Cuba: Humanitarian Decisions

The Covid-19 outbreak that emerged in the province of Matanzas has overwhelmed hospitals. (Screen capture)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 11 June 2021 — I bring bad news: the international community, that entelechy supposedly capable of reacting to crises and threats, does not exist. What does exist are the governments of each country and some supranational organizations such as the United Nations (and its dependencies), the Organization of American States, the European Union, the Red Cross and others that would make this a long list.

The complaints of the population surface in social networks which strongly question the presence of Cuban health personnel in other countries, the shortage of elementary medicines, the delay in knowing the result of a PCR test, the shortages of food and cleaning products, the terrible conditions in the places of internment, the arbitrariness of the police. Sometimes protests take to the streets.

When calls are heard for that international community to put into practice an intervention, a ’corridor’, a humanitarian “I don’t know what” to address the multifaceted crisis being suffered in Cuba, it is worth remembering that this would be the institutions that have the resources and the authority to make them available to those in need and that they have rules for doing so. continue reading

Among these rules (some written, others obvious) the most notorious are that the request comes from a legally recognized government or that in a given territory the degree of ungovernability is such that it prevents the protection of human beings. There are painful examples of places where such help never showed up or arrived too late (for example Rwanda and the dismembered Yugoslavia).

If something is not in dispute, it is that the people who occupy government positions in Cuba have control over one hundred percent of the territory and its inhabitants. As long as that condition is maintained, any participation of governments or supranational entities will be conditioned (in order not to violate international law) on the fact that those in command in the country formally request it, after an official declaration of a state of emergency.

The recent measure of increasing the number of quarantine days of Cuban citizens traveling to the island to 14, and reducing their luggage to a single suitcase, illustrates the little sympathy that the bosses have for people’s individual initiatives to help their loved ones. It may seem to you that allowing a free flow from that direction would create undesirable social differences. The morbidity and mortality caused by the pandemic must also pass through egalitarianism.

In countries considered normal there is a network of civil society where churches, fraternal or union organizations have sufficient legal standing to, in parallel with their governments, mobilize solidarity. In this archipelago, customs authorities in air terminals and ports have instructions to cancel these initiatives if they are not “properly channeled” to official entities.

There are then three paths: to pressure the Government to make the proper humanitarian decisions by declaring a state of emergency and formally requesting aid; to overthrow the government; or to believe in miracles.

____________

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

Now, the Street Belongs to Everyone in Cuba

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, in his television appearance on July 11. (Screen capture)

14ymedio bigger

14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Valencia, 12 July 2021 — On an important day for freedom and democracy in Cuba, Díaz-Canel, in an improvised appearance on television, could not think of anything  to say other than “the order of combat is given: Revolutionaries take to the streets.”

A bad business. Pitting some Cubans against others is a bad precedent that can lead to a civil war. Fortunately, the Cubans who took to the streets are peaceful people, who only aspire to live better, enjoy the benefits of work and get rid of the repressors of State Security that harass them daily.

On the other hand, with the eternal communist propaganda, Díaz-Canel places the conflict exactly where it is not, which is on the anguished people. The problem is him, his economic policies, the disastrous result of the ’Ordering Task’*. He was warned and, with everything, he decided to go ahead. Now he has what was expected.

Díaz-Canel acknowledges that the situation is difficult. Neither more nor less than is being experienced in other countries of the Caribbean, Latin America and the world. Cuba is no exception. Covid-19 hits the world economy hard and even developed countries resent the current scenario. continue reading

The difference with Cuba is that no one, in their right mind, has inplemented a hard adjustment policy in the midst of the pandemic, Rather there is an inopportune policy, incorrectly designed and poorly implemented, forced by the ideological circumstances of a communist congress. And now its effects are here.

Blaming the United States embargo for what is happening no longer believed by anyone. Credit has been exhausted. The Cubans who came out to protest know that the only one who suffocates the economy is Díaz-Canel and, therefore, the social outbreak is already here. There’s no turning back. Díaz-Canel is responsible for the food shortage in the country and the inability to boost the economy. If Venezuela can no longer ship its compromised oil, it’s a bad business, but the fault lies with him. The campaigns to discredit the Cuban communist regime are deserved, and more will come, because the credit has run out.

Half of the television appearance was directed to attacking the United States and the other half, to avoid personal responsibility for everything that happened. Díaz-Canel is alone, he no longer has General Raúl Castro protecting his excesses. The communist organization that took to the streets yesterday in response to his call does not faithfully reflect the new Cuban society. It crumbles like a sugar cuba, it has no future. And that loneliness in the dome of power terrifies Díaz-Canel, who does not understand how it is possible that he is not loved.

Cuban communists do not know how to manage social protest, because they have experienced 63 years of leading an endless project that has resulted in failure. And now, they are clinging to a power that no longer responds to social needs, nor to the demands of these times.

All authoritarian regimes end this way, some in traumatic situations like Ceausescu’s Romania. Díaz-Canel knows that he will never be the Cuban Gorbachev, and that terrifies him. He has lost the opportunity offered by the historical scenario for a profound transformation of Cuban society, and now he is afraid, and he is throwing his “militants” into a civil war that, in advance, they have lost.

Does Díaz-Canel really believe that, if there were no such thing as a ’blockade’, the current situation in Cuba would be much better, that is, and his chances of remaining in power indefinitely would be greater? He is wrong. The worst thing is that he believes that his regime is not a dictatorship because it gives healthcare to the population and seeks the well-being of all.

Once again he is wrong. The people no longer believe this argument that could serve Fidel Castro 40 years ago. The Cuban communist dictatorship, for the many programs and public policies that it deploys for everyone, is a dictatorship that vindicates violence, the confrontation of one against another and the use of an undemocratic, contemptuous and reactionary language that does not contribute to, much less calm, the situation.

Díaz-Canel’s television appearance was a good example of this by introducing a new figure, the “confused revolutionaries,” who even he does not believe in at this point. Those who have participated in the spontaneous demonstrations throughout the island this past Sunday have no confusion and know what they want: in fact, they chanted it continuously: freedom, democracy and a better future.

*Translator’s note: The so-called ’Ordering Task” — Tarea ordenamiento — 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. 

