14ymedio – Page 246 – Translating Cuba

‘Patria y Vida’, The Anthem for Cuban Freedom

The authors and performers of the song ’Patria y Vida’. (Collage)

14ymedio, Havana, 25 December 2021 — Barely a week had passed since the premiere of the song Patria y Vida (Homeland and Life), in February, when these two words began to be used as a slogan by different opponents of the regime, inside and outside of Cuba.

Opposed to the Castroist “homeland or death”, the images extolling the blackness of five artists, some in exile –Yotuel Romero, the duo Gente de Zona, Descemer Bueno – and others on the island – Eliexer Márquez El Funky and Maykel Castillo Osorbo — united for the first time, the theme was a tribute to the San Isidro Movement — in the video clip its leader the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara appears, wrapped in the flag that flew at the group’s headquarters when they gathered to demand the release of the rapper Denis Solís – but it also honored other protests, such as that of Luis Robles Elizastigui , the “young man with the placard,” and attacked the blatant dollarization of the economy.

It immediately went viral and, at the same time, put its protagonists in the crosshairs of State Security. The campaign against it included articles in the official press to discredit its creators and even a ridiculous “song war”, but above all it consisted of systematic harassment and repression against participating artists within the country.

On May 18, Osorbo was arrested and on July 11, Otero Alcántara was also; both today remain in maximum security prisons. El Funky had more luck: he was forced into exile in Miami. continue reading

None of this prevented Patria y Vida from accompanying the 11J [July 11] protests and it continued to resound loudly. On November 18, it won the two Latin Grammy Awards for which it was nominated, and on December 8, the lyrics of the song –signed, in addition to the performers, by the Spanish singer and dancer Beatriz Luengo – was immortalized in the Journal of Sessions of the United States Congress.

That day, on the stand, the Florida representative Mario Díaz-Balart highlighted “the importance of a song that has become an anthem for a movement and for so many Cubans who demand freedom on the Island” and demanded “that all political prisoners are released, that basic rights of expression, assembly and belief are respected, and free, fair and multi-party elections are scheduled.”

The announcement by Yotuel Romero and Beatriz Luengo of a documentary that will show the impact of the song on the fight for freedom in Cuba anticipates that the theme will not lose its validity in 2022. Former US President Barack Obama has chosen it as one of his songs of the year.

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Operation Cosmetics: Products Missing From Cuban Markets for Months Reappear

Agricultural markets in Havana suddenly offered special supplies hours before Christmas Eve. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 25 December 2021 — After a year marked by shortages, in the last days of December the Cuban government has launched an effort to try to erase the image of the empty market stalls. Agricultural markets in Havana experienced a special supply hours before Christmas Eve. Vegetables, legumes, meats and even fruits that had not been seen together for a long time came up for sale.

“The pallets are full and the prices are less exaggerated than in previous days,” said a man at the entrance of one of these premises, who also noted the presence of inspectors from the municipal government. “Sure they come to look on their own account, these days they always sharpen their teeth,” the man whispered.

The strategy, however, was not enough to fill all of Havana’s markets nor to satisfy customers who continue to regret that prices remained very high despite the slight reduction. Others, spoke sarcastically about the evident objective of “making up the scarcity” in the face of “the Christmas photo” and expressed their fears about a twist in the deficit in the coming weeks.

“What I want to know is where all this merchandise was put, surely in January they will be empty again,” commented a lady while reviewing the list displayed in a market in the Cerro municipality. Pineapples, cabbages and tomatoes fail to appease popular unrest in the midst of one of the hardest economic crises of the last half century on the Island.

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The Problem is Not Hunger, but Cubans’ Excessive Appetite, Opines Frei Betto

Meeting in 2014 between Frei Betto and Fidel Castro. (Granma)

14ymedio, Havana, 26 December 2021 — “In Cuba there is no hunger. But the Cubans have a lot of appetite!” affirmed the Brazilian Frei Betto in a recent text published by the State newspaper Granma. In his writing, the theologian and sympathizer of the regime argues that the Government of the Island spends two billion dollars on imported food for the people each year, but ignores such everyday scenes as endless lines and shortages.

The theologian, very close to Fidel Castro, assures that on the island “there are no people living on the streets or beggars” when he asserts that the almost 12 million inhabitants in the country have “access to a basic monthly ’basket’ and to the systems of Health and Education for free.” However, even the official press itself has recognized the existence of homeless Cubans who ask for money to survive.

In his own words, in just two weeks he realized many things, including recognizing the Cuban economy is “fragile.” The letter published in the official media on December 24 and under the title Cuba and our daily bread, was the result of a visit as an advisor to the Government for the Food Sovereignty and Nutrition Education program (known as the SAN Plan).

Reactions have not been delayed. “What happened here? Frei Betto visits model farms and not popular stomachs?” asked Cuban opponent Manuel Cuesta Morúa after reading the Brazilian’s writing.

“Is it the new version of the geopolitics of hunger that blames the people, and not their governments? If it is true that we have a sweet tooth, then a regime incapable of satisfying us cannot govern us,” added the vice president of the Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba on his Twitter account as he shared screenshots of the theologian’s words. continue reading

In his writing, Betto outlined what would be the objectives of this program in Cuba, which coincide with some points that have marked the regime’s agenda for years and have not achieved concrete changes. Among them, he listed as the first “significantly reducing food imports,” a task in which the Government has been involved for decades without being able to raise its head.

Just to mention a recent example, in the last two decades, Cuba practically ceased to be a sugar-producing country, but it did not develop another industry of similar magnitude that would allow it to generate foreign exchange. That is why, for many experts, the current crisis on the island is related to structural problems: “The rigidity and distorted and inefficient character of the Cuban economy,” suggested economist Ernesto Hernández-Catá, a former professor at John Hopkins University (Baltimore).

Another objective that Betto listed for the SAN Plan and that is related to the first, is “to increase local food production, valuing family, urban and suburban agriculture,” another action addressed by the Government in its speeches without achieving transformations of any kind.

Among the latest policies, in April of this year 63 measures were approved that sought to increase agricultural production in the country, stimulate farmers and marketing. However, six months later, the livestock sector reported low milk production that was due to the failure of the government’s promises, including non-payment to producers.

