14ymedio – Page 218 – Translating Cuba

‘The Body Never Forgets’, an Essay on the Concentration Camps in Cuba

The official Cuban press extolling the work of the UMAP camps in the 1960s. Headline: Where work makes the man.

EFE (via 14ymedio), Jorge I. Pérez, Miami, 5 April 2022 — The forced labor camps in which, as in the Soviet gulag, dissidents, religious, homosexuals and artists were confined in the Cuba of the 1960s, left “a lot of pain and trauma” not yet healed, affirms the Cuban historian Abel Sierra Madero, who has just published an essay on this subject with the title El cuerpo nunca olvida [The body never forgets].

Subtitled Trabajo forzado, hombre nuevo y memoria en Cuba (1959-1980) [Forced work, new man and memory in Cuba (1959-1980)], the book brings together, for the first time, memorabilia, personal photos, testimonial sources and fictional literature on what was officially called Military Production Assistance Units (UMAP), “Because it must be said that I handle fiction as truth,” Sierra told Efe in an interview.

A specialist in studies of sexuality, concentration camps, the Cold War, memory and trauma, Sierra, who has lived in the US for years, interviewed more than 30 people or relatives of people who between 1965 and 1968 were in the UMAP. The interviews were conducted between Cuba, Miami, New Jersey and New York.

According to Sierra (1976) in the book’s introduction, “the UMAPs formed part of a more complex economic system within a broad project of social engineering.”

For this purpose, dozens of forced labor camps were created in the Camagüey plain, the Cuban province where sugar cane was best grown, and some 30,000 people passed through them between 1965 and 1968, according to data from the author. continue reading

“The UMAPs had a double meaning: re-educational, political and ideological, and also an economic one,” he comments.

“They were plantation enclaves. In the book I call it ’the development of the socialist plantation’, based on a colonial market which was that of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe,” he says.

“The implementation of these camps allowed the State to appropriate a large part of the workforce without having to compensate them financially,” he says.

“There is still a lot of pain and trauma. An interesting part in this book is the theme of silence; you can see how silences speak. I was interested in taking the witness to that place of remembrance and denunciation,” Sierra details.

The volume shows “how the notion of the ’New Man’, which was the fundamental term to establish the revolutionary ideological structure and architecture, also served to implement forced labor camps, to manage power and create control mechanisms.”

Retrieving “los escombros,” something he prefers to call, in English, “the debris,” processing the information and writing a 528-page essay took him about a decade, he confessed shortly before presenting his book this Saturday at the American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora, in Miami.

The cover is an image by Canadian photojournalist Paul Kidd taken at the entrance to one of the camps in 1966. It shows an armed soldier next to a fence of 21 strands of barbed wire.

Sierra comments that the photo is the product of Kidd’s audacity, who appeared there alone and without warning.

Hundreds of homosexuals were taken to these gulags to be “cured” according to the concept of the Cuban revolution that saw the nation as a sick body and the State as a medical benefactor, the book’s publisher, Rialta, said in a presentation on Facebook.

Benjamín de la Torre, “a boy who moved in art circles, committed suicide after that experience,” Sierra points out.

Singer-songwriter Pablo Milanés entered the UMAP at the age of 23, but according to Sierra his stay there “was an open secret until he considered it important for his career to unfreeze this issue.”

About the experience, Milanés wrote the song 14 pelos y un día, in which he invokes the wire fences, which were reduced from 21 strands to 14 when international criticism began to surface, according to 14ymedio.

Sierra was unable to interview Milanés after two attempts. “He was so traumatized that when everything was ready for the interview he canceled at the last minute,” he says.

The few available sources, beyond the official newspaper archives that “tell a different story from the UMAP,” were texts written by religious inmates of the camps “from a narrative of forgiveness.”

“Then I realized that I had to carry out a deep investigation that collected the before and after of the camps, the inside and the outside,” explains the author, who included a bonus track touching on the Mariel exodus in his essay (1980).

“An archive is created to be able to be destroyed, and that is the logic in which the Cuban regime has operated: Create a mystique around the archive, create a morbidity about its existence or disappearance to make believe reconstruction is an impossibility.”

“It has been shown how a history without an archive can be reconstructed, and that is what I have done, a history of the UMAP without an official archive. I have created my own,” says this professor at Florida International University (FIU).

____________

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

The US Sells its Chicken Cheaper and Cuba Takes the Opportunity to Buy More

Chicken package sold in Cuba. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 5 April 2022 — Chicken exports from the United States to Cuba marked a milestone again in February. According to the Cuban economist Pedro Monreal with a source in the US Department of Agriculture, the amount that arrived on the island that month, 31,212 tons, is the third largest in the last two decades, behind those registered in July 2019 (33,842 tons ) and in March 2021 (32,755).

This represents an increase of 33% compared to the previous month. Likewise, in February there was a slight reduction in the price of the product, from 0.91 dollars in January to 0.87 per kilogram, which meant that Havana disbursed only 28% more.

Monreal recalls, through his Twitter account, that between 2001 and 2021, the US exported a total of 2.78 million tons of chicken meat to Cuba, for a total value of 2.368 billion dollars, 39.5 % of it from 2017 to 2021.

Imports of US chicken by Cuba in 2021 broke all previous records, as the economist disclosed at the beginning of the year. Never since records have been kept have there been more than 300,000 tons exported by the neighboring country to the Island, for an annual value of 279.7 million dollars, almost double, 94.64% more, compared to 2020, when the Island disbursed 143.7 million. continue reading

In quantity, 307,658 tons were imported in 2021 compared to 170,105 the previous year.

However, the increase in the importation of the product has not been noticed as much in stores that take payment in Cuban pesos as it has been in markets that take payment in freely convertible currency (MLC) and on internet shopping sites. The most-in-demand boxes of hindquarters, whole chickens or breasts have reappeared among the products on these foreign exchange portals.

