14ymedio

The Trade of Nostalgia

Stories like this, sudden and bloody, of nostalgia and affection for what was lost. People who talk about what they didn’t have and what they wanted. (DC)

- With this text, the author, originally from Villa Clara, inaugurates his collaboration with ’14ymedio’. He requested asylum in Spain after giving up the Italo Calvino Award for El fin del juego (The End of the Game).

14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 27 February 2022 — I have him in front of me, calm and austere, in a café in Madrid. He is a hard-boned guy with an old jacket and a broken nose, as a reminder of an old fight. Your country is not easy – he tells me – I tried to stow away there several times, to find out. To understand. Once I arrived along the coast — he pauses and sips his tea — with a new passport and on a boat.

Those were the hard years, and to see myself with so and so should be in a hotel, publicly. I had been a war correspondent and had a nose for who was watching me. After interviewing one of those characters, an exceptional and dangerous man, a waiter recognized me and I stormed out of there. The car was going full throttle and behind it the police, howling like in the movies. Traffic lights magically turned green.

I eluded them, but a few days later they managed to grab me alive and gave me a most educational beating. In a briefcase was my camera and other equipment. They took everything, including the deferred seaman’s passport.

I arrived at my embassy with a blood-stained shirt and a boxer’s face. They gave me a piece of paper with which I could file the complaint. The station secretary, a skinny and skittish girl, was waiting for her boss’s look to type the statement. What would those chimpanzees, with their rudiments of Havana karate, imagine I was carrying the cassettes of my report hidden under the seat of the car?

You were already an old dog, I tell him. An old dog — he repeats, smiling — just the same. continue reading

In the end I found her again – he adds, as he wraps the scarf around his neck. Who? The secretary of the station, who managed to leave the country and escape from her husband, a guy with airs and contacts who wouldn’t let her leave. But she made it, you see: the world is a handkerchief. She detailed her life to me, as I have now done with you.

If I had to count all the shipwreck stories I’ve ever heard.

Stories like this, sudden and bloody, of nostalgia and affection for what was lost. People who talk about what they didn’t have and what they wanted. People who, like me, have nothing but words and that is what they take everywhere. Words, laughter and cigar smoke – which is what I feel like now, to accompany the conversation of a friend, who says goodbye and hugs me.

I will have to tell this sometime, I say. And that’s what I’m doing here and now. Everything new is timid and, to some extent, crooked. However, I want to make this commitment to writing, calibrate it, measure the limits of my voice. I think of all those who preceded me in the Shipwrecks that give this column its name, coming from the sea and marked by calamity.

The island bites them but also gives them a reason for writing. It offers them small consolations: cigars, books, friendship, the rituals of good eating, the enigma of the Creole phrase, a whole literature and a destiny. In short, it offers them nostalgia as a trade and words as anesthesia.

I am going to talk about all this, if you allow me to place here the only valuable thing I have: my memory and the memory of others, which I have accessed through voice and books. Shipwrecks of existence that end up on paper, mediated by tobacco and rum that warms the soul, as in Conrad’s novels.

Here we will see each other – I hope – from time to time, in this room that I would like to imagine as an antique shop or a cafe. Two armchairs to talk, an ashtray to flick the words into and soft music, if possible a bolero. This being the case – with a good wind and better fortune – this shipwreck will not be so bitter.

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Axel Inaugurates First LGBTQ+ Hotel in Havana

The chain will open its hotel in the Telegraph building founded in 1860. (EFE)

14ymedio, Madrid, 1 March 2022 — Axel Hotels is opening its first LGBTQ+ hotel in Cuba this Tuesday, the Telégrafo Axel Hotel La Habana, as confirmed by the company. Its inauguration was initially scheduled for the end of 2020, but the pandemic has been delaying the operation.

In mid-2021, the possibility of opening the establishment was mentioned again, but the most serious wave of covid-19 arrived at that time to complicate things until now.

The Telégrafo Axel Hotel La Habana has 63 rooms and, as of today, its doors are already open to anyone who wants to stay or visit it. The establishment is located next to Cuba’s National Capitol, the National Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of the Revolution.

In addition, it has a restaurant and a lounge bar, both with a broad gastronomic concept with different options, along with a rooftop deck with a pool and a menu of snacks and drinks. It also has a wellness area with different fitness activities and saunas.

The founder of Axel Hotels, Juan P. Juliá, has affirmed that this new hotel represents a great advance within the city, as it is the first gay hotel in Havana, although it is not the pioneer on the island. continue reading

In 2019, Cuba opened its first LGBTI-friendly hotel, specially designed to meet the leisure expectations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people, in Cayo Guillermo. In this tourist area of sun and beaches is the Hotel Gran Muthu Rainbow Cayo Guillermo, a category 5 also belonging to the Cuban company Gaviota, operated by the chain of Asian capital MGM Muthu Hotels.

Juliá foresees that Cuba will continue to be one of the tourist destinations par excellence during this recovery, which means “a great moment for the opening.”

Her opinion coincides with one of the forecasts included in the accounts of Meliá Hotels International, presented this Monday in Spain, in which a significant growth in activity in Cuba is managed compared to the first quarter of 2021.

The Majorcan hotel company closed 2021 with losses of 192.9 million euros, after a reduction of 67.6% compared to 2020, due to restrictions on mobility derived from a pandemic that is beginning to give signs of letting the tourism sector, one of the most affected, breathe.

Its CEO, Gabriel Escarrer Jaume, pointed out that the results show “a clear trend towards the recovery of the sector,” with a very significant increase in the company’s income “quarter over quarter” despite the impact of the omicron variant in December and first days of 2022.

In 2021, the operating income and capital gains of what is considered Spain’s largest hotel company grew by 70.8% compared to 2020, standing at 902.4 million euros compared to 528.4 the previous year, while operating expenses decreased by 13.6%, to the sum of 771.6 million compared to 2020.