Betto also indicated as goals “to carry out a broad nutrition education campaign” and “to carry out intensive communication on the SAN Plan.” All the objectives are expected to bear “fruit” in “the next four or five years,” he said, with the approval of Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel with whom he held several meetings and who considers the project “urgent and essential.”

On the other hand, he took time to criticize the eating habits of Cubans and advised that some “can be perfectly changed.” One example he gave was “the preference for wheat bread, an imported cereal,” he stressed.

As a substitute for wheat flour, Betto proposed making cassava, corn and “coconut flour” breads.

But it didn’t all did not stop there, he also had his proposal for meat, a product that not everyone will be able to buy this Christmas due to its high prices and the little that appears in the markets: “And meat can give a greater place to the consumption of beans, lentils , spinach, peanuts, soybeans and avocado, rich in protein,” he advised. “Although the island does not have many dairy cattle, the new generations are already getting used to soy milk and yogurt.”

The words of the Dominican have reminded many of the book Fidel and Religion, Conversations with Frei Betto, edited from a long interview conducted in 1985. In the volume, Castro explains his recipe for cooking lobsters and how to prepare coffee with milk to which he added a pinch of salt to give a special “touch.” At that time, shellfish was something unthinkable on the table of Cuban families and milk was rationed and supplied on to children under seven years of age.

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Archipielago: Yunior Garcia, Saily Gonzalez, Daniela Rojo, David Martinez

The activists Yunior García (top left), Daniela Rojo (bottom left), Saily González (top right) and David Martínez (bottom right). (Collage)

14ymedio, Havana, 24 December 2021 — In the second half of the year, a group turned the Cuban reality upside down, the Archipiélago platform, which was placed under the global spotlight after less than a year of its creation. The Cuban authorities had just announced with great fanfare the reopening of the country for November 15, when this group decided to make a formal call, in most Cuban provinces, for demonstrations to demand the freedom of the prisoners and a national dialogue to resolve the differences between all Cubans. What was unusual about the proposal was its resort to legal channels to authorize the march, which would expose the regime if it was prohibited.

Since that day, the most visible faces of this collective, founded after November 27, 2020 (27N) by the playwright Yunior García Aguilera, have become more and more known inside and outside of Cuba. The government itself was the one who placed the spotlight on them through almost daily personal attacks after torpedoing the first date requested by the Archipiélago, November 20, by calling for that date to be National Defense Day.

Archipiélago decided, in an collective manner, to move the date to November 15, at which time the authorities changed their strategy and went on to an intimidating attack. All the signatories of the march requests or supporters of the platform and even people who had simply clicked on the ‘like’ button in their social media posts were warned by police officers or prosecutors of the possible crimes they would incur if they demonstrated on 15N.

The pressure from the authorities and the shock troops launched by the Government took effect, causing people continue reading

such as the businesswoman from Villa Clara Saily González, the Guanabacoa activist Daniela Rojo, and the Cienfuegos activist David Martínez, who had led Archipiélago, to be repudiated and cornered in their homes, not to mention that on 15N the regime deployed all its artillery to keep the activists locked up in their homes.

The most visible head of the movement, Yunior García, was harassed for weeks by the state media and the police even told him which prison he would go to if he persisted in his attempt to march. The playwright moved his idea forward by one day and announced that he would walk alone dressed in white with a rose, but he could not even set foot outside his house, besieged by officialdom through the bars of his window.

The situation ended when three days later it was learned that the activist had traveled to Madrid , convinced that on the island he would be silenced and locked up between the four walls of his home or a prison. This decision, very controversial, was received by his colleagues in different ways, but it was a before and after in the life of the movement. A movement that, this last month of the year, having been raised to world fame, has been broken with the abandonment of several of its best known members. Despite everything, Archipíelago aspires to continue fighting.

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“15 Years Ago, They Told Us That They Were Going to Demolish the Building That Fell This Thursday”

Alderete says that he has lived adjacent to the building that collapsed for 16 years, but he clarifies that he used to live on that same corner that collapsed on Thursday night. (14ymedio)

Luz Escobar, Havana, 18 December 2021 — At 9 p.m. on Thursday, December 16^th, on the eve of Saint Lazarus Day, Miguel Alejandro Alderete Recio and his 81-year-old mother, Rosalba, were listening to a radio program, El Nocturno at their home. A roar broke the tranquility. A wall of the adjoining house, at the corner of Angeles and Monte streets, had collapsed. Neighbors took to the streets to search for possible victims under the rubble. Ambulances, police and firefighters arrived. They found the lifeless body of a passerby, Rolando León.

Alderete is uneasy, he talks about the shock that he experienced at that moment, and both his mind and his body still feel it, his voice too. This Friday, after four in the afternoon, he brewed coffee for a visit and, after saying goodbye, he spoke with 14ymedio about the anguish and disgust that has remained after the collapse.

“I saw it all,” he says, and his hands move up and down in an effort to point out every crack in the ceiling, every dampness, every wall about to collapse. The noise from the central avenue, increased by the work of a crane and dozens of onlookers who still come to see what happened, dies down when one walks through the entrance at Monte 429.

Rosalba has just arrived from the hospital where she spent several hours after the collapse on Thursday night. (14ymedio)

Alderete says that he has been in that place for 16 years, adjacent to the building that collapsed, but he clarifies that, before, he lived in that same corner that collapsed on Thursday night and that, being “up there”, they always had “shelter in place order”, to move to one of those places of temporary accommodation. He remembers that continue reading

the place was in “terrible condition” and that one day one of his brothers “had his foot sunk into the ground in such a way that he fell down completely”. He claims that if it hadn’t been for a beam that he tripped over, he would “have gone down completely”.

As a result of this incident, the authorities took the whole family to a nearby but unventilated place and it was then that they offered to go to where they live to this day.

“When they relocated us in that place, it was like in 2005 or 2006, we had to do an enormous amount of cleaning and enable the premises to barely live there. A year after being here they told us that they were going to demolish the upper part but they did not come until today, after what happened, happened. They did not demolish at the time and look at the demolition now, after there has already been one death,” lamented Alderete.

