Cuban Baseball Team Returns Home From Mexico with Half its Players and Without a Medal

In the image the 12 players who returned to Havana this Monday. (Radio Rebelde)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 4 October 2021 — Baseball player Geisel Cepeda, 23,  was the last to leave the Cuban team at the U-23 World Cup in Sonora, Mexico. The athlete abandoned his teammates when they were going to return to the island and did not get on the plane, thus also leaving the contract he had with the Mochis, in Mexico, to seek a contract in the US Major Leagues.

The news, confirmed this Sunday by sports journalist Francys Romero, ends the list of escapes among the members of the youth team, which totals 12, 50% of the 24 who traveled to Mexico to try to win the title.

Just one day earlier, this Saturday, Loidel Chapellí Jr., 19, Yandi Yanes, 23, Bryan Chi, 22, and Miguel Antonio González, 21, had all left the team. The list is completed by the pitchers Yeinel Zayas, Luis Dennys Morales, Uber Mejías, Dariel Fernández, receiver Loidel Rodríguez, outfielder Reinaldo Lazaga and infielder Diasmany Palacios.

Cuba’s official press described the walk-offs of the players as “vile abandonments” and blamed the United States for the desertions due to the rupture, in 2017, of the agreement reached between the Major Leagues and the Cuban Baseball Federation by which the Island promised to “free” the players hired by a team from the neighboring country provided continue reading

they met various conditions of age and years of service, in exchange for the payment of an economic bonus that had to go to the Cuban authorities.

The press has also attributed the escapes to the weakness of the players. “The merchants of baseball players went in search of promising talents and achieved their objective,” taking advantage of “the provisions of the United States Government towards Cuba and its athletes (closed doors) and also the moral and ethical weaknesses of those who left the team.”

The roster had been chosen, according to the coach himself, Eriel Sánchez, by the national baseball authorities from a list preselected by him. The manager had clearly said what was an open secret, that qualities external to sports were valued when choosing the final representatives, and these qualities included patriotism, understood as one might suppose, to mean fidelity to the ’Revolution’.

However, the ideological selection mechanism has not worked, judging by the results.

Cuba’s National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (Inder) has spoken out in this regard and insisted on the same ideas as the official press, ensuring that the players’ departure “confirms the cynicism with which the Trump Administration annulled the agreement,”,which is a” cruel handicap that prevents the natural flow to the circuits of that organization.”

Sportscaster Pavel Otero said on Cuban television that the team faces “one of the most hostile scenarios in the history of our sports movement.”

“Do not doubt that those unscrupulous human traffickers, at the service of the enemies of the Revolution, will continue to insist,” he said.

The Venezuelan team won the tournament this Sunday by beating the host, Mexico, 4-0. Cuba, which lands in Havana this Monday at 5 am, was in 4th position after falling to Colombia.

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In Cuba, Classes… and the Slogans… Return

High school students returned to classes in Cuba this Monday (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 4 October 2021 — The outdoor area of the José Miguel Pérez high school, located in the Nuevo Vedado neighborhood in the Plaza de la Revolución municipality of Havana, remained completely empty for many months.

A week ago, and with the easing of the anti-covid measures, it began to fill up in the afternoons with young people playing soccer, basketball and other sports.

But as of this Monday, the students of some secondary education return after months of absence in the classrooms, and the school has once again become the scene of the pre-university school morning assembly. The slogans, the applause and the distance of more than one meter of safety between the students in the line to access the educational center have not been lacking.

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Uber Meji­as, One of the 11 Cuban Baseball Players, Who Defected in Mexico, Arrives in the US

Uber Mejías has applied for asylum in the US, according to reports from the journalist Francys Romero (@francysromero)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, October 3, 2021 — The pitcher from Santiago, Uber Mejías, is now in the United States, having “crossed the frontier and requested political asylum”, according to information from the journalist Francys Romero. “He will shortly start the documentation process to become a free agent”.

Mejías was the second baseball player, in this outflow of 11 as of now, from Eriel Sánchez’ team, which took part in the sub-23 World Baseball Championship. He walked out on 23rd September from the team hotel located in Ciudad Obregón, in the Mexican state of Sonora.

The young man was with Loidel Chapellí Jr. as Cuban team members in the World events sub-15, sub-18 and sub-23. In preparing for the tournament in Mexico he sent funds in the range of 90 – 92 thousand. “The righthander is one of the most interesting Cuban prospects for the MLB (Major League Baseballscouts“, Romero emphasised.

The Cuban rising stars deserted without documentation. Their options are limited to “wait in Mexico and follow the process for free agency, or ask for asylum at the US frontier”. Mejías opted for the second, “although we have no exact confirmation, he is the first baseball player (at least as far as we know) to continue reading

enter US territory”, according to the journalist.

Among these stories is that of the pitcher Dariel Fernández, another of the baseball players who deserted, and, from what we know, got into contact with the representative Carlos Pérez, the Havana agent based in Miami who has a wide range of Cuban baseball players in the Big Leagues, including Raúl Valdés, Edwin Rios, Tyron Guerrero and Yandy Díaz.

News broke on Saturday that, with the desertion of Loidel Chapelli Jr, 19 years old, Yandi Yanes, 23, Bryan Chi, 22 and Miguel Antonio Gonzalez, 21, a total of 11 baseball players have broken away from the Cuban team in Hermosillo, Mexico.

Before the pitchers Yeinel Zayas, Luis Dennys Morales, Uber Mejias, Dariel Fernandez, there were also the catcher Loidel Rodriguez, the outfielder Reinaldo Lazaga, and Diasmany Palacios, the infielder.

Meanwhile, on the island, the sports authorities have insisted on blaming the United States for the sports stars’ escape. The National Institute for Physical and Educational Sport (Inder) last Sunday accused the blocking of the agreement between the Cuban Baseball Federation and the Major League Baseball of stimulating “the traffic of athletes for political reasons”.

