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The Cuban singer-songwriter, a universal figure, died at the age of 79 after several weeks of hospitalization for several infections as a result of his illness. Milanés suffered from a type of cancer — myelodysplastic syndrome — that decreased his immune response.  He moved to Spain five years ago for medical treatment.

This Tuesday, on the Island, the Government wanted to monopolize  any kind of tribute to the artist, who in recent years had openly broken with the regime.

At the same time that all the front pages of the Cuban official press were filled with unusual praise for Pablo Milanés, the various events organised in his memory in Havana were strongly monitored by State Security.

The surroundings of the park at H and 21st, in El Vedado, where a group of fans had spread the word that they would meet to honour the memory of the artist, singing his songs from three in the afternoon, were guarded by a police operation.

State Security agents dressed as civilians were seated and scattered on the benches. Motorcycles circled around and even a bus that the Police use to load people or fill with shock troops implied that, if any action took place, they would not let it happen with full freedom. Finally, a little more than 30 people dared to make an appearance and hung a Cuban flag on the kiosk located in the centre of the park.

Meanwhile, the troubadour’s family summoned friends and admirers to sign a book of condolences at Milanés’ recording studio, on 11th street, between J and I, also in El Vedado.

In the tribute, not many spontaneous people were observed, but there were officials and media related to the regime, such as Telesur. An unknown woman did not stop taking photos of everyone present.

Like the park at H and 21st, the area was under close surveillance. “You can’t even quietly pay tribute to a great artist who has died,” protested a young woman who approached to offer condolences to the musician’s relatives.

The operation, where even René González, one of the “five spies,” according to 14ymedio, appeared, was also extended to the Cuba Pavilion, headquarters of the Hermanos Saíz Association, on La Rampa, where the Ministry of Culture organized a tribute to Pablo Milanés.

No family member was at the official “cantata” disseminated on social networks by people associated with the regime.

Translated by Regina Anavy 

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

In the midst of the exodus, this week the death in a traffic accident of Cuban Claudia Suárez Pérez, who arrived in the United States three months ago, was announced. “My girl had an accident and it killed me,” the young woman’s mother, who did not identify herself, told journalist Mario J. Penton. “I need help to bring my girl’s body home so I can see her for the last time,” she added.

Yesi Boza, cousin of the 21-year-old girl who left her “five-month-old baby” on the Island, requested the support of any organization that is in a position to help in the repatriation efforts. “Today it was my cousin, but tomorrow it can be any of our daughters, sisters, friends, granddaughters or ourselves,” she told America TeVé.

This Saturday it was also announced that the Cuban Marcos Cabrera, who managed to reach the United States, was hit by a van while riding his motorcycle. “The doctors tell me that his brain received such a forceful blow that it burst, as they say, inside; for many it’s a miracle that the boy is still alive,” the young man’s father told América TeVé.

Due to the severity of his injury, his relatives are requesting help so that Cabrera’s mother can leave the Island with a humanitarian visa.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

The official uses the press to encourage producers to give the meat to the State through the receba — the final fattening stage. The State offers 600 to 800 pesos, depending on the animal’s weight. In the informal market “it barely exists, and when it does it costs nothing less than 4,000 pesos.” In addition, Pérez says, the initial feed is guaranteed at that stage of breeding, and a level for the feed is guaranteed.

“We agreed on the sale to the producer of starter feed in currency with a return, so he can recover the investment,” he said. The official says that some meat is already being marketed at 200 pesos per pound at the Sancti Spíritus Fair — although the amount of the product is still too small — through the purchase of backyard pigs. “This year there is no plan with Commerce and Gastronomy, and there are few orders for the meat industry,” he adds.

Pérez believes that things are going to go very slowly and that the first thing to solve is the lack of feed for the animals, although he is moderately optimistic. “There are producers motivated by the prices of corn and soy beans to sow them and contract delivery to the company; there you can see a recovery. Not the one we want, or the one the people need, but we are no longer at zero.”

