Category: Mario Penton Martinez

In reality, those who constantly travel to the Island are the people who work for Juan. His mission consists of “capturing” Cubans with a Spanish passport or resident in the US but who maintain their “rights in Cuba,” that is they hold the status of permanent residents on the Island. Juan pays the traveler $300 and the traveler gives over his right — as a resident of Cuba — to pay taxes in Cuban pesos on imports of up to 100 kilograms.

“Everyone wins with this business, the person, because he goes to Cuba to see his family members or, if he lives on the island, he gets a little trip, and the agency because that is our business, sending things and money to the island,” he explains

In the case of money, an agency like Juan’s can charge up to 6% commission on amounts over 20,000 US dollars. He says that he makes several shipments a month because “there are many people buying properties in Cuba.” Areas like Old Havana and Miramar are quoting very well, he says.

On revolico.com, the largest online sales platform on the island, houses sell for from 10,000 or 20,000 dollars in popular areas, and for up to $270,000 in the Havana neighborhoods of Miramar and Siboney or in the colonial city of Trinidad.

Cuban laws stipulate that you can freely import up to 5,000 US dollars per person and that for larger amounts you must fill out a declaration in Customs, without this necessarily requiring the payment of taxes. In most countries you can import up to 10,000 dollars without having to give a statement.

Juan does not care about the origin of the money he sends to Cuba nor does he follow the mechanisms to declare that cash in Miami or Havana. “Normally we send it with several people, we distribute the money to stay under the $5,000 barrier, and sometimes I send some trusted person to take in a little more, taking a risk, of course,” he says.

A report published in the official press reported that, so far this year, the General Customs of the Republic has registered 384 violations of the entry and exit of foreign exchange.

The newspaper recounts some of the cases, like a woman who hid 5,000 Swiss francs in condoms inserted in her vagina, or a man who had 32,550 euros tied to his body.

“Many are beginners in this business or try to do things without helping others, you have to live and let live,” says Juan, who according to his own testimony frequently bribes customs officials.

“I have been in business for a long time, my people are always known because we share codes. Usually when someone arrives at the airport, they offer to help you and if you accept it, things will always go well for you,” he says.

“In Cuba, there are businesses that need to take money out of the country. It’s a secret to no one that most of the products bought by the paladares [private restaurants] come from the black market. If the owners fall [in a police operation] they want to have a little piece of land on the other side, to keep something,” he explains.

According to official data, this year Customs has seized 165,816 CUC (Cuban convertible pesos), 61,660 CUP (Cuban pesos), 875 euros, 15,150 rubles, 73,822 dollars and 386 valuables (crucifixes, coins and silver bars), which travelers were trying to get out of the country.

The Central Bank of Cuba (BCC) allows each person to freely take up to 5,000 dollars out of the country. For higher amounts, an authorization from the President of the BCC is needed after verifying that the money has been lawfully earned on the island.

Buying foreign currencies inside Cuba before traveling abroad is a complicated task, although the law allows it. The banks require the customer to show a visa and an airline ticket linked to the country of the requested currency and, even so, only small amounts of foreign currency are sold.

You can always resort to the informal market but there the dollar is sold at a price that ranges between 92 and 97 cents in CUC, well above the official rate of 87 cents. On the other hand, it is strictly forbidden to remove from the country any amount of CUCs, the so-called convertible peso, which in fact has no value outside the island. The Cuban peso also has no value abroad, but it is possible to take out up to 2,000 CUP.

A few weeks ago, the American blogger Jaime Morrison, travel correspondent for BravoTV’s digital site, was arrested by the Cuban authorities, who confiscated the approximately 800 CUC he was carrying when he was about to leave the country.

“I broke this rule and I almost got sent to jail, do not let it happen to you,” the journalist said, telling the story about her experience in Havana. After a long interrogation she was able to leave the country, but without the chavitos.

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The national health system is one of the sources of pride for the government. For years, Fidel Castro called it one of the most important achievements of socialism in Cuba. In 1984 he created the figure of the family doctor and thousands of doctor’s homes-cum-offices were built in the countryside and cities of the country to extend personalized preventive primary care. “It has really been a revolution,” Castro boasted in 1984. Today, 30 years later, these networks are in decline due to the desertion of thousands of doctors and the abandonment of the infrastructure.

“It was a colossal and good project, in principle, the problem was that there was no way to pay for it,” explains Julio César Alfonso, president of the Solidarity Without Borders network, a Miami-based NGO for those who have abandoned international missions and do not want to return To Cuba.

