Category: Mario Penton Martinez

“I saw it last night and I did not agree. They should have put another photo of a celebrated person from Cuba, but not Che who was a murderer. It’s fine that the communists in Cuban or Venezuela display it there, but not here,” said the employee of Cuban origin.

Greg Chin, communications director for the airport told 14ymedio that in one of the preliminary versions of the art exhibition organizers presented the poster with the image of Argentine guerrilla, but that the authorities of the terminal made it clear they would not display it out of respect for the community.

“It was taken down early in the morning. It wasn’t on display at the airport for even 12 hours,” he explained.

The image of Giménez remains at the beginning of the exhibition ,which contains a total of 27 posters with personalities of Irish descent that marked Latin American history. The legend under his image extols his Irish ancestry and credits the ties he has created between the two communities.

The mayor’s office said he “deeply regrets” the incident and they were unaware of the images that would be displayed at the airport.

“In an essay about the exhibition they included the image of Che Guevara and the staff of the air terminal themselves expressed their rejection of this figure and what it represents in Miami,” said Stephanie Severino, a spokeswoman for the mayor’s office.

The exhibition is divided by the main countries where the Irish emigrated to. Five of the images are dedicated to Cubans and highlight historical figures such as José Martí, Father Felix Varela, Ricardo O’Farrill and Alejandro O’Reilly.

Ernesto Guevara, born in Argentina, participated in the struggle against Batista and then joined the revolutionary government with Fidel Castro; the Irish exhibition presented him as a physician committed to social justice.

“After graduating as a doctor, Ernesto spent the rest of his life fighting against poverty and injustice in Latin America,” declared the exhibit, classifying him as “one of the most celebrated revolutionaries of the twentieth century.”

The image of Che that was displayed last night at the airport’s E terminal was created in 1968 by Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick. It is a poster in white and red with the image of Che Guevara under the name VIVA CHE, and is inspired by the famous photograph taken by Alberto Korda.

The Irish ancestry of Guevara comes to him through his paternal grandmother, Ana Isabel Lynch, born in Argentina. The family’s Irish roots from Patrick Lynch, who established himself in Buenos Aires in 1740, married to a wealthy heiress.

The Irish embassy in the United States told this newspaper that the panel with the image of Che was not supposed to be included . “It was removed as soon as we discovered the error this morning. We fully understand the sensitivity and deeply regret the error,” said communications director Carol Jordan.

María Werlau, director of the NGO Cuba Archive, dedicated to collecting information on Cuban historical memory, believes that the image of Che Guevara is one of the “most successful” advertising campaigns in history.

Werlau is the author of a book entitled The Forgotten Victims of ‘Che’ Guevara which details the shootings directed by the Argentine guerrilla after summary trials in Havana’s La Cabaña fortress.

“Che’s biographies are voluminous but almost never thoroughly investigate his crimes. Guevara was one of the forerunners of the infamous UMAP in Cuba [forced labor camps for dissidents, priests and homosexuals]. He wrote against the Indians and against the blacks. In his own writings he recognized that he liked to kill,” she explained.

For Werlau, placing the image of Che next to patriots like Martí and Varela is the “product of the ignorance.” According to the expert, the Cuban exile has not been able to raise awareness of the need to dismantle the propaganda of the Government of Havana.

“Che Guevara wanted to make people ‘an effective, violent, selective and cold killing machine’, as he put it. Far from being considered a hero, they should measure him by the same yardstick as Osama Bin Laden,” she added.

Many of the professionals that Cuba sends to third countries are contracted through Cuban government agencies, which keep the vast majority of the money paid by the other countries for their services. However, these “missions” are attractive to the workers because they offer the ability to purchase clothes and domestic appliances abroad, as well as paying a salary higher than they would receive on the island.

The new measure of the Ministry of Finance and Prices seeks to stop the hemorrhaging of professionals who are sent to work in “missions” abroad, which bring the country great economic benefits

“They [the government] know that we are tired of being exploited. This has been a demand we have made for a long time,” says a Cuban doctor living in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil, who asks to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.

Those who desire to pay the customs duty in Cuban pesos on a second set of imports will have the right to do so only if “the head of the Organ or Body of the Central Administration of the State to which the collaborator belongs” sends a request to the General Customs of the Republic, and it will only apply to those who have to return to Cuba for “official business,” because of a delay in their vacations, or because their work on the mission abroad has ended prior to the planned date due to changes in the workforce.