Editor’s Note: This text was originally published on the Cubaeconomía blog and is reproduced here with the author’s permission.

____________

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

Opposition Cuban Rapper Denis Solis Leaves Prison

The opposition rapper Denis Solís with his colleague Eliexer “El Funky” Márquez  shortly after leaving prison.

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, July 12, 2021 — The opposition rapper Denis Solís was released from jail, according to confirmation today by his colleague Eliexer “El Funky” Márquez, after being imprisoned for eight months.

According to the sentence he received, the activist should have been released on Friday, July 9, but that day State Security summoned the young man’s uncle, Vladimir Lázaro González, to inform him that he would leave on Sunday the 11th.

Solís, a member of the San Isidro Movement, was arrested on November 6 by an agent who had broken into his house without a warrant, without explanation, and without identifying himself, as the rapper himself recorded and posted on social media the same day.

Those posts, according to the Cuban Prisoners Defenders organization, served as the arbitrary basis for the accusation of “contempt”, which was made just three days later. Deprived of his liberty “as a precaution”, he was subjected to a summary trial on November 11 and sentenced to eight months in prison for the crime of “contempt.” continue reading

He was first imprisoned in the Valle Grande prison, in Havana, and since last December 8, in the Central Penitentiary of Combinado del Este, a maximum security prison.

Solís, who was declared a “prisoner of conscience” by Amnesty International, was held incommunicado on several occasions during his imprisonment. On one of the occasions when he was able to call his family, he said that he was in isolation due to an outbreak of Covid in the prison.

The arrest and imprisonment of Solís was the reason for the protest of some members of the MSI, who gathered for a hunger strike at the headquarters of the group, in Old Havana, for more than a week. They were violently evicted from there by agents dressed as sanitation workers on November 26, which in turn provoked the solidarity of more than 300 artists who gathered the following day in front of the Ministry of Culture seeking dialogue with the authorities.

About thirty of them managed to meet with Vice Minister Fernando Rojas, but since then, both the MSI artists and the “27N [November] Group” and other activists in solidarity with their cause have been continually harassed by State Security and subjected to an intense smear campaign by the ruling party.

In mid-November, after Solís’s arrest, MSI issued a statement denouncing the arrest and repression of several of its members for demanding the rapper’s release. The San Isidro collective said that violence and abuse of power “have become the norm in Cuba.”

Before his incarceration Solís had already suffered threats, abuse, and surveillance at his home, especially after tattooing the words “Cuba, change and free” on his chest in October 2020.

Translated by Tomás A.

____________

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

“In My 53 Years I Have Never Seen Anything Like it in Santiago, This is the Beginning of the End of the Tyranny In Cuba”

The wave of protesters from Santiago was made up of mostly men, but also women and teenagers, many barefoot due to the absence of flip-flops, and it was not only people on foot, but also motorcyclists and bicycle riders. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Alberto Hernández, Santiago de Cuba, 12 July 2021 — Like many other cities on the island, Santiago de Cuba shook this Sunday with a massive march. The cries of “Cuba libre,” “Patria y vida,” “Díaz-Canel singao [motherfucker]“ and “Liars” resounded, among many other slogans, through the most important streets of the city.

“In my 53 years I have never seen anything like it in Santiago, this is the beginning of the end of the tyranny in Cuba,” says Roberto, one of the hundreds of protesters who were there. “I listened to the call of my compatriots and I quickly joined the crowd that was organized on Martí y Calvario Avenue.”

The number of people multiplied immediately.

“Let’s go to the Party, patria y vida, summon the people, do not be afraid, we are the majority!” Maikel, a young activist on his motorcycle, shouted at the top of his voice. continue reading

The wave of protesters from Santiago was made up of mostly men, but also women and teenagers, many barefoot due to the shortage of flip-flops, and not only people on foot, but also motorcyclists and bicycle riders. “When no one else could enter Marti Avenue, we began to go up towards the Provincial Party,” says Roberto.

“We all began to shout ‘Díaz-Canel singao [motherfucker], enough with the lies.'” (14ymedio)
Roberto comments excitedly about going up the hill on Martí Avenue: “That was the moment when I thought it would fall today. We all started shouting ‘Díaz-Canel singao [motherfucker], enough with the lies.’ I confess that I was a little afraid at the beginning, but when I saw the determination of the people, all fear disappeared, I was determined to see it to the end.”

Protestors on foot, bike, motorcycle and in cars. (14ymedio)

At the top of the hill, the drivers revved their engines, depressing the accelerators of their parked vehicles, forming a cloud of smoke as they invited more people to join.

“We are demonstrating because we are tired of lies, hunger, slavery, manipulation.” (14ymedio)

One of the protesters, Antonio, loudly explained the reason for the peaceful march: “We are demonstrating because we are tired of lies, hunger, slavery, manipulation. This is patria y vida.’ Homeland because we want a new homeland for all Cubans, and not for a group of vivebién* who are the ones who now dominate Cuba as they please. Life because they are killing us little by little, and we need new life. ”

The protesters continued their course down Central Avenue. There the Police arrived in a patrol car, but had to withdraw before the advance of the crowd. To the left was the historic July 26 barracks as a witness to a new rebellion forming before their eyes.

The Police arrived in a patrol car, but had to withdraw before the advance of the crowd. (14ymedio)
Finally, the group turned around and went back along Avenida Central. (14ymedio)

Upon reaching the intersection of Avenida Central and Avenida Garzón, a cordon of police officers prevented the crowd from reaching the Party’s provincial headquarters, when they were about 30 yards from their destination. “In front of the police and those of the Government, who saw us head on, we began to chant slogans while the police cordon gathered, stopping the advance of the group,” says Roberto. Finally, the group turned around and went back along Avenida Central, while another group made a detour to Avenida 24 de Febrero, also called Trocha.

Protests in Santiago de Cuba, on July 11. (14ymedio)
“From there one of the most emotional moments of the entire march was appreciated: the notes of our Bayamo anthem were sung with force.” (14ymedio)

When the main group returned again to Central and Garzón, a small bus arrived full of authorities and government personnel, including the mayor of Santiago de Cuba, Elio Rodríguez.

