14ymedio – Page 247 – Translating Cuba

Buses, Cuba’s Cellphone Thieves Favorite Places

As the bus continued on its route, “not even a pin could squeeze in,” one of the witnesses tells this newspaper. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 14 December 2021 — It is not enough to wait for hours at the bus stop, make the trip packed in like a can of sardines, but the passengers on Havana’s buses must also take maximum care of their purses, pockets and especially their mobile phones, which have become one of the most stolen objects in public transport.

Some notice when they get off, when they try to make a call and their phone is only a memory. Others realize it while still inside the bus but they can do little to identify the possible thief of a device that has cost them several months of work or that they have obtained through their relatives abroad.

“I had just bought it when I got on P2,” said a 42-year-old from Havana who was the victim of one of these thefts, speaking to 14ymedio. “That day I felt lucky because I even managed to reach a seat, then a woman with a child came up and I gave her the seat. Shortly after I felt that I was missing the mobile phone that was in my pants pocket.”

The man was immediately suspicious of the woman, who had clung to him when sitting down. “A passenger offered to call my number to hear if it rang somewhere, but only got the message that it was ’off or out of coverage area.’

“I asked the driver, almost crying, not to let anyone get off and to wait for the police, but he replied that that was not his job, his job was to carry the passengers and that was what he was going to do.” A few minutes later, the victim pointed his steps towards the Dragones police station to make the complaint. “I still have no cell phone,” he says several weeks after the robbery. continue reading

In these cases, the complaint must be made not only to the police, but the theft of the device must also be reported to the Telecommunications Company (Etecsa). The state monopoly then blacklists the mobile’s IMEI number, a unique identification that is easy to monitor once the device is back in use with a SIM card issued by that entity.

However, there are many who never make the police report or the report to Etecsa. They fear that the cell phone that was stolen from them is being investigated because they initially bought it on the black market. Or, in other cases, they do not want to be involved in a police investigation that will bring subpoenas and their name entered in a database of open investigation processes that can bring future complications.

Three weeks ago, Alberto, a doctor who works in a polyclinic in the capital, prepared to ride on Route 43 to return home after leaving a shift at work. His Xiaomi mobile phone had cost him 200 CUC ($200) last year, and he carried it in one of the pockets of his uniform. “I don’t remember feeling anything, it must have been during the pushing inside the bus that my cell phone was stolen,” he confesses. When he got off the bus, he looked for the device and could not find it.

“I went to the police and, thanks to the management of a friend in a unit, I was able to make the complaint, but to this day my phone does not appear,” he says angrily when he remembers that he had some contacts of his patients in his address book and the numbers of all students for whom he is the thesis tutor.

Carmen, who works at a technology company for the Economy on Ayestarán road and must take the P16 to get to her workplace, was the victim of the theft of her phone on one of those trips. “I need it a lot because my mother has Alzheimer’s, and whoever takes care of her calls me whenever a problem arises,” she says. “My son had to spend all his savings to be able to buy another one,” adds the woman, who claims to have heard of other similar robberies on the same route.

Last week, another young woman had the same fate as Carmen. She got on an A50 bus, a route that connects the National Bus Terminal, in Plaza, with Guanabacoa. On the way, the bus “was filling up, until noteven a pin could squeeze in,” one of the witnesses told this newspaper.

Among the passengers were several students who had boarded the transport to return home. At one point during the trip, one of the students was heard saying: “Reiner, hurry up, call me on the phone, they stole it from me.” His friend called and the mobile phone rang at the back of the bus and the girl tried to get there, but “without being able to specifically identify where the sound was coming from.”

“Call me again, he’s still here,” the student yelled. However, on the second attempt they had already turned off the phone, adds the witness. At that moment the bus stopped at a stop and many people got out.

“I’m going to the police right now, that phone is an Alcatel of the kind that Etecsa sells in MLC (freely convertible currency),” the girl. “My mom bought it for me with a tremendous sacrifice.”

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The More Defeats, the More Triumphalism in the Cuban Leadership

Miguel Díaz-Canel this Thursday in the Plenary of the Communist Party of Cuba. (PCC)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 17 December 2021 — Miguel Díaz-Canel’s affirmation at the opening of the Third Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Party that “this has been a year of victories,” is a reflection of the triumphalism that prevails at the highest level of power in Cuba.

Strictly speaking, the only victory that Díaz-Canel can congratulate himself on is that of continuing to sit in the chair that corresponds to the President of the Republic, despite the resounding failure of the Tarea ordenamiento* (Ordering Task), the unbridled growth of inflation, the shortage of essential products, the transportation crisis, the fall of the main indicators of public health, the deterioration of education, the collapse of civic values and, above all, despite the hundreds of political prisoners prosecuted for exercising their right to protest.

In first place as proof of victory the president cited “having dismantled an intense and profound operation of aggression on the part of the empire[i.e. the United States], which opted to make us disappear” in reference (without mentioning them) to the protests of July 11 and the call for a Civic March for Change on November 15. He asserted that “we acted firmly, we did not give up, we did not hesitate, we did not allow ourselves to be overwhelmed, nor did we let ourselves be humiliated” and “we resisted all the attacks, but we resisted them in a creative way.” It is assumed that this creative way was the mobilization of thousands of military personnel and the reactivation of the rapid response brigades armed with clubs, to counteract a presumed social explosion.

The occurrence of solving the problem of high prices that suffocate the domestic economy through a political discussion with all producers and marketers and convincing them of the need to “renounce a certain level of profit, particular or collective, in order to lower prices” showed the voluntarism — the principle of relying on voluntary action to achieve desired ends — with which it is intended to face the situation. continue reading

Paradoxically, in parallel to these manifestations of “subjective idealism,” the third plenary session was the scene for its first secretary to launch the reappearance of Marxism-Leninism as the scientific method to which it will be necessary to appeal “from historical materialism, from dialectical materialism, from the political economy ’to carry out’ the daily analysis that since the Revolution we have to do with all the political, economic and social processes that we are facing. ”

Miriam Nicado García, rector of the University of Havana, pointed out that a cohesion was necessary between Marxism-Leninism and other career profiles that are not exactly related to such a transcendental subject. Making a show of being armed with the theory, she concluded: “We have a lot of nice things to do in this discipline.”

