknowledges that the tuber harvest will be far from the maximum recorded by Cuban agriculture at the end of the last century and in the first decade of the current one, when it exceeded 300,000 tons, more than double the current forecast.

In 1996, Cuba was even a net exporter of potatoes, reaching a production record of 348,000 tons. In 2010 the sale was released from the rationing system, but in 2015 the harvest collapsed (123,000 tons) and the Government had to import to cover the demand, which led to rationing potatoes as of 2017.

The information is becoming known at an adverse moment for the Cuban countryside, after negative data on its main crops, such as sugar, tobacco and coffee, which became known in recent months.

The country, which imports between 60% and 70% of the food it needs, is also going through a serious economic crisis, due to the pandemic, US economic sanctions and errors in national macroeconomic management.

The crisis is marked by the scarcity of basic goods, the partial dollarization of the economy and a sharp rise in prices.

Since the pandemic began, the situation has worsened even more and the lines to buy potatoes are several hours long, generating riots and disputes among people to get the pounds of potatoes that the Cuban State allows them to acquire, according to rationing, and only once since the year began.

The lines that must form to buy the tuber cover entire blocks and this year, the Cuban State has only announced the sale of the product one time.

In February, the Government doubled the price of potatoes due to the rise in the price of agricultural products and the increase in labor costs per employee. One pound of the tuber went from three to five pesos, and six in the case of refrigerated potatoes.

A resolution published on those dates in the Official Gazette established the new price for the collection and retail sale of potatoes harvested with national seed at 9,196.2 centavos per ton, equivalent to 423 pesos per quintal (100 pounds). The potato harvested with imported seed stands at 7,152.46 pesos per ton, or 329 pesos per quintal (100 pounds).

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Cuban Journalist and Activist Esteban Rodriguez Arrives in the United States

Esteban Rodríguez is already in the US (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana 17 March 2022 — Esteban Rodríguez, the Cuban independent journalist who left the island at the beginning of the year along with his colleague Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho, has arrived in the United States.

The reporter and activist posted an image on his Facebook profile accompanied by the text: “Family, in the land of Liberty. Thanks to everyone who made it possible. A thousand blessings.”

On the same page he indicates that he resides in Wayne, Michigan.

Esteban Rodríguez was imprisoned in Cuba for eight months. The journalist was one of the demonstrators on Obispo Street, in Havana, who on April 30, 2021 tried to approach the house of artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and were arrested for this.

At the beginning of January, the Government released him on the condition of his exile and, together with his colleague Valdés Cocho, he began a trip to Nicaragua that was frustrated when, according to their report, they were prevented from entering that country and were stranded at the El Salvador airport. continue reading

After a mobilization of activists and diplomats, both managed to get El Salvador to admit them into the country until their immigration situation was resolved. However, the two journalists abandoned the refugee process and chose to leave the country, thereafter acquiring an illegal immigration status.

Subsequently, they continued their journey north and on January 18, they were detained in Mexico City and taken to the Las Agujas immigration station.

Rodríguez remained several days in that center of the Mexican capital “by court order, derived from an amparo process that he filed, but when he desisted and requested refuge before the Mexican Commission of Support to Refugees (COMAR), a humanitarian visa was issued to him to continue the corresponding procedure in this entity.”

Valdés Cocho obtained “an exit document in Mexico City” so that he could complete, in the state of Chiapas, the refugee process that he requested.

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The Cuban State Only Completed 42 Percent of the Homes Planned for 2021

The construction sector is experiencing serious difficulties in Cuba. (Collage)

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 20 March 2022 — The Cuban Ministry of Construction (Micons) only completed 42% of the houses it planned to build in 2021 and 41% of the planned repairs.

According to the ministry’s annual report, presented this Saturday by official media, last year 18,645 homes were completed from the state plans, of the nearly 44,400 planned, and 14,245 were repaired, when the plan pointed to some 34,745.

The Prime Minister of Cuba, Manuel Marrero Cruz, who participated in the presentation of the report, spoke of the “dissatisfaction” of many families due to these breaches, including single mothers with three or more children, according to the Cuban News Agency (ACN).

Marrero also insisted on giving the “top priority” to the housing program and urged the Micons not to offer justifications and to get involved so that the programs are fulfilled.

The Micons plan for this year provides for the construction of 37,991 homes and the rehabilitation of 14,697. The State is the main constructor in Cuba. continue reading

The construction sector is experiencing serious difficulties in Cuba, with the lack of inputs such as steel and cement being one of the main obstacles.

Last January, it was reported that the housing built by private individuals exceeded what was agreed in the 2021 plan in Sancti Spíritus, while the State fulfilled just over half of what was agreed.

The provincial director of Housing, Néstor Borroto, told the local newspaper Escambray that the new work was saved thanks to the push of his own efforts and, although he does not give figures on how much expectations are exceeded, the amount is estimated to be high.

