14ymedio – Page 200 – Translating Cuba

“Autonomy at the Expense of an Empty Pot: No,” Claims Cuban Amelia Calzadilla

Amelia Calzadilla in her second video, published this Sunday, hours before her summons to the local government headquarters. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 13 June 2022 — When a Cuban explodes in the networks, upset about things that happen in his country, he can find himself with a problem similar to Amelia Calzadilla’s, the 31-year-old from Havana, who last week made a live video complaining about the high prices of electricity and the daily hardships she faces to feed her children. Her diatribe went viral, and she has an appointment at the local Cerro Government headquarters this Monday. But that’s not the worst of it. At the moment, the regime has targeted her over the weekend, insinuating, as usual, that she is being financed by someone, in a clear allusion of a source abroad.

After being singled out by Iroel Sánchez in Cubadebate and by the official troll Guerrero Cubano, who amused himself by analyzing elements of Calzadilla’s home which, in his opinion, is a symptom of having money, the young woman has exploded again in an almost 30-minute message published this Sunday, in which she insists that it was never her intention to talk about politics, nor has she asked for a change in the system, nor a coup d’état. “I was not talking about my political ideology. Have I ever stated what my political position is? No. My political position is to be a mother,” she maintains.

In this sense, she insists that she would be very sad if Cuba lost its autonomy. “But not autonomy at the expense of an empty pot” she adds.

Calzadilla summarizes the last days since her video became popular. Members of the Communist Party of Cuba and the Ministry of Internal Trade were at her house to talk about the high prices of electricity and the shortage of gas, without which you cannot cook. Apparently, all of them listened to her carefully and conveyed their support, but after that, the accusations against her started.

The young woman asserts that anyone can verify, and even demands that it be made public, that she barely has $1.70 in her freely convertible currency card, about 180 Cuban pesos, and that she has received two recharges on her phone, nothing more. She has also asked all the people who have reached out to her on Facebook to offer their help by posting their messages stating that she has rejected any proposal. continue reading

Visibly upset, Calzadilla claims responsibility for the things that she owns, not only because of the scrutiny she has been subjected to, but because she considers it an infamy that Cubans are trying to be influenced into believing that a simple lamp or a ring sold by a self-employed person are luxuries. “In the rest of the world this is worth nothing. The people of Cuba do not fully understand that a ceiling lamp is worth much, that these are not luxuries, that these are necessities I do not have to justify.” The young woman has even been accused of visiting El Tropicana night club.

“Is that a luxury? It’s a cabaret founded before the Revolution for Cubans of all periods and all epochs, always. It’s not for foreigners, it’s not for millionaires. There are no millionaires in Cuba, right? Don’t they say that? Why can’t I go?” She protests bitterly.

Calzadilla attacks the Party officials who have not been willing to stop this wave of disrepute that is chasing her and that is costing her parents, both elderly and with pathologies, as well as their children, who have to go to school this Monday with the stigma about their mother. In addition, since she began to circulate her video, the internet has been cut off and she has to connect through third parties, and this Monday the problems could increase after her “interview.” “Maybe it’s to talk about gas or maybe to arrest me, even though I haven’t committed a crime. Where is my crime? I ask you to expose them. I’m telling you that you can check my account statements, go check,” she states.

“Maybe it’s to talk about gas or maybe to arrest me, although I haven’t committed a crime. Where is my crime? I ask that you expose them”

Calzadilla again charges against a government that has been and continues to be incapable of solving citizens problems, despite the fact that she emphasizes that her children are among the most fortunate to receive money from their family who lives abroad, but also emphasizes that sometimes it is impossible, even if she has a few pesos, to buy products that are simply not available in Cuba or, when they are found, it is in hard-currency stores.

The young woman also tells that when she has had problems and has gone to complain to the indicated agencies, the workers, who are also ordinary Cubans, tell her they regret they cannot do anything for her. “In the chicken line, in the bakery line, in the bus line or in the medical consulting clinic… You hear people complaining, but those people do not have the courage to later complain the way I did. I did not fabricate or orchestrate anything; however, they want to fabricate a story against me,” she insists.

Calzadilla attacks those who have defamed her within the ruling party, and declares that they are not very brave, since they have not even phoned her or looked her in the face to tell her what they were going to say about her before doing so. In addition, she insists that when she’s done with everything she will withdraw from social networks, but first, she thanks those who have supported her because she acknowledges that she has never felt alone.

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US Will Resume the Cuban Family Reunification Parole (CFRP) Program This Summer

The United States Embassy in Havana. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 10 June 2022 — The United States reported that it will resume the Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program (CFRP) for Cubans, and the equivalent program for Haitians (HFRP), this summer.

In a statement issued this Thursday, the same day that the Washington Embassy in Havana announced the imminent expansion of procedures at that diplomatic headquarters, the Department of National Security explains that the decision is part of the search for “safe and orderly alternatives to irregular migration and its many dangers and indignities.”

The CFRP, says the institution, established in 2007 “provides a safe and orderly path” to US territory for “Cuban beneficiaries of approved immigrants based on the family.” The document allows a person to travel to the United States and present themself there before an immigration authority to apply for asylum.

“Both the Cuban and Haitian people are facing a humanitarian crisis and our policy is focused on empowering people to help them create a future free of repression and economic suffering,” the federal agency said in its statement, made public on the same day as the closing day of the IX Summit of the Americas, held in Los Angeles, where President Joe Biden declared that illegal immigration “is not acceptable.” continue reading

Days earlier, Brian Nichols, US undersecretary for Latin America, had asserted that his country was exploring “agreements to curb migratory flows on the continent.”

The Island is suffering a drain on human capital through an unprecedented exodus, especially since the agreement between the presidents Miguel Díaz-Canel of Cuba and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, signed at the end of November, to allow “free visas” for Cubans traveling to Nicaragua. The Central American country immediately became the springboard to reach the United States by land.

From last October to April, 114,000 Cubans have arrived in the United States, according to figures from the Customs and Border Protection Office, and it is estimated that after one year’s time, the numbers will far exceed the 125,000 of the Mariel exodus in 1980.

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Central Havana Building on the Verge of Collapse Has Its Facade Removed

It has been obvious for some time that the building has barely been able to hold itself up. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, June 14, 2022 — Stoicism seems to be a trait the residents of Central Havana have been forced to adopt. Accustomed to living among ruins, they barely notice when a building is facing imminent collapse, as has been the case for one on San Lazaro Street between Gervasio and Escobar. The building began to be vacated on Tuesday in advance of its partial demolition.