For his part, the First Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Walter Baluja García, for whom knowing the precepts of Marxism “is as important as knowing mathematics, as knowing how to read or write,” stated that his understanding “is what will really lead us to bring our people to understand reality and transform it.”

The guidelines outlined in this plenary session will surely be the route that will guide the course of the last session of the year of the National Assembly of People’s Power. The deputies are already clearly in favor of which proposals they will have to raise their hands for.

*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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Neighbors of a Collapsed Building in Old Havana Denounce the Condition of the Adjoining Houses

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 17 December 2021 — On Friday morning there was no debris left from the collapse that occurred the night before in the building on the corner of Angeles Street and Máximo Gómez (Monte), where so far one fatality has been confirmed. It was president Miguel Díaz-Canel himself who identified the victim in a tweet, after some hours delay, in which he also offered his condolences to the relatives.

All that could be seen with the naked eye, on the busy corner of the Jesus Maria neighborhood in Old Havana, was a bit of dust left by the concrete when it collapsed. A provincial government brigade propped up the building, eliciting expressions of disgust and unease from the residents.

Several neighbors complained to state workers about the adjoining buildings, which are in the same condition as the one that collapsed. “These buildings are at the point of collapse or worse and everyone is silent, then they fall and someone dies and nothing happens, everything remains the same,” complained one of the residents of the place. “What you have to do is protest,” the woman continued very angrily.

“Who am I going to talk to? The delegate [of the People’s Power]? What problem is she going to solve for me? I’m tired of complaining. I’ve gone everywhere,” another neighbor shouted from the crowd. continue reading

Before and after the collapse, this is how the property looked in the Jesús María neighborhood, in Old Havana. (Collage)

Without much vigilance from the Police and State Security agents, 14ymedio was able to confirm that the deceased person, whose identity has not yet been disclosed by the official media, was a passerby who was walking in front of the property at around 9:10 p.m.

A family with a child lives in the building, according to an area resident. A washbasin can be seen on the second floor in the images taken by this newspaper, along with other personal object. “During the collapse the family was able to leave, as the ground floor, which is where they live, did not collapse,” the resident explained.

Despite the incident last night and with the propping up of the house still not finished, several members of the family went in and out of the house and it is presumed that they will continue to live in the place.

“The portal [that leads to Monte Street] is almost on the ground, it is completely cracked and you can see that it is about to fall. I would not even prop it up. Those people have to be taken out of there and taken to another place,” other neighbors who watched as the brigade put wooden struts to support the facade of the house, commented among themselves.

Monte has traditionally been one of the most important commercial arteries of the Cuban capital. However, the years without maintenance, its low interet to tourists, and laziness have made it one of the streets in the worst condition in the city. Passing through the portals or going in and out of its businesses can be considered a high-risk sport.

A provincial government brigade propped up the building this Friday morning. (14ymedio)

Jesús María is one of the poorest neighborhoods in the capital. In January 2020, three girls died about 700 meters from this point when a balcony collapsed in the same neighborhood, between Vives and Revillagigedo streets. The structure collapsed when the schoolgirls has left school and were on the sidewalk rehearsing for the celebrations for the birth of José Martí.

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In Cuba, One of the Few Things That Functions is the Production of Unhealthy Foods

Alimentos y Bebidas La Estancia, a food company, received an award for producing and selling juices and nectars “in modern cardboard containers, a unique technology in the country.” (Cubadebate)

14ymedio, Havana, December 15, 2021 — Of all the products manufactured in Sancti Spríritus, only one has met its monthly basic food basket target: Osito baby food, a product distributed to children under three years of age despite having a significant amount of added sugar, an ingredient not recommended for children that age.

The product is made by Alimentos y Bebidas La Estancia in its provincial processing plant, which just five days ago received an award for producing and selling juices and nectars “in modern cardboard containers, a unique technology in the country” and meeting “the Codex Alimentarius requirements, which form part of the Joint Program of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization,” emphasized the state’s official press.

Osito baby food, which is distributed as part of the basic food basket is sold in 200 ml containers and is made with fruit pulp, water, sugar, starch, citric acid, vitamin C and iron lactate. According to the nutritional information distributed by the company, it does not contain preservatives, food coloring or artificial flavors, but it does contain between 10 and 12 grams of sucrose.

“Most of us believe that the only type of sugar is table sugar, or refined sugar, but the well-known added sugars have different names that we do not recognize, such as sucrose, glucose polymers, maltodextrin, corn starch, glucose and dextrose syrup. It is important to begin to recognize these types of sweeteners in the products we buy if we want to make healthy decisions,” insists Ingrid Jiménez, Colombian infant nutritionist. continue reading

In 2019, the WHO called the international community to reduce sugars in babies’ diets. According to studies, the consumption of this additive is not only excessive, but also stimulates a preference for sweetness at an early age, with negative results such as overweight and obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular problems.

The American Heart Association cautioned against this extreme, warning that there “is solid evidence linking added sugars with high risk of cardiovascular disease in children.” Since then, its official position is to recommend that children under two years of age not consume any sugar.

Between two and three years of age, children should not consume more than 15 grams of this ingredient per day, adds the Association. One serving of this Osito baby food, consumed by thousands of babies in Cuba, provides nearly the entire recommended amount of sugar, which is counter to the recommendations of medical associations.

The WHO recommends that products containing added sugars should not be consumed by infants or children less than three years of age. This does not apply to sugars derived from fruit, which in the case of Osito baby foods, is between 8 and 10 grams, but it does apply to the well-known sucrose, present in the diets of Cuban children, with the approval of the Ministry of Public Health.

Nonetheless, many pediatricians on the Island recommend against this product. “I do not know anyone who gives baby food to newborns,” says a stay-at-home mom in central Havana. “My children did not eat these until after a year and a half, I’d venture to say even later.” She said, “Those baby foods make children sick to their stomachs.”

“Some people store them, but in most cases, they either sell them or they reserve them for the older children in the household,” agreed the woman’s neighbor.