“Thousands of doctors who were initially part of that network escaped when they had the opportunity while on international missions (more than 8,000 to the United States) and many others simply took off their white coats to become drivers, artisans, artists and even street vendors,” adds Alfonso

Despite the guidelines of the Ministry of Health to reorient the health system “towards primary care and its fundamental pillar, the family doctor and nurse,” in the last six years alone their number was reduced by more than 23,000, according to official figures. María Elena, the doctor turned seller of handicrafts, believes that most of her colleagues “got tired of so many calls to sacrifice.”

“The doctor is the most exploited worker in Cuba today, [the government earns] millions of dollars, making them work abroad and paying them a stipend, and those who stay here earn less than a driver or a bricklayer. I know surgeons who still have to bicycle to the hospital to operate,” emphasizes María Elena.

According to the article The Current State Of Social Welfare In Cuba by the economist Carmelo Mesa-Lago published by the think tank Cuba Possible,”In 1989 Cuban social welfare surpassed many of the socialist countries and led the majority of Latin America,” but this changed with the demise of the USSR.

Mesa-Lago believes that such levels were possible because of “the social commitment of the government and the support of the Soviet Union,” which according to his calculations disbursed some 65 billion dollars to support its ally in the Caribbean.

The current economic situation does not presage greater economic incentives for the health sector. The Cuban GDP contracted by 0.9% in 2016, among other reasons because of the crisis in Venezuela and the 18% reduction in the purchase of professional services (especially those offered by doctors), the main source of foreign exchange income for Cuba.

“Despite economic difficulties, Cuba maintains its universal and free healthcare system,” says Mesa-Lago. However, he confirms that the number of hospitals, hospital beds and medical personnel has fallen abruptly. In the case of doctors’ offices or family doctor homes-cum-offices, the number declined from 14,007 in 2007 to 10,782 in 2016.

The number of hospitals decreased by 46.6% and that of polyclinics by 9.2%. All rural hospitals and rural and urban posts were closed in 2011, with patients referred to regional hospitals, but the time and cost of transport increases and for emergency it is more risky,” adds Mesa-Lago.

Regarding the quality of the services, the economist raises serious doubts about the deterioration of infrastructure and the reduction of diagnostics and costly tests. “There is a severe shortage of medicines (92.3% of basic products are unavailable), of supplies for surgery, and the patients must provide sheets, pillows and other necessities,” he adds.

According to the National Office of Statistics and Information, after the beginning of the Raulist reforms between 2008 and 2016, the number of health personnel has fallen by more than 22%. The number of technicians decreased by 54% and that of nurses by 16%. The number of doctors, however, increased 19%.

More than 40,000 doctors have been sent to work in foreign countries, so instead of having a doctor for every 127 inhabitants, as presumed by the Government, Mesa-Lago calculates that there is actually one for every 234 Cubans resident on the island, a level similar to that of 1993, the worst year of the economic crisis during the so-called Special Period, a time of severe economic crisis after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the loss of its support for Cuba. The situation is even worse in the specialties that have more personnel working abroad.

“The export of health professionals brings the country an income of about eight billion dollars per year, but it reduces access to medical services within Cuba,” summarizes Mesa-Lago. Hence the long lines involved in waiting for healthcare services on the island and the overall degradation of the healthcare system.
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The factors Morales blames for the fall are basically the rise in hotel prices that occurred the previous year as a result of the increase in international tourism and the increase in the number of trips abroad by Cubans.

“Cuba recently experienced a boom in American tourism, a market with much more purchasing power than the rest of the markets that send tourists to Cuba. According to official figures, 281,706 Americans traveled to the island in 2016,” Morales explains.

The response of the Cuban tourist market, 40% of which is controlled by the Business Administration Group which is controlled by Cuba’s armed forces, was to raise the price of rooms.

“My husband and I went to Varadero, Viñales or Trinidad at least once a month but since last August we have not been able to because all the prices have skyrocketed,” says Maria Eugenia, 61, who lives in Havana. “What we used to pay for the whole trip now is not enough for one night, not to mention transportation,” she laments.

“The hotels where prices have increased the most are those in the keys, those in Varadero and anything else along the coastline of beaches,” says María Eugenia. “Also, it’s not worth going as a Cuban because there is a lot of mistreatment towards the national client.”

One of the main attractions of the all-inclusive vacation is the formerly all-you-can-eat buffets, but now there are restrictions imposed, according to the retiree. “There is not as much variety of products and nor are they so free, because now they control the amount of main dishes (meat or fish) that each guest can eat and they give you a ticket for a certain number of drinks.”

THCG carried out a study on the lodging network in the Cuban tourist sector in 230 hotels and verified the price escalation since the US thaw. “The study showed a rise in prices in all categories, with the highest growth in five-star hotels, which went from an average of $186 a night in 2014 to $362 in 2016,” the report detailed. As these establishments are filled, foreign tourists who occupied them begin to demand rooms in lower category hotels, which also increases the prices of those tourist facilities.