“Look at that, they came with sticks and a lot of people,” says Marcos, another young man present. “What is that called, let’s see? Repression, my brother, this is repression.” (14ymedio)

At the same time, almost as if it were a racing car at full speed, a bus arrived full of people who looked like workers. However, the support personnel sent by the authorities were hiding under the false workers’ garb.

The store at 4th and Garzón, in Santiago de Cuba, which requires payment freely convertible currency, closed after being stoned by protesters. (14ymedio)

“The last place where the group of protesters gathered was on the sidewalk in front of the Santiago de Cuba Palace of Justice,” continues Roberto, another “historic building” that evoked freedom in Cuba.

“From there one of the most emotional moments of the entire march happened: the notes of our Bayamo [national] anthem were sung with force,” he narrates.

After the first arrests, they cut off the internet. “I looked like a reporter,” says Ernesto, another young protester with a modern telephone in his hands. “Through my Facebook account, I sent a number of photos to my online wall and I was recording the video of the demonstration standing in the Coppelia parking lot, when communication was cut off.”

Marcos, another spontaneous reporter, claims to have broadcast what happened to his family in Chile live via WhatsApp.

The authorities then set up a car with loudspeakers and brought in more civilian-clad personnel. On one side of the Palace of Justice, a truck full of youths dressed in green police uniforms disembarked, surrounding the protesters, who backed away slowly.

“Look at that, they came with sticks and a lot of people,” says Marcos, another young man present. “What is that called, let’s see? Repression, my brother, this is repression.”

The group that went to Trocha had a worse time. “I saw how two policemen were holding a protester by the hands and feet and threw him into a patrol car,” says Pedro, a motorcyclist who was passing by and who also witnessed “a lot of blows” to several protesters.

On the other hand, the 4th and Garzón store, which requires payment in freely convertible currency, had to be protected with its metal shutters after being stoned by the crowd. Since the Government put basic items up for sale in foreign currency last year, these businesses have been harshly criticized by the population, who for the most part do not have access to dollars.

*Translator’s note: Vive bien translates as ‘live well.’ El Vive Bien is the title of a song by Alberto Zayas, a Cuban singer and songwriter. The lyrics are in the voice of a man talking about how he will marry a woman who will work and give him all her money, and “we will live happily, but I without doing anything.”

____________

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

Trial Date Set for Luis Robles, the ‘Guy with the Placard’

Prosecutors have asked that Luis Robles be sentenced to six years in prison for allegedly spreading “enemy propaganda.” (Captura)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, July 9, 2021 — The trial of Luis Robles Elizastigui, an activist arrested on December 4, 2020 for staging a protest on Havana Boulevard, will be on July 16 in the Municipal Court of October 10. This was confirmed by his brother, Landy Fernández Elizastigui, in a statement given to Radio and Television Martí.

The 28-year-old Robles, who has been held in Combinado del Este prison for seven months, was arrested after holding a placard that read, “Freedom, not repression, #FreeDenis” in reference to  dissident rapper Denis Solís, who was tried several weeks prior for “contempt” and who had been scheduled for release on July 9.

“The attorney informed me that Luis’ trial would take place on the 16th. He said they would only communicate with him by phone,” said Fernandez, who has reported that Robles has complained of being tortured and mistreated while in custody. continue reading

The attorney also informed him that only one family member of the accused would be allowed to attend the trial.

Fernandez has also been trying to make sure his brother gets a good defense. After many attorneys declined to take the case, he found one who agreed on the condition his name would not be made public.

Prosecutors have asked that Luis Robles be sentenced to six years in prison for allegedly spreading “enemy propaganda” and one year for “resistance.”

Although initially charged with “threats to state security” and terrorism, the police did find not sufficient evidence to charge him with these crimes. In January 2021 Robles was declared a prisoner of conscience by Cuban Prisoners Defenders.

All of the lawyer’s requests for injunctions on behalf of his client, as well as a request that his client be released pending trial, were rejected.

In mid-March, Julie Chung, Acting Assistant-Secretary at the U.S. State Department’s Office of Western Hemisphere Affairs, referred to Robles in a tweet: “No one should be jailed for carrying a placard.”

The Lithuanian parliament also referred to Robles’ case in June when it unanimously approved a resolution condemning the Cuban government for repression, harassment of activists and the country’s dire economic situation. It called for the “immediate and unconditional release of more than a hundred political prisoners,” citing the persecution of Luis Robles, Maykel Castillo, Denis Solís and those arrested on Obispo Street.

____________

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

And the Streets of Cuba Spoke Loud and Clear

Protesters in Santiago de Cuba, this July 11. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 12 July 2021 – It was only a question of time. The frustration and desperation had been accumulating and this Sunday the streets exploded. Thousands of Cubans left their homes to exercise the right to civic protest, the one that had been seized from them for more than half a century. With their cries of “Down with the dictatorship” they made it clear that neither the indoctrination nor the fear have managed to curtail the desire for freedom on this island.

Young people came out, those who had grown up with the dual currency, the lact of dreams, the blackouts and the brainwashing in the schools. Housewives came out, pots and pans in hand to at least bang on some cookware in which there is hardly anything to serve. Parents of families and their grandchildren came out; the first part of a generation that helped to construct the current authoritarian model, and the second, potential rafters in the Straits of Florida. The people came out.

Unprecedented and beautiful scenes all over the country, as if the spark of San Antonio de los Baños had ignited in the dry grass of social anger. Havana’s Capitol rocked with the cries of “freedom,” the streets of Cárdenas with a human cordon that challenged the shock troops, Palma Soriano shaken by the demonstrations, Alquízar exploding into its unpaved alleys and Camagüey with a human river in its squares. continue reading

This July 11 we demonstrate to the world and ourselves that we are many more than those who crush us, that when we unite and act they can only threaten us, imprison us or kill us but they cannot convince us to continue accepting the yoke. Now, officialdom will offer its version of events and blame the neighbor to the North, but we all know that spontaneity and massiveness were the distinctive sign of these protests.