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Cuba’s Foreign Minister Defends Putin’s Press While Censoring ’14ymedio’

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez during the press conference for foreign media after the July 11th (11J) demonstrations, in Havana. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 3 March 2022 — If Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez had any shame left, he would submit his resignation. A few days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the foreign minister claimed that the warnings about a possible conflict were only part of “propaganda hysteria” in the West. Now, he comes out in defense of several Russian media outlets whose transmissions have been cut in numerous countries and he does so in the name of freedom of the press, the same thing that is persecuted on this Island.

For less than that, a resignation would be knocking on the doors of a public official anywhere in the world, but Rodríguez does not occupy his position because of his talent, charisma or decency, but because of the docility and agility with which he repeats the script that others write for him. In this case, he has had to play the role of champion of information and the rights of citizens to have several news sources, and he assumes it on behalf of Sputnik, Russia Today and other Kremlin propaganda media, determined to narrate the war as a “special military operation” to save the Ukrainians.

In the space where hoaxes and manipulation flourish, the Cuban minister sees journalists who must be saved from censorship and denounces that “big technology companies have decided to restrict access” to the toxic news grid broadcast by these channels controlled by the Kremlin. To add to the absurdity, Rodríguez uses the social network Twitter, one of those giant companies he abhors, to launch his cynical backing at the disinformation campaigns promoted by Vladimir Putin.

If the foreign minister’s crusade were sincere, it would have to include the same demand by all the independent media censored on Cuban servers, such as 14ymedio and many others; an exhortation for the immediate release of Yoan de la Cruz, who broadcast the first protests in San Antonio de los Baños on July 11^th (11J) through Facebook with his mobile phone, and an energetic demand for the Cuban authorities to eliminate the prohibition on traveling outside the country* that weighs on so many reporters. continue reading

If these declarations by Rodríguez were not “pure theater,” as the popular song says, the minister would be in front of the International Press Center right now raising his voice so that the blackmail and pressure against foreign correspondents based on the island would cease. They would also be notably present in the Ministry of Justice, provincial courts, and police stations every time a citizen was questioned by State Security, fined, or had their technological devices confiscated for spreading news that the regime did not like.

Not to mention the activism that the face of Cuban diplomacy could display to promote legislation that allows and safeguards the existence of media outlets that are not subordinate to the Communist Party of Cuba; to promote their essential participation in campaigns that protect the journalistic union from abuses and repressions; and the fiery diatribe that he would pronounce in front of the microphones demanding the right for the audience to be able to choose which newspaper to read, which channel to tune in to or which radio program to listen to.

Bruno Rodríguez should do all this and more to bring his compatriots closer to the freedom of the press that he demands so much for others. But his tantrums, we already know, are designed for an outdoor setting, where he plays the character of the democratic chancellor who can’t sleep every time a journalist is silenced. His statements are not written to reach our ears, but to ingratiate himself with Putin and to annoy Europe and the United States.

He doesn’t even care about us. In his eyes we do not deserve access to another speech that is not his… the one that someone writes behind the curtain.

*Translator’s note: The term the Cuban government uses to describe those they have forbidden to travel is “regulated”.

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Félix Navarro, Former Prisoner of the Black Spring, Sentenced to 9 years in Prison for 11 July Protests

Sayli Navarro and her father were arrested on July 12, one day after participating in the July 11th (11J) demonstration in Perico, Matanzas. (Collage)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 2 March 2022 — The opponent Félix Navarro and his daughter, the Lady in White Sayli Navarro Álvarez, received this Wednesday the sentence that resulted from the trial held against both last January. Dissident Manuel Cuesta Morúa has detailed to 14ymedio that father and daughter were sentenced to 9 and 8 years in prison, respectively.

Cuesta Morúa expressed his support to both in on social networks, and reported that the defense has initiated an appeal process.

The opponent also detailed that the prosecution asked for 15 years in prison for Félix Navarro and 11 years for his daughter, released on bail pending trial, and in both cases they are charged with the crimes of public disorder, attack and contempt. “We hope that in some way the appeal will at least lower the sentences because in the end they did nothing, in fact they were objects of violence by the political police,” said the dissident, a member, like Navarro, of the Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba.

Félix Navarro, 68, was one of the political prisoners of the Black Spring of 2003, when 75 opponents and independent journalists received long prison sentences. In 2011, as a result of several negotiations between the governments of Spain and Cuba and with the mediation of the Catholic Church, they were released and most went into exile, but Navarro was part of the twelve who decided to stay in Cuba. continue reading

Sayli Navarro and her father were arrested on July 12, one day after participating in the July 11th (11J) demonstration in Perico, Matanzas. The arrest occurred violently in the town’s police unit when they went to find out about the situation of other activists detained for following the peaceful protest in San Antonio de los Baños and dozens of other cities throughout the island.

Last August Navarro began a hunger strike in prison that he ended at the end of September in protest at his unfair imprisonment. At that time, his daughter denounced that he was in a “very delicate” state of health and that for that reason, after 25 days, he abandoned it.

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Putin’s Havana Does Not Believe in Tears

Bombing of the Sociology department of the Karmazin University, in Kharkov. (Sreen capture/ MSahuquillo)

14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 2 March 2022 — When NATO bombed Yugoslavia in 1999, the Cuban government’s statement condemned “the monstrous crime with all energy.” The document placed special emphasis on the elderly, pregnant women and children who lived under the terror of the bombs, listening every minute for the sound of the sirens, running towards the shelters with children in their arms or helping the disabled. And yes, the drama of war is appalling. But also appalling is the hypocrisy and double standards of a cynical regime that will no longer be able to use the word anti-imperialism without sounding like Tartuffe.

