14ymedio – Page 139 – Translating Cuba

Bad Start to 2023: Now There Are Not Even Ration Books

The value of the American chicken reached a new record in October 2022, at 1.29 dollars average per kilo, five cents more expensive than the price recorded in September. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 1 January 2023 — Cubans have started the year with the same drama as the previous one and all those that have passed since 1962: reading with concern and anxiety the news of the state press about the hated “regulated family basket” and the ration book.

Instead of facing the new year with hope, freedom of choice of consumption and full satisfaction of needs, Cubans cannot escape, even at this time, the destructive dynamics of the lines, the increasingly scarce food deliveries of poor quality and the continual running so as not to lose an opportunity to access what the communist state grants them.

They don’t expect anything new for this January 1st. In Havana you don’t breathe the same air of parties as in other capitals of the world during these holidays. There have been no blackouts, that’s true, but people have their thoughts on other things, and the few activities organized throughout the country are dedicated to celebrating once again the triumph of the so-called revolution, which exhausts people and increasingly separates them from their leaders.

Not even in the agricultural, gastronomic and opportunity fairs, which have been organized, have people solved their consumption needs, and since the food industry has closed one of the worst years in its history, once again it has failed to reach a level of supply that satisfies the population. There are not even small cans of guava anymore. Only a little more rice, fish products, beef and buffalo have been supplied, which is clearly insufficient for family needs. continue reading

The authorities have assured there will be alcoholic beverages, beer, cocktails, elaborate dishes and other affordable items for the popular recreational and dance activities that will be held until January 3, but people say that no one is interested in parties because they have other concerns, and most likely that stipend won’t reach the most vulnerable sectors, such as the older population, who, for health reasons, don’t attend a lot of parties and activities.

Cubans begin 2023 with great concern about the distribution of the regulated family basket for the month of January and are afraid of the worst. It’s true that in some areas of the country the delivery began on December 28, but the reality is that there are doubts that it will reach all citizens. And what is worse, the overdue distributions, such as coffee and preserves, are still in the same stagnation of oblivion, and no one expects them to be recovered at this time.

But, without a doubt, the protagonist of the regulated basket has been the delivery of the December chicken, which also includes the overdue distributions. Finding chicken on the closing day of 2022 has meant getting up early for many Cubans, to get a turn in the line and another turn for 7 or 8 in the afternoon, when they hope that quarter-chicken will last for a few days.

To think that most of that chicken comes from the purchases that Cuba makes from the United States every month! And the same happens with canned meats, picadillo and sausages; although, certainly, chicken has been the undisputed protagonist.

The anxiety of the people finds fertile soil because the regime announced recently that financial limitations in the industry caused delays in the import of raw material for the manufacture of the 2023 ration books. So it has been impossible to “manufacture the ration books” and distribute them in most provinces on a timely basis.

Yes. You heard right. Now ration books are not manufactured in Cuba. The model is completely destroyed and does not support fixes. Artemisa, Mayabeque, Matanzas, Villa Clara, Cienfuegos, Sancti Spíritus, Ciego de Ávila, Camagüey, Las Tunas, Holguín, Granma, Guantánamo and the special municipality Isla de la Juventud, and partially in Pinar del Río, Havana and Santiago de Cuba: all complain that the ration books are not there nor are they expected.

And although the authorities launch messages saying that the purchase of the products of the regulated family basket for the month of January is guaranteed, and also, if needed, in February 2023 by using the 2022 ration book, the situation has aroused a lot of concern among those who suffer from the permanent shortage that exists in the country.

Such is the anxiety of the population that instructions have been given for the notation of the products to be delivered in those months without ration books, to be done on certain pages of the 2022 ration book. The people don’t trust this with good reason, because it’s most likely that the affected products, such as meat and milk from the family basket, bread, fuel, or medical diets will not reach the shops under the conditions of last year. The delay may be greater than they think and not only due to the lack of ration books.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Internal Trade, responsible for the ration books not being made and for this anguish in the population, limited itself to reporting about the effects on the products and didn’t want to announce specific delivery dates. There was not a single assumption of responsibility on the part of any senior official in the department, despite the harm caused to the population. People scrutinize their old ration books to make sure they are valid on December 31, 2022.

The Ministry’s fixes cause alarm in a population that sees that when it rains it pours. While in other countries the New Year’s holidays are celebrated in freedom and with the required levels of consumption, in Cuba there is an anxious fight for a quarter of chicken, fearing that deliveries, in the absence of the new ration book, will not occur.

This is the actual situation, and no one understands how it is possible that voices of general protest are not raised against that old revolution, which doesn’t do anything but get older, without fulfilling a single one of its objectives. A national disaster. A bad beginning of the year 2023, and the worst is yet to come.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Artificial Intelligence Has Serious Proposals to Develop the Cuban Economy

ChatGPT has the good nature, the pragmatism to put reality before ideology and knowledge that are so scarce among the leaders of the Communist Party. (EFE)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, 2 January 2022 — One of the diversions that I have given myself for the new year has been interacting with the ChatGPT developed in 2022 by the OpenAI company, and which is promoted as “specialized in dialogue.” On the first day of 2023, I greeted the “entity,” who responded to me with kindness, restraint and in almost perfect Spanish. I immediately questioned it about urgent issues on the Island and its suggestions for the Cuban economy seemed to me more accurate than everything said by Cuba’s Minister of Economy and Planning Alejandro Gil since he has been in office.

With a ponderous tone, which warns that it does not issue its opinion and avoids predicting future situations, the algorithm behind the chatbot detailed some measures that could help our country get out of its economic quagmire. The resulting list is not very different from what is heard in lines or in conversations between friends when the crisis we are going through and its possible solutions is discussed, but it is quite distant from the official discourse.

