14ymedio – Page 131 – Translating Cuba

A Review of Books by Cuban Authors Published this January

After consulting with a number of publishers and reviewers, 14ymedio offers here a selection of the new editions of 2023. (Collage)

14ymedio, Madrid, 1 February 2023 — Spanish and Latin American bookshops have already taken delivery of the latest titles by Cuban authors — writers such as Armando Lucas Correa, Abraham Jiménez Enoa and Joel Franz Rosell. Reissues of earlier editions and books by new young writers have also appeared this January. After consulting with a number of publishers and reviewers, 14ymedio offers here a selection of the new editions of 2023.

The Morro lighthouse that overlooks Havana’s port features on the cover of La viajera nocturna (The Night Traveller) (Ediciones B), Armando Lucas Correa’s most recent novel. The book is an emotive exploration of the connections between the individual and history, through the eyes of four women in constant displacement during the twentieth century.

From 1930s Nazi Germany to Batista’s Havana, Correa tells of human beings’ will to survive, and how family memories play a part in the decisions of his protagonists.

The journalist Abraham Jiménez Enoa, who has just won the Michael Jacobs Scholarship for Travel Writing with a project about his first year in exile, publishes La isla oculta (The Hidden Island) (Libros del K.O) – a collection of articles with the subtitle Historias de Cuba (Cuban Stories). Jiménez Enoa follows the trail of some of the characters who remain part of Havana life, like the gigolo who’s main aspiration is to leave both his country and his profession, or the suicide who tries to recover a sense of meaning in a harsh city.

Speaking about The Hidden Island, in an interview with Jorge Ramos the author said “What I’m trying to show is the subterranean Cuba, that everyday Cuba which everyone knows, where scarcity happens for a reason, shortages, lack of medicine and lack of human rights — all happen for a reason. After having put together this ’compendium’, it’s obvious to me why people are leaving Cuba”.

Joel Franz Rosell, already known as an author of classic children’s literature in Cuba, won the French Ville de Cherbourg prize in 2000 with his novel Mi tesoro te espera en Cuba (My Treasure Awaits You in Cuba), re-published this month by Verbum. A little girl’s trip to Cuba has the secret motive of searching for a supposed treasure which her great grand uncle hid on the island before escaping from Castro in 1959. The publisher presents it as a story of “adventure, mystery, complicated romance and a variety of challenges to the bonds of friendship”.

This month the same publisher revived the historical and perceptive Memoria sobre la vagancia en la Isla de Cuba (A Report on Vagrancy on the Island of Cuba), by José Antonio Saco. This book, one of the most brutal nineteenth century analyses of Cuban society, discussed the vices, customs and interests of the Creole people, and proposed a way of better organising the country.

With the collection of poetry Los dias (The Days) (Homagno), the Camagüeyan writer Mario Ramírez continues the work he began in 2019 with his book Corolarios (Corollaries). “Romantic experience, all of the plans made over time that go on to trip us up, our resources of faith or of intelligence, this or that truth or doubt — all these, according to Rafael Almanza, are Ramírez’s themes, whose conclusions are that, in the middle of a dismal-seeming reality, there will still be, nevertheless, “a lyre” (musical instrument).

The novel Náufrago del tiempo (Time’s Castaway) (Verbum), by the writer and 14ymedio columnist Xavier Carbonell, is a meditation on the Island’s destiny, a “fable” — according to literary critic Roberto González Echevarría — whose protagonist encounters “a labyrinth of symbols, lost paradises, monasteries, pirate ships and ruined cities”.

Since the pandemic the Island has suffered a publishing crisis, and, although a recovery might be signalled by the 31st Havana International Book Fair (the Cuban Book Institute promised to market 4,000 titles), it’s unlikely that the work of Cuban publishers will be in the forefront of the event.

Dedicated to Colombia this year, as an invitee country, and to the theme of “inclusive reading”, the fair will be held during the period 9-19 February in its regular settings: in San Carlos de la Cabaña castle and its surroundings, and in Havana’s Historic Centre.

Among the hundred-year-old writers who will be celebrated at the event are Fina García Marruz – who died in 2022 aged 99 — and the geographer and explorer Antonio Núñez Jiménez. Homage will also be paid to Julio Travieso Serrano, recipient of the 2021 National Literature Prize, and the librarian Araceli García Carranza.

During the fair, the winners of the 2023 Alejo Carpentier Prize and the 2023 Nicolás Guillen Prize will be presented. The 2022 storytelling winners were Rogelio Riverón, for Cuarenta vasos de vodka (Forty Glasses of Vodka); Francisco López Sácha, for the novel Voy a escribir la eternidad (I’m Going to Write Eternity); and Joaquín Borges Triana, author of the essay Socorro, no soy subversivo (Help! I’m Not a Subversive). The winner of the Nicolás Guillén Prize was Carlos Esquivel, author of the poetry collection La guagua de Babel (The Babel Bus).

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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In Cuba Cardinal Stella Asks for ‘Freedom’ for the July 11th (11J) Prisoners

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, February 8, 2023 — On Wednesday in Havana, Cardinal Beniamino Stella, Pope Francis’s envoy, requested the release of Cubans who participated in the antigovernment protests on July 11, 2021.

Stella made these statements toward the end of his visit to Cuba, where he recalled the trip Pope John Paul II made to the country 25 years ago, at the time considered an historic gesture.

“The pope very much desires for there to be a positive response” from the Cuban government to the Church’s requests for the release of the convicted protesters, stated the cardinal in statements to the credentialed media on the Island.

In this regard, he believes that whether it is legally defined as amnesty or clemency is secondary because “words can also be secondary.”

“But it is important that young people who at one time expressed their thoughts in the manner we know can return to their homes,” he highlighted.

The cardinal assured that during his visit to Cuba he was able to express to Cuban authorities this “desire” of the Church and he expressed a wish that from this “useful and positive moment” that is his trip “new things will emerge for the Cuban people.”

Shortly before this, during a speech at the University of Havana in front of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, Pope Francis’s envoy underscored that “freedom cannot be subordinated to any calculation of interests, circumstances, waiting for better times.” continue reading

He added that Cuba “should be free of all interference,” but he also encourages “its children to be free men and women.” Freedom, he added, must allow for material and spiritual growth.

Stella called for “promoting reconciliation and brotherhood” from “diversity” and not “a similarity of ideas”, and called for a “culture of encounter” that encourages the creation of “bridges” over which “to travel in common.”

In his declarations to the media, the cardinal called on the role of dialogue, from “kindness and respect,” is his conversations with high ranking Cuban officials as well as in relations between Havana and the United States. “Solutions can be found by speaking,” he stated.

The Vatican wishes that “those who have power could talk, and could mutually listen,” stated Stella, because “from there could emerge things that benefit the Cuban people.”

“Hopefully it will happen and happen soon (this dialogue) and it can become an important step for many advances which the Cuban people really need. There are things that should be done and done soon,” he added.

He also referenced the strong migration currently occurring in Cuba, which has lost about 3% of its population in 2022 alone, mainly due to the severe economic crisis, but also due to political repression.

The pontife’s envoy asked for Cubans to be able to make “their hopes and desires” a reality in their country and for young people to achieve their “dreams.”

Pope Francis was one of the international architects of the rapprochement between the United States and Cuba between 2014 and 2017, with former Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro, a phase known as the thaw.

However, the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House ended that process and, in fact, reversed it with the application of new sanctions — added to those already in place — and the inclusion of Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

In the last few months there has been a discrete and pragmatic rapprochement between the two countries in different areas of common interest, such as migration and national security and some of the latest sanctions have been lifted by Washington.

Stella arrived in Cuba on January 23rd on a trip framed by the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s pastoral trip to Cuba, the first pope to visit the Island. Later two of his successors, Benedict XVI and Francis, visited Cuba.