It has been obvious for some time that the structure is held together by little more than sewing pins. After the street was closed that morning without notice, the brave souls still living in the building began slowly leaving their homes, carrying their meager belongs away in bags, believing they had to look for somewhere new.

They had been surprised by the sudden, unexplained announcement that the building was to be demolished and quickly began packing their things. They were even more surprised to learn that, in reality, only the facade was to be demolished and that, once the work was complete, they would be able to move into the rear part of the structure. The six apartments that make up the building are wide and deep but their inhabitants will have to isolate themselves if they want to avoid seeing the sad ruins of what was once the visible face of their dwellings.

“It’s a shame. These windows are very valuable. Someone should pay the bulldozer to set them aside,” observes one of the many onlookers as the last person to leave the building shuts the door before the wrecking crew begins its work. continue reading

From the balcony of the building next door, a woman calmly leans out to watch the goings-on. Though the neighboring buildings are in no better shape than the one about to be demolished, few people seem alarmed by the constant threat of a roof collapse or the prospect that their building could be the next to come down. The falling rubble of the partially collapsed building is enough to make floors tremble, threatening weaker structures nearby.

A few yards away in a line for sausages, people can be heard chatting. Life goes on.

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The UN Asks Cuba to ‘Punish Those Responsible for Child Abuse’ on July 11 (11J)’

The Committee urges accountability against those who used force in the detention of minors on June 11. (EFE)

14ymedio, Madrid, June 10, 2022 — The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child urges the Cuban State to review the penalties imposed on minors “declared guilty of exercising their right to freedom of peaceful assembly in the context of the July 2021 protests.” This is one of the conclusions of the periodic report carried out by this body, based in Geneva, which was issued this Thursday.

In the 14-page document, the UN expresses its concern about several issues since the 11J demonstrations, which are mentioned again in the section on rights violations and torture. Although the committee considers that, in general terms, Cuba doesn’t have problems of this type, “it is very concerned about the complaints received about abuse and ill-treatment during the arrests of children and adolescents that occurred as a result of the protests of 2021.” For this reason, the report urges not only to investigate them, but also to “identify, prosecute and punish those responsible (…) and offer reparation” to the victims.

Freedom of association and peaceful assembly are also of concern to the UN, which considers that the rights of minor political activists and their children are severely restricted. In addition, focusing again on 11j, it highlights that some, “just 13 years old, were violently detained, stolen from their homes during the night without their families being informed of their whereabouts, held incommunicado and transferred to different facilities for lengthy interrogations after participating in the protests. Some of them, it emphasizes, continue to be deprived of their liberty, and the committee is concerned about the “criminal prosecution” of these children under the age of 18, several of whom are sentenced to between five and 15 years in prison for exercising their rights peacefully.

For all these reasons, the Government is urged to put an end to arbitrary restrictions and the criminalization of the right of assembly, in addition to taking measures to prevent the excessive use of force and allow minors to freely associate. continue reading

The Committee considers it positive that the age of criminal responsibility is 16 years and not less, as is the case in some countries, but this doesn’t prevent it from recommending an end to the preventive detention of minors, reducing their sentences and establishing a better system of access to justice, which must comply with the norm. They also call for the acceleration of the juvenile penal system, so that appeals, “in particular those for surveillance and detention” linked to 11J are rapidly reviewed and completed.

Beyond the repression of protests, which are new in this period’s report, the document focuses on some other issues. One of them is linked to forced separations from the family due to “international missions.”

The text calls for the amendment of article 135 of the Criminal Code, in order to eliminate obstacles to family reunification, which provides for penalties of between three and eight years in prison for “the public official or employee in charge of carrying out a mission in another country who abandons it or, having completed it and required at any time to return, refuses.”

In addition, and it’s symptomatic, the UN is concerned about the “negative effects” on children whose mothers have been deprived of liberty and urges the Government to look for alternatives for internment of pregnant women and mothers of children.

On another matter, the Committee’s concern about the nutrition problems of Cuban minors is noted. In the midst of a terrible shortage of food products of all kinds, ranging from animal proteins to dairy fats, fruits and meats, and beginning to affect even beans, traditionally used to assuage hunger, the UN warns that despite positive state policies concerning children’s health, the high and growing rate of iron deficiency, as well as childhood obesity, attributed to poor nutrition and excess sugar, is beginning to be very worrying.

In the same section, maternal and child health (PAMI) programs are praised, but strengthening the prevention of prenatal deaths and “promptly addressing the shortage of medical supplies and personnel to care for children” is recommended.

In the last two years, Cuba has worsened in these indicators, which have been partially influenced by the pandemic, but also by the abandonment of programs due to lack of funding and the flight of doctors, which affects the country. Thus, and although the island maintains good rates in relation to the continent, some provinces have higher infant mortality data than other globally worse countries, such as Mexico or El Salvador. Ciego de Ávila, in particular, is the worst, with a rate of 13.8 babies deceased per thousand births in 2021, almost double the island’s average, with 7.6 per thousand.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Medical Supplies Donated by US Associations Close to the Regime Arrive in Cuba

Puentes de Amor and Code Pink sent material to Cuba for liver transplants. (Twitter)

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 13 June 2022 — US groups connected to the Cuban government sent a donation of medical supplies, which arrived this Sunday, for liver transplants for eight children, according to the state press.

The products that make up the donation were purchased with $25,000 raised, according to Cuban-American Carlos Lazo, manager of the Puentes de Amor [Bridges of Love] project, who traveled with the leader of Code Pink, the American Medea Benjamin, as well as with other activists from those organizations.

Lazo said that the laws that regulate the economic embargo that the US has applied to Cuba for six decades prohibit the acquisition of these products through the market between the two countries, according to the Cuban agency Prensa Latina.

“The pressure we are putting on the United States Congress and the White House is aimed at trying to end the blockade imposed on Cuba for more than 60 years,” said activist Medea Benjamin.

She also pointed out that as long as this objective is not achieved “the most important effort will be aimed at continuing to help in the donation of syringes, food, medicines, and continue fighting to end the blockade.” continue reading

The acquisition of medical supplies is one of the exemptions from the embargo, under the same conditions as food. “The United States routinely authorizes the export of humanitarian goods, agricultural products, medicines and medical equipment to support the Cuban people. In 2019, the United States exported millions of dollars of medical products” to the Island, according to then Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs of the United States, Michael Kozak, speaking in 2020, in the midst of a pandemic.