He also remembers that a bus once collided with a column on the façade and knocked it over completely. “The top of the bus hit the door. Luckily, there was no one there at that time, but a man who stood guard there, who lives next door and his name is Claudio, almost got killed” he said.

He says that as a result of the column that fell “they put two sticks there and until the sun came up today” it was the same. “That was 10 years ago and they never took care of it again… ah! but now that this collapse occurs, they immediately come to remove the old props and put in the new ones, do we have to wait for that?” he wonders. “No, we shouldn’t wait till people die” he answers himself.

“I saw it all,” says Alderete, and his hands move up and down in an effort to point out every crack in the ceiling, every damp spot, every wall about to collapse. (14ymedio)

“Then, afterwards they will say that you’re a counterrevolutionary but no, you have to tell the truth. I am stubborn, after the collapse no one has come to hear from us yet, the ones who arrived were the demolition workers but Housing has not come here, I’m very upset”, he says, very angry.

For a moment, his disgust turns into indignation, he would like to express his discontent on the street but he fears for his mother’s health: “Do you know why I didn’t go out to the street? Because of my mother, who is there and yesterday they had to take her to the Calixto García Hospital because her blood pressure was so low, she got very nervous. We felt the noise and I opened the door and went out, so I see the movement and the collapse, after a few minutes they had to take her by ambulance”.

Rosalba, who is listening to the entire conversation from a chair, says: “Before, I lived where the collapse took place, now I feel better, but I got so scared that I had tachycardia.” Her son is very concerned about his mother’s health and the consequences that living in such poor conditions may have for her. “Just like that, my mother will get messed up too, it’s too much, that lady is 81 years old and I’m praying that before she closes her eyes, she is able to see her little house, the only thing I miss is that one day she can live like normal people”.

This man, who has worked at the old Woolworth’s on Monte Street for 28 years, first as a cook and now as a confectioner, does not understand why “we have to wait for Havana to fall down” to make the right decisions. “Those Government people come here to Quisicuaba, and yesterday they were there with Silvio Rodríguez, but nobody has come here”, he criticized, referring to the delivery of the National Community Culture Award to the singer-songwriter, which took place the same day, very close to the collapse.

From Calle Ángeles, a brigade of workers pruned the Yagruma tree that comes out of Alderete’s house. (14ymedio)

He remembers when the tornado “completely engaged Havana and they immediately gave shelter to those affected” and he was outraged when he saw on the news that the Diez de Octubre nursing home, which had been closed for nine years, was immediately enabled for 70 families. “Do you have to wait for the tornado to pass to do that? No, that’s totally disrespectful”.

This man does not stare at each crack without doing anything, but he considers that the repairs that the property needs are so extensive that they are beyond his ability. “I have thrown a pile of melts (waterproofing mixture) on that roof to contain the water but it is too much, cracks always appear and the melt lasts a month and then it’s leaks and leaks. I cannot wait for them because it is always the same slobber and they never do anything, it’s too much. ”

“I repeat, because of my mother I did not go out [to demonstrate] on November 15^th, for my mother, I did go out on July 11^th, and for my mother I did not go out yesterday or today. It is only because of that lady that I refrain, because if I throw myself onto the street, something will happen to her. Until when? One is here, being a good citizen, waiting, and they are doing whatever they want, no, I’m very upset”, he insists.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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The Word of the Year and the Difficult Task of Naming a Moment

A burial in Pinar del Rio province in Cuba. (Ronald Suárez/Facebook)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchéz, Generation Y, 23 December 2021 — The Fundación del Español Urgente (Foundation of Emerging Spanish — Fundéu) has already published its twelve candidates to compete for 2021’s scepter of the word. The competition is tough because this year has elicited deep emotions in millions of people who speak this beautiful language and because for twelve months the social debate has ignited around words that define scientific findings, political conflicts and economic hardships. The selection could leave a trail of dissatisfaction among Spanish speakers, a plural chorus that extends beyond the twenty nations that have Castilian as their official language.

Vaccine, cryptocurrency, shortage, variant, metaverse and Taliban are among the terms in dispute for the crown that the Fundéu has awarded since 2013. However, although all of them have been written, disseminated and spoken countless times, I consider that it has been the act of saying goodbye – mentally and physically – that we have had to perform the most in this very tough year that is ending. The expression “adiós” has marked much of our days, redefined our path and forced us to rethink the priorities of our existence.

We said “adiós” to the thousands of deaths that the second and third waves of the pandemic brought us, when we had believed that the worst was over. We also appealed to that interjection when we understood that the way we had experienced social contact, interaction with others and professional life was no longer going to return, we had to construct other ways. We had to use that sharp word again when we realized that the pandemic was not something fleeting but the new state in which we would live for a long time. This year we said “adiós” at every step.

But every time we shake our hands or our heads to close a chapter or to say goodbye to a deceased, we also said “hello” or “welcome,” because 2021 forced us to wake up every morning and give thanks that our lungs were still working, to jump like children before the negative result of an antigen test, to hug each other only with the tip of the elbow and still feel as if it had been with the whole body, to put away our bathing suits because the beaches were closed and later to not hang the garlands because Christmas could not be celebrated either. It led us to sweep away the superfluous and keep the essentials.

After having survived all of this, we get a half smile on remembering that in 2014 Fundéu selected the word “selfie,” so narcissistic and carefree; or that in 2019 it was the turn of the cute “emojis.” The tongue then carried a distant and festive unconcern because, of course, we did not know what was on its way to us with the coronavirus pandemic.

On December 29, the foundation promoted by the EFE Agency and the Royal Spanish Academy will announce the word of this year, but many of us already know it. It is the two short syllables that we have repeated all this time: adiós.

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This text was originally published on the Deutsche Welle website for Latin America.

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Cuban President Diaz-Canel Admits That His Government has ‘Lagged Behind’ in the Recognition of Some Rights

President Miguel Díaz-Canel, during the closing of the Third Plenary Session of the Communist Party of Cuba, this Friday in Havana. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 18 December 2021 — Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel acknowledged that his government has been late in defending certain social rights. Speaking this Friday, at the closing of the Third Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, for the umpteenth time,he again defended socialism as “the only way to development with social justice” and denounced the attempts of “the articulators of the campaigns against Cuba “for” breaking the sacred national unity.