After the first few days in Havana, during which he had the opportunity to meet some high ranking Cuban government officials, Stella began a trip to visit every Catholic diocese in the country and interview those in charge.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Despite the Triumphalist Discourse of the Government, Women Have a Minor Role in the Cuban Economy

Women have been employed more in the state sector, which, according to Cubadebate, decreases their chances of starting their own business. (EFE)

14ymedio, Madrid, 30 January 2023 — Just 23.3% of the members of the 4,096 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) approved by the Cuban Government at the end of June 2022 were women. The data, offered this Sunday by Cubadebate, dedicated to analyzing the gender gap, joins other data that show that women are far from occupying the role that the official press attributes to them every March 8, when it boasts of the predominant place they have reached “thanks to the Revolution.”

A report by the consulting firm Auge has analyzed 100 MSMEs they advised and of the 178 partners of those businesses, 66% are men and 34% are women. The study warns of another inequality, the predominant profile is that of men aged 30 to 55 years old and they are also the ones who have the most stakes in companies with more than one partner.

Other official data, although in this case from five years ago, are those released by the National Bureau of Statistics and Information (Onei), which placed the gender gap at 27%. The rate of male economic activity in 2018 was 76.9%, while the female rate barely reached 49.5%, with less employment in rural areas.

The official newspaper also notes in this article the miserable monthly salary of the state sector in that year, which was 777 pesos (32 dollars with the exchange rate current for that date).

Ileana Díaz, a professor at the University of Havana and coordinator of her Entrepreneurship Network, tells Cubadebate that the situation with regard to companies only conveys to the sector what was already happening in self-employment, a precursor of private business on the Island. Some 30% of those who worked on their own were women and most — she indicates without specifying the figure — did so as employees of the business owner and not as owners. continue reading

“They have less accumulated capital than men; not only financial, but also social, relational, which prevents them from moving more easily in the business and business world,” emphasizes the economist.

Few women have the 100,000 pesos on average that new businesses declare according to Auge data, says the article, attributing that lack to the fact that it is more common for men to own properties, such as cars or houses, whose sale can provide them with that initial capital.

The note shows the recognition that the public sector has been a factor of increase in the gender gap in Cuba, since it considers that women have less “relational capital” because they have worked more for the state “and almost always as officials or specialists and not in a management or decision-making position.”

They also attribute it to the widespread assumption of household chores and family care, something that the Revolution allegedly also aspired to leave behind. “Cuban society is better prepared than others to implement affirmative actions that favor access to economic spaces without discrimination, since the equality of people is a generalized value and verified in the laws,” says the Cubadebate article, which also starts by resorting to the embargo as an excuse.

The worsening of the island’s economic situation, which they attribute to the increase in US sanctions and the pandemic – which in turn have caused tourism to plunge “and put various stumbling blocks into the process of economic order” — worsens even more an already worse situation for women in employment, says the article.

“The tense economic situations of recent decades have made family daily life very challenging and overloaded, above all, for women,” says the article, which calls for thinking with a gender perspective when addressing “economic transformations.”

Although the gender gap is a feature common to all countries, with greater or lesser intensity, the recognition clashes with the traditional discourse of the regime, which it affirmed last March 8th in an article for Women’s Day. “It would be enough to look around us today to see in important political and state positions, of the economy, health, science and technology, education, diplomacy, parliament, sport, mass organizations, defense and security bodies, in everything, the special and often majority presence of women.”

The text also recalled the words of Fidel Castro, who had already stated in 1959. “When our Revolution is judged in future years, one of the issues for which we will be judged will be the way in which we have solved, in our society and in our homeland, the problems of women, even if it is one of the problems of the Revolution that require more tenacity, more firmness, more perseverance and effort.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The 111 Million Dollar Russian Loan to Cuba Revives Antillana de Acero, a Huge Energy Consumer

The roof of the steel mill, with a maximum height of 148 feet and a total extension of 88,583 feet, could only be 40% repaired. (Granma)

14ymedio, Havana, 4 February 2023 — With the credit of 111 million dollars, offered by Russia to Cuba in 2017, the integral repair of Antillana de Acero has been achieved. Now, the experts say that it remains to be seen how, in a country that lives to the rhythm of blackouts, the enormous amount of electrical energy necessary to run the ovens, cranes and other equipment will be obtained.

Interviewed by the official State newspaper Granma, the CEO of Antillana, Reinier Guillén Otero, confirmed that the situation of his company was “critical.” They had been negotiating with Russia for years over the financing of the repair, which was approved five years ago. The result, rather than restoring, was to replace, in practice, the entire structure of the factory.

The Russian credit was distributed to 54 projects, calculated Guillén, including steelmaking, which needed the “most expensive and dangerous” process. The roof of the steel mill, with a maximum height of 148 feet and a total extension of 88,583 feet, could be only 40% repaired.

The renovation of the streets, the foundations of the plant and other common spaces needed 1,099,868 gallons of “high-strength” concrete. The cranes of the installation, essential for the transfer of the scrap, and the oven to melt the steel were also repaired. continue reading

The work should be completed by August of this year, although managers admit that important steps are still missing in the assembly of new cranes, the installation of some equipment and the general works of the factory. However, Granma’s report avoids calculating how Antillana de Acero will deal with the instability of the National Electricity System.

Aristides, an electrical engineer, worked for 22 years in the factory and received with concern the news that the colossus is producing again. “It is a huge consumer of electricity because it has electric arc furnaces that consume a lot of energy. In addition, the traveling cranes necessary to move the loads are 100% electric. In other words, it is to be expected that this entry into operation will strain the energy situation,” he tells 14ymedio.

The retired engineer recalls the structure of the plant, which he considers “a small town within the city,” with its large rolling workshop and another of machining, a continuous emptying installation, which converts the liquid metal into the so-called billets that once achieved are passed through giant rollers that compress them until they are converted into steel bars.”

Arístides, who knows the energy cost involved in the start-up of Antillana de Acero, believes that “if they are going to reactivate production it is because they already have a safe foreign contract with a country or company that is going to buy the steel.” From the million-dollar investment made by Russia, it could be speculated that part of the product will end up in the Eurasian country.

Inquiring about the military use of Cuban steel, Aristides believes that “it does not have the quality to be used in armaments because it is a carbon steel” although he recalls that at “at one time grenades were made for the training of the MTT (Militia of Territorial Troops), but it was very brief. There was tremendous paranoia at first but in the end — like everything in this country — the workers ended up even using the grenades as paperweights in the offices.”

“There has never been enough production to cover national demand, and part of those steel bars is exported. They have always prioritized export, which is what brings in hard currency. Some of the auxiliary workshops have the capacity to provide services to Cubans but they have never been given authorization for that,” says Aristides. “It could solve many problems and also pay someone money for that work, but it has never interested them.”

The engineer refers to the fact that the neighbors of the factory could be paid for blacksmithing, turning and parts assembly. “Like all Cuban industry, even though they say it’s efficient, it is actually insufficient, because it has focused only on steel sections that are rolled or pressed into shapes, and although in the past the steel mill made other products, such as balls designed to break concrete, that line has been closed for a long time.”

Steel sections and bars and rods are the skeleton of any construction and elements that are currently scarce on the Island, where housing deterioration and housing deficits have been growing significantly in recent years. The official sale of these construction elements has been reduced to those affected by the most recent hurricanes, and on the informal market, prices are skyrocketing.

“You find steel that you can see has already been used in formwork or taken from abandoned buildings, and that’s what you have to work with,” Samuel, a young man of 31, who together with his family is “pulling the new plate” for the roof on his home, in the Havana municipality of Cerro, explains to this newspaper. “Now we are stopped by lack of steel bars and rods, and we have been doing this for two years because what you find is very expensive.”

When Samuel has tried to haggle over the price of steel with informal merchants, the invariable response is that “it’s because Antillea is still disrupted.” Now that the colossus of El Cotorro will produce again, the young man has some hopes that “the rods and bars will start to be seen” and his home will have the roof he lost again due to leaks and deterioration.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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‘The Cuban Dictatorship will be Responsible for Whatever Happens to Luis Manuel’

The artist has been in jail since July 11, 2021. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 7 February 2023 — Artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, prisoner at the maximum-security prison in Guanajay (Artemisa), has been on a hunger strike for seven days to demand his freedom, according to what curator Claudia Genlui published on Tuesday on her Facebook wall.

