14ymedio – Page 289 – Translating Cuba

Dozens of Cubans Demonstrate in Front of the UN to Demand Freedom for Political Prisoners

Among others, journalist Carlos Manuel Álvarez, teacher Omara Ruíz Urquiola and artists Luis Eligio D Omni, Javier Caso and Kizzy Macías participated in the protest. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 23 June 2021 — A group of Cubans demonstrated this Wednesday in front of the United Nations headquarters in New York to demand freedom for political prisoners, while the General Assembly prepared to vote on the annual resolution against the United States embargo on the Island. It received the support of 184 countries, the US and Israel voted against it and there were three abstentions: Colombia, Ukraine and United Arab Emirates.

The protest that took place near the UN building was attended by, among others, journalist Carlos Manuel Álvarez, professor Omara Ruíz Urquiola and artists Luis Eligio D Omni, Javier Caso and Kizzy Macías. “We are demanding that all political prisoners be released, that human rights and civic freedom be recognized. These are requirements to achieve a democratic country and to represent all Cubans, wherever they are,” said Cuban Tomás Castellanos during a live broadcast that the magazine El Estornudo aired from that location.

“We have decided today to give visibility to all Cubans who have expressed, in one way or another, their way of thinking that differs of course from the dictatorial Government line and who have paid the consequences for it,” he added. continue reading

The writer Carlos Manuel Álvarez used a reproduction of the Garotte Vil that artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara used to handcuff himself, in solidarity with the leader of the San Isidro Movement. Later, several of the protesters also approached the seat, where they were immobilized by the neck while their hands were handcuffed behind their back.

“The way in which we are here, projecting ourselves towards New York City, is neither gratuitous nor exaggerated,” said the writer in another of the broadcasts. “This is the faithful representation of how people live in Cuba. Cubans live with their hands tied and with a kind of club around their neck and subjugated by a regime that does not respect civil or individual rights.”

In the demonstration, the participants waved Cuban flags and a unique version of the national pennant, the work of Cuban artist Julio Llópiz-Casal. (14ymedio)

Other participants covered their heads with a paper box with the images of political prisoners such as Maykel Castillo Osorbo, Yuisán Cancio Vera, Luis Ángel Cuba Alfonso, Thais Mailén Franco Benítez, Esteban Lázaro Rodríguez López, Inti Soto Romero, Yeilis Torres Cruz and Adrián Coroneaux Stevens.

In the demonstration, participants waved Cuban flags and a unique version of the national pennant in blue, black and white, the work of Cuban artist Julio Llópiz-Casal and entitled Cuban flag for the spilled milk.

“The three blue stripes represent the three skies that protect the three Cuban social classes that we Cubans know very well: sky of the rich, sky of the poor and sky of the untouchables (rich or poor),” the artist explains in a manifesto that accompanies the piece. “The two black stripes represent the impurity of national ideals when they are sullied, manipulated, frustrated or contaminated with mediocrity, selfishness and lack of love towards Cuba. The lonely brown star represents the false sovereignty of the country when its destiny is determined by external interests and those of a handful of Cubans, “to which he adds that the white triangle” represents spilled milk: the mistakes made by Cubans in the name of their freedom, whether it was due to naivety or pride, resignation or fear.”.And he concludes: “Cuba is a state of mind. We are going to give Cuba a reason to feel good.”

Speaking to 14ymedio, the artist, who lives in Cuba, said that “we Cubans, who feel that the Island lives under an autocracy which sacrifices and violates the most elementary rights in the name of conserving its place in power, we don’t have much more than to perform symbolic gestures. A peaceful demonstration in the streets of Cuba and this protest at the UN headquarters are just that.”

While this was happening in New York, several artists woke up in Havana under State Security surveillance. Tania Bruguera, Carolina Barrero, Katherine Bisquet and Camila Lobón reported early in the morning that police officers were guarding their homes to prevent them from going out.

At the end of the protest, the participants moved in front of the Cuban Mission to the UN, where they stayed for several minutes and from a truck with three screens, they transmitted images of the repression in Cuba while shouting “freedom,” “homeland and life,” “down with the dictatorship,” among other slogans against the Government. Then they went out in a caravan throughout the city” so that everyone could get the message that there is a dictatorship in Cuba,” artist Douglas Arguelles Cruz explained in a live broadcast.

Translated by Norma Whiting
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Varadero Workers Alarmed over Russian Tourist not Wearing Masks

Russian tourists in Varadero in April. (Sputnik/Miguel Fernandez Martinez)

14ymedio, Natalia Lopez Moya, Havana, June 28, 2021 — “Every day it’s a fight to get them to put on a mask but they refuse. The say they’re vaccinated,” says a hotel bartender in Varadero, who is worried by the behavior of Russian guests there. They are among the few tourists Cuba has seen since the decision was made to cautiously reopen the resort town. “I’m afraid to go home because all day I’m around people who are ignoring the security measures.”

There has been a steady stream of Russian visitors to Varadero since direct flights from Moscow began in April. At the time, the Cuban tourism conglomerate Gaviota wanted to promote the reopening with a simple message: “After many months, we can come together again, thanks to hygienic and public health protocols.”

But in practice, visitors are largely ignoring the guidelines.”You have to practically fight with them to get them to wear a mask. Even if we insist, they still don’t put it on. They get upset even when we just say something to them,” adds the bartender, who prefers to remain anonymous. “The ones who don’t get react badly, tell you that they’ve already been vaccinated. But the vaccine doesn’t prevent us from getting infected.” continue reading

According to official statistics released in early June, fewer than fifteen million Russians — a little more than 10% of the population — has been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. Another three million have received one dose.

Russia was the first country to approve a Covid vaccine: Sputnik V. It was approved in August before phase 3 trials had been conducted, along with other government approved vaccines: EpiVacCorona (October 2020), CoviVac (February 2021) and Sputnik Light (last month).

International experts view these pharmaceuticals with caution. Though Moscow claims Sputnik has a 97.6% efficacy rate, this has not been confirmed through independent clinical trials. Simultaneously, none of the vaccines have been approved by the European Medicines Agency or the World Health Organization.

The employee claims that a significant number of hotel workers have not received the full dose of Cuba’s own trial vaccines. “The risk of getting sick is high. And we can’t even say that the fear is offset by economic benefits because Russian tourists are here on ’all inclusive’ packages and they almost never leave tips.

Even the cleaning staff, who do not interact directly with the guests, are frightened. “I see them in the halls not wearing masks, singing and talking loudly. I hold my breath when I pass them but that’s not really protecting me,” complains a maid from Cayo Coco, in Ciego de Avila province, another popular tourist destination.