If the need for foreign investment, the promotion of agriculture and the obligation to stabilize the currency are points of contact between the responses of this artificial intelligence and what is discussed in the Cuban streets and with the phrases that Cuban leaders constantly repeat, ChatGPT distances itself completely from the latter, because it does not stop at proposals that never come to fruition and rhetorical fireworks. Far from triumphalism and polarization, it warns of the urgency of increasing the educational level of the people and also of promoting political changes “necessary to implement broader economic reforms.” continue reading

Without slogans, without calls to sacrifice or partisan slogans, the phrases of the friendly bot also arrive equipped with the warning that any reform of this type also requires “a long-term commitment.” In the field of political openings, it was much more forceful: greater transparency and accountability are needed on the part of the authorities, more citizen participation, respect for freedom of expression and the press, in addition to stopping the violation of human rights human rights on the island o its tracks.

And to finish off the lively exchange, the artificial intelligence said goodbye: “Have a good day and, if you need anything else from me, I’ll be here,” a courtesy far removed from the insults that would spring from the throat of any Cuban official if a citizen would dare to pose such questions. ChatGPT has the good nature, the pragmatism to put reality before ideology and knowledge that is so scarce among the leaders of the Communist Party of this country.

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Honey, a Profitable Profession for Cuban Beekeepers When the State Deigns to Pay Them

The honey producer’s loyalty has to be absolute: he can’t sell in the informal market, nor keep too much honey for his own use. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Yankiel Gutiérrez Faife, Camajuaní, 31 December 2022 — Although bee honey is one of the things that has “disappeared” from the Cuban family pantry, the State knows how to sell it abroad, and at very high prices. The purity and quality of the product have earned an international reputation for the Island’s honey, and it’s not uncommon to find it in the supermarkets of Europe and Latin America, with all kinds of packaging that advertises its origin as a sign of superiority.

Beekeeping escapes the usual rules of trade in Cuba. The State pays the farmer for honey at a better price than the informal market. The loyalty of the producer, of course, has to be absolute: he can’t sell in the informal market, nor keep too much honey for his own use. Otherwise, the inspectors can confiscate the equipment, retain the honey and make him pay an exorbitant fine.

“This profession does not take as much effort as dedicating oneself to agriculture,” says Lele, a 56-year-old farmer living in Rosalía, a rural town in Camajuaní, in the province of Villa Clara. “But not everyone has the courage to face the bee stings. To get an assistant, I have to call on several houses looking for someone who wants to work,” he complains.

Lele started as a beekeeper to collaborate with a friend of his. Over time, he acquired nine hives and had an estimated annual production of six to seven tons of honey. Everything must be delivered to the state-owned Cuban Beekeeping Company (Apicuba), which then moves it to the processing plant, evaluates the quality and determines the price.

Almost all beekeepers turn to the State instead of looking for private buyers. “It’s more profitable,” Lele explains. “The producer earns from 35,000 to 40,000 pesos per ton, and, if in Apicuba they consider the honey to be exportable, they pay him an additional 600 MLC (freely convertible currency).”

The “trick” of this added payment is that the producer must pay a “counter-value” for each MLC received. That is, in order to receive the currency you have to deduct from the 35,000 pesos of your payment the equivalent of 600 MLC, but at a favorable exchange rate of 24 pesos, which means earning 14,400 pesos. In sum, for each ton of exportable honey you can get 20,600 pesos and 600 MLC, which Apicuba will transfer to your ’credit’ card. continue reading

However, payment is frequently delayed and depends on the distribution of the lots that the State allocates for export. The farmer can deliver a certain amount of honey to Apicuba, but until it is sent abroad he will not receive the full payment.

It’s been more than a month since I paid the MLC’s counter-value to Apicuba for the honey I delivered,” complains Yaniel, a producer from Camagüey. “I know that they already sent the export shipment in September, and my money has not yet appeared on the card. The answer they give me is that it is the bank’s fault. I’m still waiting.”

Many beekeepers also complain about the bureaucracy that they must conquer before receiving their money — sometimes five or six months late. Apicuba requires having the identity card photocopied on both sides, a document that accredits the producer as part of a cooperative, and another copy of the contract signed with the State for the current year.

The farmer goes to work in a cart towed by oxen. He carries his instruments: a centrifuge, smoker, bellows and a tank to collect the honey. Protected by a beekeeping suit, hat and veil, Lele carefully removes the frames from each hive — the squares that the bees fill with honey. He gently removes the bees, takes off the seal (wax layer) and extracts the honey with the help of the centrifuge.

After straining the mixture, he fills the tank and returns the honeycomb to the box. This procedure is repeated with each of the hives. The purity of the final result is remarkable.

From that collection, Apicuba takes care of the rest. The Cuban State, which pays 600 MLC per ton of honey to the producer, sells it on average at more than 4,000 euros per ton to the most avid buyers: Germans, Dutch and Spanish. The price varies depending on whether it is bulk, packaged, monofloral, multifloral or pollen. Some publications have indicated that Cuban honey is sold for 20,000 euros a ton.

However, data from the Ministry of Agriculture of Spain for the 2021-2022 campaign indicate that bulk honey reached 4,620 euros per ton, while the multifloral variant was sold for a maximum of 3,620 euros. The packaged pollen was sold for 12,000 euros. In any case, the disproportion between the profit of the Cuban state and the remuneration of the farmer is enormous.

In the informal market, the sale does not reach the same level. There are few quantities available in MLC, and the one on the street has a presentation that leaves a lot to be desired, not to mention that the honey itself is of unreliable origin.

There are other advantages for the producer, says Lele. The broken and old frames of the hives can be re-used: they are placed in a boiler on the fire, and the wax that melts, once cleaned, is also bought by Apicuba to renew the boxes.

Lele’s bees collect wildflower pollen. Their hives are not sprayed with any chemical, and, when some strange body — such as cockroaches and other intruder insects — is inserted into the boxes, he himself extracts it.

Accepting the conditions of Apicuba is the only way to benefit from the sale of honey abroad, a business whose numbers are increasing, as the prestige of Cuban production grows, says Lele. “We can only keep what’s destined for our own consumption,” he says, “otherwise they can take away our means and our hives.”

But Apicuba, Lele explains, does not offer farmers the necessary resources. He has been using his own for five years, and there is nowhere to find protective equipment, tanks and even a simple mesh to make the veil, indispensable to protect the face from bites.

Leonardo, another beekeeper from Rosalía, is concerned about the incidence of tropical diseases in his bees. Their hives have been decimated by the destructive rogue mite, a species that lives parasitically from bees and exterminates them.