“Racial, gender, animal protection and environmental issues are constantly superimposed on digital platforms with stark attacks on institutions (…) without recognizing the efforts and progress made by the State and civil society organizations to eliminate the burdens that hinder the performance of those rights and guarantees,” lamented Díaz-Canel. “In some areas it is true that we have lagged behind or reached a point — that is where we have to take a leap — and in others we have made much progress, but perhaps not communicated enough, debated enough, agreed enough.”

To do this, the solution he proposes is to change the “old ways of communicating,” because, he continued, “the times impose it and because, as the unforgettable Aute would say: ’Our lives are going on in it’.”

Díaz-Canel did not miss the opportunity to refer, with metaphors and disqualifications, to the frustrated Civic March for Change, convened by the Archipíelago platform for November 15, which the president calls “a destabilizing plan that has not yet ceased.”

“That plan was to reach its climax on November 15th. Some digital platforms even talked about the last day of the Cuban Revolution; however, it was the last day of a highly rehearsed play that never got its premiere,” said the hand-picked president, in clear allusion, without naming him, to the playwright Yunior García Aguilera, took off for Spain two days after suffering, on November 14, a prolonged act of repudiation that prevented him from leaving his home.

Diaz-Canel refers to García Aguilera as “the articulator of the interrupted theatrical act” whom “his employers try to use by putting cameras and microphones on him wherever he moves… In what some analysts call ’the Miamization of Madrid’, the hard right of the old metropolis is competing with the unpresentable anti-Cuban politicians based [sic] in Miami,” said the president, who concluded his speech with the Castro slogan “homeland or death, we will win. “

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Cuban Government Laments its Failure to Attract Foreign Investment

Hotel built by Gaesa on the corner of 3rd Ave and 70th Street, in Playa, Havana (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Madrid, 21 December, 2021 — Troubled by covid-19, the last two years were catastrophic for foreign investment, according to the Minister of Trade, Rodrigo Malmierca Díaz, who admitted that during that time they had approved only 47 business proposals, of which barely 25 had been set up.

There were no surprises in his appearance this Monday before the deputies, since he had nothing much else to say besides what he told the Council of Ministers last month, when he said: “The level of external investment is a lot less than what the country needs”. This Monday he repeated his recognition that “in spite of the actions we took, we haven’t achieved what we wanted,” and he presented the supporting statistics.

In the seven years since the External Investment Law was passed, 285 businesses were authorised, of which 29 were reinvestments. Out of a total of 302 companies, with external capital, 104 are mixed, 54 purely external, and 144 contracts with international economic associations, related to tourism, food, energy and light industry sectors.

Malmierca didn’t hesitate to drag out the old excuse of the blockade (i.e. the US embargo) to justify the situation, although he also used the new one of the pandemic. Nevertheless, he also owned up to his own mistakes – something quite unusual for our national authorities. He admitted that there had been errors in the conceptualising of the projects, little opportunity preparation, and little planned and effective promotion. Up to here, self criticism.

Among the external factors complicating outside investment, in the minister’s view, is the categorisation of Cuba as a high-risk country. Malmierca blamed this situation on bad relations with the US, as well as the island’s high debt-level , but he missed out the bit about the government’s responsibility. Fidel Castro led various moves which have left Cuba outside of the markets. In 1964 he ordered the exit from the International Monetary Fund, and, in 1987, carried the banner for Third World countries reneging on their external debts. continue reading

The minister also referred to the peculiarities of the Cuban economy which make the country less attractive, including “convertibility problems” with the currency, the uncompetitive prices of goods and services, the scarce construction capacity, the absence of an internal finance market, and poor connectivity hampering automation development.

Also, Malmierca drew attention to other issues which are important for Cuba, and which conflict with the interests of potential investors, including the obligation to contract personnel through state agencies(versus hiring them directly), the impossibility of transferring property ownership, problems of financial guarantees, difficulties facing foreign employees in acquiring property, restrictions on participation in the retail market, as well as business validity terms, and limitations on participation in activities capable of generating foreign currency income. In summary, the Cuban business environment is at odds with the international one.

In referring to the errors attributable to Cuba, the minister mentioned various causes derived from lack of preparation, drawn-out negotiations, bureaucracy and documentation errors, among others.

In any case, the authorities continue to have confidence in their own appeal, including new initiatives (banking-finance, hydraulic and sanitary networks, telecommunications, culture, audio-visual and insurance), and the elimination of restrictions on tourism, biotechnology and wholesale commerce, as well as those which existed on opening an external bank account or on permission to invest in agricultural cooperatives.

The minister referred to some other changes, such as the eliminatinon of dual currency and process simplifications, as more than sufficient ot attract outside capital to Cuba, in blissful unawareness, apparently, of the list of reasons he had delivered a few minutes before for companies not wanting to have anything to do with putting their money in the one-stop-shop island.

Malmierca confirmed this when he said that there are “political questions which call for the adoption of consistent decisions”, a thought completely invalidated by him saying in the same address: “The attraction of investment cannot be achieved at the expense of sovereignty or the abandonment of the essence of the socialist model.”

The minister also explained that the Committee for Management and Approval of Programmes and Projects for Cooperation Received by Cuba, created in May, has approved 50 projects for a value of 137.7 million dollars, in the agriculture, hydraulic, health, energy and environment sectors.

He added that Cuba “offers its cooperation” in 74 countries, where it has sent 29,954 team members, while 8,599 overseas students are learning in the island. Mind you, he did not detail what income was generated by these programmes, and how most of it went to the moneyboxes of the government, which manages their salaries, and that those working overseas get paid only a tiny part of what is paid to the government for their services. In the case of the sanitation workers, the percentage they receive is scarcely a miserly 10%.

Translated by GH

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The ‘Guillotine’ of Monte Avenue Threatens to Behead Passersby

The elderly, students, and shop customers are among the potential victims of a collapsing wall. (Collage)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 21 December 2021 — Elderly people who go to buy bread in a nearby store, customers of an adjoining shop, students coming or going from school on the popular and central Monte Avenue at the top of Águila Street, all are among the potential victims of the ‘guillotine’.