However, it is in Varadero where the situation is most problematic. The city is located in Matanzas, the province where the public health emergency is suddenly the most acute. With more than 500 new Covid-19 cases reported on Monday, the region has become the focus of health officials’ concerns.

The Minister of Public Health, Jose Angel Portal Miranda, made an emergency visit to the province and met with local officials on Sunday “to analyze the complex epidemiological situation” in the region to evaluate “heightening measures to confront the pandemic” according to Twitter messages posted by health authorities.

But while the posts acknowledge an increase in infections, no reference is made to a possible link between the rising infection rate and the influx of tourists in Varadero, much less to role Russian visitors might be playing in this surge.

“Close the airport and stop letting tourists in,” writes Paulina Roques, a resident of nearby Cardenas. In a social media post last weekend, she complains, “Economic interests are taking precedence over the health risks that come with this reopening.” In a comment, another writer asks, “Will it be worth it, or will we ultimately spend more curing the sick than we earn off these tourists?”

Since June, more than 4,000 Russian visitors have been arriving daily in Varadero after the Russian carrier Aeroflot began direct flights from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport and Juan Gualberto Gomez Airport in Matanzas.

Aeroflot uses Boeing’s 777-300ER planes, which carry more than 500 passengers, for its three weekly flights. It partners with Azur Air, NordWind and Royal Flight, which began connections between Russia and its main Cuban tourist destination.

British and German tourists had been coming to Varadero in previous months but virulent waves of coronavirus in both countries led authorities to restrict or prohibit travel overseas. Russia is now Cuba’s greatest hope. Russian and Chinese tourism is the only market that is growing. Canada still accounts for the largest number of visitors but the European market is declining.

From January 2019 to January 2020, the Russian market grew 48.4%. Experts believe Cuba is poised to become a top tourist destination for Russian vacationers because it is cheaper than the Maldives, its main competitor, and the UAE.

“That’s excellent news. We believe tourism to Cuba could grow 250% based on the number of seats available on planes flying there. There’s a lot of interest from airlines,” said Juan Carlos Escalona Pellicer, the tourism adviser at the Cuban Embassy in Moscow.

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‘In Cuba Your Mind Cannot Advance Because You Are Focused on Your Survival’

Journalist Náyare Menoyo, director of the documentary ‘Leonardo Padura, a Squalid and Moving Story’, which won her the King of Spain International Journalism Award. (EFE / Zipi)

14ymedio, Yaiza Santos, Madrid, 20 June 2021 — Náyare Menoyo (Baracoa, 1995) created Leonardo Padura, A Squalid and Moving Story as a graduation project from the University of Havana, where she studied Journalism. She did it, she tells this newspaper, “alone, alone, alone,” with a camera her faculty lent her and the help of her cameraman friend, who did the work for free.

The documentary, premiered out of competition at the Havana Film Festival in 2019, has just received one of the King of Spain International Journalism Awards, the Television Award, among whose recipients is also Don Quixote, won by another Cuban, Carlos Manuel Álvarez, director of the independent magazine El Estornudo.

“It has the value of being a television piece presented by the Havana School of Communication in which things are said that cannot be said in Cuba,” the jury said in its ruling. “It is a work with limitations that reflects remarkable height and elegance.”

Menoyo, who lives in Madrid and will be starting a Master’s degree at the Complutense University in the fall, spoke with 14ymedio about the award and her projects.

14ymedio. How did you approach Padura to make the documentary?

Menoyo. I first encountered Padura as a writer, because I started reading his books, and the more I read, the more I liked them. Later, studying journalism, despite the fact that he is a writer who has little visibility within the Cuban State media, the professors always set him as an example, not of a good writer but of a good journalist, and recommended many of his texts.

About halfway through the run, we put together a magazine as a final project on emigration, the subject and the issue we were presenting, and it occurred to me that we could interview Padura, because the film Return to Ithaca was being aired, for which he was a screenwriter. That was my first personal approach.

Padura is not on television. If it is announced that an interview is going to be broadcast, ultimately on the day that it is going to be shown it is not aired. They state there were technical difficulties, the show was lost… continue reading

I searched the Etecsa phone listings and called him. I apologized for calling him at home but I had no other way to contact him. With tremendous Cubanness, he responded that I should not worry, that it was OK, that he worked at home, where he met with people and that I should come over. He was granting me the interview.

From there, my career continued and I discovered that I really liked television, so I said: I’m going to graduate with a documentary and it’s going to be about Padura, because this is the only time I would be able to do a documentary about this writer and decide as many things as possible I want to say about him. I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to do it at any other time in Cuba, much less when I finished at the university, when I would have to do my social service commitment. I was not going to be able to.

It also made me very angry that a sector of the people who direct Cuban culture were so unsympathetic towards him. Despite there being the Padura National Prize for Literature, and despite his being a world-renowned writer, his books are rarely taken to the Book Fair, his presentations are not scheduled, and it is almost impossible to find any of his books in bookstores. Padura is not on television. If it is announced that an interview is going to be broadcast, ultimately the day that it is going to be shown it is not aired. They state there were technical difficulties or that the show was lost… Fifty thousand stories. My contribution was to make his work visible.

I also wanted, more than presenting the award-winning writer, to make a documentary with a biographical cut, to bring him closer to those readers who know him and who know who he is but who are not able to see him anywhere.

Obviously, it is not a documentary that attacks the Government, it is not a documentary that speaks directly about anything political

14ymedio. You complained bitterly a few days ago that no representative of the Cuban Embassy was present at the awards ceremony and that no official media has sought you out about the award. However, the documentary does not talk about politics at all and, if there is any reference, it is veiled. What explanation can you find for the officials to ignore the documentary and the award?

Menoyo. What can I tell you. It’s nonsense. The stubbornness of some people who run Cuba and that is why things that are so bad and it is difficult for them to change. Obviously, it is not a documentary that attacks the Government, it is not a documentary that speaks directly about anything political. It’s not that I wanted to make the things he says subtle for any reason, but that they came out that way. My goal was not to make a political memorandum, but a personal portrait of Leonardo Padura.

In the Communication Faculty they have a program, transmitted through the Havana Channel, to publish the students’ work when they graduate so it doesn’t remain mere university work, and it includes a prior interview with the director. They interviewed me, we commented on the documentary, everything was good, and it was going to be broadcast to coincide with the news of the award. They announced that it was going to be put on, everyone was waiting, but the documentary did not air. Did anyone call me to explain why the documentary was not shown? No one. Has the documentary been played after three months? It has not. A friend, who was not the person assigned to call me, told me that it had technical failures. A lie, it had no technical flaw, it is pure and hard censorship.

