View of a session of Cuba’s National Assembly of the People’s Power, in an archive photograph (EFE/Ernesto Mastrascusa)
EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 14 December 2022 — On Tuesday, a group of 500 citizens from opposition organizations requested that Cuba’s National Assembly of the People’s Power approve a law guaranteeing the rights to protest and to assemble, which are included in the 2019 Constitution.
Representatives of the Council for a Democratic Transition in Cuba, the NGO Cubalex, and other groups demanded that this issue be taken up during the extraordinary session of parliament planned for the first quarter of 2023.
They noted that the discussion and approval of this norm is included in the 2020-2023 legislative timeline, but was excluded “without justification” when the 2022 agenda was modified as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The inexcusable exclusion is contrary to the popular mandate given to the State’s Constitution in February of 2018, following popular consultations on the draft and through which Cuban society expressed, exceeding the limits of the consultation itself, its demands for more rights for more people,” the statement declares.
Cuban opponent and academic Manuel Cuesta Morúa is one of the signers of the petition, accessed by EFE, which was sent directly to the President of the National Assembly, Esteban Lazo. continue reading
“The approval of this law is urgent and fundamental,” state the solicitors, who denounced that many Cubans are in prison “for the peaceful exercise of their human and constitutional rights, amid the absence of judicial and legal precision to support them.”
According to the last report from NGO Prisoners Defenders, at the end of last month, there were 1,034 political prisoners in Cuba, most of them people who had participated in the antigovernment protests of July 11th, 2021. Justicia 11J has documented hundreds of arrests as a result of those protests.
The petition was published during the tenth period of the current legislative session, which from yesterday and until tomorrow discusses several laws, among them the 2023 Economic Plan.
Translated by: Silvia Suárez
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“It is one thing to be exiled and another to be an immigrant, to improve life or for issues like wars and cataclysms,” says Guedes. (The New Herald/Capture)
14ymedio, Madrid, 13 December 2022 — Cuban physician Antonio Guedes, founder of the Liberal Union, told 14ymedio on Tuesday that the controversy generated by the presentation in Miami of the book Cuban Privilege (Cambridge University Press, 2022), by the American sociologist Susan Eckstein, was a natural response of the community of Cuban residents in the United States.
“In the face of an issue of this nature, within an exile community that has suffered so much and still suffers, it is normal and even necessary to offer answers, let’s say sociological, as long as they are peaceful,” Guedes said from Madrid.
Cuban Privilege, a study of the migration policies of the United States toward Cuba since 1959, poses — supported by archives and state documents — that Cuban immigrants have enjoyed multiple political, social and economic benefits from which other groups of migrants have been deprived under the same conditions.
Both the postulates of the book and Eckstein’s favorable vision of the Cuban regime motivated, during the presentation of the book last Friday at the International University of Florida (FIU), a protest that was held in the vicinity of the campus.
On the university campus, where the academic debate between Eckstein and Cuban politician Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat took place, several of the attendees shouted slogans of “Down with communism!” “Free Cuba!” and “Homeland and life!” in addition to expressing their annoyance with the opinions in Cuban Privilege during the question-and-answer period. continue reading
Guedes is familiar with the work of Eckstein, who is the author of several books on Cuba, among them, the also controversial Back from the Future: Cuba under Castro. “She has always been one of the many left-wing academics who, from American universities, have done and do horrible damage to the exile,” he says. In addition, Eckstein has demonstrated several times her “benevolence toward the communist dictatorship, from the apparent bourgeois equidistance.”
Regarding the presentation of the book at FIU, the doctor welcomed the fact that Eckstein found “a high-level response that demonstrates the false premises and gaps in her book,” such as the one offered by Gutiérrez-Boronat, who put in context several of the statements that the professor put “lightly.”
However, Guedes says, it is logical that a book like Cuban Privilege will awaken the anger of the Cuban-American community. The reaction is comparable to that in other contexts where people have experienced dictatorships and totalitarianism.
“What would happen in Israel if a book had been presented that remotely questioned the Holocaust?” the doctor asks. “What would have happened in Chile, if positive Pinochet things were considered? Or in today’s Spain, governed by the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party and Podemos, about Franco? Or perhaps in today’s American universities, a presentation against abortion rights or gender ideology?”
However, it is also necessary to qualify. According to Guedes, there has been a “use, abuse and fraud” of the Cuban Adjustment Act for at least two decades. “If someone arrives at the U.S. border and requests that a law be applied to him conceived for persecuted people — or at least people discriminated against or marginalized for political, religious reasons, etc., and not for those who emigrate for economic reasons — and then after a year and a day they return to the ’house’ of their repressor, without apparent fear, as a mula [mule], a tremendous inconsistency is committed,” he says.
This is frequent and unjustified, although it is true that many Cubans had to leave Cuba when their properties were confiscated or nationalized. In that sense, the expropriation process executed by Castro was closely linked to the political sphere and, therefore, was a reason for reception in the United States. But this is not a frequent case, and the only reason to invoke the Cuban Adjustment Act should be “intimately linked to the lack of freedom.”
“All that is an incoherence, a fraud and a bad example for other groups and societies,” Guedes insists. “It is one thing to be exiled and another to be an immigrant, to improve life or for issues like wars and cataclysms.”
This does not mean, the doctor assures, that the Cuban Adjustment Act should be eliminated. “But it should be modified and made clear to those who take advantage of it that they cannot happily return to where the jailer is supposed to be,” he says.
Eckstein dedicates not a few pages of her book to the “false argument” of political persecution. But if Guedes and the academic agree on anything, it’s on the fact that the migration mechanisms must be applied correctly. “In this way, not only is the spirit of the act being complied with and fraud greatly diminished,” says the doctor, “but a message (an example) is also sent to the rest of the world and, incidentally doesn’t help support the repressive machinery, which is the cause of Cuban exile and emigration.”
There is much more to discuss about CubanPrivilege, such as Eckstein’s silence about the contributions of the Cuban community to American culture and even to the urban development of cities like Miami, or the “repressive nature of Cuban communism.”
There are also good reasons for revising the Cuban Adjustment Act, but “it should not be suppressed,” Guedes says. It should be modified or applied well, “because the causes for migration persist with the communist dictatorship.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The Tribe Caribe Cayo Hueso Hotel opened on Saturday in Havana. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez / Olea Gallardo, Havana, 13 December 2022 — The neighbors of the hotel Cayo Hueso, in Centro Habana, watched with intrigue, for months, the remodeling of the building located at Aramburu 253, at the corner of Neptune. Little by little, the property — built in the 1930s and in decline, like all its surroundings — was becoming a luxurious establishment, judging by what could be glimpsed through the windows of the ground floor.