The boxes, which range between 15 and 18 kilograms with prices ranging from 98 to 115 dollars, had practically disappeared at the end of last year and the beginning of this year, when it was only possible to find smaller packages. Customers prefer to purchase larger volumes at once to guarantee supplies in case of shortages.

However, the purchase of large quantities presents the danger that the frozen chicken will spoil during the long power outages that are occurring throughout the Island. Consumers must choose between two risks: that of buying a little at once and ending up with no chicken in the fridge or losing groceries after a long power outage.

____________

Cuban Intellectual Ambrosio Fornet, Who Baptized the’Five-Year Gray Years’, Dies

The essayist, editorial advisor, professor and film scriptwriter, Ambrosio Fornet Frutos. (Cubandebate)

14ymedio, Havana, 5 April 2022 — The Cuban film writer and screenwriter Ambrosio Fornet Frutos died this Tuesday at the age of 90, the Casa de las Américas reported on its social networks. “His work constitutes a fundamental part of the nation’s culture, which he always defended,” the institution wrote, recalling that the intellectual was “one of its closest and most beloved collaborators.”

With more than twenty texts written and edited, including El libro en Cuba; siglos XVIII and XIX (1994) [The Book in Cuba; XVIII and XIX Centuries] and Las trampas del oficio; apuntes sobre cine y sociedad (2007) [The Tricks of the Trade; Notes on Cinema and Society], Fornet won the National Publishing Prize in 2002 and the Literature Prize in 2009.

Fornet’s creative life was always linked to cinema. Among his works, the script for the film Retrato de Teresa (1979) [Portrait of Teresa], directed by Pastor Vega, stands out, in addition to his work as an advisor and professor at various academic institutions and at the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry.

He also appeared on several occasions as a jury member for the Casa de las Américas Award, and for other competitions, such as the Juan Rulfo Latin American and Caribbean Award and the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana.

Fornet is credited with having been the one who baptized the Quinquenio Gris [Five Grey Years], which began in 1971 with the censorship against the writer Heberto Padilla and his book Fuera de Juego [Out of the Game], marked by the excesses of dogmatism that the National Council of Culture (CN) imposed on letters and the arts. Many intellectuals agree, however, that it was “neither a five-year period nor gray,” but rather was a much longer and darker period. continue reading

Fornet exposed as antecedents of the Quinquenio Gris some controversies of the 60s, the closure of the cultural supplement Lunes de Revolución [Revolution Mondays] – directed by Guillermo Cabrera Infante – the Military Units for Production Support (UMAP, forced labor farms for young homosexuals and religious believers) and official hostility towards works by Antón Arrufat, Heberto Padilla and José Lezama Lima, until reaching the First Congress of Education and Culture, in 1971.

Regarding the Congress and what came later with Luis Pavón Tamayo at the head of the CNC, the writer born in the province of Granma said that a policy was carried out that reached a “sick degree” of homophobia and displaced those who did not qualify as “politically reliable.”

“Just as we must not forget that in a permanently besieged square, such as our country, insisting on discrepancies and disagreements is equivalent to ’giving weapons to the enemy,’ nor should we forget that pacts of silence are usually extremely risky,” Fornet said in a debate that was inserted into the so-called little email war of 2007, when dozens of intellectuals reacted to the reappearance in the official media of Pavón, considered one of the main executors of Castro’s censorship in the 1970s.

____________

The Arrival in Florida of Russian Rafters Coming From Cuba is a Matter of National Security

The Russian rafters arrived from Cuba to Florida in a boat of about 30 feet. (EFE)

14ymedio, Madrid, 5 April 2022 — The authorities of Monroe County, Florida, are used to the arrival of boats from Cuba loaded with Cuban rafters, but this weekend they were amazed when they saw 15 undocumented Russians and Central Asians arrive on one of them, presumably part of a group of up to 40 people. “This is something different and new,” said Mayor David Rice.

According to The Washington Post , spokeswoman Alyson Crean of the Key West Police Department explained that on Sunday around 4 in the afternoon a boat chartered from Cuba docked at the southern end of the city’s tourist district. Agents quickly realized how unusual the situation was and alerted the US Department of Homeland Security and Customs.

“All we do when immigrants of any nationality arrive is make sure they are safe, but these people were not like regular immigrants,” Rice said, explaining that the matter had been treated as a national security case. “They were well dressed, on a chartered ship, they hadn’t been adrift for a week.”

“They tied up at a dock there, disembarked and went into the cafe,” Crean said.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed on Monday that the group was made up of 15 migrants (9 Russians, 4 Kazakhs and 2 Kyrgyz) and that they were being processed for deportation. continue reading

“Smugglers do not take into account the lives of migrants and too many lives are lost at sea when people make the dangerous journey in makeshift boats, rafts and other vessels poorly equipped to handle rough waters,” said Eduardo Maia Silva, spokesman of the DHS, which noted that any person who arrives in the country outside the law is subject to expulsion.

Anyone who “attempts to enter the United States by sea, without a lawful basis for entry, will be subject to removal,” he said.

According to witnesses present at the time of the migrants’ arrival, the group was much larger, about 40 people, although the DHS has not confirmed this or said it was looking for more people involved in the incident.

County Sheriff Rick Ramsay told The Washington Post the migrants were arriving with luggage and the boat was about 30 feet long. Although the official considers it premature to call this case a trend, he fears that the war in Ukraine and the tense political situation in Russia, which in recent months has increased penalties against the exercise of individual liberties, could lead some citizens of the area to look for alternative routes, like this one.

