Cuban Brigadier General Humberto Francis Pardo, in Charge of Fidel Castro’s Security, Dies

General Humberto Francis Pardo, who died this Monday in Havana. (Archive)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar / Natalia López Moya, Havana, 28 December 2021 — Reserve Brigadier General Humberto Omar Francis Pardo died this Monday in Havana, as 14ymedio confirmed on Tuesday. His body, which will be cremated, is at the Calzada y K funeral home, located at Calzada number 52, in El Vedado. A source close to the family told this newspaper that the military man had suffered from Alzheimer’s for years.

He was born in Santiago de Cuba in 1945 and studied in the Soviet Union between 1965 and 1969, according to the Internet forum Secretos de Cuba. “When he returned to Cuba, he carried out military missions, at least in Angola, Ethiopia and Nicaragua,” says this website.

As brigadier general, Francis Pardo was in charge of the the Ministry of the Interior’s Personal Security Directorate, the invisible apparatus with the most power on the island, and was in charge of Fidel Castro’s security. He had under his command the “elite” brigade that has more than 3,000 troops, “shock troops” to face protests.

Considered one of the most powerful Cuban military personnel, Francis Pardo was replaced from his duties as Head of the General Directorate of Personal Security (DGSP) in August 2016. Raúl Castro replaced him with his grandson Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, son of Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, the “czar” of the State company Gaesa. continue reading

Until that moment, within the military scheme, General Francis at the head of the DGSP commanded an anti-attacks brigade that was made up of snipers and experts in all types of explosives, in addition to the counterintelligence service, which in coordination with other State agencies controlled all the information of that brotherhood, the family circle and friends. Vice Minister of the Interior under Abelardo Colomé Ibarra, the military man was also in charge of an international relations department that coordinated with other secret services visits to Cuba by persons of interest and personalities.

General Francis was awarded the Order “June 6” of the First Degree in recognition of 55 years of accumulated service in the ranks of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior. His “consecration, skill and reliability performance, fundamentally in the organization and direction of protection activities for the main leaders,” of the Cuban regime was highlighted.

All the official reactions after the death of Francis Pardo were published long after 14ymedio reported the death of the soldier. The first communiqué was released by the Interior Ministry, which specified that Francis Pardo had “a brilliant record of service in protecting the physical integrity” of the main Cuban leaders and “in defense of the Revolution.”

It also noted that “his remains were on view” at the Calzada and K funeral home, “for a subsequent ceremony with the corresponding military honors.”

For his part, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez on his Twitter account described Francis Pardo as “a brave combatant of Personal Security,” who was “head of that troop of loyalists during 30 of his 56 years of service in the Ministry of Interior, under the orders of Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl.

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Charges Dropped Against Artists Over July 11 Protests in Front of the ICRT

“We are fighting forcefully and intelligently to put fish on the Cuban table,” an official told Cubadebate. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, December 30, 2021 — The artists charged with public disorder for protesting in front of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT) on July 11 learned on Thursday that the cases against them were being dropped. In essence, they were being acquitted.

The situation remains unclear, however, for playwright Yunior García Aguilera and curator Solveig Font, both members of the group, are both outside of Cuba.

Actor Reinier Diaz told 14ymedio that when he went to the police station at Zapata and C streets to sign the legal document dismissing his case, he inquired about the status of García Aguilera and Font and they told him, “Their situations are different,” without giving any further information.

García Aguilera tells 14ymedio that he knows nothing about the status of his case and that Font “is looking into it.”

“I just signed the document dismissing the charges over the July 11 protest in front of ICRT. I was not intending to make a public announcement but I feel indebted to many people for this outcome,” wrote historian Leonardo Fernandez Otaño on social media. continue reading

In the post he thanks friends who helped him support himself during this period and those who were subjected to interrogation because of their closeness to him. He also thanked his parents for “all their suffering,” which he says is ongoing, and neighbors who “ferociously” defended him from assault and attempted acts of public repudiation.

The young historian says he is “grateful” that the charges have been dropped “because no one can hide the truth” but also admits to feeling sad that it was “the privileges of being white and intellectual” that saved him. “The young people from La Güinera were not so lucky,” he writes. In late December thirty-two people from this impoverished Cuban town were sentenced to up to twenty-six years in prison for their participation in the July 11 protests. Fernandez Otaño describes their sentences as “unjust and politically motivated.”

Other ICRT protesters who had effectively been placed under house arrest as a precautionary measure included Edel Carrero, Javier Perez Rodriguez, Juan Carlos Saenz Calahorra, Raul Prado, Gretel Medina, Daniel Triana and Aminta Calzado.

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“15 Years Ago, They Told Us That They Were Going to Demolish the Building That Fell This Thursday”

Alderete says that he has lived adjacent to the building that collapsed for 16 years, but he clarifies that he used to live on that same corner that collapsed on Thursday night. (14ymedio)

14ymedio biggerLuz Escobar, Havana, 18 December 2021 — At 9 p.m. on Thursday, December 16th, on the eve of Saint Lazarus Day, Miguel Alejandro Alderete Recio and his 81-year-old mother, Rosalba, were listening to a radio program, El Nocturno at their home. A roar broke the tranquility. A wall of the adjoining house, at the corner of Angeles and Monte streets, had collapsed. Neighbors took to the streets to search for possible victims under the rubble. Ambulances, police and firefighters arrived. They found the lifeless body of a passerby, Rolando León.

Alderete is uneasy, he talks about the shock that he experienced at that moment, and both his mind and his body still feel it, his voice too. This Friday, after four in the afternoon, he brewed coffee for a visit and, after saying goodbye, he spoke with 14ymedio about the anguish and disgust that has remained after the collapse.

“I saw it all,” he says, and his hands move up and down in an effort to point out every crack in the ceiling, every dampness, every wall about to collapse. The noise from the central avenue, increased by the work of a crane and dozens of onlookers who still come to see what happened, dies down when one walks through the entrance at Monte 429.

Rosalba has just arrived from the hospital where she spent several hours after the collapse on Thursday night. (14ymedio)

Alderete says that he has been in that place for 16 years, adjacent to the building that collapsed, but he clarifies that, before, he lived in that same corner that collapsed on Thursday night and that, being “up there”, they always had “shelter in place order”, to move to one of those places of temporary accommodation. He remembers that continue reading

the place was in “terrible condition” and that one day one of his brothers “had his foot sunk into the ground in such a way that he fell down completely”. He claims that if it hadn’t been for a beam that he tripped over, he would “have gone down completely”.

As a result of this incident, the authorities took the whole family to a nearby but unventilated place and it was then that they offered to go to where they live to this day.

“When they relocated us in that place, it was like in 2005 or 2006, we had to do an enormous amount of cleaning and enable the premises to barely live there. A year after being here they told us that they were going to demolish the upper part but they did not come until today, after what happened, happened. They did not demolish at the time and look at the demolition now, after there has already been one death,” lamented Alderete.