The most surprising figures are seen in the four-star hotels, which went from an average of $111 per night in 2014 to $247. “The Saratoga hotel, one of the favorites of celebrities and politicians, came to be priced in 2016 at between $700 and $1,000 dollars a night, compared to $375 as a minimum a year before,” adds Morales.

This escalation of prices also affected domestic tourism, a sector that had grown exponentially after the thaw initiated by former President Barack Obama, which unlocked the sending of remittances to the island and helped develop the country’s incipient private sector.

“In a study conducted by THCG in 2014, it was found that 37% of Cuban-Americans who traveled to Cuba stayed at least one weekend with their relatives living on the island at a hotel, mainly in the tourist centers of Varadero, the Keys to the north of Villa Clara and in Guardalavaca, Holguín. This trend has increased in recent years, and it is currently estimated that around 45% of Cuban-Americans traveling to the island stay in a hotel with their relatives in Cuba for two or three days,” explains Morales.

An employee of one of the most prestigious agencies based in the United States that arranges travel to Cuba told 14ymedio, on the condition of anonymity, that the situation of national and international tourism “is critical.”

“I was in Cuba this November for the International Fair of Havana and the Cubans are asking for the return of tourism. But, the Meliá Cohiba was at less than 30% of its capacity, when last year it was full,” she says.

“With the increase in the prices of hotels in Cuba an excellent market opportunity is lost because once the tourists go to another place they do not return,” she says.

From 14 January 2013 to 24 October 2016, more than 779,000 Cubans residing on the Island traveled abroad, 79% of them for the first time. The official figures are misleading, however, because they count as still resident in the country any Cubans who have been abroad for less than two years. Even so, an increase in the number of Cubans traveling abroad is clear to see.

“So far this year, a 28% growth has been achieved relative to the same time period for the previous year,” Ernesto Soberón, director of Affairs of Cuban Residents Abroad, recently told Cuban television.

Morales believes that there are a variety of reasons for these trips abroad. “It is estimated that in the 2013-2016 period around 130,000 Cubans traveled for emigration reasons, while the remaining 541,000 did so for work, tourism and business reasons,” he explains. The researcher gives as an example the more than 100,000 Cubans who traveled to Mexico in 2016, “becoming the fastest-growing tourist segment in Latin America that visits Mexico by air, with a growth of 58% over the previous year.”

“The most popular destinations for Cubans are the United States, Mexico and the Dominican Republic,” explains Morales, who believes that the situation requires a serious analysis by those who develop strategies for the tourism sector on the island.

“It is evident that not having a balanced offer both with regards to price and recreational options means that the growing national tourism will satisfy its leisure needs in other markets. Without a doubt, Cuban tourists are discovering better options outside of Cuba’s borders,” he adds.

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The artist had warned the cast of the popular comedy program that delivers social satires in prime time on Mondays, that in 2015 another television director had contacted him for a summer program “and the program was taken off the air,” telling him the screenwriter was forbidden on television.

Del Llano has been a co-writer of important Cuban films such as Alice in Wonderland (1991) and Ana’s Movie (2012). Producer of more than 20 short films, in 2004 he stoked the cultural censors’ hatred against him by deciding to launch the Sex Machine Productions label with a series of short films about the national reality starring a character named Nicanor O’Donnell, who reflects the contradictions of daily life in Cuba.

The first of these films was called Monte Rouge and was a stark satire of the omnipresence of State Security in the life of Cubans. It was followed by others on information policy and various topics seen through satire. They were not released on television, but those shorts were widely disseminated through The Weekly Packet and USB flash drives.

Despite the warning, the director of Vivir del Cuento encouraged him to write a chapter of the saga of Pánfilo, the witty retiree who stars in the series and whose life revolves around the increasingly small assortment of products available through the ration book.

“A little more than a month later [the director of the series and another actor] called me, excited to let me know how much they had liked an episode that I presented to them, and to say that they were going to film it in October, along with three others by different authors,” says Del Llano, who clarifies that in the script he wrote for the program “he maintained the usual tone of social satire of Vivir del cuento but did not try to be particularly hard.”

However, in mid-October, according to the artist, “things went bad.”

The director of the television series called him “very distressed” and “saddened” to tell him that “from above” they had accepted the three other programs for the television series, but not the one written by Del Llano.

According to the artist, several members of the Vivir del Cuento team “are convinced” that “what is censored is not the specific work” but rather the writer. “I mean,” he says in a jocular tone, “that the Upper Television Spheres will continue to censor me even if I write Aunt Tata’s Storytime.”

“Excommunicating artists is a noble tradition of Cuban culture, especially on the tiny screen,” reflects the author and brings up the case of a film critic who had a regular space on Cuban television but who confronted “someone from above” and as a result will not be able to return to television, while a dozen already recorded programs were thrown away.

