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In the dismantling of the criminal network of home warehouses, the police seized “agricultural products, fruits, corn, rice, meat,” and a “considerable numbers of toiletry, cleaning and hardware articles.”

In the 187 operations carried out, official seized 534,007 pounds of onions, 22,554 of tomatoes, 17,844 of rice, 2,872 of chili, 2,426 of beans, 1,814 of potatoes, 1,100 of sweet potatoes and 1,290 pounds of beef and pork. Also seized were 36,462 boxes of cigarettes and 7,828 of toiletries.

The police told Escambray that the “confrontation” they is carrying out aims to “restrict all transgressive behaviors” and crimes that affect the economy of the country and of citizens.

During the first five months of the year they also imposed 278 fines on state and private workers, who are mainly engaged in commerce, food service and the sale of agricultural products. The total amount of these penalties, established in Decree 30 that sets the pricing policy, exceeds 900,500 pesos.

At the beginning of September last year, a Cabaiguán resident was sentenced to ten months in prison for illicit economic activity within a network that sold essential items on digital platforms.

A few days later, sources from the Ministry of the Interior of Sancti Spíritus denounced on Cuban Television another illegal network dedicated to the repackaging and sale of powdered milk. Four people were arrested in the police operation, including three officials from the state dairy company Río Zaza.

In the last year in official media, with unusual frequency, the Government has published criminal acts related to the crisis in the country. In addition, it does not miss the opportunity to hold coleros* and resellers responsible for the worsening of the shortage and to issue warnings to other informal traders.

*Translator’s note: From the word “cola,” for “line,” coleros are people paid by others to stand in line for them.

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Despite technical difficulties, which prevented the presence of several members in the presentation, diversity prevailed in the composition of the Council, which “does not pretend to represent everyone, but is open to the participation of social, cultural and political actors, who want to place within the same basket of initiatives a set of actions, proposals and concerted ideas for democratic change.”

The advisor to the Council’s Foreign Relations Secretariat, Ernesto Gutiérrez Tamargo, specified that the initiative is an open entity that wants everyone to be part of its structures.

Gutiérrez explained that “there is a hierarchical organization because someone has to take charge of the organization.” The first people to make the list are there for “merit, experience, work time and the ability to devote themselves to the fight for freedom, democracy and human rights in Cuba.” He added that many more people have been spoken to and that some have chosen to “stay in second place.”

In Gutierrez Tamargo’s opinion, the recent European Parliament resolution on human rights and the political situation in Cuba “gave legitimacy to the Cuban opposition” to serve as an interlocutor with organizations and even governments of other countries.

The Council for the Democratic Transition is chaired by José Daniel Ferrer (Patriotic Union of Cuba) and among the nine vice presidents are Manuel Cuesta (Progressive Arch/Cuba En Plural) and Félix Navarro (Pedro Luis Boitel Democracy Party)

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The consular section of Cuba in Mexico City echoed the new measures through its social networks, explaining that, for island residents, packages “may be purchased through national travel agencies, before travel abroad, or reserved from abroad through the tour operators that market the destination Cuba.”

Durán justified the new measures due to the number of cases “in many countries with which we have relations.” The official did not specify, but Cubans mostly use the airports of Ciego de Ávila and Varadero to travel to Russia, as a final destination or to connect to other destinations, due to the limitation on flights that the Government implemented since the beginning of the year to stop the outbreak of Covid-19.

By this same route, hundreds of nationals return to the island, many of them — popularly known as ’mules’ — dedicated to the business of importing merchandise to resell in the informal market.

At the same time, the virulence of the third wave of Covid in Cuba does not cease, and Durán himself acknowledged that May, with 35,701 patients positive for the coronavirus, was “the worst month of the epidemic in the national territory, since in March of last year when the first three infections with Sars-CoV-2 were reported.”

After setting a record last Tuesday, with 1,537 positives registered on that day, the latest official report from the Ministry of Public Health shows, this Thursday, 1,418 new cases and 5 deaths. There is a total of 163,415 cases and 1,123 deaths.

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The Temporary Working Group, the agency handling the public health emergency, announced that motorcycles would only be allowed to carry paying passengers during the hours public transport in operating. They are considering whether or not to allow motorcyclists, with or without commercial licenses, to transport family members with whom they are living.

Authorities say the decision is intended to “alleviate the transportation needs” for city residents.

“As in times past, motorcyclists are still doing the rounds and avoiding the traffic police by operating mainly in areas outside the city center, like Santa Maria, Boniato and Caney,” reports one young man who works in construction in the city.