“I just spoke with Luis Manuel Otero. With a broken voice, he could barely speak. Luis has been on a hunger strike for seven days and a few days ago, he added a thirst strike,” explained Genlui, who currently resides in the United States.

“State Security once again ignores” the strike status of the leader of the San Isidro Movement, adds the activist. “Aware of the delicate state of Luis’s health, who has led several strikes in prison, they do not listen to his main demand: his freedom.”

In her text, Genlui also issued a warning: “Anything that happens to Luis Manuel is the responsibility of the dictatorship,” and questions “until when will they continue to destroy the lives of so many Cubans? until when will they continue to destroy a country that does not belong to them?” continue reading

“Aware of the delicate state of Luis’s health, who has starred in several strikes in prison, they do not listen to his main demand: his freedom”

The curator expresses her concern for the health of the artist, declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. “I fear that his body will not withstand another strike, and the consequences will be worse than the paralysis he contracted from the previous strike.”

Last June, the Attorney General of the Republic released a statement from the Popular Municipal Court of Central Havana which indicated that the sentence for Otero Alcántara was five years in prison for the crimes of insulting the symbols of the country, contempt, and public disorder.

The artist has been in jail since July 11, 2021, when he was arrested before being able to join the spontaneous anti-government protests that took place that day throughout the country.

During his time in prison, the artist has staged at least four hunger strikes. The previous one took place in March of last year. After calling off the strike, Genlui reported that Otero Alcántara was going to change his “strategy” and accept prison visits, phone calls, and supplies from abroad, something he had renounced in protest of his unjust imprisonment.

This change, the curator stated, with the artist’s lawyer as a source, “does not mean that he is changing his position regarding other things: he will not leave the country because any agent of the Cuban State wants him to, but rather when he decides.”

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‘Bolos’ [Russians] and Yankees in Havana

Miguel Díaz-Canel receives a group of Russian businessmen on January 18, 2023 at the Palace of the Revolution, in Havana, Cuba. (Cuba Presidency/YouTube/Captura)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, February 4, 2023 — It’s evident that the Castro leadership, those whom they call moncadistas [the ones who took part in the attack on the Moncada barracks, celebrated every July 26], by their stubbornness in maintaining privileges and fortunes at all costs, don’t cease to reinvent themselves by resorting to any maneuver in order to preserve power, the only guarantee of their survival. Miguel Díaz-Canel has shown great talent in managing to genuflect before the Castros.

There is no denying that the Castros, the First Family on the Island, knew how to make their transition from power. They found the ideal person to run their errands, while they continue doing as they wish with the rights of Cubans, so much so that I dare to parody a song by Panchito Riset: “Fidel, the little room is the same as you left it, as you arranged it.”

Nothing has changed in Cuba, although there is no shortage of those who despair about finding developments that would indicate a new direction, or of those who continue demonizing the opponents of totalitarianism. The new governance acts under the instructions of the Castros. The nature of the regime is the same as 64 years ago. Those who sponsor a policy of coexistence are wrong, as are those who defend giving carrots to the dictatorship, which only strangles the people.

Also, those who assumed the Spanish transition as a model for the change in the Castro regime were wrong, just like those who said that when Fidel is gone, [the Revolution] “will crumble like a merengue [cake] at the door of a school” (a very Cuban expression). We have been mistaken in the predictions of how Cuban totalitarianism would end. However, I have no doubt that it will end as long as there are Cubans in prison demanding their rights, such as the young Angélica and María Cristina Garrido, Lizandra Góngora Espinosa, Félix Navarro, José Daniel Ferrer and a thousand other people, after 64 years of a doctrinal dictatorship. continue reading

A few weeks ago my friend and prison mate, Juan José Estrada, warned that the Russians, whom Cubans called bolos [from ’Bolsheviks’] in the sixties because they were crude, poorly dressed and smelled bad, would return to Cuba to the rhythm of capitalism and not in representation of a failed regime that victimized both Russians and Cubans. He suspects that this became a reality in past days.

The presence of Russian businessmen on the Island — most likely some were KGB leaders along with Vladimir Putin — should be an indication for the hitmen of Castroism, those who beat, imprisoned and condemned the young protestors of July 11, 2021, that the regime they defend is doomed to failure and that their crimes have a punishment, as Fyodor Dostoyevsky would write.

Estrada stated in his comment that the Russians would visit Cuba as predators more voracious than the mafia that they had displaced halfway around the world, not as officials ready to squander their goods, as Moscow did in the past for ideological reasons. These realities don’t worry the Island’s totalitarian leaders as long as they hold onto power.

The interesting thing was that the visit of Russian businessmen coincided with the trip of President Joe Biden’s government officials to Havana. A paradoxical truth: the Russians came to do business, while the Americans visited Cuba to “establish and increase channels for law enforcement cooperation to better address transnational threats, not at the expense of human rights.”

It’s difficult understand the stubborn desire of some politicians, businessmen and social leaders of different nationalities to negotiate with Castro totalitarianism, arguing that the precarious situation of Cubans has a solution with the supply of goods and migratory placebos. The violation of the rights of Cubans and the opportunities that are denied to them are decisions of their own Government, not of foreign powers.

The problem lies in the prevailing system and not in its environment. Cuba was not a failed state or sponsor of terrorism before the arrival of the Castros. It was far from being a paradise, but it was a viable country, just as Venezuela and Nicaragua were before the arrival of Chávez, Maduro and Ortega-Murillo.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The ‘Grocery’ Arrives in Cuba, with French Milk at 500 Pesos and Dog Food at 20,000

The answer of “500 pesos each” was enough for a murmur of indignation to run through the line. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 6 February 2023 — On the facade the English word “Grocery” is printed, and the line extends to the area outside the small private market recently opened on the ground floor of the Miramar Trade Center in Havana. Among airline offices, foreign companies and bank branches, the Pelegrin store, managed by a small business, had more curious than potential customers this Monday.

“And that milk? How much is it?” a woman asked a young man who left the premises with two packages of the product that carried a seal with the colors of the French flag and the clarification “Whole.” The answer of “500 pesos each” was enough for a murmur of indignation to run through the crowd. Despite the high price, no one moved from the line until they were able to access the market.

“I found out because I read on the internet that this store had opened,” a woman who bought some sweet vanilla cookies explained to 14ymedio. “They told me that it was only an assortment but it’s not that bad. There is more than in state stores in Cuban pesos, but it’s not a wonder either. I think they’ve made a mistake with the zeros on the right,” she said about the prices. continue reading

Small private companies engaged in the sale of imported food have been noticed in recent months in Cuba. (14ymedio)

Small private companies engaged in the sale of imported food have been noticed in recent months in Cuba with goods that they bring from countries in the region, such as Panama, Colombia, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. Given the low productivity of the national industry, beer, malt, soft drinks and sweets with foreign brands cross the path of private trade.

The phenomenon has not escaped the popular humor that has already reinterpreted the acronyms that make up micro, small and medium-sized enterprises [mipyme (or SMEs)] with the acronym of import markets at high prices manicheados [managed] by the State. So far, the new form of management, which is presented in the official discourse as the key to getting out of the crisis, seems to be more for resale than for production of goods.

Hence, no one seemed surprised this Monday in Pelegrin that the 10-ounce packages of soda cookies cost 335 pesos. The price did not cause a great fuss because “the self-employed businesses are more expensive,” said a man who calculated that each one contains 15 sachets with three cookies inside, at “22 pesos per package and 7 per cookie.”