He also remembers that a bus once collided with a column on the façade and knocked it over completely. “The top of the bus hit the door. Luckily, there was no one there at that time, but a man who stood guard there, who lives next door and his name is Claudio, almost got killed” he said.

He says that as a result of the column that fell “they put two sticks there and until the sun came up today” it was the same. “That was 10 years ago and they never took care of it again… ah! but now that this collapse occurs, they immediately come to remove the old props and put in the new ones, do we have to wait for that?” he wonders. “No, we shouldn’t wait till people die” he answers himself.

“I saw it all,” says Alderete, and his hands move up and down in an effort to point out every crack in the ceiling, every damp spot, every wall about to collapse. (14ymedio)

“Then, afterwards they will say that you’re a counterrevolutionary but no, you have to tell the truth. I am stubborn, after the collapse no one has come to hear from us yet, the ones who arrived were the demolition workers but Housing has not come here, I’m very upset”, he says, very angry.

For a moment, his disgust turns into indignation, he would like to express his discontent on the street but he fears for his mother’s health: “Do you know why I didn’t go out to the street? Because of my mother, who is there and yesterday they had to take her to the Calixto García Hospital because her blood pressure was so low, she got very nervous. We felt the noise and I opened the door and went out, so I see the movement and the collapse, after a few minutes they had to take her by ambulance”.

Rosalba, who is listening to the entire conversation from a chair, says: “Before, I lived where the collapse took place, now I feel better, but I got so scared that I had tachycardia.” Her son is very concerned about his mother’s health and the consequences that living in such poor conditions may have for her. “Just like that, my mother will get messed up too, it’s too much, that lady is 81 years old and I’m praying that before she closes her eyes, she is able to see her little house, the only thing I miss is that one day she can live like normal people”.

This man, who has worked at the old Woolworth’s on Monte Street for 28 years, first as a cook and now as a confectioner, does not understand why “we have to wait for Havana to fall down” to make the right decisions. “Those Government people come here to Quisicuaba, and yesterday they were there with Silvio Rodríguez, but nobody has come here”, he criticized, referring to the delivery of the National Community Culture Award to the singer-songwriter, which took place the same day, very close to the collapse.

From Calle Ángeles, a brigade of workers pruned the Yagruma tree that comes out of Alderete’s house. (14ymedio)

He remembers when the tornado “completely engaged Havana and they immediately gave shelter to those affected” and he was outraged when he saw on the news that the Diez de Octubre nursing home, which had been closed for nine years, was immediately enabled for 70 families. “Do you have to wait for the tornado to pass to do that? No, that’s totally disrespectful”.

This man does not stare at each crack without doing anything, but he considers that the repairs that the property needs are so extensive that they are beyond his ability. “I have thrown a pile of melts (waterproofing mixture) on that roof to contain the water but it is too much, cracks always appear and the melt lasts a month and then it’s leaks and leaks. I cannot wait for them because it is always the same slobber and they never do anything, it’s too much. ”

“I repeat, because of my mother I did not go out [to demonstrate] on November 15th, for my mother, I did go out on July 11th, and for my mother I did not go out yesterday or today. It is only because of that lady that I refrain, because if I throw myself onto the street, something will happen to her. Until when? One is here, being a good citizen, waiting, and they are doing whatever they want, no, I’m very upset”, he insists.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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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.

‘If More Mothers Unite, We Will Achieve Our Children’s Release’

Barbara Farrat went on a hunger strike this Saturday to demand freedom for her son. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 14 December 2021 — The only gleaming corner in the home of Jonathan Torres’s family, one of the young people arrested after the protests on July 11th (11J), is the corner with the crib for the baby, who is almost two months old. The clean sheets, the mosquito net, the wet wipes and the neatly arranged disposable diapers, contrast with the rest of the house, a precarious construction on the Diez de Octubre Boulevard in Havana, with crumbling ceilings, rotten beams, cracks in the walls and damp stains. Here, you can breathe poverty, but also dignity.

Bárbara Farrat, Torres’s mother, abandoned the hunger strike that began three days ago this Monday night to demand her son’s freedom; he has been in prison since August 13th accused of attack, public disorder and spread of epidemic for having thrown a stone at the police without hitting anyone.

The young grandmother, who has become one of the most active faces in defense of the 11J prisoners, has said that she abandoned the strike because of her own mother, who suffered a spike in blood pressure yesterday that was about to cause a stroke, according to Farrat.

“I will not continue to worry about my mother. Her only grandson is in prison. I will not leave my mother fearing that she will have to bury a child,” she said in a video broadcast on social networks. continue reading

The young grandmother, who has become one of the most active faces in defense of the 11J prisoners, stated that she abandoned the strike because of her own mother, suffered a spike in blood pressure yesterday

The hunger strike was abandoned two days after Farrat, just 33 years old and suffering from health problems herself, received 14ymedio at her home, where she resides with her husband, Orlando Ramírez, and her son’s girlfriend – her grandson’s mother – who is 16 years old. The Havana woman, who never imagined that what life has handed her could be possible, told this newspaper what life’s been like in the last four months, with her son imprisoned and the constant pressure from State Security. She also regrets that Torres has only been able to enjoy his baby, born October 27th, “one half an hour at a time during the three visits he has had.”

Farrat declares that her son was caught up in the tumult of that day by chance. That Sunday, when Torres turned 17, the family was celebrating at home, but they ran out of drinks and her husband went out to buy something to continue the party. “We had the music on and hadn’t seen either the newscast or the information from Díaz-Canel saying that the combat order had been given,” she says.

At one point, she relates, the street “began to fill with people coming down the entire Diez de Octubre Boulevard,” a very scary situation, so she decided to go out and look for her partner. Torres, however, dissuaded her and asked her to stay home with his girlfriend, who was pregnant at the time, while he was busy looking for his stepfather (“although he calls him dad because he raised him his whole life”).

On Serafines Street, Torres found Ramírez, hidden behind a wall. “Up the street from Serafines, the police would not let anyone pass,” says Farrat. “Someone among the protesters said that the objective was to reach the Plaza de la Revolución and the officers stood on the Vía Blanca warning that no one else was going to go any further. It was at that moment that the shots and stones began,” he continues. 

“Someone among the protesters said that the objective was to reach the Plaza de la Revolución and the officers stood on the Vía Blanca warning that no one else was going to go any further”

He has already related several times what happened next: on Friday, August 13th, two agents of the Technical Directorate of Investigation appeared at the door of his house and took Jonathan Torres, whom they had identified in one of the videos broadcast in networks on the day of the demonstrations.

At that moment, he began his ordeal. Three hours after they took him away, she learned that he was not in the Acosta police unit, as the officers had told him, but in Aguilera, where she went with his son’s girlfriend. It was not until Monday, as he was finally transferred to the station, when he was first told that he was accused of public disorder, spread of epidemic and attack.