The baby food producer, Osito, has spent two years meeting the targets established by the State without issues, although in mid-2019 they warned that the scarcity of inputs could affect their ability to deliver. Cuban consumers have met with ire the successes as well as the failures of production, they fear its absence or consider the allowable amount to be too low (seven servings per month), without realizing how harmful the added sugars are, especially for children.

Covering a pacifier in sugar, placing honey on a baby’s lips to calm him or her, adding sweeteners to infant’s milk from a very early age and other practices like these continue to be a constant in Cuban households where sugar is still viewed as a food with high nutritional value.

In the country which yesteryear was the “the world’s sugar producer,” around two kilograms per person per month are subsidized and distributed through rationed markets. In addition, several recipes for syrup-covered sweets, flans, puddings, custards and candies are consumed each day by households on the Island.

Despite recognition by the Ministry of Public Health at the end of 2020 that the prevalence of diabetes mellitus was 66.9 per 1,000, official channels have not adopted a campaign centered on reducing sugar consumption. In school lunchrooms, day cares and fairs organized by the State, sweet foods are a priority.

With the subsidized sugar, the Cuban Government manages to meet the daily caloric requirements that the FAO (United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization) recommends per person to maintain health and develop functionally.

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The United States Will Increase Its Diplomatic Staff in Guyana to Speed Up Visas for Cubans

“We are dedicated to reuniting the Cuban family and we will see the results in the coming months,” insisted an official. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 17 December 2021 — The diplomatic staff at the United States embassy in Guyana will be increased next year in order to eliminate backlogs in the granting of visas to Cubans, primarily applicants who are applying for family reunification.

The announcement was made by representatives of the State Department this Thursday at a press conference with the South Florida media.

“I am sure that in 2022 we will reduce the delays, as long as there are no logistical complications or due to the pandemic,” said Víctor García Rivera, director of Visas of the diplomatic legation in the city of Georgetown. He said the department’s strategy will be to expand “the number of civil servants and increase the number of appointments.” continue reading

According to Radio Television Marti, the State Department estimates that in 2021 more than 78,000 Cubans waited for the consular interview in Guyana. In addition to the delays in the procedures due to the pandemic, at the beginning of the year the Cuban government suspended direct flights to the South American country and many applicants had to reschedule their appointments.

“We are dedicated to reuniting the Cuban family and we are going to see the results in the coming months,” Garcia Rivera insisted.

Mara Tekach, coordinator of the State Department’s Office of Cuban Affairs, suggested that the petitioners and applicants arrange their flights to Guyana directly with the airlines so as not to be victims of scams. “There are certain agencies that sell tickets at very high prices given the low number of flights between Havana and Georgetown,” she said.

“We are working to see if we can restore services and increase staff at the embassy in Havana in order to provide consular services while maintaining the safety of our diplomats,” Tekach said, speaking to journalists about the possible reopening of the consular headquarters in Cuba, which is still without a definite date. “It was what the president announced and we are working on that.”

The United States substantially reduced the staff of its embassy in Cuba in 2017 after some thirty American diplomats suffered mysterious “health incidents” known as Havana syndrome, the reasons for which have not yet been clarified.

Former President Donald Trump (2017-2021) then accused the Cuban government of being responsible for what the US authorities described as “acoustic” or “sonic” attacks, which served as a pretext for the then president to break the diplomatic thaw with the Island.

Since then, nationals of the Island who wish to emigrate or travel to the United States must apply for their visas mainly in Guyana — which allows Cubans to travel to the country without a visa — or in any other country that they can legally travel to for the interview at an American consular headquarters.

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The Official Troubadour Vicente Feliu Dies in Havana

Feliú is considered one of the founders of the musical movement known as Nueva Trova Cubana. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 17 December 2021 — Cuban troubadour Vicente Feliú died at the age of 74 this Friday in Havana due to a heart attack, according to the official media. The singer-songwriter was performing at the Music Museum when he suffered a medical emergency that he did not survive, sources close to the artist confirmed to 14ymedio.

“He was on stage. He began to sing ‘La Bayamesa’,” his daughter Aurora de Los Andes Feliú wrote on her Facebook profile. “He left at his full height and with a heart bigger than his chest. I love you, papa, I love you.”

Very close to the official line, Feliú is considered by many of his critics as a “onesong” troubadour because his song Créeme [Believe me], from 1979, established him as a singer-songwriter, without his subsequently having achieved musical production that exceeded that moment. continue reading

Feliú is among the founders of the musical movement known as Nueva Trova Cubana, along with other artists such as Pablo Milanés, Silvio Rodríguez, Noel Nicola, Sara González and Augusto Blanca.

During his career he produced seven musical albums and numerous collaborations in other productions, in addition to composing themes for plays, television programs and shows.

The song Créeme, which gives its title to the homonymous album, was one of the songs that the Cuban regime used the most to campaign for the release of the five spies detained in the United States for several years.

“‘I am a soldier of the House’, is how Vicente Feliú used to describe himself. And it’s true, you are our partner, our friend, our brother. You will always be here. This will always be your House. Good trip brother,” the Casa de las Américas published on their social networks upon learning of the death of Feliú.

The brother of Santiago Feliú, who was considered a rebel from the trova and who died at the age of 52 in 2014, the two had very different careers. While Santiago became an icon of Cuban underground music, Vicente was always seen as an official voice within the trova.

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Saint Lazarus Under Police Surveillance

A young man pushes an effigy of Saint Lazarus through the streets of Old Havana dragging a stone chained to his foot to pay a “promise.” (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 17 December 2021 — Like every December 17, the island’s believers honored Saint Lazarus on Friday, syncretized with Babalú Ayé in Afro-Cuban religions, at the El Rincón sanctuary, in the province of Havana.

Patron of the sick and the poor, his following has been increasing in recent times. This year of extreme crisis, of course, the number of destitute for the saint to protect has grown. All Cubans are vulnerable in Cuba today.

And as a mirror of the repression suffered by the island’s citizens since the protests of July 11, the temple where Saint Lazarus is honored has been heavily guarded since the day before by police and military personnel.