The store has a small area to serve customers, but behind the windows you can see a large warehouse where they accumulate the merchandise. (14ymedio)

The store has a small area to serve customers, but behind the windows you can see a large warehouse where they accumulate the merchandise they sell. “The cafeteria on the ground floor of my house in Centro Habana is better stocked but it’s true that it is a little cheaper here, but getting to this place costs the difference,” stressed a man who was “by chance” at the Miramar Trade Center looking for a plane ticket to Panama.

Among Pelegrin’s most expensive products, a 35-pound bag of dry dog food stands out, a mixture of salmon and potato, for a whopping 20,600 pesos. The product, of the Kirkland brand marketed by the international chain of Costco supermarkets, has the “Made in USA” letterhead. It has been imported to a country where official stores, specialized in the sector, have not sold pet food for more than a year.

This morning, the Siberian husky printed on the package seemed to look with some arrogance at the customers who let their jaws drop in front of the market counter when they heard the price, more than three times what it costs in the stores of the American chain, if calculated at the official rate of the dollar exchange in Cuba. “This is animalistic, for sure,” concluded an old woman.

“My dog doesn’t look like that, and I’m not going to spend half a year’s salary buying that food for him. Mine will keep eating leftovers and whatever else appears,” said another customer who, in the end, only bought a can of imported Coca Cola for 155 pesos. “I think they put ’Grocery’ outside so that people won’t confuse it with a state store,” he added before leaving the premises.

Among Pelegrin’s most expensive products, a 35-pound sack of dry dog food stands out, a mixture of salmon and potato, for a whopping 20,600 pesos. (14ymedio)The use of the word in English, instead of its Hispanic variants of “food store” or “ration store” is not accidental. Both Spanish terms are marked on the Island by the negative shadow that more than 60 years of rationed markets and centralism have projected on trade. The foreign term could seek to move away from the known and evoke another type of more assorted and efficient bazaar.

But whatever it is called and in whatever language, Pelegrin has prices that are triple that of a box of milk in Madrid or of pet food in Miami. Like other stores managed by SMEs, it seems to be oriented to a social class with enough money to spend 180 pesos on a tiny glass container of yogurt, the daily salary of an engineer.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Leonardo Padura Wins the Pepe Carvalho Prize for Crime Novels

Leonardo Padura expressed his joy at having received live news from his Argentine colleague and friend Claudia Piñeiro. (EFE)

EUROPA PRESS (via 14ymedio), Barcelona, 6 February 2023 — Cuban crime novel writer Leonardo Padura, creator of the policeman Mario Conde series, has won the Pepe Carvalho 2023 Prize in recognition of his career. The prize is awarded within the framework of the BCNegra festival.

It was announced by the writer and winner of the award in 2019, Claudia Piñeiro, at the opening ceremony at El Molino of the BCNegra festival, which will last until February 12.

The jury, composed of Carlos Zanón, Anna Abella, Lilian Neuman, Esteve Riambau, Rosa Ribas and Daniel Vázquez Sallés, awarded the prize to Padura for being “one of the most prominent voices in current Latin American literature” and for being committed to literature and to Cuba, the great protagonist of his works.

The jury considered that the protagonist of up to nine Padura novels, the charismatic Mario Conde, is “heir, or even the Caribbean brother” of the character of Carvalho, created by Vázquez Montalbán.

Padura (b. Havana, 1955) was happy to receive the award and highlighted the “close and friendly” relationship he had with the writer Manuel Vázquez Montalbán. He pointed out that three years ago he received the Barcino Prize for a historical novel, where his literature was then compared to that of Montalbán. continue reading

The Cuban writer, who recalled a photograph that was taken with Vázquez Montalbán and his Cuban friends when the Barcelona writer was documented for the book y Dios entró en La Habana [And God Entered Havana], regretted his “irreplaceable absence in the culture of this country.”

Padura said in his thank-you speech for the award, which will be presented on Thursday, that he is grateful for the memory of “two very significant people for BCNegra and police literature”: Vázquez Montalbán and bookseller Paco Camarasa, the promoter of the festival.

The director of the festival, Carlos Zanón, stressed that the BCNegra wanted to begin with this edition, and the deputy mayor of Culture of the Barcelona City Council, Jordi Martí, said that Padura joins a “spectacular” list of Pepe Carvalho winners.

Leonardo Padura has a long career, recognized with numerous awards for his work, including the 2015 Princess of Asturias Award for Letters, the Café Gijón and the Dashiell Hammet awards, among others.

Among his works are those starring Mario Conde, including: Pasado perfecto, Vientos de cuaresma, Paisaje de otoño, La niebla de ayer and Personas docentes [Past Perfect, Winds of Lent, Autumn Landscape, Yesterday’s Mist and Teachers]; but also others such as El hombre que amaba los perros, Herejes, Como polvo en el viento and Agua por todas partes. [The Man Who Loved Dogs, Heretics, Like Dust in the Wind and Water Everywhere].

Translated by Regina Anavy

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San Lazaro, a Havana Street that Wears Rouge and Has Cracked Balconies

Like every year around this time, it is a matter of dressing up the street so that the high-ranking figures of the government who walk through it get a different impression. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia Lopez Moya, Havana, 25 January 2023 — “They are applying rouge to San Lázaro street again,” lamented a neighbor from Centro Habana this Tuesday morning. The facades of the long avenue are being painted so that, on the night of January 27, it will house the official March of the Torches, with the presence of Miguel Díaz-Canel.

In the face of what will happen on Friday, brigades of builders have erected scaffolding, hauled paint and begun to brush on a wall without cracks or on a balcony about to collapse. As every year around this time, it is a matter of dressing up the street so that the high-ranking figures of the government who walk through it on the eve of José Martí’s birth get an impression that is very different from reality.

“I came to eat at this little tavern but it is difficult to go in because they have erected scaffolding on the door, the drops of paint fall on the clothes of the passersby,” a young woman who has seen several of “these retouching processes” explained to 14ymedio that it won’t last long “because they use poor quality paint and they don’t do it very carefully either.” The colors are also very limited, so far, a poor palette of blues and pinks. continue reading

“I came to eat at this little tavern, but it is difficult to enter because they have put a scaffolding on the door, the drops of paint fall on the clothes of the passersby”

“It is outrageous how they are plastering the corners of the balconies that have partially detached from the buildings and then they paint them, everything is a coverup of reality, where it can be seen, but, of course, not a coat of paint or a spoonful of cement inside.”

The painting of the facades is only an advance. Before Friday, the street will be filled with a strong security operation that traditionally begins up to two days before the March at El Vedado and Centro Habana, neighborhoods where the University of Havana is located, the venue for the event that will begin around 8:30 p.m.

In recent years, the country has mourned various tragedies in the days leading up to this celebration. A tornado caused great destruction in areas of the capital in 2019, leaving eight dead, 200 injured, and more than a thousand homes destroyed. In 2020, the collapse of a balcony caused the death of three girls in Old Havana, although the government did not suspend the official act despite requests from citizens.

Looking ahead to what will happen on Friday, brigades of builders have erected scaffolding, hauled paint and begun to paint. (14ymedio)

In 2021 it was suspended due to the pandemic, and last year it became a display of the regime’s political muscle after the popular protests of July 11, 2021.

The first March of the Torches was organized on January 27, 1953 as a tribute to José Martí on the 100th anniversary of his birth. Although Fulgencio Batista’s government did not grant permission to carry it out, the students marched without the police intervening.

After 1959, the pilgrimage became a governmental act in which the ruling party participated, with the presence of the greatest leaders of the Communist Party, the University Student Federation and representatives of other political organizations of the regime.

Many young university students attend due more to pressure than conviction, although it is very common for them to make an appearance for a few minutes and then end up escaping through the streets where the caravan goes through.