It is also unclear if the Russians had been on the island for a long time and chose to leave by boat like so many Cubans or if they had recently fled their country.

“Anything is possible, but we need more data and analysis to see if it’s something unusual, an anomaly,” the sheriff added.

Shannon Weiner, emergency director for Monroe County, said that there is also coordination with the FBI to investigate the incident, but a Coast Guard spokesman said that they are not aware to date that there are Russians or Ukrainians trying to reach the USA by sea.

On Saturday, The Washington Post also reported that there are Ukrainian refugees trying to reach the country through Tijuana, Mexico, like Latin American migrants. The Administration has urged following the legal channels, since Biden promised to accept 100,000 people, but it has yet to be determined how.

____________

Defeat for a Motorcycle Cop Chasing an ‘Informal’ Vendor in Havana

Some of the vendors confronted the agent saying: “Hey, officer, you can’t come in here.” (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 5 April 2022 — Customers of the Youth Labor Army market on 17th and K in Havana were stunned this Tuesday when they saw a policeman riding a motorcycle enter the crowd.

Three sellers of plastic bags, routine in the place despite the prohibition on selling product, left terrified, two men and a woman, but the agent only went after the woman. The girl slipped through the crowd that was doing its shopping at the market and disappeared from sight.

Some of the vendors confronted the agent saying: “Hey, officer, you can’t come in here.” The policeman, perplexed, answered them loudly: “I don’t understand why that woman who came in disappears in here,” implying that the merchants themselves had hidden her.

Without ever getting off the motorcycle, the agent turned around and went back out into the street. He was stationed at the door of the market for a few minutes with a vigilant attitude, until another woman approached him, pointing out a path – which way did the pursued person go? – and, only then, did the man leave. continue reading

“Luckily he didn’t come in at high speed, what if he hits someone?” said a customer in her forties under her breath, while protesting: “They feel impunity.”

Another young witness to the events reported: “This reminds me of the stories my grandmother told me about Batista, when the police pursued people and the people themselves hid them.”

The market, located on a busy street in El Vedado, has at least two entrances, which made pursuit more difficult for the uniformed man. With a nearby passport and identity card preparation office, plus a polyclinic where PCR tests are carried out for those planning to travel travel, the area is permanently full of people who come and go.

____________

Four Cubans With a Child Are Saved from Drowning in the Rio Grande Trying to Reach the US

The group, made up of 12 people, joined hands and went into the river, but the force of the current overcame them. (Capture) — The group, made up of 12 people, linked arms and went into the river, but the force of the current overcame them. (Capture)

14ymedio, Mexico, 5 April 2022 — Four Cubans, including a three-year-old child, were saved from drowning in their attempt to cross the Rio Grande from the border city of Piedras Negras to Eagles Pass, Texas. These migrants are part of one of the two groups that risked their lives this Tuesday to reach the United States.

Isabel, 25, Luciano, 31, Ángelo Luciano, 3, and another woman were swept away by the current of the Rio Grande, which had increased its level by almost three feet because this Sunday the gates of the Amistad dam were opened. “I was afraid that my son would drown with me, that’s why I turned back,” one of the migrants told local media.

The Cuban said that they arrived in Piedras Negras on Tuesday after a 16-day journey. They left Havana and went to Nicaragua and from there they made the journey until they reached the border with the United States. “The current is very strong, I tried to make sure he (Ángelo) didn’t end up in the water.”

The group, made up of 12 people, joined hands and went into the river, but the force of the current overcame them. Three were left in the middle of the current and received support from migrants who threw life jackets and ropes at them from the shore.

“I was trying to float,” said Isabel. “Until I managed to stand firm and now… there’s nothing else to do,” said the young woman, resigned, adding that her family was already on the other side. “I’m not afraid to die” and she continue reading

stated that she would try again.

Liaison members from the municipality and Grupo Beta took the data from the Cubans. “They know that it is a risk and they put the children at risk. Fortunately, there were no drownings, but they will not always have the same luck,” said Rodrigo, a member of the rescue group.

“The level of the river increased, we are talking about areas where the depth is fifteen feet and in addition there are whirlpools. And under the International Bridge II, where they passed, the water is up to nine feet deep,” added the lifeguard.

Minutes before, another group made up of eight Cubans jumped into the river. While on the Mexican side they asked them to return because of the flood, one of the women replied: “Go back to Cuba, no way.”

The migrants rejected the support of the group of lifeguards and decided to continue on their journey until they were overwhelmed by the flow. At that point they received the support of the Border Patrol, which helped them set foot in Eagles Pass.

________________________

The Mexican Candidate to Lead PAHO is the Wife of a Cuban Accused of Slavery

Nadine Gasman, proposed by the Government of López Obrador, competes with five other candidates for the position of head of PAHO. (SemMexico)

14ymedio, Madrid, 4 April 2022 — French-Mexican doctor Nadine Gasman was proposed by the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico’s president, as a candidate to lead the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) for the period 2023-2028, a designation that the Madrid-based organization Prisoner Defenders (PD) considers scandalous.

The applicant is the wife of Joaquín Molina, representative of the Cuban side in PAHO and one of those responsible for the Mais Médicos [More Doctors] program, for which the organization has been denounced in a US court as an intermediary for channeling payments between Brazil and Cuba. The plaintiffs allege that the regional affiliate of the World Health Organization facilitates the “human trafficking network” and “slavery” concealed by the Mais Médicos program in Brazil.

PD affirms that the appointment was sponsored by Raúl Castro last summer in order to obstruct the lawsuit filed in 2018 by four Cuban doctors who were part of the mission in Brazil. According to the organization, the former Cuban president commissioned López Obrador to look for someone who could hinder the investigation of the US Justice. In addition, PD asks that “PAHO structures be shaken up and scrubbed for the good of public health and human rights in Latin America and the world.”