In Sancti Spíritus, the authorities estimate, there are about 217 producers who meet the conditions to sign agreements with the State. Until October, only 33 had closed agreements, and although there are already 11,900 pigs on the feed, the meat is just starting to arrive.

“Complying with the state commission, the immediate thing would be to maintain offers at the Sunday Fair and sell some amount to the population by the end of the year,” says Leonardo Hernández Aulé, head of production at the company dedicated to the production and commercialization of pork meat in the province.

A producer belonging to a cooperative, Pascual Balmaseda Escobar, who has already signed two agreements with the State, admits that many of his colleagues think he’s nuts; where before producing a ton of pork cost 20,000 pesos, it now exceeds 120,000.

He, however, points out the advantages. “If you want to have pigs you have to have soil and to sow. The food from the pig doesn’t cover all the expenses and never has, but it’s realistic to think that it can happen. Now, if we want to produce pork intensively, we need to import the starter feed and some nutritional supplements, which are already produced in Cuba,” he says, defending himself.

Yurisdel Fábrega, another producer summoned to testify about the positive aspects of working for the State, affirms that without the starter feed and the protein supplement they can’t raise pigs or produce meat. “When there is feed there is pork (…) but without the protein we are nothing. No matter how much corn, bran or cassava you throw at it, the pig needs that nutritional element,” he says. In his case, he began in April with 360 pigs and then expanded to 600, which are already providing meat to the province despite the fact that, he reveals, several animals have died.

His verdict is clear: without a loan it’s impossible to raise pigs. “More producers aren’t suddenly joining because this is hard; it’s not like before; it takes a lot of money, spending about 95,000 pesos daily on food.  Now, if you don’t get credit from the bank, you can’t do it, because, seriously, there’s no one who can. Here I have 6 million pesos invested to feed 600 pigs; previously, with a credit of half a million pesos I could fatten them,” he says.

Rolando Pérez Sorí also does the math. “Spending 3,000 pesos per 200 pounds of soy, 2,500 for corn, paying the producer for a ton of meat at 220,000 pesos, comes out to about 100 pesos per pound standing, while the individual pays for that pig at more than 200 pesos. It’s very difficult to put the state sale price below 200 pesos per pound. It’s a real competition and an obstacle to developing state production in the middle of an adverse scenario,” he maintains, while he waits for pork to reach the tables of some citizens who have already lost count of the last time they tasted the animal.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Like other Cuban and mixed-capital companies, Richmeat sought business opportunities at the Havana International Fair (FIHAV). Luis Alberto González Hernández, President of the company, said that the new plant will be used for the manufacture of sausages, with a brand they called “La Favorita,” on which “market tests” have been performed.

The factory is expected to operate beginning in 2027, with a production capacity of 7,000 tons of sausages per month, made with the “newest technologies” and the promise of “high quality standards in their processes.”

The plant will have a workforce of 400 and will be a “continuation” of the existing one, dedicated to the seasoned picadillo. The most sensitive issue — and the one that seems to least concern current investors — is that of raw materials. González Hernández said that a part will be “of national origin,” but did not detail where Richmeat would obtain the meat to fill the supply deficit that has already been announced.

Asked by Granma about this issue, he limited himself to answering cryptically that there were “agreements” to “encourage suppliers,” and that they will be able to “grow together with the firm and increase all productions.”

The distribution of the product is another tricky situation. But the director assured that Richmeat was protected by “contracts with the chain stores of the national network,” although he avoided specifying whether Cubans would pay for the product in pesos or in freely convertible currency (MLC). Logistics, on the other hand, will be resolved by the company’s own transport network.

Without taking into account that Richmeat works with Mexican money — a country that will surely also have to send part of the raw material — González Hernández said that his company’s initiative “decreases imports.”

“Our goal was clear, very clear, to produce the largest amount possible for the tables of Cuban families,” said the manager, also ignoring the general scarcity on the Island.

The article, paraphrased by Cubadebate, was harshly criticized by readers, who noted that “from the beginning, nothing of nothing has been available” in the markets in pesos and expressed their concern about the origin of the raw materials.

