The recovery of the accreditations comes at a time of great journalistic interest on the Island. (EFE)
EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 22 February 2022 — On Monday, the Cuban authorities restored the accreditations — withdrawn last November — of three journalists from the EFE team on the island, a decisive step towards the normalization of the journalistic activity of the Spanish agency in the country.
The International Press Center (CPI) took this step after a meeting in Havana between its main officials and a delegation from the Spanish public media.
The Cuban authorities also assured that in the next few days the press visa of the new delegate of the EFE office in Havana, which had been requested in September, will be processed.
In addition, the Cuban authorities indicated that they will approve the credentials of the new editorial coordinator as soon as the agency provides him with the necessary documentation. continue reading
When these two press visas are delivered, EFE will recover the reporting capacity it had at the beginning of last year, with seven active journalists (delegate, three editors, two photographers and a cameraman).
On November 13, the Cuban authorities withdrew the accreditations of five journalists from the agency and restored two the following day.
The recovery of the accreditations comes at a time of great journalistic interest on the Island, which is carrying out an unprecedented process of popular consultation of its Family Code, a legislative reform that includes, among other novelties, the recognition of same-sex marriage.
The country is also going through difficult times due to the economic crisis, aggravated by the tightening of US economic sanctions, the pandemic and the poor results of macroeconomic management.
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Cuban Activist Fernando Almeyda is in Belgrade, Serbia. (Facebook)
14ymedio, Havana, 22 February 2022 — Cuban activist Fernando Almeyda joined this weekend the list of dissidents who are leaving the island. After requesting a humanitarian visa from Spain, which was not granted, the former Archipiélago coordinator decided to go to Serbia, a country that currently does not require a visa for Cubans, although his intention does not seem to be to remain in the Balkan country, according to an interview published by Cubanet on Monday.
Almeyda, who participated in the July 11 protests and later joined the Archipiélago collective — which he left after Yunior García Aguilera’s abrupt departure from Cuba — argues that he never had any real intention of developing his professional career on the island and that since he graduated as a lawyer he wanted to go into exile so as not to be part of the system. The activist emphasizes that his job position led him to a lack of money, which at the same time delayed his departure.
His final departure comes now, because, he states, he has been suffering repression, harassment, persecution and threats from the State Security for months. “I was very afraid, an atrocious fear, and I even tried to find a way to flee and seek asylum, but always after 15N [November 15], never before,” he explains. What happened with the Marcha Cívica por el Cambio (Civic March for Change) and the arrests that took place led him to speed up his procedures and initiate the application for a humanitarian visa to Spain in December, a document that is granted only in cases of emergency and which was denied.
Almeyda decided to travel to Europe, with a flight to Belgrade, where he does not plan to apply for asylum, but rather for temporary residence, which indicates that his intention is to travel to another destination, probably Spain. continue reading
The opposition leader also explains in the interview how he came to activism through the San Isidro Movement, to which he attributes the ability to break with the classic forms of opposition in Cuba, which until 2018, he says, were things of political parties “sometimes tending to extremism and opposed to each other. The exile was divorced from the Cuban reality and Cubans did not even know what was being said or did not even care.”
Almeyda maintains that since he took the initiative to leave Cuba, he has been in “semi-clandestine status,” although he did not hide completely and he attended some public activities.
To Almeyda’s departure should be added that of another jurist, Julio Antonio Fernández Estrada, whose destination is unknown so far. Professor at the University of Havana in 2016, the lawyer was expelled for his texts critical of power, and was currently collaborating with several independent press media.
“Today he left Cuba, where he was not allowed to work for years, a great friend, one of the best people I know and an intellectual who sacrificed his career for his civism. Good luck wherever you go dear Julio Antonio Fernandez Estrada. Cuba does not lose you because it will always be in your thoughts and in your heart”, commented historian Alina Bárbara López Hernández.
Translated by: Hombre de Paz
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In the image, Luisa María Milanés Valdés, mother of Alexander Fábregas Milanés, arrested on July 11. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 22 February 2022 — Luisa María Milanés Valdés, mother of Alexander Fábregas Milanés, arrested on July 11, denounces that pressure from State Security made her lose the rental where she lived with her daughter and two grandchildren in the city of Sancti Spíritus. The woman herself must leave her home in the next few hours and no one seems willing to rent her a new space.
“The owner of the house told us that we had to leave on February 19 and although we have looked for another space to rent, people first tell us yes but then they give us the long haul, they don’t answer or they back down and tell us they no longer can,” the woman who sees the political police after these refusals tells 14ymedio
Milanés’ son, 32, was arrested for broadcasting on social networks his call to take to the streets of Sancti Spíritus to accompany the protests that took place in other Cuban provinces during that day. Nine days later he was sentenced to nine months in prison for the crime of “incitement to commit a crime.”
Now, in addition to the separation from her son she is facing the pressures and threats from State Security, which is maneuvering so that the 58-year-old woman loses her job in a hospital for children with mental disabilities. The reprisals have already materialized, in her opinion, with the difficulties in finding a rental house.