The instructor at that time showed the video in which Torres appears throwing a stone, but it can also be seen, he says, that it is the same stone that the police had thrown at the protesters. “He threw it and it fell 50 meters from where the policemen were standing, and it did not hit a patrol car nor hit anyone, it just fell on the street” says Ramírez.

After 14 days, her son phoned to say that he had been transferred to the Manto Negro prison in Havana, a former women’s prison converted into a prison for minors.

Farrat says that it has been “an odyssey” to face this criminal process, because initially they did not even want to give her her son’s file number. She then sought the advice of a family lawyer, who, since he took over the case, has already unsuccessfully requested six changes to the pre-trial detention measure that keeps the adolescent in jail, “He filed a seventh, which of course they will also deny him. By this Monday, December 13th, my son will have been in detention for four months and does not even have a petition from the prosecutor,” she protests.

Farrat has also denounced that her son, who suffers from coronary hypertrophy, has not had access to his medications for two months. “They not only wanted to play with my son’s freedom, but they were also playing with his life,” she came to denounce on the networks.

She too is not taking the medications she should be taking. She is HIV-positive, and, like her husband, has not taken her retroviral since August

She too is not taking the medications she should be taking. She is HIV-positive, and, like her husband, has not taken her retroviral since August. “I have been very busy and nervous with my son’s case, and although I have the medicines, I have not taken them,” she confesses. “I feel guilty that he is in prison, I can’t get it out of my head that I’m the one who should be in jail, and this is a way that I have found to punish myself,” she says confusedly, by way of explanation, crumbling into tears.

The pressure she has received from State Security is also affecting her health. Last Friday, when she returned from visiting her son, she saw the officer who has questioned her several times hanging around the neighborhood, without knocking on her door, but talking to her neighbors, whom, she believes, they intend to intimidate into “informing” about her and her family.

“I got sick, my husband had to take me to the hospital at midnight because I started with an asthma attack,” she says. The agent “had already been here on Wednesday with his threats, telling me that if I continued making complaints on social networks, he was not going to let me in to see my son.”

Orlando Ramírez intercedes: “The exact words were that he had been called by the head of State Security that runs the Western youth prison to tell him that, if his mother continued to make these publications talking about her son, it was very possible that she would not be allowed any more prison visits to him again.” The stepfather replied to the agent, whom he reminded that they could not question the boy without having his family or his lawyer close by.

Ramírez points out that Torres was offered a sentence reduction – “up to seven years” – if he “cooperated… Our politics, our ideology, are outside of him.”

“They told my son: if you can stop your mother from posting anything on social media, I’m going to give you calling privileges,” Farrat continues. “He only replied that he did not want privileges, that he only wanted what is rightly his: ‘The two calls that I get a week, I do not want anything I’m not entitled to.’ As for my mother to stop publishing, she should decide that, not me.”

Bárbara Farrat says that, even if she abandons her hunger strike, she will continue to denounce the government abuses, but she adds that “a single tree does not a forest make and more mothers should join” in her cause

 Farrat insists that her son only cares about his baby and his studies, he is in his second year of welding. “It was always clear to him that this decision to be a father so young and while studying could not affect me and my husband, that we are sick,” she says. “He always had our support, but he also understood that it was his responsibility, as it was my responsibility when I decided to have him when I was young. He often would leave school to sell bread, to be able to buy clothes for his little one.”

Bárbara Farrat says that, even if she abandons her hunger strike, she will continue to denounce the government abuses, but she adds that “a single tree does not a forest make and more mothers should join” in her cause.

“I know well that as a people we matter little to them” she says, referring to the authorities. “But I have received a lot of support on social media and I know that this pressure can get the government to give me an answer about my son.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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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 Adrian Lopez Gonzalez, Geandy Pavon, Waldo Perez Cino and David Virelles Win the Cintas Scholarship

The Grupo Matiz de restauradores, whose founder, Adrián López González (on the right), has won one of the Cintas 2021 scholarships. (Screen capture)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 15 December 221 — For the first time, the Cintas Foundation has recognized with its annual scholarship, endowed with $20,000, a Cuban resident on the Island, Adrián López González. Founder and leader of the Grupo Matiz de restauradores (Matiz Restoration Group0 in Matanzas, he was the recipient of the award in the architecture and design category.

Matiz was created in 2014 and among the restoration and conservation works that it has undertaken, most notable are those of the Sauto Theater and of the San Carlos de Borromeo Cathedral, in Matanzas. For this group, the award “is the impulse to a work sustained in a city that dreams its best face, our Matanzas.”

“The story behind the Heritage is our foundation and the Cintas scholarship has been the luck to know that we are doing well,” they wrote on their networks after hearing the news.

In addition to López González, the writer Waldo Pérez Cino, the musician David Virelles and the artist Geandy Pavón have received past Cintas scholarships, which is awarded to artists of Cuban origin in different artistic fields.

Pavón, who lives in New Jersey, says that this award has a “very special” meaning for him. “I believe that Cintas is the only award to Cuban artists that is offered in total and absolute freedom,” he told 14ymedio. “In Cuba there are other awards,” he continued, “but all are always subject to ‘good behavior’.” continue reading

The artist is also thankful that the award, “opens up immense opportunities” and exposes both him and his work to “other people, other institutions and specialists in the field of culture and art.”

“It makes me think that what has been done has not been so bad and it is an immense stimulus, apart from being an important economic stimulus to continue doing my work,” said Pavón, who, during the covid pandemic, launched on his social networks an ingenious photographic series entitled Quarantine: 40 days and 40 nights, in which he recreated, together with his partner, Imara López, scenes from classics in art history.

For the writer Waldo Pérez Cino, the scholarship is “a great joy and a great honor.” The latter, he points out to this newspaper, taking into account that “in recent decades the Cintas Foundation has recognized the work of authors such as Cabrera Infante, Reinaldo Arenas, Benítez Rojo and García Vega, along with contemporary authors such as Magali Alabau, Octavio Armand and Carlos A. Aguilera, speaking only about the field of writing.”

“As far as I know, there is no other institution that has been supportive in this way, and with that continuity, of the development of proposals by Cuban artists or authors,” says Pérez Cino, who lives in the Netherlands. In his case, he says, it will serve to support a novel which he has been working on for a long time, “one of those projects that extend more than one would sometimes like and that, precisely because of their breadth, are sometimes overlooked for others more immediate or urgent.”

Among the finalists of Cintas are the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, who competed in the visual arts category, and who has been in prison since the protests on July 11.

Art curator Claudia Genlui thanked, on behalf of Otero Alcántara, “all the people who made possible his presence in the nomination for the Cintas scholarship… Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara and the political prisoners in Cuba will not be forgotten. We continue working for a Cuba where we can create and work in freedom. Enough censorship for Cuban art and artists that are consistent with our reality,” she stated.