Nothing, however, reported its future use, and the only sign it displayed was the work license number written on a piece of cardboard and poorly hung on a window. The gossip began to flow without confirmation: a yuma had bought the property and was turning it into a hotel.
And not only that, but he had bought other houses and planned to relocate everyone who lived there.
If it was true that the project was for an American, in any case he had to be influential. In this regard, several residents of the place tell another anecdote. One day a cement truck was parked in front of the building, and a police patrol car arrived to ask the construction workers for identification. One of them phoned someone, and, after having a brief conversation, passed the device to the policeman: “Someone wants to talk to you.” “The policeman changed his expression, apologized, and they never bothered the workers again,” says a neighbor who asks for anonymity.
Thus, a name began to be repeated during the last few weeks by the neighbors. They dared to say that behind the project, headed by two American businessmen, was none other than Raúl Castro’s daughter. “There the meter is running, but it’s not for the Americans. That’s not theirs, but Mariela’s,” the residents said confidently, insisting they saw her on Friday inside the building.
True or not, no one saw Mariela Castro last Saturday, when the hotel was inaugurated and several unknown people were cleared. To begin with, its name: Tribe Caribbean Cayo Hueso (Key West). continue reading
The only sign that the establishment had was the construction license number written on a piece of cardboard and poorly hung in a window. (14ymedio)
On its webpage, where you can now book a room for 150 to 550 dollars a night — booking a full floor costs 1,000 — the “founders” appear: an American investor, Chris Cornell, and music producer Andrés Levín, born in Venezuela but with a US passport. In Cuba, Levin is known for participating in several cultural projects such as the Havana Biennale, in addition to his marriage to Cuban-American singer Cucú Diamantes.
Hence, he was the most recognizable figure on Saturday, at an unusual “neighborhood” inauguration party, which lasted six hours and included an exhibition by photographer Juan Carlos Alom, the sale of items by private businesses such as the Clandestina brand and musical performances. “Here in Cuba this is not allowed for just anyone,” commented a young man, who stopped humming what they were singing on the stage: El Necio [The Fool], by Silvio Rodríguez, to the rhythm of salsa.
Levín, with a cap and characteristic dark glasses, came and went, smiling, greeting with familiarity the neighbors gathered in front of the street stage, for whose installation the traffic on Aramburu Street between Neptune and San Miguel was closed off.
Nearby was a bus with the electronic sign “PROTOCOL” in capital letters, and the various Lada vehicles with drivers normally used by public officials, parked nearby, were obvious.
A group of young people dressed in T-shirts saying “Tribe Caribe” prevented people from entering the hotel and monitored the movements of the curious.
Tribe Caribe is a company registered on April 30, 2021, in Florida, with the address 1521 Alton Road 460, in Miami Beach. Levín and Cornell both appear as directors. The company, linked to the world of music, affirms that it “promotes and distributes exceptional original Caribbean content,” according to its website, and is “a proactive force, a voice and an educator in the continuous emergence of the rich cultural offerings of the Caribbean.”
On the hotel’s page, Chris Cornell points out that he is “a long-time professional entrepreneur and investor in arts, creative businesses and impact projects, who provides momentum and entrepreneurial spirit to the project,” and who “has directed all the important decisions of restoration, construction and design of the hotel, and is deeply aware of how these decisions affect the neighborhood, the local cultural identity and the preservation of the artistic heritage of Cayo Hueso.”
Andrés Levín came and went smiling, familiarly greeting the neighbors gathered in front of the street stage. (14ymedio)
Of that mysterious investor, with unknown biography and background, there are no traces other than his alleged signature in the office in North Palm Beach, Florida, where the Tribe Caribe company was created. Of course, his name and surname coincide exactly with those of the famous singer of the Audioslave band, the first American rock group to play live in Cuba, in May 2005, at a venue none other than in the Anti-imperialist Bandstand, and for hundreds of thousands of fans on the Havana Malecón.
Levín emphasizes that he has been nominated for 26 Grammy awards — he won one in 2009 for the recording of the musical In theHeights — and that he has “propelled initiatives and produced numerous cultural events in Cuba, including TEDxHabana.”
Founder of the Afro-Cuban band YerbaBuena, the producer has collaborated, as mentioned on the official website, with artists such as Miguel Bosé, Aterciopelados, Orishas, David Byrne, Caetano Veloso, D’Angelo, Julieta Venegas and Tina Turner.
In addition, he is the producer of several film projects such as Amor crónico, directed in 2012 by the Cuban Jorge Perugorría, with whom he has a personal friendship, according to the photographs that show them together and messages.
An actor who prefers not to give his name and who was in business with Levin years ago, tells 14ymedio that both had agreed to collaborate on several projects, but that the producer cut off all communication after the artist’s participation in the demonstration on November 27, 2020 in front of the Ministry of Culture.
At that time, the actor attended two parties organized by Levín. One, in a house that he had rented in the municipality of Playa, near 5th Avenue, and another, in Siboney, where the mansions expropriated by the main architects of the Revolution are located, to celebrate the birthday of the producer’s father.
The source did not see, on any of these occasions, “anyone who was a heavyweight in politics,” but just “plain show business.”
Nearby was a bus with the electronic legend in capital letters “protocol,” and the various Lada vehicles with drivers were obvious. (14ymedio)
But if he is associated with Mariela Castro, it is because Levín himself appears on social networks next to her, for example, in an “anti-homophobia” gala held in 2016. The Spanish singer Marta Sánchez, who performed on that occasion, also posted on Facebook about it: “Thank you Cuba for so much love and recognition! Thanks to Mariela Castro for that support to those who choose in this country to love as they want! Thanks to Andrés Levín for counting on me!”
In addition, the producer himself mentions Raúl Castro’s daughter in an interview granted in 2016 to Tablet, a magazine on issues of the Jewish community (the producers’s roots, whose parents, “very left-wing” according to their own description, were Argentines exiled in Caracas).
“It seems to me that I was at a dinner with you a few years ago and there were secret service people there and one of the Castros was with us or something like that. What happened?”, asks the interviewer, to which Levín replies that he does not remember well, but that it would surely have to do with the TEDxHabana event, in which he collaborated with “designers, programmers, artists and scientists” of the Cuban LGTBQ community.