Now, with the award, there are those who say that it may be because Carlos Manuel Álvarez was first, who is a very talented journalist but “has a discourse against the Cuban regime,” but that is also an excuse, that is also a lie. Because when the documentary was mentioned at the Trieste Festival, it didn’t appear in any media either, nor did anyone call me to interview me.

A friend who was not the person assigned to call me, told me that it had technical failures. A lie, it had no technical flaw, it is pure and hard censorship

14ymedio. And what was the reaction when it premiered at the Havana Festival?

Menoyo. Supposedly the documentary was going to be shown only once, not in a competition but at the exhibition. But at the premiere it was full, people had to sit on the floor, there were people who were left outside, and they put it on again. The second time there was Padura and, the same, the room was full, full. In the end we ended up doing three projections. I was very happy. From what I expected when I made the documentary, with the resources that I had, versus what happened, it has been fabulous.

14ymedio. Why did you decide to come to Spain, what are you doing in Madrid, what are your dreams from now on?

Menoyo. It is a complicated question. I am in Spain because the economic situation in Cuba did not satisfy me. In Cuba, one can spend a lifetime working, honestly and hard, and never have a home. Or have five or six jobs and, in the end, have the money, but there is no chicken or oil [to buy]. Wages had risen when I left Cuba, and mine was the equivalent of about 180 euros. But the State paid me in one currency and the food and basic necessities stores only accepted MLC (freely convertible currency). Though I worked on television and had a salary, I could not buy things because the State paid me in Cuban pesos and I did not have relatives living abroad who could send me foreign money.

In Cuba, it is not that you die of hunger, but you do not eat what you need to live and you do not even eat what you want to eat and what you like; it’s what you can. A survival. I didn’t want to live my whole life like that. I used to say: “Well, now my parents are young, but when they get old, how will I support them? How do I give them what they need to live? And professionally, you can always do things that you feel proud of, but those things are accomplished through a lot, a lot of work, a lot of wear and tear, and in the end, you are so tired that you take the wheel and you do the same thing you said you were never going to do again. Because if you have to have five jobs but you are full of worries, that you don’t have the money to pay the rent, that the house is in bad shape, how can you buy a pair of shoes. If you have that in your head, you cannot think. Your mind cannot advance, you cannot focus on a project, because you are focused on your survival.

It seemed to me that Spain was a good country to go because of the culture, because of the language, because if I could do journalism somewhere, it would be here, because of the cultural similarities. I want to work on Spanish Television! [laughs] I want to do the whole migration thing. I don’t want to be in Spain writing for a Cuban medium because it is like being there in the middle of the Atlantic. I want to do journalism but I want to do it in a Spanish medium. That’s where I am.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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Vaccine Clinical Trial Reaches Havana’s Children

The trial takes place next to the emergency room of the Juan Manuel Márquez Pediatric Hospital in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 28 June 2021 — The faces were long, serious, full of concern, at the Juan Manuel Márquez Pediatric Hospital, where the trial of the Soberana 02 vaccine — baptized by the authorities as Pediatric Soverana — began on Monday in children ages 3 to 11 years old.

The Finlay Vaccine Institute (IFV), developer of this antidote, assured the official press that they selected the volunteers after verifying “the safety of the initial injection of the candidate vaccine in 25 adolescents between 12 and 18 years old,” and that a total of 350 children and young people from 3 to 18 years old will be part of the project. They will be administered two doses of Soberana 02 and one of Soberana Plus, with an interval of 28 days.

The first requirement to be eligible, 14ymedio learned in the hospital, is “to be healthy.” After weighing and measuring them, the minors have to be “within the acceptance parameters for the study,” from which it follows that they do not accept children with any sign of malnutrition.

This was confirmed by this newspaper in the waiting room of the medical center where the test is taking place, next to the emergency room: both the children, all white-skinned, and their parents, looked well fed, well dressed and well shod. Among the parents, a soldier from the Ministry of the Interior was notorious.

The study does not accept minors who are not accompanied by both parents. “There can be no parents abroad or traveling or anything,” said a hospital employee. In order for children to participate, they have to sign up at the Juan Manuel Márquez or at the polyclinic in their health area.

As for personal consent, it is only for the “oldest,” from 12 to 16 years old; the little ones depend on the willingness of the parents. In the center they make a list, and if any of the children does not meet the required parameters, they continue in the order of those listed.

The so-called volunteers showed no gesture of happiness.

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The Mystery of Cuban Cooking Oil Robberies: What Happened between Mariel and the Central Provinces?

The containers arrive at their final destination with some of the cargo missing. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Mercedes García, Havana, 21 June 2021 — Four robberies in recent weeks of imported cooking oil intended for delivery to Sancti Spiritus — another six were from containers destined for Villa Clara — has set off alarm bells in the two central provinces’ government offices. The product is in short supply in stores and its price on the underground market has risen sharply, making it an attractive target for thieves, resellers and speculators.

14ymedio received reports that dozens of liters of oil had gone missing from shipping containers while being transferred from the port of Mariel. Thefts like these always follow a consistent pattern: the containers arrive at their final destination with some of the cargo missing, though never enough to be readily noticed.

“So far, the robberies have occurred only when soybean oil is being transported. I have not seen this happening with any other type of oil. We’re not talking about large quantities being stolen because the containers carry up to 140 boxes, with 12 liters in each,” a source close to the case, who prefers to remain anonymous, explained to 14ymedio. continue reading

“All the containers have GPS and the drivers report making stops at the 200 and 250-kilometer marks on the National Highway, in other words between Matanzas, Cienfuegos and Villa Clara,” the source adds. Along this stretch, drivers make stops at the many houses offering food or at state-owned restaurants knows as Conejitos.

“The drivers theorize that thieves open the trucks’ doors while the vehicles are on the highway and remove the boxes of oil,” he says.

The source, who worked for years handling these types of administrative procedures, finds this explanation implausible. There are only three links in the transportation and security chain: the Mariel port personnel who dispatch the oil, the truck driver and the person who receives the merchandise in at its final destination.

The oil being transported to the country’s central provinces carries the label Ecasol, which belongs to a Havana-based company that bottles imported oil. In this case, the oil came from Brazil with the label already applied.