“I could go anywhere because I’m an adult, but my grandchildren are two and a half years old, the girl, and the youngest is only a year and a few months old.” Milanés assures that “there is a lot of economic need and everyone needs money, so it is not rational that first they assure me that they are going to rent to me and then they change their mind.” continue reading
“I’m on the street, I have nowhere to go,” explains the woman, who already has all her belongings collected and in the next few hours she must leave the house in the Colón neighborhood of that city, and could end up in the street. “I’ve been renting for more than two years and it’s only now, with my son in prison, that I’m starting to have these problems.”
“The owners of the houses do not confess to me that the State Security went to visit them to scare them, but I know that is the case because I feel that they are lying to me when they tell me that they are no longer interested in renting to me,” she laments. “You can see the fear on their faces, as if they had been given a scare.”
The woman has previously denounced the lack of solidarity she has felt in Sancti Spíritus towards her cause and the fear of approaching her shown by her neighbors after the arrest of Alexander Fábregas. Unlike Havana and Santa Clara, where the families of those arrested on 11J have created support groups, in Sancti Spíritus province the panorama is different.
Milanés hopes that her son will be released on April 6, the day he completes his sentence, although he warns that “before he had was going to be paroled on November 30, he had it approved, and suddenly they said they had to wait for confirmation that came from Havana and they didn’t give it to him.”
Pressures against homeowners who rent to dissidents or independent journalists are becoming more frequent in Cuba. Last January, the strong threats from State Security forced the independent journalist Yadiris Fuentes to leave the house where she had lived since June 2021. The owner of the house was warned by the political police that if he did not evict her, he could be fined, or even lose the property because it was an illegal rental.
Previously, the CubaNet news portal contributor Camila Acosta had suffered similar pressures and had to move repeatedly from due to the fear of the owners renting to a person heavily guarded by the police.
That scenario served as motivation for a group of independent Cuban journalists to launch the Casa Palanca campaign , with the aim of raising funds to acquire a property. However, the initiative, broadcast by the Verkami platform, failed to raise the necessary amount and the money was returned to the contributors.
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The situation in front of the Costa Rican embassy in Havana made the consul go out to calm things down. (Capture)
14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 22 February 2022 — “The protest was dissolved in a ‘peaceful way’: there was no aggression or use of force, but there was a total refusal for us to remain there.” Eliécer, 34, is one of the Cubans who demonstrated this Monday in front of the Costa Rican consulate in Havana after the announcement by this nation that it would require a transit visa for travelers en route to a third country. “There were horses, policemen, guards, repressive forces,” he describes, and as this newspaper found.
Eliécer worked as a tour guide until, in 2017, he had a run-in with a police officer. Since then, his life became one of constant pressure. “The networks began to control me, to summon me, to visit me, they prohibited me from doing my job,” he tells 14ymedio. “Given my refusal to accept any blackmail, my life and that of my family became a constant uncertainty and I made the decision to leave.”
The way would be, of course, Nicaragua, which last November decreed it was “visa free” for Cubans. To do this, Eliécer sold all his belongings, including his motorcycle, his air conditioner, his automatic washing machine and, the most painful for him, a T-shirt collection, which he treasured like precious stones. “It may sound laughable, but to me it’s not,” he apologizes.
The young man bought his ticket on January 29, through a manager, for Copa Airlines and Avianca, for a journey lasting a total of 32 hours and making three stops between Havana and Managua: Panama, Costa Rica and El Salvador. He paid $3,600 for it. continue reading
Although Costa Rica announced the transit visa requirement last Thursday, Eliécer found out over the weekend, “inoperative days in terms of paperwork.” The young man regrets that to request this immigration document, the Costa Rican authorities “ask for a number of ridiculous requirements, because we are not even going to enter their national territory.” For example, a bank account statement, which he was only able to obtain this Monday, and a criminal record certificate, which he learned upon arrival at the diplomatic headquarters would be useless if it was not legalized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“The people who had withdrawn their money to change dollars were in a limbo,” he explains, “because they had no way to prove economic solvency.”
All this caused discomfort in the crowd gathered on Fifth Avenue, between 66th and 68th, in Miramar. The situation made the consul go out to calm things down, says Eliécer. “He gave a rather vague and justifying answer that it was not the responsibility of the consulate or even the Government of Costa Rica, but of Migration,” he details, and protests: “Obviously they are arguing about responsibility. Those gathered there only demanded “that everyone who obtained a ticket before this regulation would be allowed to fly with a special permit, or they would simply arrange the visa for us as soon as possible,” but their requests were ignored. “They replied that it was impossible, because they had to process that as a consulate formality that has its own time parameters.”
Once the crowd had dispersed and a whole surveillance deployment was launched around the embassy, no official came out again, despite the fact that there are public hours open in the afternoon. “The Sepsa guards, the consulate security guards, talked to us and they simply told us that the person who was supposed to deal with us would not come out, that we should come back the next day.” In addition, they were warned: “In order for them to prepare, cancel those flights, because they won’t have time.”