Now it seems that, for the Cuban leadership, in Ukraine there are no children, no pregnant women, no elderly. The recent Havana declaration speaks this time of “Russia’s right to defend itself” and “the just claims of the Russian Federation.” For the Caribbean Putinists, the draft resolution vetoed by Russia in the UN Security Council was an unbalanced document, which did not take into account the “legitimate” concerns of all the parties involved. All the media are wrong, except Granma, TeleSur and RT!

In January, the Russian deputy foreign minister bragged about establishing military bases in Venezuela and Cuba. His Latin American lackeys preferred to shut their mouths and smile at Putin, but this threat resurrected the ghosts of the Cold War, which had already been poking their noses in the global context for a long time. We Cubans are very aware of the Missile Crisis of October 1962. Khrushchev did not trust Fidel Castro. For the Soviet leader, Cuba was just a missile carrier 90 miles from his great enemy. The old fox was kind enough to send the nuclear warheads separate from the rockets, knowing that the Cuban soldiers had no idea what such a weapon looked like.

When the reckless cigar smoker suggested in a telegram that he be the first to launch the missiles and stressed that his people were ready to disappear under the nuclear mushrooms, Nikita realized that he had completely screwed up. Khrushchev preferred to resolve the conflict with Kennedy without inviting Fidel Castro. Feeling neglected, they say that he became depressed as he clicked his heels. Maybe he started to have a phobia about the word missiles, who knows? Perhaps that is why in Cuba that event is known as the “October Crisis,” to avoid mentioning uncomfortable little words. Anyway… while the USSR withdrew its strategic weapons, in Havana they chanted: “Nikita, mariquita, lo que se da no se quita” [Nikita, sissy, you can’t take back what you give]. continue reading

In 1968 Soviet tanks entered Prague, giving a direct kick to the “human face” of socialism. In total contradiction to all his rhetoric, the bearded Cuban went on television stating that the socialist camp had every right to prevent, one way or another, Czechoslovakia from choosing the color of its spring. Twenty years later, the USSR itself recognized that this action had constituted an interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign country, but the damage had already been done. And that stain on the record of Castro’s discourse has yet to be erased by any detergent.

In recent days we have seen the president of the Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, walking around Havana with his come hither eyes. A day earlier, that legislative body postponed the repayment of Cuba’s debt, some 2.3 billion dollars in loans to the Island between 2006 and 2019. That gives us an approximate idea of how much it costs, for the Diaz-Canel team, to pass all his anti-imperialism under the Arc de Triomphe, all his talk about the sovereignty of nations, non-interference, the UN Charter and world peace. We can already imagine how the Cuban delegation will vote* on the resolution being discussed this Wednesday at the special emergency session of the United Nations General Assembly.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is illegal, illegitimate and unjustifiable. In that 1999 statement on the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, Cuba ended with exclamation points: “Stop the bombing! Stop the genocide! Stop the war!” This time they give us a document full of zigzags, with a very high dose of cynicism and too much insolence. As I write these lines, the number of Ukrainian refugees rises to 677,000, about 150 civilians have died, including more than a dozen children. But for the Havana of Diaz-Canel, (sorry, of Putin), now it is about “collateral damage.” Putin’s Havana does not believe in tears.

*Translator’s note: In fact, Cuba abstained from the vote in the United Nations General Assembly to reprimand Russia for its invasion of Ukraine; the final count was 141 countries in favor, 35 abstaining, and 5 against.

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Interrogated and Threatened for Delivering Flowers to the Ukrainian Embassy in Cuba

Iryna Bilyk, third secretary of the Ukrainian consulate in Havana, along with activist Pablo Enrique (Twitter/@Dicotomia7)

14ymedio, Havana, 27 February 2022 — Cuban Pablo Enrique was detained on Saturday by State Security for leaving flowers at the Ukrainian Embassy in Havana, in solidarity with the country facing a Russian invasion.

As confirmed to this daily, he was taken to the Seventh Police Unit of the National Revolutionary Police, where he was met by three agents. There, he received, “many threats” and a second warning letter. “They are sick with hate,” declared Enrique, who introduces himself as a Christian and a human rights activist.

“Upon my arrival, the Sepsa Guards [Specialized Protection Services, S.A.] who provide security to diplomatic headquarters did not allow me to move,” recounted Enrique himself on his Twitter account as he neared the Ukrainian diplomatic headquarters, located on Fifth Avenue, in the Miramar neighborhood of Havana.

There, he stated that diplomat Iryna Bilyk, third secretary of the Ukrainian Consulate, had to come out and escort him, “as they did not allow me to hang (neither on the fence nor to place on the floor, nor even on a tree in front of the headquarters) a small bouquet of roses I took as a show of solidarity.” The flowers, he concluded with an image, “reached their final destination, and are now within the diplomatic headquarters.”

While the Cuban Government has aligned itself with Russia and has blamed the war on the United States and NATO, civic organizations and everyday Cubans have shown their support for Ukraine.

On Thursday, a group of activists issued a public declaration in solidarity with the Ukrainian people, which can be signed by anyone who desires, to date has received 300 signatures.

Promoted by Giselle González, Claudio Gaitán, Fernando Almeyda, Leo Fernández, Saily González and Magdiel Jorge Castro, the text breaks from the regime, condemning “an imperialist war that seeks to further destabilize a country which has the right to self-determination.”

Family members of July 11th prisoners also came out in favor of Ukraine recently. Pedro López, whose daughter-in-law’s brother, Andy García Lorenzo, was sentenced to seven years in prison in Santa Clara, declared on his social media that he’d just called the Ukrainian embassy in Cuba “to show our family’s solidarity with the people of Ukraine and to make clear that the cowardly position of the Cuban Government does not represent the sentiment of our beautiful, peace-loving people.”