Due to shortages over the past year, vegetable oil shipments have become almost clandestine. “No one trusts the companies in charge of moving it from place to place because too many workers are involved, so it all has to be done under a cloak of total secrecy.”

The one-liter bottles of vegetable oil ultimately end up in local stores where, just a year ago, sales were unrestricted. They can now be bought only with a ration card. Cooking oil, along with detergent and bath soap, are among the most popular and scarce consumer products in Cuba.

“Whoever is stealing the oil already knows what’s in the container,” asserts the source. “These trucks have two-layers of protection: a plastic seal [on the box] and a seal on the bottle that is plastic on the outside and metal on the inside. You need a pair of heavy-duty scissors to open the second seal.”

The source points out that breaking through a truck’s security barriers while the vehicle is in motion “is no easy task, especially if you’re talking about a forty-foot container with no room behind it to sit down.” Another reason for skepticism is the small quantities involved, almost always around forty boxes, though in one of the Santa Clara robberies, fifty-six were stolen. A run-of-the-mill thief “would not risk it for such a small amount. He’d have to steal half the container. And he could even be injured if the driver found out.”

On June 9, seventeen boxes were reported missing from container #TITU991435-0, “the equivalent of 204 plastic bottles of oil,” according to a document filed by a representatives from a group Sancti Spiritus companies whose job it is to confirm whether or not orders are complete upon arrival. The document cites broken seals and quantities not matching those indicated on the shipping manifest.

Vegetable oil is widely used in Cuban kitchens, especially sunflower, soybean and corn oils. It serves as a substitute for lard, which has become increasingly scarce due to a shortage of animal feed.

The country economic crisis and the rise in prices since last January have made the product unaffordable for many. In the eastern provinces a liter of oil goes for about 350 pesos but the price is likely to rise even more due to the shutdown of production plant in Santiago de Cuba, one of the sources supplying the underground market.

Last week the price of a pound of lard reached a new high of 90 pesos in the city of Cienfuegos. The increase was due, in large measure, to the scarcity of oil, which has forced many families to seek out other sources of fat to cook the country’s traditional dishes that include fried foods, sauces and sofritos.

Cubans have once again resorted to frying chicken skin to render out the fat, mixing mineral oil — widely used in industrial processes — with animal fat, and using other cooking methods such as boiling, sautéing and steaming. However, many are still trying to buy oil on the underground market and even from thieves who steal it somewhere between the port and the neighborhood stores.

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The Women of ‘Mr. Joe’s Tenement’ Demand Measures Against Floods

The residents of the “Mister Joe’s tenement,” in Calzada del Cerro, put their furniture and appliances outside after their houses were flooded. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, 29 June 2021 — A group of women went out to protest Monday afternoon at Calzada del Cerro, in Havana, after their homes were completely flooded by the heavy rains of the day. The photograph of three of them stopping traffic on the avenue with their furniture and refrigerators quickly spread through social networks.

“They went out to the street because the tenement was flooded again and everything got wet,” a neighbor in the area told 14ymedio. The women are residents of a tenement known as “el solar de Míster Joe,” after the name of a cafeteria at the entrance, located on Calzada del Cerro, between Auditor and San Pablo.

The women’s protest was broken up by the police, who immediately appeared at the scene, both on motorcycles and in patrol cars. However, according to one of the videos that circulated on the networks, the neighbors and some passers-by supported them when the officers intervened. continue reading

Later, trucks from the state company Aguas de La Habana (Havana Water Company) and the sanitation brigade arrived in the area to empty the building’s water tanks that had been filled with dirty water. Several members of the corps of social workers, dressed in green shirts, also showed up, staying in the area for at least an hour.

By seven in the evening, this newspaper was able to verify that the women had left and only some furniture and electrical appliances remained at the entrance to the site.

El Cerro has several low-lying areas that flood whenever there is rain, and residents have unsuccessfully demanded better a better sewer system from the provincial government. When solutions have been applied, they have been to solve the emergency, never the root of the problem.

In fact, it is not the first time that the residents of this tenement have come out to protest. In December 2018, they also took their furniture out onto the streets after suffering material losses due to the floods.

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It is Irresponsible to Offer Hope

A shared question: How much longer do we have to wait? (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, 29 June 2021 — The Cubans who inhabit the island receive hope from two sources. From the spheres of power they assure them that everything is under control, that the difficulties are transitory and that the country will not only come to the fore, but that it has not renounced development. On the other hand, it is announced that the end is near and it is almost proclaimed that the present generation will experience the transition to democracy.

The new forecasts on daily life issued by the official media are signs that the dynamics of deterioration no longer comes from stagnation but from regression. The need to present the ration book to buy groceries and cleaning products in stores not governed by the rationing system is just a sign. The fact that in Cuba it is difficult to acquire rum, cigars and coffee is evidence. Not to mention sugar, pork, or beer.

The symptoms of the disaster that foresee a collapse are manifested in the insolent repression that doesn’t hesitate to arrest an artist like Hamlet Lavastida, perhaps as a defiant response to the warnings of the European Parliament or as a demonstration of the fear they have of the new opposition currents. continue reading

It is not the first time that the country’s economic figures have hit rock bottom, nor is it the first time that the bosses have come under the pressure of sanctions. Nor is it new that the compulsion to emigrate finds new shortcuts as irrefutable proof of discontent. But neither is the spark lit to detonate the social explosion, nor do the differences in high places indicate that a fracture is approaching.

Neither the resurrection nor the final collapse are seen on the horizon of events. Every time I hear people say that “hope is the last thing to be lost,” I wonder if perhaps, because we have lost everything, we only have the last resort of hope.

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Residents Release Video on the Shocking State of the ‘Rubber Company Building’

14ymedio, Havana, June 27, 2021 — Residents of the “rubber company building” decided to take further action to draw attention to the deterioration of their building. One resident recorded a video this week that shows water running down walls and her neighbors criticizing inaction from officials. After dozens of complaints to authorities, the official response to their plight has been, “There is no cement in this country.”

The two-story building, which has five apartments on each floor, was built in 1997 to house employees of the Conrado Piña Rubber Company. Located in the Lotería neighborhood of Havana’s Cotorro district, the building has had almost no maintenance for more than two decades.

After years of filing appeals and complaints with numerous state agencies, this week the building’s residents turned to 14ymedio. To illustrate the problem, Marlene Hernández — one of the building’s residents — also created a videotape showing a very badly damaged roof, rainwater seeping into apartments, mold and flooded floors. continue reading

In the video Hernández, who has a law degree from the University of Havana, interviews several of her neighbors, who describe the daily challenges they face as a result of the building’s poor condition. These challenges are especially difficult in the summer months, when rainstorms are more frequent. Ketty, one of the building’s residents, puts it bluntly: “I haven’t been able to sleep because my throat is sore from all the humidity and mold. It’s terrible.”