For February 2021, the plan for the year, added 1,441 new properties to the precarious Sancti Spiritus housing fund. Of these, 993 were be by private initiative, including 452 basic housing units (CBH) – about 25 square meters (270 square feet). The remaining 448 would be carried out through state channels.

Borroto now counts 55%, some 246, of the state homes as delivered and 56% of the state CBHs carried out (253 units). “Not so the own effort, which exceeded the agreed figure,” he indicated without saying by how much.

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Few Customers at Havana’s Coppelia Ice Cream Parlor After Prices Go Up

A line of people on Saturday waiting outside Coppelia, the iconic ice cream parlor at L Street and 23rd Avenue in Havana.

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, March 19, 2022 — Employees at Havana’s popular Coppelia ice cream parlor reported seeing fewer customers just days before a price increase is scheduled to effect on Tuesday. Although it is common to see dozens of people waiting outside early in the morning to avoid the customary long lines, on Saturday there were fewer than fifteen people at each of the building’s entrances just before 10 AM, when the business opens.

City officials announced on Thursday that a scoop of Coppelia ice cream would soon cost 9 pesos while the lower-quality Varadero version would go for 7. The excuse the Internal Trade Business Group gave this time was that an increase in the price of raw milk has impacted the cost of industrial milk production, raising the retail price of dairy products such as ice cream.”

A mother who had taken her two children to Coppelia on Saturday breathed a sigh of relief when she arrived because she had been expecting to pay more. “If you want to get two ’ice cream salads’ [multiple scoops] here, it helps to know someone on the inside,” she observed ironically, referring to the ice cream parlor’s reputation for corruption.

The local government claims that “the quality of ice cream Coppelia offers” combined with “the quality of service” promises to provide customers with “a unique and excellent product.”

“All Coppelia’s employees want to do is steal. Selling ’under the table’ (on the black market). That’s all that interests them,” claims one Havana resident who is a frequent customer. “Waiting on customers is just a collateral obligation, a necessary evil. You realize that whenever you ask them a question or demand service and they give you a very rude response. That’s just one of many examples.” continue reading

When currency unification took effect in January of 2021, the price of a scoop of ice cream at Coppelia shot up from 1.5 pesos to 7 pesos. Its traditional ice cream ensalada [salad], which includes five scoops, rose to 35 pesos, the four-scoop Super Twins to 28 and the Tres Gracias to 21.

After hundreds of complaints in person and on social media, officials lowered the price to 5 pesos though it remained at 7 pesos for a 90-gram scoop at the site’s Four Jewels salon, where table service is provided.

An “ordinary” line at Havana’s Coppelia ice cream parlor in pre-pandemic, pre-price increase days. (14ymedio)

Given the symbolic importance of Coppelia, which once offered more than a dozen flavors and was immortalized in films such as Strawberry and Chocolate, the price increases brought on by currency unification led to an avalanche of complaints, memes on social media and outraged reactions from customers.

The enormous ice cream parlor, centrally located at the corner of L Street and 23rd Avenue, is a Havana icon where long lines are ever-present. It is especially popular with students and people with low incomes, who cannot afford to pay 20 to 25 pesos for a scoop at a privately owned ice cream shop.

The open-air seating areas, the courtyard and the glamorous upper floor have for decades been the sites of weekend outings for families with children. It has also been a popular gathering place for students at the University of Havana, located just a few yards away.

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David Beckham, Qatar and the Cuban Doctors

Island officials and local authorities in a hospital in Qatar where Cuban health workers work. (Cuban Ministry of Public Health)

14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami, 20 March 2022 –David Beckham is a great English soccer player. He is 46 years old. He started playing professionally at a very young age for Manchester. He retired at 38. He was in the Real Madrid team and there he learned to speak some Spanish. It was then when I knew his name. He is half businessman and half Jewish, although he was not raised Jewish. (His maternal grandfather was Jewish). He has just signed a juicy contract for public relations with Qatar for 277 million dollars. The deal includes promoting the 2022 World Championship, but it will be for a decade. The championship will be played in Doha, the capital of Qatar, at the end of this year.

When UK-based human rights activist Peter Tatchell (he was actually born and raised in Australia, where he was a Labor Party candidate for MP), found out, he lamented that Beckham, just for money, lent his name and well gained prestige to mortify LGBTQ people, linking himself to a government that has in its criminal code penalties of up to five years in prison against two adults of the same sex who consent to have sexual relations.

However, Beckham has a much more serious problem with the State Department. Especially, when we have seen the enormous importance that today is given locally, nationally and internationally to sanctions for repeated violations of the law. In this case, it is a serious crime that the United States and other civilized nations take very seriously – “Human trafficking,” as it is shown in Conchita Sarnoff’s book Trafficking, focused on the Jeffrey Epstein case.

This includes child prostitution, importation of illegal immigrants, and the hiring of people under a semi-slavery regime. With the aggravating circumstance that the first two crimes are promoted and committed by lone criminals (for example, human traffickers known as coyotes), or mafias that fight ruthlessly and fiercely to establish a territory, while the third crime is carried out by necktie-wearing executives in governments interested in doing themselves ideological favors, or by simple and brutal corruption, or by a sum of the two elements, defying the agreements signed within the International Labor Organization.