Nadine Gasman was named as a candidate by Mexico last February. To do this, she abandoned the position she had as president of the National Institute for Women. The official has a doctorate in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University, a master’s degree in Public Health from Harvard University and a medical surgery specialty from La Salle University and the National Autonomous University of Mexico. continue reading

To date, there are five people competing with her for the position, although until May 1 it is possible that more people will apply. The Brazilian Jarbas Barbosa da Silva, the Colombian Fernando Ruiz Gómez, the Panamanian Camilo Antonio Alleyne Marshall, the Uruguayan Daniel Salinas and the Haitian Florence Duperval Guillaume are her opponents for now. The vote will be held at the 30th Pan American Healthcare Conference of PAHO, between September 26 and 30, 2022.

Gasman has, according to PD, a conflict of interest to be the winner in that vote due to her marriage to Joaquín Molina. The official is one of the defendants in the lawsuit in Florida, against which he filed an appeal. Mais Médicos has three essential managers according to the NGO, on the one hand Heidi V. Jiménez, legal adviser to PAHO and collaborator of the ministries of Health of Cuba and Brazil in 2013, when Castro and Rousseff signed the agreement. On the other, Carissa Etienne, as current director of PAHO; and lastly Molina, then representative of the same by the Cuban regime.

Last week, a US court rejected PAHO’s appeal to stop the lawsuit filed by Ramona Matos, Tatiana Carballo, Fidel Cruz and Russela Rivero, the four Cuban health workers who denounced the working conditions they experienced as members of the program.

The United Nations health organization tried to stop the lawsuit using the immunity granted by US law, but the courts ended up determining that the organization’s financial activity as an intermediary was susceptible to investigation in the country, since bank accounts were used in the US to transfer the amounts. The court considers that the movements of money were necessary for the alleged human trafficking and may be the cause of the opening of the judicial process, so the lawsuit continues.

PAHO collected more than 75 million dollars through the Mais Médicos program and some 1.3 billion dollars were deposited in the coffers of the Cuban State using bank accounts in the United States, according to the documentation of the lawsuit. Of this, 85% of the amount provided for salaries went to the Cuban government, 10% to doctors, and 5% was retained by PAHO through its mediation.

“There is an international organization (PAHO), affiliated with the United Nations, that became the main force to allow Cuba to export its citizens to perform slave labor in a foreign country,” the doctors’ lawyer alleges.

____________

The Cuban Regime Has Deployed a Policy of ‘Extreme Terror’

The Cuban government, says the organization, “suffers from a fetishism that makes protests look like an evil that must be eradicated.” (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 4 April 2022 — The protests in Cuba continue to increase. As documented by the Cuban Conflict Observatory (OCC) in its monthly report, made public this Monday, last March there were a total of 232 public demands, compared to 207 in February.

As a result of the demonstrations of July 11 and 12, 2021 (11J), the Madrid-based organization points out, the regime has deployed a policy of “extreme terror” in Cuba aimed at “de-stimulating” any demonstration. However, since then, the OCC has registered 2,267 protests, “an increase of more than 60% in relation to the eight months prior to 11J.”

Among the acts of protest documented by the NGO, 149 had to do with the defense of political and civil rights, the majority of which (134), related to police repression and abuse, including, says the Observatory, “judicial arbitrariness and convictions of peaceful demonstrators on July 11, as well as torture and ill-treatment in prisons.”

For economic and social issues, there were 84 protests, focused mainly on the consequences of the so-called Ordering Task*, especially on inflation, and the shortage of basic products.

The OCC highlights that during March, Cuba was rated as the “least free country in the Americas,” according to the annual evaluation by Freedom House, and its economy was rated as “the most miserable in the world” according to the annual Hanke index. continue reading

The Cuban government, the organization says, “suffers from a fetishism that makes protests look like an evil that must be eradicated without realizing that they are a reflection of the serious conflicts that have accumulated without being addressed or resolved.”

Meanwhile, the document continues, “frustration over the widespread internal crisis and lack of freedoms, as well as the disproportionate convictions and other abuses against peaceful 11J protesters continued to galvanize critics of the government in March,” critics which include, according to highlights the OCC, supporters of the regime.

In this regard, he highlights the statements of Silvio Rodríguez, who said that such high sentences for demonstrating did not seem fair to him. “As far as I know they didn’t kill anyone,” said the musician.

Cuba, concludes the Observatory, “continues to be a social bomb with a short fuse,” and warns: “If the government continues in its position of hardening, the protests can become violent.”

*Translator’s note: Tarea ordenamiento = the [so-called] ‘Ordering Task’ which is a collection of measures that includes eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso as the only national currency, raising prices, raising salaries (but not as much as prices), opening stores that take payment only in hard currency which must be in the form of specially issued pre-paid debit cards, and others.

____________

Cuba Will No Longer Require PCR Tests or Vaccination Certificates to Enter the Country

A group of tourists at the José Martí International Airport in Havana. (EFE/Ernesto Mastrascusa/File)

14ymedio, Havana, 4 April 2022 — As of this Wednesday, April 6, international travelers arriving in Cuba will not be required to present a PCR, antigen test or even proof of vaccination to enter the Island, measures currently in force to counteract the covid-19 epidemic.

As reported by the Cuban News Agency in a preview through its networks and confirmed minutes later by the Ministry of Public Health, the decision has been made taking into account the high percentage of vaccinations in Cuba.

The use of masks, both indoors and outdoors, will continue to be mandatory and the “random search” is maintained. Also randomly, samples will be taken from those who come from countries where the incidence of the virus is higher.