Del Llano clarifies that “until now” the actions against him are limited to Cuban Television and that with the Book Institute, the Humor Promotion Center, and even the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry his relationships “are reasonable and mutually respectful.”

“As you can see, the censorship is not even coherent,” he adds in an ironic tone.

The writer, however, regrets that “from above” they take away his opportunity to write for a television program that he considers a challenge in his career.

“How was it left? Without explanations to the team or to me, without anyone showing their faces and telling me why they condemned me in the first place,” he says and answers with a rhetorical question:” Do they want to leave me without options, force me to emigrate? Let them be the ones to go.”

“We are desperate, I do not even want to talk, I just want my husband to appear alive,” Yuneisy González de Armas says through her tears from Santa Cruz del Sur, a small fishing village south of Camagüey.

The couple has a one-year-old girl and Gonzalez says her husband never told her that he planned to leave the country.

The Border Patrol Troops continue the search by sea, but according to a family member who asked not to be identified “when other family members asked him to use helicopters, an officer replied that this could only be done by the Revolutionary Armed Forces and that it was outside his scope of control.”

Until last January, the United States’ wet foot/dry foot policy allowed Cubans who reached US soil to apply for permanent residence in the country. However, rafters that were intercepted at sea by the US or Cuban Coast Guards were returned to the island.

Under the current migratory agreements between the US and Cuba all Cuban migrants who arrive in the United States without a visa are deported to the island. However, if they arrive at a border post and can demonstrate a credible fear of persecution, they could be admitted and allowed to present their case for political asylum.

The amphitheater of the American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora was small for the more than 150 people who came to the presentation of a book defined by the author as “intimate,” with passages related to the history of the Cuban Church of which he has been an eyewitness.

“I carry in my chest the cross of the pains of my people,” said Rodríguez, recalling the words he delivered in his first Eucharist when he carried a cross made from the wood of the presidio to which the revolutionary government confined the Catholic priest Miguel Ángel Loredo for ten years.

The genesis of the book reflects the deep controversy surrounding this man who is able to confront the authorities of the island and his own pastors to ask for more freedom for the people of Cuba.

“It is not a coherent book. These are different times and that is what I want to be clear about,” Rodriguez said. The idea of ​​writing the book came after a request from a professor at the San Gimignano Institute in Italy specializing in religious sociology, who had previously asked for an analysis of the situation of the Church in Cuba from Cardinal Jaime Ortega. The contrast between the experiences of Ortega and Rodriguez led the professor to seek the vision of a priest of the people to compare to that of the cardinal.

“My vocation as a priest is to serve the poorest and most needy, those whom they turn their backs to because they are committed,” recalled the priest, who in 1994 wrote an open letter to Cuban leader Fidel Castro and in 2009 did the same to his brother Raul.

“The economic crisis affects all households and causes people to live anxiously wondering: What am I going to eat or what am I going to wear? How am I going to get the most elemental things for my family? The difficulties of everyday life become so overwhelming that they keep us mired in sadness and hopelessness,” said the letter sent to the Plaza of the Revolution to which he never received a reply.

The book Dreams and Nightmares of a Priest in Cuba begins with a prologue by Felipe J. Estévez, bishop of San Agustín, Florida. The prelate praised the “creative fidelity” of the Cuban priest in the years of hard persecution against the Catholic faith that followed the triumph of the Revolution in 1959.

“To build bridges between people, institutions, different points of view, to be a meeting place for a diverse people, his being a priest of Christ has been and is an essential part of his life,” said the bishop.

Rodríguez then presented a panorama of “the Castro brothers’ Cuba” during his forty years of priesthood, followed by his reflections on the need for reform of the Cuban Church and a project to accomplish it. The book also has three interviews on the need for the Cuban Church to be bolder, along with some reflections on the situation of the Island at the present time.

“This book says very serious things, including the learned hopelessness, perhaps the worst evil affecting Cubans at this time, the feeling that they can not do anything to change their lives,” said the director of the American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora, Ileana Fuentes.

“This soul of a wounded people is the worst thing that Castroism has left us,” she added.

The editor of the text, Manuel Salvat, highlighted the book’s autobiography. “This is a priest who has studied a lot and is very well informed, putting everything at the service of God and his people. This book is an essential tool to know the present and the future of the country,” he added. “In this difficult town that is Cuban Miami everyone wants a copy,” he said visibly excited.

For her part, the former director of el Nuevo Herald Miriam Marquez said that the first and only time the Cuban government let her enter the island Father Conrado allowed her to see the reality of the island beyond what officialdom showed.

For Jorge Graña, producer for the Catholic Television Network EWTN and a former seminarian in Santiago de Cuba, Rodríguez represents the prophetic role in the Cuban Church. “The Prophet is not the one who predicts the future, but the man of truth, who carries the voice in his heart and consoles and encourages the people. That is José Conrado,” he said.

