I Am Cuban!

Willy Chirino and Alexis Valdés have created this new song with the collaboration of Arturo Sandoval. (Capture)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Eloy M. Viera Moren, Madrid, 20 March 2021 — A video clip posted on the internet a few days ago shows three young non-commissioned officers wearing uniforms of the Ministry of the Interior performing a song in response to the song Patria y Vida (Homeland and Life). The origin cannot be specified, but judging by the uniform of one of them, even equipped with the regulation whistle with its chain to the epaulette, they certainly seem to be members of the forces of law and order. Such an eyesore would not deserve a comment if it were not for the initial phrase: “Sixty years of this great nation; 62 of this Revolution”.

First, dressing up as police to intimidate by this music those Cubans who think differently is absolutely anti-national, and sounds more like the dogs in George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm, who disappeared as puppies and then became the dangerous bodyguards of the pig Napoleon when he came to power.

In order to define Cubanness, it is indispensable to turn to Fernando Ortiz. Among his works and articles on the subject, he conceived it as a “condition of the soul” that requires “the conscience of being Cuban and the will of wanting to be Cuban”; no other reference to place of residence, ideological preference or political thought. Likewise, he denounced that “our synthetic intellectual characteristic is ignorance” — an epithet more characteristic of the young authors of the song, to say the least. continue reading

On March 15, the same day on which the laughing stock was released, another piece by Alexis Valdés was premiered, sung as a duet with Willy Chirino, accompanied by a group of Cuban musicians, including a brief performance by composer and performer Arturo Sandoval. As far as I know, the idea arose during the presentation by these and other artists sponsored by several members of the European Parliament in order denounce the hardships of the Cuban people. Sixteen days later it was released, despite the urgency, a true offering to the nation from the feelings of quality and enduring.

With a fusion of genres, it has, however, the flavor of a son Cubano. Sandoval’s virtuosity in his brief solo spiced up the performance in the best tradition of his brilliant predecessors Félix Chapottín, the Louis Armstrong of the son Cubano, or Julio Cueva, who made Paris vibrate with the conga.

All of them outstanding trumpet players, Chapottín had no known political affiliation, Julio was a consistent communist (by the way, he died in Havana in 1975, submerged in anonymity) and Sandoval considers Marxism to be one of the greatest misfortunes suffered by this country in its history. All of them are Cuban and qualify among the most apt to express Cubanness through music.

Our oligarchs, masters of populism, have been capable of erasing genuine exponents of popular music such as Sandoval or Chirino from broadcasting, just for thinking differently. When to this is added an “excessive professionalism” (I quote Ecured, the Cuban official platform), the musician becomes absolutely unknown. Such a qualification is found in the page dedicated to Aurelio de la Vega, universally known as composer, instructor and orchestra conductor, described as “colossus of Cuba and the world” in the Diario Las Américas.

With more than 90 years of active life, he has been forced to spend 62 of them in exile because he considers that Cuba suffers from “a totalitarian communist government with a capitalist business system.” The criticism of his professionalism is due to the cultivation of atonalism as a tendency in many of his compositions, as if the work of Harold Gramatges, who held prominent positions in the communist leadership of culture, were not equally complex.

The ruckus motivated by Patria y Vida has generated, on the one hand, a significant amount of responses from the government, mostly marked by mediocrity; and on the other hand, the aforementioned composition, which was made with skill and professionalism. Disregarding likes, dislikes and even “data mining”, this ideological battle has been lost by the Cuban government.

The reason is that talent cannot be forced (not even with money) to generate lasting works, even less from a false and insubstantial patriotic feeling. An eloquent testimony of this nervousness is the newspaper Granma’s announcement, 25 days after the premiere of Patria y Vida, about the inclusion of the topic “political-ideological subversion on the internet” among the issues to be discussed at the Eighth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba.

As genuine an expression of Cubanness is the work of the communist Julio Cueva with his Tingo talango, as the most elaborate of Arturo Sandoval, to the definitely atonal and complex of Aurelio de la Vega. We are all equally Cuban by the will of wanting to be so, although motivated by a similar diversity of possible worldviews. For the time being, with much good Cuban music still to be heard, I say goodbye, along with Valdés and Chirino: “I am Cuban, and no one will be able to take away my being Cuban”.

Translated by: Hombre de Paz

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

Cubans Discover the Virtues of the ‘Food Truck’

A ’Food Truck’ outside the Iberostar Parque Central Hotel, in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 25 March 2021 — The street used to be full of tourists but now, on the stretch from the corner of Virtudes to Paseo del Prado in Havana, there is only one truck and a line to buy croquettes, sandwiches and soft drinks. Protected by the shadow of the imposing Iberostar hotel, dozens of people wait to take home cooked or semi-finished food.

The line has started to form very early this Thursday. Before opening the sides of the peculiar food truck (Cubans use the English name) the employee writes a “no” on the board next to some menu items that have already been sold out and reminds customers that “this is not a bodega (ration store) this is a hotel.” The truck gleams in the March sun and murmuring is heard in the line.

The opening has been delayed for almost half an hour, after ten in the morning when it should have started selling, and the employee apologizes as customers complain about the slowness, but “there are few hands and we already had to put the ice cream at another point of sale because it was what attracted the most people.” In a city marked by food shortages, not even the prices — hardly cheap — of the food truck make them give up going to the place. continue reading

The sun is biting and the white surface of the truck glows. “We read on the internet that they had opened the truck and that there was ice cream. We got in line at six in the morning but in the end the tubs of ice cream are no longer being sold here but around the corner, in a place that they set up for that ,” says a woman, as the employee points to the corner.

The vehicle, produced by the Spanish company GEM Soluciones Industriales, mimics the old Citroën H1, a light commercial vehicle produced by the French manufacturer between 1947 and 1981, and which was used in the sale of food on the streets of cities such as London and Berlin. The European company clarifies that, initially, the Iberostar truck was intended as a tourist attraction.

The plummet of foreign visitors due to the pandemic, together with the shortage of food that the island is experiencing, has converted the ‘entertaining’ food truck into a busy food outlet. Unlike its great-uncle, the Citroën H1, the truck does not move from the place and does not even have a cab for the driver, but functions as a trailer that must be pulled by another vehicle.

The line for ice cream around the corner at a hotel annex building. (14ymedio)

“I came to look for the precooked croquettes that they are selling. My choices are this line or waiting for hours in front of a store to see if they put something on the shelves. At least this is safer although it is not cheap. There is nothing cheap now in Havana,” comments a young man who has been sitting on the lid of a water tank since before the sun rose.

The food prices range from the 35 peso ham sandwich, the lowest figure on the blackboard, to a combination of three hamburgers with buns and soda that exceed 550 pesos and other more complex combos that cost a third of the monthly minimum wage. There are no sweets left, no cheesy ham bites and drinks are only served with food.

“I came to order three roasted chickens for a birthday that I have tomorrow, but the chicks are, in truth, quite small,” laments a lady who arrives and sees the small size of the chickens. “Something is better than nothing,” another customer replies. “If you are going to buy those frozen chickens, you can’t find them and the store where they are sold only sells one per person.” The price of the combination that the woman is looking at is 750 pesos.

“The prices are not expensive if you compare them with what some home paladares (private restaurants) are selling, but of course, without home delivery this is not available to anyone either. They are prices that can be paid once but forget about becoming a regular of this truck,” adds a young woman who has carried a bag full of croquettes to take away.

At the beginning of the pandemic, when tourism began to decline and many hotels closed their doors, Iberostar Parque Central set up a home delivery service for food. There were ready meals and also combinations with different types of cheeses and cold cuts. “The phone lines were burning up, the people called desperately”, remembers an employee.

Given the abundance of orders, the administration of the place changed the service to ordering only 24 hours in advance and changed the menu a bit. “Now what we sell mostly are ready-made dishes and these variants of pre-cooked croquettes, mainly,” explains the worker.

As he speaks, two young men come around a corner of Calle Virtudes. Each one carries a box with ice cream that they have bought in the neighboring store that now delivers the product to avoid greater crowds in front of the truck. One of them also bears a box and, on the lid, is the logo of the hotel chain. Nine letters that until recently meant only a prohibitive luxury for anyone who now lines up there.

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

The Case in Cuba Against Carolina Barrero for ‘Clandestine Printed Matter’ Has Been Shelved

Today we have won,” Barrero said in a message on her social networks. (Screen Capture)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 25 March 2021 – The criminal case against Carolina Barrero for “clandestine printing” has been shelved this Thursday, as she herself confirmed on her social networks.

“Together we can build a culture of law, we have to know that we can defend ourselves against arbitrariness and fight for our legal rights,” she wrote on her Facebook wall. “Today we have won. At the Infanta and Manglar station I was notified that the proceedings are being archived according to Article 8, subsection 2 (8-2) of the Penal Code and I was given the seized iPad.”

The article cited says that “the act or omission is not considered a crime, even including the elements that constitute it, as it lacks social danger due to the limited nature of its consequences and the personal conditions of its author.” continue reading

A police file was opened on the historian on February 7, after an interrogation in which a State Security agent urged her to return to Spain, where she currently resides, for making and disseminating drawings of José Martí wearing a shirt with stars.

According to what Barrero told 14ymedio on that occasion, State Security also searched the house where she was staying in Old Havana and seized her iPad, the printed drawings, and some pages with signatures collected online demanding the resignation of the Minister of Culture Alpidio Alonso.

“State Security accuses me for this printed image. It is a Martí made of stars, with the trace of the tenderness and the dream. There is not a hint of offense in that drawing, it is all respect and illusion,” Barrero wrote on her social networks, During the interrogation Barrero availed herself of her right to remain silent and did not comment on the accusation. “If they are going to build a case against me for this to put me in prison after a summary trial like they do, let it be clear to them, they are not going to blackmail me or threaten to build an alleged crime. I told them yesterday, I did not hide making it, I would print it a thousand times. ”

The complaint against Barrero was made by Lieutenant Colonel Kenia María Morales Larrea, an officer who has dedicated herself to threatening artists like Tania Bruguera in recent years. Morales has also participated in police searches of the homes of activists and independent journalists.

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

Electric Tricycles Sell Like Crazy for Dollars in Cuba

The motorcycles will begin to be sold in the coming days in the network of state stores. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 23 March 2021 — Those who visited the store that sells in hard currency (MLC) on Infanta Street, in Centro Habana, on Monday, could not believe it: for sale were the first electric vehicles for private sale in more than half a century. Two models of electric cargo tricycles were on display, at prices that were also astonishing: one, at $3,895, and another, with more capacity, at $6,900.

The vehicles will begin to be sold in the coming days in the network of state stores, although for weeks they have been marketed on government digital platforms.

“I believe that these tarecos don’t cost that anywhere in the world, they are bandits,” lamented a curious man who came to see the tricycles, which must be paid for in a single transaction and with a magnetic card in foreign currency.

The prices of the motorcycles are unattainable for most workers, much less in foreign currency. Among them, the farmers, a sector that cannot raise its head in an agricultural country, need this type of transport but do not have access to dollars. continue reading

“They are very expensive and there are no payment plans, so there is no one who can buy that,” complains Gerardo Cabrera, a farmer from the Guanes area, in Pinar del Río, who assures that “such a tricycle is essential for what we do on this farm, but between the costs of electricity, fertilizers, bureaucratic payments and other costs, it is impossible.”

However, despite the prices, these types of vehicle sell like crazy. This is confirmed by the vendors in the shop on Calle Infanta. “These don’t last at all here, people have their ways of finding out [they’re going on sale] and they line up. The tricycles that we have sold don’t last 24 hours on display and the problem is that the demand is high; this type of thing hasn’t been for sale for a long time,” he explains, and specifies that the fact that they are electric does not matter to the customer: the main attraction is that “it is a light vehicle.”

“They are prices for rich people, but at least there is that option. Before you used to die with old bills in your pockets and you couldn’t buy anything that rolled, but we don’t even have horses left because they were stolen to eat them,” says the farmer  Cabrera by telephone. “I would feel like Alain Delon on one of those tricycles, but I wake up and realize that I’m not even Panfilo.”

Tricycles are also widely used by private couriers to transport products, especially fruits, vegetables and meats, but so far most of those that perform this function are pedal powered. In less than a year these electric vehicles in private hands have begun to be seen circulating on the streets of Havana.

Outside the Luna restaurant in the town of Guanabo, curious people stop to look at a blue convertible tricycle belonging to a nearby self-employed person. Boastful of his vehicle, the man tells 14ymedio that his brother bought it from abroad through one of the most popular sales portals the sends products to the island.

A tricycle similar to the one owned by the self-employed man from Guanabo, without a dumping mechanism. (porlalivre.com)

“The good thing about having these types of tricycles in Cuban stores is that you save yourself from depending on an emigrated relative to do you the favor of buying it for you and that you do not have to wait the whole bureaucratic process for it to be delivered to you once its bought, which in my case took more than six weeks,” explains the man, who is self-employed.

“Those for sale now are more multipurpose, because they have a cab and you can put a good cover over the back, so they can be used for more things, but still very few arrive,” he explains. “People line up for weeks and it’s not easy to buy them.”

The $3,895 model is assembled on the island by the company Vehicles Eléctricos del Caribe (Vedca), which began operating last year in the Mariel Special Development Zone. It is one of the most promoted brands in recent months both on social networks and on other digital platforms.

According to the administrator of Vedca’s Facebook page, who calls himself Ray Motos [motorbikes], the vehicle has a “strong and resistant chassis, giving the vehicle a load capacity of one ton.”

The $ 6,900 model is from the Ming Hong brand, based in the Chinese city of Suining. Although they have not been as publicized by the Government as the Vedca, Cuba’s official press published a few months ago that three motorcycles of this brand were on tour in the Cienfuegos municipality of Abreu, donated, incidentally, by the United Nations Development Program to the 26th of July Farmers’ Cooperative.

On the island, the Ángel Villareal Bravo Industrial Company of Villa Clara, known as Ciclos Minerva, has produced this type of tricycle since 2019. It currently has another five models for heavy cargo and passengers in the testing phase and is studying the incorporation of two quadricycles, according to a story in the local press published this Monday. The new tricycles could be commercialized before the end of 2021.

Since the end of last year, electric tricycles have been incorporated into public transport in the capital, and according to official newspaper Granma, by 2021 the Government plans to manufacture new vehicles in the country with the same objective.

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

Flat Rate Internet in Cuba: Between $52 and $1,000 a Month, and Only for Programmers

Etecsa office in Candelaria, where Nauta Hogar [home internet service] is sold. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana | 24 March 2021 — The Cuban Telecommunications Company, announced on Tuesday the first flat rate for web browsing for private workers on the Island. The new ADSL Internet Service, managed by the state telecommunications monopoly Etecsa, is exclusively intended for self-employed persons with a computer equipment programmer license (PEC).

On its website, Etecsa assures that the measure will strengthen “the Cuban industry of computer applications and services” and aims to improve “the performance and functioning” of private workers.

According to the legal definition, the computer equipment programmer is one who “develops, markets, implements, deploys and provides technical support for computer programs, applications and services through contracts with natural or legal persons.” Most of those who have that license on the Island are dedicated to programming software, creating applications and installing programs. continue reading

The number of people who will be able to access the service is difficult to know because the PEC license, which began to be issued with the economic reforms promoted by Raúl Castro in the past decade, stopped being offered in 2017 when the Government launched a process to regulate and order self-employment.

It was only in February of this year that the reopening of PEC licenses was announced but, so far and according to testimonies collected by 14ymedio, the new issuance of licenses is paralyzed until the new list of private occupations comes into operation.

The flat rate service for programmers will allow Internet connection access through asymmetric digital subscription line (ADSL) technology. “This offer includes the installation and contracted data service through the use of digital links that permanently interconnect a computer network to other networks, in accordance with the quality specifications that are defined,” explains Etecsa in its statement.

The connection speed will depend on the technical conditions required by the businesses, the service does not have time restrictions and includes the option of enabling international mail.

The prices vary according to the internet speed required: 512/128 Kbps, at 1,250 pesos per month, until reaching the maximum that is offered, which is 6,144 / 1,024 Kbps at a cost of 24,125 pesos; this latter is the equivalent of 1,000 USD per one month of service.

With regards to contracting for Nauta Hogar (home internet service), the method is postpaid and the self-employed person must have a Nauta account. Should the individual not have an account, “one is enabled for free and it can be recharged by any of the established routes.”

Etecsa clarifies that the Nauta Hogar will have a connection speed of 2,048 / 1,024 Kbps and the enablement will cost 250 Cuban pesos (CUP). The monthly price will depend on the service that is contracted: 240 hours for 2,000 pesos (8.30 CUP / hour) or 480 hours for 3,000 pesos (7.20 CUP / hour). The additional hourly rate for the two offers will cost 12.50 pesos.

Criticisms of the services announced by Etecsa have not been long in coming. Most of the comments on the official Cubadebate site lament the high prices of the flat rate and the requirement that one have a PEC license to be eligible to apply for it.

“The offer is appreciated, the price greatly excessive taking into account the international costs for a higher speed service,” comments an Internet user by the name of Pedro. An opinion shared by reader Raly: “Why doesn’t Etecsa make special offers for teachers and students who need it so much in these days of connectivity? Why don’t they sell us phones in the currency with which they pay us?”

“How much revenue should a programmer have for any of these offers to be profitable?” Asks Sixto, another commentator. “These offers could be profitable for a group of programmers of between three and five, associated as SMEs. But small companies have not been approved. These small companies are key to innovation,” he adds.

Self-employed persons interested in Etecsa’s offers should make the request by email to offers.tcp@etecsa.cu. The documents to be sent are: photocopies of the authorization card to carry out work on behalf of a PEC and an identity card, a signed request specifying the connectivity package to be contracted for and, “in case the interested party is not the owner of the telephone line where the service will be installed, there must be written authorization from its owner.” After the request is approved, they will inform the client which office to go to to sign the contract.

Access to a flat rate has been one of the demands most repeated in recent years by customers of the state monopoly. The #BajenLosPreciosDeInternet [Lower Internet Prices] campaign reached its peak in mid-2019. In its first edition, in just 24 hours, the hashtag became a trending topic on the island.

Etecsa responded by labeling the promoters of the campaign as “mercenaries” and blamed the US embargo for the high prices of services.

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

Decalogue From a Cuban Journalist for a Politician

If a journalist tends to shy away from something, it is press conferences, meetings, organized events and marches. (Pxhere)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 23 March 2021

1. Forget about the murals you knew as a child, the press cannot be the space where you post at will ideas and calls for action. It is good that it be so, because there is a life and world beyond your party. Journalism must deal with many other things.

2. Generate news, but important news. If a journalist tends to shy away from something, it is press conferences, meetings, organized events and marches. Rarely does something newsworthy emerge from such events. So, jump into the news: run a marathon, overcome a problem, help others, provoke a change… Make a difference.

3. Brighten up your language. Journalists and editors are not here to amend your vocabulary, or even to look for synonyms if your expression is poor. If you do not like how your words are written, it may be time to take a public speaking course, to read, to dare or to seek an advisor. It’s not our fault. continue reading

4. No, what you have to say is not the most important thing. That’s what they told you in the old school of politics, but there are people suffering, triumphing and provoking changes that exceed you in importance. Accept it and get over it, because they are our goal and our reason for being as journalists.

5. Never say that they do not speak of you in the press or that the newspapers do not mention any of the marches, calls to action or meetings that you have mentioned. You may not realize it, but saying “they don’t mention me” only sinks you, makes you look like someone unimportant. Be proud and triumphant.

6. The intrigues, the scuttlebutt, will give you an audience for a short time, but politics is not a soap opera, and always trying to earn revenue from conflict will take its toll on you. Gossip sells only for a moment, but seriousness and perseverance last much longer.

7. When you are going to attack a journalist because you did not like her writing or because he didn’t repeat the sentences you wanted to read, you should know that we are not an easy or passive trade. We are going to shout with each of our cells, because when you touch one journalist you touch all the journalists.

8. If you want to offer anonymous information and demand discretion, you have every right to the protection that any source deserves. If a journalist violates this maxim, you have the absolute right to complain and call out their lack of ethics. But the same is true in reverse. Do not seek complacent silence when you did not specify that it was a secret.

9. If you don’t want to be criticized, don’t talk. Every time you speak a sentence you will be subjected to public scrutiny. That is neither right nor wrong: it is what it should be. Only the person who does not take sides remains outside the diatribe, so thicken your skin and stop complaining about how the press treats you.

10. If you are looking for complacent and servile journalists, you will have to make your own “official press,” a sounding board for your words. The democratic game includes the corrosive acid of the media. You don’t like it? Castroism prolonged a way of making you feel more comfortable… but it is called dictatorship.

The Public and Private Debate and the Cuban Communists

A tanker truck delivers water in the streets of Havana. Throughout Cuba, many residents rely on these trucks because of leaks and breaks in the water pipes. (14ymedio)

14ymedio biggerElias Amor Bravo, Economist, 19 March 2021 — The Cuban communists have decided not to settle for applying the absurd ideas they have regarding economic affairs within the island, but now, whenever they can, they try to impose them in international forums when they have the floor. Exactly what they do not do in Cuba with those who think differently or are not “within the revolution.”

For this reason, it is convenient to highlight what type of aberrations are said in these international forums, by whom they are said and what the objectives are behind such proposals. As the kind reader of this blog imagines, I am referring to some statements by the Vice Prime Minister of Cuba, Inés Chapman, on the occasion of a High-level Meeting on the application of the 2030 Agenda objectives and goals related to water,  that expressly called for “the cessation of commercial manipulation of natural resources by large transnational companies” and the state newspaper Granma has echoed this.

Without clearly explaining what is meant by this “commercial manipulation” it seems clear that the Cuban communists have decided to make friends around the world. Ask their Venezuelan partners about the manipulation of all kinds relating to Venezuela’s oil, or the Chinese who travel the world, with their state corporations, especially Africa, taking control of all strategic raw materials. They even look at them too, because the Canadian or Dutch companies that exploit nickel mining in Cuba, maybe they also act that way. continue reading

It is hard to believe that in the 21st century the government of a country would speak in an international forum in this way and manner, attacking the bases that make up the globalization process associated with the new technologies of the fourth industrial revolution, which are unstoppable.

Instead of trying to take advantage of these environmental trends, a representative of the Cuban communist government is saying, in some way, that we must stop the transnational companies that are behind these processes of world economic integration.

It’s as if they have woken up from a dream that began in the middle of the last century, and they find a reality that, obviously, they do not like because they do not understand it. The Cuban communist regime’s thinking on issues using the left-right scale became obsolete many years ago, but they stubbornly  continue to make fools of themselves in international forums, and then later to say that foreign investment does not reach Cuba because of the US blockade.

I imagine Cuba’s Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment, Rodrigo Malmierca, calculating the economic cost that these statements by Señora Chapman may have on the business expectations of potential foreign investors in Cuba. Nothing good, of course. Some of them will have packed their bags and taken the first flight back to their country, the minute they hear these types of messages.

Malmierca knows that he cannot protest, because the vice minister has spoken with the authorization of the communist party, which is above everything in Cuba, so the only thing he can do is think about the Helms Burton Law and other trifles to justify the collapse of foreign investment this year and the next, and the next. Errors of this type end up resulting in the weeds and cobwebs in Mariel’s Economic Development Zone, which are the only things it has served for.

Cuba’s communist leaders must be aware that this stale and angry message against the private business sector, which they launch in international forums, is exactly the same one they apply to a 22-year-old girl who only wants to return to her country or to a pushcart vendor whose merchandise is confiscated.

This approach is out of place, and it is time to change. It is useless to defend obsolete, not very credible positions, and to become a false champion of some “human rights” that, later and in Cuba, they do not respect, be it water, or freedom of the press and assembly. It is the same, they are rights, and it is not understood why some are, while others are proscribed. They do not talk about that in international forums. It is much better to condemn embargoes and attack the transnationals,

The ideological burden and the absurdity of Cuban communist positions comes when Señora Chapman considers  it much more important to protect water and natural resources, which is the subject she spoke about at the United Nations forum, claiming “the strong political will of the governments to promote international cooperation.”

And, on the other hand, she considered very negative what she called “the commercial manipulation of natural resources by transnational companies” which in her opinion, unlike the kind and benign actions of governments in defense of the common good, has as its only objectives “to privilege the generation of financial mechanisms for the mobilization of technologies.”

I insist, ask the Chinese how this is done, and they will give you a clear and simple answer. The solution is, in relation to water, for the Cuban communists “to promote the creation of funds and financial mechanisms for the mobilization of technological resources with a view to increasing the delivery of drinking water, environmental sanitation and the sustainable management of ecosystems, in order to support the wellbeing of the people.”

Perhaps a committee from this forum should investigate the water leaks in Cuban cities due to the poor state of the infrastructure, or the utility rates after the Ordering Task (Tarea Ordenamiento). They could then verify that what was said by the Minister for “drinking water, environmental sanitation and sustainable management of ecosystems, for the well-being of the peoples” is left outside this increased public spending, and increase in state control and leaving less to the private sector.

Fortunately, these forums are attended by representatives from many different countries who know that in the use and exploitation of water, private and public cooperation is essential for the management of resources, contrary to what Señora Chapman and the Cuban communists say.  And, therefore, that there is a clear and firm political will on the part of the governments of all countries to implement active collaboration with private companies, many of them transnational, in areas such as the sustainable use of water, infrastructure development, capacity building in the area of water and hydraulic resources management, innovation, technology transfer and adaptation to climate change.

It is just that the Cuban communists want everything to be just a of the state alone. These types of messages, completely outdated, must be boring in a context of the world economy in which this animosity between the public and the private has, fortunately, and for years now, been set aside in the interest of a better life.

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

Young Cubans’ Nightmare

Some young people’s parents allow them to go out alone, but most spend much of their time at home. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 22 March 2021 — Alicia Quevedo’s dream was to turn 18 so that she could go out with her friends at night, stay over at her boyfriend’s house and be allowed to spend a weekend at the beach. On January 11th, the expected day arrived, but two months later, she has not yet been able to fulfill a single one of her three wishes. Her mother and her grandmother insist that she stay home and avoid unnecessary visits.

“The challenge of having adolescents confined for the year this coronavirus crisis has lasted has been very tough. Young children are harder to take care of, physically, it is true, but teenagers do not like to be under the family’s radar 24/7, they get very rebellious and anxious”, says the mother. “Sometimes I relent and allow her the occasional short visit, but most of the time she is at home without being able to see her friends or go out with them”, she adds.

And of course, that is what Alicia wants the most, she’s dying to see her friends. “My mother spends the day watching what I do, watching that I don’t smoke, don’t listen to that music or do not talk to a certain friend whom she dislikes. In normal times she would not even know what I do, but of course, now we are together all the time and she does not take her eyes off me”, she laments. continue reading

“In normal times she would not even know what I do, but of course, now we are together all the time and she does not take her eyes off me”

In general, parents of adolescents find it difficult to explain the dangers posed by COVID because they feel invincible.

“My daughter watches the news and knows perfectly, according to the data, that her age range is not the most problematic and that makes it very difficult for me to convince her to stay home, I have to get tough. I even talked to a psychologist but she told me that it is normal, that at that age it is a problem to make them follow the current measures because they want to see their friends and be able to go out and in no way understand to what extent social distancing helps them keep them away from contagion”, she explained.

According to this mother, the specialist recommended that she speak clearly to the young woman and tell her that the problem is not in them, that the important thing is to make them see that they could be asymptomatic carriers and infect others. “I tell her, look, you can’t know if your friends are well or sick, and if you catch it, nothing will happen to you, but if your 76-year-old grandmother gets sick she could die, that’s how hard it is. I spoke to her that sternly but she still complains”.

It is a consensus among psychologists that, for adolescents and young people, being with friends is the most important thing in their lives. One of these specialists who spoke to 14ymedio – asking to remain anonymous to avoid problems at her workplace – commented that one has to “have a talk with the kids” and listen to what they are feeling in order to “try to understand them”, and for them so see that the family understands how frustrating the isolation is for them.

It is a consensus among psychologists that for adolescents and young people, being with friends is the most important thing in their lives. (14ymedio)

“From time to time you can be flexible in some of the measures. Letting them talk on the phone and spend time on social networks can help fill that void in socialization that they are living through right now. One has to find ways to motivate them at home, with family board games, watching a movie or a series together, activities that involve everyone”, she recommended.

The mother complains that there are things that do not help, because “not all parents take the measures seriously” and that makes it difficult to make her daughter see the severity of the problem. “There are some parents who are not complying with all the established measures, and allow their kids to be out on the street all day. So, what can I say to my daughter when she looks out the window and sees one of her friends playing dominoes in the park or sitting on the benches talking?”

She also says that her daughter is very distressed because she is “missing out on things: she missed her best friend’s 15th birthday party, her theater workshop graduation, and her boyfriend’s birthday party. But I can’t risk her being where there are so many people because I have to care for my mother. Besides, the last thing I want right now is to have any of the family hospitalized”.

 A survey conducted by UNICEF at the end of last year shows that the COVID-19 crisis has had “a significant impact” on the mental health of young people in Latin America and the Caribbean

A survey conducted by UNICEF at the end of last year shows that the COVID-19 crisis has had “a significant impact” on the mental health of young people in Latin America and the Caribbean. The study collected the comments of 8,444 adolescents and young people between the ages of 13 and 29 in nine countries in the region and broke down feelings they had to face during the first months of the pandemic, specifically in September.

Some 27% of the participants said they felt anxiety and 15% were depressed in the last seven days, while 46% reported having less motivation to do “activities that they normally enjoyed”. According to the study, young people’s perception of the future has also been negatively affected.

However, other adolescents have looked for better ways to pass the time and, within the pandemic, they have found motivations. Jennifer de la Vega is now finishing twelfth grade, but according to her grandmother “she is helping high school boys” who live in the building with reviews of the subject where she considers herself “a specialist”, and where many of her neighbors “are lazy”: mathematics.

“I go to their houses and help them solve the tele-classes exercises. I also explain the new content. It is a bit like playing teacher, something that I liked to do a lot when I was little, but now my students are not stuffed animal puppets, but friends from the building,” says the girl who confesses that her friends at school made fun of her for being “always on time” and always studying.

“I also like to read a lot. I have downloaded several books on the phone and spend hours on it. I also want this to be over, but I am taking advantage of my free time in productive things to avoid going crazy thinking about what I am missing. Like many, the arrival of the coronavirus has changed our routines and I have tried to make it better, not only for myself, but also for those around me”, says Jennifer.

Maceo Park, which normally welcomes young soccer fans, looked deserted this Friday afternoon. (14ymedio)

The parks where young people usually gather in Havana are empty. Maceo Park, which normally welcomes young soccer fans, looked deserted this Friday afternoon. The same panorama was seen in the Parque de los Mártires, in Infanta and San Lázaro, and also at the intersection of Línea and L Streets, in the El Vedado neighborhood. Despite the disappointment, most of the young people are at home, waiting for the nightmare to end.

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Insatiable, Etecsa Seeks to Take Over Remittance Business in Cuba

On March 10, a resolution was published in the Official Gazette that allows the enabling of a mobile wallet managed by Etecsa. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 19 March 2021 — “Two recharges with bonus in a single month, they must be very hard up for money,” thinks Lázaro Miguel, a 27-year-old young man who makes a living in Havana updating mobile operating systems and selling vouchers for cell phones. So far this year, his work has multiplied because the state telecommunications monopoly Etecsa has launched two recharge offers every month from abroad with an additional bonus.

“Normally a monthly offer was made on significant days or holidays, but now in less than 30 days two have been launched and that is because they are desperate to get fresh money,” says the young entrepreneur who shares a small table at the foot of a staircase with another self-employed person also dedicated to mobile phone service in Centro Habana, a few steps from Plaza de Carlos III.

“When there is a recharge with money from abroad we make good money but now with the monetary unification it is difficult to calculate how much we are really going to have for ourselves,” he warns. To buy these offers, you need an international card, Visa, MasterCard or another card, which allows you to make purchases on internet payment gateways. continue reading

Lázaro Miguel has a brother in Madrid and, together with a friend, they have devised a simple service. “They offer to deliver remittances in pesos at the door of clients’ homes in Cuba.” In Spain they collect these remittances in euros and use the money to buy telephone recharges, which Lázaro Miguel resells in pesos on the island. Those pesos, less the commission charged by the two brothers and the friend, will be delivered to relatives in Cuba.

The triangulation of remittance-recharge-remittance money is a common business that has gained strength on the island after the withdrawal of Western Union, the main financial company in charge of channeling the money sent by emigrants to their families on the island. With the closure of that company, popular creativity has appealed to cryptocurrencies, bank transfers and the use of telephone recharges as a way to get cash.

According to calculations made by an expert who participated in negotiations with Etecsa, this company obtained gross total revenues of about 260 million dollars in 2015. After deducting expenses (40 million), the monopoly was left with a net profit of 220 million. This was five years ago and, according to the same source, the profitability of the state monopoly, which keeps its income secret, has grown substantially since then.

The company seems to have discovered a new vein with the management of emigrants’ remittances. On March 10, Resolution 116/2021 of the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC) was published in the Official Gazette of the Republic , which paves the way to turn the communications monopoly into a new way to send remittances to the Island.

In the text of the new legislation it is clear that Etecsa asked the BCC for a “modification of the license granted” previously for its payment management and in this way to “include among the activities authorized to develop, the enabling of a mobile wallet as part of the operation of the Transfermóvil platform.” With the new resolution, natural and legal persons will be able to manage with their bank accounts from their cell phones and make payments on national electronic commerce platforms.

Although Etecsa has not provided many details about its new service and the legal document does not clarify all the gaps about the announcement, apparently, the money that is recharged as a balance from abroad, is reflected in pesos on the mobile line, can be used to pay for basic services and purchase combos on digital platforms.

It is specified that the income in the mobile wallet will have as a source “the magnetic cards associated with the bank accounts” on the Island and “the balance they have associated with their mobile phone service.” The resolution also makes it clear that the use of the money will be solely electronic.

Around March 8, Women’s Day, the state monopoly launched one of its well-known top-up offers with bonuses included. Every month, Etecsa promotes for several days the possibility of buying from abroad credits for mobile phone customers on the Island, but these options are not available to residents within the Island, although there is no shortage of tricks to access them as well.

“You pay me in Cuban pesos and I’ll top-up in dollars,” offers a witty informal merchant in various ads on classified sites. “For 800 CUP I give you a 500 balance + 1 GB bonus + 50 minutes + 50 SMS”, he explains in the text that sends potential customers to a WhatsApp account “for more details.”

“Not all dollars are the same, some dollars are more than others,” warns Fonseca, a telecommunications agent who provides his services on one of the busiest avenues in Centro Habana, Calle Reina. “People come with their card in MLC (freely convertible currency) to see if they can recharge with a bonus, but those fulas [dollars] don’t work, they have to be the outsiders, the fresh ones.”

With the magnetic cards of Cuban banks, all state-owned, you cannot buy the recharges with vouchers that are sold through digital portals. These offers are not even marketed in the Etecsa offices for clients of national bank accounts in foreign currency. “You have to buy them with Visa, Mastercard or other foreign cards,” reiterates an employee of the monopoly’s office in the town of Guanabo, east of Havana.

The new electronic wallet service may not solve this difficulty because it will only initially allow payments in Cuban pesos within the country, but it is a hope for those who seek to promote the mobility of virtual money without going through long lines at banks or ATMs.

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Will the Next Congress of the PCC Clear up the Doubt About Property: “Coming” or “Going”?

The VIII Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba will be held between April 16th and 19th, 2021. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 17 March 2021 –With one month remaining until the Eighth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), it has been reported that in the process of updating the 274 Guidelines approved in the Seventh Congress, only 17 will remain, 165 will be modified, 92 will be eliminated and 18 will be added, so that the new document will only have 200 guidelines.

A suggestion is being made to modify 80 paragraphs of the 342 being proposed regarding the document of the Conceptualization of the Economic Model.

It should be assumed that this last writing has a hierarchical level higher than the guidelines, therefore, any variance in the wording of a given topic, however slight, will need to be read with great care.

In the five years that have elapsed since the previous great partisan edict, neither the issue of the practical application of the Guidelines (liniments in popular slang) nor the theoretical formulation of the conceptualization have constituted material for debate in the official or in the independent press, and even less so on the street. “Who cares?” Thalía would have asked in the popular theme song. continue reading

I would like to point out the evolution that this issue has had since April 2011, when in the Sixth Congress of the PCC approved that “in non-state matters of management, the concentration of property in legal or natural persons will not be allowed”

At the risk of appearing too optimistic, I would like to point out how the issue of property concentration will remain both in the new guidelines and in the rewriting of the Conceptualization of the model.

Since it is a core issue, I would like to point out the evolution that this issue has had since April 2011, when in the Sixth Congress of the PCC approved that “in non-state matters of management, the concentration of property in legal or natural persons will not be allowed”

It turns out that after five years, on 18 May 2017, to be more precise, the Third Plenary of the Central Committee of the PCC agreed to raise the issue to the next congress in this way: “In non-state management issues, the concentration of property or material and financial wealth in non-state natural or legal persons will not be allowed. Continue updating regulations to prevent them from contradicting the principles of our socialism”.

Perhaps the most significant thing is that “material and financial wealth” was added and that the prohibition was based on “the principles of our socialism”.

When presenting the Conceptualization approved as a proposal at that same meeting of the PCC, the wording of the problem required two paragraphs:

“The appropriation by the holders of non-state forms of ownership and management of part of the surplus of the results of the work of contracted people takes place in a social context in which socialist relations of production prevail, as opposed to social systems based on the exploitation of the work of others”.

“Consequently, the concentration of property and material and financial wealth in non-state natural or legal persons is the object of regulation, so as not to allow it to run counter to the principles of our socialism.”

Here, “what was prohibited” (not allowed) became “subject to regulation”.

It is noticeable that in the highest instance where these details are discussed there are two positions: one, that of prohibiting the concentration of property, and the other, that of only regulating it

However, in April 2016, at the conclusion of the Seventh Congress, the paragraph in the Guidelines was approved in this way: “In non-state forms of management, the concentration of property and wealth in legal or natural persons will not be allowed, but will be regulated”.

And in the Conceptualization approved by that same congress: “The concentration of property and wealth in non-state natural or legal persons is not allowed in accordance with the legislation, in a manner consistent with the principles of our socialism”.

In this back and forth it is noticeable that in the highest instance where these details are discussed there are two positions: one, that of prohibiting the concentration of property, and the other, that of only regulating it and at the same time including in what is prohibited or regulated “material and financial wealth”.

The question of whether the existence of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will be approved in the next congress depends entirely on how this point is written, both in the Conceptualization and in the Guidelines.

The formal approval of SMEs is a point of no return in the often slowed down economic reforms suggested by specialists and demanded by entrepreneurs. Small and medium-sized companies that have a wholesale market and the right to export and import; entities with legal personality backed by laws that protect the freedom to produce goods or provide services, to set prices and hire workforce without being subject to taxes that suck dry their profits.

We’ll need to see if it will follow the line that there can be nothing “that runs counter to the principles of our socialism”.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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Cuban Government Will Not Allow Karla Perez to Return to the Island Because She is “An Instrument” of Subversion

Pérez had to return to Costa Rica this Thursday after being stranded for several hours at Panama’s Tocumen International Airport. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 19 March 2021 – Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs made it clear this Friday that it will not allow the young journalist Karla Pérez to return to the country because she is “an instrument” at the service of the United States to “destabilize” the country.

“They are using an emigrant with several years outside of Cuba” to “carry out a media campaign,” said Yaira Jiménez Roig, the ministry’s director of Communication and Image, at a press conference.

According to the official, Pérez’s close ties with her “mentor” Eliécer Ávila are known. Ávila is the founder of the opposition group Somos+ (We Are More) and has been a resident of the United States for three years. “She is an instrument, it is not the first time she has been used” for “actions outside the law and destabilizing against Cuba.” continue reading

Pérez had to return to Costa Rica this Thursday after being stranded for several hours at Panama’s Tocumen International Airport, after being refused permission to board her plane to the island.

The journalist, expelled from the University of Santa Clara “for political reasons” in 2017, had an appointment with immigration this Friday to process her request for refugee status in the Central American country.

“They gave her a card that accredits her status as a refugee applicant, which serves as a legal identity document for all essential things in that country,” Lizet González, Pérez’s mother, told 14ymedio speaking from Cienfuegos.

The Cuban government also expressed its rejection of what it called a “media show” of five independent activists and journalists who appeared the day before at the ministry’s headquarters in Havana, and demanded to know the reasons they denied Pérez entry to the island. The official spokeswoman said that the event was “a spearhead” and pointed to the independent media ADN Cuba. “It is a digital, anti-Cuban publication, financed by the US Government and supported by federal funds.”

Jiménez dedicated most of her speech to exposing how ADN Cuba [Cuba’s DNA], non-governmental organizations, activists, influencers and politicians, “fabricated” what happened with Karla Pérez on social media and misrepresented it “in order to generate manipulated perceptions of reality.”

However, she made little reference to the entry ban. “Now they are simply trying to reinstall her in the country for subversive purposes,” she said. “Her stay in Costa Rica was not by chance; there is even a deputy there who maintains a strong relationship with violent groups in Miami.”

She finished her explanation by stating that “in Cuba, as in all countries, there are immigration laws that establish regulations in the legal framework and that govern the action of the immigration authorities. We have the same right as any other country to defend ourselves.”

In April 2017, when Pérez was a first-year journalism student in Santa Clara, she received a phone call to notify her of her expulsion from the Marta Abreu University. The young woman was linked to the Somos+ movement and had published criticisms of the Government on digital sites.

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Cuba: The Darkest of All Springs

A Cuban soldier stands guard next to the US Interests Office in Havana, on front of a sign with the number 75, placed in solidarity with the 75 dissidents detained in the 2003 Black Spring. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, Havana, 20 March 2021 — They arrived at dawn and in many cases they even seized the family photos. It was March 2003 and the news emerged in pieces as the police searches dragged on and neighbors began to speak out about the patrols, the uniformed men and the arrests. Those days would later be known as the Black Spring, a repressive wave that left deep wounds but also shaped the current face of dissidence on the Island.

Those were times when Cuban officialdom was emboldened. With a still active Fidel Castro at the helm and a constant inflow of petrodollars from Venezuela, the Cuban regime believed that it could touch the sky with its hands and control every cloud. Since the beginning of the century, it had launched one ‘offensive’ after another, in energy and the social sphere with the recruitment of thousands of young people who also dispensed gasoline at the service stations, distributed refrigerators or doled out blows in an act of repudiation. The economic reforms that the crisis of the Special Period forced had also been halted.

The war in Iraq was beginning and it seemed to Castro that international attention was going to be entirely focused on the conflict that was emerging in the Middle East. After all, he had gotten away with it on previous occasions when complicity, the fear of making Havana uncomfortable, or ideological sympathies silenced more than one arrest and convictions of dissidents or excesses in prisons. The repressive offensive of that March was a way of saying that the times of absolute control within the country were back even though the dreaded Soviet bear was no longer supporting it. The “top leader” wanted to send a strong message. continue reading

But the raids did not go as calculated by the autocrat. International rejection was unanimous. Even old allies of the Plaza of the Revolution, such as the Portuguese writer José Saramago, made it clear that patience and collusion had come to an end. “I have come this far. From now on, Cuba will continue on its way, I will stay,” declared the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature as a result of the arrests of 75 opponents and independent journalists, a phrase that was never published in the official media of the Island, which continued to speak of “unrestricted” support for the offensive “against the enemy.”

That year was the date of one of the most important ruptures around the globe of the illusions of those who continued to believe that a just and beautiful revolution had been installed in the Caribbean. Those who had any doubt that those bearded men who came down from the mountain ended up building a dictatorship in which dissent was synonymous with betrayal, found the spring of 2003 more powerful evidence than any other argument. It was not necessary to say much, it was enough to read the judicial records against the detainees where owning certain books, having a typewriter or receiving correspondence from abroad were all described as crimes.

But those arrests and subsequent convictions not only had a definitive influence on how the world viewed the Cuban system, but also on the subsequent dissident movement that was formed on the island. The rejection of the measures and the demand for the liberation of the 75 became a flag that united, like few previous causes, the Cuban opposition. The Ladies in White Movement played a defining role in that confluence and the new groups that were born in the heat of the demands were less partisan and more focused on human rights. The independent press multiplied. Castroism had planted the tree where hangs the rope of its own international loss of prestige and of the social discontent that today has it in check, surrounded by criticism and stripped of all greatness.

Eighteen years later, the Cuban regime has had time to acknowledge that that blow of intolerance only brought it problems. It created dozens of heroes, brought together wills and gave rise to the emergence of a much broader and more plural critical sector than the one that existed before that March 2003. Although the Gag Law — under which the Group of 75 was tried — is still in force, the arm of power is fragile, discredited and has hardly any allies. Now it would take tens or hundreds of early mornings like those of the March 2003 to shut down all the voices that oppose it.

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Cuba: Leave, Protest or Surrender

For those loyal to a repressive regime, leaving or protesting are the only, and mutually, exclusive options. (EFE/Archive)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, José Azel, Miami, 17 March 2021 — Exit, Voice, Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States* is the title of a book published in 1970 by economist and political scientist Albert O. Hirschman. The author was born in Germany in 1915 and lived a full and adventurous life. After receiving degrees from the Sorbonne and Harvard, he volunteered to fight on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War.

During WWII Hirschman helped many prominent European intellectuals escape from occupied France across the Pyrenees to Portugal. He served in the U.S. Army’s Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA.

Hirschman held distinguished academic posts at Yale, Columbia, Harvard, and the Institute for Advanced Study. In 2001 he was named one of the 100 Best American Intellectuals. He died in the United States in 2012 at age 97.

Exit, Voice, Loyalty became an influential and must-read book for social scientists. Hirschman’s thesis proposed that an individual in an unfulfilling or failed relationship has three choices: he can walk away, complain or suffer silence. continue reading

The choices are applicable in business, personal and political relationships. Though Hirschman focused mainly on organizations, political parties and consumer choices, his work is essential for understanding how immigrants and exiles choose between escape, opposition or silent resistance.

According to Hirschman, “exit” means walking away, leaving one’s country, moving to another nation state. “Voice” is akin to protest, choosing to articulate discontent. And “loyalty” implies submittal, pledging allegiance to a governmental regime or its ideology. It is worth reflecting here on the alternatives available to the citizens of oppressive regimes such as those of Cuba, Venezuela and other countries where the option to protest has been curtailed.

Bear in mind that, even in repressive regimes, there is always a certain loyalty to the government. All regimes need at least a modicum of acceptance from some sectors of the population to maintain the legitimacy and operational capabilities of their institutions. If there were no loyalty, the political and economic institutions of the regime, such as the armed forces, could not operate or survive. This leaves to “leaving” and “protesting” as the only, and mutually exclusive, options.

In Hirschman’s analysis, protest is an effort by citizens to change the regime’s practices. He defines it as any attempt to change, rather than escape. Protest is a complex concept because, he write, “it can manifest itself from weak complaints to violent protests.” He also points out that if those with the most influence escape, the protest loses its most important voices.

When leaving is not an option, then protest become the only possible choice. In Hirschman’s view, “protest increases in importance the opportunities to leave diminish.” On the other hand, the easier the option to leave is, the less the incentive there is to protest. “Therefore, the possibility of leaving can stunt the development of the art of protesting.” Knowing this, oppressive regimes have sought to remove their political enemies and critics from the national conversation.

Hirschman’s formulation of leaving, protesting, or submitting is powerful and valid. However, it overlooks the possibility of staying and resisting without protesting. For example, working as little as possible in the socialist system. He also did not mention the option of leaving in order to mount a more forceful protest. This was the case with my generation of Cuban exiles who left the country in search of the means and opportunities to return and overthrow the oppressive regime in Cuba. The landing by Brigade 2506 in 1961 and other actions undertaken in the 1960s and 1970s are examples of this approach.

Today our voices are older older and muffled. But we remain loyal to freedom.

*Translator’s note: For this article the book’s title was translated into Spanish as “Marcharse, protestar o someterse” (Leave, Protest or Surrender).

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Cuban State Security Props Up a Building in Ruins

State Security agent who prevented reporter Luz Escobar from leaving her home on March 8. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Camila, Havana, March 14, 2021 — One afternoon I was summoned to the principal’s office. The teacher at the front of the class looked confused. I was his best pupil. I had not failed a single test. I had even been head-of-detachment the year before. In short, a puntualita, a well-behaved student. And puntualitas never got summoned to the principal’s office. My teacher was perplexed by the accusatory tone of the other teacher standing in the doorway. “Leave everything here and go see the principal,” he ordered.

“Did you say there is no freedom of expression here?” she asked.

Suddenly I realized the gravity of my situation, not because of what I had said but because of the consequences. They would write up a report on me —  a “stain,” as they called it — and attach it with a clip to my school file.

In a matter of minutes, I was overcome with the fears of a typical 14-year-old. I worried my mother would scold me for saying such things (though not for thinking them) as she does to this day. I would not be going to ’La Lenin’, the [country’s most prestigious] high school which she hoped would be my stepping stone to a college degree. I realized I had just lost nine grades, nine-years worth of perfect conduct. continue reading

“You say these things because your family lives overseas,” the principal added. “You don’t know what they mean. It’s what you hear them say when they come here.”

I remembered a comment I had made a few days earlier. It was not in response to anything someone had said. It was not part of a discussion. I said that in Cuba there was no freedom of expression in the way someone might say the bread at the corner store smells like stale flour.

At that age I had a naive understanding of what freedom of expression meant: to say what you want, where you want, without fear of reprisal. I knew the meaning of what I had said but not its implication. And right there, standing in the principal’s office, with both hands clasped behind my back, I understood that in Cuba there are definitely things that cannot be said. The principal explained why.

The call came one night last summer as I was listening to the news. I had earlier put a voice, a face and a name — a fake name but a name nonetheless — to the officer in whose presence I suddenly felt. I had been waiting for his call for a long time. Not because I thought I was guilty — nothing could be further from my mind — but because I saw how journalists who work for independent media were being treated. I assumed that at some point it would be my turn but in my naivete, and I say this with all sincerity, the prospect did not scare me.

But a bit more than a year earlier, arbitrary arrests of journalists were happening more frequently. There were stories of being blindfolded, heads pressed to the floor, of being interrogated for hours, placed under house arrest, summoned to a police station where they took your statement as if you were a criminal.

It was then that I began feeling uncertain. What would the experience be like? What would they ask me? Would my hands shake? Would my voice crack? Would I break down in tears? Would I give in to extortion out of fear? No matter how much I tried to prepare myself psychologically, no matter how much I played out possible scenarios, only in the moment, when I was face-to-face with them, would I know my limits.

I have an image in my head of a Cuban journalist who locked herself in the bathroom when she came home after an interrogation. Until then, I had thought only about the moment itself, of the desperation for it to end. The image lodged itself within me. An interrogation in a house of detention or a police station eventually comes an end but the anxiety never ends.

The new dilemma becomes whether to base your behavior on the fact that you now have “a ’compañero’ who watches your every move” (and by this I mean anything from buying food in the underground market to wearing the surgical mask correctly, any detail for which you are nominally committing a crime in this country), or letting everything go to hell because, if you choose the first option, there is no chance of having a healthy life.

It is the rage you feel after the interrogation that really gets to you, not the interrogation itself. In the moment, you feel no emotion. You focus on what they are saying to you, on what they want you to say versus what you are saying. How to respond when you do respond. What they deserve to hear and when to say nothing. In the end, it does not matter what you say because nothing will convince them to end the questioning.

“You are a pingúa,” was the reaction of the friends I told. By pingúa — a term derived from pinga, slang for penis, connoting manliness — they mean brave. Bravery is saying yes when you have have the option of saying no, without consequences, and that is not the case.

In an interrogation we do not have that decision-making power. Missing one appointment leads to missing another, and another, and another. The same as agreeing to be questioned and disappointing them because they expect the perfect conduct you displayed in your early years. It is a loop that you only get out of by leaving the country or by giving up independent journalism.

A friend stayed with me the morning of my first interrogation. We talked about different things, nothing important, anything to distract me from the seriousness of the situation. I ate something. I prepared my bag, taking out the keys, the cell phone, the tiny photos that I always keep in my wallet. I was surprised at how calm I felt. I went through the exercise of recalling in detail the afternoon in the principal’s office, when I was in high school. I was comforted in the knowledge that now, almost two decades later, I was still right.

I adopted the mantra that it was not about me as an individual. To State Security we are just weeds to be yanked out by the root to prevent us, at all costs, from disrupting the balance of power that props up a government and a system in which fewer and fewer people believe. We are just tools they use to achieve their ends.

“We don’t want you to lose your job. You need some of that to survive but it can’t be all there is,” they suggested.

State Security did not care, or did not seem to care, if you, the journalist, were investigating how much the president got in salary and benefits, or where the money was coming from to build the Fidel Castro Study Center in the middle of a pandemic.

They didn’t care if you were reporting on how the children and grandchildren of high-ranking military officials acquired properties, businesses and Cuban-owned companies registered in offshore tax havens, or how many people have contracted and died from Covid-19. All they cared about was finding out where the money you earned as an independent journalist came from.

They use this bit of information, which they share with gossipy neighbors who ask how much you earn or if you now spend in US dollars, to allege that the US State Department is subsidizing independent Cuban journalism. It also allows them to continue playing the victim. They remind you that they can also use this information to open a criminal case against you, which could result in fines or imprisonment under the Law for the Protection of National Independence and the Economy. The gag law.

As far as they are concerned, we exist, think and live by their grace. They constantly convey the message that we are subject to their power — a ludicrous kind of power but power nonetheless — with the capacity to screw up our lives. They use their revolutionary yardstick to measure our fidelity, our loyalty, our submission to their government. Not only journalists but anyone who does not fit within their scheme of things. By that logic, to State Security we are all potential dissidents.

What could be more closed-minded or intransigent than that?

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Editor’s note: A version of this article was published in English by the UK-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), which supports independent journalism in countries without freedom of the press. In this case, the journalist has not been identified for security reasons.

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

Deserter From Nicaraguan Anti-Riot Police Reveals He Was Trained By Cubans

Julio César Espinoza Gallegos, in an interview for the Nicaraguan channel “Noticias 12.” (Capture)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, March 17, 2021 — Julio César Espinoza Gallegos deserted from the Nicaraguan police in August of 2018, four months after the beginning of the big repression in April, but only now has he spoken with his country’s press, which he told, among other things, that his training was carried out by Cuban officials.

“I passed my anti-riot course with Cuban people and the training is for psychological preparation: that we go forward, forward, and never back. One is prepared for those types of shocks,” he told Nicaraguainvestiga.com.

“They had come to Nicaragua with the objective of training men and not women. They would say that if we were going to back down, we had better get out of the ranks of the Police,” he says from his new residence in Costa Rica, where he exiled himself in November 2020 because of the threats he was receiving.

Espinoza, who is now 32, joined the corps in 2012, in the Department of Special Police Operations (DOEP). Today, he considers himself tricked by the Sandinista propaganda that, he says, insisted to new agents upon their entry on how much the government of Daniel Ortega does for each one of them and that convinces them that the protests by Nicaraguans are “sheer madness.” continue reading

As part of his training, the ex-agent speaks of mentions of a supposed Yellow Revolution. “They knew that at any moment what happened in April was going to blow up, because the anti-riot police were prepared for that,” he says.

In April of 2018, when Nicaraguans began their protests against social security reforms, Espinoza joined as a reinforcement. “They send me to Masaya, which is where it blows up, and I end up injured by a stone-throwing,” he says. That was what kept him apart during three months of active repression.

In that period, and especially starting from the incident in which various opposition figures were killed in a home in a fire started by police and paramilitaries, is when, he says, he opened his eyes and realized that he had not sworn to repress the population, for which reason he decided to resign.

“The commissioner…tells me to work with them because they’re going to promote me, they’re going to give me rank, they’re going to assign me a vehicle and a weapon. I tell them no,” he remembers. At that moment, two intelligence people from El Chipote, the feared prison of the Somoza era, interrogated him and warned him of the consequences if he didn’t return to work.

As he says, a few days later they came to find and arrest his entire family. Espinoza was accused of terrorism, vandalism, kidnapping, and treason.

“Because I didn’t want to repress, they take these reprisals against me,” he says now from an exile which the pandemic has complicated and while he waits for a response on his asylum request.

Although it wasn’t until this crisis that Espinoza left the corps, he accuses the police of having “bloodstained hands” since long before and maintains that those who participate do so because “they like to kill… The police isn’t a job that is going to fire you, in the police you have to receive orders and if you have to kill, you’re going to kill,” he affirms.

Nicaragua will go to the ballot box on November 7, a process that many fear will be irregular. This Sunday, the ex-guerrilla and ex-Sandinista minister of health Dora María Téllez, now a fierce critic of the regime, asked the European Union to take measures before a fraud can consume them. “The Ortega regime doesn’t understand sweet words, the Ortega regime understands blunt messages,” she said.

According to the EFE agency, this Tuesday the Commission of Good Will, made up of Nicaraguan intellectuals, announced a plan to unite the opposition, with the goal of confronting the elections as one bloc. The group finds itself “adjusting the strategy for the rapprochement of the democratic opposition blocs, for which reason working sessions are being developed with the support of the Organization of Independent Professionals of Nicaragua and the Protest Group for Nicaragua.”

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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