They call it “The Cuban Hospital of Qatar” and there is not the slightest exaggeration in that name. The 475 doctors, nurses and technicians who operate the institution are Cuban. Why are they all Cuban? Perhaps to watch them better? Or so that there is no “foreign” witness to their violation of the laws? The first breach of the rules is that everyone has had to hand over their passports to the “comrade in charge of Security.” That is totally prohibited. There he is known as “Manolo el de la Seguridad” (Manolo from Security.) It is a false name. It could be “Felipe, Carlos or Agustín.”

I read parts of an extensive article from The Guardian, a UK newspaper known for its leftist position. The headline says, “Cuba’s secret agreement with Qatar that allows Cuba to keep 90% of the salaries that Cubans receive.” That is “trafficking” in my dictionary. That is to sustain a regime continue reading

incapable of sustaining itself, a regime that survives exporting and exploiting its professionals.

The same newspaper affirms that it is a great deal for Cuba, which receives between 6 and 8 billion dollars annually from this business, much more than it receives from tourism. Cuba does not have to import sugar (yes: sugar) from the neighboring Dominican Republic. It does not need supplies or to treat foreigners like royalty. It is perfect for supporting dictatorships. To the extent that North Korea also has a place reserved for medical tourism in Qatar. And it is known that Belarus tyrant Alexander Lukaschenko also wants to participate in the health “business.”

In Cuba, during the times of slavery, “decent” people took the youngest and most beautiful black women (some of them minors) to brothels to exploit them. They put a price on them and the income that the girls produced was divided 50/50 between the brothel and the owners of the black girls.

Some “owners,” such as the mythical Julián Zulueta (“I have become rich buying whites in Spain and selling blacks in Cuba,” he said), owner of 2,000 slaves, a believer in labor incentives, reserved 5% or 10% so that the prostitutes could buy their freedom from them.

This leaves the evaluation of the operation “The Cuban hospital in Qatar” exactly in the same position as before 1886 (the year in which slavery was finally abolished). Some doctors, paramedics and technicians think that 10% is much more than what they earned in Cuba, just like many 19^th Century prostitutes believed that it was better to be in the brothel than in the houses and in the sugar fields, exposed to the beatings, and with no hope of ever being free. It is a variation of the “Stockholm syndrome.”

The place where the transaction takes place has changed, but not its essence. The Cuban government knows that what it is doing is very wrong. It must change its ways. It cannot continue to exploit Cuban professionals with the blind complicity of countries like Qatar. I hope that David Beckham explains to them promptly what is happening at the Cuban Hospital, and that they begin to pay these professionals directly and not through the Cuban government.

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Anamely Ramos Stands with Photos of ‘Osorbo’ and Otero in Front of the Cuban Embassy in Washington

Art curator Anamely Ramos continues her protests in front of the Cuban embassy in Washington. (Facebook / Anamely Ramos)

14ymedio, Havana, 13 March 2022 — “Enough of allowing a dictatorship to set the rules,” said art curator Anamely Ramos, who announced last Friday that she was camping out in front of the Cuban embassy in Washington. “It is my right to return to Cuba. My home is there.”

Ramos, who was prevented by the Cuban regime from returning to Havana, has been posting images of political prisoners Maykel Osorbo Castillo and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara since last Thursday in front of the Cuban diplomatic headquarters. That day, she shared photos and posted messages on her Facebook account: “Carry your shame!”

In addition, she announced her departure from the San Isidro Movement a few days ago and recited the beginning of the poem Dos Patrias by José Martí by pointing out: I have two motherlands: “Cuba and the night. Or are the two one?”

On Friday she reinforced her protest on her social networks, just hours after posting a message informing that the rapper’s lawyer “received notification that the trial process would begin.” The imprisoned man has been waiting for his trial since he was arrested last May 18^th, accused of “attack,” “public disorder” and “evasion of prisoners or detainees” for some events that occurred on April 4^th. continue reading

“Enough already of allowing a dictatorship to set the rules,” said art curator Anamely Ramos

The art curator announced that the police prevented her from “placing the photos of the prisoners on the fence” of the Cuban embassy and she then decided to “wallpaper” a campaign tent where she spends the night. “The lives of those inside Cuba depend on how much we can push. We can do it less dangerously”.

In her message, she stated that “the intention of the dictatorship is to isolate them alone inside. We cannot leave them.”

In a previous message, Ramos recalled that “the UN has already ruled that Maykel must be released,” but the regime decided to put him on trial. “It does so even as Maykel’s health worsens and we remain without an accurate diagnosis.”

About the conditions in which they keep the rapper, Ramos reiterated that “the cruelty of the dictatorship has no limits. She stressed: “Cuba will put on trial a person who is sick, who is innocent and that the UN itself demanded that he be released.”

Translated by Norma Whiting

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