14ymedio

Cuban Government’s Silence is Prolonged in Response to the Request to Authorize Humanitarian Flights From the U.S.

Skyway Enterprises had been planning 20 shipments to Havana from July 22 to September 28. (Skyway Enterprises/Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 29 August 2021 — Cuban authorities have not yet authorized the landing on the island of cargo airlines from the United States with humanitarian aid despite the fact that the island is experiencing a collapse in its healthcare system and despite the voices that are clamoring for a humanitarian airlift to bring resources to families and hospitals.

In mid-August, local media in Florida reported that a group of U.S. executives had requested permission from the government of the island a month ago, but that Havana had not yet responded. A silence that has lasted until now.

“So far we do not have permits to land on the island, which the Cuban government must give,” Rey Gonzalez, an executive of IBC Airways, explained to Cubanet last Thursday. “We are not flying to Cuba because we do not have those permits. Once we have those documents to land in the country then we can work with local agencies to send humanitarian aid. But so far we don’t have that.”

It was in early July when cargo airlines IBC Airways and Skyway Enterprises obtained temporary authorization from continue reading

the U.S. Department of Transportation to travel to the island with humanitarian cargo. The permit, which will be in effect until November 30 and was made public on August 13, includes charter flights “for emergency medical purposes, search and rescue, and other travel deemed to be in the interest of the United States.”

In Miami, organizations such as Solidarity Without Borders (Solidaridad sin Fronteras, SSF), have been dedicated to collecting humanitarian aid. Dr. Julio César Alfonso, president of the NGO, told América TeVé that since the announcement was made, they have not stopped receiving donations, but the arrival of medicines, food and supplies to Cuban homes has slowed down.

SSF also presented last week the web page of its program of “direct assistance” to healthcare professionals on the island, with the aim of sending medicines and medical material, which will function as the main link for aid. They also intend to “coordinate different humanitarian assistance operations directly with all the health professionals in Cuba who voluntarily decide to join our support network,” said Alfonso.

While they continue to collect donations, the IBC Airways executive affirms that at the moment it is not known if the Cuban government intends to grant the permits to the airlines. “Unfortunately, we can’t do anything until Cuba grants those landing permits, and there is no information on when or if they will authorize them,” Gonzalez explained.

IBC Airways requested to fly twice a week to Havana until November. The airline reported that it will carry diplomatic mail and 7,500 pounds of humanitarian aid on each flight, in coordination with the CubaMax agency.

Like IBC Airways, Skyway Enterprises is authorized to operate flights to Havana, Villa Clara, Camagüey, Santiago de Cuba and Matanzas. The latter company had scheduled 20 shipments to Havana from July 22 to September 28, after which date it will be able to fly only twice a week to the Cuban capital.

In August of last year, the Trump Administration suspended private charter flights to Cuba as part of a package of sanctions against the island’s government. “The Castro regime uses tourism and travel revenue to fund its abuses and interference in Venezuela,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote on his Twitter account at the time, announcing the decision. “Dictators cannot be allowed to benefit from U.S. travel,” he added.

Two months later, the U.S. government vetoed the takeoff of two cargo flights to Cuba that, according to Skyway Enterprises and IBC Airways, were for “humanitarian” purposes and did not fall under the exceptions for the suspension of air connections between the two countries.

The Department of Transportation consulted with the State Department on the procedure to be followed and finally the U.S. Executive concluded that the flights “would not be in the interest of U.S. foreign policy.”

Cuba’s response was swift. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez described the ban on humanitarian cargo flights as “a ruthless act.” “The Trump administration is stepping up the punishment of Cuban families in both countries right up until now,” he lamented in a message on Twitter.

The silence of the Cuban government is surprising at a time when the country is facing a strong resurgence of the pandemic, aggravated by the lack of oxygen, medicine and doctors, overcrowded hospitals and collapsed funeral services.

In social networks and independent media, photos and videos are circulating showing the deplorable conditions of many hospitals and the complaints of the doctors themselves about the lack of supplies to do their work.

Translated by: Hombre de Paz

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Fear of Blackouts Triggers Interest in Electric Generators in Cuba

In the centrally located shopping center Plaza de Carlos III, this type of device has just landed in one of the stores that only accepts payment in foreign currency. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 25 August 2021 — Electric generators have become the latest object of desire for Cubans. Private businesses, tourist rental houses and domestic spaces increasingly need these devices in the midst of constant blackouts.

“With the neighbors on the ground floor we bought a generator, small but that helps us, if the power goes out, we can keep the entrance hall lit, turn on a couple of fans and the occasional light bulb inside the house but, without exaggerating, is is not enough” 14ymedio hears from Verónica Echavarría, a resident of a two-story building in the Havana neighborhood of La Víbora.

The equipment, purchased on the black market, cost more than $600, which the emigrant children of both families helped to pay for. “When we bought the generator there were only private offers from people who travel and bring them, but they have told me that they are already putting them on the shelves in the stores, although I think the prices are very high,” says Echavarría.

In the centrally located Plaza de Carlos III, this type of device has just landed in one of the stores that only accepts payment in foreign currency. On Tuesday, some customers asked about the power of two coveted Westinghouse appliances, a brand that Cubans remember from the refrigerators of the first half of the last century, which continue to operate in many homes. continue reading

The models are the iGen4500 [4,500 maximum watts] for the value of $ 2,355 and the iGen4200 that costs $1,565, figures well above what is paid for similar devices in other countries in the region, such as Panama, the Dominican Republic or Mexico; a price that scared off potential buyers.

Portable, running on gasoline, on wheels and quite quiet, these Westinghouse models could be the perfect solution to face power outages in Cuba, especially during the summer months, when the heat forces people to use their fans more frequently. But the price is an insurmountable obstacle, a detail that has not escaped the sellers of the informal market.

“I offer a simpler and more compact range, which allows you to turn on only the basics in a house: some lamps, a fan and to charge mobile phones, but which does not provide for air conditioners or refrigerators,” Ismael, a 34-year-old merchant, tells this newspaper. For years, Ismael has specialized in the import of these devices. “There are several of us who travel frequently to Mexico and we bring them,” he explains.

“Although they are more modest equipment, they are easier to sell, because few people have the money for something more powerful. Private business owners are the most frequent customers, but right now they have little interest because most are closed or only offering services from home,” adds Ismael. “People are looking for something small, that makes little noise but that prevents them from spending the whole night sweating because there is no current.”

“They are very expensive, but I would give what I don’t have for one of these,” says a customer in Plaza Carlos III who lives in San Antonio de los Baños, where the July 11 protests began. “If there is something in my life that makes me indignant and annoys me, it is being without electricity in the house.”

One of the main triggers of the July 11th demonstrations in the town were the very long power cuts that occurred in recent weeks. After that protest, the situation has hardly improved. “The matter is not easy,” laments the frustrated buyer, who is curious about the arrival of a brand of American origin on the island “despite the embargo.”

The Westinghouse iGen4200 is sold on Cuban classifieds sites for just over $ 1,000, half a thousand less than in state stores, but “it is complicated equipment and it is better to have the import or official purchase papers very clear.” , recognizes the owner of a food service in Miramar that recently acquired two of these devices to be able to guarantee the preservation of food and the work of the kitchen during the blackouts.

“I can’t afford to be buying anything under the table because if they make a record of me and I don’t have the papers, I lose everything: the generator and even the business,” he warns. “So in the end I bought it through the official path to avoid any headaches in the future,” hoping that in a short time “prices will fall or new offers of solar panels that have a lower cost will enter the market.”

“But in the meantime, I prefer to have the backup that this is, and that serves me for my work and for my family. They are strong devices and if they are taken care of they can last many years.”

Recently, the Cuban authorities relaxed customs regulations for the importation of solar panels and other devices that generate energy from sources parallel to hydrocarbons. But, the presence of these devices on the black market is still minimal and some solar heaters for the self-employed have barely arrived in official stores.

At the moment, fuel generators are accompanied by “new problems,” he acknowledges. “They cannot be kept inside the house because of the smell they emit, and although they say they are silent, the noise they make is annoying.” Putting them outside is risking them “being taken away, so I had to create a mechanism that looks like the Alcatraz jail so they don’t steal them.”

The cost of the two devices, plus the enclosure to care for them, amounts to more than $5,000. “If you add to that what I spend on fuel each month, in order to recoup this investment, I’m going to have to spend years selling pizzas and food combos. If I don’t figure it out, I’ll have to get rid of them later.”

Ernesto, 29, a resident of Cienfuegos, also aspires to have a generator to be able to support his business linked to cryptocurrencies. “I am going to have to buy a device, because having electricity is essential for my business.”

Skillful with technologies and internet searches, Ernesto has not escaped that these same models can be bought for half or three-quarters of their price in other Latin American countries or in the United States.

“Why do they cost so much here?” he wonders indignantly, although he has no choice but to pay what they ask in stores foreign currency stores or on the black market. An electric generator is not a luxury on the Island of Blackouts.

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Cuba: Despite Strict Containment Measures, the Pandemic Rages in Pinar del Rio

The province registers seven deaths in the last day, in addition to seven patients in critical condition and eight serious. (Ronald Suárez / Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 23 August 2021 — “There is a line of crosses that extends every day and nobody knows how far it will go,” cultural promoter Ronald Suárez posted on his Facebook account, along with several photos of the Pinar del Río cemetery. In the cemetery you can see the accelerated resurgence in covid-19 that afflicts that Cuban province.

This Monday, the people of Pinar del Río confirmed what they had been dreading for days. With 2,042 cases detected the previous day, the province has been at the forefront of infections on the Island, even surpassing the numbers of much more populated provinces such as Matanzas, Cienfuegos, Sancti Spíritus, Camagüey, Holguín and Havana, where the outbreaks have been worrisome.

In the city of Pinar del Río, the number reaches more than a thousand positive patients, despite the fact that the provincial capital has undergone the strictest and most prolonged measures of those implemented throughout the country, to try to contain the pandemic from the first cases detected on the island in March of last year. Among the provisions, notable are that only essential workers are allowed to leave their homes; opening hours have been reduced in state stores; and provincial borders are closed.

In the entire province there are currently 6,560 confirmed active cases, a figure that strains the precarious infrastructure of one of the poorest territories in the country. Five out of every 100 people from Pinar del Río “have contracted the disease since the beginning of the epidemic” and 14,275 in the last 15 days, Suárez pointed out. “An outrage for a territory with just 580,000 inhabitants.”

The province registered seven deaths in the last day, in addition to continue reading

seven critically ill and eight seriously ill patients, including two pregnant women under 30 years of age. The day before, explains Suárez, the territory had “five fewer criticals and the same number of serious ones. In other words, there are people who died in a matter of hours, without ever appearing in the counts. The disease did not give them time.”

Before Francisco Durán García, National Director of Epidemiology, broadcast today’s report on television, it was already known that “the news for Pinar del Río would not be good, for the times that from my balcony we saw the hearse pass by on the way to the León Cuervo Rubio hospital, “wrote Suárez.

However, the leads in the principal local media Guerrilla hardly seemed to be aware of the situation this Monday. The main news spaces were dedicated to the anniversary of the Federation of Cuban Women, talking about foreign investment in Cuba, and denouncing an illegal exit attempt that ended with the confiscation of a speedboat.

At full speed, the authorities have had to set up new confinement centers. In the municipality of La Palma, the Liberato Domingo Azcuy school has become a makeshift hospital to house 31 children with symptoms of covid-19, and this Sunday 35 health workers from Pinar del Río from the Henry Reeve brigade returned from Matanzas, to face the outbreak of infections in that province.

At full speed, the authorities have had to set up new confinement centers. In the municipality of La Palma, the Liberato Domingo Azcuy school has become a makeshift hospital to house 31 children with symptoms of covid-19, and this Sunday 35 health workers from Pinar del Río from the Henry Reeve brigade returned from Matanzas who had traveled to face the outbreak of infections in that province.

But the pandemic is not the only problem for the people of Pinar del Río. The shortage of basic products has taken a toll in a population that has been required, for months, to present a “mobility credential” to be able to buy the few products that arrive in a rationed way and in dribs and drabs to the province.

The problems in the water supply and the power cuts also affect a region where, strikingly, there were hardly any popular protests on July 11 when the demonstrations spread throughout the island.

“In Viñales we are desperate because of the problems we have with water and this, despite the fact that there are many positive people,” explains Lucía Escalante, by telephone from the place that until just over a year ago was a vibrant tourist center and now is going through a deep crisis. “We had to call the delegate from outside the polyclinic and complain because even in the clinic there was no water to wash the sick hands.”

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Beggars Proliferate on the Streets of Havana

Some beggars captured by the lens of 14ymedio in Havana, asking for handouts or rummaging through garbage. (Collage)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, August 29, 2021 — The most invisible victims of the collapse of the national economy are the homeless. Although beggars have always been part of the usual landscape on the streets of Havana, their presence in doorways, parks, plazas and vacant lots has grown in recent times, and their survival has become more difficult every day.

“It’s difficult for us to care for these people who are assigned to our medical post. Many are elderly who don’t have relatives, nor receive care from any parallel institution and, in reality, what they need is to be admitted in-house for better care of their health,” Yaneysi Ríos, a doctor at a medical office in the capital, tells 14ymedio.

Most of the beggars are usually older adults or people with a mental illness, who lost their homes and families. They are concentrated in Old Havana, Plaza de la Revolución, and Centro Habana, places where they have become accustomed to wandering in search of some coins, which they most often find among the tourists. If a few years ago it was most common to see them sitting in doorways waiting for some money, now they can be seen rummaging through garbage cans in search of food scraps. continue reading

The authorities are most likely to remember them when some VIP or international leader passes through the streets with his caravan of vehicles, or when a major event is held. But with mobility restrictions due to the covid-19 pandemic, many of these activities have decreased.

Havanans still remember the visit of Barack Obama in 2016, when brigades from the Ministry of Public Health proceeded to intern the city’s beggars in healthcare facilities to remove them from the public thoroughfares.

With Pope Francis’s first visit to the island in 2015, the retouchings of façades and the relocations of the homeless were so intense along the road that the procession would follow from the airport, that people ironically renamed the route the “Via Sacra” (Italian for “sacred way”).

During the decades from the 60s to the 80s, the so-called “lazy law” was in force in Cuba, which penalized those who neither studied nor worked. Citizens who were prosecuted for this crime were forced to accept a job, generally in agricultural work, street cleaning, and other occupations that the majority rejected because it was hard work for low pay.

With the arrival of the crisis of the 90s and the appearance of a budding private sector, the State could no longer guarantee a job for each person of working age and the legislation was repealed. Which is the reason, according to officialdom, that homelessness on the streets has increased.

Translated by Tomás A.

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Cuban Soprano Gladys Puig has Died in Havana

Puig began her studies at the Municipal Conservatory of Havana, known today by the name Amadeo Roldán. (Ubail Zamora)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, August 19, 2021 — During the night of Wednesday to Thursday, the prestigious Cuban opera singer Gladys Puig died in Havana at the age of 88 after a long fight against Alzheimer’s, close friends of the artist confirmed to 14ymedio. “For a year a person had been caring for her in her house, because she was previously in a nursing home,” said one of the sources.

Her wake is being held this Thursday morning at the Bernardo Garcia de Zanja y Belascoaín funeral home, in Centro Habana. Friends of the artist point out to this newspaper that the official cultural institutions have not sent “even a single wreath” of flowers.

In tribute to the artist, the tenor Bernardo Lichilín performed the Ave Maria at the funeral home. “My humble prayer to Our Dear Gladys Puig” he wrote when sharing a video about the moment on social media.

A teacher of several generations, the artist was born in the capital on November 26, 1932 into a family of musicians, among whom her father, the conductor Cheo Belén Puig, stands out.

She began her studies at the Municipal Conservatory of Havana, known today by the name Amadeo Roldán. Her first singing teacher was soprano Zoila Gálvez, but she later perfected her technique in Italy with continue reading

maestro Napoleone Annovazzi.

Puig’s professional debut took place at the Musical Theater, with the Gonzalo Roig Lyric Theater under the direction of Héctor Quintero. In January 1958 she performed the Cuba premier of the work El Tabardo, by Giacomo Puccini, with the Grupo Experimental de Ópera. In those years she joined the Pro Arte Musical cast in works such as The Secret Marriage by Cimarosa, Manon by Massenet, and she also participated in the first presentation in Cuba of Puccini’s Sor Angélica.

In 1961 she premiered in Cuba Giancarlo Menotti’s comic opera Amelia Goes to the Dance, playing the title role. That same year she participated in the opera seasons with the pieces Doña Francisquita and Cecilia Valdés, composed by Gonzalo Roig.

The soprano was the founder of the National Lyric Theater of Cuba, created on November 11, 1962, a project in which she developed a wide repertoire of operas, operettas and zarzuelas, almost always in leading roles. She is remembered for her participation in titles such as: The Merry Widow, Luisa Fernanda, María la O, Cecilia Valdes, Lola Cruz, and The Slave.

“Today a great one set out on an eternal journey. Having had the joy of sharing with her in her last stage work, as the old woman Alcina, was a luxury and a tribute that the Lyric Theater offered her for having given so much glory to her country. Beautiful woman, humble, professional, teacher,” wrote professor and countertenor Ubail Zamora on her Facebook profile.

“Always elegant, she was an example to everyone of how to stay beautiful despite the years. You leave us, but you will always be part of the Lyric Theater of Cuba, and wherever you go, a round of applause will sound as the best gift for the great artist, the teacher, and above all, the person we had the pleasure of knowing,” added her colleague from the Camerata Vocale Sine Nomine.

Translated by Tomás A.

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The Battle for Cuba

They are very young, almost children, those who have led the demonstrations that have exposed to the world the horror that Cuba is experiencing. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Vicente Echerri, New York, 23 August 2021 — We are living in the aftermath of what happened in Cuba on July 11, when thousands of people, in more than forty cities and towns of the country, came out to protest against an asphyxiating dictatorship and to demand the freedom that they have lacked for more than 60 years.

At last, those of us who have waited so long from the other shore, we have seen a glimpse of dignity and rebellion that we can only contemplate with love and respect. They have just carried out what we could not, did not want or did not dare to do, perhaps because it was not our time. A sentence of cowardice or of timidity weighs on us, or perhaps against us, the lack of an opportunity was imposed. Some will say that perhaps now everything is easier: the monster of then is no more than a toothless and famished beast.

The latter in no way diminishes the heroic will: starving people have clamored for “freedom,” not for food; the unsatisfied values of the spirit have been the priority in the mouths of the protesters and that single invocation redeems them, rescues their humanity subjugated and debased by so many years of despotic power.

The spontaneous action of that day should not be considered as an inexplicable and unusual outburst, but as the natural consequence of the exercise of an outrageous oppression that has been stripped of arguments and values: a pure tyranny that has nothing to argue to cling to power more than a legend full of holes.

The Cuban Revolution is a huge fraud to which continue reading

several generations sacrificed their future and their dreams. Those of us who have never been seduced by their evil charm cannot help but grieve for those who, naively, bet on an idiotic and criminal utopia that would claim their souls without offering them more than a yoke in exchange.

Now is the time for stark disenchantment. They are very young, almost children, those who have led the demonstrations that have exposed to the world the horror that Cuba is experiencing without any propaganda helping to mask it.

They are the forced offshoots of a spurious order that go out to claim the identity of the citizen that has been stolen from them, and they do it as best they can, with the elementary arguments they have, with the simple resources they have and with those who want to show their frustration and their deep anger, their rejection of a tyrannical state that offers them nothing but servitude.

For that courage they have confronted the repressive apparatus with which tyrannies always respond to demands for freedom and justice: sticks and shots from orchestrated hitmen, arrests and intimidations, against them and their families.

The protagonists of these street acts have also affirmed that they are not afraid and have already begun to show it. The day of the 11th of July is called to be the ceremonial salvo of the battle of a people for their rights, a conflict that could become arduous and bloody.

It is for us Cubans who live in exile, in this struggle, the role of the aggressive rearguard: to become a sounding board for those who expose their freedom and their lives in front of the gang of thugs that kidnapped our country, and to get the world to understand the reason for their cause — which is ours — and to show solidarity with it.

The author is a Cuban writer residing in the United States.

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China’s Sinopharm Vaccine Arrives in Cuba to Accelerate the Immunization Process

There is “availability and guarantee for the doses required in a population considered small like Cienfuegos.” (Primate Vision)

14ymedio, Havana, 28 August 2021 — In a twist that contradicts all previous statements by the Cuban authorities about the country’s self-sufficiency in immunization, this Sunday the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine will begin to be administered to 400,000 residents of the province of Cienfuegos who are 19 and older.

Vicente Vérez Bencomo, general director of the Finlay Vaccine Institute (IFV), explained that the immunization will include two doses of Sinopharm and a booster dose of Soberana Plus. Public Health “redefined” new “vaccination strategy” in order to “protect faster the population,” reported on its website Radio City Sea.

The Chinese vaccine “has been recommended by the World Health Organization,” it has an efficacy of 79% and there is “availability and guarantee for the doses required in a population considered small like that of Cienfuegos,” justified Vérez.

For Amílcar Pérez-Riverol, a Cuban virologist based in Brazil, the island “has fallen far short of its initial projections for mass vaccination.” In an analysis published this Saturday, the scientist stated that the health authorities had planned to immunize 70% of the population with the three doses of Soberana 02 and Abdala, however, at the end of this month, the figure is “2.5 times lower.’’ continue reading

Pérez-Riverol explained that the problems come from previous months, such as July, where the projection of 33.5% was not met, not even “considering the percentage of the population that has received at least one dose of the vaccines.” The virologist said that although it was announced that “production” of Soberana is resumed and that this month there could be millions of doses, the crisis is happening today, indeed, yesterday. No tomorrow.”

“It seems clear to me that the decision to apply the Sinopharm vaccine in Cienfuegos is associated with limitations in the availability of doses of Cuban vaccines and the urgency caused by the explosion of cases,” he said.

This Friday the State newspaper Granma published that Cuba “is in a position to produce 10 million doses of the anticovid-19 Soberana 02 and Soberana Plus vaccines” developed by the Finlay Institute. As reported by the Center for Molecular Immunology (CIM) “the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (IFA) is ready to carry out the production of these immunogens.”

Verez said that Cienfuegos will probably be the first province to vaccinate almost the entire adult and pediatric population at the same time, since adolescents between 12 and 18 years of age in the provincial capital will also be immunized with two doses of Sovereign 02 and one of Soberana Plus.

For his part, Yury Valdés Balbin, deputy director of the IFV, said that the objective is to bring the province to “a peak position of optimal immune response” and assured that not many regions of the world “can have the luxury that will now be afforded Cienfuegos, to be able to apply mass vaccination to its population.”

At the beginning of August, when Ciego de Ávila registered a peak of covid-19 infections, several complaints arrived at the 14ymedio Newsroom from people who said they wanted to be immunized with a Chinese vaccine. The information came from a meeting of the temporary working group for the pandemic in which, according to one of the participants, the option of immunizing Ciego de Avila with the foreign antidote was mentioned.

Since then, readers have directly asked journalists from Invasor, the local newspaper, about the alleged vaccination with Sinovac or another of the Chinese vaccines, and demanded transparent information and, although no explanation was given, they were not denied the rumor.

“You can be sure that the moment we have that information we will publish it. What we cannot do is publish unconfirmed or official information,” a newspaper editor replied to those who were asked to clarify what they considered an “open secret.”

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Cuba: Ciego de Avila Prepares 6,000 More Niches in a New Cemetery

Ciego de Avila Cemetery Project (Invasor)

14ymedio, Havana, 25 August 2021 — Ciego de Ávila is preparing the construction of 2,600 niches immediately of the total of 6,000 that will be erected in the new cemetery of the city. The cemetery began to be prepared days ago, as published on Tuesday by the provincial newspaper Invasor.

Milagros Ruiz Heredia, director of the Ciego de Ávila Design and Engineering Company, responsible for the project, said that the future cemetery is in an area near the incinerator.

The project, as detailed by one of the technicians, will have a central park, a pantheon for combatants with a ceremonial plaza, areas for pantheons for entities and institutions, another for vaults, niches, ossuaries and columbariums, a crematorium for boxes and waste, and an incinerator for bone remains.

In addition, a parking lot and a main building with a lobby, offices and other dependencies are planned outside. continue reading

The specialists told Invasor that prefabricated technology will be used, something they attributed to an intention to prioritize minimalism, although speed and price could also be behind the decision.

A month ago, authorities also reported the expansion of the existing cemetery, with the hasty construction of 150 niches, just as it was made public, and work to add 350 more. The initial plan was to complete the work with a total of 2,000 niches and 900 ossuaries.

The people of Ciego de Avila have been denouncing the collapse of funeral services for weeks with the peak of covid-19 that affects the province. In Ciego de Ávila, the incidence at two weeks is 2,217.3 per 100,000 inhabitants and there are even municipalities such as Chambas in which a rate of 3,611 per 100,000 have been reached, when the World Health Organization considers any number above 100 cases per 100,000 people is a very high risk.

Despite this context, the authorities have argued that both the expansion of the cemetery and the construction of the new cemetery in the city of Ciego de Ávila were planned for a long time, but it is difficult for residents to believe that a planned work is causing so many problems — such as the bad smells and unhealthiness that the first one has caused — and they believe that it is work that has been accelerated by a pandemic that has exceeded any forecast.

Some of the readers of Invasor wonder if it would not be better to build another hospital, including the missing pediatric one, to better serve health and avoid so many deaths.

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Pablo Moya Dela, Member of Unpacu and Activist, Dies

Pablo Moya Delá, died this Thursday night at the “Juan Bruno Zayas” Clinical Surgical Hospital in Santiago de Cuba. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, August 27, 2021 – The former political prisoner and member of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu), Pablo Moya Delá, died this Thursday night at the “Juan Bruno Zayas” Clinical Surgical Hospital in Santiago de Cuba due to to the fact that the anemia and pneumonia with which he presented were complicated by a bacterial infection he acquired in the polyclinic.

At the beginning of August, Moya Delá, age 65, was released from prison on a furlough, which kept him disqualified from his citizenship rights, and was transferred to the hospital in serious condition, after spending 40 days on a hunger strike in Boniato Prison in Santiago de Cuba.

Two months before his protest “he had suffered beatings by common prisoners acting at the behest of State Security,” according to a statement of complaint published on Unpacu’s social media, which also stated that he was being denied medical attention.

Moya Delá’s health deteriorated in prison, aggravating his continue reading

pre-existing ailments: “arterial hypertension, cardiac arrhythmia, and muscular atrophy in one of his hands due to a neurological disorder,” according to his son, Daineris Moya Garcia. Despite this, he managed to overcome the covid-19 that was diagnosed in March.

“Sister, my father has died, they killed my father,” Moya García said to Kata Mojena, the emigrant activist, to tell her of his father’s death.

In the polyclinic, he had a fever of 102.2 degrees and adverse reactions to medications used as substitutes to treat his ailments, such as administering dechlorpheinate in the absence of dipyrone; which caused his blood pressure to drop “to 90 over 60, then 80 over 60, later 60 over 40 and 70 over 60”, according to what was published on the Facebook account of the leader of Unpacu, José Daniel García Ferrer, who has been detained since July 11.

There were treatments that were not completed due to the lack of medications, said the dissident’s son. “The medicine they are giving me is a medicine that has no effect on me,” Pablo Moya told Ana Belkis Ferrer Garcia, just five days before his death.

Family members and activists blame the Cuban regime for the death of the dissident and former political prisoner.. Venezuelan lawyer Tamara Suju, a human rights defender and executive director of the Casla Institute, denounced: “Another Cuban political prisoner dies, who had been released a few days ago in inhumane healthcare conditions.” And she held Diaz Canel responsible. “He lets them die little by little in prisons, a form of Communist Torture.”

Moya Delá was arrested on October 23, 2020, when he protested against shortages in stores and repression, and was taken to the Eleventh Police Station of San Miguel Padrón, Havana. There, he maintained a 23-day strike despite being in poor health, according to his family, and was later taken to Santiago de Cuba as an “illegal.”

Self-employed, a former sailor, and promoter of Cuba Decides, he lived with his wife in the Cuban capital, where he maintained his opposition activity; but the authorities considered his residence illegal, and every time he was arrested he was taken to Santiago de Cuba, where he was originally from.

Translated by Tomás A.

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Cuba’s Official Press Plans to Participate in Social and Popular Control

The Council of Ministers has 30 days to propose and approve the functions, composition and structure at all levels of the new agency, which will replace the ICRT. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 26 August 2021 — Cuban authorities want to update their peculiar approach to information transparency. According to their analysis, when they have silenced some uncomfortable news it is because they needed to defend the Revolution from its “enemies,” but times have changed and the strategy must be different, said Ricardo Ronquillo Bello, president of the Union of Cuban Journalists (UPEC).

On Wednesday, the official appeared with other communication leaders, on the State TV Roundtable program to talk again about the creation of the Institute of Information and Social Communication (IICS), which will replace the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT).

“In a country that has had to be constructed in a trench, subjected to permanent harassment, one of the things that has happened to us is that, not a few times, silence was part of the strategy to confront the enemies of the Revolution. But in the era of convergence, with a dramatic change in the way communication works, you can no longer bet on silence,” he said.

The official argued that the word “transparency” may generate doubts among those who remember it from the “Soviet glasnost.” “However, in recent years it has been vindicated, turning it into a word of the Revolution that should describe the type continue reading

of operation of Cuban public institutions.”

The Institute, he explained, now opens the possibility of building “a press model that has not been built in the world.” Ronquillo Bello lamented that there are those who defend the emergence of a “parallel system in Cuba that has been growing at times with financing from the United States,” making reference to the independent press, which they continue to try to link with the “empire,” whether or not it receives money from Washington.

In his opinion, the private media are not, contrary to the opinions of others, the solution to the problems of journalism in Cuba, which he did not mention at any time, although he did allude to the material difficulties as if they were the most serious of the problems afflicting the state-owned media.

“In discussing with them, I tell them that we can do something that has never been done anywhere in the world: build a press media system that truly becomes part of the mechanisms of social and popular control,” he said in an unusual statement on which he insisted, making it clear that this was not a slip of the tongue.

“[In the Revolution] the press was often part of the mechanisms of political control. Now we have to encourage the press to be part of the mechanisms of social and popular control. This has to be one of the main horizons of the new institute,” he reiterated.

Humberto Juan Fabián Suárez, vice-president of the Cuban Association of Social Communicators, recalled that communication is one of the three basic pillars of government management, and defended the new institute, which will have the rank of a government ministry, about which he revealed some details that did not dispel practical doubts.

The official said that it has taken nine years to create this body and its gestation involved, in addition to journalists, members of associations and official institutions of communicators and journalists and specialists from radio, television and the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Labor and Social Security and Finance and Prices, as well as the Commission for the Implementation of the guidelines and the Communist Party.

Among the documentation, 82 theses were examined and a comparative law study in communication was carried out, more than 400 people were consulted and 900 opinions were collected, although it is not to be assumed that there was too much diversity in the structuring. “It was not rushed at all,” he added.

Onelio Castillo Corderí, member of the Permanent Working Group for the creation of the IICS, explained that its creation will be accompanied by a body of legislation ranging from a communications law to various decrees and resolutions that will be published in the coming months.

“The Constitution of the Republic defends communication, information and knowledge as citizens’ rights and as a public good of the citizenry,” he said, although in practice Cubans are barred from accessing online any page that the Government considers they should not read, starting with this newspaper or different media from other parts of the world. In addition, in Cuba it is not allowed to practice journalism outside the State and reporters are detained, held in their homes or prevented from traveling for training and attending courses or conferences.

In this context, and when journalism has once again been excluded as an activity that can be exercised outside the State, either as self-employed or in one of the new MSMEs [mipymes = small or medium-sized enterprises], Castillo Corderí argued that the IICS has among its missions “to promote the culture of dialogue and consensus in Cuban society.”

The decision to create the new institute, he insisted, “is a clear expression of the political will to strengthen our democracy based on a higher level of participation of the people in the construction of our economic and social model, in the construction of the destiny for the country we have chosen and the underpinning of the constitutional concept that Cuba is a socialist state governed by the rule of law.”

The Council of Ministers has 30 days to propose and approve the functions, composition and structure at all levels of the new body. Some conclusions can be drawn from the appointments already been made, although it is not expected that the new IICS will bring anything new.

Translated by: Hombre de Paz

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Cuban Artist Hamlet Lavastida Has Now Been Held for 60 Days in Villa Marista

Lavastida “is not feeling well, he says he is under a lot of stress,” declared the poet Katherine Bisquet, partner of the visual artist.

14ymedio / EFE, Havana, August 25, 2021 — Lavastida “is not feeling well, he says he is under a lot of stress,” declared the poet Katherine Bisquet, partner of the visual artist. “I just spoke with Hamlet’s mother and she has requested psychological treatment.”

Bisquet said that “days ago Hamlet had asked his mother to send him pain relievers for his migraine attacks.”

Lavastida, declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, has now served 60 days in the maximum security prison in Havana known as Villa Marista, under the accusation of “instigation to commit a crime.” The artist has been denied a change of conditions of release and three appeals, Bisquet reported.

Given this, she held the Cuban regime responsible for any “physical or mental” damage that could occur to the graduate of the Higher Institute of Art: “What they do is totally illegal, typical of corrupt and despotic continue reading

systems. Freedom for Hamlet Lavastida now!” she posted.

The 38-year-old artist has been in custody since June 26. State Security has made it known that he is being investigated for a conversation in a private chat in the Telegram app of the opposition group of artists 27N (27th November), in which he proposed marking bank notes with logos of the San Isidro Group and 27N, an initiative that never materialized.

Known for his critical works, the Cuban Government considers that Lavastida “has been inciting and calling for civil disobedience actions on public roads, using social networks and direct influence on others,” according to the official website, Razones de Cuba.

Article 202.1 of the Cuban Criminal Code prescribes a penalty of “deprivation of liberty from three months to one year or a fine of 100 to 300 dollars” for instigation to commit a crime, which it defines as “publicly inciting commission of a crime.”

On this subject Bisquet warned: “The expression of an idea in private, even if it foreshadows the possible commission of a crime, cannot be sanctioned if it does not materialize. In criminal law that is called a preparatory act. As a general rule, preparatory acts are not punishable.”

Lavastida returned to the Island on June 20, after completing a residency at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien art gallery in Berlin and was arrested six days later. Upon learning of the artist’s situation, the German cultural institution spoke out and described him as a “recognized visual artist” and demanded that the Cuban authorities “immediately annul his imprisonment.”

For months activists and human rights organizations have denounced an increase in the repression of dissidents, especially those linked to the world of art and entertainment, whom they claim are routinely subjected to arrests, jailings, and confinements under house arrest.

This past July, the call for Lavastida’s release reached the Arco art fair in Madrid, where the collective performance The ticketing burning the street was held, an action that Lavastida proposed to do in Cuba, but which never took place.

Those demands have been joined by international entities and institutions that have denounced the situation or expressed concern, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the United States Government, and the European Parliament.

The Cuban government, for its part, considers critical voices as agents in the pay of the United States, who seek to subvert public order and overthrow the socialist system.

Translated by Tomás A.

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Huge Security Presence for Diaz-Canel’s Visit to Central Havana

A strong police operation on Monte Street due to Díaz-Canel’s visit to the Quisicuaba project on August 27, 2021. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 27 August 2021 – Several streets in Centro Habana woke up paralyzed this Friday morning by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel’s visit to the Quisicuaba center, shortly before the rain from Tropical Storm Ida began to fall on Havana. “There is a visitor,” muttered a neighbor in the area, which had more police officers and State Security agents than there were vegetables on the shelves of the neighboring market.

“The street corners crowded with of Security agents” was the preamble to the arrival of the president to the neighborhood of Los Sitio, according to the residents interviewed by 14ymedio. Even in nearby Monte Street, the informal vendors that normally abound in the portals were conspicuous by their absence this Friday, a lack that was lamented by the neighbors who had gone out in search of candles, matches and other products necessary to stay at home during the scourge of the Hurricane Ida that keeps the Cuban capital on hurricane watch.

The Cabildo Quisicuaba Sociocultural Project, located on Maloja Street, is directed by the deputy to the National Assembly of Cuba, Enrique Alemán Gutiérrez. “It is a religious association and also a community project, supposedly to help the community, distribute food, donations,” says a neighbor.

“Alemán did this religious community project and was sneaking around here and there as soon as an event started and fighting for his little bit. He spoke of the wonders of the Revolution and flattered and sucked up to continue reading

the leaders, he did not stop until they made him a deputy,” another resident of Los Sitios tells 14ymedio.

“This project raised its head extorting foreigners because that individual dedicated himself to the Yoruba religion and to making those who came from abroad holy. They made huge feasts, food of all kinds, and from that came the rivers of money he earned through these ceremonies,” the man describes. “It is a work of corruption from the very start, grabbing money from all sides.”

The neighborhood, one of the most densely populated in the capital, has for decades been an area with many housing problems, a large number of tenements and serious problems in its water supply infrastructure. Marginality, informal employment and the black market are an inseparable part of life in Los Sitios.

Díaz-Canel leaving the Quisicuaba project headquarters, surrounded by his security team. (Presidency Cuba / Twitter)

A good share of the residents in the area dedicate themselves to the purchase and resale of products from nearby stores such Ultra, the La Cubana hardware store and La Isla de Cuba. With tourism canceled due to the pandemic and mobility restrictions imposed on residents, many people have lost their way of earning a living and now survive by lining up at hard currency stores and reselling the merchandise.

“President Díaz-Canel signs the Guest Book where he recognizes the altruistic work carried out by this human sociocultural project from and to the community,” the official account of the Cuban Presidency tweeted this Friday, after announcing the visit of the president to the institution “that for more than 25 years has developed local projects” and that “includes 29 social works.”

In Quisicuaba, says another resident, “religious acts, drumming sessions and much more are held.” She speaks about Enrique Alemán Gutiérrez who is a doctor by profession and only ” practiced medicine for a short time because he had a serious problem in Public Health and was expelled,” she relates.

“Later, he was in official religious organizations and from there he ended up at the famous Summit in Panama, where Cuban civil society supposedly participated. But it was a gang of rabble, what he put together in that event was horrible, because he was one of those who led those scandals,” recalls the woman. “Oh, and also when Barack Obama was in Havana I saw him at several acts of revolutionary reaffirmation. He’s the worst.”

“They were stopping everyone who passed through that area asking what they were doing, where they lived,” a young man who walks through Monte every day to his workplace in Old Havana told this newspaper. “There were hundreds of security agents in civilian clothes sitting on the sidewalk having a Tanrico brand soda wrapped in a nylon bag and a snack, and another group was also doing the same in the Monte y Águila park,” he describes.

Shortly after Díaz-Canel left Quisicuaba, the Presidency released a video showing a group of people huddled together and not respecting the mandatory distancing to prevent contagion by covid. Along with that, where the president is clearly present, it was reported that he visited “with the population of Los Sitios, as always happens, and the population responds and accompanies him with enthusiasm and a very Cuban conga.”

The visit took place after the leader met with religious leaders and associations recognized by the Government last Tuesday. He also planned a meeting with Cuban Masons, but the Mason’s Grand Master Ernesto Zamora Fernández refused to participate. “We have decided not to attend the meeting called by the Presidency of the country, in order to preserve Masonic unity,” said the community leader in the document, released by several Masons on their social networks.

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Cuban Masons Reject President Diaz-Canel’s Invitation to Meet

At his desk is the Grand Master Ernesto Zamora Fernández. (Grand Lodge of Cuba)

14ymedio, Havana, 24 August 2021 — “We have decided not to attend the meeting called by the country’s presidency (…), in order to preserve Masonic unity,” stated a letter signed by Grand Master Ernesto Zamora Fernández on Monday and disseminated by various Masons on their social networks. That community had been summoned this Tuesday to a meeting with President Miguel Díaz-Canel.

Since July 11, the presidency and its entourage have visited communities and neighborhoods such as San Isidro and La Güinera, where the young Diubis Laurencio Tejeda was shot dead by the police during the protests on July 11. In La Güinera , Díaz-Canel posed in front of the altar in the home of the santera (priestess) Iliana Macías and walked with her through the streets holding her hand.

Díaz-Canel has met in recent weeks with journalists, members of the Council of Churches of Cuba and mass organizations such as the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) and the Young Communist Union (UJC). He also participated, on July 26, in volunteer work with several young people, where troubadours Eduardo Sosa and Ray Fernández were present.

“The letter in question is an example of the unbreakable union between all the Masons in response to IPH José Ramón Viñas Alonso, Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree, determining to not call the Masons to meet [with the president]. The Sovereign Grand Commander himself alerted the Masonic community on continue reading

the subject, stating that the position adopted by the Grand Master is honorable in prioritizing the unity of the fraternity in such turbulent moments for the Homeland,” Mason Leo de la Torriente detailed on Twitter .

In addition, he points out that “the non-attendance of the Masonic institution to said meeting is not an act of rebellion, it is a clear sign of our unity.”

Viñas Alonso also sent a letter to Díaz-Canel after he ordered the revolutionaries to take to the streets on July 11 to confront the protesters.

“Today we see with sadness that something that was seen coming due to the discontent and deficiencies among the population has materialized in demonstrations throughout the country,” stated the letter that also defined as “unacceptable the call for a confrontation between Cubans.” The Masons also stated that they were “on the side of the Cuban people” and advocated “for peace, harmony and social justice.” After the dissemination of the document, Viñas Alonso was summoned for an interrogation at the police station on Zapata and C.

The brief statement from the Masons explains that the decision not to attend this Tuesday’s meeting with the presidency was taken after receiving “opinions and calls from the brothers” and based on “the situation created.”

Cuban actor Reinier Díaz Vega shared the letter on his Facebook profile with the text: “Either all or none.” In one of the comments, the writer Ángel Santiesteban replied: “I take my hat off to your wise decision. The Masonic unit above all else. History is being made.” Both Díaz and Santiesteban are part of the Cuban Masonic community.

Another member, Marcel Villegas Vazquez, said: “Once again our August Institution offers a demonstration that we are an indestructible chain, one where each of its links fights every day for our unity.”

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Hope Is Reborn in Cuba

Protests in Santiago de Cuba on July 11. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luis Zuñiga, Miami, August 26, 2021 — On July 11 the Cuban people handed the communist regime a death sentence. The Miguel-Diaz government knows this and so does the exile community. The steps that both sides are taking are representative of their expectations for the immediate future of Cuba.

Diaz-Canel, the Castros’ hand-picked successor, is touring schools, gymnasia and workplaces in an attempt to raise the regime’s political profile. His words reflect the predominant mood of fear, discouragement and defeatism within the party. They knew there was a segment of the population that strongly opposed and rejected them, but they did not imagine it was so enormous or so widespread.

On the other hand, the exile community is demonstrating its optimism about the future with a conference of prominent Cuban-American businesspeople sponsored by the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance. They have committed to offering their talent, expertise and investment resources as soon as freedom and democracy are restored on the island.

These prominent businesspeople have committed to establishing continue reading

a fund for the reconstruction of the Republic of Cuba that will provide “advice, credit support, financing and accounting systems to Cubans who wish to become entrepreneurs and thus develop, as soon as possible, thousands of small and medium-sized companies that will be owned by individuals and families and not by an oppressive state.”

The obstacle preventing the Cuban economy from taking off is the communist system. The people have shown that they do not want to continue with a failed experiment that has plunged them into poverty and subjected them to oppression. Their calls during the protests were not for food or medicine but for the end of the system. Everyone knows this is the problem but the regime resists change and, once again, has resorted to the only tool it has to hold onto power: repression.

Faced with violence, the popular response being discussed on the island is a national strike to bring the country to a halt and force the dictorial leadership to resign. The opposition has demonstrated that it is in the majority and, with this majority, that it can paralyze the country’s productive and commercial activities. Faced with enormous debt, lack of credit, lack of income, and a dying economy, the regime would find it very difficult to survive.

People know that under the communist regime they will never be able to improve their lives. Nor will they be able to fulfill their dreams of becoming entrepreneurs. They know that the government’s tolerance of the private sector is simply a license granted today that will be taken away tomorrow at the whim of some official. They are also convinced that private enterprise and the market economy produce prosperity.

This is why the Miami businesspeople’s commitment to Cubans on the island is so important. It covers almost all the major sectors, including finance, banking, insurance, manufacturing, construction, energy, medicine, and even real estate and the press.

Persons and peoples are motivated to make great sacrifices, even at the risk of their freedom and life, when the goal is the happiness, well-being and security of their families. Those are the desires that have always moved humanity to undertake social and political struggles to achieve a better life. Today these desires are in the hopes and minds of millions of Cubans on the island who already know there is a better future awaiting them.

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The Central Bank of Cuba Legalizes Cryptocurrencies in National Transactions

In the text published this Thursday, the entity declares itself free of any liability that may arise in cases of scams.

14ymedio, Havana, August 27, 2021 — Cuban authorities finally approved regulating the use of cryptocurrencies in national transactions and will grant licenses for service providers that operate with these virtual assets. The resolution, published yesterday in the Official Gazette, will take effect on September 15.

The text, signed by the head of the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC), Marta Sabina Wilson González, indicates that the entity must establish “the use of certain virtual assets in commercial transactions” in “operations related to financial, exchange, collection, or payment activities” within or from Cuban territory.

The permission of the BCC will be essential so that “financial institutions and other legal entities” can use “virtual assets among themselves and with natural persons, to carry out monetary and commercial operations, and exchange and redemption.”

The entity has warned of the risks of operations with virtual assets, due to their high volatility, and because continue reading

they are carried out on the internet, with the lack of regulation and supervision that this implies.

The new legal framework is based on Decree-Law 317 regarding “the prevention and detection of operations in the fight against money laundering, the financing of terrorism, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.” The rule, approved in 2013, indicates that the BCC is the competent authority to act against this type of crime and for this it must establish the guidelines to prevent it.

In the text published this Thursday, the entity declares itself free of any liability that may arise in cases of scams.

“Natural persons assume the risks and responsibilities that in the civil and criminal system derive from operating with virtual assets and virtual asset service providers that operate outside the Banking and Financial System, even when transactions with virtual assets are not prohibited between such people,” it says.

In May of this year, Miguel Díaz-Canel warned that the possibility of regulating cryptocurrencies was very real and its “convenience” was being analyzed. In the midst of a landscape of serious crisis and lack of liquidity, virtual currency opens up some possibilities, but it also carries risks and uncertainty.

The deficit in the balance of payments, the non-participation in multilateral organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, its high debt, repeated defaults, and the effects of the US embargo, hinder Cuba’s access to financial markets and its international transactions. But the authorities have allowed cryptocurrencies to operate only in the national orbit.

On the island, users of this type of asset have grown notably, and it is estimated that at least 10,000 people use bitcoins.

The BCC warned months ago of the scams that could occur in this area, and indicated that the operations carried out by a list of companies it designated have “little or no transparency and hide behind apparently technical but meaningless verbiage.”

The companies were Mind Capital, Mirror Trading, Arbistar, Qubit Life / Qubit Tech, X-Toro and Trust Investing, the most popular in the country with tens of thousands of partners. Its director in Cuba, Ruslan Concepción, was detained in April of this year for alleged “illegal economic activity.”

After his arrest, several Cubans linked to the company were investigated and some assets were confiscated from them. The platform is accused by several international analysts of operating “a Ponzi scheme — it doesn’t have a real product and pays its investors with their incoming money,” although its affiliates in Cuba deny this.

Some experts consider that cryptocurrencies could be a solution for Cubans who do not trust the peso but have little access to dollars since remittances have been reduced due to the limitations imposed by the Donald Trump Administration. But they also call for caution because of scams that occur in this area.

Among Cuban cryptocurrency users, opinions have not been long in coming. Michel Aragón, who has a finance channel on YouTube, has been very annoyed by the control that the BCC will impose on both companies and citizens who want to participate in the system, while Erich García, founder of Bitremesas, is optimistic and thinks that an opportunity has opened up.

“Yes, I’m Cuban. Yes, I use cryptocurrencies a lot. Yes, I’m a natural person. Yes, I’m going to request the necessary licenses to operate with that” digital asset. “I live in Cuba and I must comply with the laws of Cuba. If it doesn’t fit me, I’ll pass. Just normal,” he told his followers.

Translated by Tomás A.

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