They also stopped answering the phone. “They have a number available to serve the people, but it wasn’t working,” says the young man. “I made 37 consecutive calls to see if it was a busy issue, but no, I never got through. Other people also tried and couldn’t; the phone was busy all the time.”
In the case of Eliécer, this cancellation is complicated by the attitude of the airlines. Copa, he says, would return the amount paid for the route it covered (Havana-Panama-Costa Rica) with a penalty of 200 dollars, but Avianca, which covered Costa Rica-El Salvador-Managua, would not refund anything. “Avianca brazenly steals our money and doesn’t even show its face,” he denounces. “When you cancel, you lose all the money.”
Still, his situation was not the worst, he says. “There was a car at the protest with people from Sancti Spíritus who had left their house at four in the morning to get here early. Those people, of course, had to return to their province without a solution,” he narrates. “There were older people, children, people from various municipalities, people who were very annoyed and others who were upset because it was all a robbery.”
The demand, he insists, is very simple: “That they let us fly, because there are many people who have sold their houses, their lives, in order to escape from this disaster of a country and basically there are many who right now are without a single thing of any kind.”
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Anamely Ramos is curator and member of the San Isidro Movement. (Twitter/@MarioJPenton)
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 16 February 2022 — Experts consulted by 14ymedio have found no precedent for the government to have vetoed the entry of a Cuban citizen residing in Cuba, as happened this Wednesday with the art curator and activist Anamely Ramos, who was unable to board her American Airlines flight bound for Havana.
The director of the Miami airport, with whom Ramos met after expressing her intention to stay at the terminal if she was not allowed to travel to Cuba, assured the media gathered at the scene that it is the first time he has encountered such a case.
Lawyer Eloy Viera recalls, in statements to 14ymedio, that other Cubans went through a similar situation, but the “particularity” in this case is that Anamely Ramos “has not lost her rights, because she has not been outside of Cuba for more than 24 months.”
Cuban law establishes that if a national remains outside the country continuously for more than two years, he loses his residence and, with it, he also loses his rights, such as voting or medical assistance. Many émigrés have been prevented from entering the country for this reason. continue reading
“I’ll go to a public place and will camp out, because I don’t have a home right now, I don’t have a country. I’m not going to anyone’s house who wants to take me in, nor do I want to ask for asylum”
However, the case of Anamely Ramos is different, since she has not lost her rights. The decision to veto her entry in Cuba is clearly a “repressive” act that sends “a very clear political message: no Cuban is safe and, once she leaves, her return to Cuba can be prevented.”
“There is a rupture in what has happened with Anamely,” he argues, because “she has no other place to legally regularize herself and her only legal foothold was Cuba. Even so, they decided to deny her entry.”
In this regard, the lawyer mentions the case of the activist Lidier Hernández Sotolongo, a Cuban resident in Uruguay, who was not prevented from entering, but who was regulated once he was in Cuba. And precisely, he points out, “one of the arguments used by officials in that case was that legal Cuban residents could not be prevented from entering but they could be prevented from leaving.”
After a meeting with Miami airport authorities and with American Airlines employees, Ramos reiterated that her interest was to stay at the airport to “apply pressure.” However, the director himself warned her that this was not allowed and accompanied her to a meeting with immigration authorities.
“They have treated me very well,” the activist acknowledged in a direct broadcast. “I’ll go to a public place and will camp out, because I don’t have a home right now, I don’t have a country. I’m not going to anyone’s house who wants to take me in, nor do I want to ask for asylum.”
In a live broadcast on her Facebook profile, she explained that the airline did not specify the reasons why the regime had denied her entry, and that they simply told her that “there is a protocol with Cuba and with all the countries of the world” that they “have to abide by.”
The fact that Ramos complied with all the legal and health requirements to re-enter Cuba suggests that the Cuban government activated Article 24 of the Migration Law. This limits the entry into the national territory to “every person” who, among other activities that are considered illegal, organizes, stimulates, carries out or participates in “hostile actions against the political, economic and social foundations of the Cuban State.”
This article establishes other assumptions, such as “National Defense and Security reasons” or “being declared undesirable or expelled.”
“Cuba’s border has to continue to be in Cuba,” she said. “It cannot be at the American Airlines gate, that is inadmissible”
This Cuban norm violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in its Article 13, which recognizes the right “to move freely and choose one’s residence in the territory of a State” and “to leave any country, including one’s own, and to return to one’s country.”
For Viera, Article 24 is a mechanism “that increases the administrative discretion the regime” has, when deciding “without the need to substantiate or notify” the affected person. “The fundamental problem with this is that the decision is made behind people’s backs. They only find out if they are about to board a plane to Cuba. They are overseas without the administrative authorities having notified them through a resolution or a document that they could use at a later date in a judicial environment,” he added.
In addition, he believes that it is “outrageous from any legal point of view” even from the way the article is written. “The term used is ‘undesirable.’ Who wishes that a person may access Cuba, who is that authority, under what criteria?” questions Viera, who assures that this way of formulating “what it does is favor arbitrariness and the discretionary, and generate defenselessness in the person who suffers it and has no way to fight it.”