You could see it coming, you just had to have your ear attentive to reality to notice the internal noise that was growing, and that yesterday shook off the gag.
____________

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

Several Injuries Reported in Protests Spreading Throughout Cuba

The Cuban dictatorship has militarized the streets of the island to prevent the protests from multiplying. (Twitter)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 11 July 2021– The streets of Cuba, this Sunday, have become a hotbed of people who came out to protest against the regime. In all the crowds, reported in various provinces such as Artemisa, Matanzas, Camagüey, Santiago de Cuba, Cienfuegos and Havana, cries of “Down with the Dictatorship” were heard.

In Camagüey, several residents have denounced that the government deployed special troops and other uniformed agents to try to stop the protesters. In the clashes, two young people were injured, “one in the leg and the other in the stomach,” according to activist María Antonia Pachecho, who was at the protest, speaking to 14ymedio.

“Three shots were fired at the population. We could not verify that the bullets were made of rubber, but what we did see was that they shot us,” added Pacheco, who pointed out that the events occurred at the intersection of Bella Vista and Artola, and the clashes were always between those in uniform and the protesters, there were no people participating in support of the government.

In Havana, hundreds of people gathered in various streets and avenues, mainly in the vicinity of the Malecón. Reports collected by 14ymedio indicate that the protesters marched through San Lázaro, Galiano and 23rd until they reached the Malecón where there were clashes between protesters and police. continue reading

Also in Güira de Melena, other protesters joined, according to a live broadcast visible on Facebook. Men, women, teenagers on bicycles and motorcycles or walking, were present in the streets of the municipality of Artemiseño while they chanted “Freedom.”

In Cárdenas, in the Matanzas province, dozens of residents also took to the streets beating on pots and pans and shouting “Homeland and Life.” In some videos shared on digital platforms the people of Carden can be seen raising their voices against the dictatorship in the rain.

In other provinces such as Cienfuegos, Holguín and Guantánamo, there have been spontaneous calls to protest against the Government. Residents outside and inside the Island have echoed the protests on the so-called social networks.

In the provincial capital of Santiago de Cuba, several protesters arrived at the headquarters of the Communist Party on Victoriano Garzón Avenue and also gathered in Ferreiro Park and other main streets and avenues such as Martí. According to 14ymedio’s contributors in that city, the Government cut the internet signal in the Wi-Fi zones.

In the Santiaguero municipality of Palma Soriana, shortly after the San Antonio de los Baños protest became known, in Artemisa, residents also staged a demonstration. The people of Santiago shouted at the top of their lungs “Libertad” [Freedom] and “Que se vayan,” [Leave] referring to the Government.

“Palma Soriano was hot,” said the resident who excitedly broadcast the demonstration live on Facebook for more than 15,000 users while people of all ages were seen joining the protest, although mainly young people stood out.

In the small town of La Salud, in the municipality of Quivicán, in Mayabeque, another group of residents gathered in the streets with the Cuban flag, leading the protest they chanted “Abajo [Down With]  Díaz-Canel”, “In unity is strength” and “Freedom.”

In the municipality of Güines, in the province itself, the looting of a store that sells in freely convertible currency (MLC) was reported. As seen in a video circulating on social networks, they broke the windows of the establishment and several people are seen leaving the store with boxes of products while others remain inside trying to take what they find.

The regime has cut or interrupted the internet connection throughout the country to prevent Cubans from uploading to social networks videos of what is happening, and broadcasting the demonstrations live. Several users reported the service cuts shortly after the protest in San Antonio de los Baños became known.

In an address this Sunday, the ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel called for a civil war on the island. In his speech he called on the communists to take to the streets starting now and in the next few days. “We will be in the streets fighting,” he threatened.

____________

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

“Down with the Dictatorship” and “Freedom” Shout Thousands of Protesters in the Streets of Cuba

Hundreds of Cubans in San Antonio de los Baños come out to protest against the Government. (Collage)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 11 July 2021 — With cries of “freedom,” “down with communism,” “homeland and life,” “we want medicines,” and “Díaz-Canel singao [motherfucker],” thousands of Cubans came out to protest in the streets of San Antonio de los Baños, in the province Artemisa, this Sunday in the midst of the severe crisis that the country is experiencing due to the pandemic and the shortage of basic products.

In a live broadcast on Facebook, residents can be seen march through several central streets of that municipality and vehemently shouting “we are not afraid,” “we want freedom,” “there are more of us,” “down with the dictatorship,” while listening to several protesters saying that the people are tired, and showing several agents of the State Security who are watching the protest and those who are saying about them: “They are scared.”

The broadcast lasted a little more than 50 minutes, until it was suddenly interrupted, and in the images you can see people joining in as the crowd roamed the streets. Among the participants of the protest, many young people are noted, as are women and children.

In several telephone calls to San Antonio de los Baños, 14ymedio confirmed that the internet connection is currently interrupted. “There is no access to anything but people found out very quickly and right now they are trying to get to the place of the protest,” a resident explains to this newspaper.

“I am going to join but I do not want to take my mobile phone in case they arrest me and take it from me,” adds the woman who explains they are in “a desperate situation with this pandemic, quarantine and lack of food. We are crossing Niagara on a bicycle,” she adds.

“Here we have suffered a lot, not only the confinement but also the blackouts, practically every day they cut the electricity. The police are really harassing the vendors and there is practically no way to make a living. This has been a time bomb for a longtime now,” adds Carmen, a retiree living in downtown San Antonio.

“In my house we have been cooking with a wood stove for days because there is no electricity to cook with and there is no liquefied gas,” adds the lady. “Young people got tired of so much misery and in the street today there were many kids, people under 20 years old were the ones who shouted the most.”

Adriana, a 21-year-old resident of San Antonio, also told this newspaper that in that city “they only have the electricity on for six hours a day, there is no food, what else can we do if not go out and protest.”

From Palma Soriano, in the province of Santiago de Cuba, hundreds of Cubans also took to the streets shouting “freedom” and “get out,” in reference to the Government. “Palma Soriano heated up,” said an emotional man from Santiago who broadcast the protest live on Facebook for more than 15,000 users.

The official media have not made reference to the protests this Sunday. Many Cubans were expectantly watching the noon television news and not a word was said about the events that occurred on the island’s streets.