If a positive is detected, they will be subjected to “the protocols established for these cases,” that is, they will be admitted to the designated health institutions depending on where they are located. continue reading

All direct contacts of these travelers will be isolated for eight days, either in designated centers or in houses, if these have the necessary conditions to guarantee compliance with the measure.

The relaxation in the protocol for travelers coincides with the collapse of the tourism sector, which cannot raise its head, despite the fact that other destinations similar to the Island, such as Mexico or the Dominican Republic, have recovered remarkably.

In addition, it contrasts with the harshness of the statements by Miguel Díaz-Canel, who last Monday called for “extreme sanitary measures” to avoid a new wave of infections.

According to the official Granma newspaper , the scientists who advise the Cuban president on the pandemic predicted a progressive increase in confirmed cases and hospitalizations.

This Monday, in its daily report, the Ministry of Public Health reported that 7,647 people are hospitalized in the country, of which 4,140 are suspected of carrying the coronavirus and 3,483 are active cases. No deaths were reported. During the month of March, Cuba accumulated a week without deaths related to the disease.

According to official figures, close to 10 million of the 11.2 million inhabitants of the Island have received the complete immunization schedule with local vaccines (a few received the Chinese Sinopharm), that is, 95% of the vaccine-eligible population. In addition, 6.2 million Cubans have received the booster dose.

____________

WHO Accepts the Documentation of the Cuban Abdala Vaccine

Waiting line to receive the Cuban Abdala vaccine in Havana. (EFE/Ernesto Mastrascusa)

14ymedio, Madrid, 4 April 2022 — The World Health Organization (WHO) has accepted the documentation sent by the Cuban Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology on Abdala, which is another step on the road to approval. The institution updates monthly the status of the vaccines against covid-19 that have requested approval for their emergency use and in its most recent document, dated this Saturday, April 2, the change can be verified in the case of the three-dose Cuban vaccine.

Abdala appeared in the previous report, dated March 2, with the status “expression of interest under review,” which has now been changed to “accepted.” On the other hand, in the case of Soberana 01, 02 and Plus, from the Finlay Vaccination Institute, the dossier has not yet been sent and its status in the same section is “awaiting information on strategy and deadlines to deliver.”

The news had been communicated last Saturday by BioCubaFarma, which affirmed the beginning “in the month of March of the formal exchange with the World Health Organization to start the evaluation process of its anticovid-19 Abdala vaccine,” although there have been so many announcements and so many dates have been considered that the confirmation of the UN health organization was long in coming.

The state business group also added that “the Finlay Vaccine Institute and the CIGB are working to present, soon, to the Regulatory Authority for Medicines, Equipment and Medical Devices of the Republic of Cuba the data from the clinical studies of Soberana 01 and Mambisa,” although nothing was specified about the delay that Sovereign 02 has before the WHO. continue reading

Abdala was the first Cuban vaccine against covid-19 approved by the Cuban regulator in July 2021, although Soberana 02 seemed to be winning the race initially and its joint development with the Pasteur Institute in Iran seemed to give it more reliability because its studies were being compared in very different countries, according to some Cuban experts such as Dr. Renato Sánchez.

In January, Vicente Vérez, director of the Finlay Vaccine Institute, announced that Abdala had already taken the lead before the WHO and had presented his dossier, but that they would do so as soon as possible. The scientist attributed the delay to the center he himself directs since, he maintained, changes were made in the facilities that entailed modifications in the documentation.

“There are things that we have to complete, that we have to adjust,” he said, noting that the process to present the dossier to the WHO is “long, cumbersome, complex and expensive.”

In the WHO follow-up, only the expressions of interest of two vaccines appear as rejected: IMBCAMS, China, for being in too early in its state of development, and that of Medicago, Canada, which was ruled out due to the participation as a shareholder and investor of one of the world’s largest tobacco companies, Philip Morris.

If Abdala gets emergency use authorization from the WHO, it could become part of the Covax program, a fund made up of the Gavi Alliance for Vaccines, the Coalition for the Promotion of Innovations for Epidemic Preparedness (CEPI) and the World Health Organization through which rich countries provide, under advantageous conditions or even as a donation, vaccines for the most needy nations.

Cuba refused to be part of the Covax mechanism on the grounds that it was capable of developing its own serums (and then selling them), and the fund requires disbursements of money that are not affordable for the island, plus the vaccines arrive late and in a bad way. However, the refusal meant that vaccination in Cuba began much later and many doctors reproached the government for not buying time that would have saved at least the most exposed professionals.

____________

If WHO Rejected a Vaccine Created in Canada by a Tobacco Company, It Will do the Same With Cuba

The WHO is already studying Abdala, from the Cuban Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, in the prequalification phase. (Capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 29 March 2022 — The covid-19 Covifenz vaccine has become the first to have its emergency use rejected by the World Health Organization (WHO). The reason: the participation of the tobacco giant Philip Morris International in the manufacturer of the antidote, Medicago, based in Québec, Canada, of which it has a third of the shares.

In a statement sent to The Globe and Mail last Thursday, a spokesman for the international organization said that the decision was made “because of the link with the tobacco industry and the strict policy of the WHO not to engage with companies that promote tobacco.”

Thus, the Canadian antidote has not even passed the prequalification phase, which, of course, also leaves it out of the Covax mechanism, and access to the most disadvantaged countries.

Of little use, for now, are the arguments of Medicago, which insists that the American cigarette manufacturer is a minority shareholder and claims that the WHO’s decision is not based on the safety and efficacy demonstrated in Covifenz, of 71% for all variants except ómicron, according to studies by the company itself. continue reading

In fact, the Government of Canada approved its emergency use last February, for people between 18 and 64 years old. The vaccine uses plant-derived virus-like particle technology, and requires two doses by injection, 21 days apart.