Translated by Norma Whiting
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Mario Vargas Llosa: ‘Socialism is Dead. No One Can Believe in it After Cuba’

Mario Vargas Llosa in the library of his house in Madrid. (José Aymá, El Mundo)

14ymedio, Maite Rico, Madrid, 5 February 2023 — At age 86, Mario Vargas Llosa (b. Arequipa, 1936) faces a new stage in his life. He has returned to his apartment in the center of Madrid, after ending his relationship with Isabel Preysler. Also, surrounded by his collection of hippos, he has finished his novel about Peruvian music, which will be released in autumn. These days are frantic with preparations for his entry, on February 9, into the Académie Française, the house of The Immortals, founded in 1633. His joining is the culmination of an intense relationship with France, which defined his literary vocation, gave him his first recognition and nourished him intellectually, as detailed in his imminent book Un bárbaro en París [A Barbarian in Paris]. The writer is happy. He radiates energy and sprinkles the interview with loud laughter.

Maite Rico. You are the first author to enter the Academy without having written directly in French, something historic.

Vargas Llosa. It never crossed my mind to apply to the Academy. But on a recent trip to Paris, on the occasion of the release of my last novel, Daniel Rondeau, whom I met in my Parisian era and one of the first discoverers of the Latin American novel, calls me, as if appearing out of the depth of time. We have coffee, and I learn that he is a member of the Academy, and to my surprise he tells me to apply to be a candidate myself. “We have taken a vote, there have been no votes against, only two abstentions. There is a magnificent atmosphere and tomorrow the secrétaire perpétuelle [perpetual secretary] is inviting you to lunch.” Perpetual no less!

Q. …the historian Hélène Carrère d’Encausse.

A. Yes. She has a beautiful apartment on the Seine. She is an expert on Russia, and she told me, by the way, that the Russians had banned her books because she had criticized the invasion of Ukraine. The fact is that she already had my written candidacy letter, and she told me: “you have to decide now.” And that’s how overnight I became a member of the French Academy.

Q. You are also the first foreigner to enter the Pléiade library.

A. I said that entering the Pleiade was more important to me than the Nobel Prize, and it’s the truth. When I was young, when I lived in Paris, I bought a copy of the Pleiade editions once a year, and my dream was to be able to enter that collection one day. When Carmen Balcells showed me at her house the letter from Antoine Gallimard [her editor], which said: “It’s time for us to bring Mario to the Pléiade,” I was amazed.

Q. And are you going to have the time to polish and give splendor to the French language, as you do with Spanish?

A. The two academies meet on Thursdays. The Spanish was founded in imitation of the French, three years later. My idea is to divide the month and attend two Thursdays there and two Thursdays here. You can actually miss it whenever you want: there are many academics who don’t go, because they are old.

Q. Your first contacts with French culture date back to your youth, in Lima.

A. Yes. As a teenager, I read Dumas, Jules Verne, Victor Hugo… French culture predominated then in practically all Latin American countries. And I had the idea of being a French writer. At that time there were no publishers in Lima. The poets in fashion were lawyers who worked from Monday to Saturday and wrote on Sunday. It seemed impossible to be a writer in such a country. And I got into the Alliance Française, a small place on Wilson Avenue.

Q. Your teacher, Madame del Solar, whom you remember so fondly, would be proud today.

A. She was a lovely French girl, married to a Peruvian, who helped me a lot. When I enrolled in the Alliance there were ten girls, all of them nice, a boy who studied architecture and I. The other boy only lasted six months, because the girls were killers and laughed at our pronunciation. In the end I adapted to them and spent four years there, but I started to read French after six months.

Q. And your first trip to France was in 1958, at the age of 22, with an award in a short story contest at the Revue Française.

A. In the Revue, yes. I had a wonderful month in Paris. Then I returned after completing my doctorate in Madrid. The very night I arrived in Paris, I bought a copy of Madame Bovary at La Joie de Lire [The Joy of Reading], a bookstore in the Latin Quarter. Listen, I spent the whole night reading. That book really dazzled me… continue reading

so much so that I became a frenetic fan of Flaubert. And then I decided to be a writer. I decided that in France. Flaubert confirmed to me that literature was a way of life.

Q. Neither Flaubert’s father nor yours wanted their sons to be writers.

A. My father was an enemy of literature, and I think he put me in the Military College with the idea that the military was going to free me from my vocation. But the funny thing is that I became a professional writer, because I wrote letters to my classmates.

Q. Did anyone keep any? Because they’re valuable now.

A. I haven’t seen any, ha, ha, ha. Flaubert’s father was an engineer, and he didn’t want him to dedicate himself to literature either. I think Flaubert’s epilepsy was actually his invention. Overnight he faints and begins to see lights. Don’t tell me it’s not suspicious. Then, the father, afraid that his son, whom he loves very much, could die, sends him to the countryside, to Croisset, and there he can now dedicate himself to writing.

Q. Balzac’s father didn’t want him to write either. And Balzac had another illness…

A. They invented illnesses to convince the family and then the family went along with it. At that time there was no copyright law, ha, ha, ha.

Q. France confirms your literary vocation and you discover the confrontation of ideas. It can be said that French culture laid the foundations of your intellectual formation.

A. Absolutely. For always. Look, I spent a year in the Communist Party in Peru. The communist parties were absolutely totalitarian. And what saved me from sectarianism was reading Sartre, who wrote some essays in which he attacked Stalin a lot. With the poor amount I earned while I was at university, I subscribed to two French magazines: Les Temps Modernes [Modern Times], by Sartre, and Les Lettres Nouvelles [New Letters] by Maurice Nadeau, and I could more or less follow French literary news. It’s funny because in all the controversies I agreed with Sartre.

Q. Then came the disappointment.

A. What broke my relationship with Sartre is an interview in which he is asked about two African writers, and he says that they must first make the revolution to create a country where literature is possible. I felt enormously frustrated. Sartre had taught us that you could be a writer anywhere and denounce the horrors of the Third World, and now it turns out that you had to make the revolution first to be a writer. I was already too far advanced in my literary vocation to believe him.

Q. But Sartre never got committed at the moment of truth. In the war he kept a low profile, while Albert Camus and André Malraux risked their lives in the Resistance.

A. It’s said that Sartre occupied the academic seat of a Jew who had been expelled from a high school. I don’t know if it was true. But Sartre didn’t believe in politics. He focused on philosophical studies. And at the age of 50 he entered in a very militant way and was already an exclusively political man, and he dedicated himself to writing those essays… Le communiste et la paix [The Communist and Peace]. Camus was less flighty than Sartre. He was more realistic, more grounded, and we identified more with him. Sartre essentially doesn’t create literature. He begins novels that remain unfinished. He said that he was going to write a fourth novel that he never wrote, and then he said that he was going to write an essay on morality that he never wrote. He always left his projects incomplete.

Q. After dismissing the theory of commitment, do you still believe that literature can change life? Do you still consider it as an act of rebellion?

A. Yes, I think so. I believe that literature is an invention of human beings to defend themselves from death. It’s a way to, let’s say, hide. That’s why it’s going to survive. Literature is a defense against death. There, in the novel, you find an eternity that is fictitious, but that allows us to protect ourselves from what we are very afraid of, especially when we are old, which is the proximity of death.

Q. In addition to Flaubert, Sartre and Camus, Malraux influenced you…

A. Malraux was the only writer who spoke as well as he wrote. His speeches were wonderful. I remember what he said in 1964 when the ashes of Jean Moulin, the head of the Resistance, were transferred to the Pantheon. De Gaulle was there, but only Malraux spoke. The French cried when they heard it. I had to cover the event. What a beautiful thing. He was an extraordinary speaker. And a great writer.

Q. And then Raymond Aron and Jean-François Revel.

A. At first I bought Le Figaro on Saturdays, which was when Raymond Aron wrote, and I hid. Ha, ha, ha. I was embarrassed to buy it. But I read it because I thought it was incredible that he defended liberalism so much. He was a complete loner. And Revel, I think he is the Frenchman who knew Latin America best. His essays on Argentina and Mexico are brilliant.

Q. Like you, he evolved from Marxism to liberalism.

A. He was a liberal. He was a close friend of Sartre at the university. Look, now I was reading Hayek and he says that when they appear in England the first liberals use words that did not exist in the political world, such as progressive or universalism. And the left appropriates all that and completely distorts it to defend socialism. Well, socialism is dead. No one can believe in it after Cuba.