____________

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

International Artists Join Cubans in Demand of #SOSCuba

World-renowned artists such as Alejandro Sanz, Paco León, Ricardo Montaner, Daddy Yankee, Natti Natasha, Becky G, among others, shared the hashtag #SosCuba on their networks. (Collage)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 11 July 2021 — The hashtag #SOSCuba is trending on Twitter after dozens of international artists offered their support to the hundreds of Cubans who, with this demand, are asking for “a humanitarian corridor” in the face of the serious crisis in the country.

From Spain, the actor Paco León published a video on his social networks to join the “desperate cry” that the Cuban people are launching. “Many people are dying, not only from coronavirus, but from hunger. They don’t have medicine, they are having a really bad time and they need the international community to help,” he said.

“I love the Cuban people very much and what is happening hurts me a lot and at least we to tell about it and help it in whatever way we can,” he added when informing that he will try to support the island with donations and ended his message with the phrase “SOSCuba.” continue reading

Other artists, representatives of urban music, have also published the hashtags on their social networks. “For my Cuba Libre. I love you. See you soon in freedom and life,” Don Omar wrote next to a poster with the Cuban flag. “All the doctors in the world, Cuba needs them,” Ozuna posted.

Singer Ricardo Montaner retweeted a message that a follower sent him along with the phrase. In the text, the fan asked him on behalf of the Cubans to place the hashtag on their social networks and stated: “Cubans are dying from Covid and there are no medicines, we urgently need humanitarian intervention, hospitals are collapsed, please pray for our people.”

World-renowned artists such as Alejandro Sanz, J Balvin, Nicky Jam, Natanael Cano, Daddy Yankee, Natti Natasha and Becky G, shared the hashtag #SOSCuba on their networks in support of Cubans who demand a humanitarian corridor.

The Puerto Rican singer René Pérez, Residente, wrote that “between the ineffectiveness of the Cuban Government and the US blockade they have the people screwed in the middle of a pandemic. To send help, look for an alternative to the government, like what happened in Puerto Rico during Hurricane María. [Cuba and Puerto Rico] eternally two wings of the same bird.”

With those words, Residente won a response from the official account of the Cuban Presidency which told him: “You have to be well informed of the efforts of the Cuban government to combat Covid-19 despite the financial strangulation of the Blockade.” The Puerto Rican did not remain silent and replied: “The pity is that they respond to me instead of responding to the thousands of tweeters in their own country.”

Ultimately, the account of the Presidency deleted the message and with that action all the accumulated responses were eliminated. The exchange with Residente was widely disseminated among his followers on the island, surprised by his criticism of the Cuban government, with which he had maintained a lot of ideological harmony in the past.

Also the influencer Mia Khalifa was moved by the situation that Cuba is going through and asked on her Twitter account: “Where can we find organized donations to help Cuba? I am searching through the hashtag #SOSCuba but I have had no luck.”

Cuban tweeters expressed thanks for each show of support that comes in the midst of the enormous health crisis that the island is experiencing while the Government responds that the campaign is designed by “the enemies of the revolution.”

After this wave of international support, Cuban artists also added the hashtag #SOSCuba to their networks. Leoni Torres, Yuliet Cruz, El Chacal, Kandyman, El Chulo, Alain Daniel, Alexander Delgado, Jacob Forever, El Taiger, Heydy González, Alex Duvall, La Diosa, Yotuel and Yomil Hidalgo.

The latter went beyond the hashtag and directly blamed the Cuban government for the situation in the country: “It is your fault, gentlemen, for the lack of capacity. It is your fault for closing a country to internal tourism, and opening it to the outside. That is why Matanzas has collapsed.”

Despite the mobilization of artists, opponents, activists and Cuban emigrants, the authorities affirmed this Saturday that it is not necessary to open a humanitarian aid corridor due to the health crisis in the country, although they recognized that the situation is “very complex” and urged people to donate from abroad through official channels.

“Some in an intentional and manipulative way plead for the need to implement humanitarian corridors, for humanitarian intervention,” stated Ernesto Soberón, general director of Consular Affairs and Cuban Residents Abroad.

According to the official, there is “a campaign to present the image of Cuba as one of total chaos” that, he insists, does not correspond to the real health situation or the Covid-19 indicators.

However, several videos have circulated on social networks showing Covid patients in isolation centers and homes that didn’t have the necessary medical attention, some have died in their own homes, along with their relatives, and the authorities have delayed for hours to collect the corpses.

This Sunday, the numbers of infections and deaths in Cuba set new records with 6,923 positive cases of Covid and 47 deaths.*

*Translator’s note: Cuba has a population of approximately 11 million.  The equivalent figures for 11 July for the United States, with a population of roughly 330 million, were 4,909 cases and 27 deaths.

____________

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

“The Combat Order is Given: Revolutionaries Take to the Streets,” Threatens Cuban President Diaz-Canel

“We will be in the streets fighting,” threatened the president. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 11 July 20210 – In a Sunday afternoon address, Cuba president Díaz-Canel called for civil war on the island. In his speech he called on the communists to take to the streets, starting now and in the coming days.

“We will be in the streets fighting,” threatened the president, in response to protests against the dictatorship taking place throughout Cuba.

In his speech, Díaz-Canel fundamentally blamed the crisis the country is experiencing on the United States sanctions against the island. After spending several minutes on this theme, the president spoke about the events of this Sunday in several parts of the country and also referred to his trip to San Antonio de los Baños.

With shouts of “Freedom,” “Down with communism,” “Homeland and life,” “We want the vaccine” and “Díaz-Canel singao [motherfucker],” thousands of Cubans came out to protest in the streets of San Antonio de los Baños, in the province Artemisa, this Sunday in the midst of the severe crisis in the country due to the pandemic and the shortage of basic products. continue reading

Hundreds of Cubans in San Antonio de los Baños protest against the government. (Collage)

In a live broadcast on Facebook, residents can be seen marching through several central streets of that city, vehemently shouting “We are not afraid,” “We want freedom,” “Somos más [There are more of us],” and “Down with the dictatorship,” while listening to several protesters say that the people are tired. The video shows several State Security agents watching the protest, while people comment, “They are scared.”

The broadcast lasted a little more than 50 minutes, until it was suddenly interrupted, and in the images one can see people joining in as the crowd roamed the streets. Notably, among the participants of the protest, are many young people and also women and children.