The Cintas Foundation was created with funds from the patrimony of Óscar B. Cintas (1887-1957), Cuban ambassador to the United States and patron of the arts, and has been awarded since 1963. The finalists of the contest are chosen by a jury of experts who enjoy international recognition.

In the last 50 years, this contest has honored the achievements of great Cuban artists in different categories such as Félix González-Torres, Teresita Fernández, Carmen Herrera, María Martínez-Cañas, Oscar Hijuelos, Andrés Duany, María Elena Fornes and Tania León. After receiving the award, the scholarship recipients become part of the Cintas Collection by donating one of their works to the Foundation.

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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.

Cuban Filmmaker Rolando Díaz Denounces the “Despicable” Acts of Repudiation to Repress 15N

Filmmaker Rolando Díaz (center) with actress Lynn Cruz and director Miguel Coyula. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 7 December 2021 — Repression on the island frustrated “through despicable acts of repudiation” the November 15th march (15N), events that marked “a before and after in the recent history of Cuba,” filmmaker Rolando Diaz denounced in Havana. The creator, who left the country in the mid-90’s, spoke to the public who attended the Acapulco cinema on Monday night to watch his film Dossier de Ausencias, a Dominican film that has just won the Best Production Award at the Festival Ibero-Latinoamericano in Trieste, Italy.

In his words, he not only rejected the acts of repudiation that took place against the activists who participated in the call for the Civic March for Change of 15N, but also sent a message of solidarity to young filmmakers of the Island who are suffering censorship by State institutions.

“Those without a voice have the right to have it. I consider myself part of the national cinema, especially of what has been accomplished by young, highly talented filmmakers, such as Carlos Lechuga, Miguel Coyula, José Luis Aparicio, Fernando Fraguela, Carlos Quintela, Heidi Hassan and Patricia Pérez. The last three are already in exile,” he said during the presentation that was part of the 42nd edition of the New Latin-American Film Festival, which takes place in the Cuban capital between December 3rd and 12th.

Díaz also considered that ignoring “the courage of those who only ask for the right to speak, think differently and demonstrate peacefully” would be “a cowardly act” for not recognizing those truths. continue reading

Speaking to 14ymedio on Tuesday, Rolando Díaz said that, for him, “it is very important” to make this type of “sincere and honest statement” because “the way the official press behaves” is already known

A director of well-known films, such as Birds Firing the Shotgun and En Tres y Dos, Díaz received a public ovation at the end of his speech, and he stated: “I cannot conceive of a country without diverse voices, fear, that fear that I feel for expressing these ideas now, it devours the soul. Those who like movies know what I’m talking about. Fear devours the soul, but dignity is the only antidote to eating ourselves alive.”

Speaking to 14ymedio on Tuesday, Rolando Díaz said that “it is very important” for him to make this type of “sincere and honest statement” because “the way the official press behaves” is already well-known.

“I am afraid that my press conference this Tuesday will only be used in terms of ‘just another one who was in attendance at the event, who participates in a film and no more’. I wholly reaffirm my statement from yesterday, and want to reaffirm that this is my true belief and my true feelings about my presence in Cuba at this Havana Festival.”

In his presentation at the Acapulco cinema, Díaz insisted that, although he is a Spanish national and has been living outside the country for 30 years, he is also Cuban and that, since he had not visited Cuba for a long time, he wanted to make that “kind of statement” before his public.

The director stated that his relationship with the Festival of New Latin-American Cinema “has been controversial” since he left Cuba, because some of his films made outside the country such as Melodrama, (1995), “were badly mistreated” and their “exposure was very limited.” Something similar happened with Si me Comprendieras, another Cuban-themed film, which was even banned from being shown at the University of Havana in 1999. 

“I wholly reaffirm my statement from yesterday, and want to state that this is my true belief and my true feelings about my presence in Cuba at this Havana Festival”

“Then I shot Cercanía in Miami, a film with Reinaldo Miravalles, Carlos Cruz and many other Cuban actors and it was not selected. I sent it to the Festival and it was not selected. Aissa’s Roads, a documentary that I also made in Spain about migration, was placed in an international documentary film show but it went under the table,”,added Díaz in his statement.

The filmmaker Carlos Lechuga thanked Díaz for his words with a post published on his Facebook profile, and he highlighted Díaz’s decency and courage to stand up and say things as they are.”

“I admired this director and now I do so much more,” he added.

In the same way, actress Lynn Cruz considered Díaz’s words very important and transcribed her statement on her social networks. “Because it is in this space where both institutionalized and independent people have been censored, where it is possible to question and criticize those who, protected by a cultural policy, exclude films, filmmakers, actors, and film professionals in Cuba.”

Translated by Norma Whiting

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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.

Andy Garcia’s Lawyer Confirms His Transfer to Guamajal Prison in Villa Clara

Andy García Lorenzo’s family members went to the prison to ask about the activist. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, December 8, 2021 — On Tuesday, Cuban political prisoner Andy García Lorenzo, detained following the protests on July 11th (11J), received a visit from his lawyer at the Guamajal prison in Villa Clara, where he had been transferred last week from La Pendiente prison in that same province. The young man’s family had presented a habeas corpus petition before the People’s Provincial Tribunal last Monday to request information about “his physical and psychological condition” after losing touch with the activist.

“The lawyer was able to see him. He was there for a bit over an hour with Andy,” the young man’s sister, Roxana García, told 14ymedio. “We still do not have details about why he was transferred but he [the lawyer] told us he was well. He sent us word that he was neither mistreated nor beaten. All we know is that he was transferred to Guamajal and that we will be able to see him this Friday, which is visitation day.”

Family members still have no news about a trial date and stated that García Lorenzo did not participate in the protests some of the prisoners in La Pendiente prison staged a few days ago. From that prison, several sources had denounced to his family that an unknown number of prisoners were transferred and their whereabouts were unknown, a situation which was denounced by several human rights activists and Archipiélago.

García Lorenzo is accused of “public disorder” and “contempt” following his participation in the protests of 11J and for which the prosecutor’s office is seeking seven years in prison.

His family members have demanded the activist’s release on several occasions. On November 15 they stood outside of their front door, dressed in white, as a way of responding to the call for the Civic March launched by Archipiélago. Furthermore, they have created a support network for political prisoners and a Help Group which has begun to receive and distribute donations among prisoners. continue reading

“This group was created with the objective of providing economic assistance, through the so-called sacks of food and other initiatives, to political prisoners in communist regime jails for the 11J protests,” states the information describing the initiative on Facebook. “Today these guys are subjected to abandonment by the dictatorial Government. Let’s try to make their days less difficult under these conditions until our country is free.”

In a conversation with this daily, Roxana García explained that “we’ve already collected quite a bit of money,” and that, although at the beginning, they did not have much contact with family members of prisoners, they’ve been able to advance their objectives.

On the other hand, on Tuesday, we learned that the trial for Luis Robles Elizastigui, “the young man with the placard” asking for freedom along San Rafael Boulevard in Havana a year ago, will take place on December 16th.

His brother, Landy Fernández Elizastigui, told 14ymedio his mother received the news in a call from an official from the Provincial Tribunal fo Havana. Fernández stated that Robles has been in jail for a year and that, according to his investigative file, the prosecutor accuses him of “enemy propaganda” and “resistance” and seeks six years in prison.

Luis Robles is the father of a young boy who recently turned two. His trial was scheduled for July 16th, but was postponed due to the 11J protests. The activist has denounced from jail that he has been tortured and mistreated; he was declared a prisoner of conscience this year by the NGO Prisoners Defenders.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Jonathan Torres’ Mother Will Start a Hunger Strike in a Church to Demand His Release

Bárbara Farrat Guillén with her son Jonathan Torres Farrat who was arrested on August 13. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 7 December 2021 — Bárbara Farrat Guillén, mother of Jonathan Torres Farrat, one of the young people imprisoned by the protests on July 11 (11J) in Havana, has carried out two 24-hour fasts and confirmed to 14ymedio that she will start a hunger and thirst strike together to the father of her son in demand for his release.

“The strike will start on the 11th [December] because the 10th is my son’s visit and I need to tell him the decision I made and to say goodbye to him since I don’t know what will happen,” Farrat Guillén wrote this Monday in his Facebook profile, announcing that he will make his protest publicly in a church, yet without specifying which, “so that everyone can see that it is real and they can come and support us.”

The young man, who turned 17 that same Sunday, July 11 and is asthmatic in addition to suffering from heart disease, was not arrested immediately, but a month later, on August 13, when he was identified in two videos seized by the police.

“I need to get my son out of jail. This whole process is not only affecting him, but also the whole family, even his son, just one month and ten days old,” Farrat Guillén told this newspaper in anguish.

In the videos that the police presented to accuse Jonathan Torres, Farrat Guillén told Radio and Television Mar, her son is observed with a stick and also that picking up a stone and throwing it. For this reason, they accuse him of “attack,” “public disorder” and “propagation of an epidemic.” However, so far neither the young man nor his family have been shown the prosecutor’s request. continue reading

“It is true that my son appears in a video throwing a stone but it was because there were hundreds of policemen attacking them [the protesters],” said Farrat Guillén in an interview with CiberCuba, in which she also assures that before arriving at the “evidence” that he accused her son, the investigator showed her numerous images “in which the officers are seen throwing stones” at those who were protesting that Sunday.

“Here [in the municipality of Diez de Octubre] there were shots. I know my neighbors who had gunshot wounds,” said the mother before asking: “What justice can there be in this country than for [throwing] a stone – because you are defending yourself, because you are an equal human being — they put you in prison and they are accusing you of a lot of crimes?”

The Provincial Prosecutor’s Office of Havana has denied so far, as Farrat Guillén confirmed to this newspaper, six changes of precautionary measures for her son, who has been in the jail for Young Men of the West for almost four months.

In Cuba, criminal responsibility is enforceable from 16 years of age. For people over 16 years of age and under 18, the minimum and maximum limits of penalties can be reduced by up to half, and with respect to those aged 18 to 20, up to a third.

Some 40 minors were detained after July 11 , despite the fact that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodríguez, assured that there were no prisoners of those ages in Cuban prisons. At present, according to a registry kept by the Cubalex Legal Information Center , 14 adolescents remain imprisoned.

Farrat Guillén told 14ymedio that she has felt supported by other mothers of the minors who are still in prison after 11J. Although there is currently no coordinated action, she announced that in the coming days several family members will demonstrate publicly to demand the release of their children.

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Damas Street in San Isidro Street, a Year After the Violent Eviction of Otero Alcantara

Calle Damas 955, in San Isidro, home of the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, as of today. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 26 November 2021 — A padlock permanently closes the two wooden panels of the 955 Damas Street door in Old Havana, which in the past was almost always open. According to many in the neighborhood, at the home of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and headquarters of the San Isidro Movement (MSI), “they always welcomed anyone.” Now, his figure is no longer visible in the doorway or leaning out the window as before. Since the protests of July 11, the artist has been held in a high security prison.

A year has passed since the violent eviction carried out by State Security to remove the group of hunger strikers and their companions from the property, who were demanding the freedom of rapper Denis Solís, and the outlook is now quite different.

This Thursday, November 25, Damas Street was passable, not like a year ago when police surveillance prevented it. From a staircase, music is heard at full volume, a Karol G song coming from the speakers. On the corner, a couple of boys fix a car, another cleans the roof of his pedicab while a young man charges his electric motorcycle.

“The block has been returning to normal,” says a neighbor. “I remember that in those days this was hell, even for us who lived here, they had us under control. The police and the officers had everyone scared, with threats, so that no one would get near Luis Manuel. But they could never screw up the relationship that that boy had with everyone. Here we adore him. He always said that what was his, belonged to everyone.”

The neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous, insistently compliments Otero Alcántara’s generosity. “It was tremendous, the neighbors felt that this was also their home. They passed by, talked, even took food
from the refrigerator if they needed it and ’Luisma’ said not to ask for permission.” continue reading

Solidarity, he argues, went both ways. “His neighbor also gave him food made almost daily. If he made beans, he would bring him some, as if they were family. He made himself known as he is and I tell you something: it is impossible not to love him.”

The neighbor relates that State Security managed to terrorize the area. Long before — and after – -the eviction on November 26, the artist lived harassed and persecuted by the authorities. Upon leaving the Manuel Fajardo Hospital where he was taken that night after several days on a hunger and thirst strike, he found his home besieged by police patrols and State Security officers, who from then on exercised 24-hour a day surveillance.

The government’s violent action against the MSI headquarters unleashed, the following day, an unprecedented protest by citizens, artists and intellectuals at the doors of the Ministry of Culture demanding that freedom of expression and the right to have rights be respected. Where will we meet? What do we do? Where are we going?  Were the questions that ran through the WhatsApp groups that was immediately created to coordinate a meeting on November 27.

Faced with the outrage and violence that many had seen on their cell phone screens, the reaction was to take to the streets, that place that in Cuba is reserved only for “revolutionaries”, according to President Miguel Díaz-Canel himself said during the day of protests on July 11, when Otero Alcántara ended up in prison again, where he has not yet left.

“When Luis Manuel was there, we felt safe, his brave attitude was contagious.” That is why, he says, on April 4 “the whole block” came out to sing Patria y Vida and shout “Díaz-Canel singao [motherficker]” in “the face of the Police” and helped prevent the arrest of Maykel Castillo Osorbo.

Now, “with him in prison, everything is different, there is no one who defends us from the abuses of the Police and it’s quiet here,” he laments.

Another neighbor on the block says that Otero Alcántara went to live with an aunt in El Cerro and almost did not return to Damas Street when he left Calixto García Hospital, where he was in custody for a month after another hunger strike he carried out.

“He just came to get some things and left quickly, because here there was the fixed guard of the State Security and the police patrol cars on the corner,” says the woman. “It is very hard what that boy has lived through, the only thing he does is art.”

A relative of the artist who spoke with 14ymedio remembers that the last time he visited him in prison, Otero Alcántara told him: “Living here has taught me that nothing belongs to anyone, if you want to watch a movie on television and the one who’s bigger and stronger wants to watch the ballgame, that’s what you have to watch.”

Although the artist was laughing as he said it, the relative did not have the courage to answer what he was thinking: “It is 955 Damas Street that is your house, Luis Manuel, not this dungeon where they have put you.”

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Electric Motorbike Fire Forces a Building Evacuation on Tulipan Street in Havana

The incident affected the garage of a five-story multi-family building located on Tulipán and Central streets, near Rancho Boyeros Avenue in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 24 November 2021 — A fire of medium proportions affected the garage of a five-story multi-family building located on Tulipán and Central streets, near Rancho Boyeros avenue in Havana, on Wednesday afternoon. The accident was due to a ‘motorina‘ — an electric motorbike — that was parked on the premises, according to several residents of the property speaking to 14ymedio.

The smoke caused at least four residents to be transferred by ambulance to receive oxygen. As this newspaper verified at the scene, an elderly woman and two children were able to walk out of the building on their own, although with coughing and breathing problems. In addition, another woman needed to be carried.

Just before, around 5:20 p.m., residents in the area began to smell a strong odor of burning plastic. “We went out to the balcony and the whole street was pure smoke,” a resident in the same block told this newspaper. “There was tremendous shouting because nobody knew exactly where so much smoke was coming from,” she added.

A few minutes later the smoke could be seen in several of the tall buildings that characterize the area and a strong smell of burned plastic spread throughout the neighborhood where several ministries continue reading

such as Transport and Agriculture are located, in addition to other official entities.”

It was a motorina that they had in the garage, it seems that it spontaneously burst into flames when people realized it there was already smoke inside the house,” explains another neighbor. “Now they are cordoning off the area and evacuating everyone in the building.”

Electric motorbikes catching fire is becoming more frequent in Cuba. Last September, a fire in a house in the city of Matanzas caused the death of a 19-year-old girl and wounded two, a 13-year-old boy and a 20-year-old boy.

Only a few months earlier, in May, another motorina fire caused the death of three members of the same family in the city of Sancti Spiritus, including a seven-year-old boy. The vehicle, which was plugged in to charge the lithium battery, exploded inside the house. The accident became the most serious of its kind in Cuba. In 2019, 208 fires of electric motorcycles with lithium batteries were recorded, 164 of them serious and 44 minor.

With the transportation crisis, electric motorcycles with lithium batteries have become increasingly popular on the island, a phenomenon that has increased since the product is also available for purchase in the state stores that only accept freely convertible currency.

In the last year, 10,000 electric units of 21 different models have been marketed, including motorcycles, bicycles, scooters and tricycles.

Official investigations revealed that among the main causes of the fires are reckless acts when charging electric motorcycles, for example leaving the lithium battery charger connected without the corresponding control, using inappropriate chargers, not cooling the motorcycle before charging it, replacing original parts of the electric motorcycle or the illegal manufacture of batteries.

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Official Tributes to Fidel Castro Wasted in the Absence of Popular Enthusiasm for his Figure

In several schools, the teachers called on the students to write the hashtag #YoSoyFidel with chalk on the ground and to paint, draw or write texts “in homage to Fidel.” (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 25 November 2021 — Several Cuban government organizations called this Thursday for a “Walk for Fidel” to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Castro’s death. The initiative, sponsored by Proyecto Nuestra América, has as its starting point, at 4:30 pm, at Quijote Park and plans to reach the Malecón in Havana.

Although the announcement insists that it is an action that has been repeated “every year” since 2016, the walk has awakened not a few misgivings because it is very similar to what Yunior García Aguilera intended to do on November 14, which State Security prevented.

It is not similar just because of the route, but because the organizations ask the protesters to wear “white shirts and a flower,” which is what the playwright wanted to do. Today he is in in Madrid, where he arrived unexpectedly on Wednesday the 17th.

During the activity, to which has been joined by the Asociación Hermanos Saíz and the Museo Orgánico de Romerillo, the participants will carry a artisan Granma” boat, made in collaboration with the plastic artist Alexis Leiva Machado Kcho which they will throw into the sea. continue reading

In the face of the criticism that Proyecto Nuestra América received for the similarity with García Aguilera’s plan, the organization edited the invitation post by posting a link to a video that they claim is from the first march and another with photographs of others taken in other years.

Another commemorative action this Thursday was the placement, in some neighborhoods of Havana, of loudspeakers at full volume with the voice of the deceased giving speeches, accompanied by songs by Silvio Rodríguez and the entire musical repertoire that for years has accompanied the official acts of the regime.

Similarly, in several schools in the Plaza de la Revolución municipality, teachers called on students to write the hashtage #YoSoyFidel with chalk on the ground, and to paint, draw or write texts “in homage to Fidel.”

The authorities waited for this November 25 for the inauguration of the Fidel Castro Ruz Center, destined “for the study and dissemination of the thought and work” of the former president, which is located at Paseo y 13th, in Havana’s Vedado district. They specify that “access will be by invitation” and will take place in the Turquino amphitheater, located in the same building, with an event in which the La Colmenita Children’s Theater Company will participate with a play “created especially for this occasion.”

Outside of these initiatives and the pages of the official press, where this November 25, as in the last five years, the face of Fidel Castro multiplies on the covers, Cuba’s streets show less enthusiasm each year to commemorate the death of the architect of the Cuban Revolution.
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Cuban Rapper Maykel Osorbo Distrusts Prison Doctors to Cure His Illness

Maykel Osorbo was detained on May 18 and is in a maximum-security prison in Pinar del Rio. (Proyecto EvolucionEnCuba/2013)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, November 18, 2021–Cuban activist and art curator Anamely Ramos on Wednesday denounced from Miami that the contrarian rapper, Maykel Castillo Osorbo is at risk in jail, where he has been held in isolation for six months.

Maykel Castillo “is sick”, denounced Ramos on her Facebook page, telling how after his six-day hunger and thirst strike, being in solitary confinement for over two weeks and at least four days in a punishment cell, Castillo called to say he had been taken to the doctor “to have his lymph nodes checked.”

In statements made to 14ymedio Ramos explained that today the singer “does not have a conclusive diagnosis” and he does not believe he will have one because “he will not allow any intervention and for that reason, it is important that he get out of there now.”

She notes that Castillo had been “complaining about his lymph nodes for more than two months” but that, although he told the doctor at the Kilo Cinco y Medio prison in Pinar del Río, she “did not pay it any attention” at that time.