Q. Your literary bond with France is double. On the one hand, you discover French literature, and, on the other, France discovers Latin American literature. France reaffirms your vocation as a writer and then recognizes it as such.

A. Absolutely. I publish my first two novels in France, I write a lot of articles, novels, stories… a lot. My big surprise was the success of La ciudad y los perros [The City and the Dogs]. What I have never known is if it was because of the novel itself or because it was burned by the military at my school in Lima.

Q. That they burned it I’m sure helped its success, but I guess some merit would have… You have said that the way in which you exercise your freedom as a writer comes from Flaubert.

A. Of course, Flaubert invents that figure of the invisible narrator, who is like a God who is not seen, who leaves apparent freedom to his characters, without showing himself.

Q. The opposite of Victor Hugo’s omniscient narrator.

A. Victor Hugo is the opposite. Now, Les Misérables is a great novel, the last classic novel. And then comes Madame Bovary, which is the first modern novel. Flaubert was not aware of the importance of his invention, of that figure that narrates from silence, from invisibility. It was the great revolution in the novel. [The writer gets up and brings an old book from his library]. Look how beautiful. The first edition of Madame Bovary. Some friends have given it to me.

Q. You said that Emma Bovary is the greatest love of your life, that with no person of flesh and blood have you had such a passionate relationship.

A. Ha, ha, ha, it’s true, it’s the pure truth.

Q. You define her as rebellious in the face of the mediocrity that surrounds her, a superior spirit. You’re going to hate me, but she seems to me a disordered obsessive.

A. No, no, a disordered obsessive, no!

Q. She is someone who contains the seed of unhappiness.

A. What happens is that the husband is a poor devil. Completely boring. And then she believes that life is like the novels she reads. And she begins to explore…

Q. But she has unreal aspirations. She pursues a mirage and makes those around her unhappy. And she herself is unhappy.

A. Well, yes, she accumulates a great unhappiness. But her rebellion has to do with love. With love! Not with ideology. It’s a personal ideology, absolutely personal. And it is the defense of love.

Q. Yes, but it’s an ideal love. That’s why all lovers disappoint her.

A. Of course. The lovers are of a frightening mediocrity. And then she looks for someone superior and can’t find him in that little town. When she is completely frustrated, she commits suicide. Madame Bovary’s suicide is one of the most brilliant episodes in literature. There are three pages, in which she swallows arsenic, begins to feel pain and anguish and despair… Terrible. It is written impersonally, because what Flaubert wanted was impersonality. It’s a wonderful description. In the letters to Louise Colet, Flaubert said: I feel the poison in my mouth… Flaubert always looked for the most extraordinary things.

Q. Do you also correct a lot, like him?

A. I correct a lot, I redo, I create a summary diagram. Yes, a lot.

Q. And do you also read aloud?

A. No, not that, because I don’t think music has the last word in the style. Flaubert thought so. Not me. Great writers are not musicians.

Q. I have to ask you about the story Los vientos [The Winds], which was released in October 2021 in the magazine Letras Libres [Free Letters].

A. It went completely unnoticed and now it’s everywhere. The other day, the person who takes care of my books told me: “Suddenly we have begun to receive letters from people who want Los Vientos.” But hey, why is this a story?

Q. Because it’s interpreted to include messages.

A. Absurd and crazy messages. I would never have thought of ridiculing Isabel in my life. At that time I got along very well with her. I don’t even remember when I wrote those episodes that have been released in the newspapers, even in France, in an article in Le Monde!

Q. The story is amusing and at the same time tragic. It’s a very plausible dystopia.

A. It’s a story about old age. I wrote it for Letras Libres, and now it’s coming out as a novella in many countries.

Q. Old age tends to be considered a gray age, immune to experiences, to enjoyment. But you have shown that this is not the case. At work, and in your personal life, you retain a nonconformist spirit.

A. Eighty-six years is old, isn’t it? I work a lot. At this age you have to fight it. We have to try to keep writing until the end. The ideal is to die with a pen in your hand.

Q. You had a very hard experience with COVID.

A. It was horrible. I was working and my legs started shaking. And I had something in my throat and I couldn’t breathe. Isabel called a doctor, and when he arrived I heard him say to her: “His fever is going up a lot. You have to take him to the clinic.” The wait was distressing, I was drowning. They took me from the ambulance directly to a kind of tube with oxygen. Then I started to breathe. I think the most dramatic experience I’ve had has been that lack of oxygen.

Q. Did you start to think that you weren’t going to get through it?

A. Yes, I had the impression that I was dying. I was dying there. Yes.

Q. Your life has always had a public part, which in recent years has intensified. It has been at the epicenter of a bubble that can be unreal. How would you define that experience? Did you feel a little like you were under a microscope?

A. No, no, I was very much in love with Isabel. But let’s say, that world is not my world.

Q. And now you are under siege.

A. At seven in the morning, when I went for a walk, the journalists were already at the door. At seven o’clock!! For a month. They haven’t been there for days now. It’s wonderful.

Q. You’ve been in Peru researching your new novel. Does the departure of Pedro Castillo from the presidency open a door to hope?

A. It’s still complicated. The vice president was brought in by the same forces; she has declared herself a Marxist-Leninist.

Q. Do you have the impression that Peru is now more fucked up?

A. I have the impression that Peru has been fucked up a lot more. Well, Latin America in general. Latin America, with the exception of Uruguay and Ecuador. Brazil, fucked up; Argentina, fucked up; all of Central America, fucked up. And Colombia, with Petro, who has sent a fierce message against Peru, because he says that the right wing has kidnapped Castillo!

Q. And Mexico…

A. López Obrador is a manipulator. He wants to change the Constitution to be president again, but I doubt he will succeed. What a sinister character.

Q. You are Peruvian, and Spanish, and a French academic; Latino and cosmopolitan.. Where do you feel you belong?

A. Well, literature is that, just that. Borders don’t exist for me. Look, I’m in Spain; I read the newspapers and I get terrifyingly irritated, just like in Peru. And I’m in France, and I get irritated just like in Peru. I move around very freely, and wherever I am, I’m interested in what is happening.

Q. But have you imagined a retreat somewhere specific? Have you thought about returning to Peru?

A. No, I think it’s very difficult right now. I feel at home in Spain.

MARIO AND THE CENSOR

After the success of La ciudad y los perros in France, Vargas Llosa sent the book to Carlos Barral. Two months later, the writer and Catalan publisher met in Paris. “He told me that he had really liked my novel and wanted to publish it in Spain.” Then the procedures began with censorship, which lasted for a year. And Barral invited Vargas Llosa to lunch with the person in charge, Manuel Fraga’s brother-in-law.

Q. And how did it go?

A. Well, there was a historian on Latin America there who didn’t understand anything, because he hadn’t read the novel, and he asked: “But what’s going on? What’s going on?” And then the head of censorship tells him: “What’s going on? The cadets are screwing a chicken!” [imitating the accent] Ha, ha, ha. The guy was speechless.

Q. Here we’re more into sheep.

A. Ja, ja, ja. It was wonderful. The head of censorship tells me: “Look. There is only one colonel in your novel. The colonel is the chief of the barracks. So, either you put in more colonels or that colonel can’t be as ridiculous as he appears in your book.” He gave me those arguments! And then I told him, “I don’t agree with that.” In the end, the novel came out with seven changes.

Q. I thought it was with seven colonels!

A. And also the detail of the priest who went to the brothel. The head of censorship tells me: “Look, I know that priests are not always respectful, but there is only one priest in your novel and that priest goes to brothels, so it can’t be that way. Aim for more priests or let’s take out the brothel.” In the second edition, Carlos Barral slipped it into the revised novel. It was a frightening struggle, with Carlos becoming a little more daring in each revision. Well, 20 or 30 years later, I’m giving a lecture and an old man appears… the head of censorship! Who tells me that he has published a book and adds: “In that book I say that thanks to me, La ciudad y los perros was published here!” Ha, ha, ha. That’s nice, isn’t it?