The condition is that Cuba must pay in advance for the purchase and in cash, a practice that is unusual in international trade, as Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez has pointed out on several occasions, but through which tons of products are regularly purchased.

This donation is added to others received on the island in previous months sponsored by US associations and foundations and from Cubans living in the United States.

Since last year Cuba has received donations of medical supplies and basic food from Russia, China, Mexico, Japan, Nicaragua, Vietnam, among other countries, from both governments and private groups.

Last year the country received 135 donations from 40 countries, mostly medical supplies and equipment for immunization and the fight against the pandemic, according to official data.

Cuba has been going through a serious crisis for months due to the combination of the covid-19 pandemic, the tightening of the US economic, financial and commercial embargo and problems in national macroeconomic management.

Last week, the authorities prevented the entry of the American journalist Anthony DePalma to the Island. The writer also had two suitcases loaded with medicines for his friends from Guanabacoa, Havana, which inspired him to write his book The Cubans: Ordinary Lives in Extraordinary Times.
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The Cuban ‘Man With the Flag’ Gets a House in Tampa Thanks to Solidarity

Daniel Llorente outside the house that an American offered him for a while. (Courtesy)

14ymedio, Havana, 11 June 2022 — Daniel Llorente’s life has changed in the last 48 hours. At least a little, and enough. An American who read the story about him in the Tampa Bay Times has offered him a roof where he can stay for a while, at least while he sells the house he has offered to the “man with the flag,” with whom he spoke this Wednesday 14ymedio.

“Right now I’m having difficulty paying rent. In the US, gasoline has risen incredibly and with it rent, products, everything,” explains Llorente, by telephone, from Tampa. The Cuban managed to work a series of informal jobs when he had been in the United States for a month and, as soon as he had some savings, he agreed with a friend, also from the Island, to buy half a car. “In this country you really need a car to get around. I thought that having one would give me the opportunity to have a job, while rent would not, so with this friend of mine we thought we would buy it together.”

The vehicle cost $12,000 that they could pay off in two years, but his friend backed out due to family reasons. “They asked him to send money to Cuba and he no longer wanted to take responsibility.” Now, Llorente spends all his money to pay off that loan.

With his car he went to the Good Samaritan Inn, the guest house where he hoped to be able to sleep with other tenants for $130 a week, as he told the Florida newspaper. The place is run by a Cuban-American, explains Llorente to 14ymedio, so, although it was full when he arrived, the man was sensitive to his situation and offered him to let him sleep as long as he needed in an armchair in the lobby that is used occasionally in those cases.

“I was there three nights, but on the fourth, one of the workers tells me I have to go.” Explanations were useless and the employee, according to Llorente, refused to talk to his boss. In addition, he suddenly received the rejection of other lodgers who until that day had not been bothered by his presence in the common space. “That’s why I sleep in the car now,” he says, still in the present. The Wednesday night was the first in his “new house.” continue reading

Daniel Llorente left Cuba in May 2019, two years after he stormed the Plaza de la Revolución during the May Day parade carrying an American flag and shouting “freedom.” His career earned him an arrest that kept him in prison for a month and a year in the Psychiatric Hospital of Havana, known as Mazorra. However, he confesses to 14ymedio that he does not regret that “performance” at all — as he describes the action — and whose objective was, he says, that the United States Government “pay attention to God’s message.”

After those events, State Security harassed him until they managed to get him to leave the island. “They told me that I had two options: I would leave Cuba or they would send me to prison. I told them that they should make the decision, and a week later they went to look for me at my house so that I would accompany them, because they were going to send me out of the country, and that’s what happened.”

Llorente left with his son from Guyana on May 2, 2020 and on his journey, he says, he had incidents in three countries. The first arose in Venezuela, where they were stranded for ten days, although it was, unexpectedly, the easiest to resolve. On one occasion, the Police stopped them and took 100 dollars from them, and then they had another run-in, this time with State Security. “I have to admit that they did not treat us badly, neither me nor my son and another Cuban with whom we were traveling, they treated us with great respect, even more so knowing that it was the Venezuelan State Security, which we know is linked to the from Cuba.” According to his version, the officer told him that Maduro himself had asked that they be treated well.

The Darién jungle, between Colombia and Panama, was the worst part of the road. “We stayed two days. The boat that transports the migrants normally follows a route that does not include the crossing of the strait through which they passed us. But that day they risked it. Then we were attacked by the Colombian coast guard, who fired a shot and everything and broke the engine. They didn’t hit anyone, but it was crazy,” he adds.

The last inconvenience came in Mexico, where the Police detained them twice and asked them for money under threat of deportation. Llorente says that he explained to them who he was, that he had been expelled from Cuba and that they could not do that. Finally, everything turned out to be a big scare and he was able to fulfill his goal of reaching the United States, where he has been waiting for the resolution of his asylum request for a year.

Llorente, a man of very strong religious beliefs, believes that faith is what will bring down the regime. “In the future I see a free Cuba, but Cubans need to have faith. It is important to understand that there is a saying that says that those who do not know their history are condemned to repeat it, and we Cubans have to learn it.”

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Who Rules in Cuba Today?

The president of the Supreme Court of Cuba, Rubén Remigio Ferro, together with that of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel. (Granma)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 15 June 2022 — It has been the reading of El tirano, el oficial y el cuerpo de lobos [The tyrant, the official and the wolf pack] by colleague Carlos Manuel Álvarez, which has motivated me to write this text, which neither argues nor attempts to add anything to his article, but I feel obliged to recognize the source of inspiration.

Neither history, nor mythology, nor even the imagination are really useful to answer the question of who is in charge in Cuba today. And I say today, because in the time between 1959 and 2006 it was clear that the one who ruled in Cuba was a single person who answered to the name of Fidel Castro.

The position of premier, that of president of the Councils of State and of Ministers, that of first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba and any other were only important, in the period of time indicated, because they were held by Fidel Castro; or to put it another way, those positions did not make him important, but it was he who gave relevance to the position.

But today is another thing. continue reading

When the results of the Tarea Ordenamiento [Ordering Task*] or the 63 medidas [63 measures] to solve the problem of agriculture are serenely evaluated; when reading the resolutions of the Ministry of Internal Trade to achieve “a better distribution of basic products to the population,” or when listening to official information on the generation of electricity, any person who does not suffer from a pathology that clouds their understanding will have to come to the conclusion that the country is run by a team of incompetents.