Neighbors have given this name to the side wall of a building because of its resemblance to the French artifact invented more than 200 years ago to behead inmates sentenced to death. “At any time, the guillotine could take its toll on one of the old men who stand in line to buy bread,” Ramón, a resident of the area, explains to 14ymedio, pointing out that the store puts out bread twice a day and many older people wait in front of the door for hours to buy.

This situation means that at times the line is so long that many people are standing just below the structure that is in danger of collapse.

The hustle and bustle generated by traffic, the honking of vehicles and the din of passersby who walk past the stalls of the self-employed, from portal to portal, make the imminent danger that lurks silently over the heads of many go unnoticed. The neighbors, aware of the risk, demand a solution from the authorities before a misfortune occurs.

This Monday, around four in the afternoon, a line formed outside the Monte Nuevo bakery. Julio, a 67-year-old retiree, said he was unaware of the guillotine. “I have been coming here for months to buy bread, and I had not noticed. Now I won’t walk under that place anymore,” he says without further ado. continue reading

“The miserable pension that I collect, the pandemic and the crisis that this government has caused have wreaked havoc on my mind. Survival in these times is very difficult for ordinary Cubans, while they [the rulers] live like kings.”

The neighbors, aware of the risk, demand a solution from the authorities before a misfortune occurs. (14ymedio)

Julio remembers that a few days ago, about 200 meters from the bakery, a man lost his life due to the collapse of a building that had been under a demolition order for 15 years. “Do you know when they are going to come running to repair or demolish that? When it collapses it will cause another death. Another Cuban squashed like a cockroach,” he says while pointing his index finger at a small group of high school students, who are passing underneath the structure in poor condition. “I hope I’m not one of these guys,” he adds.

“Apathy” is the first word that comes to the mind of the person in charge of putting chlorine on the hands of those who frequent the Panamericana Monte and Águila store when asked why the ‘guillotine’ is not fixed or demolished. “Luckily, everything indicates that the building is in good condition. The only bad thing is that side wall,” he told 14ymedio.

The worker says that a long time ago the adjoining building was dismantled, leaving the side out in the open. Corrosion has affected the wall for years, causing it to fall apart and to begin to show structural damage on the corner.

The huge crack that originates at the base of the first floor and reaches the roof of the third floor of the building at Máximo Gómez (Monte) and Águila provides less and less support for the structure.

“At other times large pieces of concrete have fallen, but, fortunately, no one has been injured,” continues the store clerk. “Then someone from the Government appears and orders that tape be installed to prevent people from walking underneath,” he explains, although, as the days go by, “the tape disappears again and people trust it and pass by.”

About six meters from the wall there is a bathroom that receives hundreds of people every day, but the self-employed person who manages it understands perfectly that his chair should be located “as far as possible from that wall, in case it collapses.”

Next to him, another retiree who survives by selling plastic bags sums up the situation: “What we are experiencing is a disgrace, because that problem with the wall can be solved in a moment if they close the passage under the portal, or in a couple of days if they come and demolish it.” According to him, there are many who avoid the danger zone, however, “there are more who pass by, fleeing from the sun.”

“We know that it is possible, because in the collapse of the other day, in less than 24 hours they had cleaned and propped everything up,” he adds. “Of course, all this was done quickly because there was a death and that does not suit the leaders, because it is bad publicity for the tourists. They do not fix the ‘guillotine’ because, simply, nobody cares.”

For now.

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The Honorable Allure of Censorship

Yunior García with the playwright José Triana, in 2013 in London. (14ymedio)

“This house has to be torn down!”
Drink, in ‘The night of the murderers’, by Pepe Triana

14ymedio, Madrid, Yunior García Aguilera, December 21 2021 — In 2013 I had the good fortune to meet one of the greatest Cuban playwrights of all time: José Triana. I found myself visiting London for the premiere of Feast, a show that five authors from five countries wrote for the Royal Court Theater. Triana, for his part, was attending a dramatized reading of one of his scripts. A friend had gotten me two tickets to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the last minute, so I convinced the young translator who accompanied me everywhere in London and we ran to meet the famous author of The Night of the Assassins.

“Cuban from Cuba or from Miami?” Pepe said with a tone that he had surely used before. “From Holguín,” I replied, “although I live in Havana.” Triana analyzed me from head to toe in two seconds pondering things that he never said out loud, but that I could guess. A strange mixture of suspicions occurs when two Cuban colleagues meet in another corner of the planet. He had a ton of British admirers waiting for him for tea at a nearby coffee shop, but he took the risk of inviting me. I wanted to hear first-hand news about the theatrical union and, above all, I wanted to know what a young man like me thought about the reality of the Island.

At that time I had written texts such as Sangre, Asco and Semen,

which were totally critical of the dictatorship, but I felt comfortable being a “rebellious” author, who was still allowed some freedoms as long as he did not cross an imprecise and invisible line. Overflowing with optimism, I spoke to him about changes, openings and tolerance. I assured him that it was possible to speak more fluently about the Quinquenio Gris [Five Grey Years], the parametración, and UMAP.

I excitedly told him about the premiere of The Seven Against Thebes, that work by Arrufat that waited forty years to go on stage in Cuba. I even told him that I was sure that he was in no danger if he decided to return to meet again with his colleagues and with his audience. Triana put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a long look before speaking. “Yunior – he said in a low and slow voice – many of those who wanted to destroy me… are still alive, still there and still with power. Nothing has changed.” continue reading

I did not want to insist. His gaze was an end point for that topic of the chat. He smiled again and avoided using those phrases that inform a youth that you are naive. I preferred to try to convince him with actions from a distance. I proposed his name several times for the National Theater Award, for his life’s work. I wanted to dedicate an edition of the National Youth Theater Festival that our group organized from Holguín. I tried to send him various messages, in many ways and through various mutual friends. We did not see each other again.

Pepe Triana is now dead and never received the National Theater Award. I crossed that invisible and imprecise line at some point. I lived through interrogations and discrediting campaigns, I was thrown into a garbage truck, I ended up in jail, I suffered acts of repudiation, pigeons were beheaded at my door, they threatened my family, they intimidated my friends, they forced me to leave. Today my theater group in Cuba has been closed and my works are prohibited. Today I am for them one more worm, a traitor, an enemy of the people.