The “neighborhood” opening party, last Saturday, lasted six hours and included an exhibition by photographer Juan Carlos Alom, sale of items by private parties such as the Clandestina brand, and musical performances. (14ymedio)
“One of the most advanced LGBTQ sex education programs in Latin America is led by Mariela Castro,” says the musician, who recognises having collaborated with her “on many projects related to culture and education.”
And then Levín unravels into praise for the Cuban people, whom he affirms “have a lot of potential and desire to prosper and are very different from what people think,” and who have “things that most of the world doesn’t have”: “Healthcare and education. Eleven million educated people. It is the most educated country in the world,” he says.
Tribe Caribe Cayo Hueso is offered precisely as a cultural project: “We continue a 25-year mission to preserve and pay tribute to Afro-Cuban culture and its musical legacy, we celebrate multi-generational artistic expression, and we come to share our exclusive access to a side of Cuba that visitors and guests could not experience on their own.” Not a word about the business purposes, nor the obvious opulence that the project exudes, nestled in the depleted heart of Centro Habana.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The value of the American chicken reached a new record in October, at 1.29 dollars average per kilo, five cents more expensive than the price recorded in September. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 14 December 2022 — The price paid by Cuba in October for chicken imported from the US reached the historic high of 1.29 dollars per kilo, 48% more than at the beginning of this year, when it was at 0.87. According to data from the US Department of Agriculture collected by Cuban economist Pedro Monreal, Havana reduced its purchases by a third compared to September.
After reaching, the previous month, one of the highest figures in chicken imports from the United States, the largest supplier of this product to the Island, in October the volume contracted 36% from 25,100 to 15,980 tons.
Cuba spent 20.54 million dollars in October for its chicken purchases in the United States, 33.9% below the amount paid in September, 31.08 million dollars. These figures are the lowest after the results of April 2022, when imports plummeted 30% against the peaks of February and closed that month with a little more than 21,000 tons, which cost about 23 million dollars. Only the month of May was worse, with the purchase of a little less than 15,000 tons.
The value of American chicken reached a new record in October, at $1.29 per kilo on average, five cents more expensive than the record recorded in September for $1.21. As a result, the economist said, the purchasing power of Cuban families is further reduced with respect to “a high-demand food with very low national production, without a productive solution in sight.” continue reading
In the group of meats, the price of chicken rose the most throughout the year, driven by the high costs of raw materials, mainly the concentrate and feed that are needed for poultry. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) warned in its latest report on the world price index, corresponding to November, that the value of this product will not relax its upward trend due to a drop in production in the large producing countries after outbreaks of avian influenza intensified.
For Monreal, who analyzes data from the U.S. Foreign Agriculture Service, the drop in poultry imports from the neighboring country was not compensated by the supply from Brazil, the second largest supplier of chicken to the Island. From the South American nation, 2,642 tons worth 2.84 million dollars were received, seven times below the volume brought in on American ships.
The economist Elias Amor also replied to Monreal’s publication: “There is no money left in the ATM,” he said, referring to the shortage of liquidity faced by the Cuban Government to fulfill its commitments.
Cuba has to bring in most of the food it consumes, and imported chicken meat has long been an essential on the tables of Cuban families due to the disappearance of other sources of protein — fish, eggs and beef — as well as the stratospheric rise in the price of pork.
While the Cuban regime continues to blame the US embargo for the lack of basic products on the Island, ships with frozen products from the United States continue to arrive at the port of Havana. The last to dock this December 11 was the GreenMaveric ship from New Orleans.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The session confirmed that the changes that have been introduced so far to improve agricultural and livestock production have failed. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 12 December 2022 — Without knowing exactly why, satisfaction reigned in the parliamentary agro-food commission for the announced Law on the Promotion and Development of Livestock, which in recent days has been the focus of several reports in the local press. The preliminary draft, without any real innovations, can influence the pressing problem of shortages in the country. The new regulations essentially foresee changes in terms of sustainability, animal welfare and meat quality control that are more typical of countries where there is meat, which is far from being the case in Cuba.
The session confirmed, in fact, that the changes that have been introduced so far to improve agricultural and livestock production have failed. “The measures and agreements are not complied with in practice, and this affects producers and makes us lose credibility,” said Emilio Interián Rodríguez, deputy for Arroyo Naranjo and a rancher himself, who urged an “immediate solution” to the problem of non-payments to producers. “Farming families depend on those profits; in addition, non-payments discourage production,” he lamented. And he didn’t have to go far to give an example.
“I recently sent three animals to the slaughterhouse, and I still don’t know when I’m going to collect that money. On the other hand, to buy a stallion, necessary to improve livestock, I must pay in cash. So, how do I do it? It’s not possible to move forward in agriculture like this,” he said, recounting his own experience.
The vice president, Salvador Valdés Mesa, recognized that Cuban laws are insufficient for the promotion of production and that, in addition, resources have not “been put” into it, but there have been recent transformations such as allowing the sale of livestock “and the privatization of part of the sector.” He forgot that there has been money for other issues and that, as the deputy of Arroyo Naranjo reminded him, the changes are of no use if there are no effects beyond the on-paper ones. continue reading
Valdés Mesa, in any case, was not very convinced about the innovations, judging by his words. “The state’s control over livestock is weakened. We have disorder in the field. There are many complaints from producers about the damage from animals to other crops and thousands of livestock holders without land,” he said.
As outlined in the commission, reality has forced some changes in the preliminary draft, although we will have to wait to see the final text to learn more. “There are elements related to food and nutrition, for example, that cannot be met, because not even companies have that capacity. Only universities and scientific centres have it,” said the authorities, who aspire to increase the amount of livestock, something that, they admit, they won’t achieve.
“In the country, 40,000 cattle are killed illegally, and 200,000 die,” a producer told Escambray on Wednesday in a report where nothing was hidden about the serious situation. “In livestock, life cannot remain the same, applauding plans and results that barely benefit a small number of inhabitants, recycling, year after year, statistics that make society shudder.”
According to the text, among the worst problems are banditry, which, he explains, forces cows to be cooped up for too long, and emigration, which additionally causes a lack of attention to rural communities and the countryside in general.
The report follows another one published days earlier in Periódico26, which warned that, in the province of Las Tunas, there were more than 11,500 deaths of livestock in the year, and the planned birth rate didn’t even reach 41%. In addition, and delving into the serious problem of robberies that shakes the Island more than ever, it indicated that some 2,580 cows left the production cycle due to theft and illegal slaughter.