Purity, the first quality criterion for exports, cannot be compromised by drugs. “It does not suit the State,” says Leonardo, “because this would affect the price of Cuban honey in the world market, which greatly values everything that is processed without chemical substances.”

The mite sucks the hemolymph of both larvae and adult bees. It drains their strength and make them custodian of a virus. Then the animal’s body begins to be affected, the wings atrophy and they can’t work. “Then the workers come and end up expelling the sick bee,” Leonardo explains. “They think that one that doesn’t work doesn’t eat, and doesn’t have the right to live either.”

“When this disease enters the hive,” he says, “the only thing that can be done is to observe how the bees are dying little by little. The State is not going to sell us the medicines to cure them. The last thing they want is for us to alter the organic state of the honey.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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With a Rate of 7.5 Deaths Per Thousand, Cuba Has Lost its Leadership in Infant Mortality

The authorities attributed the bad maternal mortality data to COVID-19 last year and the recovery could be attributed to the same. (Unicef Cuba)

14ymedio, Madrid, 2 January 2022 –The infant mortality rate fails to recover in Cuba and barely fell by a tenth compared to last year, when some of the worst data in recent decades were recorded, with 7.6 deaths per thousand live births. This year, the rate remains at 7.5, more than two and a half points above the 2020 figure, which was 4.9.

Although the Island continues to have positive indicators in the regional context, it is increasingly moving away from the positions of the rich countries with which it liked to compare itself, being at a good distance from the rates of 2 or 3 per thousand in most of Europe.

The data have been released on Monday and leave some Cuban provinces with disheartening numbers. The worst was Mayabeque with 12.2, followed by Santiago de Cuba (9.9), Guantánamo (9.7), Havana (9.5) and Camagüey (9.1). In the middle area there are Villa Clara (7.3), Las Tunas (7), Granma (6.6) and Ciego de Ávila (6.2). The best data are in Cienfuegos (4.3), Holguín (4,5), Sancti Spíritus (4.7), Matanzas (5), Artemisa (5.4) and Pinar del Río (5.9). Isla de la Juventud, the province with the lowest number of births (in 2021 there were 789, compared to 3,542 in Ciego de Ávila, the next with the lowest fertility), is 2.6.

The improvement can be seen, on the other hand, in the maternal mortality data, which last year were devastating. In 2021, 175 pregnant women died, leaving the rate at an alarming 176.6 per 100,000 live births. The increase was alarming compared to the previous year, when 40 died, leaving a percentage increase of 34.5%. This year, on the other hand, it has dropped to 39, a total of 40.9 per 100,000 live births.

According to data from the Ministry of Public Health, the incidence of COVID-19 has also decreased significantly since vaccination with Abdala began on July 29, 2021. The last death of a pregnant woman with COVID occurred in October 2021, and 9,874 infections were detected. The authorities attributed the bad maternal mortality data to COVID-19 last year, and the recovery could be attributed to the same. continue reading

There are few official responses, on the other hand, to analyzing the infant mortality data, which barely moves, although from the outside it has been stated on several occasions that the neglect of the Maternal and Childcare Programs (Pami) is the most plausible cause. The project has less funds, like almost everything on the Island, and the professionals are fewer and fewer each day, since the abandonment of the profession is massive, in some cases to leave the country and in others to dedicate oneself to another more lucrative sector, less overloaded with work and demands.

Noemí Causa Palma, national head of Pami, said, according to the official report, that “measures have been implemented for the improvement of the doctor and family nursing program and the elaboration of the development plan for the specialties of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Neonatology, Pediatrics, Pediatric Intensive Care, Pediatric Surgery and Comprehensive General Medicine,” although it doesn’t seem that these efforts to improve the situation have contributed much.

Another indicator that barely moves is that of adolescent pregnancies, which went from 18% in 2021 to 17.8% in 2022, a small shift if one takes into account that campaigns have been carried out to put an end to this problem.

The only data that give the Ministry of Public Health a respite are those of infant mortality due to congenital defects. The rate is 0.96 per thousand live births and goes from being the second to the fourth cause of deaths in children under one year of age. Ultrasound screenings are high, with responses exceeding 90%, reaching 99% in second and third trimester ultrasounds.

After all these data, there is another one that continues to highlight the demographic debacle of the Island. In 2022, 95,402 Cubans were born, 3,694 fewer than the previous year. The decline is a logical consequence of the massive Cuban emigration, which occurs especially among young people, and the aging of the population remains unstoppable. Although the census carried out in the year that has just ended has not yet been revealed, catastrophic numbers are expected.

Finally, the note reviews the assisted reproduction program. In 2022, 15,679 infertile couples were evaluated, little more than last year; however only 5,912 pregnancies were obtained, compared to 6,199 the previous year. “This decrease is due to the fact that high-tech pregnancies were not achieved in territorial centers, a result that was achieved in 2021 with the development of 316.” On the other hand, in the provincial services the data were better and went from 1,819 pregnancies the previous year to 2,113 in 2022.

“The instability of some medicines influenced the decrease in pregnancies conceived since municipal consultations, where 3,799 were conceived against 3,998 in 2021,” the note adds.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Eight Cuban Players Who Play Abroad Have Agreed to Go With Cuba to the Classic

The Cuban Baseball Federation has not yet announced the group of 50 players who will leave for the World Classic. (JIT)

14ymedio, Havana, 30 December 2022 — Despite the fact that Cuba received permission from the United States to take MLB players to the World Classic, the list of baseball players from the Island team who will be at the event to be held from March 8 to 21, 2023 in the cities of Taichung (Taiwan), Tokyo, Phoenix and Miami has still not been disclosed.

So far the Cuban Baseball Federation (FCB) has only announced on its social networks the acceptance of the following players: Yoan Moncada (White Sox), Yoenis Céspedes (Cibaeñas Eagles), Onelkis García (Mexicali Eagles), Roénis Elias (Cibaeñas Eagles), Andy Ibáñez (Tigers), Yoan López (Mets) and Elian Leyva (Naranjeros).