In statements to the press gathered at the international terminal, Ramos denounced the attitude of the airline. “Cuba’s border has to continue to be in Cuba,” he said. “It cannot be located at the American Airlines gate. That’s inadmissible.”
This Wednesday afternoon, Ramos left the airport and explained that, according to the regulations, “nobody can stay who is not going to board a plane” and American Airlines maintains its decision not to let her board a flight to Cuba. “I will continue the protest in a public space, in front of the Versailles [restaurant]. This is to be continued. My demand continues to be that my #RightToReturn be respected.”
Translated by Norma Whiting
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The slab under construction collapsed, trapping several people, four of whom had to be hospitalized. (Cubadebate)
14ymedio, Havana, 21 February 2022 — 14ymedio, Havana, 21 February 2022 — At least 21 workers were injured, four of them seriously, in the city of Cárdenas (Matanzas) when a cement slab under construction collapsed. The accident occurred around one o’clock in the afternoon on Sunday at Genes 562 between Calzada and Coronel Verdugo, according to Yumurí public TV.
The most seriously injured were taken to the Julio Aristegui Villamir hospital after being rescued from the rubble.
The director of the medical center, Luis Enrique Bone Cobos, indicated around 8 pm that all of them were progressing satisfactorily, three of them being reported for care without complications and the remaining pending discharge after observation confirmed that he was in optimal condition.
The authorities are investigating the causes of the accident, which is still unknown, although it is believed that there was a failure in the structures that were supposed to support the slab under construction.
Although details about how the events unfolded are also unknown, everything indicates that the work tasks were carried out in a dwelling and that the “workers” were actually a brigade of volunteers who helped with the work. continue reading
On September 27, Cubiza engineer Miguel Díaz Sistachs died in an accident at work, when he was trying to place a flagpole in the Plaza Cívica José Martí de Marianao (Havana) for the celebrations for the 61st anniversary of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs). The case came to light when it was published by 14ymedio, since the company tried to hide it and pressured the family not to give information to the independent press.
A month later, the state company, in an act in which the former spy Gerardo Hernández was present, paid tribute to the deceased “fallen in the line of duty.”
In 2020, one person died and 26 were injured in a traffic accident between a Kato de Cubiza crane and a public transport bus that served the Santiago de Cuba-Baconao route.
One of the worst years for victims of work accidents in Cuba was 2016, when up to September there were 79 work accidents that left 89 dead. Barely a year later the number was reduced to 44 events with 51 deaths. In 2020, when activity was lower due to the pandemic, there were 32 fatal accidents with 33 deaths and 14 deaths on the road.
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You will tell me that I should have addressed this letter to those who imprisoned my friend and to those who resist releasing him. (Photomontage)
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 20 February 2022
Dear Luisma:
The last time we spoke on the phone, I suggested that you organize a gallery with your works under the title The Day After. I felt that you liked the idea, so I took advantage and said obliquely (as if I wasn’t implying that you should abandon your second hunger strike): “For that you need to survive.”
I have little to add now lest I hurt you, which is why I prefer, on day 93 of this diary, to address directly those who have you imprisoned.
Havana, Sunday, February 20, 2022
To the recruit Pérez
From the tall sentry box that you often occupy at a corner of the perimeter wall, you can see the beautiful landscape of a plain interrupted by timid hills. You carry a rifle. Your mission is to monitor and you are authorized to shoot anyone who leaves or enters without permission from that maximum security penitentiary.
For six months there has been an uncomfortable prisoner in the Guanajay jail. Your bosses have warned you that no one can talk to that man. Recently, a colleague of yours was interrogated and warned by military counter-intelligence because the brother of his girlfriend is an independent journalist. They found out from a photo that the girl uploaded to her Facebook profile.
In those fantasies that arise from boredom during your shifts on guard duty, you have imagined that a commando is advancing along the road that intends to rescue the accursed prisoner; sometimes they are Yankee marines with their war paraphernalia, other times a gang of criminals and sometimes you imagine that what is coming is a motley group of “very strange people,” as you have been warned that they are the friends of the abominated prisoner. continue reading
You have the impression that Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is not an artist, among other things because you have never seen him on television nor did they tell you about him at school. You identify him as a dangerous man, very dangerous, endowed with a super power that not even an Xman has, consisting of persuading people who approach him.
If you had read El Perfume, a novel written in 1984 by Patrick Süskind, perhaps you would compare the power of Luisma, as his friends call him, with that possessed by Jean Baptiste Grenouille, who turned those who wanted to celebrate his execution in a public square into participants in a massive orgy.
But that character was evil and killed to magnify his power. Your prisoner captivates with his kindness.
Nobody is going to rescue that prisoner in a suicidal action. The people who would give their lives for him are dancers, painters, sculptors, poets, musicians, journalists, art curators, poster designers. They would give their lives for him, but they are not capable of killing anyone. That makes them rare.
The bullets from your rifle are useless against what these people shoot.