Milk is also affected, and according to the territorial authorities, deliveries of this product and meat have not been fulfilled, and contracts for production in 2023 do not even reach 14%. The issue is not trivial, since as long as the producer doesn’t fulfill his contract with the State, he cannot sell independently. Minister Ydael Pérez Brito said that, out of more than 9,000 owners, only about 256 animals are slaughtered, and added that the measures taken by the Government are intended to “woo the producers.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Private cafeteria on Boulevard de San Rafael, in Havana. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 13 December 2022 — As if the current legislation, including the list of 124 prohibited activities, were not limiting enough for the creation of private companies in Cuba, the Government seems to be determined to stop this process, even going against its own laws. This is, among other things, what Oniel Díaz Castellanos, founder of the consultancy Auge, denounces.
On Monday, the National Assembly of People’s Power approved the law on the State budget for 2023 and, as part of it, eliminated the tax exemption for micro, small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) during their first year of life. As reported in the official press, “from the need for all economic actors to contribute to generate income for the financing of social services and programs, the tax exemption for SMEs is without effect, for a period of six months when they arise from a reconversion and one year when they are newly created, beginning in 2023. The previously constituted SMEs that are enjoying this benefit will keep it until the end of the period for which it was granted to them.”
The measure, says Díaz Castellanos in a direct Facebook broadcast, is not only lethal for new entrepreneurs and for attracting investments, but also goes against the laws approved by the regime itself.
“There is a decree-law for SMEs, a list of prohibited activities, but there is no exchange market, there are no inputs, there are not enough credits, there is a rigid regulatory framework and, on top of that, now there is zero incentive, zero support, because the company since it begins to exist already has to pay taxes as if it had been operating its whole life,” the consultant argues.
Faced with this, he notes that, in the Mariel Special Development Zone, foreign or domestic investors “have ten years free of utility taxes, are exempt from the labour force tax and have several incentives.” The measures announced, he says, “tremendously contradict that phrase of equal conditions among economic actors.” continue reading
The government trend against SMEs, however, is not something new. Díaz Castellanos himself has been warning for weeks of the setback that the process of creating private companies seems to be suffering. One example is that the State, which had been approving between 100 and 120 small businesses weekly, has spent “two consecutive weeks without any new SMEs being announced, unprecedented in the last twelve months.”
“You can’t whistle and stick out your tongue at the same time. Either the private sector is accepted or it is not. And the second option no longer fits with the guidelines and congresses of the last ten years,” the founder of Auge wrote this Sunday on his social networks. Faced with an avalanche of questions and comments, Díaz Castellanos promised details directly and finally transmitted them on Monday night.
The entrepreneur said that there are more than 10,000 applications to be SMEs and that, of them, more than 4,000 remain unapproved, “not a small number.” They are encountering several obstacles; among them, forcing them to withdraw the commercialization of their main activities and put them as secondary activities, or questioning those companies that have a broad corporate purpose (something common in societies where the free market governs, which allows companies not to stick to a single purpose but to many possible ones, so that they have flexibility in their activities and the risk of investment is reduced). All this, Díaz Castellanos reiterates, does not appear either in the decree-law of SMEs or in the list of prohibited activities, which is the current regulatory framework.
None of this, he adds, “affects the country’s system, violates the Constitution of the Republic, or causes economic, social or political damage to our country.”
As for the changes in start-up conditions, “the only thing they do is compromise the credibility of the country’s economic policy and the credibility of the institutions that apply it,” says the businessman, for whom “without stability, without confidence in the regulations, in the way they are applied, in the institutions, the country will not move forward.” A “powerful business fabric,” says the entrepreneur is, among other things, what Cuba needs to get out of the great crisis in which it finds itself.
Díaz Castellanos defends himself from the criticism received on the part of officialdom, which argues that these are “union demands.” He explains that these “hesitations” harm “everyone.” “For those who think that they are facing Monsanto, Tesla or Amazon, the great monopolies of global capitalism, I must tell them that no, they are simply criticizing small companies that have few workers, few resources — small companies that at the moment are extremely limited by the current context,” said the consultant, who pointed out that enterprises “are already controlled,” such as restricting one SME per capita with a limit of 100 workers.
Similarly, he declares, “there is no turning back in the role of the private sector,” which, he says, based on data from the National Assembly itself, represents 34% of the labour force and between 12 and 14% of GDP. In his conclusion, he cautiously believes that what was built in Cuba in the last sixty years “was a mistake, turning its back on the market.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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A group of Cuban doctors in Campeche state in Mexico. (Facebook/Layda Sansores)
14ymedio, Havana, 13 December 2022 — On Tuesday, the Madrid-based organization, Prisoners Defenders (PD) launched a harsh critique toward the governments of Mexico, Italy and Qatar for contracting Cuban professionals in “conditions of slavery.”
The temporary migration program for health professionals to “friendly nations” is nothing more than the main source of hard currency for the Cuban regime, which for each professional receives compensation while subjecting the health workers to contract conditions that violate international decent labor norms and challenging “the human condition to its limits.”
One of these norms, explains Prisoners Defenders, is the Cuban Criminal Code that went into effect on December 1, 2022, which sanctions with up to eight years in prison any professional who leaves their job or does not return immediately to the Island at the end of their contract. Health workers are not able to participate in public events without authorization, nor to issue statements on social media without receiving instructions.
The countries where they work also subject professionals to precarious conditions, the organization reproached. This is the case in Mexico, where they have a 6:00 pm “curfew” after which they cannot leave their assigned residence. The contracting of more than 600 doctors to cover the medical specialist shortage in the second largest economy in Latin America has revived a controversy about President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the main architect of the rapprochement with the Havana regime. Furthermore, several organizations have denounced that the brigades are composed of not only doctors who are not specialists, but also include military personnel and spies.
Another one of the countries with a presence of Cuban medical personnel is Qatar, site of the World Cup and criticized for violating the rights of women, LGBTI community or migrant workers, all of which are, theoretically, causes that the Island’s regime defends. Cuba has a long history of collaboration with the emirate, sending brigades since 1999 and there is even a hospital in the Dukhan region, inaugurated in 2012 as a “jewel of the Cuban international medical missions.” continue reading
Prisoners Defenders reiterates that, according to information published by The Guardian, Qatar pays Havana between 5,000 and 10,000 dollars per person but the Cuban government only hands over 10% of the total to the doctors. This income is below the poverty level in the oil-producing nation.