The woman, who lives with her 10-year-old daughter, describes the situation in her apartment: “There are a lot of leaks. In the bathroom the water comes in through the light fixtures.” She says she has complained “to everyone” and has gone through “all official channels.” The response she has consistently received is that there is no cement. “My daughter cries a lot because she’s worried the roof will fall in.”

Another apartment in precarious condition belongs to 74-year-old Sergio Pedroso. “I live surrounded by water. I’ve lost everything. I live like a dog.” He explains that he does not have the freely convertible currency required to buy cement at the stores that carry it. “I don’t even have enough to buy food,” he says.

Currently, the only options for buying cement are on the underground market, where it goes for more than 1,000 pesos a bag, and at hard currency stores, where it costs $100 and is in short supply. It has not been seen at peso stores since 2018 and is rationed at state-run markets, where only flood victims may buy it.

The cement shortage has not been an issue for the Cuban government, however, which continues building multiple luxury hotels on the island. It is also erecting an enormous concrete flag in front of the American embassy in Havana, on the so-called Anti-Imperialist Platform.

In the seven-minute video, Marlene Hernández describes life in her own apartment, with a floor full of water, plastic sheets covering the furniture and a sofa where three people sleep to escape the constant dripping. The water-stained walls behind her serves as a backdrop.”We’ve been writing for five years, to housing authorities, to the National Assembly, to the Council of State and even to the Communist Party.”

“The replies have been laughable,” she says before launching into a desperate plea for help. “If the authorities are watching this video, let’s hope they find a solution instead of just coming up with excuses.”

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The Price of Low-Cost Housing Construction

The building is located in the Lotería neighborhood of Havana’s Cotorro district. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 23 June 2021 — Residents of the “rubber company building” do not know where else to take their complaints. The two-story edifice, located in the Lotería neighborhood of Havana’s Cotorro district, has ten apartments, five on each floor. It was built in 1997 to house employees of the Conrado Piña Rubber Company.

Residents have been complaining since 2016, when “a little thread of water” first appeared, indicating there was a leak in the roof. Water now inundates both the top and the bottom floors, especially during the rainy month of June.

Residents wrote to the Council of State, to various housing agencies, to the police, to the National Assembly and to official media organizations but none of them offered a solution. They then posted something on Facebook and, finally, someone agreed to answer questions from 14ymedio. continue reading

When construction began on the building, it was the era of the “National Program for Low Consumption of Resources and Energy.” This project by the National Institute of Housing and Energy was an attempt to address the decline in Cuban housing construction after the collapse of the Soviet bloc. It was the end of tall buildings, of pre-fab structures, of slip-formed concrete and all the various types of construction that required large investments.

This program was a product of the Special Period. The cruel joke at the time was that the dwellings built under this program were “low-cost houses for people of little importance.” Nevertheless, they continued to be allocated based on how many labor and social merits a potential resident had earned. In the case of two-story flats, an apartment was not the property of the tenant but rather what was known as a “basic medium,” which meant the company was no longer responsible for maintenance once it handed over the properties.

Things started getting worse at the twenty-year mark, when residents of a half-medium could “disengage” themselves from the company and assume ownership of the property. But a leaky roof does not happen by accident. It can be traced back to the type of construction, the quality of the materials, improper installation or poor maintenance.

The two-story “rubber building” was built in the 1990s to house employees of the Conrado Piña Rubber Company.

Residents describe how, in 1997, a work crew came to install the underlay for a waterproof membrane but never installed the membrane itself, which would have protected the roof. When the sun hit the thin surface of the underlay, it began to crack and water accumulated underneath it.

“We had to remove it ourselves because it only made the problem worse,” says Marlene Hernández, who lives in apartment #6, the first one on the top floor. And she has an another complaint: The roof does not have gutters, so rainwater runs down at a slight incline to its low point, which happens to be over her unit. “If they had let it slope to the edge of the roof, everything would be different, at least for me.”

Hernández has repeatedly posted her complaints on social media sites along with desperate calls for help. Several of her neighbors have joined the pleas on her Facebook page, including Ketty Quesada. “This is unbearable,” she writes. “Are they waiting for the roof to fall in?

The daughter of a neighbor on the floor below Hernández goes further: “I thought Cuba doesn’t abandon its own. Well, prove it with actions before it’s too late and something unfortunate happens.” She notes that the two-story building houses “workers and retirees who have contributed a lot to the Revolution.” She wonders, “Is this how they are repaid?”

So far the site has been visited by three specialists: two from the city agency in charge of housing and another from the community architect. All confirm that the problems are real but note that it is not in their power to fix them.

The consultants report that joints in the roof slabs need to be reinforced with P 350 cement. Agencies that could carry out the work, however, do not currently have this material on hand. The little cement that does come on the market from time to time goes to retail stores whose merchandise can only be purchased with debit cards linked to hard currency bank accounts, which the residents of this two-story apartment building do not have.

The issue of housing is the most intractable problem Cubans face. Finding another patron like the Soviet Union, which subsidized the Cuban state for thirty years, is not an option. Alternative solutions which relied on locally produced materials, do-it-yourself labor, and low-cost construction have only succeeded in degrading the urban environment.

Looking ahead, many hope that one day the forces of productivity will be unleashed and private companies will take over management of the building sector. What is preventing that from happening now are the limitations imposed by the state, which will not even authorize the creation of small and medium-sized housing construction companies.

While the waters find their level, one area in which construction activity is increasing, especially in the capital, is hotels. There is no shortage of tools or materials there. To guarantee quality, even the workers are even imported.

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Despite the Embargo, 10 Million Syringes Are En Route to Cuba from the U.S.

A volunteer participant in Phase 3 of the Abdala vaccine trial in Santiago de Cuba. (Sierra Maestra)

14ymedio, Madrid, 17 June 2021 – To immunize the Cuban population against Covid-19, along with those foreigners going for the “mojito with vaccine” vacation deal, the authorities have figured that between 20 and 25 million syringes will be needed. It is a goal could be within reach, given the donations – almost half the number and despite the embargo – that are coming from the U.S.