In several phone calls to San Antonio de los Baños, 14ymedio confirmed that the internet service is currently interrupted. “There is no access to anything but people found out very quickly and right now they are trying to get to the place of the protest,” a resident explained to this newspaper.

“I am going to join but I do not want to take my mobile phone in case they arrest me, so they can’t take it from me,” adds the woman who explains being in “a desperate situation with this pandemic, quarantine and lack of food. We are riding over Niagara Falls on a bicycle.”

Since the San Antonio protest became known, the streets of Cuba have become abuzz with people. In every mass gathering, as reported in various provinces such as Artemisa, Matanzas, Camagüey, Santiago de Cuba, Cienfuegos and Havana, cries of “Down with the dictatorship” were heard.

____________

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

I Don’t Think, Therefore I Survive

After being prohibited from publishing their work, several prominent Cuban literary figures were condemned to permanent silence. (Cubarte)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Ariel Hidalgo, Miami, July 7, 2021 — The sole political party that governs Cuba created a bureau on ideology to determine whether people could think or not — “don’t worry about thinking; we’ll save you the trouble” — because thinking something other that what the party had decreed could be dangerous. You had be careful what you thought, and especially careful about articulating those ideas with words. If you disobeyed, your fate could be ostracism or prison. Thus, the inverse to the Cartesian method became the norm. Instead of the philosophical formula described by Descartes in “Discourse on the Method” — I think, therefore I am — people were forced to follow a quite different one: I do not think, therefore I survive.

Magazines were shut down, writings were censored and writers were oppressed. Everyone had to toe the party line. Any books that did not meet the “requirements” were removed from library shelves and placed under lock and key in well-guarded spaces. In a meeting with intellectuals, the caudillo [Fidel Castro] outlined the formula that writers would have to follow: “Within the revolution, everything; outside the revolution, nothing.”

Prohibited from publishing their work, several prominent literary figures were condemned to permanent silence. One of them was even arrested and forced to issue a humiliating mea culpa. Attention then turned to professors, and even to members of the party itself, in what became known as the “microfraction* case.” Some were expelled from their positions. The most prominent among them were imprisoned. continue reading

Officials began monitoring classes taught by a young professor of Marxism and reviewing his students’ notebooks. They came to the conclusion that he was basing his lectures on the classic works of Marx and Engels rather than the manuals written in Stalinist Russia. They searched his home and found the evidence. Not firearms or explosives but something worse: none other than a dangerous manuscript.

The jealous guardians of politically correct opinion read the text and were terrified. The young professor had been using Marxist methods of analysis not to criticize capitalism as Marx had done but to criticize the social systems of regimes ruled by communist parties.

He was immediately arrested and banned from teaching for the rest of his life. Once released, he continued expressing his ideas and was detained again. State Security attributed his behavior to mental problems and sent him to the psychiatric hospital in Mazorra. He was kept in a ward where neither doctors nor guards dared enter, surrounded by mentally unbalanced prisoners, among whom there was no shortage of murderers and rapists.

When some of them asked why he had been imprisoned there, he explained it was for writing against the government. In their eyes this made him the craziest one there and they distanced themselves from him. The psychiatrist evaluating him did not find anything seriously wrong and, when he learned why the man was being imprisoned, diagnosed him with a “personality disorder” and returned him to State Security.

He was sent to jail along with other political prisoners. But in prison he continued sharing his ideas with fellow prisoners. He was held in solitary confinement in a narrow, enclosed cell intended for death row inmates, behind four iron doors, cut off from contact with other prisoners and family members, where the little food he received was served in a dog’s bowl passed through an opening at the floor covered with a flatiron plate that only opened from the outside.

This “special area,” where speaking loudly could result in a brutal beating, was reserved for those sentenced to capital punishment and dangerous persons who had committed violent crimes. But it seems he was the most dangerous of all because he had committed a heinous crime: thinking. The only time they took him out was to stand trial, where he was summarily sentenced to eight years in prison for having committed “revisionism.”

What does revisionism mean? If you look it up in a dictionary, you will find this entry: “tendency to subject doctrines, interpretations, or established practices to methodical review for the purpose of updating and sometimes denying them.”

Since he had written many magazine articles, and even a book, on the history of the labor movement that were cited in the supplementary bibliographies of many writers’ works, they added this edict to his sentence: “And as for your writings, they shall be destroyed by fire.”

The young professor who was confined in that narrow, enclosed slave pit for one year and twenty days is the one writing these words today, forty years later.

Why so much fear of the words of an isolated, nearly naked man?

In a capitalist world, Marx evangelized for the creation and development of class consciousness among workers, who would unite and overthrow the bourgeois state. But once that state was overthrown, the doctrine’s interpreters created such a tightly controlled social regime that no one could raise awareness of anything else.

One of the reasons this new form of dictatorship is so difficult to overthrow is the almost absolute control it holds over ideas. The man who would later impose this iron-fisted system published, from a prison cell, several articles in the country’s magazines in opposition to the regime of Fulgencio Batista.

It was unthinkable in the 1960s, when the current dictatorship arose, that a political prisoner could do the same. By that time all publications, magazines, periodicals, and broadcast stations had either been shut down or had come under the control of the state, which exerted oppressive censorship.

“They married us to the lie and forced us to live with her.” Truer words were never spoken by the one who, after saying them, imposed his own social system on the nation.

None of it was true but most people believed it. And when a prisoner got out of prison and described the horrors he had experienced, they called him a liar because in Cuba prisoners were not being beaten. The did not believe him even after he showed them the scars from the bayonets. “He probably got those from being cut up in a bar fight.” And if people were not going believe it, how would the world believe it?

Therefore, a year after being released from confinement, half a dozen political prisoners created the first human rights group, the germ of what later became the dissident movement.

Today, with personal computers, mobile phones and the internet, the world of the lie is beginning to fall apart. Blogs, social networks, magazines and independent newspapers have filled the cyberspace with ideas and information. Meanwhile, the nomenklatura remains entrenched in its bunker, increasingly isolated and increasingly in need of psychiatric services to deal with a new illness: panic attacks caused by ideophobia.

*Translator’s note: For those who want to explore this further, in different sources the term is variously “microfraction” or “microfaction,” and is occasionally spelled with a hyphen or as two words.