I would like to meet Pepe again in a London cafe under a persistent drizzle. I would like to tell him that I have been healed a little of that naivety that I harbored in my mind, tongue and chest. It would be a pleasure to tell him that I am already part of the honorable list of authors that the dictatorship tries to silence. I would love to confess: You were right, Pepe, nothing has changed. It may even be worse. But we continue, like your characters, trying to bring down the house, to raise it again… without reproach.
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‘Surprises’, a Havana Store Selling in Dollars With Nothing to Sell

The Sorpresas (Surprises) store in the Carlos III Plaza in Central Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 20 December 2021 — “Without surprises and without coffee, we’re doing fine!” a man complained sarcastically on Monday morning, having come to the Sorpresas (Surprises) store in Carlos III Plaza in Central Havana, in search of a packet of coffee to take home.

The establishment, specializing in selling Cubita brand merchandise, was closed with empty counters and shelves. The store, which only takes payment in freely convertible currency (MLC), did not have any notice on its door about the reason for the closure, but there was no sign of coffee at the site.

“Last week at least you could buy the beans to grind at home, now there isn’t even that,” lamented another a customer at the entrance of the establishment.

At first things seemed to be going well at Sorpresas, when it first opened its doors about a year ago, but in recent months it has frequently suffered from shortages. This week it has hit rock bottom with the total closure of the place and without any products on display in the windows.

The Cuba-Café Company reported earlier this month on delays in the arrival of imports and also in deliveries by the coffee-bean processing entities. In regulated commerce — the ration stores — the distribution of coffee for the month of December has already begun, while the precious powder has disappeared even from the foreign exchange stores.

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The Return of Marxism-Leninism in Cuba

Díaz-Canel proposes to return to the principles of Marxism-Leninism. (Minrex)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Desde Aqui, Havana, 20 December 2021 — In the dilemma of changing the model to save the country or sinking the country in order to save the model, those who rule Cuba seem to opt for the latter. That is the feeling left by the recent public statements promoting a return to Marxist-Leninist doctrine, not only in the academic environment but also in the practical application of the theory, economically, politically and socially.

If we believed to the letter what was expressed by Miguel Díaz-Canel, it could be thought that, economically, the socialist state enterprise as an expression of “social property over the means of production” will leave less and less space for the so-called “non-state forms of production.” Such that, politically, the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat will be imposed more firmly to crush the shreds of bourgeois ideology.

And, in the social sphere, there will be a growing supremacy of the mass organizations that function as a transmission mechanism between the party and the people, versus the entities of independent civil society. The return of atheism as a model of a scientific worldview of the world is not ruled out.

If that is not what comes after the return of Marxism-Leninism, it will be because those who try to make it reappear failed to pass in those subjects.

Between 1975 and 1984 I had the opportunity to participate in several postgraduate courses on Marxism-Leninism and, in particular, on political economy and dialectical and historical materialism. Some were continue reading

sponsored by the Cuban Union of Journalists, others I did on my own at the University of Havana.

In the Political Economy courses that were taught in my workplace, Cuba International magazine, I was the guide, first on the political economy of capitalism and then on that of socialism. Most of my students at that time decided to live (and had to die) outside of Cuba.

Diplomas of the author in his courses on Marxism-Leninism. (14ymedio)

If it came to me to study these subjects again, I would ask the professor how the indisputable apothegm is interpreted in Cuba today, the one that says “when the mode of production becomes a straitjacket for the development of the productive forces,” what has to change is the mode of production; if we were to get philosophical, one would demand an explanation of how it is possible that Marxism is considered both science and ideology.

I do not deny that the laws of dialectics have their charm, especially to affirm that when indicators of material poverty are accumulated quantitatively in a country, a qualitative change occurs that allows that country to be defined as miserable.

In the world we live in, where there is talk of the fourth industrial revolution, when artificial intelligence based on quantum computing threatens to leave not a single question unanswered, to appear with Marxism-Leninism as an inexhaustible source of knowledge and a master key to solve problems is, to say the least, a joke in bad taste.

Being generous with the intelligence of others you might venture that there is something hidden behind all this, but that is going too far in search of an unlikely ingenious justification.

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Cuba Runs Out of Paper to Print the Rationbooks

The lack of paper due to “import delays” affected the delivery of the ration books for 2022, according to the Ministry of Internal Trade (MINCIN). (Granma)

14ymedio, Havana, 19 December 2021 — Cuba has run out of paper to print the rationbooks for 2022. There are “delays in the import of raw material for printing,” reported a publication from the Ministry of Internal Trade. As a result, the “preparation and distribution” of the document, which is required for consumers to be able to buy the subsidized basic basket, is delayed.

Until the new rationbooks are issued, the brief statement reads, in the western and central provinces the 2021 booklets will be used. And to avoid confusion, “the products purchased will be crossed out” before making the annotations of the products in “the lines available in the sheets for January and February” of 2022.

The number 22 will be specified “in the annotations, to signify the year to which they correspond, then the product, the quantity to be delivered and the date of purchase.” New rationbooks should be available “no later than January 30, 2022.”

In the absence of more precise details, Roberto wondered: “In the case of milk and bread, how will it be recorded? If that is daily and the corresponding boxes are full?”

The information was repeated last Friday on the Facebook wall of the Government of the Camagüey province, where users showed their annoyance. “How things are and how they look for the future, I think that with the space left over from 2021, they can use the same booklet until 2025 and thus save imported paper. What a pillar of a knightly system,” said Ulises González. continue reading

“If there isn’t even enough money for the thin notebook,” lamented Yurito Mestre lamented, “what awaits the supplies?” Meanwhile, Gloria María, stated: “For what they give, it would be better if they did away with it.”

“There is no paper for the ration cards, but is there money to import high-end cars?” commented Yoaen, originally from Sancti Spíritus.

There were also reactions from the province of Artemisa, where the measure was also made known. “God, we don’t have any paper for the rationbook,” wrote Elisabet Veloz. “Something as simple as that, what does that say about food for 2022.”

Implemented in 1962, the rationed market has marked the lives of several generations of Cubans. Although over the years the variety and quantity of the products offered has been decreasing significantly, the State spends more than one billion pesos a year in subsidies for these foods that barely last a third of the month.

During the public debates on the Economic and Social Policy Guidelines promoted by the Communist Party, in 2010 and 2011, the possible elimination of the rationbook was the issue that provoked the most comments and fears in the population. Then, its end seemed imminent but the economic crisis and the pandemic reinforced its presence.

The booklet became essential to make purchases, even in the unrationed stores and now it is mandatory to present the booklet to buy products such as frozen chicken, vegetable oil and other basic foods in the markets in Cuban pesos that operate in parallel to the rationed market.

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‘If More Mothers Unite, We Will Achieve Our Children’s Release’

Barbara Farrat went on a hunger strike this Saturday to demand freedom for her son. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 14 December 2021 — The only gleaming corner in the home of Jonathan Torres’s family, one of the young people arrested after the protests on July 11th (11J), is the corner with the crib for the baby, who is almost two months old. The clean sheets, the mosquito net, the wet wipes and the neatly arranged disposable diapers, contrast with the rest of the house, a precarious construction on the Diez de Octubre Boulevard in Havana, with crumbling ceilings, rotten beams, cracks in the walls and damp stains. Here, you can breathe poverty, but also dignity.

Bárbara Farrat, Torres’s mother, abandoned the hunger strike that began three days ago this Monday night to demand her son’s freedom; he has been in prison since August 13^thaccused of attack, public disorder and spread of epidemic for having thrown a stone at the police without hitting anyone.

The young grandmother, who has become one of the most active faces in defense of the 11J prisoners, has said that she abandoned the strike because of her own mother, who suffered a spike in blood pressure yesterday that was about to cause a stroke, according to Farrat.

“I will not continue to worry about my mother. Her only grandson is in prison. I will not leave my mother fearing that she will have to bury a child,” she said in a video broadcast on social networks. continue reading

The young grandmother, who has become one of the most active faces in defense of the 11J prisoners, stated that she abandoned the strike because of her own mother, suffered a spike in blood pressure yesterday

The hunger strike was abandoned two days after Farrat, just 33 years old and suffering from health problems herself, received 14ymedio at her home, where she resides with her husband, Orlando Ramírez, and her son’s girlfriend – her grandson’s mother – who is 16 years old. The Havana woman, who never imagined that what life has handed her could be possible, told this newspaper what life’s been like in the last four months, with her son imprisoned and the constant pressure from State Security. She also regrets that Torres has only been able to enjoy his baby, born October 27^th, “one half an hour at a time during the three visits he has had.”

Farrat declares that her son was caught up in the tumult of that day by chance. That Sunday, when Torres turned 17, the family was celebrating at home, but they ran out of drinks and her husband went out to buy something to continue the party. “We had the music on and hadn’t seen either the newscast or the information from Díaz-Canel saying that the combat order had been given,” she says.

At one point, she relates, the street “began to fill with people coming down the entire Diez de Octubre Boulevard,” a very scary situation, so she decided to go out and look for her partner. Torres, however, dissuaded her and asked her to stay home with his girlfriend, who was pregnant at the time, while he was busy looking for his stepfather (“although he calls him dad because he raised him his whole life”).

On Serafines Street, Torres found Ramírez, hidden behind a wall. “Up the street from Serafines, the police would not let anyone pass,” says Farrat. “Someone among the protesters said that the objective was to reach the Plaza de la Revolución and the officers stood on the Vía Blanca warning that no one else was going to go any further. It was at that moment that the shots and stones began,” he continues.

“Someone among the protesters said that the objective was to reach the Plaza de la Revolución and the officers stood on the Vía Blanca warning that no one else was going to go any further”

He has already related several times what happened next: on Friday, August 13^th, two agents of the Technical Directorate of Investigation appeared at the door of his house and took Jonathan Torres, whom they had identified in one of the videos broadcast in networks on the day of the demonstrations.

At that moment, he began his ordeal. Three hours after they took him away, she learned that he was not in the Acosta police unit, as the officers had told him, but in Aguilera, where she went with his son’s girlfriend. It was not until Monday, as he was finally transferred to the station, when he was first told that he was accused of public disorder, spread of epidemic and attack.

The instructor at that time showed the video in which Torres appears throwing a stone, but it can also be seen, he says, that it is the same stone that the police had thrown at the protesters. “He threw it and it fell 50 meters from where the policemen were standing, and it did not hit a patrol car nor hit anyone, it just fell on the street” says Ramírez.

After 14 days, her son phoned to say that he had been transferred to the Manto Negro prison in Havana, a former women’s prison converted into a prison for minors.

Farrat says that it has been “an odyssey” to face this criminal process, because initially they did not even want to give her her son’s file number. She then sought the advice of a family lawyer, who, since he took over the case, has already unsuccessfully requested six changes to the pre-trial detention measure that keeps the adolescent in jail, “He filed a seventh, which of course they will also deny him. By this Monday, December 13^th, my son will have been in detention for four months and does not even have a petition from the prosecutor,” she protests.

Farrat has also denounced that her son, who suffers from coronary hypertrophy, has not had access to his medications for two months. “They not only wanted to play with my son’s freedom, but they were also playing with his life,” she came to denounce on the networks.

She too is not taking the medications she should be taking. She is HIV-positive, and, like her husband, has not taken her retroviral since August

She too is not taking the medications she should be taking. She is HIV-positive, and, like her husband, has not taken her retroviral since August. “I have been very busy and nervous with my son’s case, and although I have the medicines, I have not taken them,” she confesses. “I feel guilty that he is in prison, I can’t get it out of my head that I’m the one who should be in jail, and this is a way that I have found to punish myself,” she says confusedly, by way of explanation, crumbling into tears.

The pressure she has received from State Security is also affecting her health. Last Friday, when she returned from visiting her son, she saw the officer who has questioned her several times hanging around the neighborhood, without knocking on her door, but talking to her neighbors, whom, she believes, they intend to intimidate into “informing” about her and her family.