“Thanks to the motorcycles a lot of us are able to get around because public transport only runs for a few hours a day and you have to fight for your life to use it,” he adds.

As of May 26, public transport may operate for six hours a day, from 5 A.M to 8 A.M and from 4 P.M. to 7 P.M. Only vehicles which are distributing essential goods, transporting flour, or being used by Public Health personel for administrative functions may operate outside those hours.

On Saturday, Santiago de Cuba reported 180 new cases of Covid, putting it behind Havana at 422 cases and Matanzas at 192, on a day that saw a record 1,470 new infections. On that same day there were 12 deaths due to complications associated with the infection for a total of 1,087 deaths from Covid-19 on the island.

The Public Health Ministry announced on Sunday that it has recorded 157,708 positive Covid test results since March 2020. Since early May, new daily infections of SARS-CoV-2 have averaged more than a thousand, with 1,198 cases in June so far.

On Sunday, Cuba, with a population of 11.2 million, reached a Covid case rate of 152 per 100,000 inhabitants according to the Spanish news agency EFE.

Controlled trials of the two of the five vaccines developed in Cuba, Abdala and Sovereign 02, are being conducted in high-risk areas of the country.

Both pharmaceuticals are in the final phase of clinical trials, which determine the efficacy of a potential vaccine. They have not yet received emergency use authorization from the country’s regulatory agency but authorities are hoping to obtain it this month once the results of the clinical trials are known. If one or both are shown to be effective, a massive vaccination campaign will begin.

Cuba is not part of the COVAX project, a vaccine program created by the World Health Organization which allows low and medium-income countries to acquire vaccines they have not been able buy on the world market.

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After the journalist’s arrest, his family and the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and Press (Iclep) denounced that he was missing. Once released, Suárez said on his social networks that he was transferred to the police station at 7th and 62nd in Havana’s Playa municipality.

The journalist’s family told 14ymedio that they were looking for him at the police stations closest to his home, in the Siboney district, and did not get information on his whereabouts. Iclep recalled that Suárez “has been besieged lately for his work” and for denouncing “the repressive forces for their methods of torturing independent activists and journalists.”

On the other hand, Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca, director of the Delibera digital platform, remains under arrest since June 15, first at the Zapata y C station, in El Vedado, and later in Villa Marista, according to family members and activists.

Valle Roca, a day before his arrest, published on the Delibera YouTube channel, a video of the tossing out of leaflets at the central corner of Zanja and Galiano, in Centro Habana, on the occasion of the celebration of Antonio Maceo’s birthday.

This Thursday, Eralidis Frometa, a human rights activist and wife of the independent journalist, denounced that several agents searched the house they share.

Also still remaining in pridon is the independent reporter Esteban Rodríguez, who was transferred from the Guanajay maximum security prison to a hospital in Havana on Tuesday, where he was admitted after testing positive for Covid-19.

Rodríguez, a journalist for ADN Cuba, was one of those arrested on April 30 in the peaceful demonstration on Obispo Street, in which Mary Karla Ares, a contributor to the community media outlet Amanecer Habanero, was also arrested. The reporter was able to return home under “home confinement” and denounced that, during the 27 days she spent in prison, she was the victim of “long hours of interrogation” and “psychological torture.”

Likewise, the CiberCuba activist and reporter Iliana Hernández has been besieged at her house by the police and State Security agents for about 70 days. In addition to being forbidden to go out, they have also cut off her mobile data internet service.

In the month of May alone, the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights documented more than 900 violent actions, something that, they denounce, confirms a “broader and more personalized repression” against civil society with the aim of “silencing all dissent.”

After the increase in repression by the regime in the first five months of the year, some activists and organizations consider that the country is experiencing “a new version of the Black Spring” of 2003.

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Agustín Garrido Ramos took advantage of the early ripening and together with his family picked the mangoes on Farm 17, but the days passed and neither the UBPC directors nor Acopio did anything to collect the harvest. The only response that the farmer heard, after calls and negotiations, was: “Separate out the rotting mangoes and measure it in boxes and take photos of it, so when Acopio comes to collect it, the evidence is available.”

Ten days later, on June 7, the official entities collected part of the merchandise, by which time 320 boxes (12,800 pounds) had gone bad. “I gave up on harvesting it. To have it piled up here and see how it is rotting, I just leave it. It hurts to see how food is lost and we can’t even give it away,” complains Garrido Ramos.

The same happened with the Montaña Téllez harvest on Farm 12. Of the 165 boxes that he was able to collect, only 35 could be used, the rest were lost.

Elio Veny Martínez González, president of the local UBPC, told the local newspaper that they were going to “make a demand” to the State to pay them the money they lost and to ensure that the workers would not remain unpaid.

