14ymedio – Page 226 – Translating Cuba

Cuban TV Journalist Yunior Smith Justifies his Decision to Seek Asylum in the US

The journalist has stood out especially in recent years for his staunch attacks on the Cuban opposition. (Capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 11 March 2022 — The official Cuban television journalist and presenter Yunior Smith has confirmed through his Facebook account that he is on the southern border of the United States attempting to ask for political asylum in that country. The information, initially spread by the ‘influencer’ Alex Otaola, has raised a wave of criticism.

Smith, who worked as a reporter/editor for the international section of the Information System and who was often criticized for his work related to US policy towards Cuba, claims to have suffered censorship of his work. However, on the Island he is remembered as one of the champions of official propaganda.

The journalist has stood out especially in recent years for his staunch attacks on the opposition, especially the leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba, José Daniel Ferrer, imprisoned since July 11. Smith also had harsh words for Washington’s policy towards Havana and praised the attitude of the Cuban regime.

Now, in his post on Facebook, the journalist insists that “almost no one knows” that he has “a brother who is a political prisoner, Kessell Rodríguez… Early on I learned that confronting the government means going to prison, receiving blows, mistreatment, torture; it means isolated time without your family knowing about you, hunger strikes in defense of rights; family pain, worries, separation. And in the end nothing changes,” he says. continue reading

He insists that a comment he made about “Yunior Garcia after 15 November was never aired, because they censored me… Then I said that in Cuba it was necessary to deepen democratic practices, that while the economy was in crisis, other opponents would emerge (…) and it was too much for those who run that news program,” he relates.

“Everyone saw on the screen the Yunior Smith who criticized other Governments, no one ever knew how many times I said No,” he asserts, but his explanations do not seem to please Internet users who have criticized Smith for having spread the official speech of political intolerance and rejection of any form of activism.

Specifically, one of the journalist’s most recent works before leaving Cuba was a commentary which the ruling party described as “provocation,” the proposal to carry out consular procedures at the Guantánamo naval base, a bill promoted by US congressmen María Elvira Salazar and Mario Diaz-Balart.

Smith began his comment by saying that the issue “should not even be a matter of analysis because the project is destined to fail and is not going anywhere,” but that “fulfilling the journalistic duty to inform and contextualize” he approached the subject, although his comment within the newscast lasted more than four minutes.

“While these U.S. congressmen pull the strings in search of further tightening relations between the two countries and want to put into practice all the ideas that come to mind,” continued the reporter sarcastically, “there are many relatives waiting to meet again.”

Smith, according to sources close to state television, was included in the news announcement due to an express policy of Raúl Castro when he was president, which imposed more representation of black people in the media, political and government spheres.

Last January, the arrival in the US of another official Cuban broadcaster, Frank Abel Gómez Bernal, caused much controversy in the exile community in Miami. The communicator, popular on radio and television, requested political asylum and after entering the country he told the press that, although he had his job in Cuba, he “was dying of hunger.”

Gómez was accused by Cuban-Americans of having allegedly criticized an exiled journalist for her position against the Cuban government, but the announcer denied those accusations. Once screenshots of the alleged conversation where he criticized that journalist circulated on the networks, he alleged that on the Island he could not comment on anything “or attack anyone, least of all a journalist or a colleague.”

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Recompose Cuba’s History, the Proposal of the Documentary ‘Veritas’

Image of the poster for the documentary directed by the filmmaker Eliécer Jiménez-Almeida. (Miami Film Festival)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 13 March 2022 — “How can they define you with the opposite of what you are?” asks a Cuban labeled as a “mercenary” by official propaganda after being part of the 2506 Brigade. His voice, together with that of several protagonists of the battle of Bahía de Cochinos – the Bay of Pigs — is heard in the documentary Veritas that just premiered at the Miami Film Festival.

The audiovisual, directed by the filmmaker Eliécer Jiménez-Almeida, proposes to look at that April 1961 from another angle, when hundreds of exiles tried to reach the Island and reverse the authoritarian drift of the Revolution. The defeat not only meant hundreds of deaths and more than a thousand prisoners, but also that the Cuban regime could write the history as it pleased.

Thus, several generations grew up with only one version of the events, loaded with stigmas against those who joined the war, frightened by the executions, the confiscations of properties and the delusions of Fidel Castro after coming to power in 1959. Veritas allows them to speak in front of to the camera, as they have never been able to do in the Island’s media.

With an intact Cubanness and without resorting to too many adjectives in their descriptions, several of the participants in the conflict detail the training in Guatemala, the haphazard landing, the moments in which they thought they were close to victory, the anguish when ammunition began to run out and the betrayal that they blame on President John F. Kennedy for not supporting them at the decisive moment. continue reading

In more than an hour, testimonies are interspersed that complete the chronology of the battle, an impeccable selection of archive material and current footage from the scene. Jiménez-Almeida reconstructs the other side of the story, as he discovers it, given that the filmmaker was born in 1983 in Cuba and grew up listening only to the official script of what happened.

The documentary sustains that rhythm of discovery, of exploration that brings to light what has been hidden for decades and is indebted to investigative journalism that avoids staying in common places or coined certainties. Perhaps for this reason, the choice of the title, the Latin name of the Roman goddess of Truth, already prepares the viewer for what is to come.