Postscript:
You will tell me that I should have addressed this letter to those who imprisoned my friend and to those who are resisting his release, but in that case I would be tempted to insult very powerful people and that is a crime in Cuba.
#DiarioParaLuisma día 93
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In the informal market they can ask 450 pesos for 6 pounds of potatoes. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Madrid, February 21, 2022 — The price of potatoes has doubled in Cuba as a result of higher production costs, authorities insist. The tuber goes from costing 3 pesos per pound of the fresh product to 5 pesos, and a new price is created for the refrigerated potato, which will be 6 pesos.
A resolution published last Saturday in the Official Gazette establishes the new price for the collection and retail sale of potatoes harvested with domestic seed at 9,196.2 cents per ton, equivalent to 423 pesos per quintal (220 pounds). The potato harvested with imported seed stands at 7,152.46 pesos per ton, or 329 pesos per quintal.
According to the Provincial Government of Havana, the price rises due to the increase in the cost of agricultural inputs that the producers take on, in addition to the increase in labor costs per employee. Regarding the creation of the new price category for refrigerated potatoes, the authorities explained that the State budgets had to assume the expense to keep the product preserved last year and that this “is not possible to maintain under current conditions.”
“The potato is a demanding crop that, to achieve adequate yields, requires the application of imported fertilizers and pesticides, so its production is carried out under complex conditions,” says the official newspaper Tribuna de La Habana, which resorts to using the US embargo and the pandemic to justify the increase. continue reading
The newspaper indicates that for this February the sale and distribution of 2 pounds of fresh potatoes is approved, in a rationed manner and recorded in the ration book.
Potato production has fallen notably in recent years on the island. In 1996, Cuba exported the tuber, which had been rationed for years, after reaching a production record of 348,000 tons. In 2010, its sale was even liberalized and potatoes were sold in the unrationed market, but in 2015 the harvest stood at 123,000 tons and the Government had to import to meet demand, which led to rationing it later, in 2017.
This decrease in production has been reflected in the ’under the counter’ sales of the product,which was sold at 2 and 3 CUC (Cuban convertible pesos) for 5 pounds in the informal market. Currently, they are asking up to 450 pesos for 6 pounds.
Since the pandemic began, the situation has worsened even more and the lines to buy potatoes exceed the hours available in the day, generating riots and disputes.
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The fire occurred very close to the bus stop at 3rd and 70th in the municipality of Playa. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 22 February 2022 — A fire in the exterior area of a building next to the 3rd and 70th bus stop in the Havana municipality of Playa occurred on Monday afternoon without causing major damage. he fire occurred very close to the 3rd and 70th bus stop in the municipality of Playa. (14ymedio)
Three police patrols arrived at the scene within minutes of the fire spreading through the brush, but the agents could do little after the wind fueled the fire and interfered with nearby people’s ability to breathe due to the intense smoke that was released from the flames.
“But why so many police? Why don’t the firefighters come?” wondered a woman trying unsuccessfully to hail a taxi in the intense heat and smoke.
continue reading
“It’s because they’re nervous because this morning it got hotter than that fire,” replied a young man who was waiting for the bus on route P1, clearly alluding to the protest that took place hours before, and a few meters from there, in front of the Costa Rican Embassy where hundreds of Cubans requested an expeditious transit visa to the Central American country.
After about 20 minutes the firefighters arrived, almost when the fire was going out. They vacated the bus stop and began pumping water over the still smoldering coals, while people at the stop joked about the fuss they made by coming to the site.
“They arrive when it’s all over,” said a slush vendor sarcastically.
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Those gathered in the vicinity of the Costa Rican consulate demanded that transit visas be granted expeditiously or that they be allowed to fly without one. (Capture)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 22 February 2022 — Hundreds of people gathered this Monday outside the Costa Rican Embassy in Miramar, Havana, demanding a “response” to their request for a transit permit through San José to Managua. The police broke up the protest and the area is currently under strict surveillance.
Those gathered in the vicinity of the consulate, located on Fifth Avenue, between 66th and 68th, in Miramar, demanded that the permits be granted expeditiously or that they be allowed to fly without one. Some spent the night there since the early hours, sitting on cardboard on the sidewalk and in other nearby areas.
The police operation around the diplomatic headquarters was reinforced throughout the morning with uniformed officers and police cars. This newspaper was able to verify, in the afternoon, the presence of a large number of police officers, buses to transport the protesters and a lot of surveillance to avoid anyone taking photos or videos in the surroundings.
The command post with police forces and special troops of Black Berets is located in the National Aquarium, a few meters from the Costa Rican consulate. A public transport driver confirmed to 14ymedio that the transfer of the protesters in buses congested traffic on Third Street.
“What we want is that they respect the people who purchased tickets before the new law was applied,” one of those protesting this morning lamented through a video recording. On the perimeter fence of the consulate, a poster explained how to request the new permit through a letter addressed to the consul. continue reading
Last Thursday, the Costa Rican Migration Directorate announced that starting this Monday they would require a transit visa from Cuban travelers who made a stopover at Costa Rican airports en route to a third country.