However, it moves, or what is the same thing, the incapable remain in their posts. And this is possible due to the conjunction of two powers: the police and the judicial. Of course, in Cuba there is no “division of powers,” so that when the repressive forces catch an individual who is “non-conformist’ with the Government (with the incompetent) and present him before the courts accused of sedition or collaboration with the enemy, it is as if the accused of a horrendous crime were placed in the hands of the victim’s relatives.

This is not how Justice works, because the one who judges has to be a third party, alien to the one who accuses and the accused.

And what does this have to do with the question of who is in charge in Cuba today?

Well, it has to do with it, in the sense that the dissatisfied cannot express themselves, not even express themselves against the incapable ones who govern, because once they fall under the gaze of the repressors, the citizen automatically passes to the category of guilty in front of the courts.

It is evidence of a triangle apparently formed by the incapable who govern, the repressors who persecute the nonconformists and the courts that condemn those who oppose it. But geometry does not have all the answers. Something is missing here.

Could it be true that above all the visible framework of the incapable who govern expressed in a single party, a ministerial group and a docile parliament, the interests of a family clan predominate?

If so, the obedience of the repressive apparatuses to persecute the nonconformists and that of the courts to convict them, following the guidelines of those who govern, would be due to an intermediary that is dark as it is invisible.

That powerful and mysterious instance, oblivious to the sufferings of the people, who surely despises those who entertain themselves by dictating laws and who half trusts the guardians dedicated to repressing, does not seem to be interested in anything other than accumulating wealth to enjoy the obscene attributes of power. They neither govern nor repress, because those tasks seem unworthy of their high status.

So then: Who rules today in Cuba?

The foreman (the incompetent rulers) commands, at the service of the master (the family clan) and for that he uses the repressors (State Security) and the judicial apparatus.

The people should command along the paths that the Constitution offers them by defining them as sovereign, but when those paths have been assaulted by usurpers then the people find other ways to command.

*Translator’s notes: Tarea ordenamiento = the [so-called] ‘Ordering Task’ is a collection of measures that include eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso as the only national currency, raising prices, raising salaries (but not as much as prices), opening stores that take payment only in hard currency which must be in the form of specially issued pre-paid debit cards, and a broad range of other measures targeted to different elements of the Cuban economy.

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Avocados Cost Almost a Dollar, Another ‘Green’ Unattainable for Cubans

The price of avocados is making a fruit previously present on most Cuban tables unattainable. (Martina Badini)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 15 June 2022 — It is green and unattainable for most Cubans, but this is not about the dollar. Like every summer, the avocado returns to the island’s markets, but this summer its price has doubled compared to the previous year. Where before one fruit cost between 40 and 50 pesos, now it costs between 80 and 100, an increase that keeps it from appearing on the tables of many households.

The rains of May mark the beginning of the avocado season on the Island. “Those downpours are what give it the touch. Although before that you can find some plants that have already ripened, it’s better to eat them when they are more flavorful,” a customer pointed out this Monday while examining the offerings from a cart vendor in Centro Habana.

“But it seems that this time the rains have been golden, because the avocado is very expensive,” said a buyer, sarcastically, finally deciding to buy one still a little hard, “not for today, it still needs to ripen but the ripe ones cost 90 pesos and I prefer to pay ten less even if I have to wait to eat it until tomorrow or the day after.” Behind him, a woman who was asking about the price winced at the number and turned away with her empty bag.

Although in Europe and other countries with a colder climate, the avocado is seen almost as a luxury, the abundance of trees in Cuba, the advantages of the climate and the cultivation tradition have made it a product as common on tables as apples or oranges are in other geographies.

“The avocado makes a meal, but now it’s unaffordable,” pointed out another customer at the agricultural market on 19th and B, a place run mainly by private vendors and whose traditionally high prices have earned it the nickname of “the boutique.” “It is true that this place is expensive, but here you find things that are no longer in other places,” defended a young man who was selling from a platform in the face of the complaints of those who passed by. continue reading

“Everyone in the family knows that you can come here to buy fruits and vegetables that don’t appear in any other market, except in the Playa area where people with more money live and even broccoli is sold.” According to the merchant, “the avocado began to arrive weeks ago, but the rains have greatly complicated the shipment to Havana.”

“People complain that it is expensive, but everything is and at this time of year there is very little lettuce, tomatoes are practically gone and what is left is a good slice of avocado with the meal,” he details. “I can’t do anything else because it’s already expensive for me here, everything has gone up a lot in price and moving merchandise from the field is costing a lot due to lack of fuel.”

In the nearby municipality of Güira de Melena, the family of Reinier García confirms this increase in price by telephone. “On our farm we have a dozen avocado plants, four of which we have sold a few years ago,” he explains. The sale of these trees is not registered and is a risky business for both parties.

The purchaser of the tree buys, for a fixed price which can be monthly or annually, the production that the plant will give. In good seasons, when the rains arrive on time and the hurricanes do not damage the tree much, you can “get a good slice,” explains García. “But there are bad years and then we all lose, the one who bought gets killed because he doesn’t earn much and we get killed because people don’t have the patience to wait for better times and withdraw from the agreement.”

“The avocado seems strong but it is a product that requires care. From the time it is planted until you begin to harvest fruit, a lot of years go by and everything can be ruined by a plague, lightning or a cyclone,” the farmer enumerates. Then comes the transfer, because even if it is done with the green avocado, “if you don’t move it correctly, everything will collapse.”

García counts on a brother-in-law to move the merchandise to Havana and distribute it among various merchants in the area of El Vedado and La Víbora. “I’ve been days without getting fuel and when I find it it’s a ‘just a sip’,” says the driver of an old Plymouth speaking to this newspaper. Only the ‘inventions’ and ‘additions’ he’s made to the vehicle allow him to continue rolling on the roads.

“I offer the small avocado at 50 or 60 to the seller, the larger ones can reach 70 or 80 depending on the quality. The Catalina is the one that people like the most, because it has a lot of flavor and is larger. With this one you don’t need anything else, not even lemon, vinegar or oil on top, because it already comes from the bush fully seasoned,” he says.

But accompanying the main course with one of these Catalina adds a figure that lower-income families cannot afford. “Each egg cost me 20 pesos, I found a pound of rice at 50 after walking all over. So a meal for five people cost me 150, plus 100 that I paid for the avocado,” says Dinorah, a resident of the Havana municipality Diez de Octubre.

In Dinorah’s family there are two retirees with minimal pensions and the rest are her grandchildren, minors. “I spent more on one meal than I earn for a day’s pension, and I can’t do that so I’m not going to continue buying avocados, it’s a luxury I can’t afford,” she concludes. “We will have to wait to see if the price drops in July or August.”

The situation is not exclusive to the Cuban capital, where prices are usually higher. This Tuesday, in the La Plaza de Sancti Spíritus market, an avocado cost 100 Cuban pesos, almost the same as in a central corner of Centro Habana near Plaza de Carlos III, where the products tend to be more expensive. Even traditionally agricultural areas are not spared from inflation where ,until recently, avocado was a common ingredient on tables during the summer.

“Right now I’m going to pick the avocados from my trees and I’m going to try to pay with them, because they’re already worth almost the same as a dollar,” jokes Reinier García. “And I’m not complaining, at least my family doesn’t lack avocados and with that we can make a meal, but what it costs us the most to buy is everything else: oil, soap and toothpaste.”

Garcia does not rule out barter. “People from Havana are already coming here as far as Güira de Melena to exchange clothes for food or toiletries, for avocados and root vegetables,” he explains. “We have to be watching over the bushes through the night, because this is like having the bank safe open and in sight.”

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Cuba: One Dead and Nine Injured in Accident in Cienfuegos

One of the passengers of the Azcuba truck died in the accident, while the remaining nine were sent to the hospital, where they remain under observation. (Facebook)

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 13 June 2022 — One person died and nine others were injured when the passenger truck in which they were traveling fell down a steep slope in the vicinity of Loma de la Ventana, in the central province of Cienfuegos, the provincial newspaper 5 de septiembre reported this Saturday.

The accident occurred shortly after noon in the vicinity of Loma de la Ventana, one of the access points to the Cienfuegos mountain range through the municipality of Cumanayagua.

According to First Lieutenant Jorge Luis Pérez Rodríguez, duty officer of the Criminal Justice System in Cienfuegos, a truck belonging to the state group Azcuba, which was heading to San Blas, was involved in the event.

“Makeshift buses”are common in Cuba; here a cart pulled by a tractor is used as a bus in Pinar del Rio. (MJ Porter)

Emilio Ramón Mayor Llerena, 56 years old and driver of the vehicle, lost control of the truck, which plunged down a slope in an area where this type of dangerous terrain abounds.

The incident caused the death of one of the passengers, Alfredo Díaz Cabrera, from Aguada de Pasajeros and a resident of the La Federal neighborhood. continue reading

The Emergency Department of the General University Hospital Dr. Gustavo Aldereguia Lima, in Cienfuegos, said that nine injured were treated, including a minor who, after being evaluated in this center and found to be out of danger, was transferred to the Paquito González Cueto Pediatric Hospital.

The rest of the wounded were also classified in this way and placed under observation.

From January to May of this year, a daily average of 27 accidents have been reported in Cuba in which an average of two people die and 30 are injured. For every 14 accidents, one death results, according to evaluations by the National Traffic Directorate.

In the first months of this year there were 4,062 claims, a marked growth compared to 2020 and 2021, when mobility was very limited by the pandemic, according to the latest statistics from the Vehicle Registration department of that state agency.

Among the main causes of accidents on Cuban roads, the authorities point out that 89% of the accidents occur due to not attending to the control of the vehicle, violating the right of way, speeding, technical malfunctions and ingestion of alcoholic beverages.

Likewise, the crash of vehicles in motion is the type of accident with the highest incidence, while the deterioration of the road registered an increase, after a report of 333 accidents.

The poor state of the roads and the aging vehicle fleet in the country, where cars with more than 50 years old continue to travel, are among the factors that most influence conditions, with little reference from the authorities.

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Man Trapped When the Staircase in His Building Collapses in Old Havana

The collapse occurred in a three-story multi-family building located on Luz street between Curazao and Egido in Old Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 13 June 2022 — A staircase collapsed on Monday afternoon, leaving a resident trapped in a three-story multi-family building located on Luz street between Curazao and Egido in Old Havana. Firefighters arrived at the scene to help the elderly man who could not escape from the interior of the building, in addition to a strong police operation that cordoned off the area.

Moments before the collapse, the man, who lived in the apartment on the third floor, had gone up the stairs, according to several residents of the Havana municipality speaking to 14ymedio, and they also confirmed that no one was injured.

From a car with a crane, the firefighters accessed the balcony of the apartment to help the man, who shares the building with another family that lives one floor below. Then, both the man and the other inhabitants of the building were evacuated.

At the beginning of June, due to the intense rains that affected the west of the country, more than 60 building collapses were reported in Havana, one of which caused the death of two people.

After the collapse was recorded, a strong police operation was deployed in the area. (14ymedio)

During the afternoons in Havana this month it continues to rain and a few hours after a downpour on Wednesday of last week, a construction collapsed, specifically, the top floor of a three-story building in San Lázaro at the corner of Genios in Centro Habana. continue reading

“Luckily he was awake, because if was later, he’d be gone.” The residents of the place, gathered in front of the ruined building, commented last Thursday on the event in which no one died.

But the precarious housing conditions in this area of the capital have hundreds of inhabitants worried. Two women, who live in a building, also very deteriorated, near San Lázaro and Genios, affirmed that they are terrified, that they cannot sleep, that they also have no alternative housing and that, meanwhile, the Government is crossing its arms.

From a car with a crane, firefighters accessed the balcony of the apartment to evacuate the man. (14ymedio)

Both Old Havana and Central Habana report constant building collapses. In the vicinity of the Malecón, the buildings have especially suffered from the effects of saltpeter, which, together with the lack of maintenance, have turned the housing stock in the area into one of the most damaged in the Cuban capital. In addition, the successive programs launched by the Government have not resolved the increasingly frequent events.

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Jose Basulto, Leader of Brothers to the Rescue, Sues ‘The Wasp Network’ Film for Defamation

Leonardo Sbaraglia plays José Basulto in the production. (Fotograma)

14ymedio, Havana, 14 June 2022 — In the second lawsuit for La Red Avispa, “The Wasp Network,” José Basulto, leader of the Brothers to the Rescue, has sued the Netflix movie that portrays the story of the five Cuban spies, considered heroes by the Havana regime, who were released at the end of 2014 after an exchange with the Barack Obama Administration. Basulto states that the film defames him, spreading a false image of him as a “U.S. puppet,” while idealizing the activities of Cuban agents.

According to the complaint, which was filed on Monday and to which The Hollywood Reporter magazine had access, “this representation of Mr. Basulto, Brothers to the Rescue, and the Cuban exile community was deliberately calculated to create two clear and unmistakable villains for the film.” The lawsuit is addressed to the French director and screenwriter, Oliver Assayas, and to Netflix, the owner of the distribution rights.

The lawsuit indicates that in the film says explicitly that José Basulto was “trained by the United States as a terrorist” and calls Brothers to the Rescue a “militant organization.” The Cuban activist expresses his particular disagreement with a scene in which the association’s planes are shot down for violating Cuban airspace, when, according to his version, they were shot down in international airspace.

The complaint is in addition to the one filed in 2020 by Ana Margarita Martínez, former wife of former Cuban spy Juan Pablo Roque, who allegedly hid his duties and ties to the Wasp Network from her before secretly returning to Cuba. The Cuban wife, whose character is played in the film by Havana actress, Ana de Armas, said that she was portrayed as promiscuous and self-indulgent, which doesn’t correspond to her reality as a mother in Miami. continue reading

Two years have passed, and now this new complaint is added, which states that “the film is an obvious attempt to rewrite and whitewash history in favor of the Cuban communist regime and is inaccurate in terms of the facts. (…) It portrays the five as brave heroes who simply defended their homeland when, in reality, they were part of an espionage network that allowed the Cuban government to commit extrajudicial executions.”

“The Wasp Network” is an adaptation of The Last Soldiers of the Cold War, a book by Fernando Morais, starring the Spanish actress, Penélope Cruz, the Venezuelan actor, Edgar Ramírez, the Mexican actor, Gael García Bernal, and the Brazilian actor, Wagner Moura. Basulto was played by Argentine actor Leonardo Sbaraglia. Basulto, a Cuban exile, says that the film implies that his organization, Brothers to the Rescue, whose purpose was to provide humanitarian aid to Cuban rafters, had terrorist overtones, in order to justify the espionage of the Cubans, who were convicted in 2001 of conspiracy to commit murder and espionage, in addition to being unregistered agents of a foreign government.

In the complaint, Basulto maintains that the Cuban Government interfered in the filming, recalling that on the island it’s not allowed to film scripts “harmful to the image of the country and the people of Cuba.”

“These requirements are particularly important when it comes to a defamation lawsuit, since the Communist Party of Cuba exercises prior censorship. It requires that the ’script, storyboard or synopsis of the project’ be presented and expressly establishes that any project that shows something negative about Cuba will be denied permission,” the complaint says. “Filming true and accurate history was never an option.”

It is unknown why Basulto has taken more than two years to file this lawsuit, although he says that it has had a great emotional impact on him and asks that the dissemination of the film be banned, or that certain scenes be edited or deleted. According to his version, Netflix wrote to him after receiving the notification of the lawsuit stating that “modern docudrama audiences understand that they are watching dramatizations, not strict recreations of the facts.”

The film was in the eye of the hurricane after its premiere in 2020 and opened an intense debate between Cubans who considered, like Basulto, that the film gave a good image of the Cuban regime and should be censored and those who defended it, saying that although there were inaccurate events, you shouldn’t try to intervene in an artistic creation.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Amelia Calzadilla Thanks Those Who Made Her Feel She is Not Alone

Cuban mother Amelia Calzadilla upon her departure this Monday from the government headquarters of the municipality of Cerro, in Havana. (EFE/Ernesto Mastrascusa)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 13 June 2022 — Amelia Calzadilla, the Cuban mother who, with her videos on social media, became a symbol of discontent in Cuba, is at home after spending three hours in the offices of the municipal government of Cerro, in Havana.

Around five in the afternoon, the young woman herself published a live video in which she explained what happened in the government offices, in a very different tone from her previous broadcasts. In it, she assured that the meeting “was not an interrogation,” despite the fact that in a previous video, published this Sunday, Calzadilla feared that the summons, timed for 11:00 in the morning, was a “prepared trap” and they might take her prisoner.

The mother also explained that the “conversation” revolved around the lack of gas service that she has been suffering from “for ten years,” that they cannot solve it in the short term “because the raw material does not exist” and they promised that she could meet with officials from the Ministry of Energy and Mines “in a future meeting.” Calzadilla insisted, “Nobody mistreated me, I didn’t mistreat anyone either,” and she thanked “any person who made me feel not intimidated.”

The Spanish agency EFE, one of the international media that was stationed in front of the government headquarters, as reporters from 14ymedio were able to verify, captured images of the young mother as she left the interrogation. The vicinity of the meeting place, located on Calzada del Cerro between Buenos Aires and Echevarría, as Monday dawned was taken over by a police operation. continue reading

Close to the corner of Tejas, one of the most important commercial enclaves in the city, the area is very busy but the traffic this Monday was different from other days. In the surrounding streets, rows of police patrol cars, a broad operation of plainclothes agents and the presence of accredited journalists marked the difference.

The headquarters of the municipal government of Cerro, in Havana, shortly after 11 a.m. this Monday, when Amelia Calzadilla was summoned. (14ymedio)

The internet signal in the place was also unstable. Residents of the neighborhood reported to this newspaper that in nearby stores, usually out of stock, they put sausage and chicken on sale this Monday.

“And what’s going on here?” asked a young woman who passed by the place a few minutes after Calzadilla had entered the building of the municipal People’s Power Assembly. “That girl was summoned here today,” replied another passerby without needing to add more details, since the story of this mother of three children has traveled the Island in a few days.

The surroundings of the municipal government of Cerro were taken over this Monday morning by a large police operation. (14ymedio)

Various activists, such as the businesswoman Saily González, from Santa Clara, invited Havanans to support Calzadilla on Monday morning, but only passersby and agents were observed at the scene.

Oppositionist Martha Beatriz Roque, director of the Cuban Center for Human Rights and former prisoner of the Black Spring, also launched a video message in which she asks Amelia Calzadilla: “Keep denouncing and don’t care what they say about you.”

Several members of the international press stood in front of the Cerro government headquarters building in Havana. (14ymedio)

“Unfortunately, they tell me that she does not want to talk to dissidents, which I greatly respect, but she has to know that her video has had a great impact on the networks,” Roque says in her broadcast, urging Calzadilla that she does not need to “defend herself.” She adds, “The dictatorship does this to get you out of sight,” and she insists, “No one is going to judge you, Amelia, people are very happy with what you uploaded on the networks, but if you want to speak again, don’t defend yourself at all, you don’t have to defend yourself, everyone knows what this regime has done for 63 years.