For example, the name used for the place of combat marks the speaker’s position. Castro never liked to refer to “Bay of Pigs,” probably because of its degrading connotations, so he preferred to use the place name of Playa Girón, a word with infinite possibilities of rhyme; and in addition he skillfully attached the slogan “the first defeat of imperialism in America.”

In that confrontation, the elements of the official narrative that would later be used in the face of each internal and external incident crystallized, the lines on which part of the subsequent Cuban political discourse ran were oiled: little David facing the Goliath of the North; labeling critics as mercenaries at the service of a foreign power; and raising the sovereignty of national soil to a sacred level that could even justify the violation of the sovereignty of the citizen.

That story was so effective that still today, people who cannot even point to the scene of the conflict on a map repeat the version at face value. Therefore, it has double merit that the person directing the documentary is a Cuban totally immersed in the institutional view of what happened, and he turns everything he was taught in school upside down.

“Fighting for the freedom of your country is not a duty or an obligation. Fighting for the freedom of your country is a privilege,” affirms another of the interviewees, his voice breaking. Showing the complexity, the nuances and all the parts of such a defining event is also more than a responsibility, it is a personal and artistic benefit, which Jiménez-Almeida assumes maturely and without fanfare.

Veritas provokes the need for another documentary: the one in which the voices of one side and the other intertwine to give shape to the full face of a battle. A conflict that six decades later continues to be one of the most manipulated and unknown passages in our history.

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17 Cuban Rafters Who Made Land in the Florida Keys are in Custody

Between last Wednesday and Saturday, 46 Cuban rafters arrived in the Florida Keys in these two boats. (Collage)

14ymedio, Havana, 13 March 2022 — The United States Border Patrol placed 17 Cuban rafters “in custody” this Saturday after they “made landfall in the Florida Keys,” according to agent Walter N. Slosar. This detention corresponds to one of the “60 maritime smuggling events” recorded on the south coast.

The migrants arrived in the archipelago in a sailboat. After being detained, they were taken, as usual, to a migration center, where they were given the opportunity to show “credible fear” of being returned to the island.

If the Cubans convince the judge, they are “given a bond and can request asylum,” said immigration attorney Willy Allen. In the best of cases, they are released and given a document that legalizes their entry into the country. continue reading

On March 9, officer N. Slosar announced the “arrest of 29 Cuban migrants” after arriving in the Florida Keys in “a rustic boat” that had an adapted motor.

According to data from the Customs and Border Protection Office (CBP), in January, the last month for which records are available, 9,827 Cuban immigrants were detained, nearly 13 times more than the 732 in the same month of 2020, when Donald Trump was still in the White House.

The 9,827 Cubans intercepted on the southeastern border of the United States in January are part of the more than 153,000 immigrants detained in total that month, the latest in a wave of undocumented immigrants who, since President Joe Biden came to power, have tried enter the country irregularly or have applied for asylum.

The arrival of Cubans in the United States is also registered by sea, and since October 1, 2021, when the current fiscal year began, the Coast Guard has intercepted 730.

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Mother of July 11th Prisoner Released After a Change in a Precautionary Measure

A leukemia patient, Castro had to spend “a week in the hospital in January and it was quite serious because she fainted as a result of toxoplasmosis.” (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 10 March 2022 — Yudinela Castro Pérez, the mother of the young 18-year-old political prisoner Rowland Jesús Castillo Castro and July 11th (11J) protester, was approved this Thursday for a change of precautionary measure after spending almost 15 days under arrest by State Security in Havana.

“From today Yudinela, a cancer patient who cares for her little grandson, will continue the investigation process at home, for alleged contempt,” the Justica 11J platform reported on its Twitter account, noting that her son “continues to be held in a Cuban jail.”

Castro was arrested on February 24 in the morning hours, activist Arián Cruz, Tata Poet, reported then, who explained that she had been transferred to Villa Marista, a center known as the State Security barracks in the Cuban capital. Cruz later reported that, after six days of investigation, the mother had been presented with “contempt charges.”

Castro, a leukemia patient, had to spend “a week in hospital last January and it was quite serious because she fainted as a result of toxoplasmosis,” Cruz clarified. She also reported that every day she must take “a series of medications that they did not let her bring with her, and she has not taken them for two days.” This newspaper tried to contact her long before her arrest was known, but her mobile phone reports that it is out of service due to “call restriction.” continue reading

A day after her arrest, a habeas corpus petition in favor of Castro was delivered to the People’s Provincial Court in Havana because “her arrest and the subsequent proceedings were totally arbitrary,” Cruz said.

Since her son was taken to jail, Castro has denounced each of the injustices that have been committed against the young man and has not stopped demanding his freedom. In an interview with 14ymedio, she reported threats from State Security if she continued “demanding and protesting” in favor of the young man.

She has also denounced “the lies” of the regime told in the trial that was held against her son Rowland, accused of sedition and with an initial prosecutor’s request of 23 years, later reduced to 12.

On several occasions, Castro has been arbitrarily detained by State Security officials for interrogation, but she has always warned that “no matter what it costs,” nothing will stop her in her fight for her son’s freedom.