Translated by GH

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Cuba: The Island Flees Inside a Suitcase

Every day many Cubans make the decision to leave; they get on a plane without looking back. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 3 October 2021 — In a drawer I keep a box with photos that I avoid looking at. They are images filled with the faces that have left, hundreds of friends, colleagues and relatives who no longer inhabit this Island. The escape of athletes, artists, rafters or officials accelerates as the country sinks. Right now, we live in times of a resounding crash and constant goodbyes.

The flight of 11 Cuban baseball players during the U23 World Baseball Championship in the Mexican state of Sonora, has been the most recent chapter of this bleeding, but every day many others make the decision to leave, they get on a plane without looking back, go through the jungle or cross the sea. They are expressing with their feet what they dare not say out loud: the system is a failure and the country is unlivable.

The final destination can be anywhere. Yesterday a friend announced that she is going to Iceland, another island that she only knows is “far from Cuba and they are not building socialism.” The neighbor on the corner tore up his Communist Party card and now works for a cleaning crew in Miami; meanwhile a childhood friend is organizing a marriage of convenience to emigrate to Italy.

Some regret having waited so long. “My sister warned me continue reading

and I thought this was going to improve, but it goes backwards like the crab,” the clerk at a nearby agricultural market tells me. “I’d rather start from scratch anywhere than spend the rest of my life here,” she says. Two customers who down a glass of juice nod their heads after listening to her.

All those who come to the conclusion that “you have to go out and get out now” have that look of absolute resolution that is seen in the turning points of life. I have noticed this harshness in widows, in families who have lost everything after a fire and even in prisoners sentenced to long sentences. It is as if after having been stripped of everything, they understand that they have one last power left: the power over their bodies.

And this faculty of deciding to distance yourself — physically or mentally — from what hurts and angers, is what the thousands of Cubans who emigrate every year are exercising. Neither the triumphant headlines in the official press, nor the slogan-lit school assemblies each morning, nor the promises of a “prosperous and sustainable” model just around the corner deter them. They are fed up.

At the beginning, Cuba officialdom justified their escapes by labeling those who went into exile as bourgeoisie after their properties, industries and businesses had been confiscated. Later, they were called “escorias” – slag, dregs, scum – because they were the disposable by-products of the “foundry of the New Man.” Even today, they are described as weak people before “the siren songs of capitalism.”

Skillfully, Castroism has also used emigration as a valve to release social pressure. It is no coincidence that the great Cuban migratory waves, such as the departure from the Port of Mariel in 1980 or the Rafter Crisis in the summer of 1994 have been preceded by serious economic hardships and an increase in citizen discontent. The popular protests of July 11 have also been played their part in the stampede and we are already living it.

The shame that practically half of a sports delegation escapes from a competition is something that is not cleaned up with the hefty dollars in remittances sent later by the emigrants. The phenomenon only occurs in countries-prisons in the style of the communist bloc of Eastern Europe, the dynastic dictatorship of the Kims in North Korea, in Belarus … and on this Island. We are on the list of nations that feel like bars; of systems that are experienced like cages.

We expect months of saying goodbye every day, because they will not be able to put a policeman next to every Cuban who travels in an official delegation. The leaks may also touch the highest levels of power, because rats leave the ship when it sinks, not because they are “rats,” but because they are smart. They feel that it is only a matter of time before this empty shell of the system is buried by the waters of change.

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Cuba: Report Records Five Actions Against Foreign Currency Stores and Patrols in September

Protest in the form of a prayer in the street, registered by the Cuban Conflict Observatory. (OCC

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Madrid, 2 October 2021 — “The repression and terror” instituted by the Cuban government “fail to neutralize this new generation of dissident citizens.” The Cuban Conflict Observatory (OCC) reaches this conclusion in its latest report, made public this Friday, which includes 312 protests in September.

Since September 2020, when 42 demonstrations took place, until the same month this year, the Miami-based organization observes that “the increase in protests, month by month, has remained constant.”

“Even those who insist on considering the national social outbreak of July 11 exceptional (it included 584 protests with the participation of some 187,000 Cubans) have to take into account that a total of 2,718 protests have already accumulated in the course of a year. And they continue to grow,” emphasizes the NGO, which also reports: “It has been proven that trying to quell protests by resorting to violence multiplies them and could open the door to others who demonstrate in a less constructive way.”

Thus, last month there were five violent actions against the so-called ’dollar stores’ — which accept payment only in foreign currency — and police patrols, as well as the burning of a house during the blackouts that affected Matanzas, Cienfuegos and Ciego de Ávila. “We do not know if they are state self-provocations,” the document says. “Nobody has attributed them.”

What the Observatory confirms, in any case, is that since 11J (July 11th) “the whole world — including supporters of the old Cuban revolutionary myth — woke up to the new reality of an oligarchic, totalitarian and mafia state that has broken the social pact of communism, in which political and civil rights were trampled upon in exchange for providing certain social and economic security.” Since then, says the OCC, “the genie came out of the lamp and they have not been able to continue reading

make it go back in.”

It has not served, the organization notes, “to approve in 30 days several decrees (which had not even been discussed for years) and to proclaim in the race that priority will be given to social attention to marginal neighborhoods (which grew for more than 62 years in full abandonment).” On the contrary, this “has reaffirmed the awareness that the power elite only makes concessions under effective public pressure, such as that of July 11.”

The NGO also states that since the 11J demonstrations “new expressions” of protest have emerged, such as calls by evangelical churches to pray in public “in favor of changes” or cacerolazos — protests featuring beating on pots and pans — which had not previously had roots in the Island.

The prayers in the streets, says the OCC, “put the repressive bodies before a difficult dilemma, because it is a terrible image to violently contain a group of residents who kneel in the street in front of their homes to ask God to make the changes the country needs possible without violence,”

The report also mentions the exile of the artist Hamlet Lavastida and the poet Katherine Bisquet to Poland, which, “has only managed to put into international circulation two artists who can now give direct testimony of their experiences under state terror.” The organization foresees that “the impact on the European Union media will not be long in coming.”

Meanwhile, from prison, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel ’Osorbo’ Castillo, says the document “challenge their jailers by declaring themselves on a hunger strike.

The report says “the perfect storm self-induced by national politics,” continues, including the “collapse of the health system,” “uncontrolled inflation” due to the implementation of the so-called Ordering Task*, and “energy insecurity,” which translates into constant blackouts, for which they blame “the policy of not making capital investments in this sector when resources were available for it under the thaw with the United States caused by Barack Obama, and the restructuring of the payment of the foreign debt.”

That citizens have become aware of these realities, the text continues, “has dismantled the myth of the official propaganda that all the evils that afflict the citizen have an external cause and are generated by the US Government (be it Trump or Biden ) and the ’Miami Mafia’.”

Regarding the management of the pandemic, the OCC highlights the “government attempt to blame doctors for poor service in hospitals,” which did not go well for the regime, because “it provoked multiple public responses, rejecting this slander and holding accountable to the Government for its disastrous management of the pandemic.”

This coming quarter, the Observatory ventures, appears “complicated.” On October 10, the document reports, the anniversary of the beginning of the First War of Independence, a group of religious figures has called for a “national day of prayer and reflection,” and on November 20, “the birth of Father Félix Varela,” they note that peaceful marches have been called in various cities.

“The only thing that is easy to predict is that the protests will not stop and that the elite will insist on crushing them uselessly.” Hence, the organization warns, “violent variants of personal protest may arise, not incited or summoned by any sector of civil society.”

In this regard, the OCC references the five “individual protests, led by unknown persons, in which some form of violence was used” registered in September. “Although it is an old tactic of the Ministry of the Interior — promoted by Cuban advisers in Venezuela — to infiltrate peaceful protests and generate violent events to justify state violence,” the text continues, “it is not ruled out that there are citizens against whom the State’s repression leads them to the conclusion that it is preferable to throw stones or Molotov cocktails at a State building from anonymity than to stand up in a non-violent protest that is condemned in advance to be violently repressed by military and paramilitary groups of the State.”

“The ultimate responsibility for the paths chosen by the resistance to oppression rests in the hands of the oppressors, not the oppressed,” asserts the NGO. The citizen actions called in October and November “have been announced publicly and in advance, sufficient for the authorities to hold the conveners responsible “if the State again opts to violate its own Constitution and exhorts its military and paramilitary bodies to another day of violence and repression against peaceful citizens.”

This time, The OCC warns, “the world is watching.”

*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 other measures throughout the economy. 

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Pitcher Bryan Chi Becomes the Ninth Cuban Player to Escape in Mexico

Player Bryan Chi (top left) is the ninth Cuban athlete to escape in Mexico. (Collage)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 2 October 2021 — With the escape this Saturday of Bryan Chi, 22, and Miguel Antonio González, 21, there are a total of nine players who have escaped from the Cuba team in Hermosillo, Mexico. With these ’desertions’, there are only 15 athletes left in the delegation of the Island participating in the U-23 World Baseball Championship, in the state of Sonora.

Chi left the national team hours before the bronze match against Colombia, sports reporter Francys Romero explained on his Facebook account. “Eight days of unprecedented exodus in the history of Cuban baseball emigration,” added the Miami-based expert.

For his part, González’s departure “occurred between 4:00 pm and 5:00 pm (Mexico time), according to three sources close to the situation,” Romero explained.

González, born in the province of Granma, was the captain of the Cuban team in the 2017 U-18 World Cup that was played in Canada. “He came from hitting .218 / .417 / .439, in 107 at-bats with the Alazanes de Granma in the last 60 National Series,” Romero explained continue reading

in his text.

“There could be more flights in the next few hours, taking into account the proximity of the return to the island,” the journalist warned.

Before Chi and González, pitchers Yeinel Zayas, Luis Dennys Morales, Uber Mejías, Dariel Fernández, as well as catcher Loidel Rodríguez, outfielder Reinaldo Lazaga and infielder Diasmany Palacios had fled.

Lazaga, Fernández and Palacios fled the same day and with them “the record for the most dropouts in a Cuban baseball delegation was broken,” Romero said at the time. The most numerous had been in Mexico itself, in 1996, when five players who participated in the Copa de Clubes Campeones escaped.

Team manager Eriel Sánchez downplayed the flights of players. “There is no situation. There is no problem at all,” he said. “There is a good team, a leadership group and a complete delegation that we are going to be in position for the results,” he said in statements to Cuban television on September 26.

Questioned about some absences in the delegation, Sánchez said before the Cuban baseball team traveled to Mexico, in order to be a player worthy of representing the island at an international level, not only was it enough to play well, but the player had to “be a patriot.”

The island’s sports authorities have insisted on holding the United States responsible for the athlete’s abandonment. Last Saturday, the National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (Inder) blamed the blocking the agreement between the Cuban Baseball Federation and Major League Baseball, for stimulating “the trafficking of athletes in defense of political interests.”

On its social networks, Inder insisted that the players’ walking-off  “confirms the cynicism with which the Trump Administration annulled the agreement,” which also created a “cruel disadvantage that prevents the natural flow to the circuits of that organization.”

Cuban television commentator Pavel Otero said that the Cuban baseball team “is facing one of the most hostile scenarios in the history of our sports movement.”

“Do not doubt that those unscrupulous traffickers of people, at the service of the enemies of the Revolution, will continue,” says Otero after announcing the news of the escape of the first athletes.

The streak of Cuban athletes  leaving in recent months, including those of the Judo competitors Ayumi Leyva and Nahomys Acosta, who left the island’s delegation last month during a stopover in Madrid, Spain, has damaged the image of Inde .

At the end of June, the athlete Raudelis Guerra also left the basketball delegation in Spain, on the way to the qualifying tournament for the World Cup, which took place in El Salvador. Guerra escaped from the entourage at the Madrid-Barajas Airport itself, where part of the national team made a stopover to continue on its way to the Central American country.

Almost a month earlier, there were other cases of desertions of athletes and collaborators who were part of the Cuban delegation at the Baseball Pre-Olympic in Florida. Second baseman César Prieto, pitchers Lázaro Blanco and Andy Rodríguez, and Jorge Sile Figueroa, team psychologist, left the delegation.

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Colonel Jose Ramon Silva Berroa, Founder of the Cuban Communist Party, Dies of Covid

More than a dozen high-ranking military personnel have died in Cuba in the last two months. (ACN)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 1 October 2021 — On Thursday, Cuba marked the death by Covid-19 of another soldier, José Ramón Silva Berroa, who fought in the Sierra Maestra under the orders of Ernesto Che Guevara.

In 1958, reports a note in Granma, he was appointed captain of the Rebel Army and participated in what is known as the Las Villas campaign, where he was seriously wounded and lost his right arm.

After the triumph of the Revolution, as a commander, he was one of the founders of the Communist Party of Cuba and was part of its Central Committee. At the time of his death he was a colonel in the reserve.

The body, the official information concludes, will be cremated and its ashes deposited in the Veterans Pantheon at the Colón cemetery, in Havana.

More than a dozen high-ranking officers have died in Cuba in the last two months, including Generals Agustín Peña, Marcelo Verdecia Perdomo, Rubén Martínez Puente, Manuel Eduardo Lastres Pacheco and Armando Choy Rodríguez, as well as Colonel Eladio Julián Fernández Cívico and Commander Gilberto Antonio Cardero Sánchez.

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Tabacuba Explains Why There’s Shortage of Cigarettes, and it is Not Because of the ‘Blockade’

In Cuba, “more than 40 million packs are consumed per month, including 400,000 Criollos in the capital alone. (Ahora)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 1 October 2021 — Cigarettes have become one of the first things whose scarcity is not officially attributed to the ‘lockdown’. In statements to Radio Rebelde, the directors of Tabacuba explained that the delays in the arrival of supplies to Cuba “were not all due to the restrictive measures imposed by the US blockade.”

José Liván Font Bravo and Raúl Hernández Ferrer, First Vice President and Director of Industry of the State company respectively, told the official press that the pandemic and “unforeseen breakdowns” in factories such as Lázaro Peña in Holguín, which accounts for 60% of production, have caused product shortages.

The explanation comes after it became known this Tuesday that the factory, which markets Criollos cigarettes in Holguín, had barely delivered 33% of what was expected for the month of September.

The cigarette shortage already goes back several months and forced the rationing of the product in Havana last June, something that is explained now, with the officials’ statements, which reveal that “a large part of its staff fell ill with COVID,” which has kept the factory at half production levels from July to September, with deliveries less than 50% of the plan. continue reading

Tabacuba leaders maintain that production at the end of September was at 81% and added that throughout the year there have been other problems, such as the lack of wrapping paper, labels, and parts for the factories, the result of the lack of liquidity.

In addition, the Ranchuelo factory, in Villa Clara, was stopped twice this year, a total of 24 days, due to equipment breakdowns. Juan D. Matas Reyes, in Trinidad, has also been in this situation. Both, along with Segundo Quincosa, in Havana, are recovering their old levels of production, so the managers affirm that little by little they will return to normal production.

In any case, tobacco will not be available normally until the first quarter of next year, provided that the forecasts are met, since to date it has not begun to have “a certain level of financing.”

This money is destined to pay for the resources to guarantee the production of cigarettes and, in addition, according to Tabacuba, the raw material is assured, since there is enough unmanufactured tobacco available.

“If from now on the daily production stabilizes in the country’s four factories above the 1,400,000 packs of cigarettes, in the retail trade network a better presence of this line will begin to be seen gradually, but not enough yet,” they said.

A very small scale ‘black market seller’ offers a few packs of cigarettes, some toothpaste and other items.

Cuban smokers will have to continue standing in line and paying the high prices in the black market where, in recent days, packs are already above 120 pesos.

Hernández Ferrer stated during the interview that more than 40 million packs are consumed per month in Cuba, and in the capital city alone the figure is about 400,000 Criollos which, he alleges, are preferred by many consumers.

On the street, however, these cigarettes are known as chest-breakers and smokers remember that they have always been of poor quality. “They were badly glued, stained, but they were a solution for those of us who worked in the State sector and earned just over 310 pesos,” an Habanero told this newspaper this week.

However, the shortage is overwhelming and these maligned cigarettes have now become an object of desire for many Cubans, due to the unattainable price of other higher quality brands.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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IAPA Press Freedom Award goes to Henry Constantin, Director of ‘La Hora de Cuba’

Cuban independent journalist Constantín lives in Camagüey and is the director of the magazine ’La Hora de Cuba’

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 1 October 2021 — Independent journalist Henry Constantín Ferreiro, editor of the magazine La Hora de Cuba, has won the 2021 Press Freedom Award, granted by the Inter American Press Association (IAPA). Along with the Cuban, the Nicaraguan Juan Lorenzo Holmann Chamorro, manager of the newspaper La Prensa, persecuted by Daniel Ortega’s regime, was also a winner.

The IAPA said in a press release on Friday that the award winners have had to live through “one of the darkest periods” this year and have also been harassed and imprisoned in their respective countries.

The organization noted that Constantín was imprisoned and held incommunicado for ten days after being detained during the July 11 protests against the government on the Island. Along with the Camagüey journalist, two other collaborators of La Hora de Cuba remained under house arrest until August 23.

“Holmann Chamorro and Constantín Ferreiro represent the struggle and determination of independent journalism to keep the population informed, despite the strong reprisals adopted by the totalitarian regimes of Nicaragua and Cuba against critical voices and freedom of the press,” said continue reading

Jorge Canahuati, IAPA president.

Both are also vice presidents of this same organization in their respective countries, which is why Carlos Jornet, head of Argentina’s Commission on Freedom of the Press and Information, insisted that they will not cease “to raise their voices and denounce the atrocities against them and the dozens of journalists who are persecuted, imprisoned and forced into exile.”

The statement notes that the IAPA conducted two investigations, both in Cuba and Nicaragua, and was able to determine that in these countries “journalists have faced similar repressive practices, including arbitrary detentions and interrogations; threats, surveillance and monitoring; restriction of movement and impediments to leave the country; hacking, control and impersonation in social networks; stigmatization, pressure on family members, news sources and advertisers.”

Regarding the investigation on the Island, it was noted that the regime of Miguel Díaz-Canel “detained 11 independent journalists, and that human rights activists and artists suffered the same fate” and their relatives have also been harassed. Among them are mentioned the cases of Esteban Rodríguez, in prison since April 30, and Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca, imprisoned two months later.

The winners of the Press Freedom Award will be honored at a virtual ceremony between the 19th and 22nd of this month, where the chosen winners of the Excellence in Journalism Award 2021 are also invited.

Translated by: Hombre de Paz

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Cuba’s Foreign Minister Criticizes Biden on ‘NBC’ But is Confident He Will Take ‘A Positive Step’

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez during the interview with Andrea Mitchell for ’NBC News’. (Capture)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 1 October 2021 — Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez attacked President Joe Biden on Thursday, in a television interview with NBC, for maintaining “by inertia” the sanctions of his predecessor, Donald Trump.

“It is lamentable that he cannot implement his own policy on Cuba,” Rodríguez told the US network from New York, in a clear gesture of trying to get Biden’s attention. Thus, the chancellor offered the president of the United States a carrot and a stick.

“I hope that, due to the nature of this government, a positive step can be expected,” he said before noting that during Barack Obama’s term, when Biden was vice president, there was the closest rapprochement between Havana and Washington in half a century.

“The years 2015 and 2016 show that it is possible to advance towards a path of understanding, despite the profound political differences between our governments,” he stressed.

The Plaza of the Revolution clearly positioned itself in favor of Biden during the election campaign and hoped that his victory would translate into a replay of the thaw. However, throughout these ten months, the president of the United States has not shown any sign of being in a hurry to even change what he promised before winning at the polls, which was the end of limitations on remittances and flights.

The repression of the July 11 protests only hardened this position, which resulted in continue reading

sanctions against the National Revolutionary Police, the so-called red berets and various officials of the Ministry of the Interior.

Analysts say that Biden has very little to gain and much to lose if he gives encouragement to Havana, since among his own ranks there are political leaders firmly opposed to relaxing sanctions, such as the influential Senator Bob Menéndez, for one. The Biden administration has insisted that it is in no rush to change anything about its relationship with Cuba and maintains that it is reviewing its policy without urgency.

“It is a terrible mistake to enforce these types of sanctions, especially in the context of the global health crisis, where all countries are struggling to contain contagions and solidarity is an imperative,” Rodríguez said yesterday, accusing the United States of being ignorant of Latin America and the Caribbean.

When asked why Cuba made the decision not to belong to the Covax program, by which poor countries can access vaccines thanks to donations from the richest, Rodríguez said that “it was not a decision,” and proceeded to praise the “high level” of Cuban science and biotechnology, which have made it possible to develop national drugs and vaccines.

The Cuban government has argued from the beginning that this mechanism is insufficient, it is not totally free and its scientists could develop their own products, so the foreign minister’s position is not surprising.

Cuba, according to the minister, has immunized almost 90% of the population, although that percentage actually corresponds to those who have one dose and only 43% have completed the vaccination schedule*.

Just hours later, Rodríguez claimed on Twitter that the US never offered him vaccines. “I assure you that the US Government has not offered vaccines to Cuba or anything to confront the pandemic. They have done the opposite, by hindering the purchase of supplies for the vaccination program and the national production of medicines,” he wrote on the social networks.

“In addition to applying Trump’s inhumane measures, which he promised to review, President Biden did not even include Cuba among the states to which the United States lifted the unilateral measures that limited their ability to confront covid-19. His callousness has cost lives,” he continues, in a message that has been endorsed by the Cuban president himself, Miguel Díaz-Canel.

“The only thing that the US Government has offered and delivered to Cuba in times of a pandemic is an opportunistic resurgence of the blockade,” the island’s president has reproached.

The US government, however, lifted restrictions on flights to send humanitarian aid to Cuba and maintains all medical supplies as an exemption from the embargo.

Bruno Rodríguez was also asked about the anti-government demonstrations on July 11 on NBC NewsThe foreign minister maintained, in his usual line, that many people who are experiencing financial difficulties due to the crisis in Cuba were manipulated by groups interested in encouraging the opposition from Florida.

In addition, he added that, although current conditions are harsh, due to the pandemic and the “blockade,” which aims to “suffocate the population,” the circumstances are different from those of other countries because, he maintains, in Cuba “there is no hunger, there is no poverty or unemployment. ”

 *Translator’s note: Cuba’s vaccine is being given as a 3-dose series.

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New Blackouts Are Announced and Cubans Get More Desperate Every Day

The Felton thermoelectric plant, in Mayarí, Holguín, one of those out of service this Thursday. (Latin Press)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 30 September 2021 — More blackouts, more citizen complaints and the same excuses from officialdom. The Cuban Electricity Union (UNE) announced this Thursday that there would be power outages on the island due to a “deficit in generation.”

According to a note published in the official press, on Wednesday night there were blackouts “due to high transference in the 220 kV lines between Nuevitas and Holguín due to the unexpected departures of Units 4 and 5 of the Diez de Octubre thermoelectric plant at 7:45 pm and 8:36 pm” and that early this Thursday “Unit 1 of the Lidio Ramón Pérez thermoelectric plant went out of service due to a leak in the boiler.”

Immediately afterwards, the state company admitted that there are five plants out of service: Tallapiedra and Mariel, in Havana; Diez de Octubre in Nuevitas (Camagüey), Felton in Mayarí (Holguín) and Antonio Maceo in Santiago de Cuba.

“The UNE works uninterruptedly to solve these faults and incorporate the blocks to the generation,” says the text in Cubadebate which, once again, does not appease the anger of the readers. continue reading

“I do not understand this issue of breaks,” Luis Orlando Águila Hernández writes in a comment. “I know that equipment breaks or suffers damage due to continuous use, but this is really unsustainable and unbearable,” and he complains: “There are always 5, 6, 7, 8 broken blocks, 4 are repaired and 3 more come out, and thus a pilot of blocks is kept out of service, not counting those that are out for maintenance.”

Another user comments: “This is already a joke, but in bad taste. We already took the game, there is but it does not touch you, it touches you but isn’t there. I don’t trust today, tomorrow yes.”

“We will never improve. Right?” laments another reader, while another reacted with irony to the news: “What a surprise!”

It could not be said that it was, in fact, since the UNE itself announced, on September 19, that despite the restoration of the service, power outages were still expected.

In peak hours this Thursday, the utility predicts more “service disruptions” and offers, yes, “apologies for the inconvenience caused.”

After a hot September and before an imminent October in which a drop in temperatures is not expected, the blackouts affect, for example, the quality of sleep of the hundreds of thousands of Cubans who cannot turn on a fan.

However, the most dramatic situation is when it comes to cooking. From the year 2000, with the Energy Revolution promoted by Fidel Castro — and with the availability of the then abundant Venezuelan fuel — firewood and kerosene were replaced in the stoves by electrical appliances that were publicized with great fanfare by the Government as a step of modernity.

Most of this equipment, provided on a subsidized basis or on credit at the beginning of this century, has already broken down, but people continue to use electricity — in rice cookers, pressure cookers, and small stoves — also given that access to gas is limited.

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Cuban Prosecutor Asks for 10 Years in Prison for Two Sisters Who Protested on 11 July

Lisdiany and Lisdany Rodríguez Isaac have been in a Santa Clara prison awaiting trial since July. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 29 September 2021 — In Cuba, the Placetas Prosecutor’s Office asks for 10 years in prison for two sisters who participated in the July 11 protests in the municipality, Lisdani and Lisdiany Rodríguez Isaac. It is the highest penalty of all those requested for the members of the group that marched with them and that, for the most part, is facing eight years of deprivation of liberty. According to the prosecution’s brief, the twins committed two crimes of assault, a distinctive fact that supports the high degree of the demanded sentence. However, the relatives of both defend that their participation in the protest was peaceful at all times.

The letter from the Prosecutor’s Office, to which 14ymedio had access, refers to the case which involved 16 people who were marching together that day in the town of Placetas, in the province of Villa Clara. According to the document, the group was led by an alleged leader (Loreto Hernández) who received money from abroad for “mobilizing disaffected and dissatisfied people with the unfavorable economic situation that the country presents as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and the resurgence of the blockade*.”

The Public Ministry maintains that it managed to convince other people who, in turn, attracted others to the protest because “they shared similar purposes of destabilization in society,” among whom were the 22-year-old Rodríguez Isaac sisters. According to the official account, the defendants uttered degrading words such as “hijos de puta” (sons of bitches), “esbirros” (henchmen), “down with Díaz-Canel,” “down with communism” and “down with the dictatorship” in order to “raise spirits, challenge the authority and ignore official institutions with the aim of creating chaos and anarchy.”

The most serious events, according to the account, occurred when several of the defendants, among them Lisdani and Lisdiany, tried to stop the arrest of one of their companions and “in a defiant way, strongly grabbed Iván Brito Aragón [one of the agents] and they shoved him while they beat him with their hands on his back and head without injuring him, acts that they also carried out against Ricardo González Abreu [also an officer].” continue reading

The letter assures that at that time several people appeared to demonstrate in favor of the Government, among them a common citizen, Melissa Rodríguez González, and the general secretary of the Communist Party in the town, who carried a megaphone with which she shouted “Long live the Revolution” and “homeland or death.” This led to a struggle, the result of which two people fell, an unidentified elderly man and Rodríguez González, whom they allegedly tried to attack without finally causing injury.

All these events represent public disorder for the Cuban justice system, two crimes of contempt and two of attack. In the case of the Rodríguez Isaac twins, they add up to three years for the first crime, four for the second and twelve for the attack, although the request for a joint sanction is for a total of 10.

For the rest of the accused, for accumulating fewer alleged crimes, joint penalties of up to eight years are requested.

Since the young women entered the Santa Clara prison, their mother, Barbara Isaac, who was also present at the marches, has defended the peaceful attitude of her daughters.

“They are assistant teachers, they had never had a problem with the police. On the 18th (of July) they were sent to the Guamajal Women’s Prison. I have not seen my daughters anymore, and that causes me great pain; but the worst is I have a three-and-a-half-year-old little granddaughter who asks me all the time when her mother is coming,” she told Cubanet.

“On July 11 I went to demand my rights, we walked through Placetas peacefully, we passed through the Party. Not a stone was thrown there,” added Isaac, who in August wrote a letter to the Supreme Court and the National Assembly to intercede in the process, but got no response.

The list of people who have been detained in Cuba for demonstrating on July 11 currently stands at 1,079. Of these, some are already processed, others are awaiting trial and 533 remain in prison.

The Government, which still does not give an official number of arrests, insists on denying the ill-treatment that the detainees claim to have received or acknowledging that some of them have been disappeared or suffered some type of torture or violations of their rights.

The authorities affirm that all the processes against those detained after July 11th conform to the legality and criminal procedure of the country, but the testimonies of those who have been released along with their family members, as well as Cubalex, the legal office that follows up on the cases, totally contradict that version.

The president of the Supreme Court, Rubén Remigio Ferro, said last July that the amnesty for those sentenced for their participation in the protests is a decision that belongs to the Government and that it will only occur at the “moment.”

*Translator’s note: “Official” Cuba refers to the US Embargo as “the Blockade.” 

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Cuba: On the 61st Anniversary of the CDRs, is This Goodbye?

Gerardo Hernández Nordelo highlighted the work of the elderly in the CDRs. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Elias Amor Bravo, Valencia, 28 September 2021 — The CDRs reach 61 years of age and carry the same problems as any organization that reaches that age. An article in the State newspaper Granma addresses it. The CDRs need young people, and above all, to be updated, to catch up. The old paradigm was left hollow, empty, and is not up to the standards of these times. Will they succeed?

The demographic change occurring in Cuba compromises the CDRs ability to stay afloat. It is logical. The original leaders of the blocks who joined Fidel’s initial call are no longer there. Their children are likely old. And here is the issue: their grandchildren or great-grandchildren, who are my age, are interested in other things. The youngest disregard organizations that lack a future, and that do not provide a relevant activity. It is the law of life.

Furthermore, young people are not interested in protecting a Revolution that has also become old, but rather, they desire change. On July 11th, they shouted “Freedom” and “No to communism” in the streets. Someone should take note of these proclamations, because they will come back even stronger. Young Cubans have made the leap and do not want to find themselves caught up in the same web as their parents or grandparents, in which the prize was a jabita – a little goodie bag with groceries or personal hygiene products. On the contrary, they dream of spaces open to freedom and progress, built on different foundations. continue reading

Young people are not interested in protecting a Revolution that has also become old, but rather, they desire change (14ymedio)

The young people compare themselves with members of the CDRs and find no common ground. They are different generations in which the so-called revolution’s demagogic pressure is continually shrinking thanks to social media, the internet, information and communication. Young Cubans have discovered the “big lie” much better than their grandparents or parents. That story of closing a country to external influences is over. Cuban communism struggles to preserve a space for propaganda. However, similar to other authoritarian regimes throughout history, little by little it is left with nothing to say.

It no longer inspires pride, it never did, to belong to a CDR. Nor does it offer any advantage, under the current political conditions on the island. Belonging to a CDR is to distance yourself from the community, to be forced to fulfill certain obligations, almost always problematic, and to live a life of ideological obedience that does not lead anywhere. Could any 25-year-old want that?

Hence, the leaders of the organization are wracking their brains to see how they attract young people to the CDRs. Because as the old guards retire, many of these repositories of information about accusations are closing forever, and they disappear as if they never existed. This ends up being much better, because thousands of Cubans have been harmed, in one way or another, by some activity carried out by a CDR in “defense of the revolution.”

Seeing them disappear, like any of the buildings in the center of cities that collapse due to inclement weather, might end up being the best ending. Young people do not want to be the successors of a poisoned inheritance, one which, most likely, in a democratic and free country, should be brought to justice for its misdeeds. Who would want that?

Interestingly, Granma says that “the CDRs offer a perfect trench for those who want to transform their community and their environment, and work towards solving the problems of the neighborhood”; empty words, thrown to the wind. Young Cubans, highly qualified and with a clear desire for solidarity, know that helping others has nothing to do with acting as the block’s CDR. Luckily, this is also over. The population pyramid has buried the CDRs.

If the non-renewal of the population by the base is problematic, it is more complex to not know what to do with the CDRs and, above all,  which activity they should focus on in 2021

If the non-renewal of the population by the base is problematic, it is more complex to not know what to do with the CDRs and, above all, which activity they should focus on in 2021. The strategy.

Though this effort is pending, it seems the directors of the organization are not paying it the attention it deserves. To think that the CDRs should continue to “defend the revolution” is to force them to be against the vast majority of a society that has already sent its first, very clear messages about the urgency of the changes.

The facts. Putting the CDRs to care for the environment and animals, as the organization’s top leader, Hernández Nordelo, told Granma, is surprising to say the least. The vague and undefined announcement that the organization will take on new tasks, including inciting the population to keep watch from their communities as a way to preserve itself, is at best cryptic and complex to understand. What do they want to preserve with the CDRs, perhaps the buildings, or the streets, which we’re not allowed to be in right now?

It would be unfortunate if the CDRs end up chasing stray dogs or stopping the felling of trees. Of course, there are things that are better left unsaid so as not to end up being hilarious. For those who played a key role in the origins of the revolution it was a great social effort to destroy the life and property of citizens by preparing a report of alleged criminal activities, often false and based on rumors. In the movie The Lives of Others, the East German state security spy ends up delivering print ads to homes when communism disappears forever. It could be a good ending for the day after, luckily, it is forthcoming.

It would serve the CDRs very well to disappear in this way, without making noise, closing the embarrassing and painful files that never should have been opened. (14ymedio)

Hernández Nordelo, who enjoys this canonry at the head of the CDRs as a reward from the communist regime for his spy activities (he could have obtained director general position in some joint venture in the state with much better pay and privileges), said “We must ask ourselves which CDR do Cuba, the Revolution and the Cuban CDRs need, and continue working in that direction.”

Well, he should ask himself, and do it as soon as possible, because as has already been pointed out, in a matter of years, not many, the people he will have at his disposal will be an army of grandparents willing to play a game of dominoes, keep an eye on the pig in the yard or harvest a pumpkin in a corner of the park. And little else.

Conclusion. The CDRs have already fulfilled their role and must pass. They’ve used up all the energy Fidel Castro gave them and passed through the phase of contempt and decadence Raúl Castro gifted them. They have neither renewal nor mission, and any organization that suffers from these ills must say goodbye. For the good of society, for the good of history. It would serve the CDRs very well to disappear in this way, without making noise, closing the embarrassing and painful files that never should have been opened. Nobody, absolutely nobody, will miss the CDRs in Cuba, not now and, of course, much less, later. It is time to say goodbye and forget an experience that has left in its wake much more damage than social benefit.

Translated by Silvia Suárez

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This text was originally published on the blog Cubaeconomía.

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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.

‘We Will Not Allow the 20N March’, Cuban Political Police Warn Opponent Cuesta Morua

Manuel Cuesta Morúa is vice president of the Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 30 September 2021 — The government opponent Manuel Cuesta Morúa was released on Wednesday night after an arrest of almost 12 hours in which the police told him that the marches called for November 20 will not be authorized, according to the dissident himself speaking to 14ymedio shortly after returning home. The vice president of the Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba was arrested around 10:00 in the morning as he left his home in the Alamar neighborhood of Havana.

“They took me to the Cojimar station, there they took me to a cell and around two in the afternoon a State Security agent came to launch a monologue, because I don’t usually talk to them,” he explains.

The objective of the interrogation was to know the organizational details of the demonstration on November 20 (20N), a citizen initiative promoted by the actor and playwright Yunior García from the Archipiélago platform and which also supports and promotes Cuesta Morúa. “They always take advantage of something else, but the fundamental issue was the 20N and the participation of the Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba,” he says. continue reading

During the conversation, the officer threatened him, warning him to be ready, as they will take the necessary measures, because the march will not be authorized. “At the end of the interrogation, they took me back to the cell and shortly after 9:00 pm they took me home in a police car.”

The opponent denounces that they fined him 100 pesos “for evading the security apparatus” that they had around his home. “They had an operation for two days to prevent me from going out in the street and that is why they have fined me for going out,” he complains. Since last September 27, when his wife Nairobis Suárez, an activist and member of the Cuban Women’s Network, was also arrested, the police cordon was visible.

The Council of experts of the ‘Transparencia Electoral‘ organization, of which Cuesta Morúa is a member, had demanded his immediate release on social networks this Wednesday, along with the release of “the hundreds of Cubans who are still detained after participating in the massive protests on 11 July.” The organization also expressed its concern over “the arbitrariness with which the Cuban government acts, as well as the systematic persecution and criminalization of democratic factors on the island.”

The repression against activists and citizens who have signed the requests addressed to various provincial governments to hold demonstrations on November 20 has increased in recent days. “Those the State Security agents  visits are our families,” denounced Yaide Gómez, one of the signatories in the province of Holguín.

“The intention was clear, to influence my parents so that they would ask me not to publish more, but he was not even honest with them, he did not mention that letter. You caught it with the door, mijito, those old men taught me values, about everything, above all not to lie. And who would I be, if out of fear, I now changed my principles?”

“We know that they have been harassing the signatories of the letters notifying the authorities of our decision to demonstrate. But they do not intimidate us. All our solidarity is with those who have been detained, interrogated or threatened! We sincerely admire their courage. Each time. there are more cities that deliver new letters [asking for authorization] to march in their territories. What we do is not a crime. And they know it! Those who commit a crime are those who repress our rights!” Yunior García said..

The initiative of the Archipelago collective is getting more and more support in the main Cuban cities. The last to join the demonstrations called for next November 20 were Cienfuegos and Guantánamo, but beforehand the participation of Havana, Holguín and Santa Clara made headlines.

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Santiago de Cuba’s Coffee Harvest Less than 10% of the 2020 Harvest

The lack of coffee due to exports and poor harvests is causing a rise in prices that seems unstoppable. (Venceremos)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 30 September 2021 — Santiago de Cuba has not harvested even a tenth of last year’s coffee harvest around the same dates, according to Jorge Luis Rondón Borges, who attributes the collapse solely to the weather.

“By the same date last year we were already above 255 tons collected, now we have not yet reached 20, because it did not rain when the plantations needed it most, delaying flowering,” he explained to Radio Rebelde.

In the municipalities that collect the most coffee, Segundo and Tercer Frente, San Luis and Guamá, it has rained in recent days which, in the eyes of the authorities, will contribute to improving the situation. However, it is already difficult to reach the amount set for this campaign, a total of 5,540 tons – 270 more than the previous one — if in the first week not even 8% of what was collected in the same period in 2020 is reached.

According to the local press, the harvesters, who are organized to carry out their work with due precautionary measures due to the pandemic, are motivated by the high prices set for coffee. continue reading

In late August, before the harvest season began, the local press warned of resource problems. “Work is being done on the maintenance and repair of pulp mills, coffee mills, drying yards, and mechanical dryers,” explained Radio Rebelde, which at the same time drew attention to the importance of addressing “grain deviations.”

On this occasion, however, no mention has been made of the usual material difficulties or the pandemic and and the only reference is to the weather.

Last year, the Cuban state’s priority in exporting coffee made the product disappear from the shelves of shops. In the first half of 2020 alone, the Asdrúbal López de Guantánamo Coffee Processing Company sold 702 tons to Cubaexport, the highest figure in the last four years.

Antonio Alemán Blanco, general director of the Cuba-Café Company, told the official press that the demand was impossible to meet. “You ask me for data, but there is a reality, the coffee is not to be seen and we cannot increase the supply now. I explain it simply: we are not in a position to satisfy the current demand,” he said.

The shortage, added to sales abroad, have raised prices, both in stores and on the black market. A packet of coffee that could be purchased at the bodegas (ration stores) for between 10 and 15 pesos, can currently cost up to 60.

Meanwhile, in freely convertible currency stores, a 250-gram (just over half a pound) package of Caracolillo costs around $3.45, but is resold for between 600 and 700 pesos ($25 to $30 US).

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