See: Other articles on TranslatingCuba.com by Ariel Hidalgo

____________

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

Cuban State Security Mobilizes to Prevent a Protest in Favor of Hamlet Lavastida

Young actor Daniel Triana was the only person who could reach the proposed location and was arrested at the entrance of the National Museum of Fine Arts. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 7 July 2021 — Several independent artists and journalists were detained this Wednesday by Cuban State Security agents to prevent them from carrying out a protest action in solidarity with the artist Hamlet Lavastida, who has been under arrest in Villa Marista since June 26th. The action proposed a sit-in in front of the National Museum of Fine Arts at one in the afternoon this Wednesday.

Artists Katherine Bisquet and Camila Lobón were arrested when they tried to leave their home in Centro Habana, while reporter Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho was arrested near the National Museum of Fine Arts.

Art historian Carolina Barrero was also arrested when leaving her home and she is still being held at the Infanta and Manglar unit, according to the testimony of Valdés Cocho.

“Camila Lobón and Katherine Bisquet Rodríguez are in the Zanja station. I could see them and we made the sign of freedom with our hands. They took me out of Zanja Street so that I wouldn’t be in the same place as them. In Infanta and Manglar I met Carolina Barrero, we were able to intertwine fingers despite a call for attention from the officers who were guarding her,” the reporter said in a post on Facebook after being released a few hours later. continue reading

Bisquet was the one who launched the call to protest, and the text reads: “We call on friends and colleagues to demand the release of Hamlet, taking the pertinent health-protective measures at a sit-in in front of the Museum of Cuban Art this Wednesday, July 7th at 1 pm. The acts of punishment and repression will continue as long as we give up the ground of our rights to the Government. Let’s come together to defend Hamlet, which is to defend ourselves, and defend ourselves as a community. Let us not abandon ourselves.”

The artist also explained that Lavastida’s relatives have not yet received the judicial resolution from the Prosecutor’s Office, a document without which it is impossible to hire the services of a lawyer.

In a short video shared by Lobón and Bisquet on their social networks, can be seen the moment when a State Security officer prevents them from leaving the house and asks two other officers to arrest them for not following his orders

Young actor Daniel Triana, the only person who could reach the proposed protest location, told 14ymedio that he was arrested at the entrance of the Museum, a few minutes after arriving and sitting down. They took him under arrest to the Infanta y Manglar station and released him after a few hours.

“I arrived and they took me within minutes, there was no one else. I saw a colleague go by, but he kept going, it seems that he was investigating. They did not show me a warning sign, only a person from the performing arts spoke to me who said that he was going to attend to me from now on,” says Triana.

In a short video shared by Lobón and Bisquet on their social networks, the moment can be seen when a State Security officer prevents them from leaving the house and asks two other officers to arrest them for not following his orders.

Katherine Bisquet is a poet who has published in Cuba such titles as Something Here Is Decomposing, from Editores Sur Collection, a volume that was mentioned in the Wolsan-Cuba Poetry Prize in 2013. Camila Lobón is a young visual artist who graduated in 2018 from the Arts University, former Higher Institute of Art (ISA) and is collaborator of the International Institute of Artivismo Hannah Arendt (Instar), founded by the artist Tania Bruguera.

Both are among the most visible faces of the last year in the defense of human rights in Cuba, especially after participating in the protest in front of the Ministry of Culture in November of last year which led to the creation of 27N.

Hamlet Lavastida arrived in Cuba from Germany on June 21st, after completing an artistic residency at the Berlin gallery Kunstlerhaus Bethanien. The young man had already completed his six days of regulatory Covid isolation in one of the centers set up by the Government when he was arrested.

He is accused of the crime of “instigation to commit a crime” that can carry from fines of between 100 and 300 quotas* (which can imply between 100 and 15,000 pesos) to imprisonment from three months to a year. Organizations such as Human Rights Watch, PEN America or PEN International, as well as the Kunstlerhaus Bethanien have condemned Lavastida’s arrest and demanded his unconditional release.

*Translator’s note: The Cuban Penal Code sets fines in terms of “quotas” and in this way can change the amount of all fines simply by changing the amount of one “quota.”

_____________

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

Cuban Health Workers Denounce the ‘Collapse’ of the Hospitals in Matanzas

In recent days, complaints from health workers working in Matanzas hospitals have multiplied. (Facebook / Pedro Betancourt)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 6 June 2021 — The authorities insist that they will double the number of intensive care beds in the province of Matanzas, which today is at the forefront of COVID infections in Cuba. In addition, the Minister of Public Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda, said that they will send the 6th year Medical students who have passed their exams into the hospitals.

The situation, they acknowledge, will get worse. “We must be prepared for an increase, greater than the increase we have had with respect to other stages,” said Joel Queipo Ruiz, a member of the Secretariat of the Party’s Central Committee on Monday.

“The concern is greater given the increase in cases among pediatric ages, although none are in serious condition,” reports the official press.

In turn, Vice Minister Jorge Luis Tapia Fonseca conceded that one of the main problems of the people of Matanzas is “the quality of patient care,” for which he urged an increase in the number of isolation centers and a “comprehensive” increase the conditions of these. continue reading

In recent days, complaints from health workers have multiplied in Matanzas, where the island’s main tourist destination, Varadero, is located, and 5,831 patients were reported in the last week.

In the corridors of the Julio M. Aristegui de Cárdenas hospital, Matanzas, beds are piling up due to the increase in Covid cases. (Screenshots / collage)

A nurse from the Faustino Pérez hospital in the provincial capital who says his name is Javier Alejandro Velázquez Hernández denounces that the hospitals have “collapsed.”

“I want them to tell me where these conditions are, when the hospital does not even have a stretcher to receive a patient in the emergency room,” he writes in a post published this Monday on social networks, in which he also warns that the center is “without water for more than six hours in two periods of the day.”

In the emergency room there are more than 50 people “between relatives and patients,” without being able to admit the patients. “We are working on a razor’s edge with Covid-positive patients,” he protests.

“Do not deceive the people any more, do not expose your staff any more,” he lashes out at the authorities. “They spend it in office meetings, but no one gives solutions. This is a chronicle of a death foretold.”