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Four Years of Forced Labor for a Young Woman Attacked on July 11th by a Police Officer in Camaguey

Reyna Yacnara Barreto Batista, being hugged by her father before entering the Granja 5 prison, in Camagüey, this Thursday. (La Hora de Cuba)

14ymedio, Havana, 11 March 2022 — Reyna Yacnara Barreto Batista will serve four years of correctional work with internment in the women’s prison of Granja 5, in Camagüey, for having taken part in the demonstrations of July 11 (11J). The 21-year-old girl entered the prison this Thursday, accompanied by her parents to the door.

According to the independent media La Hora de Cuba, Barreto will have to remain in prison for a few days and then she will be transferred to “work at the camps,” where she will serve her sentence, probably in agricultural production.

The young woman was sentenced in a trial held on October 7^th in which the Prosecutor’s Office initially asked for five years in prison for the crimes of “attack” and “public disorder,” and on December 24^th she lost the appeal to the final sentence, four years of correctional work with internment.

Barreto has said that when she took to the streets that Sunday, like thousands of Camagüey citizens, the attitude of the protesters was peaceful at all times, and that the aggressive ones were the agents, uniformed or in civilian clothes, who confronted the citizens. continue reading

Before Barreto could say anything to him, he kicked the girl on her left thigh. “A kick from a robust man’s boot to me, a girl all skinny”

One of the police officers, she stated in an interview with La Hora de Cuba, hit an older man – which was recorded in one of the numerous videos shared on social networks around those days – and a boy threw himself on the ground to protect him. “Until that moment nothing had happened; Patria y Vida (Homeland and Life), ‘freedom’, even the National Anthem was sung” she told journalist Henry Constantin.

Later, Barreto recounted, she also received a blow from an officer, whom she went to confront. Before she could say anything to him, he kicked the girl on her left thigh. “A kick from a robust man’s boot to me, a girl all skinny”, she narrated. All these actions were also recorded on video.

In the arrest of the young woman, which occurred on July 18^th, a week after the protests, 15 policemen intervened, and she was missing for a few days. After two weeks in isolation due to Covid symptoms, she was released, but she continued to be harassed by State Security, according to the Cubalex organization in its list of 11J prisoners.

La Hora de Cuba points out that Barreto “has no criminal record” and that “the evidence and testimonies presented against her in the trials do not justify the aggression she received, much less the sentence imposed on her.”

They judge her, assures the Camagüey portal, “because ‘she has not shown repentance,’ according to Elizabeth Rojas, head of the court that presided over the trial appeal.”

Translated by Norma Whiting

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‘Cuba’s Greatest Enemy is Not Outside, But Sitting in the Presidential Chair’

Demonstration this Thursday in front of the Cuban Embassy in Washington for the freedom of political prisoners on the Island. (Facebook/Anamely Ramos)

14ymedio, Havana, 12 March 2022 — Luis Robles, the “young man with the placard,” still has not received his sentence despite the fact that next Wednesday will mark three months after the end of his trial. The Prosecutor’s Office requested six years in prison for him for the crimes of resistance and enemy propaganda.

Imprisoned since he was arrested on December 4, 2020 for walking down San Rafael Boulevard in Centro Habana with a sign calling for the end of repression and the freedom of rapper Denis Solís, a member of the San Isidro Movement who is now in exile, the 29-year-old has published a letter in which he reiterates his struggle and his goal: “Freedom for the people of Cuba.”

In the letter, dated March 3 and delivered to his brother, Landy Fernández Elizastigui, during Landy’s visit last Wednesday to the Combinado del Este maximum security prison in Havana, Robles returns to the reasons that led him to carry out the peaceful protest that today has him in jail.

“I decided to break the silence because I got tired of seeing how my country is destroyed and the government does nothing to fix it,” he explains, “because I think that Cuba’s greatest enemy is not outside but sitting in the presidential chair.”

Thus, he insists that his action was so that “fear and censorship do not continue to rule in Cuban society, so that expressing what you think and feel in any place is not a reason to go to jail, because I want Cuba to be a country for Cubans, no matter their way of thinking, so that the streets of my country are for everyone and not just for the communists.” continue reading

He states that going out with that banner and continuing to express what he thinks is the way to “be the voice of many who decided to remain silent,” and mentions Denis Solís – released in exchange for exile to Serbia – Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Castillo Pérez Osorbo, “prisoners only for wanting a homeland and life for Cuba.”

**Fragment of the letter delivered by Luis Robles to his brother, Landy Fernández. (CubaNet)**

With regards to Osorbo, the curator Anamely Ramos offered news this Friday, reporting that the rapper’s lawyer “received a notification that the trial process would begin,” which the imprisoned man has been waiting for since he was arrested, on May 18th of last year, accused of “attack,” “public disorder,” and “escape of prisoners or detainees” for some events that occurred on April 4, in a demonstration on Damas street, in front of the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement, when the police tried to arrest him and he refused to get in the patrol car.

That process, Ramos explains in a Facebook post, “includes several procedures such as the issuance of the prosecutor’s request, which we still do not have.” The situation, she continues, “was what we feared: that the international coverage of the invasion of Ukraine would be used by the Cuban state to give the repression another twist and ’solve’ the problem with its most visible opponents.”