The command post with police forces and special troops of Black Berets is located in the National Aquarium, a few meters from the Costa Rican consulate. (14ymedio)
The command post with police forces and special troops of Black Berets is located in the National Aquarium, a few meters from the Costa Rican consulate. (14ymedio)
The agency explained that the objective of this measure is “to ensure that the different airlines bound for Europe and the United States can transport these foreigners safely.” The resolution not only affects Cubans, but also Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.
“Changes in migration policy worldwide have caused differences in the dynamics of mobility of these nationalities, through the different air, land and sea borders” and, therefore, “other countries have adopted the visa application,” argued the Costa Rican immigration authorities.
On Monday, Costa Rican media featured the case of a Cuban couple stranded for 15 days in the transit area of the San José airport. They remain there, in “inhuman conditions,” Yulmis Acosta, sister of the affected woman, told TeleDiario, waiting to be granted refuge.
According to this relative, the responsibility for the migrants is transferred between Migration and the airline. “It is not known who is taking care of them,” declares Acosta, who details that they are guarded by six police officers who insist that they are private, and do not work for the company or to the State.
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Yaite Balmaceda Cano, murdered in Río Cauto, province of Granma. (Facebook)
14ymedio, Havana, 22 February 2022 — Yaite Balmaceda Cano, a young woman of 27, was murdered by a man whom she had reported to the police in Río Cauto, province of Granma, where she lived. The events were made public by Alexander Verdecia Rodríguez, coordinator of the Patriotic Union of Cuba in that town and former political prisoner, on his Facebook wall.
The woman, the mother of two children — a boy and a girl — told Verdecia days before she died that she had just accused “the man with whom she was having problems, that is, the man who [later] murdered her,” and that the police told her that “they were going to give her a restraining order agaisnt him.”
“Yaite lived near where I live,” Verdecia wrote. “A few months and days before being murdered, she had been the victim of beatings and threats by the young man who murdered her.” The activist denounces that the local police “had knowledge” not only of this but of the attempted rape by the same aggressor of a young woman from his neighborhood.
“The police of the Río Cauto municipality and the Prosecutor’s Office are also responsible to a certain extent for Yaite’s death, for not having taken some timely and drastic measure against her aggressor,” Verdecia claimed. “In other words, they were negligent in carrying out their work.”
The alleged murderer still has not yet been arrested by the police, a relative of the victim confirmed to 14ymedio. continue reading
This would be the third known femicide in Cuba so far this year, after the murders of Misladis Carmenates Hidalgo in Camagüey on January 6, and Mailén Guerra García in Villa Clara on January 2.
Jorge Del Rio Balmaceda posted an image of Yaite on his networks with the message: “The light in your eyes went out, you are with your dear Mother.” Relatives reacted to the publication and sent condolences to the young mother’s parents, known as Rodolfo and Ana. One of the comments confirmed that she was “violently murdered.”
Héctor Salermo de la Cruz expressed his annoyance at the lack of security. “It is very sad to lose a loved one, but when this loss is due to violence, it hurts much more,” he added: “Rest in peace and your loved ones will never forget you.”
The Cuban State recognizes gender violence in the new Constitution (2019), but does not classify femicide as a crime in the Penal Code. Cuban law establishes that the crimes of injury, coercion or threat are not investigated by the authorities if there is no complaint from the victim or, in case of disability, a guardian.
The closest allusion to femicide appears in article 264.1, which recognizes as murder “the homicide produced between relatives or spouses of marriages formalized or not.”
The most recent official statistics on gender-based violence date from 2016 and show that 26.7% of women between the ages of 15 and 74 suffered some type of violence in their partner relationship in the 12 months prior to the study.
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Their having sent a message to an independent media outlet was the excuse used to punish baseball players Andrés Hernández, from the Industriales, and Alexis Varona Núñez, from Sancti Spíritus. (Collage)
14ymedio, Havana, 17 February 2022 — Cuba’s National Baseball Commission (CNB) suspended for five games the players Andrés Hernández, from the Industriales, and Alexis Varona Núñez, from Sancti Spíritus, for congratulating the independent media Por la Goma. “The simple fact of having sent us a video of congratulations for our 27,000 followers is totally prohibited for athletes and managers,” the publication stressed in a post, which described what happened as “lack of respect.”
For journalist Francys Romero, the sanction “shows the mental and physical deterioration of the Cuban regime,” by not allowing the players “to have contact with alternative media, that is, unofficial media.”
Annoyed by the federal decision, Romero stressed: “The players do not have the freedom to speak with any media because they distort the truth about Cuba, according to managers such as Frangel Reynaldo, the commissioner, and the remaining members.”
For his part, the Pelota Cubana analyst, Yordano Carmona, trusts that “the Cuban press will echo the sanction of Andrés Hernández and question the National Baseball Directorate and the Cuban Baseball Federation” for being “accomplices and participants in a hit.” continue reading
Two days before Industriales outfielder Andrés Hernández was sanctioned, the State newspaper Granma highlighted him as the “most complete hitter of the season.” In the publication, the player is referred to as the most regular batter so far in the contest, completing 1,275 hits to drive in runners. Only Yordanis Samón from Camagüey exceeds 1,200 and to get an idea of the quality of this parameter, although 61 average more than 300, only 17 players achieve 1,000 in this statistic.