“Long before Pope Francis asked the shepherds ‘to realize that we too are sheep’, José Conrado would go to the outskirts and feel the pain of the people. The sheep know who their pastor is and that is why so many follow him.”

The doctor is one of the dozens of doctors trying to break away from the tripartite agreement with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the Cuban Ministry of Health, and its counterpart in Brazil through which the island has more than 11,000 doctors stationed on Brazilian soil.

The professionals are trying to leave the tripartite agreement with the Pan American Health Organization, the Ministry of Health of Cuba and its counterpart in Brazil, through which the Island has more than 11,000 doctors in Brazil

“Pakistan, Haiti, Venezuela, Bolivia and then Brazil. In all these countries I have been in risky situations, in the midst of earthquakes and epidemics. I have done what Cuba and the governments of the places where they have sent me would have me do, but now I want them to let me be free,” says Hidalgo.

The doctor currently lives in the state of Maranhao, in the northeast of Brazil, one of the poorest in the country, but is now part of a “silent revolution” that is shaking up the Cuban physicians. According to Brazilian lawyer André De Santana Correa, who represents 80 doctors from the island, including Hidalgo, “the cooperation agreements signed by Rousseff’s Government, mediated by PAHO, violate the principle of isonomy [equality before the law] and the social dignity of work.”

Doctors from other countries can be hired directly by the Mais Médicos (More Doctors) program and receive a full salary. In the case of Cubans they require PAHO mediation and the money paid by Brazil goes directly to the Cuban Government, which in turn distributes only a part of it in the form of stipends to the doctors.

De Santana is optimistic about the possibility of winning the legal battle that allows Cubans to obtain the maximum benefits of the Mais Médicos program. “There are no official figures for the number of physicians who are filing appeals at court, but there are at least 154,” he explains to 14ymedio.

“The main obstacles we face are the issues of judicial power, and the question of the budget which also affects justice, but there is a good chance of winning,” he says.

Cuban medical missions are the primary source of income for the Havana government. Cuba exports the work of its doctors to 62 countries and charges about 10 billion dollars each year for health services. Less than a third of the salaries specified by contracts goes into the pockets of the doctors, leading this work structure to be considered “modern slavery” by labor rights advocates.

In Brazil, the Mais Médicos program, established during the presidency of Dilma Rousseff, allowed 11,400 Cuban doctors to provide their services in difficult areas of the country. Brasilia pays Havana, through the Pan American Health Organization, about $3,300 a month for each physician, while the doctor receives only 2,976 reales (about 900 dollars).

“Not only do they steal our salary, but they also took most of the money the Brazilian government provides as an allowance when we arrive from Cuba so that we can furnish the place where we are going to live,” Hidalgo explains. Brazil paid $3,000 to $9,000 for each foreign doctor to get settled in housing, but of that the Cuban government only passes on $1,261 to the doctors.

Brasilia pays Havana, through the Pan American Health Organization, about $3,300 a month for each physician, while the doctor receives only $900

In 2016, Hidalgo decided to leave the Cuban medical mission despite the reprisals from the Cuban government. Since then he has worked caring for livestock and peddling, while he is in the process of revalidating his title in Brazil and pursuing litigation in the courts to allow him to participate in the Mais Médicos program independently, without PAHO mediation.

“When Cuba finds out that you are engaging in a judicial process to get out from under the PAHO guardianship, they immediately send a medical mission coordinator to your house. That person does not give you anything in writing, but tells you that if you do not return to the island within 24 hours you will not be able to do so for eight years and you immediately become a deserter and a traitor,” explains Hidalgo. In 2015, the government decided to change that policy and accept the return of doctors who formerly were classified as deserters, because of a shortage of healthcare professionals in the country.

One of the clauses that the government imposes on professionals in the Mais Médicos mission is a prohibition on taking the exams to revalidate their medical degree in Brazil, according to what 14ymedio confirmed with someone who had access to one of those contracts

Noel Fonseca and his wife, Diusca Ortiz, have been practicing medicine for 20 years and say that with all the money they have earned for the government, they could afford to pay the cost of their medical studies on the island several times over. The fact that Cuban doctors did not pay to go to medical school is one of the government’s main justifications for keeping the money they earn working abroad.

“The doctors have already given a lot of money to Cuba. In Angola I had a contract that paid the Cuban government $4,000 a month and of that I only received $600. In the three years I worked for Brazil, the Cuban government earned more than $100,000 dollars from me and let’s not even talk about Venezuela,” says Fonseca.

The couple is also in a legal process that allows them to enter Mais Médicos without the sponsorship of Cuba. In September they took a test to revalidate their titles in Brazil.