“A breakdown at the El Mambí canning factory coincided with the days of early ripening and there was no destination for the fruit we had already harvested. We told Acopio and the provincial government but there was no solution. This product is very expensive in the establishments and for that reason it is offered for sale slowly,” explains Martínez González.

According to the local newspaper, the company Conservas de Vegetales de Camagüey cannot process all the mango production in the territory due to limited industrial capacity, lack of packaging and repeated breakdowns in one of the main factories, El Mambí, where the machinery they are working with is 50 years old.

Two other plants were only able to process “400 tons, more than the 100 planned” in May, and for this month they will exceed “800, of the estimated 200,” according to the directors of Conservas de Vegetales.

The farmers of the affected UBPC, after much fighting, requested a permit from the Council of the Administration of the municipality to sell 90 boxes in the Puerto Príncipe and La Belén districts, “but a week after having the mango harvested,” says Martínez González.

For his part, Orestes Martínez Hernández, who is in charge of the harvest in the production unit, says that Acopio “does not have the capacity to move everything.” However, he insists: “We are in the best disposition to work the shifts that are necessary and until whatever hour, so that it is not lost.”

Added to this problem with transportation is that, coincidentally, this UBPC, which owns one of the 32 mini-industries in the province subordinate to the Ministry of Agriculture with the capacity to process 200 quintals (1 quintal = 33 acres) a day, cannot do so due to the lack of packaging.

The loss of tons of mango coincides with a rise in its price in markets throughout the island, where the fruit sells for between 6 and 15 pesos a pound, depending on its quality. Despite the increase in wages as of January this year, many retirees and low-income people cannot afford one of the most emblematic fruits of the Cuban countryside.

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This information echoes a statement the president of Cadeca, Joaquin Alonso Vazquez, made on Sunday to the official press, in which he said the company was diversifying its retail services after the government announced that customers would no longer be allowed to deposit U.S. banknotes in their accounts.

Alonso Vazquez indicated that, although he foresees a shift in the retail sector to other foreign currencies, the company was diversifying the range of services it provides. These involve “operational capabilities and alliances” with ONAT, the banking and postal systems, utility companies that provide electricity, water and mobile phone services, the credit card company Fincimex and the oil company Cuba Petroleo, “to offer their services through Cadeca offices.”

Alonso Vazquez stated that sales are high at stores that sell goods or services for Cuban pesos so the company is setting up operations, known as third-party deposits, with state-owned businesses to confirm customers’ bank accounts.

The only service he did not mention was the sale of pre-paid gasoline cards, which are currently not available in all provinces.

In late May the government suspended the operations of currency exchange bureaus at the country’s international airports, claiming it had run out of cash. Executives at Cadeca said that they had been operating within established limits despite a “significant shortage” of hard currency but had to shut down due to a “lack of liquidity” which had reached an “extremely unsustainable level.”

Only two weeks ago, on June 10, authorities announced they would temporarily stop accepting cash bank deposits in dollars, blaming tighter U.S. sanctions imposed as part of the ongoing U.S economic embargo, which prevent the country’s central bank from using dollars it collects in Cuba overseas.

Cadeca offices became an essential feature of Cuban life in the 1990s when use of the dollar became widespread throughout the country. The company opened branches in major cities, tourist destinations and neighborhoods. Their importance has diminished in recent years, however, especially with the unification of the Cuban peso (CUP) with the Cuban convertible peso (CUC), which is being taken out of circulation.

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The document also indicates that last month the non-payment of fines, together with the crimes of contempt, public disorder, disobedience, spread of epidemic, illicit economic activity or pre-criminal dangerousness, have been used to imprison and “remove from circulation” dissidents and human rights defenders.

The Havana-based organization explains that it is “very difficult” to collect information on political prisoners because, due to the Covid pandemic, prison visits are prohibited. The report also mentions “an outbreak of coronavirus” in the provincial prison of Sancti Spíritus where, according to reports, they have placed restrictions on visits and phone calls from prisoners so that information is not leaked, a “very difficult” situation for inmates.

People who are constantly besieged by the government and its repressive forces and who are not allowed to leave their homes without even having been given any document issued by the authorities, are also detailed in the report.

The Center also mentions the threat made by prosecutor José Luis Reyes Blanco on national television, when he said that opponents of the regime who are outside the island could be prosecuted and extradited so that they could be held criminally responsible for a crime committed.

With regards to “harassment” against the activists, the NGO details that it has been carried out on 102 people, 10 more than the previous month, and also notes that “repressive actions are increasingly intense.”