Romero also believes that this type of punishment encourages the flight of players: “Imagine the parents of any prospect between the ages of 13 and 18 in Cuba reading this. Will they not seek the option of leaving, even if it is by submarine?” And he adds: “Now imagine a Cuba-MLB agreement. Will the players be able to talk to a press that is not the servant of Cuba?”
Alexis Varona Núñez was sanctioned, according to the official Jit media, for “violating the provisions regarding relations with media not recognized by the event authorities” and for failing to comply with the “discipline that must support the main sociocultural show” on the Island The measures took effect on February 15 and 16, both for Hernández and for Varona.
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Photo of Cuban migrants who were transported in the back of a truck on Mexican roads in the state of San Luis Potosí in Mexico.
14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico, 11 February 2022 – – The Minister of Public Security (SSP) of the Mexican state of San Luis Potosí is investigating a trafficking network that charges $8,000 to $10,000 to take migrants to the U.S. border. Between last Wednesday and Thursday, 135 foreigners, 22 of them Cuban, were detained as part of the first investigations.
“It’s a criminal group that is making transfers due to gaps in security to avoid the National Guard checkpoints,” state security spokesman Miguel Gallegos Cepeda tells 14ymedio. Coyotes arrive in the villages and pass migrants off as tourists to avoid suspicion.
Traveling from San Luis Potosí last Wednesday, in the community of Villa Hidalgo, the police located five vehicles that were hiding behind an embankment, so they requested the support of the Army and the National Guard in the face of a possible “narcotics” event. According to SSP information, the drivers accelerated to try to flee but were intercepted by the military.
Six coyotes were traveling in the five vehicles, all from the state of Puebla, and they were transporting 30 migrants: 15 Cubans, including a family with children, 10 Nicaraguans, and 5 Guatemalans. The drivers were arrested and transferred to the facilities of the Attorney General’s Office, where an investigation was opened for the trafficking of migrants. continue reading
“Caravans with dozens of Central Americans are passing through the state. Now there are many Haitians who are trying to find work, but these transfers in vans and trucks are from a network that is beginning to exploit the so-called Gulf route,” Antonio, an agent of the Prosecutor’s Office, told this newspaper.
From San Luis Potosí, explains the official, there are two options to reach the border with the U.S. The first is to go to Monterrey and from there to Nuevo Laredo, on the Tamaulipas border with U.S. territory, and the second is to leave for Saltillo, in the border state of Coahuila, and from there to Piedras Negras to try to reach Eagle Pass, in Texas.
The first inquiries located a group operating in the vicinity of the Palenque archaeological zone, in Chiapas. “Part of this network takes migrants to Coatzacoalcos, in Veracruz, then through the municipality of Tierra Blanca until they reach Orizaba, and from there they leave for Querétaro and continue until they reach San Luis Potosí,” Antonio emphasizes.
“The $10,000 dollar charge is not [only] for the transfer through Mexico but from the countries of origin. We hope to finish putting together the puzzle and dismantle this group,” explains the agent.
Last Thursday, state police detected a truck that was speeding in the Potosi municipality of Charcas. After a chase the driver was arrested in the stretch that connects the community of Matehuala with El Huizache. The back of the truck had two levels and was lined with spongy material, and 105 migrants were found there: 28 from Guatemala, 21 from Honduras, 13 from El Salvador, 36 from Nicaragua, and 7 from Cuba.
“This confirmed the modus operandi of the trafficking network. Migrants mentioned that they paid $10,000 to reach the U.S. The coyotes sold them the idea of up to three transfer opportunities in case they were arrested and returned to Guatemala.”
So far they have detained 7 people in the human trafficking network, and investigations are continuing concerning the owners of the secured vehicles.
Meanwhile, in the Yucatán, the Mexican Navy rescued 8 Cuban rafters who were found 12 nautical miles from Puerto Progresso. After being attended to by medical personnel, they were transferred to the remote terminal of Progresso and taken to the National Migration Institute.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Roldy Polo Pérez at his home in Guantánamo. (Facebook)
14ymedio, Havana, 16 February 2022 — Roldy Polo Pérez, a musician living in Baracoa, died of gunshot wounds to the abdomen this Tuesday in Vega Larga, a town in that municipality in the province of Guantánamo.
As explained by his acquaintances through social networks, the person responsible was a police officer who allegedly argued with the 45-year-old artist in the middle of his own birthday party and shot him in the abdomen. The name and photo of the alleged murderer are circulating on social networks among the singer’s acquaintances.
The official press, after the information was published in independent media, confirmed the news, publishing a statement from the Ministry of the Interior that pointed out that the aggressor was “an officer of the PNR [National Revolutionary Police] who was not on duty” and that he caused the death of Polo Pérez “with his regulation weapon,” after holding “a heated discussion due to personal problems and under the influence of the ingestion of alcoholic beverages.”.