The atmosphere is not one of many celebrations. Unlike other years, there are no festivals in the houses or the traditional allegorical costumes with which the saint is celebrated. “For December 4, Santa Bárbara’s day, not even the drums sounded,” says a neighbor from Old Havana who, unlike other times, did not make a pilgrimage to El Rincón due to lack of transportation.

“As I don’t travel in the saint’s car,” a young man says humorously, as he pushes an effigy of Saint Lazarus down the street while dragging a stone tied to his foot, hunting for some alms in foreign currency in the streets more frequented by tourists to help him pay his “promise.”

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The Trial of the ‘Young Man With the Placard’ Concludes Under a Strong Police Operation in Havana

Robles was arrested on December 4, 2020 for protesting on Boulevard San Rafael, in Havana. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 16 December 2021 — The trial of Luis Robles Elizastigui, the “young man with the placard,” lasted almost two hours this Thursday, taking place in the Municipal Court of Marianao, in Havana, under a strong security operation.

“The place is full of police, and not only will Luis’ trial be held, there will also be others,” the activist’s brother, Landy Fernández Elizastigui, told 14ymedio just before ten in the morning, minutes after Robles’ mother, Yindra Elizastigui Jardines, was called to enter the court.

In principle, a relative would be able to attend, no matter who it was, but Fernández was not allowed to enter.

At the conclusion of the hearing, still without a sentence, Robles’ mother came out “very affected” and did not want to give a statement, but according to Fernández, she felt satisfied “with the work of the defense attorney.”

The young man has served a year in jail as of December 4, accused of “resistance” and “enemy propaganda” for walking along the Boulevard de San Rafael in Centro Habana with a placard calling for an end to the repression and the freedom of rapper Denis Solís, a member of the San Isidro Movement who has gone into exile since the initial event. continue reading

Luis’s brother narrates that the prosecution, which is requesting a joint sanction of six years of deprivation of liberty, anticipated that he was not going to present witnesses and that to convict him they would only rely on the audiovisual materials available from Luis’s protest. That is, the video broadcast on social networks on December 4 of last year, which includes the moment of his solo demonstration.

In those same images, it can also be seen that Robles did not offer resistance to his arrest at any time and that many of those present denounced the police abuse and supported the young man.

The trial, initially scheduled for July 16 last in the Municipal People’s Court of Diez de Octubre and suspended after the 11 July (11J) demonstrations, had a change in venue announced 24 hours in advance: it would no longer be in the Provincial Court of Havana, next to the Capitol, but in Marianao.

Cuban priest Kenny Fernández Delgado, who on November 15 managed to demonstrate, walking with a flower in his hand through Madruga, the city where he officiates in Mayabeque, accompanied the Robles family outside the court. In his social networks he sent “greetings and blessings for all,” especially “for Luis Robles and his family.”

During the time he has been incarcerated, in the maximum security prison of the Combinado del Este in the capital, Robles has denounced torture and ill-treatment. Four times they have denied him the modification of the pre-trial incarceration measure, which has prevented him from being free while waiting for a final conviction.

The United Nations Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention considers that both Robles’ arrest and imprisonment qualify as arbitrary detention.

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Cubans Adrian Lopez Gonzalez, Geandy Pavon, Waldo Perez Cino and David Virelles Win the Cintas Scholarship

The Grupo Matiz de restauradores, whose founder, Adrián López González (on the right), has won one of the Cintas 2021 scholarships. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 15 December 221 — For the first time, the Cintas Foundation has recognized with its annual scholarship, endowed with $20,000, a Cuban resident on the Island, Adrián López González. Founder and leader of the Grupo Matiz de restauradores (Matiz Restoration Group0 in Matanzas, he was the recipient of the award in the architecture and design category.

Matiz was created in 2014 and among the restoration and conservation works that it has undertaken, most notable are those of the Sauto Theater and of the San Carlos de Borromeo Cathedral, in Matanzas. For this group, the award “is the impulse to a work sustained in a city that dreams its best face, our Matanzas.”

“The story behind the Heritage is our foundation and the Cintas scholarship has been the luck to know that we are doing well,” they wrote on their networks after hearing the news.

In addition to López González, the writer Waldo Pérez Cino, the musician David Virelles and the artist Geandy Pavón have received past Cintas scholarships, which is awarded to artists of Cuban origin in different artistic fields.

Pavón, who lives in New Jersey, says that this award has a “very special” meaning for him. “I believe that Cintas is the only award to Cuban artists that is offered in total and absolute freedom,” he told 14ymedio. “In Cuba there are other awards,” he continued, “but all are always subject to ‘good behavior’.” continue reading

The artist is also thankful that the award, “opens up immense opportunities” and exposes both him and his work to “other people, other institutions and specialists in the field of culture and art.”

“It makes me think that what has been done has not been so bad and it is an immense stimulus, apart from being an important economic stimulus to continue doing my work,” said Pavón, who, during the covid pandemic, launched on his social networks an ingenious photographic series entitled Quarantine: 40 days and 40 nights, in which he recreated, together with his partner, Imara López, scenes from classics in art history.

For the writer Waldo Pérez Cino, the scholarship is “a great joy and a great honor.” The latter, he points out to this newspaper, taking into account that “in recent decades the Cintas Foundation has recognized the work of authors such as Cabrera Infante, Reinaldo Arenas, Benítez Rojo and García Vega, along with contemporary authors such as Magali Alabau, Octavio Armand and Carlos A. Aguilera, speaking only about the field of writing.”

“As far as I know, there is no other institution that has been supportive in this way, and with that continuity, of the development of proposals by Cuban artists or authors,” says Pérez Cino, who lives in the Netherlands. In his case, he says, it will serve to support a novel which he has been working on for a long time, “one of those projects that extend more than one would sometimes like and that, precisely because of their breadth, are sometimes overlooked for others more immediate or urgent.”

Among the finalists of Cintas are the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, who competed in the visual arts category, and who has been in prison since the protests on July 11.