Ramos clarified that she had not wanted to publish this news earlier because everyone was focused on the November 15th march and because she also needed to “hear the details in Maykel’s own voice.” She was finally able to speak with the rapper at the beginning of the week and he told her that “he has lumps all over–under his armpits, near his clavicle, behind his arm. He has been experiencing vomiting, fever, sweats, and extreme fatigue.”

Following a recent exam, “it appears to be a failure of continue reading

the lymphatic system, but the test was inconclusive and Maykel already told me that he will not allow them to perform any invasive medical procedures.” The activists also wrote that she does not trust any diagnosis or treatment that they might perform on Castillo. “If he is that way, it is precisely due to his unjust imprisonment and the mistreatment to which he has been subjected since long before he was in jail.”

Ramos reminded readers in her Facebook post that the rapper has been the victim of more than 120 acts of political violence in a little over a year, “He endured a year and a half in jail for opposing Decree 349. Maykel belongs to that segment of the Cuban population which is persistently discarded. The profound injustice the dictatorship represents includes this terrible asymmetry, where it is these people who always pay the highest price to be free.”

Similarly, she demanded the Cuban State free Castillo and not to deny him “the possibility of attending to his health in a trustworthy place,” if he so decides and “to put the brakes on the violence and the barbarity they have unleashed everywhere and which, in the end, will reach them too.”

Maykel Osorbo was detained on May 18th and on the 31st of that same month was transferred to Kilo Cinco y Medio, a maximum-security prison. He is accused of “assault”, “public disorder” and “evasion” for acts that occurred on April 4th, during a protest on Damas street, in front of the Movimiento San Isidro headquarters, when police attempted to arbitrarily arrest him and he refused to get in the patrol car.

Osorbo had denounced that he is imprisoned “for a song” which has become an anthem for freedom-loving Cubans and their struggle against the dictatorship, referring to Patria y Vida, which he sings with Yotuel Romero, Gente de Zona, and rapper Eliexer Márquez Duany, aka El Funky.

This Thursday, precisely the six-month anniversary of Osorbo’s arrest, Patria y Vida will be sung at the gala of the 22nd Latin Grammy Awards, a song that was nominated twice. El Funky’s participation in the event is confirmed; he traveled from Havana to Miami to attend the gala.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez
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Cuba: Family Member Confirms to ’14ymedio’ that Yunior Garcia and Dayana Prieto Disappeared on Tuesday

Yunior Garcia Aguila and his wife went for a walk on Tuesday and since then no one has heard anything about them. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 17 November 2021 — Yunior García Aguilera and Dayana Prieto slept at their house on Monday and went out for a walk on Tuesday morning. From that moment on, relatives who visited the opponent’s home near midnight of the same day lost track of the couple, according to family members who spoke to 14ymedio.

The mother of the playwright’s wife, visibly nervous, told this newspaper that it is unlikely that someone would break into the house and that García Aguilera’s plan was not to open the gate at the door of his house to any stranger. What they fear is that, during the walk, there was an arrest.

The La Lisa neighborhood, where García Aguilera lives with his family was completely militarized between Sunday and Monday, but presented total calm last night and, apparently, the surveillance had been lifted.

The Archipiélago platform declared the opponent and his wife missing after a collaborator repeatedly knocked on the door of their house at around 6:00 in the evening without obtaining a response, and asked for a proof of life. Hours later, and after talking to this newspaper which had also verified the absence of García Aguilera, he confirmed his concern and urgently demanded proof that the couple is in good condition.

This Tuesday also, Archipiélago denounced the disappearance of its moderator, Daniela Rojo, who, they say, has been “kidnapped” by State Security. “An official of those entities, without saying the exact word of the crime they commit (kidnapping), made it known to the family with total impudence, and without communicating where continue reading

they have her. Since then, her accounts on social networks have disappeared,” they say in a statement.

In the text, they specify that Rojo “is a young mother of two children” and is one of the members of the Archipiélago “who has suffered the most harassment and threats.” They note that last week she was summoned to the Department of Attention to Minors of the Ministry of the Interior for an “extensive interrogation” where she received “a veiled threat” related to the well-being of her children.

They also denounced “the arbitrariness and human rights violations” against the young woman, and “the treatment she may be receiving” given that previously after one of the “several arbitrary arrests where she was hooded, subjected to prolonged interrogations and harassment” Rojo, who is one of the Archipiélago moderators, published a video on her networks saying she would not participate in the Civic March for Change in order to have “a life and a future” and from that moment they lost communication with her.

A statement from the Commission to Support the 15N (15 November) protesters facing repression, denounced “the increase in the repressive wave” verified since the day before and during the 15th of November.

“There were despicable acts of repudiation, cutting off communication with the outside through intermittent internet cuts, and also internally because that measure was extended in some cases to fixed phone lines,” they said.

Also, in Camagüey, a mob of people went to the headquarters of the Archdiocese and carried out an act of repudiation this Monday against Father Alberto Reyes, who has demonstrated on many occasions against the Cuban Government. The priest earlier this week published a video in which he claimed to have been warned by the regime that clergy like himself who participated in the march called by Archipiélago were going to be arrested.

The group was accompanied by an official vehicle, according to a video broadcast on social networks, where the repressors are also heard shouting offensive phrases against Father Reyes.

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‘I Don’t Sleep Much for Fear that a Piece of the Roof is Going to Fall on Me’

América is concerned that her life will “end in tragedy” because of the poor condition of all the roofs. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger

América de Jesús Prada bent over and over again to fill  the water bottles that she had placed in front of two other ladies’ buckets that were also full of water. The building’s cistern has been dry for almost a month, and when they bring the tanker truck that supplies them, they have to rush to store as much water as possible.

The woman has been living for 54 years on the top floor of the building marked with number 909, located at the intersection of Infanta and Carlos III streets, in Centro Habana. One of her neighbors, sitting on the stairs, waits patiently for her turn while she complains that there is hardly a “trickle” from the sink and that it is almost time “to go to the kitchen to start dinner.”

Water, however, is not the biggest problem for the inhabitants of this building. The worst thing is to endure the passing of the years with the anguish of living in the “uninhabitable.” América says that she has had to give up living with her children and her grandson who, in the face of so much danger, found it necessary to leave the house and that now they are “lent out” living in other homes. “This here has no solution, every now and then there are partial collapses that make us lose sleep,” she laments.

The stairs are missing pieces and every time it rains another piece falls off. (14ymedio)

The last one was on September 5th, when a part of the roof fell in the common area of the building. “The firefighters, Government, and Housing, Demolitions & Shelter officials came. They all continued to come all that week, but now, after the moment passed, no one else has come.”