“None of the workers we investigated went to Qatar voluntarily, but rather were coerced. The Cuban doctors did not receive a work contract and did not know their final destination until they reached it. To go on the mission, they were required to attend a Communist Party political ideology course for health sector workers,” states the organization.
Furthermore, and against European Union Laws, the President of the Calabria region of Italy, Roberto Occhiuto, signed a contract for 28 million euro per year for 497 Cuban doctors beginning in September 2022.
The Government of Calabria pays each Cuban medical professional 1,200 euros per month to defray their costs, while paying the regime 3,500 euros.
The NGO states that the European Parliament condemned the Cuban brigades in September 2021, in a resolution which declared, “The Cuban state continues to systematically violate the labor and human rights of its health personnel sent to work abroad on medical missions, which is comparable to modern slavery, according to the United Nations.”
Translated by: Silvia Suárez
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Adonis Alexander Remon León left the Island on a raft on December 6 along with 29 balseros [ rafters]. (Facebook) 14ymedio, Havana, 12 December 2022 — Adonis Alexander Remon León is the last of the Cuban demonstrators arrested on July 11, 2021 (11J), who managed to reach the United States. According to what his mother, Elizabeth León, told Radio and Televisión Martí, the young man, 28, “is under investigation” on an American Coast Guard ship to “see if credible fear is true.” For demonstrating peacefully, the regime accused him of public disorder, attack, incitement to commit crime and damage, according to the report of detainees prepared by the Justice 11J platform.
Remon León was placed in “home detention” awaiting trial, after spending a few months incarcerated in the Combinado del Este, the largest prison in Cuba, where he was even in the hospital in critical condition, according to the Justice 11J report. In September 2021, the measure was changed to house arrest and, released, he received threats not to take to the streets on November 15, the date that Archipelago chose for the frustrated Civic March for Change.
On December 6, he left the Island in the company of 29 other people from La Güinera, but on the journey they were intercepted by the Coast Guard. “They left looking for freedom,” said his mother, who added that they repatriated everyone from the group except Adonis, who asked for political asylum.
“He emphasized that if he returned, they would put him back in prison,” Elizabeth León stressed. Adonis had also been denied work. “They told him not to go anywhere else, that they won’t give him work here in Cuba.”
In the group of balseros [rafters] there was another 11J protester, whose name was not revealed and who was not allowed to stay on the ship. After being deported, he was arrested by State Security. continue reading
Remon León was arrested for his participation in peaceful demonstrations last year and detained for 59 days in the detention centre of the Technical Investigation Department of the Ministry of the Interior, at 100 and Aldabó. Subsequently, he was placed in pretrial detention in the Jóvenes del Cotorro prison in Havana and, finally, in the Combinado del Este, from where the precautionary measure was changed to house arrest.
Activist Salomé García Bacallao revealed through her Twitter account that the demonstrators of July 11, Yunier Soto Sanabria and Deoban Rodríguez Morales, had also fled the Island. “Everyone has the right to request political asylum, and there are enough arguments to demonstrate their credible fear.”
García Bacallao recalled that “the protests in the capital neighbourhood of La Güinera lasted until July 12, when a protester, Diubis Laurencio Tejeda, was killed by the police and others were injured, including a minor.” The regime brutalized this neighbourhood.
Last Saturday, the Coast Guard repatriated 152 balseros to Cuba on the ships RayEvans and CharlesDavid. According to official figures, since the first of October, 2,982 rafters have seen their attempts to reach Florida frustrated. “Every day our teams work together to protect our borders and serve the United States,” said Air Operations and Marines of Customs and Border Patrol, Gerald Burgess.
Despite the surveillance by sea and air, this Sunday the Border Patrol reported the landing of 79 rafters in Florida. The chief officer of the Miami sector, Walter Slosar, shared images of the rafts. The Cubans who arrived on them were placed in custody. Slosar mentioned that from October to date, 131 people have been arrested for “maritime smuggling.”
The balseros were also in the news in Mexico. On Friday, 10 Cubans, two women and eight men, landed on the island of the La Pasión, a protected natural area of Cozumel surrounded by mangroves. The group applied for asylum, but the immigration authorities have not yet defined their situation.
Last September, fisherman Javier Robles told 14ymedio that the escape route for Cubans through Cancún, in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, had been reactivated. “There are people who fish at night, needless to say. Suddenly fishermen’s boats from Cancún appear in Cuba, and no one knows anything.”
The coyotes, as a Cuban revealed to this newspaper this same month, organize trips to Pinar del Río and charge Cubans $7,000. The departures, he said, respond to the despair, and “at this point many people will start leaving.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Alejandro Gil Fernández, Cuba’s deputy minister and minister of Economy and Planning, before the National Assembly of the People’s Power of Cuba. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 12 December 2022 — In February 1970, while doing my work as a journalist (still a student) to cover the sugar harvest in the municipality of Florida, I attended an important meeting chaired by Armando Hart Dávalos, the member of the Political Bureau assigned to guarantee the goal corresponding to the province of Camagüey to produce 10 million tons of sugar that year.
The central point of the meeting was to examine the fullfilment of the commitments of the different sectors of the municipality to complete the number of macheteros [cane cutters] that would be part of the Jesús Suárez Gayol brigade.
One by one, the committed local bosses explained the causes of their non-compliance. The dairy company’s boss argued that if he lost one more man from the dairy farms it would not be possible to satisfy the supply of milk to the population; the head of the trade sector explained that not one more store could be closed; that of the railway workshops alleged that without mechanics the trains could not be moved, and the head of Forestry justified himself by invoking the inability to protect the forests with the few personnel at his disposal.
Armando Hart did not flinch. As if he had not paid attention to the arguments, he said that he was not there to hear excuses but to convey to them the news that the initial commitments had been insufficient and that now there were higher goals. After reading the new figures assigned to each sector, he said: “I hope you know how to fulfil this new task of the Revolution.”
One by one, each local boss promised to send more men to the cane fields.