As an example, it cites the case of the reporter and activist Iliana Hernández Cardosa, who has had a police cordon around her home for more than two months, and those of Iván Hernández Carrillo, the Ladies in White, the members of the Patriotic Union of Cuba and of the Opposition Movement for a New Republic, who have been under siege for the entire month.

Regarding the economy and the crisis that the country is experiencing, the report indicates that every day “the amount of products and services” that are sold in foreign currency in state stores increases, as do “people’s complaints about exorbitant product prices.”

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However, the vegetable oil crisis in the city has been dragging on since last year. Dunia says that before January, several times he paid 80 pesos for a pound of oil. With the rise in prices associated with the ‘Ordering Task’*, it became not only scarce, but “almost unattainable,” he says. In addition, in the stores that only accept payment in freely convertible currency (MLC) they hardly sell the product and the little that is sold in the network of stores in pesos “already has owners.”

“There are no possibilities for people to buy the little oil the stores put on the shelves because resellers monopolize the line. Here we have to buy everything at a premium. The street sellers don’t give anyone else a chance to buy anything and then they sell things at triple or quadruple their value,” adds the Santiaguan.

With the refinery shut down, the authorities warned that the unrationed sale of the product will be affected and that they will only be able to include oil in the basic market basket sold through the ration stores for the month of July. Santiago’s industry supplies that province and also Las Tunas, Granma and Guantánamo.

Although Durán assured that there is already a ship sailing to the port of Santiago with the raw material, he expects the cycle of regulated distribution to be reestablished next month, but did not refer to whether the sale in the network of state stores will stabilize.

Vegetable oil is widely used in Cuban kitchens, mainly sunflower, soybean and corn, a use that has been expanding as the traditional fat, mainly from pork, disappears from recipes, a sector in decline due to the lack of of animal feed.

Cuban culinary culture also abounds in fried foods and the lack of other products, such as sauces, various condiments or various dressings, force families to use vegetable oil in many dishes, a practice that several studies indicate as harmful to health due to its link to obesity.

However, in Cuba the lack of vegetable oil for cooking is associated in the popular mentality with the crisis, such as the one that the island went through in the 90s. Having to boil food or cook it “without fat” is considered by the vast majority of Cubans as a sign of misery and lack of resources.

In other eastern Cuban cities such as Baracoa, in Guantánamo, a liter of oil is sold on the black market for 200 pesos, and in Holguín, a resident of the Sagua de Tánamo municipality reports it is selling at “300 pesos and continues to rise.”

“There are many things here that have already changed their status. Science fiction literature in Cuba now is no longer about aliens or robot technology that is going to end the universe, here science fiction is oil, chicken, rice; and beans, corn, sweet potatoes enter into ancient and medieval literature, that is, they are only memories,” joked the man from Holguin.

Erasol is the only industry on the island that processes edible oil, while the companies located in Camagüey and Havana are only dedicated to packaging.

In the Cuban capital, at the beginning of last May, several complaints gained force on social networks after some Internet users published images of one-liter bottles of oil, made in Russia, with a label that read that the sale of the product because it belongs to a lot of donations from the United Nations World Food Program (WFP).

The Ministry of Internal Trade then alleged that breakage in the domestic industry had prevented the product from being bottled for sale on the rationed market and that they would replace the WFP bottles as soon as possible.

*Translator’s note: The ‘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. 

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It adds that this measure is intended to protect the Cuban banking and financial system and only applies to U.S. currency in cash, not to dollar denominated bank accounts or existing accounts in this currency, “which will not be affected in any way.”

The BCC claims that, for more than a year, it has been restricted from depositing U.S. dollars collected within Cuba’s borders in international banks.

The bank also claims that it is becoming increasingly difficult for Cuba to find international institutions willing “to receive, convert, or process cash” in the form of dollars because of “the extra-territorial effects of the blockade and additional measures adopted by the United States.”

“This is not about penalizing people for having dollars. What we are saying is that we have a problem with banks overseas,” BCC president Marta Sabina Wilson González said on Cuban TV’s Roundtable program, adding that Cubans had until June 20 to deposit foreign cash in their bank accounts

Carlos Fernández de Cossío, director general of U.S. affairs at the Cuban Foreign Ministry, added that the reason for this decision is “the blockade,” whose aim, he noted, is to “depress foreign earnings and people’s standard of living.” U.S. measures towards Cuba, he observed, were intensified four years ago during the Donald Trump administration and have so far remained unchanged under Joe Biden.

The official statement concludes by noting that how long this measure remains in effect “will depend on the lifting of restrictions that impede normal procedures for exporting American currency.”

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