América is concerned that her life will “end in tragedy” because of the poor condition of all the roofs. “That day of the last collapse there had been some five children sitting under the roof that fell. They continue reading

did not get hurt because they had come inside just moments before,” she recalls. “They are always sitting in the common area or on the stairs, which are in very bad condition. The other day I fell when I was going up because there are missing parts and I stumbled, also every time it rains, another piece falls off.”

Prada points out every hole in the ceiling, every beam, the sunken parts of the floor that she never walks over as she opens the door to her apartment. “Inside here they had to write down everything, the ceilings are falling apart, the walls are cracked. I have gone to see the Housing and Shelters and they told us that this building has been listed for demolition since 1972,” she complains. “In the end, it is being demolished by itself with us inside it and they do not come up with a solution,” explains América, who is tired of “going there and returning with no answers at all” to get something that the officials responsible for the area should solve.

The “most difficult part” is at night: she finds it difficult to fall asleep due to fear of a collapse and she has had to find a method with which to feel more secure. “At bedtime I put an armchair over the bed right on top of the pillow and so at least I save my head, which is the most serious thing. Anyway, I hardly sleep at all, fearing that a piece of the roof will fall on me.”

América has never been able to make arrangements on her own because she can barely pay her daily expenses. “I worked for 33 years and my retirement is 1,700 pesos. Now, that is very little, everything is very expensive, I cannot even fix a window here.”

A difficult moment for the residents of 909, known in the neighborhood as “the avenues building,” is when they announce that a hurricane is approaching the Cuban capital. América says that before the imminent arrival of a hurricane, the Government has never evacuated them to safer places and that each one is organized to go to a relative’s house. “Most of the time I go to my sisters’ house. Then I return, always with the fear of arriving and finding some ruins.”

“I have gone to see the Housing and Shelters and they told us that this was for demolition since 1972.” (14ymedio)

The bottle with Prada water has been filled and it is the neighbor’s turn who has waited all this time on the stairs. The woman, who prefers not to identify herself, confesses to this newspaper that though she shares her fear with her roommate at bedtime, she has almost adapted already, nine years after moving in. “At first, if I slept for two hours it was a lot. Now I got used to it a bit, and when dust or pebbles from the ceiling fall on me when I am in bed, I get up all nervous, but I dust off and continue to sleep on the other side.  In terror, but I fall asleep again.”

The woman resists the distant possibility of going to a State shelter. “They have nowhere to put us because there is no capacity, but I prefer a thousand times to be here than to live in a shelter. I don’t like living with people I don’t know. In addition, you lose your privacy and the security of keeping safe the few belongings you have.”

In the midst of all the disaster, a neighbor is painting one of the windows of her apartment green. She carries the paint container in one hand and the brush in the other. She climbs on a chair and retouches the frame while she comments that she lost half of her roof once a brigade sent by the Government arrived, supposedly to repair a part that had collapsed on the outside. She now lives like this: half the house under a roof and the other half, under the sky.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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Cuba: A Violent Crowd Surrounds Yunior Garcia’s House and Threatens the Foreign Press

Yunior Garcia in his house in Havana this Sunday. Sign in the window: “My house is blockaded.” EFE

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 14 November 2021 — The playwright Yunior García Aguilera could not carry out his plan to walk dressed in white with a rose in his hand at 3 o’clock in the afternoon down 23rd Street in El Vedado to the Malecón in Havana.

Police and State Security agents and members of the Rapid Response Brigades prevented him from setting foot on the street, tried to completely cover his window by displaying Cuban flags and kept the international press who had approached his house as far away as they could, expelling them violently from the start.

More than an hour after the scheduled time for García Aguilera’s walk, it is unknown what his personal situation is due to the communication cuts maintained by the Government, but it is a fact that the activist could not carry out his solo march.

“This outside the house is very violent, they have attacked the press, they were simply parked with their car and a mob was on them,” Dayana Prieto, Garcia’s wife, reported to 14ymedio this morning. “Since the early hours of the morning they have been gathering in the school that is across from the house and on the ground floor of the building,” she added.

“Right now they have just expelled some journalists who arrived in a car, they carried out an act of repudiation, they refused to leave, they began to yell ‘get out’, to push the car until finally they made them leave, they are already in a violent mode,” said the playwright in an audio shared with the Archipiélago platform.

“Nobody here in the house now has mobile service of any kind,” Garcia’s wife explained a few minutes later to 14ymedio. “At front of the door of our apartment there are many people and everything is surrounded by siege, I can see it through the blinds. There are full buses, many cars, I think there is continue reading

a group on the corner that seems to be from the press because of their credentials but without cameras, I don’t know if they have been forbidden to use them.”
García had also denounced the siege in a Facebook transmission: “Today my house was under siege, the entire building is surrounded by State Security agents dressed in civilian clothes posing as ’the people’, as they usually do, that does not surprise any Cuban. There are cars on every corner and groups even in my building in the stairwell.”

“They know that I was going to do a solo march carrying a white rose down 23 Avenue from Parque Quijote to the Malecón, that does not violate any right, on the contrary, it is my human and constitutional right to walk as a free citizen carrying only a white rose, but apparently they are not even willing to allow that,” he lamented.

“When the time is right I will leave my house despite the fact that there is a mob surrounding it, despite the fact that we have already seen the violence against these accredited journalists.” García believes that “in recent years we have seen how this violence grows and how this hateful language grows, how this discrimination grows and how this ideological apartheid grows.”

To define the prevailing model on the island, the activist remarked that “it is not even the rule of law nor is it a republic nor is it anything, it is a tyranny,” and he asked that at three in the afternoon Cubans applaud. “A clap for us, for the people of Cuba, we have spent too much time applauding others, applauding leaders, applauding figures with power. It is time to applaud that desire for freedom and this joy that we have.”

With regards to the expulsion of the foreign correspondents that both saw from the apartment window, the activist of the Archipiélago platform details that it was “with shouts and blows (…) that they were repudiated, they they expelled them, they refused to leave because they have every right, but they even tried to push the car to get it off the block and finally they made them leave with shouts, threats.”

“We are living very ugly days in Cuba, unfortunately we are going back to the worst times; to the times that Cuban artists know very well … that grey five-year period, those acts of terrible repudiation between some Cubans and others,” García commented in reference to to the years between 1971 and 1975 when censorship was extended to the island’s cultural policy.

“Some young people are allowed, for example, to demonstrate in Central Park because they are favorable to what they call revolution, because it stopped being so a long time ago and it has removed all its masks because it has been shown that it is a very conservative dictatorship, they are allowed to demonstrate, to block the statue of the national hero who is the hero of all Cubans, which was not the private property of anyone, and we are not,” allowed to get near it, he denounced.

On Saturday night, a group that identifies itself as “Los Pañuelos Rojos” [the red scarves] held a “sit-in” in Central Park, right in front of the statue of José Martí. Elízabeth Rodríguez, one of the coordinators of this project, stressed to Radio Reloj the marked “anti-imperialist character” of the initiative, which, as she specified, will last 48 hours.

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