I, who had not yet turned 23, published in a municipal tabloid named AlMachete my first critical journalistic text, where I questioned the honesty of the local officials. “At what time were they lying: when they said they could not meet the goal or when they promised to meet a higher one?” I wondered then. Still without questioning the honesty of the national leader, who thought he had looked good by demanding something impossible. continue reading
Two days later, one of those little bosses attacked me for that text, and I still keep my promise to keep him anonymous. “Look, young man,” he told me as he took off his hat, “If in the name of the Revolution a leader tells you to jump into the void from a great height, you can jump or fake that you are going to make the leap; what you can’t do is mention the law of gravity.” He paused and finished: “Or are you going to tell him that he’s stupid?”
That unforgettable lesson of wisdom and survival — not honesty — came to my mind when I read the justifications that were intended to explain, in the last plenary session of the Central Committee of the Party, why the measures taken by the Government to face the crisis have not had the expected result.
As is known, the 10 million tons of sugar were not produced in 1970. Surely Armando Hart knew it in advance along with everyone who knew something about the harvest, but no one dared to reveal the stupidity of the purpose.
How is it possible that those who plan the economy today do not take reality into account? How can you make a plan and then blame the “blockade” for your non-compliance? Did the planners assume that the restrictive measures imposed by the United States were going to be lifted, that there would be no administrative corruption, that no cyclones or accidents would occur?
Did they forget the law of gravity?
*Translator’s note: The “Ordering Task” is a collection of measures that include eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso as the only national currency, raising prices, raising salaries (but not as much as prices), opening stores that take payment only in hard currency which must be in the form of specially issued pre-paid debit cards, and a broad range of other measures targeted to different elements of the Cuban economy.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Cuba is experiencing a deep shortage of commodities, high inflation, partial dollarization of the economy and frequent and prolonged blackouts. (14ymedio)
EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 12 December 2022 — The Cuban Government hopes that the national economy will grow by 3% in 2023, compared to 2% this year and 1.3% in the previous year, which would not be enough to recover the levels of 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil, announced these figures when presenting the 2023 Economic Plan on the first day of the tenth session of the current legislature of the National Assembly of People’s Power.
The Cuban regime, by making these data public, recognizes, without openly subscribing to it, that the forecast of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) that the Island would grow this 2022 by only 2% was finally correct compared to the 4% that the Government claimed.
The ECLAC also indicated last October, that the forecast for 2023 is even lower and remains at just 1.8%.
Gil indicated that in 2023 there will be “continued progress in the gradual recovery of the economy,” a “hard” job, although he assured that there are “bright spots, alternatives,” and “solutions.” continue reading
“2023 will be better than 2022,” said Gil, who who urged work to achieve the forecasts, because “nothing is going to fall out of the sky.” “Without triumphalism, but with optimism,” he added.
At constant prices, the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023 can reach – according to the ministerial plan — 53,931 million Cuban pesos (2,248.4 million dollars), compared to the 52,360 million pesos (2,182.9 million dollars) for 2022, the 51,334 million pesos for 2021 (2,140.1 million dollars), the 50,698 million pesos (2,113.6 million dollars) for 2020, and the 56,932 million pesos (2,373.5 million dollars) for 2019.
“The trend towards growth experienced during 2021 and 2022 is maintained, although the activity levels of 2019 are not yet achieved,” read the minister’s presentation.
Gil appreciated certain “conditions” that favor the economic recovery, such as the control of covid-19, the improvement that is expected for the tourism sector and the “results” of the international tour recently made by President Miguel Díaz-Canel.
Díaz-Canel visited Algeria, Turkey, Russia and China in November with the restructuring of public debt and energy supply as the main points of his agenda.
Cuba suffers a serious economic crisis due to the combination of the effects of the pandemic, the tightening of US sanctions and errors in economic policy.
This situation translates into a deep shortage of basic products (food, medicines, fuel), high inflation, partial dollarization of the economy and frequent and prolonged blackouts.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Ana Belkis Ferrer García, sister of the opposition leader, explained what happened on December 9. (Image capture)
14ymedio, Havana, 11 December 2022 — Opposition leader José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), has been the victim of a beating at the Mar Verde prison in Santiago de Cuba, the Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba charged in a statement. The activist protested against the violation of his correspondence, and the guards responded to his complaint with violence.
Ana Belkis Ferrer García, sister of the opposition leader, detailed in a transmission through the social network Facebook what happened on December 9, during the family visit that the activist received in the prison. The meeting was attended by his wife, Nelva Ismaray Ortega, and two of the dissident’s children, who witnessed the aggressive response of the guards.
“His little daughter, Victoria Fatima Ferrer, who ran to her father’s aid, was also assaulted, as was his wife Nelva. The psychological consequences of this unleashed violence will have a lasting and probably devastating impact on these young children,” the Council added in its statement.
The violence against Ferrer occurred after his wife told him that on November 30, after attending the conjugal visit, she was detained, and the guards confiscated the correspondence that the opposition leader had given her. They read the letters and “returned only some of them but kept the others,” according to the opposition leader’s sister. continue reading
Upon learning of this, Ferrer demanded the right of respect for his correspondence in front of the two guards who had been listening all the time to what he was talking about with his family. When the UNPACU leader complained, they began to beat him. “One held him down and the other hit him hard. Fatima, José Daniel’s daughter, tried to intervene to stop them from hitting her father, and they pushed her.
The activist was immobilized. “They covered his mouth because he began to shout ’Down with Raúl Castro, Down with Díaz-Canel, Down with the dictatorship!’ They threw him to the floor,” his sister said. Before he was taken out of the visiting room, the opposition leader managed to tell his wife that he was going on a hunger strike because of the violation of his correspondence and the non-compliance with his phone-call schedule.
For Ana Belkis Ferrer García, the reason for the restrictions on her brother’s phone calls is to prevent “him from making the complaints he made in those few minutes.” She explains that the opposition leader has been in a detention cell for 16 months “in cruel, inhuman and degrading conditions. Since he is on a hunger strike, they have taken away all his belongings,” she complains.
“José Daniel Ferrer must be released immediately and unconditionally, in the same way as all political prisoners. All of them are innocent. Amnesty, which is supported by the citizenry, is an appropriate way, supported by the international community that defends human rights,” says the Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba in its texts, and it also demands that “the perpetrators, uniformed or not, be punished for this atrocious and barbaric display of violence.”
Ferrer is one of nearly 1,000 political prisoners being held by the regime since the mass protests of July 11, 2021, or after the demonstrations of recent months.
Translated by: Hombre de Paz
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In terms of sexist violence, October was the bloodiest month of 2022, with six murders reported by the independent press and feminist platforms. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana | 10 December 2022 — Miriam del Pilar Vidal Escoda, from Camagüey, is the 34th victim to die of sexist violence in Cuba so far in 2022. According to sources close to the 54-year-old woman, she was murdered by her ex-partner, from whom she had separated on several occasions.