Translated by Regina Anavy

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the cultural magazine LaLectura [Reading] and is reproduced here with the permission of the newspaper El Mundo [The World].

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Cuba Registers a Teenage Pregnancy Rate Close to That of Haiti and El Salvador

Young pregnant women in a maternal hospital in the province of Camagüey, in Cuba. (IPS/File)

14ymedio, Havana, 31 January 2023 — The high rate of teenage pregnancies is not one of the indicators in public health that Cuba can boast about, with fertility among minors under 19 years of age in the range of countries with low educational and health levels in the Americas. The issue was addressed by the official press on Monday, which recognizes that “bad results are ’above’ what is expected and desired.”

Cuba has a teenage fertility rate of 51.10 per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 19, according to 2018 data from the World Health Organization (WHO). Thus, it is in the 16th position of 35 countries on the American continent. Of the statistics available on the institution’s portal, Latin America and the Caribbean have the highest average, of up to 53.2 births per 1,000 women.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Island is very far from the level of 16.70 pregnancies per 1,000 adolescents that the United States has or the 2.0 registered in Sweden. Cuba is approaching the rank of nations such as Haiti, with 54.80, or El Salvador, with 51.80, both immersed in an economic crisis and with low access to education.

The oficial State newspaper Granma summarized the results of the National Program for the Advancement of Women (PAM) shared in a meeting held on Sunday with senior leaders of the Communist Party and the Ministry of Public Health, in which it was concluded that “the high incidence of pregnancy in adolescent ages is an urgent matter.”

The Government says that the percentage fell in the last year from 18.1% to 17.8%. However, four provinces have indices that exceed the national average. Las Tunas has the highest figure, of 22.7%, followed by Holguín (21.3%), Camagüey (20.5%) and Granma (20.3%).

Granma reports that the Government’s proposal is to reduce the fertility rate in adolescence by at least 50%, as well as to ensure 80% coverage and diversity of contraceptive methods. Tania Margarita Cruz Hernández, first deputy minister of Public Health, considered that a solution is to “intensify the work of sex education in schools, in the community and with the family,” and opined that it is time to resume television programs related to the subject.

Teenage pregnancies were a topic of discussion in the provincial press two weeks ago, when an article in El Artemiseño pointed out that of the 4,631 births recorded at the end of 2022 in Artemisa, 16% corresponded to pregnancies of women between 15 and 19 years of age and 31% of births were to women between 20 and 24 years of age. continue reading

The newspaper noted the alarming figures of 2021, when the municipality of Alquízar recorded the highest rate of fertility in adolescents — up to 91.9 births per 1,000 women — according to the National Bureau of Statistics and Information (Onei). Bahía Honda and Güira de Melena also showed scandalous figures, with 65 and 60.6, respectively.

The newspaper cited an interview with Alquízar’s Community Genetics specialist, Lidia Peña Martínez, who said that most teenage pregnancies occur in “dysfunctional families with a low cultural and economic level.”

According to WHO data, Cuba is approaching the rank of nations such as Haiti, with 54.80, or El Salvador, with 51.80. (WHO)

Peña Martínez listed the causes, which, according to her, explain the upsurge of cases: “The increasingly early onset of sexual relations, the inadequate methods to learn about sexuality issues, the concern of women about not being accepted within the social group, immorality without adequate perception of risk and, in recent times, the lack of contraceptive pills and condoms.”

Teenage pregnancies are a public health problem, which has socio-economic consequences. In countries with low social indicators, young women are pressured to get married and have children in the face of a small window to access higher education or to get a decent job. Some, even when they are minors, are forced to marry.

The WHO warns that adolescent mothers are at greater risk of health problems such as eclampsia, puerperal endometritis and systemic infections compared to women between the ages of 20 and 24. Babies can be born underweight, and there is a risk of premature births or even the death of the mother and the newborn.

The disastrous figures are also affected by the shortage of condoms, a recurring issue in Cuban clinics and pharmacies. The consequences are already being experienced, and the health authorities of Guantánamo have confirmed that the province suffered a rebound in sexually transmitted infections (STIs), unwanted pregnancies and abortionss at the end of 2022.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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With the Approval of 4,700 Cubans and 26,000 Venezuelans, Mayorkas Points Out the Success of the ‘Parole’ Program for Migrants

The Secretary of Homeland Security of the United States, Alejandro Mayorkas, at the Cultural Center of Little Haiti in Miami, this Monday. (EFE/Cristobal Herrera)

EFE/14ymedio, Miami/Madrid, 30 January 2023 — The Secretary of National Security of the United States, Alejandro Mayorkas, said on Monday that the humanitarian program for Cubans, Venezuelans, Haitians and Nicaraguans applied since the beginning of January has brought down the irregular arrival of those migrants to the country by 90%.

At an event held at Little Haiti Cultural Center in Miami, Mayorkas defended that one must reach the United States “legally and without taking risks,” alluding without specifying the many Cubans and Haitians who go to sea in rudimentary boats headed for the US shores.

“Those who decide to come to the United States illegally should know that we will use all the instruments of the law to expel them,” stressed the secretary, who stressed that the program “is being very successful.”

Born in Havana in 1959, Mayorkas said that the issue of Cuban migration touches him personally, since he and his parents had to leave Cuba in 1960, and stressed that the Biden government wants “a solution” to the problem of immigration,” and spoke about it with his Latin American peers at the last Summit of the Americas.

“Those who come with this program will be able to work, so no resources from the administrations will be used,” said the official.

Mayorkas began his schedule this Monday with a meeting with Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. The mayor, after emphasizing that Miami-Dade “is a community of immigrants,” said that during the meeting she held with Mayorkas they discussed the need for more federal resources for immigrants. continue reading

After the meeting in Little Haiti with the Haitian community, he plans to meet –in an event closed to the press– at the Miami hermitage dedicated to the patron saint of Cuba, the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, with representatives of the Cuban community in Miami, which welcomes most of the migrants from the four countries covered by the program.

Mayorkas also met with congressmen Mario Diaz-Balart, Maria Elvira Salazar, Debbie Wasserman and Carlos Giménez.

The secretary’s visit to this city aims to explain the immigration policy of the government of US President Joe Biden, and the recently approved humanitarian permit known as ‘parole’ for Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans, which expanded the one that already existed since October for Venezuelans.

This program, challenged in the courts by twenty Republican states, allows up to 30,000 of these migrants to enter the country every month since January 6, who must meet certain requirements such as having a “sponsor” who supports them financially and covers their living expenses. health. The permit is for two years and allows them to work.

Those who enter irregularly await deportation, according to this humanitarian program, which takes into account the difficult political and economic situation of the four countries.

As of last Friday, according to CNN with a source in a National Security official, more than 4,700 Cubans had been authorized to travel through the new parole program, along with 2,000 Haitians and 800 Nicaraguans. As for Venezuelans, for whom the program was established in October, 26,000 are approved.

Since January 6, when the program came into force, more than 1,700 people have arrived in the United States under this process from Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cubans Must Pay in Dollars for U.S. Consular Services in Havana

14ymedio, Havana, 31 January 2023 — As of March 1, the U.S. Embassy in Havana will charge all its consular services in US dollars. The diplomatic headquarters has issued a statement on Tuesday in which it announces that it will “no longer accept Cuban pesos” in payment for visas, notarial services or parole.

“The U.S. Embassy does not accept the use of a credit card to pay for its services,” adds the brief note published on the official website of the diplomatic headquarters. The decision leaves aside the national currency, with which, until now, part of the consular procedures could be paid, and obliges payment with dollars in cash.

The measure was coming. The US consulate was closed to the public for three years, including the months after monetary unification, carried out in Cuba in January 2021, which eliminated the convertible peso (CUC) from circulation. After restarting the processing of visas last January, payment was allowed in Cuban pesos or dollars, a duality that many pointed out as unsustainable.

The cost of managing an immigrant visa for family reunification, the type of procedure that since the beginning of this year has been carried out again at the consulate of Havana, rises to $325, while the cost for winners of the Diversity Lottery is $330.

Last June, a resolution of the Central Bank of Cuba entered into force that prevents consulates on the Island from converting their accounts in pesos into foreign currency. The measure caused the paralysis of consular services in several diplomatic headquarters that were forced to choose between collecting their procedures in pesos or in freely convertible currency (MLC).

Consulates that chose to continue operating in Cuban pesos, the favored option of citizens, who more easily have the national currency, can only make bank deposits in that currency and are not allowed to transfer to accounts in MLC or transfer funds abroad.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba Plans to Activate the New Cable between Cuba and Martinique in April to Improve Connectivity

Orange, through its subsidiary in Martinique, promotes the construction of the Arimao submarine cable. (JR)

14ymedio, Madrid, 1 February 2023 — Cuban authorities plan to have the new underwater internet connection cable running in three months, as announced in an article published by the official press which tries to respond to the multiple complaints of low connectivity in recent weeks through the state telecommunications monopoly Etecsa, the Island’s only gateway to the Internet.

“We hope to launch the Arimao submarine cable in April,” said Tania Velázquez Rodríguez, president of the company, who explains the short circuit in ALBA-1, the connection between Venezuela and Cuba, the was launched in 2013. “The capacities we had in ALBA-1 are saturated, so in those high-speed schedules the demand is not met. The new cable will offer important capabilities for navigation. Likewise, we must increase the capabilities of the software that enables that output so that everything flows correctly,” she adds.

Arimao was announced in December, before Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel’s tour of several Caribbean islands, and foresees the connection from Martinique, deployed by the French Orange company through its subsidiary on this island. The fiber optic cable is 2,500 kilometers long and reaches the Tricontinental Port of Cienfuegos. The maritime installation to Martinique was completed at the beginning of January, when the land connections began. When they have been completed, it will be time to do tests.

In this Wednesday’s note, Velázquez Rodríguez offers figures for the growth in demand for connection in Cuba, which in 2022 increased by more than one million users, reaching a total of 6.7 million customers, most of them 4G. That has caused a 63% increase in traffic volume, from 189,000 terabytes in 2012 to 309,000 in 2022. The average user demand has varied from 5.65 gigabytes to 7.23 in a year.

The infrastructure has not grown, however, which generates the congestion problems detected by users. According to Etecsa data, more than two million people connect simultaneously between eight and ten at night, the busiest time, which saturates the network and results complaints from the population. continue reading

“The growth not only demands investments in the access network, but also forces us to do work on other layers of the network that allows the smooth transit of that mass of data demanded by customers. Likewise, we must take into account the international traffic,” adds the directive, referring to Arimao.

The promotion to quintuple the capacity has been on everyone’s lips when it comes to explaining the problems of access to the network. Velázquez Rodríguez confirms that these offers have effects, although it justifies the urgent need to obtain currency along the way.

“It is an incentive to stimulate recharges from [family and friends] abroad since from the exit of the combined packages there has been a shift towards the consumption of national packages with CUP (Cuban peso) payments, and income from abroad has decreased. We are very pleased to have offers in CUP that please most of our customers, but it is also important to offer alternatives to capture the currencies that allow us to sustain the service and do it with quality,” he says.

The director also talks in the interview about how blackouts have affected navigation and reveals that radio bases have batteries but only 20% of the 5,000 on the Island have energy support, which suspends the connection.

The argument could technically explain the cuts denounced during the long blackouts last summer, which gave rise to a multitude of demonstrations in which the Government was held responsible and the restitution of the current was demanded. However, there is a suspicion among the population that internet cuts were intentional to prevent protests from being disseminated through social networks, with a contagion effect.

The official adds that they have tried to get more batteries, but the cost per unit (about $30,000) prevents them from having enough. “It is satisfactory for our company to show growth in traffic and in the number of subscribers, although we recognize that there is dissatisfaction with quality,” he admits.

Velázquez Rodríguez refers to other areas of telecommunications, such as fixed telephony, which will increase by only 16,000 lines in 2023 because, although he assures that it is still in high demand in Cuba, the priority is the cellular “for its rapid deployment and wide capacity to assimilate customers.” In addition, he has also talked about the slow deployment of wireless networks for the Nauta Hogar [Nauta Home] network or the sale of equipment in pesos, which “will be carried out when economic conditions allow it.”

The frequencies of transmission or the digitization of some services also appear in the interview, in which, as a novelty, the MiTransfer channel (a virtual money account associated with a mobile number) stands out as a preliminary step to the short-term virtual wallet.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Hotel Company Melia Achieves Another Success in its Lawsuit for the Use of Confiscated Land in Cuba

The Sol Río y Luna Mares hotel, in Playa Esmeralda, Holguín, is on land that belonged to the Sánchez-Hill family before 1959.

14ymedio, Madrid, 2 February 2023 — The Spanish court that in May 2021 issued the provisional dismissal of the lawsuit against the hotelier Meliá filed by the Sánchez-Hill family, for the exploitation of its land in Cuba confiscated by the Cuban government, has dismissed the case for the second time.

The head of the Court of First Instance of Palma that heard the case, informed Expansión on Wednesday that it agreed with the Cuban state company Gaviota and declared the lack of jurisdiction of the Spanish courts in this judicial process.

The order, dated January 27 and to which the economic newspaper had access, indicates that the Spanish Justice cannot recognize, in a legal sense, the confiscation, “given that it was a sovereign act carried out by Cuba through its own laws.” The Court does not rule on its international competence since the lack of jurisdiction is sufficient reason for the filing of the procedure, which sets a precedent in other claims based on the Helms-Burton law against Spanish hoteliers.

In 2019, the Sánchez-Hill family sued the Balearic network Meliá for the exploitation of two hotels, Paradisus Río Oro y Sol and Río y Luna Mares, on land that belonged to their family before 1959. On that occasion, the judge already issued the provisional file of the case for the same reasons as now, but the Sánchez-Hill family appealed to the Provincial Court (higher court) upon considering that the company’s tax domicile made the lawsuit possible.

The plaintiffs then extended the complaint to the Cuban State, as the owner of the land, although the State decided not to appear. Instead, Gaviota did, whose allegations were joined by Meliá. continue reading

The state company maintained in its brief that Cuba enjoys immunity from jurisdiction and, since the lawsuit was directed against the Island, the privilege extended to the rest of the defendants. In addition, Gaviota added that meeting the demand meant ruling on goods located within Cuba without extraterritorial effects in Spain, as well as something impossible: ruling on the sovereign acts of a State.

Meliá sources consulted by the Spanish newspaper limited themselves to showing their satisfaction with the dismissal of the case, in which the family claimed at least ten million euros for the “illicit enrichment” of the hotel.

However, the case has generated problems for the chain, including the ban on entry into the United States that hangs over Gabriel Escarrer, executive vice president and CEO of the company, as a result.

The manager, however, said that when he learned about that measure he didn’t “tremble” because of the pressure, and his commitment to Cuba was unconditional. Despite the severe collapse of tourism on the Island, which after the pandemic has failed to recover the past figures and is even below the poorest forecasts, Meliá has not relinquished its expansion strategy.

In addition to the 34 hotels that the Balearic chain manages on the Island, projects are frequently reactivated. The most recent is the December 2021 agreement with the Cuban Medical Services Marketer to include its establishments in the health tourism promoted by the regime, an agreement that is already being implemented, according to the authorities in May 2022, for dialysis patients.

In addition, in the short term Meliá plans to open, although without a specified date, other establishments, such as the Sol Caribe Beach in Varadero and the Meliá Trinidad Peninsula, in Sancti Spíritus. When it has inaugurated these two, it will have 36 hotels, 10% of the total of those in Cuba, and 14,844 rooms, 15.2% of the availability on the Island.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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