In his post, he also published the phone numbers of the diplomatic headquarters and asked for freedom for García Lorenzo and the rest of the political prisoners.

In charge of Ukrainian business in Cuba, Oleksandr Kalinchuk on Friday had requested that Cubans take to the street to show their support for Ukraine. “We can change the position of the Cuban Government, we can change the joint situation,” he declared on AmericaTV.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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The Official Cuban Press Regrets that Young People Do Not Want to Join the Communist Party

The PCC leaders are not exempt from criticism of corruption from Internet users. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 27 February 2022 — Girón, the official newspaper of Matanzas, has bemoaned that militant of the Young Communist League (UJC) who do not want to join the Party are “like children who refuse to eat food without even trying it.” In an article published on Facebook, the media attributes this rejection to stereotypes about the organization and not wanting to “assume responsibilities”.

The article by Girón, a newspaper currently without a website, details a phenomenon that has been going on for several decades: the galloping loss of membership of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC). The Constitution consecrates this entity as the “organized vanguard of the nation” but, since 2016, it has not published its membership data, which at that time was a little more than 670,000.

According to the Matanzas media, young people wield “lack of maturity and preparation, among other pretexts, to evade the growth process” to the PCC, and classify this as a “worrying phenomenon” given the need to “guarantee generational continuity,” which is in crisis in a country where the aging of the population is one of the most pressing issues on the national agenda.

In the article, the widespread idea that the PCC is “an organization marked by meetings and payment of dues” is branded as an “erroneous stereotype” and it calls for “achieving a creative design” to include young people, in addition to, “softening” the ways in which they communicate and socialize.” continue reading

“They are our continuity, and that is why we must attract them, convince them and make them proudly recognize themselves as members of the Communist Party”, emphasizes the article that has already caused more than a hundred comments, most of them negative and with harsh criticism of the management of the PCC, which was founded in October, 1965.

“Many of us got the card when we were 14-16 years old. When we still believed in the socialist dream of equality, opportunities for all and the welfare state. When our parents shielded us from the harsh reality”

Some, like Jorge Fuentes, point out the immaturity and ignorance with which one enters the UJC. “Many of us received the card when we were 14-16 years old. When we still believed in the socialist dream of equality, opportunities for all and the welfare state. When our parents shielded us from the harsh reality.”

The commentator warns of the process that subsequently takes place among young Cubans: “when it comes to the process of the PCC, at the age of 27, we already know what all the speeches and slogans are about.”

In April 2021, a nonagenarian Raúl Castro confirmed delivery of the leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba to his successor, Miguel Díaz-Canel, after completing the two statutory periods that he himself imposed for high-level positions. Despite the rise of younger faces, the organization is still seen as orthodox and aged.

Other Internet users who give their opinion on Girón’s article point to the desire to emigrate as a strong incentive to reject joining the ranks of the PCC. “Today, young people are thinking of emigrating to another country where they can buy things with the currency they are paid [their wages in],” says Cristian Reyes, referring to the Freely Convertible Currency stores, the few moderately stocked stores in Cuba.

Over the years, the militants of the UJC or the PCC who request a visa for the United States or, once there, when seeking to avail themselves of the migratory advantages offered by the Cuban Adjustment Law, deny belonging to both organizations in order to avoid being rejected from receiving benefits.

“Today, young people are thinking of emigrating to another country where they can buy things with the currency they are paid [their wages in]”, says Cristian Reyes, referring to the Freely Convertible Currency stores, the few moderately stocked stores in Cuba

To which is added that among the sanctions applied to Cuba during the Donald Trump Administration was the restriction on sending of remittances to Cuba, specifically prohibiting the sending of them to relatives of Cuban officials and members of the Communist Party, and limiting them to 1,000 dollars per quarter per person in all other cases.

Among Girón’s commentators, some go further and propose the creation of other parties, so that Cubans can choose which one to belong to. “If the old Family Code of 1975 needs to be changed because it no longer fits the reality of the current Cuban family, the same is happening with the Penal Code of 1987, so you can imagine the PCC,” writes Nayaris Díaz.

The leaders of the PCC are also not exempt from criticism and numerous Internet users point to corruption, the distance that separates officials from daily life and the history of Secretaries of the UJC who have fallen into trouble or have been fired as other reasons for the rejection that both organizations generate among young people.

“The essence of the Party is to put in power those people who are not elected by the people and who blatantly lie to their people,” says another commentator.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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The Dangerous Lightpost of Carlos III is Retired Thanks to the Blow of a Car

The lightpost did not have a rigid support at its base and the screws that held it in place were bent, so it was almost at the point of falling onto the public street. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 1 March 2022 — The dangerous public lightpost on Carlos III street in Havana, which 14ymedio warned about last August, was finally removed this Monday by workers from the capital’s Electric Company, although an incident had to occur for this to happen.

A vehicle hit the post, which is located in front of the Veterinary Clinic, between Ayestarán and Requena, leaving it dangerously tilted, although it had long represented a great danger for cars and pedestrians circulating in the area. The post did not have a rigid support at its base and the screws that held it in place were bent, so it was almost at the point of falling into the public street.

The most recent repair of lights in the streets of the capital was limited to a part of the Malecón from Maceo Park to Paseo del Prado. Although, according to the Office of the Historian of Havana, it was also to have included the Martí Park and those located at the entrance of the Bahía Tunnel were to be included.

Meanwhile, there are completely forgotten areas of the city, such as the Plaza municipality.