The platforms that keep an unofficial record of sexist murders on the Island still do not confirm the death, but those close to Vidal Escoda said on social networks that it was a femicide. They even left comments on the Facebook profile of the alleged attacker, identified as José Alonso, in a post on November 7, 2022, where he had posted that he was “in a relationship.”
A source close to the victim confirmed to the newspaper ADNCuba that the crime occurred between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Wednesday, December 7, when the alleged attacker stabbed her in the chest with a knife. The source said that the subject cleaned up the blood and blocked the door with a bar.
“He left with bloody but dry hands,” the source added, heading to the house of the woman’s cousin, not far from his residence, where he gave him a cell phone with the request to give it to Vidal Escoda’s daughter. Then he went to work in a bakery, where the police captured him hours later. The source said that the same relatives of the subject alerted the police to the incident, and when they knocked down the door, they found the woman’s lifeless body. continue reading
Vidal Escoda worked as a senior gastronomy specialist for the Provincial Tourism Company in the city of Santa María, and her daughter graduated with a degree in tourism from the University of Camagüey.
This femicide joins the long list that now has 34 violent deaths in 2022, most of them brutal murders by ex-partners. The most recent case was that of Yamila Batista, in the Mantilla neighborhood, in the Havana municipality of Arroyo Naranjo, who had recently moved home. Her aggressor took his own life after several days of harassment.
In terms of sexist violence, October was the bloodiest month of 2022, with six cases reported by the independent press and feminist platforms; the authorities don’t publish official records of these crimes. The only data available in state sources on gender violence come from a 2016 survey, which revealed that 26.7% of Cuban women between the ages of 15 and 74 said they had suffered some type of violence in their relationship in the twelve months prior to the study, and only 3.7% of those assaulted asked for institutional help.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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“The objectives of the Economy Plan for 2022 were not achieved,” Gil summarized. “The approved measures have not had the necessary impact.” (Twitter/Communist Party of Cuba)
14ymedio, Havana, 10 December 2022 — The leaders of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) took advantage of the closure, this Saturday, of the 5th Plenary of the Central Committee, to justify their actions, which have led the country to a generalized crisis with daily blackouts. “It was a hard and difficult year,” admitted the Minister of Economy, Alejandro Gil Fernández, without at any time recognizing the responsibility of the leaders in the collapse of the national economy.
Raúl Castro was not present at the Party plenary, but it was attended by Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, in spite of rumors circulating this week about his death, and a special guest, José Ramón Machado Ventura, a member of the “auxiliary structure” of the Central Committee.
The official press was discreet when it came to discussing the specific issues addressed by the PCC cadres. Chaired by a silent Díaz-Canel and closely monitored by the military members of the Central Committee, the leaders have, since Friday, expressed their concerns about the critical situation of the Island and the “deviations of the Ordering Task”* implemented since January 2021.
“The objectives of the Economy Plan for 2022 were not achieved,” Gil summarized. “The approved measures have not had the necessary impact.” The minister quickly amended the pessimism of his statement and attributed the Island’s failures to the “hardening of the blockade” [referring to the American embargo], the covid pandemic, the rise in prices in the world market and global inflation, “beyond our organizational problems.”
Although nothing is as serious, he lamented, as the lack of hard currency. Everything necessary to boost the development of the country is approved by the leaders, he said, but simply “we do not have the resources.” continue reading
He added that there was some “recovery” thanks to the export of nickel, tobacco, rum, honey and seafood, but pointed out that only 1.7 million tourists have arrived in the country, leaving a need for 800,000 more to meet official forecasts, and almost 3 million more to reach the figures of the years before the pandemic.
“We cannot compare ourselves to 2021,” Gil said, after lashing out at agricultural leaders, whose results were remarkably low. “The country has induced or imported inflation,” he said, because importation “forces” the Government to raise prices. “We can’t do anything about that inflation,” he warned.
About the extra cost, he said, “we are including an internal component of indiscipline, diversion, speculation, resale.” He again stoked the idea of encouraging the “hunting” of resellers by ordinary Cubans.
Other leaders underlined Alejandro Gil’s observations. The common factor of the interventions was to describe the Government’s measures as “bold and innovative” and denounce their implementation by local cadres and the general population.
During the first session of the plenary, held this Friday, they pointed out the “progressive socioeconomic complexity,” attributed not only to the ’blockade’ and the coronavirus pandemic, but also to the explosion of the Saratoga hotel, the fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base and the passage of Hurricane Ian in the western part of the island, whose “devastation” destabilized the National Electric System.
“The effects of this scenario are reflected in an aggravated situation of material deficiencies that affects all social and economic sectors of the country. Undersupply and inflation persist, with insufficient results in the measures adopted, which maintains a direct impact on the quality of life of the people,” admits the report published by the Party during the event.
The text also points out that the shortcomings have had “a harmful political and ideological impact on different sectors of our society,” and caused an increase in “subversive and destabilizing plans, using a fierce media campaign as a spearhead.”
They considered it urgent to “improve the Party’s work in universities” and to “take into account the states of opinion of the population.” Although they referred — according to the newspaper Granma — to the East-West Transfer project,** carried out in Mayarí, Holguín, they did not offer too many details about the state of the investment in the work, which Vice President Salvador Valdés Mesa described as “futuristic.”
During the plenary, the deaths of two recently deceased military members of the Central Committee were noted: Brigadier General José Alberto Yanes and Major General Luis Alberto López-Calleja, former son-in-law of Raúl Castro, president of the Armed Forces Business Administration Group and one of the most powerful men on the Island.
Translator’s notes:
*The “Ordering Task” is a collection of measures that include eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso as the only national currency, raising prices, raising salaries (but not as much as prices), opening stores that take payment only in hard currency which must be in the form of specially issued pre-paid debit cards, and a broad range of other measures targeted to different elements of the Cuban economy.
**The East-West Transfer project involves major construction of aqueduct networks to conserve water and increase agricultural production.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Reineris Andreu was one of the medal options that Cuba had in the wrestling discipline. (Jit)
14ymedio, Havana | 9 December 2022 – The double world wrestling champion, Reineris Andreu, left Cuba’s national team after his participation in an event held in the Dominican Republic, the official media Jit confirmed on Thursday. The athlete’s escape is the sixth in this sport so far this year and was revealed, as usually happens, as “an indiscipline.”