Art curator Claudia Genlui thanked, on behalf of Otero Alcántara, “all the people who made possible his presence in the nomination for the Cintas scholarship… Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara and the political prisoners in Cuba will not be forgotten. We continue working for a Cuba where we can create and work in freedom. Enough censorship for Cuban art and artists that are consistent with our reality,” she stated.

The Cintas Foundation was created with funds from the patrimony of Óscar B. Cintas (1887-1957), Cuban ambassador to the United States and patron of the arts, and has been awarded since 1963. The finalists of the contest are chosen by a jury of experts who enjoy international recognition.

In the last 50 years, this contest has honored the achievements of great Cuban artists in different categories such as Félix González-Torres, Teresita Fernández, Carmen Herrera, María Martínez-Cañas, Oscar Hijuelos, Andrés Duany, María Elena Fornes and Tania León. After receiving the award, the scholarship recipients become part of the Cintas Collection by donating one of their works to the Foundation.

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Cuban Carla Colome Wins the Prize for Young Journalism in the Vargas Llosa-Atlas Network Chair

Cuban independent journalist Carla Colomé and writer Mario Vargas Llosa. (Facebook / Carla Colomé)

EFE/14ymedio, Miami, 15 December 2021 — The Cuban journalist Carla Colomé, exiled in the United States, who works for the independent digital El Estornudo and People magazine in Spanish, is the first winner of the International Prize for Young Journalism in the Vargas Llosa-Atlas Network Chair. She received the prize for her reporting on the July 11 protests in Cuba.

The winner of this award, endowed with $10,000, was announced during a dinner held on Tuesday in Miami at the end of the Liberty Forum, in which the writer Mario Vargas Llosa participated.

The jury, chaired by Cuban writer and journalist Carlos Alberto Montaner , decided to award the award to Colomé, 31, for an exclusive report for El Estornudo entitled July 11 in San Antonio de los Baños: What is seen / what is not seen, published on on 22 July 2021.

Colomé did not hesitate to express her joy at having received the award. “No one asked me, but I want to dedicate this award to all the Cuban children imprisoned on July 11,” the journalist wrote on her Facebook wall. “There are the complaints of the mothers driven crazy by their children. There are the photos of detainees with such young faces, for whom life has not yet flowed.”

The award, says Colomé, “as Cuban independent journalists know well, is an achievement for those of us who create that press. A persecuted, besieged, beaten press.” Regarding the magazine El Estornudo, which hosted the publication and with which she has collaborated for five years, she denounces how the Cuban government have tried to silence the publication: “Like a hydra, they cut it off and other bodies are born. Our journalists have been forced to renounce the magazine, they have been interrogated, persecuted, detained.” continue reading

The journalist also mentions that such an award is also an achievement for all those who do journalism outside the island. “When I left Cuba to study in Mexico, people were leaving and very few continued to do journalism abroad. People cut corners with the journalism that was done on Cuba, and looking for other jobs, much lighter, with fewer problems and better paid,” she says, while adding that “has already changed a bit, due to the number of journalists who had to leave.”

“Most of my work as a Cuban journalist has been outside of Cuba, and it is normal that this is the case, because every day Cuba is more outside of Cuba. Cuba is in Miami, at the Palacio de los jugos. Cuba is in the rumba from New York. Cuba is in the tastiest beans I have ever eaten in Madrid. Cuba is in the refugee camps of Serbia. Cuba, sadly, is in the Darien jungle. Cuba is in the Straits of Florida. Cuba is where they go to buy clothes from Russia or Guyana. That’s how I like to see it and that’s how it is,” the journalist also expressed.

Colomé, who was born on July 11, set out to find out in her report where and how the spark of the protests that shook Cuba with a message of change was set off.

She discovered that a Facebook group called La Villa del Humor had been the initiator of the demonstrations. “The Internet — expensive, restricted as we know — has completely changed the reality of Cuba,” Colomé told People in Spanish. “What happened is one sample of this. If there had been no internet in Cuba, it (the massive demonstrations) would not have happened. That was the way people had to organize, congregate, meet,” she added in her interview.

To protect themselves from retaliation by the Cuban government, the administrators of this Facebook group “changed their profiles and had to take steps to take care of themselves,” she added. “Fear has not extinguished the hope that a democratic Cuba will soon be born. After this the government has unleashed a great repressive wave. There are still children in prison, mothers begging for the release of their imprisoned children, elderly people who went out to demonstrate, to support, or to film, and even those who filmed were imprisoned,” lamented Colomé.

“The repressive wave has been tremendous, it has been a big hunt on the part of the Government,” she stressed.

Colomé, who graduated in journalism from the University of Havana and received a master’s degree from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), currently lives in New York and has also collaborated with media such as El País, Univision, Vice and Letras Libres, among others.

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Infant Mortality Rate in Cuba’s Ciego de Avila Province is Higher than that of Mexico and El Salvador

Lack of motivation among medical personnel is one of the reasons why maternal and child care programs have declined in quality. (Agramonte cadena)

14ymedio, Madrid, 15 December 2021 — Infant deaths doubled in Ciego de Ávila in 2021 compared to the previous year, going from 23 to 45 babies, up to 12 months, who died so far this year. The effect is also noticeable in the mortality rate, which jumped from 6.4 to 13.8 per thousand, as revealed by the newspaper Invasor in an article that tries to analyze the causes of a problem that goes beyond the pandemic.

Although the tragic jump in the figures that occurred last year can be partially explained by the impact of covid-19 on the overload on the National Health System, professionals confirm that the causes are varied and extend over time. The province has had one of the highest infant mortality rates on the island for years, exceeding the second worst province, Guantánamo, which reached 6.8 last year. The average is also high compared to the island as a whole, which last year closed with a rate of 4.9 per thousand.

“Low birth weight and prematurity have an impact on morbidity and mortality in the territory, fundamentally associated with arterial hypertension, delayed intrauterine growth and teenage pregnancy. Many babies arrive at the Neonatology service with extremely low weights (less than 1,500 and 1,000 grams [3.3 to 4.4 pounds]), threatening their lives and extending their hospital stays,” according to Luis Carmenate Martinez, head of the field of gynecology and obstetrics in the province and an official of the Program Mother and Child (PAMI), speaking to Invasor. continue reading

According to the reporting in the provincial newspaper, the main failures occur in primary care, where adequate monitoring is sometimes not received, this year in part because staff were displaced to the red zones due to covid, or consultations were suspended, but also due to lack of investment.