Although the WHO has promised to “continue studying” the situation of Medicago and, more generally, how to address “the trend of the tobacco industry to invest in health,” this decision may be an obstacle for Cuban candidates awaiting approval.

The international organization is still awaiting information on Soberana 01, Soberana 02 and Soberana Plus, developed by BioCubaFarma, but Abdala, from the Cuban Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, is already studying in the prequalification phase.

However, if WHO applies the same standard as it applied to Medicago, it will reject all of them, since the owner of the two biotech companies, the Cuban State, also has a tobacco monopoly on the island.

____________

Cuban Pole Vaulter Yarisley Silva Asks to Withdraw From the National Athletics Team

The decision of pole vaulter Yarisley Silva generated comments among Cuban communicators. (instagram)

14ymedio, Havana, 3 April 2022 — The silver medalist in the London 2012 Olympic Games and world champion in Beijing 2015, Yarisley Silva, requested her withdrawal from the Cuban National Athletics Team, according to Play-Off Magazine. “A source close to the athlete confirmed the decision of the award-winning pole vaulter” and leaving along with her, her coach Alexander Navas.

The decision was seen by specialists as a significant loss for athletics on the Island. “The request for withdrawal of the world and Olympic multi-medallist Yarisley Silva, along with her coach Alexander Navas, is one more drop in a glass that is already full,” postedSwingCompleto journalist Yasel Porto.

“The issue is not what could happen in sports with Yarita in the future, but that her reasons for her departure include her dissatisfaction with the way in which the Federation has carried out many logistical movements and other things related to her and Navas,” added the communicator. “The landscape of the Island as the so-called king of sports is increasingly gray.”

Porto regretted the decision, as does the Cuban sports environment, hard hit by leaks and bad sports decisions. “We are nowhere near having to say RIP to Cuban Athletics, nothing less than the most important sport for us, along with baseball and boxing.”

The decision comes after Silva was left out of the 18th edition of the World Indoor Athletics Championships, which took place in Belgrade (Serbia), due to problems bringing her own poles. continue reading

At that time, it was indicated that the Cuban Athletics Commissioner, Yipsy Moreno, explained to the sports site Jit that Silva could not travel directly from Spain — where she was — to Belgrade because the European Union (EU) establishes that with her visa she could not stay longer than three months.

The Cuban athlete had to return to Cuba to go to the capital of Serbia, but then she faced a new setback: her personal pole vaults had remained in Spain.

This Sunday, upon learning of Yarisley Silva’s determination, the sports editor at Radio Habana Cuba, Raúl Rodríguez, shared on Facebook that “they should never have said goodbye in that way to the sport that they contributed so much to for years… they have the eternal applause and recognition of Cubans and lovers of athletics.”

This Pinar del Río native, born in 1987, broke into the headlines of the sports pages in 2011. During 2015 she was proclaimed world champion in her discipline in the spectacular Bird’s Nest in Beijing with a jump in which she flew up to 4.90 meters.

On August 3, 2015, she surpassed herself in Beckum, Germany, when she reached an impressive 4.91 meters, her best of the year and a national record.

She stood on the podium as the best in: the Diamond League in Oslo 2017 (Norway), 5th International Urban Pole Vaulting Meeting in Mexico 2018, XXIII Central American and Caribbean Games Barranquilla 2018 (Colombia), Sotteville Athletic Meeting 2019 (France), Lima 2019 Pan American Games (Peru).

____________

Cuba’s Electric Union Announces Blackouts and Projects ‘Stable’ Service in the Summer’

The Felton thermoelectric plant, in Holguín. (aldía.cu)

14ymedio, Havana, 3 April 2022 — Cuba’s Electric Union (UNE) has announced breakdowns in the electrical service due to the “unforeseen exit” of several generation units in the Felton thermoelectric plants in Holguín, and the Diez de Octubre plant in Nuevitas, Camagüey. In addition, it is working “to guarantee the stability of this service in the summer,” it warns in a brief statement.

On Saturday, the state electricity monopoly published a concise note in which it assures that this “unforeseen situation” will cause “some damage to the service, which will be programmed by the respective territories, in order to reduce the inconvenience to the population.”

Four thermoelectric power plants are currently undergoing maintenance throughout the Island and the UNE is also working for the “restoration of two units in the Mariel thermoelectric plant.” The panorama of breakages and repairs has raised the tone of criticism from customers about the problems that the lack of supply causes in their daily lives.

“And if only the planned outages take place, but no. It hurts me to hear the cries of babies because they are hot. They cut the power whenever they want,” Cienfuegos commenter Yanisley Armas Fernández de Cumanayagua lamented on the UNE Facebook account. continue reading

“Last night in the city of Camagüey we were without electricity and now in the early hours of the morning without power and without being able to sleep due to the heat, this is a total lack of respect,” Majela Ríos added in a response. Other Internet users complain that the cut schedule is not published transparently or that blackouts exceed eight hours a day in some communities.

In mid-March, the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant in Matanzas, the largest in the country, was shut down for almost a week. An “unforeseen” breakdown kept the largest generating plant on the island out of the National Electric System.

The situation has become especially complicated because the Máximo Gómez de Mariel thermoelectric plant is being repaired. On March 7, an explosion at the Artemiseña plant caused a spectacular fire in which there were no victims or injuries. However, the incident was caused by the explosion in the steam turbine of one of its units and the repairs have not been completed.

At the end of the summer, when the population was fed up, the electricity monopoly published a note of explanation to users in which it explained that most of the problems that lead to the precarious situation are attributed to the obsolete nature of the thermoelectric park and the problems in performing the required maintenance.

In the plants there are 10 blocks that have been in operation for more than 30 years, 7 exceed 40 and only two have less than 25, while the useful life of one of these thermoelectric plants is 30 to 35 years.