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Almost 400 Cubans Firmly Condemned for ‘Assault Against the Socialist State’

The majority of the appeals did not result in changes to the penalties of those convicted for July 11th (11J). (PL)

14ymedio, Havana, 13 June 2022 — The Cuban Prosecutor’s Office stands at 381 people firmly condemned following the demonstrations of 11J (July 11th), which according to the Public Ministry are people who “assaulted the constitutional order and the stability” of the socialist State.

In an official statement shared on Monday, after the required period for requesting a review, the Prosecutor stated that 76 sentences can no longer be appealed and shared the resulting sentences — deprivation of liberty — for 297 people of whom 36 committed the crime of sedition, according to the Cuban judges. All those convicted for these events received between 5 and 25 years in jail.

The majority of those convicted, including young people 16 to 18 years of age, were considered guilty of sedition, sabotage, armed and violent robbery, assault, contempt, and public disorder.

In addition, 84 people have had their sentences commuted for other alternatives, which include correctional labor without internment and limited liberty, always conditioned on good behavior. This is the case for 15 of the 16 minors.

Andy García Lorenzo, one of the prisoners who was released at the end of May, only enjoyed two days alongside his family. After going to find out about his new work location, the young man was arrested and the measure was presumably revoked in a similar case. García Lorenzo had made two political declarations on his social media during his brief period of freedom. continue reading

A month ago, Cubalex and Justicia 11J published an account, according to which only 40 people had received responses to their appeals and only one managed a significant change of conditions, from a year in prison to acquittal. In 32 cases the sentence was upheld while in the rest the modifications were minimal, changing the type of seclusion or reducing the internment period by one month.

Among the trials with the most convictions for sedition is the one in La Güinera in Havana, the appeals of which took place at the end of last month. In it, María Luisa Fleita Bravo, the mother of Rolando Vásquez Fleita, one of those convicted, exemplified the exhaustion of many of the mothers of those affected when she yelled out at the Tribunal, “We are tired of enduring all of this.”

Many families have appealed following the advice of 11J prisoner rights organizations, although success is nearly impossible, they believe the mere act puts on display and validates their discontent.

However, the families’ confidence is null, since on repeated occassions, from the mouths of their own leaders, it has been declared that Cuban justice works to protect the socialist system as stated in the Constitution.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Cuban Teenagers No Longer Have Fears or Complexes

A group of Cuban high-school students share audiovisual content through a cell phone. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 1 June 2022 — If anything surprised the Cuban government during the July 11th (11J) protests, it was the large number of teenagers who took to the streets. Engaged in the surveillance of activists and independent media, or focusing their attention on workplaces and universities, it seems that State Security neglected boys under 18 years of age.

They were the ones, cell phone in hand, who managed to keep the VPNs active and inform their families about the situation in the country. The price they paid was high: according to the Attorney General’s Office, of the 760 prosecuted after the protests, 55 are between 14 and 17 years old. Since then, caution has been redoubled in secondary and pre-university (high) schools.

However, and despite the fear injected in schools and families by the regime, the boys “have not learned their lesson.” Through Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, thousands of adolescents speak — loudly, using their own jargon, through codes and double meanings — about their main problems: the lack of a future, the need for money, family anguish due to blackouts or food, migration, indoctrination in the educational system, military service, and precocious habit of snitching at school.

Despite the fear instilled in schools and families by the regime, the boys “simply never learn their lesson.” Thousands of teenagers speak out from Twitter, Facebook or Instagram

I tell K. — let’s call him K., like the Kafka character — that I’m interested in knowing what Cuba looks like from the daily life of an adolescent. That notion is relatively new. My grandparents — born and raised in the most provincial of small-towns Cuba — believed that, at 16 years old, boys were men and girls were women. Today, adulthood is delayed, at least until 18; life runs at a different pace.

This does not prevent K. from having opinions — most of them clear and affirmative — about politics, society and the economy of his country. He sometimes watches the news, likes coffee and makes a habit of singing the choruses of reggae songs. “Music gives everything a bit of color,” he says, “otherwise I’d be burned out by now.”

He’s in his second year of ‘pre-university’ — as high school is called — but that’s just a saying. In Cuba no one is preparing for university, and even less for the future. But that’s where he has his friends and he has to pass the time somehow. continue reading

“I get up in the morning, eat the breakfast that my mother works so hard to obtain. On the days that I have classes, under a Caribbean sun at its highest point, I walk more than two kilometers to school, since there is no consistent or efficient public transportation system.”

I am acquainted with the route: a long street that crosses the city and where only horse carts roam. The dust, the manure, the potholes and the coachmen – surly and unfriendly – give the road the atmosphere of a western movie.

“Well,” continues K., “at lunch time, I come home from school. The same story of the sun and the walk is repeated. I arrive, take a shower, eat something for lunch and return, walking through the sad streets and seeing the facades destroyed by the path of ‘hurricane dictatorship’. I enter my classroom with the cement floor full of holes. Heat, mosquitoes. The bathroom smell is overwhelming.”

“And in addition, with no desire to study: a Cuban degree is useless anywhere in the world. I return home. Calculate this: I have already walked eight kilometers on foot. I arrive exhausted, take off my uniform and lie down to rest for a while. When I get up, the “boring process” begins: there aren’t even any parks to go to. So, I sit on the armchairs for a while to talk with my family about the near future outside this prison-island. Afterwards, I go to sleep.”

“If communism failed, I would not stay. Cuba is going to take many, many years to become a country. And those who do not know their history are condemned to repeat it”

I made the mistake of asking K. how he saw Cuba in five years. “I don’t even want to imagine it,” he replies. “If communism failed, I wouldn’t stay. It will take many, but many years for Cuba to become a country. And those who don’t know their history are condemned to repeat it.”

Sometimes K. speaks with the bad habits of an adult, as if he had had to put up with too many blows. It’s natural. The Cuban child is almost always educated among older relatives and in very small households. As he grows up, domestic problems and anxieties are passed down, discussed, and grieved together.

It is the accumulation of these concerns at the wrong time that makes the Cuban teenager more aware and more mature, but it also throws him into a kind of congenital bitterness which he carries throughout his whole life.

An additional factor of that anxiety is the Military Service — “the green” — mandatory in Cuba, which functions as a rite of passage in the totalitarian society. “There is a part of the parents who think that ‘the green’ makes us more manly but, for me, that does not influence anything. It is unfair because it is forced. You cannot even ‘pledge to the flag’ personally. Another person does it for you. And if you protest about that…”

K is not far from the Military Service, but he is more concerned about high school and what it has become: “There is massive indoctrination. The classes are the worst. They teach us a number of absurd things. We hardly have any teachers. Everything is a mess.”

I ask if there are snitches in his classroom. “All my friends are frustrated by the situation in Cuba,” admits K., “and our only topic of conversation is about leaving the country. The idea of one day leaving here completely dissociates us from everything. With things being so unattainable for our parents’ pockets, we cannot dress as we would like. It is obvious that I want to leave. Some are afraid to say it because of the great repression that exists, and because some girls report to the teachers. They snitch on you for just about anything.”

“And what can I tell you about the neighborhood? You already know how a neighborhood functions here, so you can complete that part.” he tells me, already a little bored by the “questioning.”

K has a cousin his age in the United States. His father recently “sponsored” him, and after nearly a month in Guyana he managed to get him on the plane to Hialeah. I ask him the same questions as K., but now I am interested in understanding how one feels about Cuba when one leaves so young.

“Living in this country doesn’t change me as a person. But it’s hard for me to get used to it. One has always been there. I miss my family. It’s a bit difficult, because one longs for the family”

“From the outside, Cuba looks like a backward country. And there are times when you don’t realize how backward it really is. My life, of course, is different. What I did there has nothing to do with what I do here. Living in this country doesn’t change me as a person. But it’s hard for me to get used to it. One has always been there. I miss my family. It’s a bit difficult, because one longs for the family.”

K.’s cousin doesn’t talk much and has always been discreet when talking about the government. But now there is no problem. He can tell me —without fear of an agent listening in — that they are “a shameless gang, eating up the people with lies. That’s what I think, but I don’t really care much about politics. I don’t care, really.”

I want to know if he will ever return to Cuba. “I don’t know. I suppose so. I suppose that if communism fails, things will improve.”

K and his cousin agree on something. One inside and the other outside, they belong to a generation that no longer has fears or complexes. They know they are being watched, they understand the limits of the manipulation and fear that comes “from above,” but they care very little when they see the family’s asphyxia. They feel responsible, they are tired. But they are stronger than ever.

I ask K. what pseudonym he prefers me to use when I write about him. “What are you going to use? My name with his two surnames, of course.” I tell him no, that I have to protect his identity, the source and all that. “Well, then write…”

I am not going to say the names that he told me next, because they could offend the sensibilities of the ministers and presidents of the republic. But be warned: there is a hurricane coming.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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Cuba: Laugh Now, Cry Later

US President Joe Biden during the Ninth Summit of the Americas. (EFE)

14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami, 13 June 2022 — The Ninth Summit of the Americas has ended. The biggest controversy aroused was the (fulfilled) threat by Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador not to attend… if the three remaining – although ruined – Latin American dictatorships, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, were not invited. They were not, and the Patron Saint of tyrannies didn’t attend. However, he sent his Foreign Affairs Secretary, a much more likeable character than himself, Marcelo Ebrard. The Americans sighed in relief. They had the best of all possible worlds. AMLO’s government, without AMLO.

But the president of Mexico was not the only one in absence. The presidents of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, the famous “northern triangle” of Central America (famous for its crime rate and its number of exiles) didn’t attend the event either. The Ninth Summit, fortunately, had an exceptional chronicler, Héctor Silva Ávalos for Infobae, the first Argentine digital media.

Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei did not attend the Summit outraged by the accusations of corruption. Nayib Bukele, the Salvadoran, first, because he had made a pact with the gangs known as maras so he could rule the country, and second (damned if you do and damned if you don’t,) because of the mistreatment of the thousands of imprisoned gang members, when they continued murdering people in the streets of the tiny country. (Bukele’s iron fist stance against the gangs has the support of a majority of the population.) As for the president of Honduras, Mrs. Xiomara Castro, wife of the political leader Manuel (Mel) Zelaya, because she feels more comfortable in the proximity of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, and because her husband wanted to thank these dictatorships for the favors rendered.

In Mexico, simultaneously with the Los Angeles Summit, the “mother of all marches” is being organized. I remember the origin of that phrase – “the mother of all battles.” It was the spectacle that Saddam Hussein promised if the United States dared to lead the attack after the occupation of Kuwait by the Iraqi army. A German newspaper estimated the number of weapons held by the two contenders and concluded that “the mother of all battles” would probably be won by Saddam Hussein. A few hours were enough for the coalition forces, led by the US, to show that German journalists had underestimated George H. W. Bush (the father of George W. Bush), and General Norman Schwarzkopf, the head of the Armed Forces, during the “so-called” Gulf War. Actually, it was an easy victory. continue reading

Many of those who are attempting “the mother of all marches” are Cubans, Venezuelans and those belonging to “the biggest triangle of Central America,” precisely those who don’t have a president to represent them – Salvadorans, Guatemalans and Hondurans. What should be done with them? Of course, let them in and give them “papers” to pay taxes and become citizens as soon as they can. There is nothing more ridiculous than assuming that they are “spies.” The spies enter in a different way. Cubans have been allowed entry at all times and this has been very convenient for the receiving country. About 99.99% come to work. It is not possible to defend freedom and deny them entry when they need it. People don’t leave their land for frivolous reasons or in pursuit of a ridiculous stipend.

Cubans and Venezuelans were recipients of immigrants before 1959 and the 21st century. Cuba experienced a small emigration after World War II. From 1945 to 1955, 35,000 people “left,” but in that same period 211,000 immigrants “arrived.” Fernando Bernal, a diplomat of the revolution, and later an exile, told me that in the Havana consulate in Rome alone there were 11,000 requests to emigrate to the Island. As for Venezuela, what has happened in that country is mind-boggling – from having a growing number of immigrants (Portuguese, Italians and Central Europeans), today they have six million exiles.

Why are they leaving? Essentially, because they have no way of earning a living and lack social mobility. The idea that you can’t improve your quality of life, no matter what you do, is a spur to leave. The type of political regime in the abstract only matters to a minimum of people. If the US wants to restore social mobility in Cuba and Venezuela, it has to overthrow the regime that hinders it. Otherwise, it’s laugh now, cry later.

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