It is “Washington’s cruel and immoral embargo,” which is invoked by Edward Asner, American actor and member of Global Health Partners (GHP), an organization based in New York that is coordinating the donations. According to a recent statement by GHP, “the initiative is being handled through the Saving Lives campaign and includes dozens of local and national organizations – including MEDICC, DSA, CodePink [among those promoting the Nobel Peace Prize award to the Henry Reeve medical Brigade], IFCO, and the Center for Cuban Studies.” The group foresees taking around 10 million syringes in containers to “relieve the shortage caused by the U.S. embargo.”

Paradoxically, the association – which since its founding in the mid-70s, has launched various campaigns to fund medical projects in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala in addition to Cuba – relies on a U.S. Department of Commerce export permit to realize the donations. The embargo impedes the ability of the Cuban state to buy the material, but at the same time, the American government itself facilitates the acquisition of the product without one cent being paid. continue reading

Asner – winner of multiple Grammies and Emmies, U.S. Army veteran, and fervent socialist – details in his fundraising letter the importance of thanking the Island for all it does for the world through its medical missions and pharmaceutical products. “With this track record and their solidarity, we are in an ideal position to make this syringe campaign a success,” Asner argues.

According to GHP calculations, a donation of $ 1,000 would enable the shipment of 28,571 hospital-grade syringes, $360 would be enough to vaccinate 10,265 people, and $150 would finance the transport of 4,285 syringes to the island’s health centers. To encourage giving, the organization reminds the reader that donations to this cause are tax-deductible.

According to Asner, GHP has already delivered to Cuba more than $190-million dollars in medicines and medical supplies that are in short supply – thus confirming that the distribution is ongoing, despite the embargo.

Europe is expected to send a shipment of similar volume. Europe is believed to be in a position to imminently supply an additional 10-million syringes, the result of a campaign coordinated by the solidarity network mediCuba-Europe, based in Agno (Switzerland) and the participation of member organizations from thirteen European States (Germany, Sweden, Italy , Ireland, France, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Finland, Norway, Spain and Austria). In addition, there are partner organizations from three other countries, the UK, Denmark and the Netherlands.

“The Cuban Ministry of Public Health has placed an order for 10 million syringes and needles for a total price of $800,000 euros, which we hope to finance thanks to European solidarity and the collaboration of the Swiss Embassy in Cuba (SDC),” reads the introductory text of this initiative.

This is the third campaign GHP have carried out since March 2020. Previously, the network has raised more than 600,000 euros together with 250,000 Swiss francs (about 230,000 euros) from that country’s embassy, in Cuba with which they have acquired fans, laboratory reagents for PCR [polymerase chain reaction] tests, and laboratory equipment for the production of vaccines on the Island.

Now, for the syringes campaign, the same embassy has raised about 380,000 Swiss francs, and members of the GHP network continue to gather support. The latest known data has been provided by Sodepaz, a promoter in Spain that aims to supply three million syringes, and on June 10 placed at 2,643,000 the number it can send with its collection. In the European context, the goal of the 10 million may have been exceeded, since as of April 27, it had already garnered 6,500,000 syringes.

MediCuba-Europa boasts that their shipments have contributed recently to the development of five vaccine candidates. “This is a considerable achievement of the health system and of national scientific institutions, which demonstrates not only the high level of quality and strong professional commitment of the island’s research community, but also the will and tenacity of the authorities to guarantee health care and services to the entire population, despite a precarious economic situation exacerbated by the deepening of economic, financial, and commercial measures imposed by the Government of the United States of America – that is, the illegal, arbitrary blockade, inhumane and against international law, as the United Nations General Assembly remembers it every year,” they argue.

The Island’s government has not wanted for aid from Latin America either. Albeit more modest, the region’s campaigns have managed to collect almost five million syringes from different countries, as confirmed to Prensa Latina by Humberto Pérez of the board of the Martiana Association of Cuban Residents of Panama (AMCRP).

The Panamanian organization raised money from Cubans, pro-Castro groups, unions, politicians, businessmen, and parties in countries such as El Salvador, Bolivia, Ecuador, Puerto Rico, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Chile, and Uruguay.

“On April 3, we sounded the call in Panama, based on an idea that emerged in Canada last year,” said Pérez, who collected 900,000 syringes from his country alone that have already been arriving in Cuba.

Thus the idea proceeded from the north of the continent, which has also collected almost two million more of the product. The campaign started in Canada on January 8 and already by April 1 the Canadian Network of Solidarity with Cuba announced the arrival of 1,920,000 syringes.

Nor is Argentina absent, having on June 1 sent a shipment of 380,000 syringes and 359,000 needles to Havana. “The contribution of the Argentine Movement of Solidarity with Cuba (MasCuba), the Union of Cuban Residents in Argentina (URCA) and other groups sensitized to the Cuban cause, was fundamental to the ability of carrying out this work, which is of a deeply human nature,” said the Cuban official press.

Although possibly one of the most peculiar campaigns is the one that comes from a pro-Castro YouTuber and blogger known as Guajiro Citadino, who raised about $10K for syringes through a project which, curiously, he named “Patria o Muerte” [“Homeland or Death“].

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

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Cuban Artist Hamlet Lavastida Detained in Villa Marista and ‘Under Investigation’

Lavastida returned to the Island after completing his residency at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 27 June 2021 — The Cuban artist Hamlet Lavastida is being held in Villa Marista, the State Security headquarters in Havana, and is under an “investigation process,” according to what the authorities told his mother by telephone on Saturday night.

Lavastida returned to Cuba from Germany on June 21, after finishing his residency at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien gallery, Berlin, and had already completed the regulatory isolation for Covid-19 in one of the centers authorized by the Government in the Flores district.

His friend, the poet Katherine Bisquet, denounced from the early hours of this Saturday the presence of State Security in the isolation center and said the artist had not gotten in the taxi that was waiting for him to get home. continue reading

“Right now the artist Hamlet Lavastida, after his arrival in Havana six days ago, is on his last day in the isolation center for Covid, in Flores, in the municipality of Playa. Hamlet called me half an hour ago to notify me of Security agent Darío’s the visit to the center,” Bisquet wrote on his social networks.

Lavastida is one of the most relevant artists of his generation and in recent months he has maintained a front-and-center position against the regime by denouncing the repression that his Cuban colleagues have experienced, especially since last November 27. Between 2011 and 2015, Lavastida lived outside the island and was prohibited from entering the country as a result of his public statements that upset the authorities.

The host of the national television newscast, Humberto López, mentioned Hamlet Lavastida in his February 8 broadcast, titled: How to finance subversion in Cuba. López showed a screenshot of an idea that the artist had proposed, and it consisted of making some designs for the banknotes. The presenter did not mention, in this case, that this idea was considered a crime, but wondered to what extent the action could become “harmful” for society.