The UNE pointed out that the fall of the USSR, the obligation to burn fuel of poorer quality and the difficulties in acquiring materials or credits due to US sanctions created problems for an electrical system that has more demand than it can support.

In summer, 400,000 tons of fuel per month are sent to the country’s thermal power plants to cover electricity demand, which is divided between 56% of the residential sector and 44% of the business sector.

____________

Open Letter From a Cuban Priest to Vladimir Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Church of the Savior in Novo-Ogaryovo, outside Moscow. (EFE/EPA/ALEXEI NIKOLSKY/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN POOL)

14ymedio, José Conrado Rodríguez Alegre, Trinidad, Cuba, 2 April 2022 — The person who is writing to you is a Cuban Catholic priest, pastor of the parish of Paula, in the city of Trinidad. Since February 24 I have been waiting for the news that arrives from Ukraine and I do not stop praying for that long-suffering people, and for their own country, for Russia, and for the presidents of both countries and their governments. I continually ask for the cessation of hostilities, for the return of peace to that region and to the world. I feel my heart oppressed by the scenes of destruction that I see (on the internet, because the press in my country hardly reflects what is happening in Ukraine) and by the stories of the innocent victims of this genocidal and unjust war that you have started in an unilateral manner.

Since the war began, an Aesop fable that I learned in Latin when I was a child has come to mind. You Russians and we Cubans share a common heritage that is rooted in the Christian faith and Hellenistic-Roman culture, which gave rise to Western Christian civilization and Eastern Christian civilization, of which Russia is a part, as are other Slavic peoples. There is a common substrate that feeds us spiritually.

Aesop’s fable told of a wolf drinking water on the riverbank, near a sheep. The wolf began to accuse the sheep for making the water he was drinking dirty. The sheep respectfully replied: “Mr. Wolf, I’m downstream, and you’re upstream. I can’t dirty your water.” But the wolf began to insult the sheep, who dared to reply: “Sheep, you have challenged me and I cannot forgive you for that.” The sheep tried to explain that she did not want to offend the wolf. It was no use. The end of the story is that the wolf ate the sheep.

When I listen to your speeches and see the events of the last few weeks, Aesop’s fable comes to mind. And you, Mr. President, are for me the wolf that has provoked all this, to eat the sheep. The script was written in advance.

You justified your attack on Ukraine based on the idea of a future armed intervention that was being hatched in Ukraine with the support of NATO. But the only one who was prepared for war, with vastly superior armies and weapons, was you. And the one who repeatedly intervened in the internal politics of Ukraine was you. In truth, it is not hidden from me that the European Union, or rather the United Nations, made a fatal mistake, and that was to allow Russia in 2014, continue reading

against all rights and for no reason, with manu militari to annex Crimea and, due to the handling of a disloyal and rapacious policy, you intervened in the internal affairs of Ukraine, encouraging separatism in the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, a treacherous plan concocted by you, at the cost of international justice and the peace of a nation, in addition to the death, in the last eight years, of 14,000 human beings.

Mr. President, when I try to analyze your statements and compare them with your behavior, I see nothing but incoherence, duplicity and ill will. An old Castilian proverb says “the lie has short legs.” Time and time again you have ended up doing what you previously said you were not going to do. You have lied without shame, accusing others of the crimes you were planning to commit. You accused Ukraine of arming itself for the war but it was you who raised and equipped an army and launched it against a country much smaller and poorer than Russia.

You accused NATO and Europe of threatening Russia and having bad intentions against your country, and they could not have shown more resistance and restraint against your invasion and war against Ukraine. It was you, more recently, who ordered Russian nuclear weapons put on alert. The other countries have shown much greater will for peace and no desire to begin the tortuous and unpredictable path of war.

In the 20th century, humanity faced a situation similar to the current one: when a man named Adolf Hitler, invested with a conscience of messianic superiority, launched his country and his people into a terrible and disastrous war. Hitler accused the whole world of wanting to harm his country and began to claim the territories of other nations as his own: thus he annexed Austria (the Anschluss, in March 1938) and the Sudetenland (in September 1938). Later, he occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia (in March 1939). On September 1, 1939, the invasion of Poland marked the beginning of World War II.

In you, as in Hitler, I find a similar contempt for international law, the same contempt for human life, the use of lies as a weapon against the opponent. But also, the resource of the brutal and unfair attack to defend the threatened security of your country. But as before in Germany, this has been the best way to plunge your country into chaos and universal rejection, and you are responsible for this spiral of nonsense that will drag Russia into the abyss. Chechnya (1999), Georgia (2008), Crimea and Donbas (2014) are the different stations of a diabolical Way of the Cross.

But don’t forget, President, that the hubris (excessive arrogance) of blind power and pride sows destruction and death. Never forget that God confounds the proud. “He brings down the powerful from their thrones and exalts the humble with good things and sends the rich away empty, as the Blessed Virgin Mary said in the Magnificat.

God is on the side of the poor, of the meek of heart, of the peaceful, of those who suffer for defending justice, because they are hungry and thirsty for it. You started this ill-fated war thinking of an early victory. You did not even imagine the courage of the Ukrainian people. You thought that the countries of Europe would never show solidarity with the Ukrainian people, softened by their comfort and prosperity and afraid of putting their money at risk. You were wrong, Mr Putin.

And what a surprise, Mr. Putin, you got with the Kiev clown, with Mister Bean from Ukraine, with that President Zelensky whom you accused of being a Nazi even though he is Jewish and lost part of his family in the Holocaust. Who is the Nazi in this story, Mr Putin? That man you disparaged has become one of the most listened to, respected and revered politicians in the world. His wisdom, bravery and courage are an inspiration to men of goodwill all over the world. How great is God! “The Lord raises the helpless from the dust and lifts the poor from the trash.”