Ernesto René, who worked for 34 years at PAMI, says that 20 years ago the inter-sectoral work of the program began to be dismantled, which, he categorically affirms, does not work today. The doctor has expressed his opinion in a comment to the article, in which he denounces the lack of a health promotion and education system that, in his opinion, has been dismantled. In addition, he adds, the working groups are not complete and there is a lack of support from the sector.

“Professionals with experience in PAMI have been lost due to policies and decisions of its directors in the province in a totally wrong way, and lacking in science and experience,” he adds.

René also warns of the lack of motivation among health personnel, who end up dropping out. “Professionals of value such as obstetricians, pediatricians or clinical nurses have not been cared for in primary and secondary care and I believe that the motivations and barriers faced by the personnel who work in this sensitive area should be reviewed.”

The doctor, who describes the program as beautiful and loving, believes that it has lost so much that the province returns to mortality levels typical of the last century, which also leads to secondary problems such as depression among the families of those who lose a baby or mother. In Ciego de Ávila, 11 women also died in childbirth, compared to 2 in 2020.

“The maternal mortality rate involves analysis and technical and administrative decision-making in agile and dynamic ways,” judges the professor, who also warns of the risk of adolescent pregnancies in Ciego de Ávila, a leader on the Island of this situation.

The Invasor text highlights another serious problem, although it hardly gives details: infections in hospitals. “The physical conditions of the delivery and caesarean section rooms, and other structures in the Doctor Antonio Luaces Iraola Provincial General Teaching Hospital, has led to an increase in infections associated with health services and the prognoses are not good,” explains Carmenate Martínez .

The article also analyzes the fall in the birth rate, which in recent years has been remarkable, going from more than 4,000 births in 2015 to fewer than 3,300 this year. The problem is of great concern to the authorities, who at the end of 2020 warned that, with 105,038 births registered, versus 112,439 deaths, there is a decrease in the population regardless of migration.

The difficult vital circumstances and the lack of a future that young Cubans face has had a direct impact on the decline in births in Cuba and the aging of the population, something that portends imminent problems due to the lack of generational replacement.

In 2019, Cuba already exhibited a strong growth in infant mortality, increasing by 26% (a rate of 3.9 per thousand) compared to 2018. Despite this, the data continues to be good compared to other countries in the region which have very high rates in infant mortality, being much lower than the rate of 21 in Venezuela or even the rate of 11 in Mexico and 12 in El Salvador.

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Cuba: There is Pork in Cienfuegos, But at 270 Pesos a Pound

The price of pork, when it appears, ranges from 200 pesos per pound at 19th and B streets, in Havana, to 270 pesos on the market stalls in Cienfuegos. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 14 December 2021 — That pork is increasingly absent from the markets is something that any ordinary Cuban knows these days. The strange thing is that there is an authority who certifies this is the case. This Monday, Osvaldo Surí González, program coordinator of the provincial government of Cienfuegos, categorically did so. “Raw pork meat in quantities and in pounds cannot be sold anywhere because it does not exist,” he said in statements collected by official media, presumably referring to state production.

For this reason, the official said, “there is no need to despair” or “line up”, or “mark a place in line” or “look at the lists in the [butcher shop] box in Cienfuegos.”

As a contrast, he said “there is the goodness and willingness of various producers” to sell in a “controlled liberated [unrationed]” manner, although only in the provincial capital, a pound of “clean beef” for each child under seven years of age, as well as for pregnant women, those over 60 and a total of 2,324 “vulnerable families” registered by the municipality’s Social Security. “We can also manage that,” Surí boasted.

In addition, they will offer the same prerogative to “more than 200 combatants of the Cuban Revolution who are bedridden today,” whom they even plan to serve at home. “We have a space there in the box, where we are going to put it, and if we have to deliver it to homes, we will create the system to deliver it,” said the official, who pointed out that an agreement was reached with producers to sell beef at 100 pesos per pound.

The strategy of offering this product seems to be generalized by the end of the year, to compensate for the lack of pigs, whose price, when they appear, ranges from 200 pesos a pound at 19th and B streets, in Havana, to 270 pesos* in the market stalls of Cienfuegos. continue reading

A few days ago, the governor of Villa Clara, Alberto López Díaz, announced via Twitter that he was in Macún, “together with the directors of Agriculture, managing beef and equine meat for the assurances of the New Year’s Fair.” And he added: “It will be sold in bags of one and a half kilograms.”

In cities like Cárdenas, Matanzas or Santiago de Cuba, a pound of pork is 200 pesos, and although she not justify the prices of meat, Justina, who has always had “a little pig in the backyard of her house to eat meat every December 31st,” says that the current price has to do with the cost of the food to raise the pigs and she does not doubt that by the end of the year it will rise more.

“About 20 pounds of feed are currently sold in Santiago at 650 pesos. With this price there is no one who raises an animal,” complains the housewife who lives in the Santiago town of El Caney and has to buy on the black market because there is nothing in the State markets.

“Life is hard. Do I spend 650 pesos every week for feed? There is no one who can handle this burden. Because the pig is not the only one who eats, a chicken that you have there in the yard is also fed,” she adds. “Before, I cooked food, bought some root vegetables and boiled them on a wood stove to increase with the feed, but there aren’t even any vegetables in this country anymore.”

Although by the end of the year it is common for the price of pork to rise, since it constitutes the star dish of the December 31st dinner. This month it has reached its all-time high since 1994, when agricultural markets were authorized to be privately managed on the Island, after years of state control over agricultural trade.

The lack of food for animals is, the authorities have recognized, one of the causes of the decline in pig production.

In order to make this meat cheaper and increase productivity, it was announced a few weeks ago that the state company Holpor, located in Holguín, was going to resurrect the recipe for liquid feed for pigs — which has not been manufactured since the Special Period — given the disastrous figures. This year and only in that province, production is expected to reach 2,566 tons of pork meat compared to the 8,625 planned.

The recovery of the State pig farms that were not operated for a long time is one of more than 60 government initiatives to stimulate food production.

On that occasion, Holpor also said that it did not rule out selling very young pre-fattened pigs to private producers who had suffered in the last year the interruption of the breeding chain due to the lack of food for the animals.

The complaint of these producers is also known. As El Pana, an Artemiseño producer who dismantled his pig pen more than a year ago due to lack of feed, explained to this newspaper, “once you eat the female before putting her on the mount and taking her offspring, everything is over.” The State has already been selling young pigs to cooperatives and state farms but it is still under study whether to extend the sale to private farms.

*Translator’s note: Economic data for Cuba is notoriously hard to pin down, but this figure could represent a worker’s entire week’s wages.

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Dental Services Are Hard to Come By in Sancti Spiritus, Cuba

“They tell you they don’t have the materials, but if you offer a little money they will take care of you,” complained a patient. (Escambray)

14ymedio, Mercedes García, Havana, 6 December 2021 — Ernesto, a resident of the Kilo 12 neighborhood in the city of Sancti Spíritus, has had to wait for the relaxation of measures due to the covid-19 pandemic to go to the dentist. For almost two years he has had several cavities that bother him but since the arrival of the coronavirus on the Island only emergency cases are treated.

Unable to bear the toothaches for another day, he decided to go to the Provincial Dental Clinic this Monday. Upon arriving at the health center, he found the receptionist talking on the phone with her feet up on a piece of furniture; he had to wait about ten minutes for the state employee to attend to him.

“Only emergencies are being seen,” the woman said bluntly, as soon as Ernesto asked if they were offering consultations. “I can’t keep waiting, it’s been almost two years without attention, I get a lot of pain when I drink cold water,” the patient explained. “The autoclave (equipment used to sterilize the instruments) is broken,” justified the employee. “And it is not known when they will fix it.”

Ernesto then asked if he could be treated urgently and given some procedure to stop the pain, but the receptionist told him that there were no materials in the clinic for this procedure either. “I can pass you on, but we don’t even have materials to cover you there,” she added.

The man did not lose hope of solving his ailment and decided to go to a polyclinic in the city to be treated and “at least they would put a temporary filling or a band-aid” as it is popularly known, he told 14ymedio.

When visiting two polyclinics, he found several people in the same situation, who were also informed that there were no materials and continue reading

that the emergencies were being treated at the Provincial Clinic until six in the afternoon, at the same health center where he had gone before and where they assured him that they had nothing to take care of his cavities, they could only open a hole and leave it exposed until there were materials.

“They tell you that there are no materials, but if you offer a little money they treat you. Medical power? Power of lies is what we are,” complained one of the group’s patients.

Facade of the Provincial Dental Clinic of Sancti Spíritus. (14ymedio)

The panorama is repeated throughout the island. In Havana, 34-year-old Niurka Tamaris has “a hole in a tooth” that she has managed to overcome by filling it with gum, pieces of adhesive tape and other emergency solutions. “My quality of life has been reduced, I can’t eat anything cold, I can’t eat sweets and I can’t eat anything that I have to chew too much.”

Tamaris’s problem started in December 2019. A piece of a molar, with an old aluminum filling, broke off. After several attempts to be treated at her polyclinic in the Plaza de la Revolución municipality, she returned home discouraged. “When there was no lack of electricity, it was because the sterilizing apparatus was broken or else there were no gloves.”

The dentist who saw her on her last visit assured her that new supplies would arrive in the summer of 2020 and the problem could be solved. But the coronavirus arrived before then and a split tooth did not classify as an “emergency” to be treated in the emergency room. “They told me the only thing they could do was extract it and I didn’t want to lose it.”

A year and a half later, he still has the problem that threatens to generate an infection. “Now the situation is even worse because they tell you that they are seeing to pending cases according to the order of severity and, a tooth that is missing a piece but does not have an abscess, is nothing that they are going to attend to first.”

“Here they talk a lot about the quality of Public Health but you have to look at people’s teeth, in very bad condition,” says Tamaris. “My sister, who is four years older, does not have a tooth left and my father has needed a prosthesis for four years and there is no material to make it.”

The Ministry of Public Health said last March that “despite the pandemic and the strengthening of the United States embargo, Cuba arrived at World Oral Health Day with dental indicators similar to those of the most developed countries.”

However, infrastructure problems, materials and power outages have become a constant in Cuban state dental services, which are almost the only services allowed in the country. Private practice of the profession is only allowed for those who received their degree before 1959, or outside the country.

The few private practices that still remain on the island are suffocated by the inability to import supplies and to hire personnel who have obtained a diploma in “the revolutionary universities.” Hence, many professionals perform illegal work in the same official premises or maintain a small informal dental office that they feed with products purchased on the black market diverted from state distribution networks.

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After 9 Years, the Families of Paya and Cepera Await the IACHR’s Condemnation of Cuba

Rosa María Payá (second from left) and her mother Ofelia Acevedo (second from right), daughter and widow respectively of Cuban opposition Oswaldo Payá, flank father Juan Rumín Domínguez, accompanied by the director of the Hypermedia publishing house, Ladislao Aguado (left ), and journalist Juan Manuel Cao (right), in Hialeah, Florida. (EFE / Album Payá)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Ana Mengotti, Miami, 13 December 2021– Rosa María Payá, daughter of Cuban opposition figure Oswaldo Payá, will only say “mission accomplished” when justice is done for her father’s death, but she feels content because the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) is close to ruling on whether he was the victim of a “State assassination.”

In an interview with Efe on the eve of the first hearing of “case 9,416” before the IACHR, Payá highlighted that an acknowledgment — and condemnation — by the body of the Cuban State’s responsibility in the apparent accident in which her father and Harold Cepero lost their lives in 2012 would be “very important” for the families.

But also for the people who continue to be victims of repression in Cuba, which, although it has not stopped for more than 60 years, has reached “stratospheric” levels as a result of the protests that broke out on July 11, she stresses.

The hearing will be held on Tuesday, December 14 in a virtual way, and testifying will be Ofelia Acevedo, widow of the founder of the Christian Liberation Movement and ideologist of the Varela Project, Rosa María Payá, daughter of both, Amílcar Cepero, Harold’s father, and the Spanish politician Ángel Carromero, among others.

On July 22, 2012, Carromero was driving a car at high speed, with Payá, Cepero and a Swedish politician, Jens Aron Modig, as passengers, when the car left the road and hit a tree, according to the version official of the events, with which the families of the deceased and one of the survivors disagree. continue reading

Modig made a “pact of silence” and claims not to remember anything, according to Rosa María Payá. Carromero, from the conservative People’s Party, was accused of reckless driving resulting in death and sentenced to 4 years in prison in Cuba, although most of his sentence was served in Spain thanks to an agreement between governments.

Payá’s family denounced from the first moment that it was an attack in which another vehicle was involved, and in 2013, together with Cepero’s family, they filed the complaint with the IACHR, which has taken nine years to convene the first public hearing, although it has had all the information on the case for a long time.

According to Payá, it will not take long to pronounce itself and tomorrow’s hearing will be the occasion for the presentation of the final arguments of the parties, or rather of one of the parties, since Cuba, which is subject to the IACHR despite being suspended of the Organization of American States (OAS) for decades, has not appeared.

“Unfortunately,” she added, if the IACHR accepts the claims of the complainants, as she hopes, the case will not go to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, since it does not have jurisdiction over Cuba, since that country is not a signatory to the constitutive agreement.

However, the complainants will insist once again before the UN and the Council of Permanent Representatives of the OAS with the ruling in hand with a view to “stopping the impunity of the regime,” said Payá, who is part of the leadership of the Cuba Decides initiative.

The Cuban opposition figure, who insists that the evidence presented is “clear” and conclusive “about the commission of an” attack “perpetrated by Cuban state security agents on orders that “could only come from Fidel or Raúl Castro,” referenced the result of an independent report published in 2015.

Prepared by lawyers from the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), the report maintains that the evidence in the case “suggests” a “direct responsibility” of the Government of Cuba in the death of Payá and Cepero, either with the express intention of assassinating them, or with a “wicked disregard” for their lives.

The document compiles testimonies and refers to physical evidence that was revealed “in the months after the event and that was not considered at all by the court that convicted Carromero.”

What happened on July 22, 2012 “was not an accident,” but “the result of a motor vehicle incident deliberately caused by state agents,” the HRF document maintains.

“There is a strong indication that the car was hit by another. We do not know if they died when the vehicle was hit or if they were later removed and beaten to death, which is also possible,” said Javier El-Hage, international legal director of HRF, when the result of the investigation was presented.

The families of the two deceased are represented before the IACHR by lawyers from the Robert Kennedy Center for Human Rights and, Payá added, the Cuban State has not been present despite having been repeatedly notified by the inter-American system body .

The opposition made “a call for attention in capital letters” to all the democracies of the world to act before a regime that represses its people — “with more than 600 political prisoners at present” — and is capable of “assassinating” those who oppose it.

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Cuban Poet Georgina Herrera Dies of Covid

Originally from Matanzas, Herrera was born on April 23, 1936 in the town of Jovellanos. (Radio Taino “La FM de Cuba”)

14ymedio, Havana, 14 December 2021 — On Monday afternoon the poet Georgina Herrera died due to complications from the coronavirus, several days after having been admitted to the Salvador Allende hospital, La Covadonga in Havana. “Today, in Cuba, from covid, the great poet has just died,” Puerto Rican writer Mayra Santos-Febres said in a post. “She was my elder. Now she is my Ancestor. I’m going to miss you, Yoya.”

Santos-Febres met Herrera in 2016, “one of the most genuine voices in 20th century poetry,” as recognized by the official press. “She (Herrera) healed me with a few words of a pain that I did not know I carried,” she said, in addition, remembering that one of the dreams of the Cuban writer was to travel to Puerto Rico. “I looked for how to bring her on several occasions, but I wasn’t able to manage it. Damn international policy that divides us into nationalities, sides, ideologies.”

Herrera’s literary heritage is accentuated by her feminist emphasis and the racial awareness that she places on black women. This, Cubadebate published, “marked her close relationship with Africa and the vital heritage in Cuba, where she also worked as a scriptwriter for radio and television programs and film projects.”

Originally from Matanzas, Herrera was born on April 23, 1936 in the town of Jovellanos, and grew up in a family environment composed mostly of descendants of slaves. Her prolific career began at the age of 16, when she began to publish in newspapers and magazines in Havana. Later she was part of the legendary literary group El Puente [The Bridge].

Her sensitivity and wisdom took her to literature where she was recognized as the Eterna Cimarrona of Cuban letters. In 1970 she was honored with the poetry award from the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba. And she came to preside over the Writers Section of the Film, Radio and Television Association. However, she was never awarded the National Prize for Literature, a fact that has been harshly criticized by her followers.

“Simple and at the same time irreverent in her texts, she places in front of us a lyrical subject that celebrates irreverence, the poetic and cultural maroon,” is how the Cuban essayist Alberto Abreu Arcia defined the personality of Georgina Herrera in his social networks . “A voice that dislodges and subverts everything.”

Cuban poet and editor Teresa Melo shared her feelings on her Facebook wall: “Multiple voice, woman written from her skin, her skins. Woman who wrote ‘how bad it is to die’, anticipated. Although it is now when she enters the river, where it is jungle, where she loves like a small stone, in rebound, in rebirth.”

Herrera’s work has been translated into several languages; titles include Gentes y cosas (1974), Granos de sol y luna (1978), Gatos y liebres (1978), Grande es el tiempo (1989), Gustadas sensaciones (1996) y Gritos (2004)*. Among her recognitions, most notably she received the Alejo Carpentier and Raúl Gómez García medals as well as the Distinction for National Culture.

*People and Things (1974), Grains of the Sun and Moon (1978), Cats and Hares (1978), Great is Time (1989), Gustadas Sensations (1996) ) and Screams (2004)

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