According to this note, the accused is under arrest. The friends and relatives of the victim had demanded on the networks, precisely that the murder not go unpunished due to the fact that a member of the Cuban Police was involved. continue reading
“It is absurd to manipulate and invent versions that have nothing to do with reality, to try to affect the image of the PNR and opportunistically attack the Revolution through subversive enemy means on social networks,” the statement concludes.
The ADN media had access to a video in which the brother of the deceased insisted on holding the official responsible: “They have already killed another by shooting him in the back.” A companion who appears in the images also maintains that when they called the hospital to notify them, no one answered them and, when they finally did, the center told them that the ambulance was broken.
Roldy Polo worked at the Cecilio Gómez Lambert Municipal House of Culture as a promoter, and the staff of that facility has spoken through another of their workers, Liditania Gómez.
“What sad news and we send our condolences to your family and friends on behalf of the Board of Directors of the House of Culture,” he said.
Yunieski Urgellés Rodríguez, sound engineer at Radio Baracoa, also said goodbye to his colleague. “With deep pain we received the unpleasant news that our friend, partner and brother, Roldis Polo Pérez, passed away. The Baracoa culture is in mourning, our deepest condolences to his family and friends. Rest in peace brother, we Cabacú promoters will never forget you.”
The murder occurs a few days after that of Andy Rencurrel, 30, stabbed last Friday in the Luyanó neighborhood of the Diez de Octubre municipality, presumably due to a dispute over the illegal market for satellite dishes.
Malcolm Álvarez Espinosa was also stabbed to death at the door of his house in Centro Habana last Wednesday. Crime seems to have increased in Cuba in recent months, judging by the wave of murders and robberies and thefts with violence reported through social networks. It is not ruled out, however, that these events have simply come to light with the new avenue offered by the technologies as an alternative to the official media that try to hide this type of news.
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The new legislation facilitates ways to claim child support internationally. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Madrid, 17 February 2022 — For the first time, Cuba’s Family Code provides for something never before contemplated in Cuban legislation despite its urgent need: the possibility of claiming the maintenance obligation from a resident abroad. The previous rule was approved in 1975, but despite undergoing numerous amendments, the aspect that would legally allow this type of claim had not been modified.
The Family Code of 1975 established the obligation to give support to children, parents and siblings mutually, but did not contemplate what could happen in the event that one of them resided abroad. Title XI of the preliminary draft, which is currently being debated before being submitted to a referendum, addresses the rules of private international family law and develops economic and property relations between spouses or partners who have formed a de facto union, as well as with children, as well as the maintenance obligation.
The issue was addressed this Wednesday on the State television program Mesa Redonda (Roundtable), which spoke of “transnational families” and featured several experts in private international law.
Although María Ofelia Rodríguez, a researcher at the Center for Demographic Studies of the University of Havana, recalled that migration is a global phenomenon, the weight that this factor has in Cuba was clear and she explains that this planned legal modification has finally been introduced in multitudes of countries but not precisely in one that has around a quarter of its population distributed throughout the world, although the bulk is concentrated in the United States. continue reading
In her review, the specialist recalled the Special Period in Cub and did not waste the opportunity to insist that it is an emigration of an economic nature, completely ignoring the political factor. In this sense, the intervention of Rodolfo Dávalos, professor of Private International Law at the University of Havana, who attributed the migratory phenomenon to “the cosmopolitan nature of the human species,” was also peculiar.
“Today we have an affective union of a Cuban mother with a Spanish citizen, she procreates a child residing in Cuba, the father disregards the obligation to provide food, there is an international family conflict, then, what law is applicable to the conflict? The Family Code offers an adequate solution and establishes the application of Cuban regulations, which is the law of the minor’s domicile,” he explained.
“I also don’t know how the obligations of the emigrated parents are going to turn out, because the girls’ father also emigrated a few years ago and has never sent a penny,” one of those interviewed told this newspaper.
With the new text, it will be possible to claim the maintenance obligation internationally, although it has not yet been explained how it will be articulated. In Spain, as in the example provided on the Mesa Redonda, the body responsible for managing it is the Ministry of Justice through the Subdirectorate General for International Legal Cooperation, to which the required documentation must be sent, including the pertinent judicial decisions and application.
It remains to be clarified how the amount to be paid will be calculated when one of the parents lives outside the island. One of the serious problems with the current child support model in force in Cuba is that it is calculated based on the salary in Cuban pesos, although many individuals have informal incomes or receive remittances that constitute the bulk of their family budget.
After the start of the Ordering Task* and the end of the dual monetary system, the amounts that a parent must pay for child support have become even more derisory compared to the cost of basic products, especially food. If the one who pays the pension lives and receives a salary abroad, it is also pending to know in what currency and through what routes the money will reach the family in Cuba.
*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.
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EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 22 February 2022 — On Monday, the Cuban authorities restored the accreditations — withdrawn last November — of three journalists from the EFE team on the island, a decisive step towards the normalization of the journalistic activity of the Spanish agency in the country.
