14ymedio

With 30 Percent of the Expected Cane Sown, Another Disastrous Sugar Harvest Is Coming in Cuba

View of the Agroindustrial Sugar Company [Azucuba] November 30, in Artemisa. (El Artemiseño)

14ymedio, Havana, 28 June 2023 — The sugar cane planting campaign in Cuba makes us fear the worst, again, for the next harvest. In Sancti Spíritus, only 30% of the harvest plan for the spring campaign – which runs from January to June – was fulfilled, said Aselio Sánchez Cadalso, director of Coordination and Supervision of Azcuba, the state sugar company.

In statements to the official press, the official said that work in the field was difficult due to the intense rains of recent months, mainly in March, when it is “decisive” to start planting.

Sánchez Cadalso recognizes that they can take advantage of soil moisture for seed germination, especially since 95% of the sugarcane areas of Sancti Spíritus depend on rain, not having irrigation systems. However, he insisted that due to the rainfall in June, it was impossible to make progress in the work.

He acknowledged that there are delays in “almost all areas of attention to the cane,” which is also obstructed by the lack of agricultural inputs due to the “difficult economic situation that Cuba faces,” which has hindered the import of fertilizers and herbicides. This has forced producers to look for alternatives in agro-ecological techniques, the official said.

The Sancti Spíritus sugarcane fields exceed 123,553 acres, including recovered areas that were previously covered by marabou weed. The director of Azcuba explained that in these areas today, varieties of Cuba 86/12, CP 52/43 and Barbado 80/250 seed are sown, genetically improved to have high sugar yield, adaptation to the climate and early maturity. continue reading

On the other hand, the production process has been disastrous in every way. In March it was reported that the Majibacoa mill, the main one in Cuba located in Las Tunas, had ground 56% of the cane planned for the harvest, and now the results from Artemisa have come to light. Pablo Valdés Amador, director of Informatics, Communications and Analysis of the November 30 Agroindustrial Sugar Company, detailed the poor results of the 121 days of the struggle: 58.4% of the planned raw material was ground, and only 44.9% of the planned sugar was produced, equivalent to 8,306 tons.

According to an article in the provincial newspaper El Artemiseño, the sugar mill started the grinding after 30 days of delay, which results in a lower yield and low use of the factories. Valdés Amador listed the string of problems they faced this year, including difficulties in harvesting and delays in the transportation of raw material to the plant due to the lack of fuel.

Wilfredo Moreno, the Azucuba director of harvest, said that the company must find a way to capture income to meet the payment obligations with the producers, since this also delays the harvests. For him, between July and August “we can’t waste time on equipment maintenance and repair,” prior to the start of the 2023-2024 season.

Although Azcuba has not yet given the final data of production for the 2022-2023 harvest, last May the Government warned that production had barely reached 350,000 tons, well below the 400,000 required for domestic consumption.

Two months earlier, Ángel Luis Ríos Riquenes, an engineer from the state sugar company, said that some sugar mills would finish the harvest in April and others in May, but warned that there was a risk that climatic conditions will affect the schedule again.

The 2022-2023 harvest started at the end of last November with a target of 455,198 tons after the meager results of the previous agricultural year, when production closed at its lowest level of the last century, and only 68% of the planned 1.2 million tons was met.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Officials Praise Chinese and Vietnamese-style Capitalism

Professor Díaz Fernandez noted that 19.6% of MSMEs are involved in manufacturing activities and 12% in food and beverage production, and employ 225,000 people. She did not indicate, however, in what sectors the remaining 68% were involved.

14ymedio, Havana, June 30, 2023 — Members of Cuba’s ruling party offered an unprecedented, sudden and impassioned defense of capitalism on Friday. The statements came as part of an extensive two-person interview published in Cubadebate on the role of micro, small and medium-sized companies companies (MSMEs) in the nation’s economy.

Though they acknowledged the misgivings many Cubans have towards these new economic “players”, Ileana Díaz Fernandez and Ricardo González Águila — introduced as professors at the Center for Studies of the Cuban Economy— they were unequivocal in their defense of them.

“The process of creating MSMEs has been positive for the country,” said Díaz Fernandez, who noted that 19.6% are involved in manufacturing activities and 12% in food and beverage production, and employ 225,000 people. She did not indicate, however, in what sectors the remaining 68% were involved.

When asked if these companies should be considered a threat to Cuba’s socialist system, she said “expectations are” that all forms of non-governmental management combined would be responsible for no more than 13.9% of gross domestic product and that “basic means of production would not be privately owned.”

“Socialism is not at odds with a mixed economy, which is to say the existence of different forms of property,” she continued. “It is essential that, instead of marginalizing them, they are involved in the construction of socialism, that co-existence with state forms is encouraged.” continue reading

González Águila added, “Conceptually speaking, privatization is associated with the transfer of ownership of a public asset to private companies, or the outsourcing of certain services provided by the state, for example, public health. As I understand it — and I believe this to be correct — that is not what happened in Cuba, what has been happening in Cuba. We have had to gradually get over the conceptual paradigm that tells us social progress is only possible if we rely exclusively on state-owned companies. And this paradigm shift has created an opening, which I would still describe as modest, for the private sector.”

What is most critical, he believes, “is the ability of the state to lead, design and coordinate the national development where the various players, both public and private, will have to be integrated and cooperate with each other.”

In this regard, he cites China and Vietnam as “conceptual references”, two countries “with a vibrant private sector that has managed to raise the quality of life for its population rather than destroy its social system.”

As for high retail prices in the private sector, which have been the subject of widespread popular complaints, González Águila says that it is not MSMEs which are responsible for the ongoing inflationary pressures but rather another underlying cause. “As long as there is a fiscal deficit and other quasi-fiscal factors, inflation will not abate, whether there are SMEs or not,” he claims.

Díaz Fernández pointed out that only 4.6% of private companies are in the retail sector compared to 19% for state-owned companies. “When there are fewer commercial MSMEs and state companies are unproductive, demand goes up. And when there is little competition, prices rise.” she said.

Joining in the defense of private enterprise several days ago was famed Cuban musician Silvio Rodríguez. On his blog Segunda Cita (Second Date), he responded forcefully to a post by Fidel Vascós González entitled “Rethinking Socialism.” Vascós González acknowledged that, since the fall of the Soviet Union, “the process [in Cuba] has not advanced far enough nor been as linear or as fully conceived as it should have been.” He called for a home-grown, Cuban version of democratic market socialism and for abandoning “the current system of highly centralized state socialism inherited from the USSR and CAME” (the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance created in 1949, which Cuba joined in 1972).

In much clearer language, Rodríguez wrote, “After experiencing socialism as a nation and having seen how other ‘socialisms’ have worked, the first thing to be said — because it is extremely important to speak clearly at this [critical] point for the world and for our country — is that the transitional phase known as socialism has, so far, not created a means of production that is superior to capitalism.”

“All forms of socialism that have survived and are prospering have capitalist economies,” Rodriguez pointed out. “I believe one of the biggest, if not the biggest, problems that we have is that we are trying to lead society as though we were leading a communist party meeting.”

“We are in the most difficult phase of the so-called revolutionary period, when there has been a loss of faith and confidence as never before,” Rodríguez added. “And, unfortunately, the level of communication has not been as high the situation requires… Trying to build on the basis of what’s been done before without a very clear and sincere discussion will, I believe, yield a result contrary to what is needed. [It requires] a frankness and clarity as unobjectionable as life itself. This is the only way to begin to change reality: by looking at it, treating it and discussing it as it is, not as we would like it to be.”

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Diaz-Canel Resumes His Visits to the ‘Potemkin Villages’ To Learn About Cuba’s Successes

Díaz-Canel visited a successful farmer and the Rafael Freyre School Sports Initiation School. (Cubadebate)

14ymedio, Havana, 30 June 2023 — Early this Thursday, Cubadebate announced the visit of Miguel Díaz-Canel to Guantánamo, one of the most forgotten provinces on the Island but one that has recently been on the tips of everyone’s tongues. First for the resounding protests against the Government — followed by the corresponding arrests — last May, in the municipality of Caimanera. In recent days, a UN report has urged the United States to close its prison on the naval base, where prisoners continue to suffer “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” something that the regime has not wasted in order to reclaim that territory.

“They are going to take Díaz-Canel where things are a little better, because we don’t have anything,” said a commentator on the news. It wasn’t hard to predict. The president visited a successful farmer and then the Rafael Freire School of School-Sports Initiation, which the official press describes – accepting its slow construction – as a place “with teaching buildings, dormitories, sports facilities and other essential infrastructures for its operation in perfect condition, beautiful and very well maintained.”

The space had everything, including a little house for the children of workers and athletes, although its capacity is not anything to rave about, since of the 20 places available, only six children have been able to be accommodated. “At the time of the President’s visit, they were taking a nap, so they walked into the cozy space almost on tiptoe and spoke very quietly,” explains Cubadebate.

From there, Díaz-Canel went to the Manuel Simón Tames Guerra Polytechnic Agricultural Institute, built thanks to international collaboration (the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the United Nations Development Program). There, the president also had time to speak about the importance of these schools, “inspired by Marti’s teaching and Fidel’s idea of combining study and work.”

He also spoke with Jorge Fernández, the farmer at his first stop in Lajas de El Salvador. At 32 years of age, the young man abandoned his dentistry career and “turned to the land,” where he now manages 445 acres under cultivation. Cubadebate praises the attitude of the producer, who had already met with Díaz-Canel on a previous visit to ask for more land, “certain that he could use it to support the demand for food in his municipality and the provincial capital and also contribute to lowering prices.” continue reading

It is left to the reader’s imagination to know why he left a prestigious university career in the second year, but it does explain how he obtained 297 acres of bananas and fulfilled his commitments, being able to incorporate his production into the ’family basket’ [in the rationing system] of the inhabitants of El Salvador for three months. Soon he will plant this fruit again – with seeds from Villa Clara – and plans to grow corn, soy and sweet potato. The leader asked him if the intermediaries paid him on time, if he had supplies and if he adequately remunerated his workers.

“You are still young and it is very important to continue learning,” Díaz-Canel urged the producer, who “promised him that he would think about it, but ’after I manage the farm, which is large and needs a lot of time and effort.’” And with this dialogue the president left, happy to have found a farmer who is doing well and who can serve as an example for him “to encourage others.”

The result of the visit went as planned. Also, hours before, another reader described what was going to happen without missing a beat: “It’s a shame that these visits are ’guided’ because visitors don’t see the reality of ordinary Cubans. If visitors want to meet a farmer, they are taken to the best one who has all the resources to produce, who does not complain about anything. Many times these farmers are even reinforced with inputs, like cattle from other properties, so that visitors see what the leaders want them to see. If they go to a community, they take them to the improved, painted one. If they go to a market, they supply it one or two days before and do not sell the products until the day of the visit. So there are plenty of examples to show that this type of visit is not a faithful indicator of the reality at the base, because our problems are the same as always and are increasing.”

The Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, had a more cumbersome role on the Guantánamo tour. He visited the town of Cayamo, in the rebellious Caimanera, which suffers from drought, shortages and a housing supply with 40% of the homes in regular or bad condition. He also met a group of citizens who expressed their concerns and problems.

Marrero endured the barrage as if it were not his fault and asked that they look for help and “different solutions. The Government’s policies for that are approved,” he said. In addition, he asked the citizens for patience: “It will not be from one day to the next, but surely you have seen that agreements have been made with other countries that will give us new opportunities.”

From there, and after promising new homes thanks to the community’s brick-producing company – which allocates 24,000 units a month to subsidized construction – he went to the Frank País salt plant, where the workers told him about the problems of distributing the product. In the company there are 3,000 tons stopped due to lack of transport, and 700 more waiting to be delivered.

According to the director, Darlyn Elisástegui Columbié, the poor state of the railroad has complicated the situation, but there are already several containers on their way to the provinces “most affected” by the lack of distribution.

“I am worried about the abandonment of the company. No dry salt is produced, and there is a lack of quality in the manual packaging process,” Marrero said after seeing the workers who deal with this phase. But at the end of his visit, the recipe was the same as always: “The blockade is going to continue, let’s unblock ourselves, let’s open ourselves. Let’s not look for so many explanations for the problems and find more solutions,” he exhorted.

It was another one of the readers’ prophecies fulfilled. “So far I don’t see that the advisory and directed government visits have yielded any results. It’s the same thing over and over again, and things are getting worse every day.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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General Lopez Miera Arrived in Belarus To Negotiate Military Cooperation With Cuba

Jrenin and López Miera exchanged views on the global security situation, as well as the military and political situation in Europe. (Reformation)

EFE/14ymedio, Minsk (Belarus), 30 June 2023 — The Minister of Defense of Belarus, Víktor Jrenin, and Álvaro López Miera, head of the Cuban Armed Forces, met today in Minsk and studied ways to develop military cooperation between the two countries, according to a press release from the Belarusian side.

At the meeting, the ministers “addressed in detail the current state of bilateral military cooperation and ways to continue developing it,” the article adds. In addition, Jrenin and López Miera exchanged views on the global security situation, as well as the military and political situation in Europe.

“At the end of the talks, the ministers reiterated their mutual interest in intensifying military contacts,” the article concluded.

López Miera arrived in Minsk from Russia, where he was on Tuesday with the aim of discussing the realization of “a series of joint projects in the technical-military field.” The Cuban was the first senior foreign official to visit Moscow after the uprising of the Wagner mercenary group against Vladimir Putin.

The Russian head of Defense, Sergey Shoigu, was the official who received López Miera at the headquarters of his ministry. According to the Russian news agency Sputnik, Shoigu proposed to his counterpart “to address in detail all existing and promising cooperation projects in the military field.” The minister assured that there was “a wide variety of issues” in which Russia could support Cuba, including “technical” aid to the Island’s Army. continue reading

He praised Cuba as “an important partner” that demonstrated “a complete understanding of the reasons” that led Putin to invade Ukraine, although he did not allude to the cautious silence maintained by the Havana regime during the tension with Wagner’s troops. The bilateral dialogue, Shoiguu summarized, is in the best of states, and they “are taking measures” to “protect their cooperation” against international sanctions.

“Russia is willing to provide assistance to Cuba,” the soldier promised López Miera, although both Sputnik and other media that reported on the visit avoided defining the exact content of that “strategic” aid.

On June 13, Putin decorated López Miera with the Order of Friendship, for his “important contribution” to the “strengthening of military and technical-military cooperation between the two countries,” Prensa Latina reported.

Born in 1943 and Minister of the Armed Forces since 2021, López Miera was part of Cuba’s military interventions in Angola and Ethiopia. He is one of the senior Cuban officials sanctioned by the U.S. Government “for his involvement in human rights violations.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Complaints in Ciego de Avila, Cuba, That All the Pink Shrimp Goes for Export

The shrimp boats of Ciego de Ávila hope to take advantage of the lucky streak and exceed the total production planned for the first half of 2023. (Invasor)

14ymedio, Havana, 1 July 2023 — It had been five years since the shrimp fleet of Ciego de Ávila – six heavy ferro-cement boats – did not meet the semi-annual goal of 94 tons of pink shrimp. However, nowhere in the long report in the local press about them this Saturday is it guaranteed that this food will arrive, even in minimal quantities, at the Cuban table. The goal is the same as always: export.

Local leaders admitted that the money to buy food for the entire state fishing sector depends on the success or failure of the fishermen and the subsequent sale of the product abroad. That the shipment was complete by the end of May is a good sign: it was still possible to work in June and make an additional profit.

The passage of Hurricane Irma in 2017 marked the beginning of bad luck for the shrimpers, who usually celebrate the fulfillment of the plan with a small party in the port of Júcaro. With timidity, the director of operations of the Industrial Fishing Company of the province, José López Calderón, said that the sale of cargo in the international market “favored” the consumption of seafood for the people for the rest of the year. However, the leader did not explain what part of the 94 exportable tons the people of Avila will receive.

Judging by Invasor’s report, the only fishermen who benefit from the work do so during working hours. A boat “goes on a cruise for 20 days, and a good part of the food expenses for the crew can be provided by the shrimp, and, to a lesser extent, by the aquaculture productions,” López explains. continue reading

As for the money from the sale of the shrimp, says the head of finance of the Fishing Company, Neyci López, it is destined – although not in its entirety – for “spare parts, repairs to the industry and paint for the boats.” But you can’t be “categorical” when it comes to calculating profits, he warns, since shrimp prices “float” on the world market.

Something remains, the leaders said, for the people. “We add about 28 tons each month; of them, 8.9 go for [people with prescribed] ’medical diets’, in addition to contributions to educational centers and Public Health.” It was not clear if they deduct that amount from the 94 tons planned for export or if it would come out of a surplus.

Among the factors that allowed the plan to be fulfilled this year, the authorities point out, is the repair of the boats, cabins and implements above the waterline of the ships. The most serious repairs, they say, have to be done in national shipyards, and this has not been possible.

Another negative factor has been the fuel crisis that affected the entire country and prevented greater movement of the boats. The profit, they say, could have been greater. However, they celebrate the triumph: “Júcaro reinvented itself,” is the slogan.

Invasor concludes its report with a voluntarist comment on the infinite possibilities that the sale of the precious shrimp will provide the Cuban State. However, it cannot avoid a bitter note: “We could not avoid the temptation, not at all culinary, to echo the popular voice when it inquires: what purpose do exports serve?”

Translated by Regina Anavy
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Cuba Eliminates the Controversial Repatriation Requirement for Athletes Residing Abroad

With the elimination of the repatriation requirement for athletes on the Island, baseball player Yasmany Tomás, “The Tank,” will be able to play with the Industriales team. (Facebook/Yasmaní Tomás)

14ymedio, Havana, 29 June 2023 — Among the controversy over the desertions, this Thursday Cuba’s National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (Inder) announced the elimination of the repatriation requirement for Cuban athletes residing abroad. The demand was an impediment for those who decided to emigrate to another country and wanted to participate in an event organized on the Island.

The official media Jit recognized that this requirement had been the generator of the greatest debates in baseball. It was indicated that it will be up to the different national commissions to update the regulations of their competitions, and this decision takes effect immediately.

The most recent case is that of Yasmany Tomás, “The Tank,” who had expressed his interest in returning to Cuba and playing with the Industriales team, but the repatriation requirement prevented him from doing so.

This player, who played four seasons with the Arizona Diamondbacks and also joined the Mexican team of Los Mochis, was informed that with the elimination of the controversial measure, he will be able to play with the Industriales in the playoffs.

“Havana has just informed Tomás’ family that he is authorized to play in the 2023 playoffs,” Por La Goma posted on Facebook.

The repatriation process, which was authorized in 2013, has been used by emigrants who want to buy a home on the Island, reside in the country after retirement or regain access to certain social services, but it also implies that the person can be “regulated” with a ban on going abroad, tax obligations and legal duties. continue reading

On the other hand, Denilson Milanés, one of the four soccer players who left the Cuban soccer team in Miami, was accused of “treason” by his father Adilson Milanés, who under the auspices of Inder, works in Costa Rica as a coach of beach and court volleyball.

Adilson Milanés said he was “betrayed” by the escape of his son Denilson along with three other soccer players in Miami (USA). (Facebook/Adilsón Milanés)

“My son betrayed me and his grandmother,” said this native of Cienfuegos on his social networks. “Please Denilson, come back,” he asked. Adilson’s words, along with his studies at the Camilo Cienfuegos Military School, generated controversy and seemed to emanate from officialdom, from a member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces.

Since his desertion, Denilson Milanés has not offered any comments. In the face of Internet attacks, he clarified that his reaction had to do with politics. “In my post I said that I was betrayed,” he emphasizes. “You don’t know why. They want to politicize everything.”

So far, there are 33 dropouts of Cuban athletes in 2023. The figure does not surprise Raiko Arozarena, the brother of the naturalized Mexican baseball player Randy, who arrived in Mexico on a raft in June 2015. “It’s something we see as common,” the athlete said in an interview for the media covering the Gold Cup. “It has happened with several sports teams, that players arrive in foreign countries and stay,” he said.

Raiko Arozarena said that in the morning they trained, and at breakfast they began to tell people. “We saw that the boys were missing, that they stayed” at the place of practice. “When we had to travel to Houston, we noticed that Roberney Caballero, Denilson Milanés, Neisser Sandó and Jassael Herrera were not there.”

This Wednesday it was also confirmed that the former baseball player and director of the Island’s team, Roger Machado, arrived in the United States a month ago. The journalist Yordano Carmona specified that his arrival took place through humanitarian parole. “With the shortage in Cuba right now, they are even left without the dictatorship’s figureheads. Indeed, Roger Machado has been in West Palm Beach for more than a month through humanitarian parole. How great you are USA!”

Machado, the reporter said, is remembered for celebrating the Communist Party and the “90th birthday of the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The United States and Mexico Discuss a Refugee Program That Could Benefit Cubans

The United States could benefit Cubans and other migrants with a shelter program. (EFE)

14ymedio, Mexico City, 2 July 2023 — The United States might extend the legal avenues for migration to Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans. The plan, according to Reuters, will allow people who meet the requirements to obtain refugee status to do so through the U.S. “refugee resettlement” program that is only available to applicants from abroad.

Unlike those migrants who apply for asylum after arriving in the United States under the condition of “refugees,” with this variant people receive authorization to enter the country, obtain work immediately and receive benefits such as housing and employment aid. Another benefit is that they can apply for permanent residence within a year, which offers more stability than other options.

Four officials confirmed that the governments of the United States and Mexico are discussing the plan. This program will be available to those migrants who prove that they suffer “persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, membership of a certain social group or political opinion.”

In April, the Biden government said it intended to admit 40,000 refugees between 2023 and 2024. As of May 31, about 3,400 had arrived, which shows that the pace would have to accelerate a lot to reach the goal. continue reading

In order to be eligible for the program, people have to prove that they were in Mexico before June 6. A source from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who remained anonymous, confirmed to 14ymedio that there have been several meetings between the two governments on the migration issue, but specified that “so far no agreement has been reached.”

Since January, the US government of Joe Biden implemented the humanitarian parole program. Despite the flood of applications and the difficulties in getting an appointment, as of May, 29,000 Cubans have benefited. The figure was given by Blas Nuñez-Neto, Acting Undersecretary of Border Policy and Immigration of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, who also announced that there will soon be new provisions for the family reunification process.

In Mexico, the official of the foreign ministry pointed out that applications for refuge increased by almost 30% in the first quarter of 2023, to a record 37,606, according to the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance. In the figures published in May, there are 4,215 natives from the Island who have joined this program.

The coordinator of the Jesuit and Refugee Service, Karen Martínez, established that Chiapas is the southern state of Mexico with the highest reception of refugee applications, pointing out that in Tapachula there are about 26,000 foreigners this year and, of that number, 40% are refugees.

Chery Agnes, a migrant from Haiti, joined this day of peaceful mobilization against discrimination. This woman was a soccer player in her country, and her dream is to continue playing this sport where she is given an opportunity.

“I like everything, I’m a soccer player and I work with my body because I’m a model,” she told EFE. “I am a lesbian and am a very peaceful person, and I am here to show that we have rights,” she added.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Competing Pizzerias on Havana’s Obispo Street

The sweaty waiters at Via Venetto impatiently check their watches, smoking and chatting, hesitantly fearful of the swarming flies. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, June 29, 2023 — No one shows any interest in having lunch at Via Venetto, whose interior is pitch black and flies buzz around the pizzas on display. The restaurant is located on Obispo Street in a downtown area with constant foot traffic that should make it an ideal spot for any food service establishment. The shabby appearance of this formerly state-run operation — it was rented out long ago to private individuals — stands in contrast to the liveliness of its completely privately owned competitor just across the street, which always has a line outside.

Free of Via Venetto’s lineage, the rival pizzeria is bursting with energy. Though also under private management, it is unburdened by any ties to the state. Though tiny and nameless, the place is well-stocked and its prices are reasonable, making it possible to have a good meal here.

A young waiter dispatches customers’ orders with lighting speed. Meanwhile, across the street, the waiters at Via Venetto impatiently check their watches as they stand outside, smoking and chatting, hesitantly fearful of the swarming flies who have come to devour their pizzas.

“They’re like the soles of flip-flops,” observes one of its few customers, eloquently comparing their pizza’s tough dough and scanty cheese with rubber footwear. They are certainly cheaper, he concedes, but anyone who eats there knows what why kind of pizza he is getting: flavorless and low-quality.

A few steps away, the young woman at the modest storefront offers several types of cheese, ham, soft drinks and pizza, which are handed while still warm to customers, who prefer to eat standing up rather than seated in one of Via Venetto’s mortuary-red upholstered chairs. “It’s no secret”, notes another passing observer, frightened just by the sight of the place. “Every private individual who partners with the state ends up like the crab: walking away backwards!”

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Carlos Alberto Montaner, the Cuban Who Taught Us to Debate

The writer and journalist Carlos Alberto Montaner has died after being diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease. (Archive)

14ymedio, Havana, Yoani Sánchez, 30 June 2023 — I had read him in those ‘plain-paper covered’ books that passed from hand to hand in Cuba in the 1990s. Later, on our Island where censorship was practiced in all its forms, several videocassettes with some of his participations in foreign television programs slipped through. He had a way of speaking and arguing so different from the leaders who were yelling at us from the tribunes that there was no way to take your eyes off the screen. Cultured, calm, smooth and with prodigious verbal ability, Carlos Alberto Montaner practiced an exercise that had been lost in national political life: debate with respect and arguments.

It was not for nothing that Fidel Castro hated him so much. Compared to the man of letters, versatile, disciplined, and who listened attentively to his interlocutor, our tropical caudillo seemed more hysterical, coarse, and authoritarian. In a hypothetical oral duel between the two, it was easy to determine who would most convince the audience, most move the audience and wield the most reliable data. The fear of meeting Montaner at some international event and coming out worse from an exchange of phrases must have tormented the dictator for decades, who always wanted to be a writer and only managed to become a crazy orator without any poetic flight.

The official discourse presented the exile, who escaped from the island in 1961, as the “black beast” of Castroism, the public enemy one of the nation and coined that he was a violent terrorist because he could not be defeated in the field of words. They ensured that several generations of Cubans did not read his texts at school and, even so, they did not manage to prevent people from knowing him in the country where he had been born in that distant 1943.

The official speech presented the exile, who escaped from the Island in 1961, as the “black beast” of Castroism, the public enemy of the nation

When I opened my Generación Y blog, in April 2007, one of the first attacks I received from the spokesmen for the regime was that of an supposed training that Montaner had given me in Spain, to return to the island and start publishing a blog. At that time, I was afraid and indignant that they lied with such impunity, but today it only makes me laugh and proud to see that, although I didn’t even know that man from Havana with his elegant bearing and tall stature at that time, with that campaign of firing squads against my reputation, they were actually linking my name to his forever. continue reading

With the passing of the years and a long fight to recover the right to travel outside my country, I finally met the author of the Secret Report on the Cuban Revolution. I was surprised by the tone of his voice when we shared a debate table in Madrid, the affability of his character, the immediate affection that he professed to every Cuban who approached him, the willingness to help his compatriots and the absolute lack of rancor in his attitude . That was not, at all, the man that Cuban State Security had painted with a very broad brush.

Later I met his family, he gave me several of his books and we continued talking about Cuba, his great obsession. The day Fidel Castro died, in November 2016, he was the first person my husband and I called from Havana to break the news. I saw him clarify more than once that the time had passed for him to dedicate himself to politics or integrate a government, although I also witnessed many people who approached him and said: “You have to be the next president of Cuba.”

Whenever we saw each other, he asked me about the young people on the Island, he expressed his hopes that the new generations would not have been able to completely eradicate the desire for freedom.

He had, like few relevant figures, the good sense to feel and act accordingly. Whenever we saw each other, he asked me about the young people on the Island, he expressed his hopes that the new generations had not been able to completely eradicate the desire for freedom. He was right. On July 11, 2021, we dialed his number again to confirm that he had not been wrong. Although with his death on June 29 in Madrid he was not able to see the end of the regime, he did experience the hope of those popular protests, the largest and most extensive in the entire history of our country.

His recent farewell column showed part of his greatness: it was a tour of his desires, anxieties, and expectations. While his archenemy had died consumed by anger and publishing insane reflections, Montaner left magnified: lucid, respected by the intellectual community and with the humility of one who knows that a lifetime is finite but every second counts. This Thursday he left with the peace of mind of having contributed with all his talent and energy to his land, to that Island to which he could not physically return but to which he returned, time and time again, through the writing.

Have a good trip, friend, the Cuba of the future will be more like your dreams than the current nightmare.

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Cuba Has Lost Carlos Alberto Montaner

Carlos Alberto Montaner would have been the best president of the Republic of Cuba at any moment when there might have been a transition to democracy. (Photo capture from YouTube)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 30 June 2023–“What qualifier should I use to win the title of top toady?” I asked Carlos Alberto Montaner one day. “Illustrious,” he replied, and we could not stop laughing.

I met him in 1996 during my first trip to Spain. I called the number for the Playor editorial offices and a secretary transferred me to him. “I am a Cuban journalist passing through Madrid, and I would like to speak with you,” I said by way of introduction. Following a brief pause he replied, “I’ll expect you here tomorrow afternoon.”

Being that Montaner was in the top tier of “enemies of the Revolution,” I assumed that before entering his office, located near the Puerta del Sol square, his bodyguards would search me and that certainly there would be cameras monitoring my visit. But such was not the case. Montaner himself opened the door and invited me into his office. “Do you work for Granma?” he asked, and when I told him that I was an outcast from official journalism, he made the first joke that started the bond of humor we shared: “Then I’ll notify the Marines and the CIA that they can call off the operation.”

At the conclusion of that first encounter, he invited me to have a coffee at a nearby kiosk, where he confessed to me that this act — which he would repeat every day — was his therapy against nostalgia for Cuba. continue reading

I have read all of his books and most of the articles he published throughout his long career. Every time we would meet in Miami or Madrid he would ask me specific questions about Cuban issues, of which he was always deeply informed. For many, including myself, he would have been the best president of the Republic at any moment there might have been a transition to democracy. Once, when he was in his seventies, he said that he he was already too old to aspire to such political responsibilities. In May of this year, already having lived to 80, and suffering from a cruel disease, he retired from the mission of writing columns.

Today I have learned that he will never be in Havana celebrating with friends the end of the dictatorship. If I get to witness that outcome, I promise to raise a glass to him — for his ideas, for his courage, and for his brilliant intelligence.

Goodbye, my illustrious friend.

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

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Carlos Alberto Montaner Dies in Madrid Without Having Fulfilled His Dream of Seeing a Free Cuba

Writer and journalist Carlos Alberto Montaner has died after being diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease. (Archivo)

14ymedio, Madrid, 30 June 30, 2023 — The writer and journalist Carlos Alberto Montaner died this Thursday at his home in Madrid, where he lived since October 2022, “peacefully and accompanied by his loved ones after facing a neurodegenerative disease,” according to a statement issued by his family.

In the statement, his wife Linda, his children Gina and Carlos and their granddaughters Paola, Gabriela and Claudia express their gratitude “to the Spanish public health professionals, to the Right to Die with Dignity Association and to all the relatives and friends who showed so much affection to him in the final stretch of a prolific life marked by the defense of individual freedoms.”

Carlos Alberto Montaner was diagnosed in the Madrid public hospital Gregorio Marañón, as he himself said in his last farewell column, of Progressive Supranuclear Paralysis (PSP), a rare disease of the Parkinson’s family that has no cure and whose origin is unknown.

In May, the author made the decision to publish a text in which he reviewed his life, dedicated to the vindication of democracy and political pluralism by writing, the best thing he knew how to do and that, in fact, he did in the pages of some of the best newspapers in America and Europe.

Carlos Alberto Montaner supported the birth of 14ymedio by signing its manifesto of support, and for this newspaper it has been an honor to have his signature on a regular basis. He departs, however, without achieving his dream of seeing a free Cuba. continue reading

His farewell will be an intimate and private act, according to the family, which closes with a phrase from Montaner himself, published in his memoir, Sin ir más lejos [Without going any further]. “The time has come to recapitulate. We have to pack our bags. Disappearing is an ungrateful activity that is only justified because it is the only irrefutable proof that we have lived.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Jose Angel Buesa, the Cuban Poet Ignored by Castrismo

José Ángel Buesa published numerous poems, which today fill Cubans with pride, both on and outside the island. (Verbum)

14ymedio, Jorge Hernández Fonseca, Miami, 26 June 2023 – It is estimated that there are more than three million Cubans (and descendants of Cubans) in exile. One of them was, in his day, José Ángel Buesa. Very early in the Cuban communist revolution, a romantic poet disaffected with the emerging dictatorship was one intellectual too many for a regime which required unconditional support, and a man with Buesa’s integrity could not, in any way, give that. His romanticism collided head on with the firing squads and the Acts of Repudiation of this violent era and he had to exile himself.

The poet passed through the motherland, Spain, and then tried to establish himself in the Canary Islands, from where destiny took him back to a place nearer to home – El Salvador. From there, even closer again, he settled in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic where he became a university professor and published numerous poems which today fill Cubans with pride, both on and outside the island. Reading Buesa’s work was forbidden in Cuba for generations. His romanticism was deemed “not good for a people that had to hate the enemy”.

Nevertheless, we have heard from the island recently that there is now a growing affection for the poet. The need for dollars, that the dictatorship suffered from as a consequence of their uselessness and inefficiency, has brought about the publication of Buesa’s poems in high quality print, for sale in Freely Convertible Currency (MLC) – that is, to tourists; but, as the prohibition has been lifted, hearing them even on official radio Cubans are going crazy for his poems – Cubans that didn’t even know that they had a poet of such calibre, born in Cruces but forced into exile as a persona non grata.

We Cuban exiles are no strangers to the critical polemic aimed at the romantic poets. Whatever the personal circumstances of each person, that controversy doesn’t imply censorship of any poetic tendencies, because there is room for everyone, as demonstrated on the island, which censured Buesa over many decades, wanting to tip the scales against him and favouring materialism in literature, and now this Buesomania explodes in their hands simply because of the tenderness of his poems and their depth in singing about love.

José Ángel Buesa deserves a seat of honour at the table of contemporary intellectuals but the Cuban dictatorship isn’t going to grant it because his poetry is the very negation of the philosophical and social policy that they have implanted in a totalitarian manner. Because of this, it is the duty of all good Cubans in exile, in whatever profession, to pay the homage deserved to Buesa, so that he may finally rest in peace in his grave in Miami.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso.

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‘The Private Company is of the Revolution’, the Cuban Government Tells tothe United States

“Companies that work with independence and creativity promote economic and social development on the Island,” said the U.S. Embassy in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Madrid, 29 June 29, 2023 — The private company, anathema in Cuba for more than 60 years, has become, from one day to the next, a lifeline of the regime and a new reason for friction with Washington.

In some unusual statements, this Thursday, Johana Tablada, he Cuban Foreign Ministry’s Deputy Director General for the United States, boasted that the private sector “emerges and develops under the policies of the Cuban Revolution, discussed and approved by the citizenry.”

The official’s Facebook post – collected by the Prensa Latina agency – alluded, without saying it specifically, to a tweet two days ago from the U.S. Embassy in Havana, which promoted on its networks an extensive report on micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in Cuba, published last week by The Miami Herald.

The link was accompanied by the message: “There is a significant growth of the private sector in Cuba! The private sector is on its way to buying more than a billion dollars in goods by the end of 2023. Companies that work with independence and creativity promote economic and social development on the Island.”

On the same subject this Thursday, WLRN, from South Florida, dedicates a chronicle to the incipient Cuban businesspeople, saying that Cuban capitalism is becoming a reality. Cuban capitalists hope that U.S. aid will be real. According to the author, “Cuba’s communist economy is sinking, but its capitalist entrepreneurs are growing, and the United States wants to associate with them before Russia does.”

Faced with this, Tablada lashed out against the United States for “illegal coercive measures of an intensified blockade that hinder income, banking transactions, trade and investments and that torture the Cuban population,” and for “the financial siege and persecution for fraudulent inclusion of Cuba on the terrorist list.” continue reading

Those journalistic notes, however, not only took the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by surprise but also part of the exile, which sees the proliferation of new private companies on the Island as a “fraud,” as Rosa María Payá harshly expressed.

For her part, businesswoman and activist Saily González responded with a long thread to the “various inaccuracies” and “some fallacies” which, in her opinion, the Herald report incurred. “A country in transition? Where to? Towards an economic model similar to the Russian oligarchy, I suppose,” she tweeted, echoing one of the phrases of the report and alluding to the growing fear of an opening of the Cuban economy to the Russian one, given the latest agreements between Havana and Moscow.

Inside the Island, as this newspaper has noted, the distrust of these new businesses comes from the high prices and the fear that they will be managed by people close to the regime.

Interviewed in this regard by the Herald, Catholic activist Dagoberto Valdés, founder of the magazine Convivencia, stated that although he understands that “the economic actors closest to the circle of power” may be those who arrive at the “caramel” in a “piñata effect,” he says that it is “mathematically impossible” that the almost 8,000 private businesses “are directed by relatives of government officials.”

Reinaldo Escobar, editor-in-chief of 14ymedio, also referred to a “piñata” in the gathering of Radio Martí, Las Noticias como Son, saying that the private company has been “kidnapped” by those who rule, “in a very easy way: as they have all the power, they are those who tell someone yes and someone no, who allow thing and not another.” However, he said that it was “a conquest of the people who are critical of the Government” and a demand “that did not come from above, but from below.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Endless Ordeal of Retirees in Matanzas, Cuba, to Collect their Pensions

Those affected are elderly people, many of them already with health problems. (Girón)

14ymedio, Havana, 17 May 2023 — The lack of workers is once again in the news on the Island. On this occasion, the protagonist is the shortage of professionals in the Post Offices, causing serious problems in the collection of pensions, according to the Matanzas newspaper Girón on Tuesday. The official media initially attributes the chaos to an employee who has been sick long-term and whom it has been impossible to replace permanently, but the branch director hints that the problem is not isolated.

“There is a shortage of workers, that is why we, the managers, are moving to make the corresponding payments. The solution depends on who we can hire”, says Ismary Hernández, director of the Post Office Unit in the Versalles neighborhood, in the city of Matanzas, to which the office of the old Medical Center belongs. The more than 200 retirees attached to this headquarters denounce that they have not been able to collect in a timely manner for months, as have the 130 people who receive social assistance at the same location.

Those affected are elderly people, many of them already with health problems, and who bitterly lament the difficulties it means for them to stand in line for days. Because the worst thing, they agree, is when the money runs out and the office closes, leaving them unpaid.

“There is a shortage of workers, that is why we, the managers, are moving to make the corresponding payments. The solution depends on who we can hire”

“It’s been happening for months,” says an 89-year-old retiree interviewed by the outlet. They show up at 10 or 11 in the morning. It’s not right to keep old people, including me, waiting here for so many hours. Yesterday at one in the afternoon they said the money had run out. We had to leave and come back today to stand in line again, when the compañera arrived at 11:30 to make the payments,” he says. continue reading

All the testimonies coincide in pointing out the negligence and bad manners with which the workers, when they are there, treat the pensioners. “It’s illogical for all in this town to come here at six-odd in the morning to stand in line, and it’s already 11:30 and no one shows up, not even to give us an explanation. Is it that, when someone retires, he no longer deserves consideration, doesn’t have value?” laments a retiree who worked for 49 years during his life.

“I have never gone through so much work to get paid as I do now. We are here without having breakfast, without eating anything”, protests another who, at 76, feels relieved for not being among the oldest and tells that an 89-year-old friend had to be helped by her children when she collapsed while waiting in line.

“They calmly tell you: ‘We ran out of money’, another says “I’m leaving.” Those who are working go home, and often the little old people don’t even have enough for a soda. “It’s a lack of respect to us” protests another one.

Having managers there has allowed things to go better this month, although everyone knows that it is not the solution. “This month was better, everyone was paid on time and the payment was quite fast”, says Hernández. “What happens is, and this has been explained to the clients on another occasion, that she, as an employee, has other responsibilities. Within these functions, she has been interspersing the payment to the assisted-retirees,” Bárbaro Ortega Araujo told Girón Ediesky, deputy director of the Post Office in Matanzas.

The service requires, he adds, some training, but not only that, you have to be selective because of the large amounts of money that are handled

Yaneysi Remón Suárez, the company’s Director of Operations, maintains that she has requested personnel from the Ministry of Labor, but “so far no one has appeared.” The service requires, she adds, some training and, not only that, you have to be selective because of the large amounts of money they handle. “In greater quantity as a result of the Ordering Task and these salary increases. The institution manages millions of pesos,” she argues.

“Correos moves even more money than a bank on a given day,” she adds, but the salaries that are offered are not very attractive. The official states that a postman currently earns 2,600 pesos. “Anyone in another entity – such as a bank, Etecsa, new economic players – earns much more than a postman, who spends eight hours in the sun, pedaling and offering the service,” she explains.

As if that were not enough, there are no tires for bicycles, which makes traveling to deliver the mail impossible.

There are no short-term solutions either, acknowledge the managers. The official who has been multiplying her duties for three months must help with the payments, and although they affirm that “the negotiations do not stop” and that they are trying to increase salaries, one of the most advanced proposals is to mobilize those in the military service.

“When the borders were closed and the large avalanche of packages from international parcels ceased and people opted for shipments by sea, the Ministry of the Armed Forces helped us. We made a contract with them, with young men who were serving in the Military Service. We are calling for that too to resume,” Ortega Araujo states.

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The Hemispheric Front Criticizes the Pope for Receiving Cuban President Diaz-Canel and Treating Him With ‘Obvious Affection’

Pope Francis with Miguel Díaz-Canel, during his meeting in the Vatican. (Twitter/Cuban Foreign Ministry)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Miami, 27 June 2023 — The Hemispheric Front for Freedom (FHL), composed of parliamentarians, academics, political leaders and human rights defenders from several Latin American countries, criticized Pope Francis for receiving the Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, last week and for treating him with “an obvious affection that offends” the victims.

“It pains us as Catholics and Christians that you receive the criminal (Díaz-Canel) and other representatives of the Castro dictatorship while the Vatican ignores the true representatives of Cuban civil society,” the FHL said on Tuesday in a letter sent to the Pope.

The group says in the letter that it does not intend to question papal decisions but reminds the pontiff that the Cuban president “is charged with crimes against humanity” and that “his victims cannot be ignored, much less by you.”

“With what merit have you received the current dictator of Cuba?” asks the FHL, after saying that the reception of the Cuban leader “has painful and very questionable implications.” continue reading

Díaz-Canel was received on June 20 by Pope Francis, at the first audience held in the Vatican between the two. They talked for 40 minutes, according to Vatican sources.

After the meeting, the Cuban president met in the Secretariat of State with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and issues such as the request for the release of prisoners were discussed.

For the FHL, an organization committed to “promoting the values of freedom in the region and in the world,” the concession of the meeting “should have been conditioned, publicly and at the very least, on the release of Cuban political prisoners.”

It said in the letter that Díaz-Canel “unleashed a fierce repression that included shootings and beatings against the people who took to the streets, peacefully, to demand freedom” on July 11, 2021.

The Cuban government, it added, “does not respect women or children. Over 1,400 people were imprisoned, and 784 were sentenced to between 5 and 25 years in prison, including minors.”

The FHL reminded the Pope that “half a century of efforts, at the highest levels, have not produced an iota of moderation or tolerance in the communist regime, not even mercy for the innocent.”

The letter ends, signed by Dragos Dolanescu and Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat, president and secretary general of the FHL, by saying that the Cuban regime will not change its attitude because “its ideology is based on hatred of everyone who does not think like them.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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