“I got sick, my husband had to take me to the hospital at midnight because I started with an asthma attack,” she says. The agent “had already been here on Wednesday with his threats, telling me that if I continued making complaints on social networks, he was not going to let me in to see my son.”

Orlando Ramírez intercedes: “The exact words were that he had been called by the head of State Security that runs the Western youth prison to tell him that, if his mother continued to make these publications talking about her son, it was very possible that she would not be allowed any more prison visits to him again.” The stepfather replied to the agent, whom he reminded that they could not question the boy without having his family or his lawyer close by.

Ramírez points out that Torres was offered a sentence reduction – “up to seven years” – if he “cooperated… Our politics, our ideology, are outside of him.”

“They told my son: if you can stop your mother from posting anything on social media, I’m going to give you calling privileges,” Farrat continues. “He only replied that he did not want privileges, that he only wanted what is rightly his: ‘The two calls that I get a week, I do not want anything I’m not entitled to.’ As for my mother to stop publishing, she should decide that, not me.”

Bárbara Farrat says that, even if she abandons her hunger strike, she will continue to denounce the government abuses, but she adds that “a single tree does not a forest make and more mothers should join” in her cause

Farrat insists that her son only cares about his baby and his studies, he is in his second year of welding. “It was always clear to him that this decision to be a father so young and while studying could not affect me and my husband, that we are sick,” she says. “He always had our support, but he also understood that it was his responsibility, as it was my responsibility when I decided to have him when I was young. He often would leave school to sell bread, to be able to buy clothes for his little one.”

“I know well that as a people we matter little to them” she says, referring to the authorities. “But I have received a lot of support on social media and I know that this pressure can get the government to give me an answer about my son.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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Faced With the Failure of its ‘Ordering Task’, the Cuban Government Talks About ‘Rectification’

A year ago, the forecasts for Cuba for 2021 were for a growth of 6%, but ultimately it will be around only 2%. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 13 December 2021 — There will be changes to correct the deficiencies of the failed Tarea Ordenamiento (Ordering Task), which was planned for more than ten years and whose execution even the Cuban authorities themselves consider catastrophic.

In his 2021 accountability report, presented this weekend, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero admits that “the objective of this macroeconomic plan projected by Marino Murillo has not been fully achieved” and that, therefore, it will be “necessary to rectify it and adopt new decisions on various elements of its initial design.”

Marrero did not give any clue about what the changes will be, but he did say that they will be imminent, since there is already a schedule with 33 activities that must be completed between November and February 2022, so, if true and being met, some are already be underway without the population being aware of it.

The report describes that the objectives of the Ordering Task were to give the Cuban peso “the role that corresponds to it as the center of the financial system” by eliminating the dual currency, transforming the income of the population and gradually eliminating excessive subsidies and freebies. However these objectives have not been met. continue reading

The prime minister believes that the main problems detected are “the establishment of excessive prices by economic actors; lack of correspondence between these and the quality levels of products or services; insufficiencies in the state business system and other forms of production that have been present since the previous scenario and tendencies to raise prices to alleviate them; as well as dissatisfaction with the new salaries or income and the modifications in the forms of payment.” In other words, inflation has run out of control, shortages are increasing, the salaries and pensions are not enough to live on, and the living conditions of Cubans have visibly worsened.

This year, according to Marrero, the forecast is that the Gross Domestic Product would grow by around 2%, something logical after the great fall of almost 10% in 2020. Thus, Cuba is very far from the 6% it had forecast in May, but it is also likely to fall short of the 2.2% calculated in October. By 2022 GDP is expected to grow by 4%, something that, according to experts cited by Reuters, implies that the shortages of critical goods and the continuous difficulties in paying creditors will continue.

The report attributes the bad economic data, as usual in recent times, to the effects of the pandemic, and the “intensification of the blockade,” (as the government calls the U.S.embargo), in addition to an increase in import prices, and freight and logistics problems that are affecting distribution around the world. However, it does not assume any error of its own or of the Government and, when it refers to problems of corruption, it always attributes them to isolated cases “due to the lack of administrative control, the limited combativeness in the community and the renunciation or lack of moral values and ethics in some managers and officials,” without considering that it could be something systemic.

The report also mentions some notable problems of the year, among them the lack of medicines caused by the high investment that the expenses derived from the pandemic have entailed, among them the costs for the production of our own vaccines. All this despite the fact that Cuba has received large donations from countries such as Mexico, Bolivia, Nicaragua, France, Spain, Russia and China mainly, in addition to private donations from pro-government associations from all countries in the world, including the United States.

Marrero indicates in the document that 16 billion pesos were allocated to the fight against covid, 3.3 billion of them to the complete vaccination process and 400,000 more (indicative) for the next booster dose. “Consequently, the national drug program has been affected, and work is being done to reduce the lack of these and the low coverage of the basic framework,” he said.

Another of the great needs of Cubans, housing, also failed this year. According to the report, the Construction Plan had achieved barely 31% of its goals as of October. The prime minister also hints at the diversion of resources when he points out that, although it is absurd to deny the lack of steel or cement, there are other inputs that have not been well managed. “There are fewer homes built than resources delivered,” he highlights.

As for energy generation, which this year has once again suffered one of its worst moments, with scheduled blackouts since the summer that remain unsolved, Marrero admits that demand has not been met and that the population is upset. “In this sense, an availability recovery strategy is being executed, which will allow better service by having a greater reserve at the end of the year. The work continues on a sustained basis in the increase,” he promises. A broken promise for at least the entire second half of the year.

Finally, the text sets out the major objectives and plans for next year. Broadly defined, the five plans are to improve the economy and the role of the peso, stabilize the energy system, serve vulnerable groups, transform the state business system and decentralize powers.

However, for such large economic objectives, the Government has drawn up a list of 22 priorities, led by the country’s preparation for Defense and ideological political work and, although the third priority is to carry out measures to contain inflation — the method for which is unknown – the fourth point returns to the sphere of ideology and talks about preparation, training and work with cadres.

Among those priorities, the seventh is striking: radically transforming the business system, which may come to nothing or open the door to changes unknown at the moment. For the rest, measure 12, for example, “face the campaign of political-ideological subversion” indicates that not many things the prime minister aspires to change with the new year.

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