“All slaughterhouses and sausage production have stopped,” said one user, while another explained that Richmeat products will only reach the west and will be insufficient for the whole country.

Some complained that only Richmeat and its partners in the Cuban government could be interested in opening a plant from scratch, when there are meat factories on the Island that are paralyzed, waiting for maintenance, or malfunctioning.

In Sancti Spíritus, for example, the sausage production plant — the only one at the moment in the country — had a meat deficit in the province. The low production added to the shortage of raw materials, caused an increase in the price of meat, and the sausages were not intended for family consumption but for hotels and the network of stores in MLC.

During 2021, pork production in Cuba fell by 53.5% compared to the previous year, with just 132,900 tons. This streak of bad luck also affected beef, with a decrease of 13.5%, lamb by 32.5% and poultry by 20.8%, according to the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI). For its part, in 2022 the Government predicted a total production of 26,000 tons of pork, according to the figures released by Cuban Television in April, a tiny amount compared to the 200,000 tons that were forecast in 2017.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

The director of the western branch of Cubatur, Carlos Alberto Rivera, told the official press that the cruise company brought the vessel Marella Explorer 2 in March 2022 and announced that, together with Marella Discovery 2, regular trips will be maintained every 15 days in Cuban ports during the high season, from November 2022 to April 2023.

According to the Cruise Mapper page, the boat departed on November 15 from the port of Montego Bay, Jamaica. Her first stop was on the island of Grand Cayman and the second in Havana, from where she will leave for Cozumel, Mexico. Finally, on November 22, she returns to Jamaica.

The cruise industry, which was booming in Cuba, slowed down in 2018 when the Trump Administration tightened economic sanctions against the Island, in addition to the effects of the 2020 mobility restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, Rivera assured that for the rest of the year the arrival of other ships is expected, and thus will begin “a successful season for tourism” in January 2023.

The Government states that Cuba received 123,588 tourists in October alone, the fifth best data in the 10 months of 2022. The result, however, is below the initial projections and the number recorded in 2019, before COVID-19.

From January to October, 1,198,402 international tourists were received, a figure that exceeds by 540% the same measure in 2021, but that year restrictions on the entry of foreigners were still maintained due to the pandemic. Last month, the Government had to recognize that it will not reach the goal set at the beginning of the year of receiving 2.5 million visitors, and it lowered its forecast to 1.7 million.

Although November and December are two of the best months in tourism, it’s unlikely that the goal will be reached, since 250,000 tourists would have to enter the country in each of the last two months of the year. Even if this is achieved, the sector will have recovered only 40% of the levels recorded in 2019, when a little more than 4.2 million travelers arrived on the Island.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

The family report shocked several activists from both the Island and the exile. Political analyst Andrés Albuquerque indicated, from Miami, that one could not “stay impassive” in the face of the abuses committed against Ferrer, whom he pointed out as the only one of the “traditional opponents” who is imprisoned, and that while “everyone should be talking about him,” there has been a strange “silence” about him in the opposition.

He called for an “examination of conscience” for anyone who is not giving that family “the solidarity it deserves,” in his Citizen Approach program.

In September, the inmate’s sister reported that the family had not received any information about his condition for several months. Ferrer is one of the almost 1,000 political prisoners that the regime has detained since the mass protests of July 11, 2021, or after the demonstrations in recent months.

Since June 4 of this year, the leader of UNPACU is prohibited from making phone calls from prison. At that time, Ana Belkis Ferrer García explained that the officers kept her brother “semi-naked, only in underpants, full of mosquito bites, getting food from the bag he’s allowed to receive every 45 days and without the right to family and conjugal visits.”

According to his sister’s calculation, Ferrer has now spent “a year, two months and 12 days buried in life and slowly dying.”

Several organizations, such as the Directorio Democrático Cubano [Cuban Democratic Directory], demanded from the Cuban Government proof of life of the inmate, in the face of the regime’s refusal to grant him the family visit that he was supposed to have on August 26.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

However, she hasn’t seen a “change of policy” in Washington, because “unfortunately” the sanctions — even the last twist introduced by the previous president of the United States, Republican Donald Trump — persist “practically” without modifications.