“When we decided not to return to Camagüey, a representative of the Ministry of Health in Cuba went to our house and told my elderly mother and my minor son that they would not see us for eight years,” says Fonseca indignantly. Cuba also cut off access to the public health e-mail system that allowed them to communicate with their families.

“In Angola I had a contract that paid the Cuban government $4,000 a month and of that I only received $600. In the three years I worked for Brazil, the Cuban government earned more than $100,000 dollars from me and let’s not even talk about Venezuela”

The couple, who worked in Arari, a city in northern Brazil, were replaced by a couple of Cuban doctors who immediately informed the PAHO coordinator that the deserters had received help from the city.

“They fired us. Cuba got the Brazilian Ministry of Health to demand that the municipalities eliminate any aid to doctors who left the program,” says Fonseca.

Havana applied pressure by not sending more than 700 doctors in the first quarter of the year and that had an effect; Brazilian Minister of Health Ricardo Barros cancelled the program in more than 49 municipalities that helped emancipate Cuban doctors.

“Brazil wants to help us, but the situation is difficult because they don’t have doctors to serve in the poor regions and Cuba uses this as a tool for blackmail,” explains Fonseca.

“Thousands of doctors have married Brazilians to obtain residency in the country and in the past many people escaped to the United States when [the Cuban Medical Professional] Parole Program existed for the doctors, but now that the Americans have closed that door there’s nothing left for us but to fight here,” says the doctor.

In February, the Brazilian government held a contest to award Mais Médicos places to Brazilian doctors, but while 6,285 doctors registered to win one of the 2,320 seats, only 1,626 showed up for work and since then 30% have left their posts due to the difficult working conditions.

“This is a triangulation of an agreement signed in 2016 and extended this year. Rosneft (a joint-venture company majority-owned by the Russian government) has loaned PDVSA (the Venezuelan state oil company) between four and five billion dollars in recent years, “says Piñón. “Part of the 250,000 tonnes of diesel that Rosneft pledged in May to deliver to Cuba was funded in the back office through the triangulation of the agreement with PDVSA.”

Piñón’s thesis is also supported by statements from Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, who last May put as a condition on shipments of oil to the island that they must have a secure source of funding.

During the Soviet era, Cuba received more than $40 billion in subsidies and contracted a $35 billion debt that Russia condoned by 90 percent in 2014. At that time the USSR was sending oil to the Island, which the Cuban authorities partially re-exported to the international price. It did the same with a part of the shipments of Venezuela, that reached 100,000 barrels a day before falling to a little more than half that.

In addition to supplying oil and diesel, Rosneft intends to fulfill an unfinished promise of the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez: the modernization of the Cienfuegos refinery, the largest in the country, operating at half speed because of the fall of the Venezuelan oil deliveries.

According to several analysts, Caracas sends 55,000 barrels of oil daily to Havana, far from the 87,000 it supplied last year and the 100,000 barrels supplied during the life of Hugo Chavez. In return, Havana sells to Caracas, at very inflated prices, its doctors serving on medical missions and other professionals providing other types of service.

Under the government of Nicolás Maduro the payment through this model has abruptly dropped. Cuba has not published its earnings from the export of services since 2014 but, as economists Carmelo Mesa-Lago and Omar Everleny Pérez have reported, these earnings have fallen by more than 1.3 billion dollars in recent years.

Economy Minister Ricardo Cabrisas said in July that the country was forced to import 99.6 million dollars in fuels so far this year due to non-compliances in the delivery of petroleum products from Caracas. Last year, Cuba was forced to import fuel from Algeria, and Raul Castro himself sent a letter to Vladimir Putin asking for a stable supply from Russia.

Jorge Piñón believes that it will be difficult for Cuba to find another Venezuela like that of Hugo Chavez willing to pay its oil bill: “The value of the Cuban oil deficit is approximately 1.1 billion dollars a year if we value a barrel at 45 dollars. Who and how is that bill to be paid?” he asks, since Havana does not have the financial resources.

Neither does he believe that Russia will assume the cost of refurbishing the Cienfuegos refinery, which the expert says needs between three and five billion dollars of investment.

“For example, we have the great Refinery of the Pacific, in Ecuador, that for the last ten years has been looking for partners after the Venezuelans ‘embarked’,” he cites as an example.

Data provided by the National Bureau of Statistics and Information show that oil production on the island has steadily declined over the last decade. In 2015 (latest figures published), Cuba produced 2,822,000 tonnes of crude oil, some 202,800 tonnes less than in 2010.

National oil production in Cuba. Source: National Bureau of Statistics and Information

National production barely covers 48% of energy demand, as reported by the authorities of the Cuba Petroleum Union in an interview with the national press. The cost of extracting a barrel of oil on the Island is around $14, but it is of low quality and therefore needs to be mixed with other fuels to be used.

The deposits in operation are located in the north-western fringe of the island. After more than 40 years of operation the yield of the wells has fallen, which is reflected in the volume of extracted oil.

On the other hand, some of the most important deposits are located in Varadero, the main tourist center of the country, which makes it difficult to extract, according to authorities, who estimate to 11 billion barrels of oil reserves in that area of ​​the country.

Cuba’s biggest bet is its exclusive economic zone in the Gulf of Mexico (about 112,000 square kilometers), open to foreign investment since 1999, with high costs and investment risks in the Gulf’s deep waters. Russians, Canadians and Venezuelans have invested there without much results. This week, however, the Australian company Melbana Energy will begin exploration of the oil wells it has identified in the northern coast of Cuba.

As a result, some of the deportables have disappeared, died or their health prevents them from traveling. Aside from those Marielitos agreed to 33 years ago, Havana refused to receive its citizens residing in the US with a deportation order until the signing of an agreement with the Obama administration in January of last year. At that time it was agreed to fill that quota with criminals with deportation orders who entered during the Mariel Boatlift, people like Carlos Ivan Gonzalez.

“Alone, without family, without friends or money. This is how my son would have to return if Emigration sends him to Cuba,” says Sarah Gonzalez. Carlos Ivan’s mother, 71, resides in Cape Coral (South Florida) and now laments her son having been too lazy to get naturalized.

Gonzalez held a hunger strike last week in Wakulla, along with ten other Cubans in the same situation, but they had to abandon it because they were ill without achieving their goal of being released, according to his mother.

“I know that my son is not innocent, but he has already paid society for his crime with five years in jail. Now they are now talking about eliminating the US embassy in Havana. The politicians continue with their conflict, while my son wastes his life in a cell,” she complains.

Sarah Gonzalez argues that a detention center official told her that Cuba had rejected the repatriation proposal from the US authorities but her son may have been included in the quota of “substitute” Marielitos.

“There is something going on with those who came through Mariel, and Washington is pressuring Cuba to accept them, even after Cuba has refused,” adds Sarah Gonzalez.

Meanwhile, Carlos Iván, a mechanic by profession, father of a firefighter and grandfather of a girl he has not yet met, is constantly guarded by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

An ICE official told 14ymedio that the average time of a person in custody with a deportation order is between 30 and 35 days. However, when there is serious evidence that the subject can be deported, that period can be extended.

Usually, in the cases of Cubans in this situation, an alternative to detention is sought, since the island’s government decision whether to receive the immigrant can take years.

Among the solutions ICE provides to maintain control over the individual are electronic monitoring and supervision orders, which allow the person to lead a normal life provided that they meet from time to time in agency’s offices and give an account of their situation.

“When lawyers appeal the judge’s decision or request extensions of certain legal proceedings, when this happens and the judge does not allow bail, the subject must remain in custody, which lengthens the process,” the official adds.

Gonzalez’s family says he does not have enough money to bring the case to court, and the official lawyers do not deal with immigration issues. However, there are various institutions such as the Catholic Church and human rights groups that offer free or low-cost services to immigrants.

“We are a couple of elderly diabetics and over 70. We have to send money to him to communicate with us and to eat better, because prisons are bad everywhere,” adds Gonzalez’s mother.

The family has tried to get help through Senator Marco Rubio’s office and the governor of Florida, but claims to have gotten “nothing.”

“When I called the media they hang up on me because they say it has to be interesting. Does it have to be interesting for a man to die on a hunger strike or to deprive him of his freedom to be on the news?” she asks indignantly.

According to official data from the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI), in 2016-2017 there were 248,438 classroom teachers, some 21,600 fewer than in 2008 when Raul Castro became president.

The country needs 16,000 more teachers to cover the deficit in all areas of education. In addition, between 10,000 and 13,000 teachers are on staff but out of the classroom for personal problems or maternity leave, as recently acknowledged by the Minister of Education, Ena Elsa Velázquez, in an interview with the magazine Bohemia.

To remedy the exodus of teachers, the minister proposes several options: the hiring of teachers, the reinstatement of retirees, and the use of university students as teachers at other levels. Velázquez also said that her Ministry has created “a system of moral encouragement” for teachers. Some provinces, such as Guantánamo and Santiago de Cuba, will send teachers to others where the need is urgent, such as Matanzas and Havana.

Since taking office, first as interim president (2006) and then as president elected by the National Assembly (2008), Raul Castro substantially reduced the budget of the Ministry of Education. Expenditure on Education fell by 5 percentage points as a share of Gross Domestic Product, from 14% in 2008 to 9% in 2017, as it appears in the Budget Law approved last January by the National Assembly. During this period, 1,803 schools were also closed, according to official figures.

“The problem is that nobody wants to be a teacher because they pay them very little and they exploit them a lot,” says Yanelys.

Last year the Ministry of Education provided a salary increase of about 200 Cuban pesos for teachers with a greater teaching load. Even so, the average salary of an education professional is around 533 Cuban pesos, a little more than 20 dollars a month.

The reduction of resources has had a direct impact on the quality of the education system. According to the minister, more than 20% of school facilities are in a state between regular and bad.

The lack of encouragement to study education has been recognized by the same authorities, who saw with astonishment that only 58 undergraduates opted for three of the university teaching courses of the more than twenty that were offered in the province of Cienfuegos.

“For a long time, coverage and quality, as well as accessibility to the educational system, made Cuba one of the most lauded countries in Latin America,” explains the Cuban academic Armando Chaguaceda from Mexico.

However, he believes that many professionals have been lost “because there is not an adequate attention to the teacher.”

“They spent much more money on the training program for ‘emerging teachers’ than on simply recognizing the value of the work of thousands of self-sacrificing teachers,” he explains.

At the beginning of the 21st century, then-President Fidel Castro created the Teaching Schools for Emerging Teachers and Integral Teachers, which in just a few months prepared primary and secondary school teachers to make up for the exodus of professionals. After nearly a decade and thousands of graduates, the teacher deficit continues.

The director of the Center for Coexistence Studies, Dagoberto Valdés, acknowledges that the country is facing a major challenge: “The civility and ethical and civic education of children leaving schools is shameful. It is something that marks the culture of our people,” he says.

Convivencia, a think tank in the province of Pinar del Río, prepared last year, as part of its Thoughts for the Future of Cuba, a report with concrete proposals on education.

“There is a serious demographic problem in the country that is already reflected in educational enrollment. There are fewer and fewer people who enter the education system and graduate,” laments Valdés.

The number of graduates with university degrees has fallen as sharply as enrollment, which has fallen more than 78% in the last decade.

“We believe that a true educational project is needed that integrates both the school and the family and civil society, without ideological shading, but based on the cultural heritage of the nation, from [Father Félix] Varela to [José] Martí,” he dreams.

This Monday a Cuban couple was repatriated to the island and according to the Panamanian Deputy Minister of Security, Jonathan Del Rosario, they received economic aid so that they can start over as self-employed. Regarding the consulate appointment, the couple says that they were only given telephone numbers for the Panama consulate in Havana and not a date as the deputy minister had said.

“I am a man of my word, and everything we have promised is going to be fulfilled,” Del Rosario told 14ymedio from Panama City.

According to the vice minister, the pre-appointment is a record that shows that the migrants have fulfilled the promise to return to Cuba. “The list of those who return will be transmitted to the consulate through the Foreign Ministry,” he explained.

“We have to have patience and confidence because everything we have promised has been fulfilled over time,” he added.

The first Cuban returnees were the ones who had spent the most time outside the country. According to the families of both migrants, who live in Havana, the trip was in line with what was planned and they are now “reuniting with family.”

“I have been very clear, very honest and very frank, I do not see why the migrants are suspicious,” said the deputy minister, who added that “those who misbehave or become rebellious will move from the Gualaca shelter to Migration for their deportation.” He lamented that the repatriation process could be at risk because of the despair of some islanders.

So far, no other migrants have been sent back to Cuba because it is the Panamanian administration that pays for the tickets and economic support, something for which it is still organizing the budget. “It’s a complex process that requires time,” Del Rosario explained.

Meanwhile, a dozen Cubans organized a press conference outside the Gualaca camp in Chiriquí province on Tuesday to complain that they have been victims of a “deception.”

“Not all Cubans think in the same way, there are some of us who are ungrateful and don’t value what this country is doing for us, but we are not everyone,” says a second migrant who asks for anonymity for fear of the protest leaders.

“We are desperate, that is true. The months pass and we are still here thinking that we will have to return to Cuba and start from scratch,” he adds.

Note: Our apologies that these videos are not subtitled in English

The Cubans fear having to face the difficult task of getting an appointment at the Panama embassy in Havana. Some applicants have waited more than six months to be seen by the consulate due to the thousands of calls received every Thursday to process visas to that country. Faced with increasing demand, Panama’s Director of Immigration, Javier Carrillo, told 14ymedio that the number of visas would increase from the current 500 to about 1,000.

At the end of June, the Panamanian government proposed to the 124 Cubans who were in the Gualaca camp that they voluntarily return to their country in exchange for $1,650 and a multiple entry visa to Panama.

A little more than half of the undocumented immigrants accepted this proposal because of the impossibility of legalizing their status in the country or entering the United States where, as of January 12, with the end of the wet foot/dry foot policy, Cubans lost the privilege of being granted automatic refuges status if they reached American soil.