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The Conditions of Prisoners Working in Charcoal Improve as a Result of a Report by ’14ymedio’

“Before, they would come to the farm with a cart and fill it with prisoners who had to go no matter what to work on the coal. Now they are not doing it that way anymore.” (Escambray)

14ymedio, Mercedes García, Sancti Spíritus , 23 February 2022 — A report published by 14ymedio last January has led the military authorities of Sancti Spíritus to review the working conditions of dozens of prisoners who make and carry marabou charcoal. The inmates work for the state-owned Various Production Company (Provari), which does not pay them a penny, but has agreed to grant them certain “incentives.”

“It caused a tremendous fuss after the article came out and now for every ton of coal we process he gives us a day pass, before we didn’t even get that,” one of the prisoners tells this newspaper. The number of workers dedicated to this task has been drastically reduced as well. “Out of about forty of us who were almost forced to do this, now we have ten left.”

“Only those who have been in prison for more than ten years are coming and this work can influence some reduction in their sentence,” he explains. “They are no longer using the youngest for this, those whose souls were broken here on the sacks, nor those who have sentences of a few years.”

“The few who are coming are those who are in jail for murder, cattle slaughter and other crimes that carry a longer sentence,” explains the man, who is serving a sentence for being part of a gang that killed cows. “The others said that if the work was part of the re-education and they weren’t going to pay, then they couldn’t force them, and since now all eyes are on here, they have been able to stay on the farm.” continue reading

These inmates belong to the Banao 6 work farm, officially known as the Union Reeducation Center and which is located in the infrastructure of an old pre-university school that, after no longer receiving students, has rapidly deteriorated due to lack of maintenance and the vandalism.

“A few days ago they did an internal reorganization. Before, they came to the farm with a cart and filled it with prisoners who had to go to work on the charcoal, no matter what. Now they are not doing it like that anymore,” the source details. “But they still don’t pay us, we haven’t seen a penny of all this hard work yet but at least we get some encouragement from going home and being with family.”

The areas where the charcoal is processed are located in the vicinity of Banao 6 and is handled by Provari, a company of the Ministry of the Interior, whose director is Lieutenant Colonel Juan Luis Baffil Rodríguez who has been involved in previous complaints of exploiting the labor of inmates.

Last January, several testimonies compiled by this newspaper reported that, despite producing export merchandise, the inmates did not receive any salary for their hard work. The protective equipment they had was little or none and the prisoners could not refuse to do this work under penalty of reprisals or not having access to reductions in their sentences.

With the new modifications, “Provari is experiencing losses,” acknowledges an employee of the company from the Ministry of the Interior. “They have taken away a lot of our workforce and we can no longer have the same number of people because now we have to count on their will to go out to this work, and many people do not want to do it even if they are paid a lot of money.”

“We are going to use force so that we can have all those men in the marabou again, but we will have to wait because the instructions to do so came from Havana,” warns the Provari worker. “We had to sit down with the prisoners and explain to them that it was going to be voluntary and of course, right there they took hold of it and now they don’t want to work in the charcoal.”

The inmates not only carry sacks but also work in the preparation of the ovens, the sifting of charcoal and the composition of the bags. They do not have specialized masks to protect themselves, nor back braces, gloves, boots or adequate clothing. They even made the coal sifter themselves with pieces of metal and wood.

Banao 6 prisoners produce up to four containers of marabou charcoal per month, with a minimum of 18.5 tons each. The product is highly valued in the international market because it burns slowly and evenly, in addition to imbuing food with a special flavor.

In Europe, Cuban charcoal is sold for 400 euros a ton and its export grows year after year. In 2013, the Island sold 70,200 tons to Germany, Belgium, Canada, Spain, France, Greece, Italy, Israel, Portugal and Turkey. After reaching 130,000 tons in 2018, exports recorded lower data from 2020 due to the effects of the covid pandemic.

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A Cuban Baseball Player Willing to Fight Returns to Kiev After Saving His Family

Tanks filled with soldiers pass over the bridge over the Dnieper River. (Collage)

14ymedio, Havana, 28 February 2022 — After “taking his family to safety” in Poland, Cuban baseball player Raidel Arbelay Becerra returned to Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, as he describes in a video that he uploaded to his social networks. “Here the situation is under control,” he mentions as he drives across the bridge over the Dnieper River while a tank with soldiers and a truck pass by.

Arbelay, who applied to join the Ukrainian army reserves to fight Russia but was told it was not necessary, reads some of the messages on the bridge’s signboard asking Russian soldiers not to be the accomplices of Vladimir Putin: “Don’t kill for Putin, instead of flowers, bullets will wait for you,” and “Russian soldier, go back home,” are some of the messages.

On Monday, through his social networks, the player shared the destruction left by a Russian missile in Ukraine. The images show the damage to a vocational school in Vasylkiv. “It’s a shame. We just did a modern renovation, lovely new learning places for children of the whole Kiev region. But nothing happens, we will rebuild it, we have construction workers,” explains the director of the institution.

The player, who arrived in Ukraine in 1996, says, with annoyance: “In this way the Russian aggressors are defending the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, which always belonged to Ukrainian territory.” He does not forget that a few days ago he had the worst night of his life when a drone fell near his home. continue reading

In another of the messages, he shared a video in which he exhibits the strength of Ukrainian civilians before Russian soldiers. “The southern city of Berdyansk was recently taken by the Russian aggressor troops, however the people took to the streets asking them to go home because that army is a puppet of Putin.”

The video shows, according to Arbelay, “that many Russian soldiers have left the city and it is clear that they do not much want to fight against the Ukrainian people.” A sign that “when the people unite not even the devil can stand up to it.”

The athlete regrets that in this war, a group of “small Ukrainian players from the city of Nikolaev, in southern Ukraine” have to exchange the sports training camps for “shelters to save their lives.” Unfortunately, he stresses, “this is what Putin is doing in Ukraine and there are still fools who support him.”

Arbelay says that “Putin needs to get closer to the feet of God, otherwise I know that he will never have peace in his heart and every night in his dreams he will hear the deceased soldiers from both sides and the cries of the murdered children,” and he asks for prayer for “the war to cease.”

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On the List of Cuban Repressors is the Man Who Signed the Prohibition Against Anamely Ramos Entering Cuba

Mario Méndez Mayedo and Néstor Morera Payrol, two Immigration officials included by the FDHC in its list of Cuban repressors. (Collage)

14ymedio, Havana, 28 February 2022 — The Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FDHC) incorporated this Monday in its database of Cuban repressors Lieutenant Colonel Néstor Morera Payrol and Colonel Mario Méndez Mayedo, officials of the Directorate of Identification, Immigration and Aliens of the Ministry of the Interior, for preventing activist and art curator Anamely Ramos from entering the Island.

In a statement, the NGO indicates that Morera Payrol was the signatory of the notification addressed to American Airlines in which it is made known that the opponent is considered “inadmissible in the Cuban national territory.”

The document was delivered by the airline to Ramos this Sunday, when she was prevented for the second time from boarding a flight from Miami to Havana, despite meeting all the necessary requirements for the trip.

Méndez Mayedo, for his part, is considered a “white-collar repressor,” indicates the FHRC, for being “the coordinator since 2016 of arbitrary immigration policies, including the aforementioned violations of the right to return.” continue reading

These measures are not only those known as “regulations” – the selective bans on traveling outside the country – but also the forced exiles that the government has used after the demonstrations on July 11 to get rid of the members of society who are critical and active against the regime.

The new files on these men, details the organization, include “personal and family information that is available to officials and parliamentarians of the United States and the European Union who request it, anticipating that if they are sanctioned under the respective Magnitsky legislation, the sanctions will be applied to them and their closest relatives.

The FDHC also announces the upcoming adding to the list Immigration officials, such as Colonel Lázaro Delgado Chaple and Colonel Mario Miranda Rivera.

Previously, the NGO included in that list Alberto González Casals, director of the Cuban International Press Center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as a dozen prosecutors, in addition to a judge, who participated in the trials of the 11J protesters.

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America Airlines Gives Anamely Ramos the Official Document That Prohibits Her Return to Cuba

Ramos went to the airport this Sunday morning after having rescheduled the previous flight, from February 16. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 27 February 2022 — Art curator Anamely Ramos has received the second refusal in less than two weeks to board an American Airlines plane bound for Havana in Miami. The Cuban authorities again vetoed this Sunday the inclusion of her name in the list of passengers, as the activist denounced on her Facebook account.

Ramos went to the airport this Sunday morning after having rescheduled the previous flight, from February 16, which she was not allowed to board. But this time the result was the same: the Havana authorities notified American Airlines that the passenger was not going to be admitted.

During a live broadcast, the curator, who is a member of the San Isidro Movement, showed the copy of the notification that the Cuban authorities sent to the US airline, in which her entry to the island is vetoed. Proof that “Cuba is the one that is not admitting me,” Ramos stressed.

The document shown bears the title “Notification to airlines of inadmissible passengers in national territory” and is signed by Lieutenant Colonel Néstor Morera, added the activist. continue reading

Ramos read the document during the broadcast: “The Cuban immigration authority is willing to cooperate by notifying passengers in advance that they will not be admitted to Cuba, in order to avoid inconveniences to the airline and the passenger, for which recommends not to board them,” reads the notification in its first part.

The text ends by warning that in the event of the traveler’s arrival, they “will be re-boarded on the same flight.”

This Saturday, the night before the flight, Ramos received a call from the regional director of American Airlines, Virginia Sánchez, who warned her that the company had already received a message from Havana that the curator was not going to be admitted.

“Despite that, I decided to go to the airport,” Ramos said in the video. In a meeting with company representatives, Ramos insisted until she obtained a copy of the notification that had been sent from Cuba.

Ramos entered the US with a tourist visa that expires in April and her residence on the island is valid because she has not spent more than 24 months abroad, as stipulated by the Immigration Law. The activist has repeatedly denied that she is going to request asylum to regularize her situation in the United States.

Since her entry to Cuba was denied the first time, Ramos has maintained a public protest in Miami that has attracted a lot of solidarity and generated a whole mobilization of activists among the exile, international organizations and US politicians.

Ramos believes that the Cuban authorities are carrying out a strategy that consists of arresting those they consider a threat, violating all their rights, or forcing them into exile; in addition to preventing those who are already outside from returning. Because of this, she always thought that it would be very difficult for her to return to the Island.

For its part, although the Cuban regime has not ruled on the ban on entering Cuba issued against her, Humberto López, host of Cuban Television and member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, did so. The official spokesperson commented on a Facebook post by Ramos herself, including a link to the Cuban migration law and the mention of its article 24.1.

Specifically, the paragraph that indicates that the Cuban State can prevent the entry of anyone who organizes, stimulates, carries out or participates in “hostile actions against the political, economic and social foundations of the Cuban State.”

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Mother of Cuban July 11th (11J) Prisoner Has Been Jailed in Villa Marista Prison for Two Days

Yudinela Castro (left), mother of Rowland Jesús Castillo (right), one of the July 11th (11J) protesters. (Collage)

14ymedio, Havana, 26 February 2022 — Yudinela Castro Pérez, mother of 18-year-old political prisoner and July 11th (11J) protester, Rowland Jesús Castillo Castro, has spent more than 48 hours under arrest in Villa Marista, the barracks of the State Security in Havana. The woman was arrested last Thursday morning and “still has not returned home,” reported activist Arián Cruz, Tata Poet.

Cruz explained that Castro’s arrest occurred at 9 am, by an agent of the political police known as Robert, and she was later transferred to Villa Marista. On Friday, the activist went there and an investigator told him that the woman was “under investigation.”

“We managed to leave her some clothes and hygiene products. He strongly emphasized that she would remain under arrest because ’she did not want to cooperate.’ Before we left, he said he’d call to let us know the next steps — when she’d be allowed a visit, and how the process was going,” said Cruz.

In January, Castro, a leukemia patient, must have spent “a week in the hospital and in pretty serious condition after fainting as a result of toxoplasmosis,” the activist clarified. Furthemore, he informed that every day, she must take “a series of medications, which they won’t allow, and she has spent two days without taking them.” continue reading

Last Friday, at noon, a habeus corpus in favor of Castro was delivered to the People’s Provincial Tribunal of Havana because “her arrest and the subsequent procedures were totally arbitrary,” warned Cruz.

“On behalf of her family and friends, I hold the State Security responsible for anything that might happen to her,” he concluded.

Activist Camila Rodríguez also stated that Yudinela Castro has custody of her “two-year-old” grandson.

Since her son was taken to jail, Castro has denounced each one of the injustices commited against the young man and has not stopped demanding his release. She has also denounced, “the lies” told by the regime during the trial against her son Rowland, accused of sedition for which the prosecutor initially sought 23 years, later reduced to 12.

On several occasions, Castro has been arbitrarily detained by State Security officials to interrogate her but she has always said that “whatever it takes,” nothing will stop her from fighting to achieve her son’s freedom.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Prison Sentences in Cuba for Protesting During the Pandemic and Yelling ‘Diaz-Canel Motherfucker’

The Martín Perdomo brothers are two of those convicted. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, February 22, 2022 — Slowly, and missing their own deadlines, Cuban tribunals have meted out new sentences which provoke indignation among the family members of the July 11th protesters, not only for the number of years in jail, but also for the motivations invoked by the judges.

Maikel Puig Bergolla’s 20-year prison sentence last week for “instigating a crime” plus “two charges of attempted murder” for his participation on July 11th (11J) in Güines, Mayabeque province, is one of the most severe by a Cuban tribunal in recent months. In contrast, the sentence made public last Friday against brothers Nadir and Jorge Martín Perdomo, both of San José de las Lajas, is likely one of the most surprising in terms of the motivations invoked by the judges.

The tribunal also stated that Puig Bergolla should “repair material damage caused to the Ministry of the Interior in the sum of thirty-seven pesos and twenty-one cents.” Initially the prosecutor sought 25 years in a trial that began on January 12th.

The sentence mentioned that the accused, who “was enjoying the benefits of conditional freedom,” joined others in the Asbel neighborhood or las Yaguas in the municipality of Güines and “began traveling through the center of the street,” to the area of the central park. They state that once there, “they joined hundreds of people,” and “in blatant disrespect to the President of the Republic” yelled slogans such as “Díaz-Canel singao [motherfucker]*” and “dickhead police”. In addition, they mention that Bergolla encouraged neighbors to join “the walk.” continue reading

Another sentence made public last Friday was that of Nadir and Jorge Martín Perdomo, both of San José de las Lajas, Mayabeque. Signed on February 8th by judges Sergio Rodríguez Garcés, Omar Castro Castro and Roberto Viltres González, sentenced the brothers to six and eight years in prison, respectively, for the crimes of “assault”, “contempt” and “public disorder”.

Although both sentences were reduced from what prosecutors were seeking –Nadir, from 8 to 6 years and Jorge from 10 to 8 years — family members were indignant. For Betty Guerra Perdomo, the defendants’ cousin, the sentence against them was “an aberration” which “cannot be celebrated nor appreciated.”

“This sentence is the culmination of a theatrical work, completely absurd, disrespectful, and humiliating,” she declared to this newspaper. “Everything that has happened with my cousins’ case from the beginning is an aberration until this moment, I do not want to say it is final because I cling to the hope that with strength and a fight we can change it.”

Guerra recounts that the trial, which took place in Quivicán on January 25th, and specifies that last week the brothers were separated and placed in different prisons. “I continue to believe that each day they’ve spent there is a year of life violently robbed and, as a result, the fight will be for complete freedom,” she said.

In the section on “proven facts” in the sentencing document, which 14ymedio accessed, it states the accused, on J11, “decided to mock” the measures dictated by the Ministry of Public Health for the COVID-19 pandemic, “which at the time was causing thousands of infections and deaths per day,” and that, “aware of the ills their behavior would cause,” joined “a group of people” on 54th Street in San José de las Lajas.

The protest, the document continues, “reached other individuals when the accused called for them to join the throngs, who while carrying pots, metal objects and motorcycle horns created loud noises, which alerted nearby neighbors and even those far away — very outward behavior unprecedented in the country.”

The behaviors referred to in the sentencing document and described as “total disrespect,” were chanting “with euphoria,” “harsh and vulgar” words such as “dickhead police” and “Díaz-Canel, motherfucker,” along with “Patria y Vida [Homeland and Life],” in addition to “making gross demands of those commissioned to protect the place,” and snatching a Cuban flag for a moment from an agent who was participating in a government counter-demonstration.

At one point, the document indicates that the protest achieved “an elevated scale,” as “stones were lobbed against establishments,” though it clarifies, “without the implicated Martín Perdomo brothers partaking in these episodes.”

Even so, the brothers were convicted, with the aggravating circumstance that the events occurred “in the precise moment of the COVID pandemic crisis.”

As to the defense’s version, the document indicates that the defense attorney, Reynier Brito López, “only considered the thesis that the charges faced by their clients did not constitute crimes and he sought absolution for both of them.”

For their mother, Marta Perdomo, her sons’ sentences have been unjust, with the added pain of having to go from one jail to another to visit them, “Nadir is in Melena del Sur and Jorgito in Quivicán,” she says. “They separated my sons saying one big lie that Nadir had requested to be separated from his brother. I will complain to the chief of prisons to request that they be together once again because the financial situation is very difficult and it is not easy to pay for cars to go to two different destinations.”

Furthermore, she stated that she will appeal the conviction and although she is aware that it will be “practically in vain,” she will go through all the necessary procedures, including delivering “letters to Díaz-Canel for the torture they imposed on Nadir.”

“I will continue to request their release while blood runs through my veins, it was unjust,” concluded Perdomo. “They are playing with ours, but I have to continue fighting for my sons.”

*Translator’s note: This has become a preferred epithet against the Cuban president, likely because his name and ‘singao’ roughly rhyme.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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With the European Sky Closed to Russian Planes, Cuba Loses its Last Tourists

Aeroflot has announced the suspension of its flights to Latin America and the Caribbean. (Ecuavisa)

14ymedio, Madrid, 28 February 2022 — The closure of European airspace to Russian planes is one of the first collateral consequences for Cuba of the invasion of Ukraine. The Island remains, for now, without Russian tourists, its only rising market in recent years. The Association of Tour Operators of Russia (Ator) has reported this Monday that the restrictions have forced the suspension of the sale of trips to Latin America and the Caribbean.

“In the reservation systems of tour operators, trips for all dates, as of February 28, to the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, are no longer available,” says the statement, released by the Sputnik agency.

The measure of closing the airspace to Russian aircraft is also in force in Canada, an “insurmountable obstacle for transatlantic flights by Russian airlines, even to open countries,” the statement added.

One of the main companies that fly to the island from Cuba, Aeroflot, has suspended all flights to Cuba as of Monday due to the impossibility of crossing Canadian airspace, according to the company, although it could also be due to the regular stops it makes to and from Moscow.

“Aeroflot’s transatlantic flights from Moscow and back to the following destinations have been cancelled: Mexico (Cancun), United States (Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Washington), Cuba (Havana and Varadero) Dominican Republic (Punta Cana) “, says the statement. continue reading

At the Aeroflot offices in Havana, they assure this newspaper that they have no instructions from the “headquarters,” and that at least until March 6 there are no scheduled flights. All Russian tourists must go to their country’s consulate to register.

In a call to the Russian diplomatic headquarters, they said that travelers must send an email, individually, with their name and surname, passport number, date of entry to Cuba and arrival flight number, expected departure date and flight number, airport and, if applicable, tour operator.

Nor can the Azur Air company, which flew to the Cuban tourist destinations of Varadero and Cayo Coco, reach the island. “Due to the introduction of restrictions on the use of airspace, the Azur airline temporarily suspends passenger flights from Russia to Mexico, Dominican Republic and Cuba from February 28, 2022,” is communicated on the airline’s Facebook page.

The company adds that it will take its travelers out of these destinations with “export flights” and asks those who had purchased tickets to contact the operators to proceed with possible returns. “Azur Air continues to carry out flight programs to Turkey, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Maldives and Vietnam,” they explain.

Royal Flight has also suspended its flights to Cuba and the Dominican Republic and will limit itself, like Azur, to chartering return flights for its tourists stranded on the island.

At the moment, the only airline that maintains its forecasts to travel to Cuba is NordWind, which flies to Cayo Coco and Varadero. In the case of the first destination, the company has a flight scheduled for March 20, but to go to the Matanzas resort there are two weekly flights throughout the month of March that are still visible. The Russian airline has announced the cancellation of its routes to Europe, as required by the measure of the European Union.

The regulation approved by the European Union that prohibits the entry into the airspace of Russian aircraft goes further and also includes aircraft that maintain code-share or capacity reservation agreements and those registered in Russia or that are controlled by individuals or Russian legal entities, entities or bodies. This implies that there could be no agreements with Cubana de Aviación that cover the route or part of it.

The Russian market has been clearly increasing in Cuba in recent years, to the point where it has become the Island’s fastest growing. In 2019, 178,000 tourists from the Eurasian country arrived on the Island. In 2020, with the covid-19 crisis already underway, the number dropped to 63,562 Russians, but in 2021 it increased to 121,949, a good relative figure despite the catastrophic global figures for Cuban tourism during the pandemic.

The Island has not been able to recover lost ground, especially against the Dominican Republic, whose strategy has allowed it to reach record numbers. The Russians, in fact, began this past year to prefer the neighboring island to Cuba and in November only 8,019 arrived, compared to the 21,387 traveling to its competitor, which, without a doubt, will also be affected by the sanctions.

The Cuban authorities have aligned themselves with Russia in this crisis, as expected, since in the midst of widespread economic ruin, Moscow is one of the Island’s few remaining allies.

However, the economic sanctions imposed not only by the US and the EU, but also by Japan, Canada, Australia and South Korea, will soon make a dent in the Russian economy, whose size does not exceed that of Spain* (it is in 11th place in the world ranking by GDP), and it is easy to foresee that there will be no giveaways for its Latin American partners. All of them – Venezuela and Nicaragua, although possibly also Brazil, which has not yet condemned the Russian invasion – will also be affected by measures like this one.

“What must be taken into account is that the sanctions on Russia are so robust that they will have an impact on those governments that have economic affiliations with Russia. Venezuela is going to begin to feel that pressure, Nicaragua too, as well as Cuba,” said Juan González, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, in an interview with the Voice of America.

According to Ator’s calculations, more than 150,000 Russian tourists are currently abroad, and more than 27,000 of them in countries with direct problems for their return. The Rosaviatsia and Rosturism agencies, both state-owned, are now working with the Foreign Ministry to get their citizens out of the European countries they are presently visiting.

*Translator’s note: Spain’s population is roughly one-third that of Russia’s.

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