The curator, who this same Wednesday announced her departure from the San Isidro Movement, does not know if the process will also include Otero Alcántara, given that her case is in the same Osorbo file, but she affirms that these past few days she has been in close contact with the singer, who has asked everyone “to be aware of how we are going to face the trial.”

“It’s impressive the clarity he maintains to understand what is happening in Cuba and what is happening with him. Maykel has never been destroyed, and that is admirable after nine months in prison. He knows he is much more than a victim, much more than a prisoner. And he will behave as such until the end.”

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San Antonio de los Banos, Cuba, Without Water ‘and With the Plague in Our Souls’

The water delivery schedules are lengthened in San Antonio de los Baños starting this Wednesday. (Janeivs Reyes)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 11 March 2022 — Retired engineer, María de los Ángeles Alfonso cannot find an answer to the question that torments her: When is the water supply problem going to be solved in San Antonio de los Baños? In the municipality of Artemisa seven months after the protests broke out on July 11, the neighbors are still carrying buckets.

“My daily routine has totally changed because of this. Sometimes you have to wake up at dawn because a trickle of water arrives,” she details. “Here the people have a complete disgust, especially the women,” because they are the ones who mainly take care of the laundry, the preparation of food and the cleaning in the homes.

“There are workplaces, including Public Health, where managers have had to tell their workers that they can go home to wash and clean as soon as they find out that the water has arrived in their neighborhood,” Alfonso told 14ymedio. “Even people who never make critical comments in public are now raising their voices.”

Facebook has become, for the neighbors, a place to let off steam, but there they also found out this Wednesday about the new schedule for the delivery of water to the municipality. The Aqueduct Company published a schedule that lengthens supply cycles to every five days and justifies the measure due to the “decrease in water levels in the Ariguanabo Basin.” continue reading

“My son has not been able to go to school for three days because not a single drop has flowed here to wash his uniform, and all his other clothes are also dirty,” Ezequiel Garrido, a resident near the service center, told this newspaper. “As adults we tighten our belts, but this situation with children in the house breaks the soul.”

Garrido has decided to sell his home and move to some municipality on the outskirts of Havana. “I put the ad up months ago and, although the price is low, everyone who calls me and is interested in the house asks me about the issue of water because this is already a black mark that we have. Nobody wants to come and live here.”

Others choose to emigrate. “It is an avalanche of people who have left this town via Mexico, the Darién jungle or any other route,” laments María de los Ángeles Alfonso. “We have even lost doctors because the situation in general is very difficult and much more so at the hospital.” In San Antonio “we even have the plague in our souls”.

Through the municipality passes the Ariguanabo River, about 14 kilometers long. Traditionally, the area’s water supply has been supplied from its basin, especially springs and wells, but drought, industrial waste and overexploitation have severely damaged its flow.

The retiree attributes the ecological disaster that now prevents them from getting supplies from the river and springs in the area to malpractice. “The river is not cleaned, the springs are not protected,” she details. The deterioration of the aqueduct network, which began to be built in 1894, also contributes to the current situation.

Now, the authorities are undertaking a remodeling of the entire hydraulic system and promise that in 60 days San Antonio will be connected to new sources of supply. “No one has been able to tell me what day was Day One, and they are working with very obsolete machinery,” laments Alfonso, who speaks from his experience as an engineer.

Two years ago, this newspaper reported the problems of the municipality with the water supply. “Now we can change even our name because there is nothing left of ‘baños’,” an employee of the Las Yagrumas hotel joked at that time. “In my family we have an elderly bedridden woman and in all these days we have only received 20 liters of water for her to be able to wash her.”

When consulted now, the woman feels that no progress has been made in solving the problem, rather “everything is worse… This has become something chronic and the children in my family don’t know what it’s like to take a shower. Here everyone has to bathe with a little jug and in a basin and then use that water to clean the house.”

Agriculture is also hit hard by the drought. Root crops and vegetables are scarce in the markets and in the offers of the private cart vendors. “It seems incredible that this is a town surrounded by farms and fertile land, here the onion is as expensive as in Havana,” denounces the employee.

On July 11, the lack of water, the conditions of the local hospital and the absence of oxygen for covid-19 patients pushed popular outrage to the limit. The demonstration was spurred by the situation of “a town that is in ruins, its cinema is in ruins, emblematic buildings such as the Spanish Casino, the Circle of Artisans and La Quintica,” María de los Ángeles Alfonso is indignant.

That day, among those who protested, “there were many more women than men,” recalls the retiree. “We are the most affected.”

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Unanimous Submission on Cuba’s New Family Code from a Neighborhood Meeting in Ciego de Avila

Neighborhood meeting to discuss Cuba’s new Family Code in Morón, Ciego de Ávila. (Invasor)

14ymedio, Havana, 9 March 2022 — No one had read the new Family Code this Monday when the debate was held in a neighborhood south of Morón, in Ciego de Ávila, in anticipation of a referendum on a date yet to be determined. At the very least, sincerity reigned in the atmosphere at the beginning of the discussion, whose interest seemed to focus on same-sex marriage, one of the few issues that have gotten the attention of the public.

The Government opened this type of meeting to discuss the new rule on February 1 and promised that they will take place, until April 30, in 78,000 locations distributed throughout the Island.

“I haven’t read it, but I agree with what the code says,” said Marlén, the first to jump into the ring. Apparently with greater knowledge, Marcelo, another neighbor, was equally favorable. At first, it seemed that he was going to give a more explanatory vision of what the new rule includes, but he ended up referring only – again – to marriage.

Alberto, a retired prosecutor present at the meeting, affirmed that the new legislation is aligned with international standards, and maintained that the Government has consulted with a multitude of regulations from around the world, taking the best and most innovative of them. Although skepticism was visible in some of the attendees, on this point he was not wrong. According to legal sources consulted by 14ymedio, the legislation in no way falls short of those that exist in advanced countries. continue reading

This contrasts, however, with the lack of freedom in the country, reiterated after the July 11 demonstrations and the frustrated call for a protest on November 15, when the regime invoked Article 4 of the Constitution, that is, the “irrevocability” of the socialist system. On the other hand, there is the paradox that given the publicity that the Government is giving to the “debates” of the Family Code, the also imminent new Penal Code, more repressive, will be approved without discussion.

At the meeting in Morón, a colonel who lives in a building in the area, Carlos, took the floor to launch a whole series of slogans repeated for months by the official press. That the text was a one hundred percent Cuban code, born of ideas rooted in the nation, that it doesn’t copy anyone and that it was the revolutionary vanguard representing the people.

The argument did not stop, despite the fact that some attendees were beginning to tire. The military man continued arguing that the code was by and for the Cubans and, broadening the theme, that the enemy was trying to misrepresent the Cuban reality.

At that moment, a religious voice broke out, claiming Fidel Castro’s halo of sanctity. It was Amalia, a new resident in the area. Raising a sheet of paper in her hand, she stood up and proclaimed that she was a Christian and that the new Family Code is inclusive and based on the Bible, since it respects everyone, which Christ would approve of. To conclude, she thanked the Revolution, the Communist Party and the late Castro and cried out: “Long live Fidel under the gaze of Christ.”

When it seemed that no dissenting voice was going to emerge, Yunior took the floor to express his disagreement with the obligation to provide food to family members that appears in Article 27 of the new code.

Although the text stipulates that Cubans must help their close relatives as long as they can, the resident who had just spoken literally interpreted that to mean that she was obliged to assume the “custody” of as many mouths to feed as those that shared blood with her.

“I have 14 uncles and I only know three of them,” she said dissatisfied. The moderator asked her if her proposal was to eliminate or modify the article and Yunior stepped in to propose the latter, alleging that the duty should only be reciprocal, for those who had previously cared for one.

The novelty generated, finally, a shower of comments, and many expressed themselves in favor of the position of the new resident who, seeing the success, wanted to open a new topic: youth emancipation. However, everyone fell silent and the debate came to an end.

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Diaz-Canel and the Photo With Sherritt, Or Is It the Other Way Around?

Díaz-Canel meets with Leon Binedell. (Granma)

14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 5 March 2022 — I admit that I was wrong. Not long ago, I wrote an entry on this blog in which I came to say that I did not find it too interesting for foreign investors in Cuba to take a souvenir photograph with Díaz-Canel. Without a doubt, I underestimated the persuasive capacity of the heirs of Fidel Castro, or perhaps, I failed to understand what the top executive of Sherritt International can get out of a meeting with light and stenographers with a communist leader.

It is evident that these meetings take place, and more frequently than is thought, but this time the regime’s state press, always ready to campaign in favor of the communist leaders, has featured the meeting and flooded its digital editions with an extensive visual report.

A Spanish businessman who started doing business in Cuba during the Special Period [after the fall of the Soviet Union and the sudden loss of its economic support for Cuba] and who ended up fleeing Cuba when things were made very difficult for him, told me that in the first years of his stay in Cuba, there was a line, as they say vulgarly, of foreign investors, waiting to be received by Fidel Castro, and to take a souvenir photo with the Cuban communist satrap. continue reading

Those businessmen, Spanish, Mexican, Dutch, Canadian, were specialists in the techniques of flirting with the left in their respective countries. This businessman told me that a friend of his, also Spanish, wanted to take a photo with Castro to show it to the unions of his company, the Spanish CCOO, strongly anchored in the left. The photo with Castro was clearly visible on the wall of his office when he had meetings with the union. Then he would remove it. The man hated Castro, but he had to pay a price for doing business in Cuba. As you know, ethics goes as far as it goes.

Then came the tributes from the Cuban communists to those who had risked their money in Cuba, and the busts of remembrance began to multiply in the parks and gardens. It is not known how many there are. They end up being abandoned testimonials to unknown people; many of them, having paid a great deal, for monuments. Sad. The last one that has come to us from the Island was the “collection” carried out among businessmen, many of them Spanish, to finance the construction of the “Fidel Castro museum” in several stolen Vedado mansions that, in due course, will once again become the property of their true owners.

And so, when we had not yet recovered from the bittersweet taste of the 20 million dollars given by those businessmen to worship the communist dictator, we received this report in the regime’s press according to which the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and President of the Republic of Cuba, Díaz-Canel held a meeting with Leon Binedell, president of Sherritt International, which according to the State-run newspaper Granma is “a prestigious Canadian company in the mining and oil sector.” And I highlight the “prestigious” part, because Granma does not give this title to just anyone, and, furthermore, if it were not so, this company would not be able to take a souvenir photograph with Díaz-Canel.

As Granma adds in the brief note that accompanies the report (which seems more like a society note than anything else) “during the cordial exchange, held at the Palace of the Revolution, both parties discussed the potentialities that exist, even amid the tightening of the United States blockade, to deepen the participation of this company in the economic development of Cuba, especially in activities such as mining, oil prospecting and power generation.”

Wow, now it turns out that business can be increased with Sherritt, which is none other than Moa mining, and on the other hand, the Cuban communists shout to the heavens when they see that another Canadian company manages to re-establish the business of remittances to Cuba without having to go through the dark and lustful hands of state security and the army, who do not want to lose a share in this business that moves, dollar-up-dollar-down, about six billion a year. It is clear that with Sherritt they do not have this problem, and thus Ramiro Valdés and the Ministers of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, and of Energy and Mines, Rodrigo Malmierca and Liván Arronte, respectively, also appeared at the meeting.

Why yes with some and with others no? What are the communist leaders looking for with these types of meetings? Perhaps to drag Sherritt into the conflict with the United States that they do not want to resolve, or to show that these types of companies that are “obedient” are received by the “senior staff of the regime” while, on the other hand, those that do not behave well, will they ever receive such treatment?

The derivative is not this. You have to think what Sherritt gains from this report in Granma with the Cuban communist leadership. This company must have a top-level image department because there’s no free lunch. Obtaining a report like this, which will be seen by the global shareholders of this company, many of them restless and upset with doing business with a country as complicated as Cuba, is not easy and can have consequences.

At the moment, the president of Sherritt may have to face the corporate social responsibility committee of his multinational asking him a question about why do business with a country that does not respect and outlaws human rights. What is going to be done, the rules of compliance are what they are and if Mr. Leon Binedell wants to go to the financial markets in search of financing, he may find some clause against doing business with a political regime like Cuba.

It could be anything. Nothing happens naturally in communist Cuba. In this event there are winners and losers. They have chosen the moment (the prices of mineral raw materials are soaring in the world markets and Sherritt must be making a lot of money with Moa’s business in Cuba); and Díaz-Canel, who must have Putin screaming to high heaven because Cuba abandoned him in the recent United Nations vote on the invasion of Ukraine, siding with China, has used the occasion to improve his poor international image. I insist. In Cuba nothing happens by chance and this handshake between a top-level Canadian “capitalist” and a Cuban enemy of capitalism has to have some meaning. We will see.
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We Cubans Do Not Need Recipes, But Freedom To Produce Food

Why can this cabbage that I plant in an old can on a balcony a few meters from the Ministry of Agriculture give me more hope than the ephemeral plans of Acopio? (Yoani Sanchez)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation y, Havana, 11 March 2022 — The “experts” arrive, like the Brazilian Frei Betto, to tell us how we have to do it… but we already know. We have known it for centuries since the first ones who made cassava on this Island, passing through my grandparents who made thick corn “tayuyos” like those that could not be eaten in one sitting; to the “strained” peas that we gave our young children to make them grow despite their skinny legs and diminutive size… we already know.

It’s called “freedom” and it’s the main ingredient in every dish, every crop, every harvest.

Why can this cabbage that I plant in an old can on a balcony a few meters from the Ministry of Agriculture give me more hope than the ephemeral plans of the state company Acopio? Because this cabbage is freely watered. It doesn’t answer to anyone, it doesn’t have to pander to the statistics spouted by any leader strutting his stuff on a podium.

It is just a cabbage and we are just people who harvest a cabbage that knows that the land can give much and more, but it does not move with ideologies, nationalization or straitjackets designed by centralism. It’s a cabbage, it doesn’t understand parties, and hungry mouths need more cabbages like this.

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Cubans Berta Soler and Angel Moya are Detained Again on Sunday, for the Seventh Consecutive Week

Photo taken by Ángel Moya from his home to document the surveillance by State Security. (Facebook)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 7 March 2022 — Ladies in White leader, Berta Soler, and her husband activist Ángel Moya were once again detained for several hours on Sunday, as he confirmed on Monday.

“They imposed a fine of 7.50 pesos for being undocumented and they confined me to a cell until they released me at 11:20 pm in the street of the Ladies in White national headquarters,” wrote Moya on his Facebook account.

The two activists were detained on Sunday when they attempted to go out once again, for the seventh consecutive week, to demand the release of all those arrested in relation to the antigovernment protests of July 11th.

As they explained, the detention took place outside the headquarters of the Ladies in White in the Lawton area of Havana.

“[Berta and Ángel] have been detained and disappeared at 11:16 this morning at Calle E and Porvenir in Lawton as they went out to the street to exercise their right to freedom,” denounced Ladies in White member Lourdes Esquivel Vieyto on social media on Sunday.

According to Moya, both were transferred to different detention centers, where they were held in the cells for more than ten hours. continue reading

Since the Ladies in White announced that they would protest each Sunday, as they did before the pandemic, demanding the release of those detained for the antigovernment protests on July 11th, they have been arrested every week.

The Ladies in White movement emerged in 2003 as a result of the wave of Cuban government repression known as the Black Spring. Two years later, they received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament.

The EU and NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International criticized that wave of politically motivated arrests. Cuban authorities, however, alleged that it was an attack on national sovereignty on orders of the United States.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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South African Opposition Denounces Payments to Cuban Doctors with Expired Contracts

The South African Democratic Alliance has been focusing on the importing of Cuban doctors for months. (Capture)

The South African Democratic Alliance, in opposition, estimates the money invested in paying the salaries of Cuban doctors with expired contracts who continue in the province of Gauteng (which is home to the two largest cities of the country, Pretoria and Johannesburg) at almost 2 million dollars, while some local healthcare workers are unpaid.

The opponent Jack Bloom, from the provincial Health area, denounced that there are vacancies not filled with South African doctors while 14 Cuban doctors continue to earn between 78,000 and 91,000 rand per month, the equivalent of between 5,000 and 6,000 dollars. Meanwhile, there are 10 interns at Chris Hani-Baragwanath Academic Hospital who are “suffering” because they haven’t been paid this year.

“They do invaluable work on 12-hour shifts, but things are getting desperate as some of them are starving and don’t have money for transportation,” Bloom said.

The aforementioned Cuban doctors are part of a group of 28 whose contracts are not related to the special ones for covid-19, but to the agreements between the two countries signed in 1996. In this case, their contracts ended in May 2020, but Bloom denounces that half are still employed without any possible justification. continue reading

“It’s disappointing that the province still employs 14 of them when the local doctors are unemployed. I don’t see them doing anything the local doctors can’t do,” he said. The politician denounced that many of them do not even speak English well and are not familiar with the health problems in the area.

But Nomathemba Mokgethi, head of the regional health department, defended the measure. “Cuba as a country is known for having the best results in this area and its experience in prevention and health promotion helps strengthen the district system,” she said.

“Cuban doctors also serve as mentors and trainers for doctors who are located in primary health care centers, especially South African doctors trained in Cuba,” she alleges.

Bloom, on the other hand, sees shadowy interests in the maintenance of Cuban physicians. “It’s not a surprise, but there is something deeply suspicious about this because we have unemployed local doctors and unfilled medical positions,” he warned. In addition, the opponent said that at the end of the month health workers who were hired to attend to the pandemic will be laid off, so there will be vacancies.

The opposition has spent months focusing on the importing of Cuban doctors into the country, a task that entails a high cost because, in addition to salaries, it implies providing the health workers with accommodation, transportation and maintenance, costs which would not exist in the case of hiring to nationals.

The contingent of doctors who arrived in South Africa during the pandemic cost at least $6 million, which was justified at the time by having “limited” experience in the country. Those contracts were renewed twice. The tasks they carried out, according to the Cuba’s State-run Granma newspaper itself, were taking samples for PCR tests for Covid and contact investigations, a task that could have been carried out by nursing assistants, pharmacists or trained administrative personnel, but which, in the case of the Cuban doctors, cost almost 14 million dollars.

Relations between Cuba and South Africa are a source of frequent controversy. In addition to the conflict ridden contracts with doctors, the South African scholarship holders who study on the island have also been in the eye of the hurricane, recently due a party that the South African students were celebrating in Villa Clara, which ended with the Cuban police beating the medical students. Although the South African Government stated that it would ask for explanations, the issue has dissolved like a sugar cube in cup of coffee.

Other problems have arisen from agreements with Cuban engineers who come to South Africa to share their sanitation knowledge. The opposition has repeatedly denounced that, instead of focusing on local hiring, these workers are being brought in who are not even legally authorized to do a good number of tasks.

The scandal of the South African purchase of interferon alpha 2b from Cuba through the Ministry of Defense, in what was an operation not authorized by the Health Department, remains unresolved, but millions were invested in acquiring medicines that had to be returned or destroyed for the most part.

The most recent controversy between the two countries is the approval of a $3.25 million donation to Cuba to improve its “food security.” The authorities consider that it is necessary to support the island in the face of the US embargo with this economic aid since Havana supported them in their fight against apartheid, but experts and the opposition consider that collaboration due to an historical event is already excessive and it can become corruption.

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Police Surround Panama’s Embassy in Cuba to Control the Crowd

The Police have established a cordon to prevent those interested from approaching Panama’s diplomatic headquarters. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 10 March 2022 — The situation at the Panamanian Embassy in Havana has worsened 24 hours after the chaos generated this Wednesday after it was learned that the country had begun requesting transit visas from Cubans.

Hundreds of people arrived at the entrance of the consulate yesterday to find out how they could quickly acquire a necessary piece of paper a few hours before some of them had to board a flight stopping in the Panamanian capital.

The scene was repeated this Thursday, although the Police had taken control of the area today and it was impossible to approach the diplomatic headquarters. In addition, the internet signal had been cut off in the area.

The agents, among other missions, must control traffic, which has been diverted to prevent yesterday’s crowds. The dozens of people who get as close as possible brandish their tickets in their hands and, like yesterday, demand solutions and answers in the midst of desperation because they don’t know if they will be able to fly.

Among the agents, some are understanding with the citizens who insist on receiving more information, but the order, in view of the operation, is to prevent them from getting closer to the diplomatic headquarters. continue reading

However, the number of interested parties is increasing. A guard who was several blocks from the area asked the 14ymedio reporter what the exact address of the Panamanian Embassy was, because many people insist on asking him.

The crowds repeated this Thursday, one day after learning about the new transit visa requirement for Cubans in Panama. (14ymedio)

This Wednesday, the Panamanian Consulate assured Cubans who plan to travel on or before the night of Saturday the 12th that they will not need the new transit visa, but those who plan to travel between March 13 and 30 will have to reschedule their flights. The employee assured that whoever travels after March 31 will have no problem obtaining the visa, but must submit their application at least 15 business days before the departure of their flight.

The news that the Panamanian authorities would begin to require transit visas from Cubans fell like a pitcher of cold water on those who planned to make a stopover in the Central American country with the Copa airline, which stops in Panama, to continue towards Nicaragua. Nicaragua does not require visas for Cubans and since November that country has become the main exit point for those who want to emigrate. At the end of February, Costa Rica took the same measures.

The cost of the visa is 50 dollars and gives the right to stay 24 hours in transit through Panama.

Cuba’s authorities have taken advantage of the situation to denounce the immigration policy of the United States, which they accuse of failing to comply with the immigration agreements that establish the delivery of at least 20,000 annual visas for Cuban citizens.

“This has led to the establishment of alternative routes for Cuban citizens who wish to emigrate to that country, creating complicated situations for other countries that are used as transit to reach the United States,” affirms the official press in a note published this Wednesday that recounts the scenes of yesterday and stresses that the decision belongs to Panama, and the Cuban government cannot do anything about it.

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Woman Dies When the Roof of a Soup Kitchen Collapses in Old Havana

Firefighters rushed to the crash site, which was packed with onlookers. (Capture)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 10 March 2022 — A woman died due to injuries sustained by the fall of the false ceiling in a soup kitchen in Old Havana last Tuesday. The woman was an employee of the Family Care System (SAF) at the premises on the corner of Monserrate and Lamparilla, and she also lived in the vicinity of the place.

“It was more or less 4:30 in the afternoon when part of the false ceiling collapsed,” details another worker from the Gastronomy Company that manages the dining room. “She was an elderly person and she was inside sweeping when part of the roof collapsed. She died instantly, nothing could be done because the pieces that fell were very large.”

This Thursday the state in which the premises remained after the collapse was still visible. (14ymedio)

The premises, located on the ground floor, previously housed the Bar Franco, but was recently converted into a dining room for the elderly, people with disabilities and other social cases. “This SAF was previously located at Teniente Rey and Cuba, but that place is now a shelter for families affected by the collapse of their homes,” the employee clarifies. continue reading

“Since the transfer was made, it was evident that this facility was badly damaged by leaks in the roof falling from the residential building above it. Several employees complained about it, but nothing was done,” he says. “Her body was completely buried under the rubble.”

“All the buildings on this block are in very poor condition, and when heavy trucks pass by, everything shakes. It’s very scary,” the woman explains. “If it had been lunchtime and it had been full of old people, the tragedy would have been greater, that’s what all the neighbors are commenting on.”

In a video broadcast through the social network Facebook, numerous people can be seen leaning out of the windows of the dining room last Tuesday after the collapse, and a fire engine arriving at the scene. La Esquina, a very busy place, is near a Cuban peso store that constantly has long lines.

In Cuba there are 76,175 people registered in the Family Attention System that provides them with a daily lunch and dinner. The lack of variety, the low quality of food and the rise in prices after the entry into force of the Ordering Task* are a constant target of criticism and complaints.

Users of this service are mostly retirees who lament that spices, oil and animal protein are often lacking in the food prepared. The 445 kitchens of this type that exist throughout the country also receive people with disabilities and other social problems daily.

*Translator’s note: Tarea ordenamiento = the [so-called] ‘Ordering Task’ which is a collection of measures that includes 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 others.

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In Central Havana, ‘The Bicycles Arrived and Armageddon Set In’

This Thursday the bicycle became the objct of desire in Central Havana (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 10 March 2022 — “The bikes arrived and Armageddon set in,” says Maria. The shouting on San Nicolás street, in Central Havana, called the attention of passers-by who, despite being accustomed to long lines and fights forming when the Mundo de la Fantasia [Fantasy World] toy store displayed merchandise, today stopped in surprise to see what the reason was for such exaggerated pandemonium.

The bicycles, a bright pink sprinkled with little flowers, were not entirely cheap. But the price, 3,439 pesos, was attractive enough for the resellers, eager to get a good profit in dollars on the online site Revolico, to compete with the fathers and mothers who milled around the store trying to get a hold of the product.

To get one of these toys, it is essential to show the card that proves the buyer has children, an obstacle that the resellers manage to overcome, sometimes with a real document, others with a borrowed one and others with the complicity of the seller.

The lines are constant in Mundo de la Fantasia, formerly La Casa Pérez, every time that, “from time to time” this store, located on Neptuno street, receives merchandise to sell. However, this Thursday the Police even had to approach the area when they saw the organized scandal, although, as soon as they left the area, chaos returned.

María laughs between amused and resigned. “Because of the messes that are formed, and today more than ever, in ’Fantasy World’ there is nothing. This store should be called ’Terror World’.”

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