Based on the calendar of group A in which Cuba is located, which will compete with China, the Netherlands, Italy and Panama, the Pelota Cubana [Cuban Baseball] website considers that the Island’s team will not have the “treat” of passing the first round in the World Classic, but “it can.” It also highlights the additions of the pinareño outfielder Andy Pagés and the habanero Yasmany Tomás.

Tomás, who is a free agent, had an outstanding performance in the Mexican Pacific League. The baseball player said he is waiting for the invitation to be confirmed. With Pagés and Tomás “at least all positions will be filled with excellent players,” published Pelota Cubana.

Moncada, at 27, has played the last seven seasons with Boston and the White Sox and has 82 home runs and 299 RBIs. To this baseball player is added the experience of veteran Yoenis Céspedes with eight seasons with Oakland and the Mets, and a score of 165 home runs. The Power, as they call him, won the Homerun Derby in 2013 and 2014, being the first player born in Cuba to achieve it. continue reading

Cuba’s other hope in the World Classic is Onelkis García, who in the Major Leagues played with the Dodgers and Kansas, in addition to a stretch with the league of Japan. Also included is the left-handed pitcher Roénis Elias, who left the Island in 2010.

According to the FCB, Cuba will have as its backbone the team that won the Elite League, a tournament that just last December 24 defined the semifinals with Agricultores, Centrales, Portuarios and Tabacaleros.

Among hopes, Cuba’s team is formed for the World Classic, while the Island continues to receive news of ball players’ departures. Jorge Álvarez, La Pólvora, the Gunshot, is already in the United States. Last June he was nominated for the SN61 Golden Glove award for his arm power. In April he scored eight triples with Camagüey.

Also in the United States is the Camagüeyan receiver Julio César Nogueras. This athlete made “the well-worn crossing from Nicaragua,” according to the La Comarca de Los Toros Facebook page. In 2023 he will try to focus on his career within the world of baseball.

Before these departures was that of former pitcher Ifreidi Coss, who is in Mexico waiting to be able to reach the United States. On the Island he worked as a coach and debuted in the National Series at the age of 18. In 120 innings he had 87 strikeouts. “If the right-handed Coss didn’t get the Rookie of the Year it was because of the record season that Kendrys Morales had,” published Baseball FR!

Injuries after 2007 were the main obstacle for Coss to maintain his numbers, so after 2010 he decided to end his sports career.

“I injured my arm and then other things happened. I didn’t have enough support to rehabilitate myself well. At first Uberto Beltrán took care of me and I did well, but the required follow-up to that injury was not given, perhaps due to professional jealousy,” he once told the Escambray newspaper.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Fifty of the 500 Cuban Doctors Hired in August Arrive in Italy

Arrival of the first group of Cuban doctors in Calabria, Italy. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 29 December 2022 — A first group of 50 Cuban doctors hired by Calabria last August has arrived at their destination three months late. In an announcement through his social networks, the president of that Italian region, Roberto Occhiuto, took the opportunity to defend the controversial decision to import health workers from the Island.

“They tried to stop us, with controversies and bureaucratic setbacks, but we did it,” wrote the alderman, who belongs to the right-wing Forza Italia party, founded by Silvio Berlusconi. Doctors will begin a course to learn Italian at the University of Calabria on January 2, and, “as soon as they are ready,” the official added, they will move to the hospitals.

Last August, Occhiuto signed a healthcare agreement with Cuba’s ambassador to Italy, Mirtha Granda Averhoff, to hire 497 Cuban professionals, who were expected to start arriving from September. The decision is based, as justified by the alderman, on the fact that the European country is facing a shortage of health personnel, particularly in the region of Calabria.

In his latest statement, he insisted that the doctors “will not steal any work from Italian doctors” but “will help us keep the wards and hospitals open.” “We are still looking for Italian doctors through competitions, but now the danger was that we had to close the health facilities due to lack of staff,” he added. continue reading

The local Italian press specified that Cuban professionals will stay in a military facility where, for three weeks, they will perfect their Italian. Then 16 doctors will be distributed in Locri, 16 in Polistena, 10 in Gioia Tauro and 10 in Melito Posto Salvo. A total of 52 professionals, two more than the official figure.

Calabria will pay 4,700 euros for each doctor, of which 3,500 will be delivered to the Cuban regime and 1,200 euros will go to maintenance, accommodation, travel and training expenses. According to calculations by the Italian press, the annual cost for hiring Cuban health workers will be 28 million euros per year.

Medical brigades are one of the main currency inflows for the Government of Havana and have been denounced as forced labor by international organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Prisoners Defenders. The United States also has Cuba on the list of countries that fail to comply with international human rights standards, precisely because of these missions.

In addition to Italy, medical brigades have arrived in Mexico and Qatar, and Cuba has sent health workers to dozens of countries such as Nicaragua, Venezuela and Angola. Within the framework of the World Cup, Prisoners Defenders accused these countries of hiring professionals in conditions of slavery since doctors are threatened with the Cuban Criminal Code that, if they do not return to the Island or leave work, they can be sentenced to eight years in prison.

Also, health workers complain that they are not allowed to participate in public events that don’t have the approval of the brigade chiefs, and that they are urged to participate in campaigns to support the Government on social networks.

The NGO, based in Madrid, noted that the European Parliament condemned the Cuban brigades in a resolution of September 2021, stating that the “Cuban State continues to systematically violate the labor and human rights of its health personnel sent to work abroad in medical missions, which makes the practice comparable to a contemporary form of slavery according to the United Nations.”

Cuba sent doctors to Italy for the first time in March 2020, at the most critical moment of the COVID-19 pandemic for the European nation. These professionals performed in the field hospitals installed in Crema and Turin.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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A U.S. Court Orders Cruise Ships to Pay 400 Million Dollars for Docking in Cuba

Havana Docks, the plaintiff company registered in the state of Delaware, from which Fidel Castro expropriated the port in 1960, filed the case in the U.S. courts in 2019. (Norwegian Cruise Line)

14ymedio, Havana, 31 December 2022 — On Friday, U.S. federal judge Beth Bloom sentenced the cruise companies Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian Cruise Line and MSC Cruises to pay more than 400 million dollars for docking at the Havana Port Cruise Terminal — also known as the Sierra Maestra Terminal — thereby violating Title III of the Helms-Burton Act of 1996 and activated by Donald Trump in 2019.

Havana Docks, the plaintiff company registered in the state of Delaware, from which Fidel Castro expropriated the port facilities in 1960, filed the case in the U.S. courts in 2019. Bloom herself determined, last March, that the accused committed the crime of usufruct and violated U.S. restrictions against Cuba “intentionally and deliberately.”

The ruling, signed by Bloom, states that considering the damage caused to Havana Docks and the complicity demonstrated by the companies, “the payment of just over 100 million dollars for each defendant is certainly reasonable.” In addition, Bloom said, the payment of a lower figure would not be in accordance with the seriousness of the offense by the companies, which have the right to appeal the sentence.

The judicial process against these four companies sets a precedent for future legal cases related to the properties seized by Fidel Castro. Also, Bloom hopes, it will serve as a warning for companies that continue to do business illegally with the Havana regime, which never compensated the companies whose assets were confiscated in the 1960s. continue reading

The Helms-Burton Act allows U.S. citizens to sue for monetary compensation for the usufruct of properties expropriated from their families and that have been used especially by shipping and hotel companies in third countries.

Havana Docks alleges that with these activities that occurred between 2015 and 2019, the four companies obtained up to 1.1 billion dollars in revenue and paid 138 million dollars to Cuban government entities.

The firms argued that their cruises to Cuba were part of the guidelines established by the Treasury Department within the “thaw” with Cuba established by the Administration of President Barack Obama (2009-2017), but the magistrate rejected those arguments, as reflected in the sentence.

She recalled that there were 12 categories, which did not pertain to tourism, nor could they undermine the U.S.embargo against Cuba.

Around 40 lawsuits against companies, especially those involved in tourism, many of them hotel companies, have been filed in courts in the U.S. since Title III was activated in 2019. Trump activated the rule that has allowed these legal processes and that his predecessors, Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton never pursued because of the legal and commercial implications with third countries. Within the framework of a kind of thaw driven this year by the Joe Biden Administration, the conviction of the four cruise companies shows that the economic restrictions derived from the Helms-Burton Act are in full operation.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Latin America and the Eternal Political Pendulum of the Caudillos

Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel and the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, during a military parade in Mexico City’s Zócalo in September 2021. (José Méndez/EFE)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, 1 January 2023 — Some call it the political pendulum, others classify it as the necessary ideological fluctuations imposed by history and there is no shortage of those who compare it with a cachumbambé (or seesaw) that sinks some party leaders in Latin America today while elevating others. The academic definitions or the labels coined by the headlines of the press matter little: the ideological oscillations between the governments of the continent are becoming, in all the essentials, less and less differentiated.

When Gabriel Boric came to power in Chile, Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución rubbed its hands. The Cuban authoritarian regime believed that in the South American president it would have a faithful follower who would accept its policies and silence its human rights violations. This has not been the case and, over the months, the new president has been turning towards pragmatism and more moderate positions. Although from the Moneda Palace a clear voice condemning the repression in Cuba is not heard, nor is complicit applause is not heard and the accusatory finger he raises at the excesses of the autocrat Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua is clearly seen.

The disaster of Pedro Castillo in Peru also calls into question the theory of ideological oscillation in the region. With a campaign that presented him as a humble teacher who was going to rescue the poorest social classes from oblivion, the Puña native ended up surrounding himself with a cabinet that had little to do with his initial left-wing discourse or with his proletarian demands. Caught between his ineptitude and the complexities of governing such a diverse nation, he preferred to flee forward and embark on the ridicule of a failed coup.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is another of these. A declared critic of the press, a promoter of various conspiracy theories or falsehoods that he tries to validate in his soporific “mornings,” the Mexican leader moves according to convenience between a discourse that borders on populist clichés and opportunism. Although in international forums he stands side by side with Pedro Castillo, the recently sentenced Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, or the unpresentable Miguel Díaz-Canel, towards the interior of his country he plays with a confusing rhetoric that is said and unsaid every day. It’s like a pendulum, coming and going as it pleases.

Nor is El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele, chameleon of chameleons, spared either. The one who presents himself as a “tweeter in chief” also breaks into Congress with armed soldiers. He can be hypnotic in his speeches, modern in his use of social networks and even innovative in his proposals to fight organized crime, but in the end he is nothing more than the grotesque and well-known Latin American caudillo who believes that citizens should be treated as small children and punished as if we were still in diapers.

Faced with so much political decadence, the shameful Nicolás Maduro can always remain as an extreme example. Clumsy, incapable and ridiculous, the Venezuelan caudillo helps us understand that it is not about ideological colors or a dilemma between liberalism versus socialism. Our region is sick with autocrats or apprentice dictators. Decades after the publication of The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel García Márquez, The Recourse to the Method by Alejo Carpentier or I, the Supreme by Augusto Roa Bastos, Latin America continues to be a region of caricature leaders, of leaders who produce more fear or laughter than admiration.

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The Mothers of ’11 July’, an Iron Link for Political Prisoners in Cuba

Three mothers of the 11J (July 11, 2021) prisoners. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 29 December 2022 — Barbara Farrat, Yudinela Castro, María Luisa Fleitas Brav , Migdalia Gutiérrez Padrón, Liset Fonseca, Marta Perdomo , Norabel Herrera, Marilin Cabrera. These are just a few names of the women who, in 2022, raised their voices again for political prisoners. In his case, his own children, detained – some still without sentence – after the demonstrations of July 11, 2021.

This year, 14ymedio dedicated a special to them to commemorate the first anniversary of the massive protests, which compiled the interviews conducted by our director, Yoani Sánchez.

In them, they recounted where they were that Sunday, when the demonstrations began, how the arrests of their relatives occurred and the details of the grotesque trials, the painful days in prison and the frustrated hope of a sterile appeal.

Some affirm that their children did not even participate, others claim that they marched peacefully asking for freedom, others cannot believe that, even if they had thrown a stone, they have been sentenced more harshly than murderers and rapists.

Surveilled, threatened, harassed, and in several cases detained for questioning, the mothers, wives, and sisters of prisoners have become easy targets for State Security, which, however, has not calculated that these links are made of iron and that they will continue in their fight no matter what happens. “They will not silence us”, is the cry that all of them have in common.
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Two Cuban Opponents Meet in Havana with US Democratic Senator Ron Wyden

Democratic Senator for the state of Oregon, Ron Wyden. (@RonWyden/Twitter)

14ymedio, Havana, 31 December 2022 — Cuban opponents Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello and Julio Ferrer Tamayo met this Friday morning with US Democratic Senator Ron Wyden visiting Havana. “The topic of the conversation was the political prisoners and their relatives,” Roque wrote through her Twitter account.

Wyden, who two days before held a meeting with Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel, met with the opponents at the residence of the US Chargé d’Affaires in Cuba, Benjamin Ziff. Roque and Ferrer described to the senator the current situation of political prisoners and their families.

Roque explained to the Cuba al día program on Radio and Television Martí that Wyden “is one of the people who wants a rapprochement with the dictatorship.” The two dissidents used the time of the meeting, of more than an hour, to “talk about the political prisoners and their families, in addition to touching on some specific cases.”

“We are trying to explain to him that in this situation that the country is experiencing, not only the prisoners suffer, but the families of the prisoners also suffers,” said the president of the Cuban Center for Human Rights. “There are families whose only support was through the person who is imprisoned.” continue reading

“We have prisoners who are denied all kinds of benefits,” lamented Roque. “All these things we explain to him in detail.” The opposition member says that the senator’s father “was under the boot of the Nazis and he firmly believes that the human rights situation must be improved” in Cuba.

“He was very receptive,” explains Roque. “I think that he is not going to leave this problem like that, but rather that he is going to transfer it to the different Senate committees in which he is going to participate.” The former political prisoner warned Wyden that “in order to take any step in relations between the two countries, political prisoners must be taken into account.”

The senator for the state of Oregon is the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and in February 2021 he presented the United States-Cuba Trade Act 2021 to repeal the sanctions against the Government of the Island and try to normalize relations between both administrations.

During the month of December, three other Democratic representatives visited Havana. Congressmen James McGovern, Troy Anthony Carter and Mark Pocan met with the island’s authorities with the aim of moving towards the “normalization” of bilateral relations, according to the Cuban Parliament.

Last November, a bipartisan delegation from the United States Congress made up of three members of its agricultural committee met in Havana with Vice President Salvador Valdés, legislators and Cuban farmers.

The Prisoners Defenders organization, in its latest monthly report, exposed the “inhuman repression” that “dominates Cuba since 9/11.” The organization denounced that with the 24 new arrests in November, the Cuban government keeps a total of 1,034 political prisoners in jails.

Hoy, junto con el abogado Julio Ferrer, fuimos recibidos por el senador Ron Wyden, demócrata por Oregón q se encuentra de visita en Cuba. El tema de la conversación fueron los presos políticos y sus familiares

— Martha Beatriz Roque (@marthabroque) December 30, 2022

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Cuban Stores Sell Rationed Rum in Bottles Intended for Cooking Oil

Bottling rum in plastic containers originally intended to hold cooking oil. (Trabajadores)

14ymedio, Havana, December 27, 2022 — With supplies down due to low productivity, the plastic containers normally used to bottle domestically produced cooking oil are instead being used to bottle rum. The Cuban government plans to distribute more than 4.5 million liters of the spirit, one of the few consumer products that is meeting its production targets, to Cuban families to coincide with the winter holidays.

An article published in the state-run newspaper Trabajadores on December 25 reports that, “after a “great productive effort,” the rum industry will close out the year on Wednesday. The government plans to distribute the beverage to more that four million households to enjoy as part of their New Year celebrations.

Rum seems to be the only product that will not be in short supply on Cuban tables at year’s end. Pork and chicken output has not been enough to meet demand. Last week, more than two-thousand people waited in line outside a state-run store on Melones Street in Havana’s Luyanó neighbor to buy meat. continue reading

Though the regime is incapable of managing the economy in a way that would provide Cubans with the staple foods necessary for a healthy diet, it seems it can meet its alcoholic beverage production targets. Meanwhile, shortages of milk, bread, fruit, vegetables and other daily products are ever more keenly felt, compelling many people to move abroad.

This result will generate a “plurality of opinion,” states the newspaper, which acknowledges that there are some who will not consider this a “mission accomplished” until the product has a permanent presence on store shelves. For the “great majority,” however, it argues that they will view the this as evidence the strategy is highly effective because now “Cubans can all buy drinks we like at least once a year.”

Havana’s Provincial Beverage and Soft Drink Company began a production run of 730,000 liters of rum on December 25 and ended it on Monday as scheduled, according to the company director, Nilda Lopez. The article states that the beverage will be distributed through 1,647 retail outlets throughout the capital.

The director indicated that both production and distribution of the rum has been made possible with help from other state-run institutions, among them Havana Commerce and Confectionary, Guido Perez Brewing, and Mayabeque, Molinería and Alibec Beverages.

“The one-liter and five-liter plastic bottles were supplied by Havana’s cooking oil company as well as by Ciego de Montero soft drinks and Villa Clara Military Industrial. This fact has not gone unnoticed by the Cuban public as evidenced by social media posts which criticize it as a “disgrace” and mockingly call it an example of “Cuban bad taste.”

The Western Rum Factory, the largest manufacturer in the capital, also resumed production after its plant shut down because it did not have enough alcohol or plastic bottles according to Yovayne Gonzalez, the company’s director of production. She explained that, given the shortage of supplies, it was decided to produce 34-proof beverage instead and market it under the Ronda label.

“We did it without interrupting production of our Legendario line. It is our main product and is intended for export. This year we were able to fully satisfy our overseas commitments,” Gonzalez told Trabajadores.

The Metropolitana plant was not to be outdone, added Matha María Perdomo, head of production, who reported that every day some 25,000 liters of rum are bottled there. Regular employees and clerical staff, though not managers, joined production line workers to help get the rum out. This was “in addition to the sodas and syrups that we have for which we have sales contracts,” she added.

The government is concerned about the nation’s alcohol consumption and its impact on Cubans’ health. The latest National Health Survey, conducted from 2018 to 2020, revealed that 73% of those polled said they had consumed alcoholic beverages in the previous thirty days, higher than the 67% reported in the 2020 study.

“Unfortunately, the alcohol consumption is risen 68% among those ages ten to nineteen,” said Public Health Minister Jose Angel Portal Miranda during a presentation of census results last July. The official figures indicate that between 7% and 10% of the population suffers from alcoholism, a rate that is likely much higher in regions of the country where recreational opportunities are few and cases can remain undiagnosed.

The World Health Organization warns that alcohol and tobacco abuse is the cause of various public health problems. These include digestive disorders due to lack of vitamins, gastric ulcers, pancreatic lesions, cirrhosis of the liver, and other diseases that can impact a person’s quality of life.

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Apropos of ‘A Settling of Scores’

Alexis Romay, New Jersey, 30 December 2022 — Today, the Cuban independent newspaper 14ymedio published the seven décimas* of the most recent entry of my weekly column, Ideological Deviation. You can read them in one fell swoop on their website, or take them individually, in daily doses, on my Spanish blog, which is also yours, Belascoaín y Neptuno.

I don’t usually write commentary to explain what I write. What I write explains itself. Or it doesn’t, and that’s that. However, I’ve made an exception this time because, after these seventy lines, I still had more to say. I want to highlight the discomfort that confronting racism and its many forms of violence causes in our society —I’m taking about Cuba, yes, and that is also applicable in the United States. But let’s focus on Cuba.

There are people who have told me all my life, in Spanish and in English, “I don’t see race or color,” and, in saying so, have always had the best of intentions. But whoever doesn’t see race also doesn’t see racism. And those problems will not be solved if we prefer to think they don’t exist. To not have to think about race, to not see race, is an immense privilege. I see it every time I look in the mirror. And yes, it’s a social construct, and all that, but I didn’t invent it. It was already here when I got to the party, like Augusto Monterroso’s famous dinosaur.

Since we are at it: it’s also a privilege to not have to think about gender, or money, or sexual orientation, or migratory status, or physical abilities, or about other factors that I don’t mention here, because I don’t see them, because they don’t come to mind at this moment, while I write this.

I was Black in Cuba, although here I’ve been placed in the “Latine” niche, while I repeat over and over that I am and will always be Cuban, until my lights are turned off; I’m Habanero, to be more precise.

I’ve never had the option of not thinking of myself as a racialized being, including long before I acquired this vocabulary. I didn’t have that choice when authorities during my Cuban upbringing repeated that racism was a remnant of the past —that thankfully had been eradicated in Cuba— while they taught me to hate my hair. This hair, this beautiful hair. The conjunction of this feeling of racial consciousness with the fallacy that we learn —that we learned— at home, that “the family is sacred,” was the starting point for this cycle of décimas. No, folks. We have to talk about racism, and we have to talk about it in public. And this conversation will have to be uncomfortable, especially for those who have never stopped to think about this subject. Believe me: more uncomfortable —more dangerous!— is racism itself. And another thing: family is who behaves as such. Family is also chosen. (My Aunt Lucy, who is not a blood relative, is more my family than my entire paternal line. I’m making use of this opportunity to send her, publicly, my everlasting love.)

In this week’s column, I maintain my policy of not telling a lie and punching all the way up. Here, as everywhere, the personal is political. Furthermore: my childhood demonstrates the resounding failure of the Cuban regime in promoting and implementing racial justice and equity on the island that I escaped, as so many thousands of my compatriots are doing right now.

I know that the State is a system and, that in my poem, I refer to individuals. But the gears of a society function —for better or worse— because of the people who implement them. These creatures and their sickening racism passed through my life. And they all openly supported “the Revolution,” while reiterating that, in the previous dictatorship, I “wouldn’t even have been considered a person.”

Therefore, I owe it to the child that I was to settle this score in public. I dedicate these rhymes to the racists —of all genders and latitudes— who have defended —and explained to me!— the Cuban Revolution.

The love for the homeland is learned at home. So is racism. Educate yourself, and educate your offspring.

Don’t forget that the dictum of “don’t air dirty laundry in public” is an effective way of protecting those who oppress you.

Tell your truth. Remember, as Audre Lorde said: “Your silence will not protect you.”

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*See ‘A Settling of Scores’ in English here.

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The 47 Victims of the Hotel Saratoga Explosion

Some of the faces of victims of the Hotel Saratoga explosion in Old Havana. (Collage)

14ymedio, Havana, 30 December 2022 — A ferocious explosion followed by a column of black smoke (seen in great detail in 14ymedio’s coverage) shocked the residents of Old Havana on 6 May at 10:50 in the morning. People’s worst fears were confirmed a few minutes later: the luxury hotel Saratoga, whose reopening was planned for just a few days later, had partially collapsed, taking with it the lives of dozens of people.

Among the victims, the number of which would end up totalling 47, were 23 employees of the hotel who were preparing for the reopening, but also residents of the area and pedestrians who had the misfortune of walking past at that moment — including two children and a Spanish woman who had only just arrived on a visit to the Island with her partner.

The incident (which the authorities promised to investigate but so far little or nothing of that has transpired) was apparently caused by inadequate handling of the transfer of liquid gas from a truck to the hotel’s storage tank.

The government was profuse in pushing the official line in its press about the rescue work, which lasted for several days until all the bodies were recovered and the names of those not found released. However, they never published any detailed record showing pictures of those who lost their lives in the tragedy.

This newspaper undertook an exhaustive gathering of all the information put out on social media by friends and family members of the victims so that finally we were able to bring together data on the majority of them: who they were, what were they like, what they did, what were their ambitions, who grieved for them. Our intensive work was recognised by the many readers who turned to us for our reporting on this story — the most read in 14ymedio of 2022. continue reading

Damage was also caused, in the explosion, beyond the hotel itself — built in 1880 and considered one of the most luxurious in the capital until in 2016 when the military took control of it — to a Baptist church, a school, the Martí Theatre and a number of other neighbouring buildings, a number of which remain beyond repair.

To add to this tragedy, which cost the lives of so many people this year, it is awful to have to add the shameful fact that in October it was revealed that Adel de la Torre Hernández, one of the emergency responders who took part in the evacuation, was sentenced to seven years in jail for having participated in the 11 July 2021 protests.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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Diaz-Canel is Committed to a Marxist, Critical and Anti-Capitalist Approach, that is, Revolutionary, to Solve Cuba’s Problems

At an earlier event, in a spacious hall full of presidents, Díaz-Canel tried to project the veneer of a democratic ruler . (Granma)

14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 30 December 2022 — Yes. You heard it, and it couldn’t be worse. Díaz-Canel’s last speech to the Council of Ministers has been a return to communist, Marxist and Leninist orthodoxy that has surprised everyone. Obviously, it doesn’t benefit him. A leader must be able to understand the problems of society and offer viable solutions. And Cubans are not for these ideas.

Entertaining yourself with metaphors of what could have been and was not takes it further away from the people and makes it a marketing product at the service of the state press. Only in this way is it possible to understand the phrase of the speech highlighted by the State newspaper Granma that says, verbatim, “the really important thing is to join forces in the right direction, which is none other than the one that allows us to reverse the difficult economic situation that the country is going through, even in conditions of an intensified blockade.” The return of collectivism? What does “join forces” mean, if not that?

And then he adds that all this should serve to “strengthen the certainty around the revolution, to continue consolidating the idea that the construction of socialism is the only viable alternative for the prosperity and development of our nation.” Has Díaz-Canel forgotten that we live in 2022 and not in 1961? Has he not realized that he is not Fidel Castro? What are we playing at 63 years after accumulated failures? Honestly, with this type of speech it is not surprising that international investors flee Cuba and that in 2022, more than 225,000 Cubans have left the country for the United States to achieve a better future.

The passion and desire that Díaz-Canel wants Cubans to put into work, those who have lost all hope to live in a better and prosperous country, sound false, empty and repetitive. Cuban society is bored and tired. People turn their backs on their leaders when their priorities are not considered. They distrust him and know that the chosen path will not take the Cuban economy out of the vicious circle in which it finds itself. continue reading

There is no point in incorporating into the regime’s discourse that 2022 has been a hard year, or that the situation has been complex since the second half of 2019. That complexity, which is much more serious than Díaz-Canel says, has to do with tasks of his sole responsibility: reduction of Venezuela’s oil supplies, application of the Ordering Task* and productive paralysis in the face of galloping inflation. Do you want more?

The United States Releases Cubans Who Were Going to be Deported and Whose Identities Were Leaked by Mistake

Up to 17 undocumented Cubans who remained detained at the Broward Transition Center in Pompano Beach began to be released on Thursday. (@USBPChiefEPT)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Miami, 30 December 2022 –The US immigration authorities released on Thursday a group of Cuban asylum seekers who were waiting to be deported and who were on a list with confidential data of more than 6,000 immigrants that was accidentally leaked on the Internet.

According to the Miami Herald, a group of up to 17 Cuban undocumented immigrants who remained detained at the Broward Transition Center in Pompano Beach (Florida) began to be released this Thursday and were received by their relatives.

“I am going to celebrate my freedom, something that we have, for a long time, been hoping for,” said the young Andy García, 26, one of those who were released this Thursday and who, like his compatriots, surrendered to the US immigration authorities in October after crossing the border with Mexico.

The Cubans had not been able to prove before an immigration judge that they were politically persecuted and that they feared for their lives if they were returned to the Island, a statement that in the immigration courts is known as “credible fear,” so they were waiting to be deported.

However, on November 28, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) mistakenly disseminated on the Internet a document with the identities, ages and nationality, among other data, of 6,252 immigrants in their custody, who claimed to be victims of torture and persecution in their countries of origin. continue reading

At the beginning of December, government officials from the Department of National Security (DHS) told the Cuban government in a phone call that it would delay deportations to the Island due to the leak, indirectly confirming to Havana that potential Cuban deportees were fleeing persecution or torture.

The relatives of the Cubans, who in recent days had gathered outside the immigration detention center with posters calling for the release of their loved ones, received the first report about the release on Tuesday night, according to the Miami Herald.

In recent days, and after the leak, Florida Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar urged the Secretary of National Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, to stop the deportation of 46 Cubans who were asylum seekers.

“The safety and well-being of refugees fleeing the (Cuban) regime must be the guiding principle of our immigration policy on Cuba,” Salazar said in her letter.

Salazar described the leak as “dangerous for life, and unacceptable,” and urged Mayorkas to take “the necessary measures to protect these people and reconsider their asylum applications,” since the United States had no way to guarantee their safety if they were deported to the Island.

The serious situation in Cuba was addressed on Thursday by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in an assessment that the Island, Venezuela and Nicaragua close 2022 with almost 1,500 people imprisoned for political reasons.

The IACHR described the governments of these three countries as “authoritarian” in a statement and accused them of manipulating the judiciary to prosecute and imprison people for political reasons.

“The independence and autonomy of the judiciary is an essential element for the existence of the rule of law,” claimed the commission, an autonomous body of the Organization of American States (OAS), based in Washington.

In total in all three countries, the commission reported 1,467 arrests for political reasons, including civilians and military. Cuba is the country with the most prisoners of this type, with 1,034 people detained as of November 2022.

This is followed by Venezuela, with 247 political prisoners in October of this year and Nicaragua, with a total of 195 detainees.

Persons deprived of liberty under these governments, in addition, are treated differently from the rest of the prison population, the IACHR stressed, “which has caused a serious deterioration in health” in several of them.

There is little official information about the situation of the detainees, since they are isolated and find it difficult to maintain regular contact with their families. In some cases they are subjected to torture and cruel treatment, the IACHR denounced.

The women arrested also face gender-based violence, as well as “bad treatment as a method of punishment, repression and humiliation,” the commission stressed.

At the beginning of December, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, reiterated his request to the Cuban government to release the “political prisoners” arrested after the July 2021 protests on the Island, who have received sentences of up to 30 years in prison.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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