They say that some of your advisers are under arrest, accused of not having warned you of what could happen (and in fact it is happening). Mr. Putin, hasn’t more than twenty years at the top of the dome of power taught you that subordinates tell their führers what they want to hear? The spiral of delirium is born from not wanting to hear anything other than what we like, and isolates the leader, first from his people and then from reality.

Didn’t you know, Mr. Putin, that in the early 1930s Stalin was responsible for the death of between seven and ten million Ukrainians, in his eagerness to collectivize the agriculture of that republic? Hitler had not yet opened the first concentration camp and the Russian communists had already massacred that country and banned the Ukrainian language, in truth, a double genocide difficult for a people to forget.

I imagine that there is no Ukrainian family that has not lost a relative in that dirty war, where the weapons were in the hands of the Red Army faced the famished bodies of the starving Ukrainians. That explains the fierce resistance that this people is making to the Russian invasion. In the KGB they didn’t teach you history, Mr Putin? How could you think and make your soldiers think that the Ukrainian people were going to receive them with roses in their hands? My God, Mr. Putin!

According to the news, you are a man of belief, there is even talk of your friendly relationship with Patriarch Kirill. How can you justify from your faith the holocaust of an entire people and the massive violation of human rights? I cannot forget the example of the bishop of Milan, Saint Ambrose, when he prevented the emperor Theodosius from entering the cathedral to participate in divine worship because he had massacred the inhabitants of Corinth, destroying the city with them inside. Stop the violence, President Putin. Every day that passes, the blood shed by the Ukrainian people and Russian soldiers weighs heavily on you. Enough of war!

Despite the disinformation and ignorance in which the Russian people live due to the submission of the media to the established power, there are thousands of people who have dared to protest, there are journalists in their country who have allowed themselves to dissent. They have endangered their freedom and their survival: these are the ones you should listen to. Not to the small group of those who have led you and Russia to this impasse. But if you do not listen to the voice of conscience, if you are not capable of turning back, in the end you will have achieved universal vilification for yourself and for Russia, to end up becoming the junior partner of the Chinese empire or being relegated to the role that North Korea’s ruler for life sadly plays today: a neighborhood bully, yes, with pockets full of nuclear weapons and with a people struggling in misery afflicted by endemic hunger. Someone one might fear, but no decent person will ever respect.

And believe me, Mr Putin, the most intelligent Russians, the best prepared, those who got used to savoring the independence that comes from communicating and traveling without restrictions and breathing the air of freedom; they will not want to return to the totalitarian gag that you are already imposing on the country. Mr. Putin, those Russians, when they realize that they cannot vote with their hands, they will vote with their feet: they will leave “their” Russia, which will no longer be theirs. I know what I’m talking about

I assure you that I am praying for you and your people, whom I admire, because despite long years of religious persecution in Soviet times, you kept your faith in Christ and your deep piety to the Mother of God. That is “Holy Russia,” which has produced great saints, profound mystics, magnificent writers, famous musicians and respected scientists who today form part of the common heritage of all humanity. Therein lies the true greatness of a country, Mr. Putin, in its spirituality: not in political power or military force, especially when these are used to harm others.

Mr. Putin, may God have mercy on you, on us and on the whole world!

____________

Boxer Herich Ruiz Escapes and Connects a Hook to the Liver to the Cuban Regime

Herich Ruiz left the boxing team after weighing in for his fight against American Arjan Iseni. (Latin Press)

14ymedio, Havana, 30 March 2022 — Cuban boxer Herich Ruiz landed the second hook to the regime’s liver. The athlete escaped “after the weigh-in for his fight” against the American Arjan Iseni. The news has been confirmed by the Cuban Boxing Federation, Domadores de Cuba published on Facebook. The team from the Island is participating in the Continental Championship that is held in the Ecuadorian city of Guayaquil.

The bronze medalist at the World Boxing Championships in Serbia 2021 was reprimanded, as is common by sports authorities when defections occur. They point to him for “turning his back on the commitment assumed for this competition and the plans that involved him.”

Ruiz’s escape is the second hook to the liver received by the Domadores de Cuba team. The first to leave the official delegation was the junior world champion in Yerevan, Armenia in 2012, Kevin Brown Bazain. His escape took place during the journey to Ecuador.

Ruiz had been chosen by the president of the Cuban Boxing Federation, Alberto Puig de la Barca, as the team’s representative at the Guayaquil Pan-American, which also means the island’s first international participation in 2022. continue reading

The native of Isla de la Juventud, a competitor in the 86-kilogram category, was one of the benchmarks to follow. Cubans Damián Arce (54 kg), Erislán Romero (51 kg) and Rafael Joubert (60 kg) remain in the Domadores delegation. While Billy Rodríguez (48 kg) will face Guatemalan Josué López in the final next Friday.

To the escapes in boxing is added the exodus of young baseball players. This Wednesday, Danell Figueroa and Yorelquis Hernández left the Island for the Dominican Republic. “Since the end of 2021, the emigration of Cuban baseball has been reactivated and more than 60 players have left” the island, the exiled journalist in Miami, Francys Romero, reported on his social networks .

Hernández “debuted in the 60th National Series with Santiago de Cuba,” commented the communicator. “He comes from starring in the youth categories and also joined the Cuban teams in the 2017 Pan American U-15 in Cartagena, Colombia. There he pitched six no-run innings, taking the victory against Panama.”

Figueroa is originally from Matanzas and “was part of Cuba’s preselection for the U-18 World Cup, a tournament in which Cuba ultimately declined to participate.” Romero stressed that “at only 17 years old, he is the real example of the future of Cuban baseball: players do not want to wait for time to pass while they develop or lose value, the only way out is exodus.”

____________

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: