14ymedio – Page 282 – Translating Cuba

Cuban Agriculture and Valdes Mesa, Where the Water Enters the Coconut

Salvador Antonio Valdés Mesa, first vice president of Cuba’s Council of State Council. (Trabajadores)

Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, July 23, 2021 – Valdés Mesa seems to have finally discovered “where the water enters the coconut.” Cuba’s State newspaper Granma took a headline from a phrase he used in a meeting with farmers in the provinces of Sancti Spiritus and Ciego de Ávila: “The first one who has to win is the agricultural producer.”

Yes. He’s right. Since the time of the French physiocrat Juan Francisco Quesnay back in the 18th century it has been known that the land has to win, basically because otherwise it is abandoned. That’s easy. Physiocracy* encouraged economic thought for decades to place agriculture at the center of economies, and well into industrialization and later, classical economists relied on agriculture to explain their various models. There is no doubt that the agricultural sector has to produce, and also to be efficient doing so — to earn money, to be profitable.

In Cuba, Valdés Mesa, who judging by his age must have known the flourishing Cuban agriculture before 1959, must be suffering from the unbearable feeling that he is witnessing the end of an economic model that never served any purpose. continue reading

His visits to provinces throughout the country to evaluate the conduct of agricultural production and its immediate prospects must have shown him the harsh reality of failure. For example Ciego de Ávila, with sufficient water reserves due to its geography and water table, as well as workers experienced in the agricultural sector, is trying to boost agricultural production, but gives the impression it is unable to achieve even a self-sufficient supply of food.

Therefore, seeing that the case is lost, wherever he goes Valdés Mesa launches into the same “harangues” (which have already been referred to in earlier entries in this blog). Now, in his rally speeches, attended by everyone from prominent party members, the Minister of Agriculture, and provincial governors, to leaders of state-owned companies and a long list of authorities, everyone listens carefully, applauds, and supports everything the communist leader says.

In this final act, he has returned to the idea that the first and most important thing that farmers and other agricultural producers must achieve “is to produce more food for the people,” and for them “they must win.”

Isn’t it strange that no one looked surprised at these assertions, since it’s well-known that if Cuban agriculture doesn’t produce more, it’s not because of the farmers, but because of the innumerable impediments, obstacles and interferences that the regime imposes to subjugate the producers and limit their earnings to prevent them from getting rich.

It’s one thing to say there are difficulties and shortcomings, as Valdés Mesa does, but another that those problems are always there, that they’re never adequately addressed, and that Cubans continually complain that food doesn’t come. This is something that has to be solved. Now.

The harangue of the old communist leader to increase production addressed the question of the fit of the famous 63 measures approved by the regime to try to boost the agricultural sector, which are not giving the predicted results, since food is still lacking. It’s not strange that the authorities are concerned, because the engines that drove the protests of July 11 are still there, and, at least for the moment, no solution has been found to correct the mess.

That’s why Valdés Mesa said that “this process is slow” and added that “we lack dynamism, we have bureaucracy, and the biggest obstacle is that we haven’t had the capacity to reach all the producers, and if someone should be clear about the measures it is the agricultural producer.”

It’s good that occasionally someone from the regime accepts responsibility, even if it is with a small mouth and a quiet voice. The truth is that immediately afterward, the blockade was trotted out as the first cause of all the evils, to which were added the financial difficulties and the importation of products and services that are necessary. And back to square one, because if we weren’t facing an inefficient agricultural sector, these problems would surely not exist.

The key is that Cuban land produce and make money, as the French Physiocrats of the 18th century wanted. The good thing is that the farmers clearly understand this, and some brave people, annoyed by the tone of his assertions, told Valdés Mesa so.

Cubans have lost their fear, and this is manifested even in notes published by Granma, which admit positions that in many cases are contrary to those of the regime.

What is inconceivable is that areas of Cuban geography specially prepared for agriculture have difficulty achieving stable and continuous production. It would be necessary to consider whether the current design based on mini-industries, or socialist state companies, such as Agropecuaria La Cuba, Isla de Turiguanó Livestock, and Ceballos Agroindustrial, is the most appropriate to produce more. Without a doubt, less state economy and more empowered private sector would provide much better results.

The farmers (such as Jaime de León López, from El Vaquerito Credit and Services Cooperative (CCS); Martín Alonso Gómez, from Reinaldo Maning CCS; Rolando Macías Cárdenas, from CCS José Antonio Echeverría; and Carlos Blanco Sánchez, director of Agropecuaria La Cuba) who participated in the event know that in order to increase production, another less interventionist model is needed, with fewer obstacles, and from which the state withdraws, granting decision-making capacity to the private sector. And above all, to make money, that the land be profitable, and that the scale can be increased through investments.

Needed structural transformations are being delayed unjustifiably and prevent achieving rational and efficient production processes that allow the farmer to “win”, as Valdés Mesa said. The calls of the communist leader to avoid “empty lands”, to promote productive centers, to comply with crop diversification plans, and in short, to follow the 63 measures approved by the government, sounded like an empty coconut after explaining his idea of where the water enters. One more waste of time, and problems that don’t allow procrastination.

*Translator’s note: Physiocracy is an economic theory developed by a group of 18th-century Age of Enlightenment French economists who believed that the wealth of nations derived solely from the value of “land agriculture” or “land development” and that agricultural products should be highly priced. Wikipedia

Translated by Tomás A.

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Spanish Justice Suspends Bailout of Plus Ultra, the Airline of Maduro’s Partners

An aircraft of the Spanish airline Plus Ultra. (EFE / EDUARDO CAEVRO / Archive)

14ymedio, Madrid, July 21, 2021 — On Thursday a Madrid court suspended as a precautionary measure a loan of 34 million euros from the Spanish Government to the Spanish-Venezuelan airline Plus Ultra, which was part of a bailout of 53 million euros approved last March.

The resolution is a response to the complaint filed by the opposition parties Vox and Partido Popular against the administration of Pedro Sánchez and the State Society of Industrial Participations, in which they alleged that the company did not meet the requirements established in the regulations to receive public aid, because “it is not a strategic company with relevance in its sector nor are its losses caused by Covid-19”.

According to Vozpópuli published at the time, Plus Ultra operates long-distance flights between Spain and Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela, and the owners and managers are related to the Maduro government. continue reading

The Spanish media outlet recalled that, despite the fact that the company is registered on Spanish soil, 47% of its capital is in Venezuelan hands. For this reason, its strategic nature was in doubt from the beginning “from any perspective.”

Also, the company has accumulated losses since its founding in 2011, according to the digital newspaper based on the Insight View tool. “In 2019, the last financial year before the pandemic, the airline had sales of 63.5 million euros but registered a net loss of 2.11 million,” details Vozpópuli.

The airline Plus Ultra, which began operating in 2015, announced two years later flights from Barcelona to Havana, in a shared code* with the state-owned Cubana de Aviación.

A few months ago, Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when reporting the dispatch of a health brigade to Gabon, revealed that it was using charter flights from this company to transfer Cuban doctors to their international missions.

The Spanish newspaper ABC later reported this information [April 25, 2021], detailing the ins and outs of the agreement between the airline and the Cuban Ministry of Tourism.

*Translator’s note: Code sharing is a marketing arrangement in which an airline places its designator code on a flight operated by another airline, and sells tickets for that flight.

Tramslated by Tomás A.

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Amanda Hernandez Celaya, 17, Arrested in Cuba on July 11, Acquitted

The family sent a message of gratitude to all those who reported on the young woman’s case. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 22 July 2021 — The young woman Amanda Hernández Celaya, arrested on July 11 in the heat of the protests that shook the country, was acquitted this Thursday for lack of evidence after a summary trial was carried out in Havana, as confirmed to 14ymedio by members of her family.

Hernández was charged with the same offense as the other participants in the protests, “public disorder.” The teenager had been released during the night of July 20, under a precautionary measure of house arrest, after spending ten days in prison at the 100th y Aldabó station, unable to communicate with her family or receive visitors.

The family sent a message of gratitude to all who denounced the case of the young woman, who is completing her last year of high school in Havana and is also training to be a dancer.

Heissy Celaya Pérez, Hernández’s mother, learned of her daughter’s arrest through the young woman’s own voice, as she managed to make a call at the time of the arrest. After that communication, during which Hernández was crying continue reading

, her mother did not hear from her for more than 24 hours.

The following day the mother managed to reach the fourth station in Havana’s Cerro municipality, at Infanta and Manglar, where she learned that her daughter had been transferred to 100^th y Aldabó. Most of the calls for support were made by the mother through social networks and international organizations.

Among those arrested in the July 11 protests, many were teenagers, including reports of the arrests of minors.

The activist Salomé García Bacallao compiled a list with at least nine detained minors. In addition to Hernández Celaya, they included Brandon David Becerra (17 years old), Giancarlos Álvarez Arriete (17), Glenda de la Caridad Marrero Cartaya (15), Jonathan Pérez Ramos (16), Katherin Acosta (17), Leosvani Giménez Guzmán (15), Luis Manuel Díaz (16) and Yanquier Sardiña Franco (16).

The trials of participants in the massive protests continue. The actor Carlos Alejandro Rodriguez Halley denounced on his Facebook account that his friend, the artist Alexander Diego Gil, “has just been sentenced to ten months of deprivation of liberty in a circus trial.”

The young man also raised several questions: “What should we do at this time? Should we remain silent? Should we expect something from the artists who are silent? Should we settle for injustice? Should we endure a dictatorship that clings to power without it mattering to them that a whole country has risen up demanding that they withdraw from power? (…) What is going to happen to all the relatives of all the victims of the Cuban dictatorship today? When will real justice be done? ”

Gil’s arrest was also denounced by filmmaker Carlos Lechuga: “This boy is a good man. An artist with a special sensitivity. (…) Immediate freedom for Alexander. For his health, the health of his mother and the country “.

Lechuga also took advantage of his letter to request “immediate freedom for all 11J [11 July] prisoners and political prisoners.”

Twelve days after the first protests, the government has not provided a number of those injured and detained. The legal organization Cubalex documents to date a total of more than 600 people, all victims of repression and among whom are both the detained and disappeared.

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Cuba Is Yours

Demonstration this July 11 in Alqízar, Artemisa. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Federico Hernández Aguilar, San Salvador, 22 July 2021 — Cuba is yours, brother. This island belongs to you, sister. Your face is reflected in its waters. In the blue of its skies, the clouds of your dreams are roaming. But in this island land they have wanted — how redundant! — to isolate you, they have wanted to drown your voice for many years, to muzzle your conscience, to force you to embrace a destiny that was not, is not, has never been yours.

For more than six decades, equivalent to the entire life of a human being, hundreds, thousands of Cubans were born, grew up and died breathing a rarefied air, contaminated by the hegemonic discourse of a group of privileged people who came to believe they were eternally in power.

And yet, sister, brother: do you hear, do you perceive, have you seen how the wind has turned on the coasts, have you observed how intensely the sun has renewed itself on the horizon? On July 11, you turned history upside down. You made your footsteps echo from one corner to the other of the island that was always yours and whose possession you now claim.

They were so determined to instill fear in you that they ended up continue reading

snatching it away from you. They never knew how much strength they were giving to your yearning for freedom when they silenced you, when they locked you in cold dungeons, when they covered you with chains. Today they know. Today the fear is theirs.

You have taken the fear out of your little house and put it in their official residences. You no longer tremble; they do. Their power, once so immense, is now blurred, and you have achieved this by putting your feet on the street, joining the spontaneous march of others who have also discovered that the future belongs to them.

José Martí looks at you from the height of his white statue. His thought, lucid, crosses your memory and makes your lungs expand: “Like bones to the human body, the axle to the wheel, the wing to the bird, and the air to the wing, so is liberty the essence of life. Whatever is done without it is imperfect.”

And you have had enough of the imposed imperfections, of the undeserved poverty, of the hunger that eats away at the entrails, of the yearning, the longing, that eats away at the soul.

Martí watches. He greets your heroic deed with the power of a word that tyranny tried to usurp, but that today recovers its original brilliance in the cries of freedom that make your heart vibrate. That hero thus offers you the warmth of his breath; he affirms your ankles; he pushes you to the unprecedented struggle. And you watch him lean from his pedestal to whisper in your ear: “He who lives in an autocratic creed is the same as an oyster in its shell, which only sees the prison that encloses it and believes, in the dark, that this is the world; freedom gives wings to the oyster.”

And it is true, brother, sister of Cuba: you have grown wings. In vain did they think they were going to turn this island into your shell. In moments you have reached the elevation that Martí wished for the people for whom he bled to death at Dos Ríos. Between him and you there is a real, indestructible bridge, stronger than any ideology to connect your aspirations with those of every man or woman who loves and defends freedom, their own and that of others.

Cuba is yours, sister. The nation belongs to you, brother. It is present in that woman who demands bread for her children, in the rebelliousness of that young man who demands respect for his dreams, in the slogan of that group of poets, musicians, journalists, citizens who, together, shoulder to shoulder, go out today to the public square to chant the pair of words that is burying 62 years of opprobrium: “¡Patria Y Vida!” [Homeland and Life].

And so it is. Do not doubt it. Because life is yours, brother, sister of Cuba, yours will also be the homeland!

Translated by: Hombre de Paz

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Cuba Needs a New Political Language, Says Filmmaker Fernando Perez

Filmmaker Fernando Pérez during an interview with this newspaper. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 22 July 2021 — Cuban filmmaker Fernando Pérez said that to overcome the crisis in Cuba that led to the July 11 protests a “new political language” needs to be built without violence and without the dark “acts of repudiation,” he stressed in an interview with AFP news agency.

The multi-awarded director, winner of a Goya for his film La vida es silbar (1999) and the Biznaga de Oro award for best film for Últimos días en La Habana (2017), considered that with “the social crisis that the country is going through, there has to be an explosion, which I tell you, I don’t know how far it’s going to go”.

During his participation on November 27 in the demonstration of hundreds of artists and creators, which took place in front of the Ministry of Culture in Havana to demand freedom of expression, he lamented the breakdown of dialogue. “I felt that something was really changing in our reality,” he told AFP, referring to the fact that the 300 participants in the protest “are asking for what I call a new language.”

For Pérez, a director who is very close to the new generations, they should not be “only of words but of attitudes, of solutions, of radical changes in our country”, for which he considered that they should include “freedom of expression, respect for those who think differently and open independent spaces, not only in art but also in other spheres of reality.” continue reading

The demonstrations, warned the Cuban filmmaker, respond to the “lack of that new language, of that new attitude of a country that has to open up to the participation of these young people, because they are not the future, they are the present”. They are the result of “the pandemic, the new order, the blockade…The phenomenon is there, what I saw in front of the Capitol. It is a rebellious attitude that I share”.

The multi-awarded director took time to talk about the contradictions of Cuban cinema. He defended, he said, the policy of “propaganda” to turn it into a “cultural fact”.

“The development of that policy has faced elements of freedom, of regression, of contradiction,” he said, referring to the so-called ’Five Grey Years’ between 1971 and 1976. A period in which “everything was confused, reduced to an ideological view, really very overwhelming, very closed, which has left very deep marks, some of which are irreparable.”

Pérez has been for many years the standard bearer of the new generations of filmmakers on the island, and in 2012 he resigned as director of the Muestra de Cine Joven, an annual meeting that brings together and disseminates proposals of new audiovisual creators. “Not being able to demonstrate in practice the inclusive coherence that I have proposed for the show, I have taken the personal decision not to continue at the head of it,” he said then and after several acts of official censorship.

Translated by: Hombre de Paz

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A New Generation of Cubans Will Not Be Silenced

“No More MLC [stores that require payment in hard currency], the people are hungry. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 22 July 2021 — The month of July has borne witness to a number of events that have been turning points in Cuba’s history: Fidel Castro’s assault on the Moncada Barracks in July 1953, which ignited the revolution; the execution of the revolutionary general Arnaldo Ochoa that shocked many Cubans in 1989; and the sinking of a tugboat with dozens of people on board heading for Miami in 1994, in what became the climax of the rafters’ exodus. To these historic July dates, we now add the day when we Cubans took back the streets, our streets.

Sunday, July 11, began like any other summer day on this island: hot, long lines to buy food and uncertainty dominating daily life. Then the first live Facebook videos of protests from the small town of San Antonio de los Baños, southwest of Havana, started appearing on social media. On our phone screens, we watched crowds chanting “freedom,” “we want help” and “we are not afraid,” as well as insults against President Miguel Díaz-Canel. These were new scenes for us, and the excitement was contagious.

Mr. Díaz-Canel and his entourage went to San Antonio de los Baños to re-enact the scene of Fidel Castro arriving to calm the masses at the 1994 protest in Havana known as the “Maleconazo” — until now the only widespread social upheaval that several generations of Cubans had ever seen. But Mr. Díaz-Canel’s game plan did not work. continue reading

By the time the presidential caravan reached San Antonio de los Baños, the protests had already spread, including to Palma Soriano, in the province of Santiago de Cuba on the other side of the island. Large crowds of neighbors took to the plazas of Cárdenas and Matanzas, and groups of young people approached the capitol in Havana.

“We gathered on a corner of El Vedado” — a neighborhood in Havana — “and we began to speak the same language,” said a 32-year-old man, Alejandro, who was among the dozens of Habaneros who went to the headquarters of the Cuban Parliament chanting that three-syllable word as loudly as they could: libertad.

Many of those who called for Mr. Díaz-Canel’s resignation and the end of the dictatorship were born after the 1994 Maleconazo or were children at the time, with no memory of that revolt. But that doesn’t matter because, unlike that outbreak, the goal of these protests is not to escape the island’s economic crisis on a raft, but to bring about change on the island.

To be sure, the restrictions brought on by the pandemic have exhausted an already worn-down population. But young Cubans are not protesting solely against the pandemic curfews, the cut in commercial flights that allowed them to escape to another country, or the shops that accept only foreign currencies even though the people are paid in Cuban pesos. These protests are fueled by the desire for freedom, the hope of living in a country with opportunities, the fear of becoming the weak and silent shadows that their grandparents have become.

These young Cubans don’t want to be the grandchildren of a revolution that has aged so badly that Cubans are forced to risk their lives crossing the Florida Straits for a chance at a decent life.

They protest because the official myth that the Cuban people had been saved by some bearded men who came down from the Sierra Maestra is no longer relevant to them. They have grown up watching the bellies of Communist officials grow while they have difficulty putting food on the table. They no longer fear risking their lives in the streets, because they are slowly losing their lives anyway, waiting in long lines to buy food, traveling on crowded buses and enduring prolonged power outages.

One image encapsulated how the official narrative of Fidel Castro’s revolution was completely shattered: Several young people hoisted a bloody Cuban flag atop an overturned police vehicle in the middle of the street. Unlike the patriarchs of the revolution, they didn’t sport beards and olive-green uniforms, but they have become the new symbol of this island. They took to the streets because they believed that the streets belonged to them.

In past protests, the regime depended on its loyal army of state workers, members of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution and the Raúl Castro worshipers to foil the demonstrations — indeed, loyalists were encouraged to hit back at the demonstrators with sticks and stones. But in the first hours of this wave of protests, few loyalists showed up. Instead, Mr. Díaz-Canel unleashed his uniformed security forces to quell the demonstrations.

Unsurprisingly, the security forces detained hundreds of people. The government has militarized streets across the country and restricted the internet to make people on and off the island believe that there is nothing to be seen. In other words, they did what dictatorships do.

Many Cubans had come to believe that the dictatorship would be eternal, that the island was cursed forever, that our only options were to flee or to remain silent. Others were convinced that Cubans were incapable of rebellion, that the brave had left and an apathetic and silent mass was all that remained behind. But the silence has been broken. And the voices that broke it belong, above all, to young Cubans clamoring for profound changes in their country.

The near future is full of uncertainty. Little by little, the number of deaths, arrests and forced disappearances will become known. To help in this task, it is urgent that social organizations create hotlines in which the families of the missing can offer their information in an effort to locate their loved ones. The United Nations and the European Union have called on the Cuban government to respect the right to protest and to release all of those who have been detained for demonstrating. It’s unlikely that the regime will heed their calls. But one thing is clear: Cubans have tasted freedom, and there’s no turning back. We will not be silenced again.

Yoani Sánchez (@yoanisanchez) hosts the podcast Ventana 14 and is the director of the digital newspaper 14ymedio. This article was translated by Erin Goodman from the Spanish, for the New York Times.

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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in The New York Times .

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The Reporters of ‘La Hora de Cuba’ Were Released Under a Precautionary Sentence of House Arrest

Photo of journalist Henry Constantín Ferreiro (left) and the designer Neife Rigau (right). (La Hora de Cuba)

14ymedio, Havana, July 21, 2021 — The journalist Henry Constantín Ferreiro, the designer Neife Rigau, and the photographer Iris Mariño, from the independent media La Hora de Cuba, were released this Wednesday under a precautionary sentence of house arrest, after being arrested in the demonstrations on July 11 in Camagüey.

As reported by La Hora de Cuba on social media, the three communicators “face the identical charge of public disorder, for trying to cover the protests . . . We thank everyone for the campaign for their release,” the independent publication added.

Mariño, who is also an actress, confirmed shortly after being released that she is being prevented from leaving her home. During a live broadcast on her Facebook profile, she thanked all the people who joined on social media to campaign for her release.

“There are still people who are detained; please continue to unite your voices so that those people go free, people who went to a march of peace and love,” she added, acknowledging that she had lived through very difficult continue reading

days.

The journalists of La Hora de Cuba are frequently harassed by the police, who prevent them from carrying out their work. Constantín and Mariño were threatened with prosecution for the crime of “usurpation of legal capacity”* for their journalistic work.

After learning of the journalists’ arrest on July 11, the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) demanded the immediate release of Constantín, Rigau, and Mariño, who had been imprisoned in the police unit known as Second Station.

Regarding Rigau and Mariño, the IAPA reported that it learned from sources close to the police that they could be released “under a condition of house arrest for an indefinite period.” But for Constantín, who is the vice president of the IAPA on the island and the director of La Hora de Cuba, they were going to press charges against him and take him to trial.

On Sunday, July 11, the police raided Constantín’s home and seized cell phones, a computer, and money.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) demanded last week the release of the independent media’s reporters and others under arrest, urging the government to release them “immediately and unconditionally.”

“The Cuban authorities have responded to the largest anti-government protests in the country in decades with expected hostility, attacks on members of the press, and interruptions in internet service,” said Ana Cristina Núñez, CPJ investigative reporter for Central and South America.

The CPJ revealed that the regime has also prohibited other journalists from leaving their homes, including 14ymedio reporter Luz Escobar, and at least 26 members of the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and Press (ICLEP).

*Translator’s note: “Usurpation of legal capacity” is the term used in Cuba to define practicing a profession without a license; however the government refuses to license the independent practice of many professions, including journalism and law..

Translated by Tomás A.

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Cuban General Marcelo Verdecia, Fidel Castro’s Assistant in the Sierra Maestra, Dies

Caption: Marcelo Verdecia joined the rebel army in 1957 at age 16. (www.acrc.cu)

14ymedio, Havana, July 21, 2021 – Reserve Brigadier General Marcelo Verdecia Perdomo, who was Fidel Castro’s bodyguard in the Sierra Maestra, died this Tuesday in Villa Clara province. The official Cuban press did not release the cause of death.

Verdecia joined the rebel army in 1957 at the age of 16 and participated in the clashes against Fulgencio Batista’s troops at the end of 1958. He was at Castro’s side as part of the Freedom Caravan and entered Cienfuegos in January of 1959.

Castro’s escort until 1960, Verdecia Perdomo was very close to him. “I was always by his side; I learned a lot from him. Sometimes we would move alone from one column to another and, along the way, he would ask: ’Do you think we should ambush them, can we catch them here?’ My military training was limited and I would just agree with him, saying: ’I think so, Fidel.’”

Verdecia participated in the response of the Revolutionary Armed Forces to the anti-Castro guerrillas in Escambray between 1959 and 1965, and also in Playa Girón (the Bay of Pigs), where he was continue reading

a battalion commander. After that he remained in Cienfuegos. He later deployed to Africa and afterward joined units of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in various provinces.

On December 7, 1993, he founded and presided over the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution and was, according to the official press, a military prototype for several generations.

He was convinced that “the internationalist military patriotic work, and the work in schools with the new generations charged with giving continuity to this great revolutionary work,” should be strengthened, according to the State newspaper Granma.

Last April 29, Marcelo Verdecia was recognized by Miguel Díaz-Canel with the honorary title of “Hero of Labor of the Republic of Cuba.”

Translated by Tomás A.

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On Hunger Strike, Chess Player Arian Gonzalez, Imprisoned After Cuban Protests

González was transferred to the prison at La Pendiente station, in Villa Clara, from the Camajuaní police station. (Facebook)

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 21 July 2021 — The Spanish-Cuban Grandmaster Arián González, who is also a lawyer, has been on a hunger strike for three days and will continue “as long as his health allows it,” after being imprisoned for participating in the massive anti- government protests on July 11 in Cuba.

“He is strong in his decision,” the chess player’s 32-year-old girlfriend, also a lawyer, confirmed to Efe. González has been under arrest for a week for the crimes of “public disorder” and “incitement to the masses,” which Cuban legislation punishes with penalties of three months to one year in prison.

González is currently in La Pendiente prison, in the province of Villa Clara, awaiting trial. He was transferred there from the Camajuaní Police Station, where he was held for several days.

His partner expressed concern for the Grandmaster’s health, although so far she has not continue reading

seen him “very physically worn out.” The lawyer resides in the Spanish town of Orense and traveled to Cuba in early July to care for his diabetic mother.

“We are a very close family that will never leave you alone, whatever happens,” said the girlfriend, named Massiel, who thanked the other chess figures for their support.

Regarding the next step, he commented that González’s lawyer “will do everything possible to get a visit approved as soon as possible.”

This same Tuesday, the Grandmaster Leinier Domínguez came out in defense of González, describing his colleague as a “good and decent man.” In his publication, Domínguez attacked the Government of Cuba, which he calls “macabre.”

At the moment, different groups and entities have expressed their concern about the situation of the chess player, while in the embassy and the consulate general of Spain in Havana they affirm that they are limited as they are a person who has dual nationality.

Cuban law does not recognize dual nationality for those born on the island, who for all intents and purposes are considered Cubans only within the national territory.

In the absence of official data, activists have documented more than 500 detainees since the July 11 protests in Cuba, including several minors, while religious organizations assist relatives of those arrested and bring to light harsh testimonies of people freed in past days.

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Cuban Police Accuse Tania Bruguera of Wanting to ‘Overthrow the Government’

On social networks, this Tuesday, relatives of Hamlet Lavastida published a photo of his son, Leo, seven years old, holding sign calling for his father’s release. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 21 July 2021 — The artist Tania Bruguera was subjected to an 11-hour interrogation this Tuesday by the investigator is is leading the trial of Hamlet Lavastida, accused of “instigation to commit a crime,” and is currently detained in Villa Marista, the headquarters of State Security in Havana.

In a post published on Facebook signed by “Estudio Bruguera,” she explains that during her interrogation she only spoke “to ask if she was a witness or a defendant and to say that Hamlet was an excellent artist as an answer to every question that the investigator [Arelys Rodríguez López] asked about him.”

Rodríguez insisted, according to the text, that Bruguera was only a witness, but “in the last round” of the interrogation he presented her with a document and informed her that she had been charged with three offenses.

“We still do not know what they are by name,” says the post, “but they were described synthetically” in three points: “having created the November 27 demonstration to overthrow the Government,” “receiving instructions from Hamlet Lavastida to stamp bills* and other ideas for performances in the streets” and “organizing a meeting with the National Democratic Institute through Karla, the one they call ’godmother’.” continue reading

Upon receipt of the two pages of the document, Bruguera crossed them out with a cross and wrote: “I do not agree, this is false.” Immediately afterwards, the investigator “returned again with a precautionary measure of home confinement which Bruguera also refused to sign.”

At the end of the interrogation, Rodríguez asked the artist if she had anything to say and replied: “Yes, release Hamlet. Hamlet is innocent.”

On social networks, this Tuesday, relatives of Lavastida published a photo of his son, Leo, seven years old, with a sign in his hands calling for his father’s release. “I am Leo. I am 7 years old. I live in Poland. My father Hamlet Lavastida is a political prisoner in Cuba,” says the poster. “Give me back my dad! I’ll wait for you, daddy!” asks the sign.

The poet Katherine Bisquet, who has been under siege by the political police for almost a month, denounces that the artist has been imprisoned for “24 days in Villa Marista under an absurd investigation process for a charge that is not even the real charge that it is imputed to him.”

In addition, she reports that State Security has launched accusations that Aga Gratkiewicz, Leo’s mother, is a Polish intelligence agent. “As if being born in the Eastern Bloc you’ve already coined the logo of resistance” against a socialist regime, says Bisquet. “They believe that Hamlet comes with instructions to disable [sic] the government and end communism in Cuba.”

Hamlet Lavastida was arrested upon arriving in Cuba from Germany on June 21, after completing an artistic residency at the Berlin gallery Kunstlerhaus Bethanien. Organizations such as Human Rights Watch, PEN America and PEN International condemned his arrest and have demanded his unconditional release.

On July 7, the Cuban artists invited to the international contemporary art fair in Madrid, Arco, carried out in their support the collective El ticketing burning the street, an action that Lavastida proposed to do in Cuba but that never took place. This proposal, without materializing, was the official argument to keep him detained in Villa Marista and accuse him of “instigation to commit crimes.”

*Translator’s note: The artistic action was to include using rubber stamps to place slogans — for example: Art is not a crime, MSI, 27N and Freedom — on currency.

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Cuban Photographer Anyelo Troya Sentenced to One Year in Prison for ‘Public Disorder’

Photographer Anyelo Troya during a photoshoot in Cuba, May 14, 2021. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 20 July 2021 — Photographer Anyelo, who took the images for the video clip Patria y Vida (CURSIVA), was sentenced on Wednesday to one year in prison on charges of “public disorder” for his participation in the July 11 demonstrations. Simultaneously, artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, leader of the San Isidro Movement (MSI), was transferred to a maximum security prison in Guanajay (Artemisa). As reported by the MSI, Otero Alcántara is accused of the crimes of “attack,” “resistance” and “contempt.”

Otero Alcántara was arrested last July 11 during the day of protests in dozens of cities to demand freedom. Protestors shouted “patria y vida” (homeland and life), the title of the song in the video clip in which Trpya contributed. Since its release, last February, the song has become an opposition slogan inside and outside the island.

Art curator Claudia Genlui also reported the artist’s transfer to the maximum security prison in a post published on her Facebook profile this Tuesday night. “Since early in the morning I have been making arrangements related to the situation of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. I went to El Vivac [prison], already no longer hoping to be able to see him, because I knew they would not let me, but at least that they could give him some things I was taking him. It was in vain, because continue reading

he was already in Guanajay.”

The MSI also announced in its networks that the artist’s defense “will be exercising in the coming days” all the necessary legal procedures to request a change of measure in his favor.

Genlui also referred to the case of his friend, photographer Anyelo Troya, arrested while photographing the demonstrations: “Today I also met Anyelo Troya’s mother. I saw a mother crying in despair, but I also saw a united family, capable of facing everything and holding on to the truth to save a son, a brother, a cousin.”

Artist Camila Lobón informed 14ymedio on Wednesday that Troya was sentenced to one year in prison. A day earlier, she had denounced on her social networks the fact that the photographer, accused of “public disorder”, was tried this Tuesday without the presence of any member of his family or his lawyer. In her text she explains that Anyelo Troya’s family went on Tuesday with a lawyer to the 100th y Aldabó prison, where he was detained. Only upon arrival did the family learn that he had been transferred to the 10 de Octubre Court for a summary trial.

“They rushed there and it turned out that the process had already ended, without prior notice to the family or any defense allowed,” Lobon said. Troya was responsible for filming the images taken in Havana for the video clip of the song Patria y Vida, by filmmaker Asiel Basbastro and involving Otero Alcántara, Maykel Castillo Osorbo and Eliexer Márquez El Funky.

For Lobón, “the abuse and cruelty of this system” cannot continue “to be indifferent to anyone who calls himself human” because in his opinion “the Cuban regime is carrying out a purge of the country’s non-conformist youth.”.He specified that the summary trial in which Troya was sentenced was collective and that together with him “11 other young people were condemned.”

The process to which those arrested for the protests are being subjected, legally called “direct attestation,” has been denounced this week by the organization Cuban Prisoners Defenders for violating the rights of the accused to legitimate self-defense.

Independent journalist Miriam Celaya González, a relative of a young woman arrested on July 11, reported on her networks on Wednesday that Amanda Hernández Celaya, her 17-year-old niece, was released on the night of July 20. Amanda was in the 100th y Aldabó prison and was released under a preventive measure that obliges her to remain at home until Thursday, the date on which the trial against her is scheduled to be held.

In this Tuesday’s broadcast of the program Hacemos Cuba, Colonel Victor Alvarez Valle, second chief of the Specialized Body of the General Directorate of Criminal Investigation of the Ministry of Interior, denied the existence of missing persons after the massive protests of last July 11. “Just like forced disappearances, torture is not a practice in Cuba,” said Alvarez.

He also dismissed the lists drawn up by several independent activists that contain the names of demonstrators whose whereabouts are unknown. “These lists lose credibility due to the lack of data and because it has been proven that many of those registered there have never been detained or even interviewed by the authorities,” he insisted.

On the other hand, also on Tuesday, the MSI received the Dissident Human Rights Award, granted by the Victims of Communism Foundation, with a special mention for the dissident rapper Maykel Castillo. The musician, currently imprisoned in the province of Pinar del Rio, sent an audio message via telephone. “This award is the result of a fair work, which has almost cost me my life, which has cost me blows (breaking my septum, my fingers…) because that’s how the henchmen behave,” he said.

He does not write the protest songs or the denunciations he makes daily in social networks thinking about recognition, he said, and stressed that “this award more than for me, is for all Cubans who right now are standing up and are already tired.”

Osorbo was jailed on May 18 and charged with the alleged crimes of “attack”, “public disorder” and “evasion of prisoners or detainees”, after he resisted his arbitrary arrest by the political police during a popular protest in front of the MSI headquarters. None of his relatives heard from him until 14 days later, on May 31, when he was located in the 5 y Medio Prison, in Pinar del Río.

The Washington-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation is dedicated to remembering the more than 100 million victims of communism around the world. The award recognizes individuals who have demonstrated a lifetime of opposition to communism and all other forms of totalitarianism, and last year recognized Russian dissident Alexei Navalni.

Translated by: Hombre de Paz

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When Repression Knocks at Your Door

For me, it doesn’t matter that you have defamed me without knowing me, attacked me without arguments, or raised a fist in an act of repudiation against me or my loved ones. (Screen capture from a video taken at a violent act of repudiation against Yoani’s husband, Reinaldo Escobar*, the person on the left who is looking forward.)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, 21 July 2021 — A little more than ten days ago, violent repression was for many Cubans an alien experience, a story told by others that they doubted when narrated by government opponents or independent journalists. So it seemed until July 11^th when some confirmed, firsthand, that the arbitrary arrests, the beatings, the strip searches and humiliations in police stations, and the silence on the part of the authorities regarding the whereabouts of a detainee, were not the fantasies or hoaxes of a few.

Many of those who previously doubted and questioned the victims, saying that they made everything up and that something like this could not happen on this island, now have a son or a niece locked up awaiting a summary judgment just for going out on the streets asking for “libertad!” or trying to record the popular revolts with their cell phone camera. The testimonies are coming to light, including excesses, outrages, lengthy interrogations, overcrowding in the cells and threats, many threats.

None of this is news for the part of the Cuban population that has spent decades denouncing such events. But, sometimes, you have to feel it to believe, experience it in your own flesh to continue reading

empathize with another victim, or stick your finger in the wound to convince yourself it exists.

Personally, it is not worth me now to return skepticism with skepticism, deafness with deafness, sarcasm with sarcasm

Personally, it is not worth it to me now to return skepticism with skepticism, deafness with deafness, sarcasm with sarcasm. It is time to lend a hand and support the new victims of direct repression, regardless of whether they once doubted the horrors experienced by others.

Count on me to shout for the liberation of your children. I don’t care if you mocked me or didn’t believe it when I was kidnapped and beaten in November 2009;* I don’t care if you lent yourself to watching my little boy on his way to school and yelling at him that his mother was a “mercenary”; I don’t care if you reported on people visiting me and laughed when I spent long hours in a jail cell. It doesn’t matter if you joined in the execution of my reputation and the attempt to kill me socially.

For me, it doesn’t matter that you have defamed me without knowing me, attacked me without arguments, or raised a fist in an act of repudiation against me or my loved ones. I am on your side for the release of that family member you love. I do believe you.

*Translator’s notes:

See also Blame the Victim

For a video of the event shown in the photo, see here.

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Cuba’s Generation of Scarcities Has Taken to the Streets

Young people long for a better Cuba and say that is why they took to streets to shout “homeland and life.” (EFE/Yander Zamora)

14ymedio, Alberto Hernández, Santiago de Cuba, July 20, 2021 — “The word hunger is etched into my bones.” From the time he was born until he was almost 20 years old, Ruben grew up in a dysfunctional family where he suffered from malnutrition. “I ate poorly and only once a day,” he says. He is one of the thousands of young Cubans who these days are protesting in the streets, demanding freedom and an end to the current system.

Robbed of nutrients, his body did not develop normally. “In my teenage years I looked like I was eight-years-old,” he says. “After I turned to the streets to support myself, I was finally able get a little more to eat.” From that point on he started to grow and and managed to recover a bit. “I am one of those who was always afraid of going hungry so now I’ll go anywhere to shout “patria y vida” [homeland and life].”

His generation has been deeply impacted by scarcity. “I remember we use to get chicken once a month,” recounts Ignacio. “On one occasion my mother left my lunch out and, when I got home from school, I found the neighbor’s cat eating continue reading

my monthly ration of chicken.” He has hated cats ever since. “And now I am all about “down Diaz-Canel!” he yells.

Yamila, a single 23-year-old mother, is desperate. “I don’t have milk. When there’s a blackout, there’s no bread, you can’t get rice, you can’t get sugar, there’s no meat, there’s nooooothing!” she shouts between expletives. She was among the mothers demonstrating in Santiago de Cuba on July 11.

Jobs in Cuba do not pay enough for young people to live on so many look for other options. “I graduated in civil engineering, like my father wanted, but now I transport passengers on my uncle’s electric motorcycle,” says Antonio. He was one of the many motorcyclists supporting Sunday’s demonstrations in Santiago. “I don’t want to spend my whole life driving people around. Down with communism!”

“Listen, talk to your aunt in Italy and tell her I am looking for an American who’ll marry me. I can’t stand mountain life anymore. As bad as it is here, it’s worse in Songo,” implores Dalia, who lives in a rural town in the province. “It doesn’t matter if he’s old, though I’d prefer him to be young and strong. What matters is that he gets me out of this prison. I have photos on my phone I can send over the internet.”

Eduardo and Marta are bewildered by their offspring, both professionals. “We gave our children the best education possible under communism,” they say. But after graduating from university, both made it clear they did not want to stay in Cuba. They did not want to live a life of poverty, hunger and scarcity like their parents had.

Today, their daughter lives in Chile and their son in Belgium. Both are well established in their chosen professions. Both express support for the demonstrations from the trenches of social media.

Gisela recounts these anecdotes with a certain sadness in her eyes. She graduated as a health care professional in 2018. “When I started working, I earned a little more than 1,000 pesos a month. I remember at the time the exchange rate was 25 pesos the dollar, and I could afford to go to and from work and buy a sandwich.

Now, after currency unification, she earns 4,000 pesos a month. “Supposedly, it’s more money but in reality it’s the same or less. Now my commute costs 80 pesos, 40 pesos each way, and the sandwich costs 20. A total of 100 pesos, four times more than before. And that doesn’t take into account that almost everything I need can only be bought with hard currency, which I do not have.” That is why, she says, she longs for a better Cuba and took to the streets to shout “patria y vida.”

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Hundreds Arrested in Cuban Protests Are Being Subjected to Summary Trials

A demonstrator being arrested by a police officer and an undercover agent from State Security in Havana on July 11. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, July 19, 2021 — Eight days after the start of protests, there is still no official count of those arrested during the demonstrations that took place in more than forty Cuban cities. Several human rights organizations suggest it could be in the thousands while the United Nations puts the number at 187.

Among them are well-known activists such as Jose Daniel Ferrer and the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. Most of the detainees, however, are anonymous Cubans who took to the streets to express their desire for freedom and their exasperation with a 62-year-old regime that has destroyed the country.

What they all have in common, according to a legal article published by Cuban Prisoners Defenders, is that they are all being subjected to a type of summary trial procedure known as “sworn statement.”

“It is so called because it goes straight from police investigation, without prosecution or due process, to the oral hearing,” explains the Madrid-based organization. “It is the police, the police investigator — there is no investigating judge in Cuba, a position that was abolished by Fidel Castro — and not the public prosecutor, which is in charge of the process from beginning to end.”

It is “a police trial, not a legal trial,” states the CPD, in which the police “initiate, administer and control the entire process, including continue reading

setting the trial date.”

According to the CPD, once police officers indicate to the judge that the procedure will be a “sworn statement” trial, they themselves, with the judge, conduct the oral hearing “without prosecutor, attorney or the accused being present and without [these parties] knowing the purpose of the proceeding.”

At no point in the process does the accused have access to the trial brief, including the formal charges. The brief is not prepared by a prosecutor but by a police officer. “The prosecutor can choose not to participate, in which case the trial will proceed without him,” the article explains. “If the defendant has an attorney, he may only see the file for a few minutes before the hearing.”

“From the beginning of the trial to sentencing takes no more than five days,” says the CPD article. “From one to four days to charge and investigate, then twenty-four hours to prepare a court case, make an oral argument and issue a sentence. In this case, however, it could take as long as forty-eight to ninety-six hours.”

According to authorities, the objective is to apply a “flexible and expeditious method and means to legal matters that are handled within the summary procedures of the municipal courts.” However, the CPD argues this process “flagrantly violates the guarantee of due process established in articles 94 and 95 of the Constitution” as well as international law and the right to an effective defense.

The organization also claims it violates the right of the accused to appoint a defense attorney and to provide evidence through communication with that attorney. “There is no guarantee the accused will be allowed to present this [evidence]” or that the principle of disclosure, on which all due process rests, will be followed. The CPD notes that the “sworn statement” process suggests “a hasty trial behind closed doors without communication between the parties involved,” analogous to the accusatio process of ancient Rome.

In a statement issued on Saturday, the Cuban Human Rights Observatory (OCDH) expressed disappointment that Josep Borrell, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, and Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights ,” are trying to divert attention from the reasons for the massive protests in recent days in Cuba.”

“The demonstrations called for many things but the most commonly heard refrains were ’freedom and ’we are not afraid.’ To cite economic hardship as the sole reason for the protests, as Ms. Bachelet has done, is to completely misunderstand what is happening in Cuba,” writes Executive Director Alejandro Gonzalez Raga in the OCDH statement.

Gonzalez Raga also believes Borell mistakenly blames the United States: “These protests are the result of sixty-two years of repression. It is Cuba that has to change. We have to focus exclusively on those responsible for Cuba being a dictatorship today.”

Jose Daniel Ferrer Cantillo, son of the Patriotic Union of Cuba’s director, was arrested along with his father on Sunday, July 11, before they could join a demonstration that was taking place in Santiago de Cuba. In a video he describes how he was accused of incitement of public disorder, “propagation of epidemics” and disorderly conduct. The charges were reduced, he was informed, “to public disorder, nothing more.” He was issued a written warning, told not to participate in any marches and to report every Tuesday to the Versailles police station.

When he refused, they threatened to throw him in jail, like they had done to his father. He reported that they also beat everyone who came into the police station where he was being held. “Young people, old people, anyone they managed to arrest that day.” Among the prisoners was a pregnant woman who, he says, did not get the care she needed.

He also reports his father was having a heath crisis involving an ulcer when he left his house and is ill. “They are the worst conditions in the world. It’s like a concentration camp.”

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July 11: The Day Cuban Youth Overturned a Police Car

Iconic photo taken on the corner of Toyo, in Havana, on July 11.

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 20 July 2021 — In flip-flops and shirtless, Yander ran down Galiano Street to join the crowd shouting “Freedom!” that had just passed his door. In the rush, he forgot the mandatory mask. The mother of this 35-year-old from Havana reached him short-of-breath. “Mi’jo, you left your mask!” she said, and handed him a piece of black cloth. She hasn’t seen him since.

That Sunday, July 11, Cuba ignited with spontaneous protests in several cities. The fuse, lit in San Antonio de los Baños, quickly spread throughout the capital. Thousands of people converged in floods, heading aimlessly towards the nearest squares.

A few meters from the Capitol, seat of the docile Cuban Parliament, Agustín, 28, was in his wheelchair, offering glasses and headphones for sale to the few passers-by who dared to walk in the afternoon sun, and when he saw ” the boys who came like a whirlwind.” He asked one of them to accompany him, and his disability saved him from arrest, but it did not save him from the blow of a policeman which has left
his arm purple. continue reading

The compact chorus, which repeated “¡Patria y vida!” and “Down with communism!” drowned out the words anchored in a past when the Cuban ruling party imposed its slogans

When the shock troops arrived to stop the revolt, an old woman leaned out of the window shouting Gusanos!* [worms] at the protesters. It was barely heard. The compact chorus, which repeated “¡Patria y vida!” and “Down with communism!” drowned out those words anchored in a past when the Cuban ruling party imposed its slogans. Most were young. On the corner of Toyo, in the center of the city, standing on a patrol car waving a bloodstained flag, trying to save a friend who was taken by the Police, standing with a fist raised in front of the riot police, they demonstrated that they are not afraid.

Leaning over her balcony, Mireya saw the tumult coming down her street, the boulevard de San Rafael. She had just shouted at her neighbor that she would wait for her at five in the morning at La Época. It is a nearby store, accepting payment only foreign currency, which offers many of the products that have been missing for months in stores that accept Cuban pesos. Both women are in the business of buying and reselling merchandise on the black market. But that meeting to collect packets of beans, canned food, some cheese, and some beer never happened. On Monday, the neighbor woke up in a cell, and Mireya was looking for her 16-year-old daughter Karla, outside a police station.

“My girl is a minor and she only came down to make a video with her mobile, I saw how the police took her by force,” she sobs. She is one of the thousands of the day’s disappeared.

In Santiago de Cuba, in the distant town of Palma Soriano, Severino has become hoarse from shouting. “Four of us in my family went out but only two came back, the others we don’t know where they are and they don’t tell us anything,” he explains. “We didn’t even think it, that day the only thing I had in my stomach was a cup of coffee … but the effect of that coffee, I felt like I had eaten a leg of pork.” Retired with the minimum pension (about 20 euros a month), Severino laughs when he hears that official voices saying that “imperialism” paid him to take to the streets.

“I lost my wallet and one shoe, but it was worth it,” says a young economics graduate from San Antonio de los Baños who was one of the first to go out to protest in a city where “when something to cook finally appears, then there is no electricity.” It was in that municipality of the province of Artemisa that the spark jumped that later set the souls on fire in almost the entire island. San Antonio is known for hosting the International School of Film and Television and the Biennial Humor Festival. “We were the town of humor, now we are the town of honor.”

“My mother did not want to come with me because she was afraid and now she regrets not having lived that historic day right here, together with the others”

“My mother did not want to come with me because she was afraid and now she regrets not having lived that historic day right here, together with the others,” the young woman boasts. His story is constantly interrupted by a worrying dry cough. The country is experiencing the worst rebound of the pandemic, but the alarming numbers of Covid-19 did not prevent people from coming together, perhaps because “this dying every day, with the anguish and misery, is worse than the coronavirus.”

In Sancti Spíritus, Mercedes (38 years old) spent Sunday glued to the screen of her mobile phone, devouring the videos that were coming out of the protests in other provinces. Among several neighbors they collected enough money to buy a recharge that would allow them to stay connected for longer and not miss any details. “At night, the only light was on the screen, because we were in a blackout.”

The next morning, her boss summoned her early to the state office where she spends her hours between apathy and wanting to go home. “We have to defend the streets from the counterrevolutionaries and each worker must make a public commitment that he will be on the side of our Communist Party and against those mercenaries who want to take our country from us,” he said. Mercedes was stunned. That same afternoon she decided to quit her job. “Even if we are left without a peso in this family, nobody is going to put a stick in my hand to break the head of a neighbor’s son. They can’t count on me,” says Mercedes.

These episodes are being repeated in all companies and state offices in the country. The employee of an official publishing house tells that they were transferred to a farm of the Union of Young Communists to cut branches and make sticks “so that the workers defend themselves from the provocations of the mercenaries.” Many say privately that they do not intend to hit anyone. In addition to losing their jobs, some of those who have refused to take part in actions against the protesters have suffered “acts of repudiation,” a kind of violent and humiliating escrache – a public shaming – on the part of their colleagues.

The phone ringing catches Leidy Laura breastfeeding her baby. On the other end of the line, her sister, who lives in Miami, tells her that they have been following the television news by the minute since Sunday, celebrating the possible fall of Castroism.

“Here it is militarized, the streets full of police and men armed with rocks and baseball bats,” she replied with concern. She has not left her home in Camagüey for “three days” for fear of being trapped “in one of the talanqueras – makeshift traps – they have set up in the city.”

Leidy Laura is 24 years old and the daughter of two Havanans who have told her what they experienced on August 5, 1994, when the previous social explosion shook the coast of the Cuban capital in an event that has come to be known as the Maleconazo. “But no way, this has been much bigger and across almost the entire island. That was the rehearsal and this was the implementation,” she says.

“This could become unlivable, if people cannot go out to buy food because of the confrontations and barricades everywhere, we are going to starve because no one has reserves of anything”

“My father always tells me that that time he was very excited that the dictatorship was falling, but that has been almost 30 years and it still stands,” she adds with a certain pessimism. “I had already made up my mind that my son was going to have to grow up with a ration book and shouting at school assemblies ‘Pioneers for Communism, we will be like Che’, but with what happened on Sunday, I don’t know, hope has returned.”

“This could become unlivable, if people cannot go out to buy food because of the confrontations and barricades everywhere, we are going to die of hunger because nobody has reserves of anything,” says Viviana, who until the arrival of the pandemic ran a thriving business renting rooms to tourists near the Prado in the beautiful city of Cienfuegos.

Not everyone is filled with hopes. Fear is also rampant on the island. Some fear that the regime’s repressive excesses will add fuel to the bonfire of discontent and the protests will spark a civil war. President Miguel Díaz-Canel fanned those flames when he said that “the combat order is given” and that they are “ready for anything.”

“This country was already on the brink of a humanitarian crisis and now with this we are going faster towards the abyss. If international organizations do not help us, we will end up falling like flies,” Viviana continues. “But we could see this coming, we were already suffering too much and young people are different. They no longer believe the same stories, nor can you convince them with stories from the past.”

“The young people” that Viviana speaks of have been the protagonist of protests that point squarely to the political model that has prevailed on the island for 62 years. Although they have grown up under the most rigid indoctrination, the youth feel like citizens of the world thanks to new technologies, they have fewer ideological ties and they perceive that they owe nothing to the bearded men who came down from the Sierra Maestra.

“Young people” are like Lucas, 22, who not only uses Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, but has spent months taking refuge in Telegram threads and WhatsApp groups ruminating on his frustrations. Sunday’s protest was the first time he saw the faces of friends until then hidden under avatars. “We met and began to speak the same language,” he now recalls about the meeting in a corner of the Havana neighborhood of El Vedado. From there they set off the entire length of Calle San Lázaro holding hands. They did not have a leader, they were not part of an opposition party, but they became the thorn in the heart of a dying system.

The hierarchs with their well-ironed guayaberas and bulging bellies do not understand that these youths with their spindly bodies from long walks and short food rations are not afraid of them. They have been making fun of the official rhetoric for years, and they have not watched national television for a long time so that the information mush prepared by the Party does not cause them to retch. They are impervious to the reproaches that officialdom throws at them. They are the future; while the police who beat them, the military who shoot them and the rapid response brigades who attack them are only the vestiges of a past that refuses to die but that, will also, go away.

________________________

Editor’s Note: This report was published for the first time in the newspaper El Mundo.

Translator’s note: “Worms” (gusanos), is a term Fidel Castro chose to describe the first wave of people who left Cuba after the Revolution, and it has been repeatedly applied to anyone who doesn’t support the government ever since.

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