Similarly, a video published by CubaNet this Sunday showed how the Julio M. Aristegui hospital, in the municipality of Cárdenas, is at its capacity limit, with stretchers and patients accumulating in the corridors.

The independent newspaper also recalled that other hospitals in the province, such as the Echevarría polyclinic, in Cárdenas, or the Mario Muñoz Monroy hospital, in Colón, are in a similar situation.

The numbers of positives in Matanzas include a growing number of Russians, who expressed their outrage on social media at being “imprisoned” at their hotels in Varadero. Local employees, however, had complained to 14ymedio that these tourists represent a risk, since they do not wear a mask or respect security measures.

____________

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

The Military Leadership is Dedicated to Repression and ‘Does Not Understand Anything About Today’s Cuba’

Among the protests carried out by Cuban women in June are those of the neighbors of “Mr. Joe’s tenement,” due to the flooding of their houses last Monday. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 2 July 2021 — Despite the restriction measures related to the Covid pandemic and systematic harassment by State Security, which keeps the main political activists jailed or under house arrest, protests in Cuba grew in June. The Cuban Conflict Observatory (OCC), in a report published this Friday, counts 249 protests, more than 8 a day, a slight increase compared to the 231 in May.

Among them, the OCC highlights the role of women. Women “are present in the front line of street protests, in campaigns of squatting in empty premises to turn them into temporary housing, in protests against the abandonment of healthcare system, the shortage of food and drugs, the cultural resistance of the artists, the protests on social media, the cacerolazos [banging of pots and pans in protest], and the painting of slogans in public spaces taking advantage of the darkness of the blackout.” A notable protest carried out by Cuban women in June was that of the neighbors of “Mr. Joe’s tenement,” due to the flooding of their houses.

The demonstrations against the state of the health system, a traditional crown jewel for official propaganda, are unprecedented. There were some 46 protests of this type in June, against the state of the hospitals, compulsory confinement centers for the exposed or positive, and the absence of basic medicines, shows, for the OCC, that “another essential pillar of the symbolic capital is crumbling: there is no ’health for all’, only for a few.” continue reading

Another fact that the Miami-based NGO highlights is that, also for the first time, the 133 protests related to economic and social rights outnumbered the 116 political protests.

In ten months, from September 2020 (in which there were 42 protests) until this June, there have been a total of 1,525 protests throughout the Island, explains the Observatory, which also highlights the increase in individual protests “from different sectors of society.” In this regard, it gives as examples the priest from Camagüey Fernando Gálvez, the doctor from Holguin Alexander Pupo Casas, and the poet from Havana Katherine Bisquet.

The OCC says that “the new civil society is maturing and looking for new strategies to achieve its demands,” after highlighting the call made by the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, leader of the San Isidro Movement. “We have to look for new ways, new ways where the regime does not have space.”

The regime, meanwhile, has only one answer: repression, and trying to “divert the attention of the public and the international press with thematic distractions.” The Observatory gives as an example the “announcement of an unexpected currency exchange.”

The OCC concludes in its statement that the Cuban military leadership continues “without understanding anything”: “The Cuba of 2021 is not the same that they subdued in 1961 and they are still mentally prisoners of the KGB and Stasi manuals,” it states, adding, “The origin of the ungovernability is not the CIA or the opposition but the obsolete, unproductive, exclusive, repressive governance regime that is dying among the lethal blows.”

____________

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

Hundreds of Motorcyclists in Santiago de Cuba Struggle to Get Gasoline

A crowd of desperate drivers hoping to fill their gas tanks at a service station in Santiago de Cuba.

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Alberto Hernández, Santiago de Cuba, July 1, 2021 — “I’ve been here since Thursday morning. It’s now Tuesday and I am still waiting,” complains one customer, a motorcyclist among a crowd of desperate riders hoping to fill their gas tanks at the La Cubana service station in Santiago de Cuba in front of Antonio Maceo Plaza in Santiago de Cuba.

The situation became utterly chaotic on Tuesday when the city’s gasoline shortage suddenly worsened. “I spent the entire day on Tuesday, from six in the morning, at the station in Trocha. By five in the afternoon, I was still waiting,” says Jose Antonio, who rides a Suzuki motorcycle. “I’m seeing the same situation today but I won’t think about leaving until I can buy some gas.”

Motorcyclists are among those most affected. Without access to a reliable supply of gasoline, they cannot transport passengers or merchandise, their only source of income. continue reading

On February 1 the government imposed new taxes on fuels. Drivers with commercial licenses are allotted 160 liters of gasoline a month, a little more than five liters a day, at a cheaper price than other drivers pay. The measure has had no practical impact, however, due to ongoing fuel shortages.

“I still don’t have gasoline for work. There’s less than a liter in my tank and this is the only place in all of Santiago that has it,” laments Jose Antonio.

The shortage has caused fuel prices on the black market to skyrocket. “Over the weekend I bought six liters at 50 pesos a liter because I couldn’t get any after waiting in line at the Cupet station in Quintero,” says Alejandro, another commercially licensed motorcyclist who has been waiting in line with a 20-liter jug. “When gasoline is scarce, there’s no other option than to buy it on the black market at a premium. The seller sets the price he wants, depending on the demand, but generally it’s around 50 pesos a liter.”

Roberto, another motorcyclist, opts for the most expensive grade of fuel because it has been more readily available. But this resource is also about to run out. “I decided to get the B90. It’s a little more expensive but it’s easier to find than the B83, which is what most drivers use. But now you can’t find either. Authorities are prioritizing the B83 but it’s only for commercial drivers,” he says.

Neither the long line nor Tuesday’s heavy downpour were enough to dissuade the crowd from showing up at the gas station. They are not alone in their anxiety. The city’s population at large is being severely impacted by the fuel shortage.

Ana needed to take food to a sick relative and was trying to get to her destination as quickly as usual but that was impossible. “After waiting for forty-five minutes at Barca de Oro Park, a driver showed up. I asked him to take me to the provincial hospital. He said the ride would cost 50 pesos, 20 more than I normally pay for this trip,” she says.

“That’s how much I just paid for gas. If you notice, there aren’t any motorcycles on the street, much less motorcycles carrying passengers,” the driver told her. Ultimately, Ana did not have any choice but to pay what he was asking to get her to her destination.

____________

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