“We will have to see if the Biden administration, beyond increasing the conversation with Cuba, is willing to stop being faithful to Trump’s measures,” she says.

Tablada assures that Cuba has the “will” to solve the problems with “cooperation” and “dialogue” but makes clear its red line: “What Cuba is not willing to do is to negotiate issues of internal and constitutional order with a foreign government.”

She affirms that her country has not changed its strategy toward Washington, despite the lowering of tone, the intensification of contacts, and Cuba’s unusual request for help after Hurricane Ian, to which the United States responded with two million dollars in humanitarian aid from the United States Agency for International Development.

Cuba, Tablada emphasizes, seeks to “find a civilized way in which both countries can take advantage of” what unites them and not what divides them, and the two “can move forward for the benefit” of their peoples. Similarly, the US State Department spoke last week about dialogue with Havana to “advance national interests.”

In the opinion of the deputy director, the electoral results in the mid-term elections in the United States open “a window” for Washington and Havana to move towards the normalization of bilateral relations. In the elections, the Democrats demonstrated unusual strength for being the party in the White House, and they retained the Senate.

“The only way is for us to understand each other, to respect each other, to learn to deal with our differences,” Tablada points out, paraphrasing some recent statements by the president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel.

Tablada, who denies that Cuba has used migratory pressure against the US at the negotiating table, maintains that it’s the sanctions that are “strangling” their country and promoting emigration, mainly to the United States. In fiscal year 2021-2022, about 225,000 Cubans arrived irregularly at the southern border of the United States, a record figure.

“Vice President Kamala Harris can go to Honduras and say — and I agree with her — that schools must be built so people don’t leave their towns; that hospitals must be built so people don’t have to leave; that people’ lives must be improved… And now they come to Cuba, where there are schools, hospitals, social security… and they say the opposite,” she argues.

She emphasizes that “American incentives” to migration such as sanctions and the Cuban Adjustment Act (which grants permanent residence to Cubans once they have remained in the United States for one year) should not continue. She also says that Washington should end the “injustice” of including Havana on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

“I am hopeful that Cuba will be removed from the list, but not because the US Government has given us any signal” in this regard, she says.

On the other hand, she assured that “there was no discussion” about human rights with the United States “nor any mention of names” in last week’s bilateral migration round, and that she is willing to resume dialogue on that matter with Washington during the “thaw.”

The official stated that the issue of human rights is, in her opinion, “a pretext, completely fictitious,” from Washington, as well as an “excuse” to keep the sanctions in place.

“There was no discussion on the issue of human rights. There was no mention of names,” Tablada said, despite the fact that this issue was cited in the statement of the Department of State after the meeting.

“We have told the US Government that we are open to resuming the human rights dialogue we had during the Obama and Raúl Governments,” she said.

Tablada also maintained that it’s not true that the US sanctions against the Island are maintained — despite the electoral promises of President Joe Biden — because of the repression after the anti-government protests of July 11, 2021 in Cuba, the largest in sixty years.

She argued that maintaining sanctions is in fact against human rights, because they harm Cubans on a daily basis by depressing their quality of life, and that the United States has good diplomatic relations with countries that are also accused of violating human rights.

The deputy director also indicated that they have provided “accurate information” to Washington about human and drug traffickers “linked to organized crime” and established in Florida, people who participate in human rights violations.

“We have told them and given them precise information that people who organize human trafficking operations are linked to organized crime and that many boatmen who traffic people are the same ones who are involved in drug trafficking and take people to Florida just like they do drugs,” she said.

Tablada stressed that “there has been bilateral collaboration” in this area and that Havana is willing “to strengthen it.” Recently, a meeting was held between the maritime border protection bodies of Cuba and the United States.

In the round of migration talks last week, the second of Biden’s term, along with Tablada, the Undersecretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Emily Mendrala, and the Cuban Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carlos Fernández de Cossio also participated.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.