Dozens of Cuban artists, both inside and outside the island, have denounced Lavastida’s arrest on social media. One of them was Lester Álvarez, who affirmed that the only reason why Lavastida is under arrest today is for “freely expressing his opinion on the authoritarianism of the Cuban government.”

“His dignity and extraordinary talent lacks any duplicity and once again demonstrate the truth of his position against Cuban government crime,” added the visual artist, who lives in Spain.

His colleagues Camila Lobón, Julio Llopiz-Casal, Carlos Lechuga, Carlos Aníbal Alonso, Raychel Carrión, Reynier Leyva Novo, Coco Fusco, Carolina Barrero, among others, have also demanded the artist’s release.

According to filmmaker Carlos Quintela, Lavastida “has always been a frank guy” and there is no need to investigate “what he himself has made public.”

“His convictions have always been very clear, I even think that when we studied Japanese together in the Hitoshi chair at ISA we learned to say: ‘Down with the Cuban dictatorship,'” Quintela recalls.

In 2018 Lavastida participated in the Biennial 00, convened by Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara from the Museum of Dissidence, along with other artists such as Tania Bruguera, Gerardo Mosquera, Celia & Yunior, Alexander Arrechea, Ernesto Oroza, Jesús Hernández Güero, Lázaro Saavedra, Chino Novo and Henry Erick.

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With Almost 2,700 New Covid-19 Cases in One Day, Cuba Breaks its Infection Record Again

Since the pandemic began in March of last year, Cuba has detected 182,354 positive cases. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 27 June 2021 — Cuba’s Ministry of Public Health reported 2,698 new Covid-19 infections this Sunday, a figure that is the highest daily number of cases detected, exceeding the previous high of last Friday, of 2,464.

Since the pandemic began in March of last year, Cuba has detected 182,354 positive cases, according to health authorities, who also confirmed that the fatalities left by Covid-19 amount to 1,219, ten of them in the last 24 hours.

The provinces with the most critical health crises are Matanzas, Havana, Santiago de Cuba, Camagüey and Ciego de Ávila. These provinces added 1,173 cases this Sunday.

In Matanzas, the Minister of Public Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda, met with local leaders on Sunday “to analyze the complicated epidemiological situation” of the territory and “the main measures to be reinforced to face the pandemic,” reported the health authorities on Twitter. continue reading

Matanzas, in the last seven days, registered 2,158 infections with a record this Sunday of 657 cases. Among those confirmed in the last week are people who have already received all three doses of Cuba’s own candidate vaccine Abdala.

The provincial authorities recognized that among the main causes of the rebound are “the lack of control at the municipal and provincial borders, relaxation of the investigations, work centers where the necessary hygienic protocols are not taken, and crowds in the streets.”

At the beginning of last April, after reports published on social networks about several sudden deaths in the Matanzas municipality of Jagüey Grande, the Health authorities were forced to release a statement that sought to deny the alleged deaths from “fulminant pneumonia.” They insisted that that territory had registered an increase in positive cases of Covid-19.

A few days later, the Ministry announced that “five variants and six mutational patterns of 614 (the initial Wuhan strain)” had been found on the island. The strains from South Africa and California, the ones with the highest penetration in the country, were confirmed as “highly contagious and highly associated with increased mortality.”

In other provinces such as Santiago de Cuba and Artemisa, local authorities have chosen this week to prohibit the entry and exit of people as one of the measures to stop the rise in infections.

According to the Ministry of Public Health, there are currently 38,924 patients admitted to hospitals, of them 8,447 are suspected of being infected, 18,294 are under observation and 12,184 people are confirmed with the disease. Of those confirmed in the last day, 2,579 were contacts of confirmed cases; 37 patients arrived from abroad and 82 had no specified source of infection.

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Cuba’s Electrical Union Announces Daily Four Hour Blackouts This Summer in Cuba

Cubans will spend four hours daily without electricity for an indeterminate time that could last until August. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 25 June 2021 — Electric power cannot ‘lift its head’ and jumps from one crisis to another. It has only been a month since supply issues in May led to the suspension of work in non-essential businesses and now the Electrical Union is warning that the Cubans will face four-hour daily blackouts.

“As reported on Saturday, the 19th of this month, the technological limitations in the thermal generation blocks, together with the units that need maintenance, led to the breakdowns that occurred in recent hours, and the limitations on the distribution of fuel to the generator groups of the distributed generation have affected electricity service,” the state company said on Wednesday.

The different provincial delegations of the electricity company communicate daily the regulated zones and schedules in an impossible attempt to calm the population, which trembles at the possibility that the situation will continue during July and August, months with infernal heat when, especially at certain times, it can be unbreathable to live without a fan or air conditioner. continue reading

The fears are not unfounded. Lázaro Guerra Hernández, technical director of the Electricity Union, said on television that “in the summer months, basically in August,” there could be better conditions to “cover the demand and minimize the effects on the electricity service.”

The engineer argued that the problems are caused by the limitations in the generation capacity of thermal plants and engines that run on fuel, the Island’s major sources of energy.

“Five blocks have been designated to organize the service so as to, in some way, guarantee that each circuit is not affected for more than four hours,” he apologized.

The Electricity Union assures that it is working “uninterruptedly” to solve the breakdowns and apologizes for the inconvenience, but none of this has appeased Cubans, who complain about a service that has become more expensive in recent times and whose quality is far from the minimum requirements.

At the beginning of the year, with the start of the Ordering Task,* the rise in the electricity rates came into force, which was lower than initially expected precisely because of the discomfort raised by the announced figures. The amounts, in any case, have remained high for the majority of Cubans, even more so considering the frequent problems in receiving supplies.

The National Office for the Control of the Rational Use of Energy has been urging for almost two years to reduce consumption with the “Save Now” campaign, but the pandemic and prolonged stays at home have frequently prevented meeting the objectives. The majority of consumption comes, in any case, from industries and not from small consumers.

The lack of fuel, which arrives in smaller quantities from Venezuela despite constant shipments, is affecting electricity generation and the plan to replace production with green energy is slow, even more so than in many other countries, since that citizens have little opportunity to manage their own consumption with solar panels, due to the difficulties in importing them, and wind farms are a long-term strategy.

The Government intends to change its energy matrix by 2030 with the intention that 2% of the island’s energy (around 2,300 megawatts) will come from renewable sources, mainly from bioelectric plants and solar parks. Meanwhile, Cubans continue to live with the blackouts.

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

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Attention, This Will be on the Test!

Application for cell phones with “the compendium” emanating from the Eighth Congress of the PCC. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 26 June 2021 — One of the most common practices in the Cuban education system, to guarantee that students pass the grade, occurs a few days before the exams. The teacher writes on the blackboard, or dictates for the students to write in their notebooks, the most important points of their subject. With his eyes open wide, he warns his students: “Pay attention, this is going to be on the test!”

The chemical formulas, mathematical equations, historical facts, literary works, the dark corners of geography that were not lucky enough to appear in that summary, will be condemned to oblivion.

The enthronement of this “pedagogical resource” seems to have extended to the ideological work environment of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC). The simplification of the summaries makes the task easier for those who only pretend to be aware of what they need to answer to meet approval. continue reading

In the most recent meeting of the Political Bureau of the PCC, Rogelio Polanco, a member of the secretariat and head of its ideological department, released “a document that summarizes the ideas, concepts and guidelines extracted from the Central Report to the Eighth Congress, the closing speech and the documents approved in their work committees.” The compilation is available through an application on the Apliks official portal.

More than 40 days after the end of the communists’ great event, the Guidelines of the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution and the Conceptualization of the Cuban Economic and Social Model of Socialist Development, which were supposedly updated in the Congress, still have not been published. Instead, they present a document that “summarizes” what was said in a couple of speeches and the resolutions issued by the working commissions.

The new text was revealed to 2,600 executives throughout the country on May 22 and will be subject to debate, first before the membership and later before the rest of the population. As explained by the first secretary, Miguel Díaz-Canel, this will help each one to interpret what is continuity and what is unity, and how both principles are defended. “If we don’t do it like that, we wouldn’t understand the Eighth Congress,” he concluded.

The presumption that a summary of what happened in the event is necessary to understand what it consisted of, reflects the little confidence that party leaders have in the ability to read their own membership and the people in general, or the little interest of the leadership in which the details that may arouse doubts or suspicions are known.

Is there any reason not to “declassify,” in its final version, the text so often proclaimed as “the theoretical, conceptual and action guide for the construction of socialism in Cuba”? The reading of the resolution on this subject is reduced to a few obvious points, such as that “Cuban society is in the historical period of construction of socialism, which the Communist Party of Cuba – unique, Marti, Fidelista, Marxist and Leninist – reaffirms its leading role,” and others of similar theoretical value.

The same question can be formulated in relation to the updating of the Guidelines for the 2021-2026 period, which were initially prepared at the Sixth Congress and modified at the Seventh.

The resolution on the guidelines informs us that the current version consists of 201 points and that so far 30% have been implemented, 40% are in implementation and the remaining 30% are in the proposal and approval stage. None are quoted verbatim and there is only access to general comments related to the importance of the socialist state enterprise, the need to produce more food and replace imports, in addition to continuing to prioritize the development of science and not neglect social justice.

Could it be that there was no consensus and the update of both documents was not even completed? Or are the people “not politically prepared” to understand certain concepts?

In his speech during the meeting, Miguel Díaz-Canel summarized the catechism in two words: unity and continuity. And in a space-time philosophical acrobatics, he declared: “Generational continuity is a fundamental part of unity.”

In oblivion will remain, as too abstract, the laws of socialist economy, historical materialism, the precepts of scientific communism and even those uncomfortable definitions of property that they do not know how to write in programmatic documents.

What it is going to prove is that: “Everyone, pay attention to the oldest ones,” even if it seems conservative or reactionary.

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Scooter Owners in Santiago de Cuba Want Licenses for ‘Carrying Passengers’

“What is within my reach as a means of income is my electric motorcycle,” says this Santiago resident who left state employment decades ago. (L. Ribot)

14ymedio, Alberto Hernandez, Santiago de Cuba, 24 June 2021 — At 65 years of age, Alberto is far from being able to enjoy retirement. His greatest aspiration at this time is for authorities to legalize private transportation for all kinds of motorcycles. “What is within my reach as a means of income is my electric motorcycle,” say this Santiago resident who left state employment decades ago and who each day encounters more difficulties in sustaining himself economically.

“I am an engineer, and I stopped working for the State in 1993, during the Special Period. Then I was only earning 280 pesos [a month], which equaled 2.33 dollars. For that reason I dedicated myself to looking for my daily bread illegally in the streets, in different types of businesses,” he explains. “Today, after almost three decades and with the monetary reorganization, I find myself in a complex situation economically, having no legal income or retirement.”

The third stage of registration of mopeds and electric motorcycles began on the Island on June 7 and will run until December 31, 2022. Owners of scooters [called ‘motorinas‘ in Cuba] did not have to register but now they do, and they must get the driver’s license and license plate. continue reading

Alberto already went through the process, the same one that is required of those who get about with gasoline engines, and he has everything ready. But the permission to operate as a private carrier with these vehicles does not exist.

“Incorporating scooters into passenger transportation would be a good way out of my financial situation and an economical alternative for those without a job, like me,” he argues. “Including electric transport, it would be a great help at those times in Santiago de Cuba when gas is scarce, something that has been happening often.”

The only electric transportation authorized for cargo and passengers is tricycles, which can carry out this activity since April 1 of this year, according to a rule by the Ministry of Transportation.

“I wish they would give me a transportation license to carry passengers on my wife’s scooter in my free time, since I work as a custodian one day and rest two,” says Oscarito, who works in a state parking lot and also needs extra pay at a time in which the crisis has become even worse, and the work regulation has increased the cost of living in Cuba.

“I urgently need another source of income, because since prices increased, I feel suffocated, and the salary barely counts. In my job they keep an electric tricycle, and this equipment they do allow to operate as private transportation,” he emphasizes and asks why the same treatment is not given to scooters.

Miguel Angel, owner and driver of an electric motorcycle, laments that his machine, having the same appearance as a gas-powered motorcycle, is excluded from this type of license only because it runs on electricity. “My scooter is a Puma of the same model as the gasoline Puma, and even so they have not authorized me to carry passengers,” he protests.

In an absence of regulation, there are those who risk taking action without having any license. “I bought an electric Puma with the idea of doing business with it. I use it for carrying passengers and I always have to look out for the police, but so far I have been lucky,” says Rodolfo, a 52-year-old driver who refuses to wait for a legal change.

“I wish they would authorize private transportation for those of us who have scooters, to be able to work legitimately, but I can’t take it anymore with the slowness of those who make the laws in this country.”

Translated by Mary Lou Keel

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