The news was a bucket of ice water for the Cuban team that finalized the regional qualifying event in the Dominican Republic with 16 gold medals, one silver and one bronze. Andreu’s escape limits the Island’s possibilities at the Central American and Caribbean Games, said Miami-based Cuban wrestling coach Daniel Gómez.
With the escape of the Sancti Spíritus athlete, Gomez said on his social networks, “Cuba has few options for a gold medal in this division at the Central American and Caribbean Games.”
The coach, originally from Villa Clara, recalled that the regime punished the wrestler. “They didn’t give him the resources to participate in international youth tournaments.” Without Reineris Andreu and Alexei Alvarez, who “a few months ago asked for his release from the national team and currently resides in Spain,” the Island suffers from a lack of people in this sport.
“The exodus of Cubans transcends any category or branch of society,” published journalist Francys Romero, after learning that the first “undisciplined” from the event in Mexico, as the ruling party calls deserters, was the Olympic champion of Rio de Janeiro 2016 and two-time world champion Ismael Borrero.
To the desertions of Borrero, Solenzal and Cordero were added those of the pinareños Leonardo Herrera (60 Kg) and Amanda Hernández (53 Kg), two young talents who will seek to grow in their sport outside the Island.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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A division is perceived between those who believe that the Congress has aligned itself with the “imperialist powers” and those who reproach Castillo’s performance this Wednesday. (Facebook/Pedro Castillo)
14ymedio, Madrid, 8 December 2022 — The Cuban chancellor, Bruno Rodríguez, so quick to comment on everything on his Twitter account, has not yet pronounced on the events in Peru and the imprisonment of an ally of Havana after his failing in an attempt at a coup. This silence contrasts with the stridency of his reaction, the day before, to the condemnatory sentence for Argentina’s Vice-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, when he wrote on Twitter: “We ratify our solidarity with @CFKArgentina in the face of judicial and media harassment, which has clear political purposes.”
Nor did Miguel Díaz-Canel spare any emotion: “We reiterate our rejection of politically motivated judicial processes and reaffirm all our support and solidarity to @CFKArgentina in the face of judicial and media harassment against her.” The president used the hashtags #CubaTeAbraza [Cuba Hugs You] and #TodosConCristina [Everyone With Cristina].
The two accounts remain in absolute silence so far about the fate of now former President Pedro Castillo in Peru, who this Wednesday tried to dissolve Parliament before a third motion for his impeachment, in a suicide move that didn’t even have the support of his own government.
Faced with the apparent bewilderment of Cuban leaders, who are traveling in several Caribbean countries, Granma, the Communist Party newspaper was ahead of the official position. On Thursday, Granma published a short article entitled “Another Parliamentary Coup” that contains some elements of what happened in the intense day experienced yesterday in Lima, mentioning very briefly the announcement of the dissolution of Congress by Castillo.
Granma’s peculiar interpretation consists of explaining that the Andean country is going through a “political crisis” caused by “the actions of the Peruvian opposition, the majority in Congress, that hasn’t let the president, elected by the people 16 months ago, govern.” continue reading
Unlike the chavistaDiosdado Cabello, who accuses Washington of being behind the fall of Castillo, Granma doesn’t pronounce on this aspect, but everything indicates that the members of the Sao Paulo Forum, including Cuba, are going along with that line.
Last night, the same newspaper published a text delving into the matter of Cristina Fernández with the headline “Adjustment of right-wing accounts,” in which the author says: “This procedure is not new, and I would say that it is quite recurrent on the part of right-wing governments against sectors of the left in the Latin American region, in order to stigmatize them as ’corrupt’ by resorting to a toxic system of ’justice’, accompanied by media work aimed at creating states of opinion based on lies.”
In Cubadebate, the information about Castillo’s case is even more like shorthand. So much so that some readers even ask for explanations about what happened. “And could he finally legally do what he did? Because by right he talks about a ’dissolved’ Congress, while Telesur talks about Congress without an adjective. The truth is I don’t understand anything,” a user asks. Another comes in, with little detail, to shed light on the matter: “He shouldn’t have done it. He committed the crime of sedition. Namely, he can be put in prison for 5 to 10 years.”
The division is perceived between those who believe that the Peruvian Congress has aligned itself with the “imperialist powers” to make life impossible for Castillo and those who, even so, reproach his performance this Wednesday. “Something is true: even if they don’t let you govern, you can’t take the law into your own hands,” says a reader.
To learn more, the readers of the official press will have to wait for the Cuban authorities to clarify their position.
Castillo is not Kirchner. Although the Cuban authorities never hid their preference for the leftist schoolteacher over his opponent, the right-wing Keiko Fujimori, Castillo did not show the gratitude that the Havana regime usually demands of its allies. In January of this year, the former president gave an interview to CNN where he talked about international politics and was insistently asked about his relations with the governments of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Uncomfortable, Castillo did not dare to go against them but was not in favor either.
“President, would you adopt the Cuban, Nicaraguan or Venezuelan model?” “Never,” he ended up responding. At the insistence of the interviewer on whether he considered Cuba a democracy, the Peruvian again showed doubt. “Cuba is a sister country,” he tried to escape before he ended up saying: “We will have to ask the Cubans. I would not like any other country or person to interfere in the lives of Peruvians.” He did the same when he spoke about Managua and Caracas.
His chancellor did not have the same delicacy and was clear when it came to condemning the elections in Nicaragua, whose development he said he had “followed with concern.” The Ministry of Foreign Affairs categorically said that the elections did not meet “the minimum criteria of free, fair and transparent elections established by the Inter-American Democratic Charter, damaging their credibility, democracy and the rule of law, and they deserve the rejection of the international community.”
This hesitant attitude of the Peruvian did not go unnoticed by Venezeulan President Nicolas Maduro. He wanted Castillo fully in the group, along with Gustavo Petro and Gabriel Boric, who criticized the Bolivarian regime at the beginning of the year. “Every day there is a campaign against Venezuela. There has emerged a cowardly left that bases its discourse on attacking the successful, victorious Bolivarian model, on attacking the historical legacy, and on attacking me as president,” said Hugo Chávez’s successor.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 14 December 2022 — On Tuesday, a group of 500 citizens from opposition organizations requested that Cuba’s National Assembly of the People’s Power approve a law guaranteeing the rights to protest and to assemble, which are included in the 2019 Constitution.