“In Venezuela, the situation is worse than in Cuba. The only reason that we come here at the risk of our lives is the chance to bring something to our families because we have to ask even to send our soap there,” an intensive care nurse in Caracas explains to 14ymedio.

This health worker, who fears for his life due to the political and economic crisis of Venezuela, does not explain how it is possible that, even with all the profits that he contributes to the Government of the Island, the authorities impose a fee on him to send cellphones to his family.

“They were stealing from us twice: first they took our salary and then, when we arrived in Cuba, they bled us dry at Customs,” says the professional.

According to the current import law, residents who import goods with a value between 50 pesos and 500 pesos have to pay 100% of the value of the product and goods valued between 501 pesos and 1,000 must pay 200%.

According to sociologist Elaine Acosta, there is evidence that a significant share of Cuba’s 2,219,784 people who are over 60 “lack effective opportunities to enjoy a dignified old age.”

In addition, the expert believes that “the difficulty of social policy to anticipate and plan the resolution of problems related to old age only aggravate the crisis of care that faces Cuban society.”

In the face of what could be the end of trade with Venezuela, the aging population of the island, which has seen the purchasing power of its pensions reduced by almost 50% since 1989, is facing an unsustainable pension system in the medium term, Mesa-Lago explains.

The situation is complicated, because Raul Castro’s government eliminated many of the goods and services formerly provided ‘free,’ drastically reducing the items covered by Social Assistance, as well as the number of beneficiaries.

In 2016, 54,968 older adults received social security pensions, some 8,415 fewer than in 2011. This population segment has also been hit in recent years by the elimination of subsidies for several products in the ration book, and the resulting quadrupling of prices.

A study published by Cuba’s National Bureau of Statistics and Information (ONEI), reports that 79% of Cuba’s elderly live in urban areas, while the remaining 21% live in rural areas. Women make up just over half of the island’s aging population, at 53%, with men accounting for 47%.

The phenomenon of aging generally occurs in societies that have achieved a high rate of human development. Among the elements that influence a country’s aging statistics are migration, fertility rate and mortality.

In the case of Cuba, life expectancy was 79.5 years in 2015, one of the highest in the Americas. However, the low level of fertility – 1.6 children per woman, closer to European figures – and a steady migration have contributed to raise the average age of the country, which in 2016 reached 40 years.

The impact of the aging of the population reaches all spheres of society and has repercussions on the economy, because an important segment of society ceases to produce and has to be sustained by an ever smaller population or workers, notable in the Cuban case. Social services face an increase in the demand for services to the elderly and there is also a direct impact on the pension system.

Relative to population, Cuba’s oldest provinces are Villa Clara, Havana and Sancti Spíritus, in which the population over 60 is 23%, 21% and 21% of the population, respectively. The youngest province on the island is Guantanamo, followed closely by Artemis and the Isle of Youth.

In the case of municipalities, the youngest are Yateras and Caimanera, both in Guantanamo province, with only 13% of the population over age 60. Those with the highest proportion of elderly are Havana’s Plaza of the Revolution municipality – the location of the headquarters of Cuba’s octogenarian rulers – where 27% of residents are over 60, followed by Placetas and Unión de Reyes, both with 25% elderly populations.

“According to estimates by the United Nations Population Division, Barbados and Cuba will be the most aged countries in Latin America and the Caribbean in the immediate perspective,” the ONEI reports.

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, which funded part of the study, notes in its research that in 2025, 25% of the Cuban population will be over 60, a figure that will reach 33% of the population by 2050.

If tens of thousands of Cubans who left the country do not appear as emigrants, it is because many of them return before the end of the two-year term that marks the end of their rights as residents on the island, explains Cuban sociologist Elaine Acosta.

“Others have decided to undertake the process known as repatriation, which allows them to regain their residence in Cuba and stay abroad,” adds Acosta.

Cuban law considers that those who remain abroad “continuously for a term longer than 24 months and without the appropriate authorization,” to no longer be citizens.

Those repatriated are counted in the official statistics as resident in the country, although in reality they live abroad. The same thing happens with those who return before the expiration of the 24-month period of a stay abroad.

This management of the figures shows a sudden decrease in emigration. Prior to the 2013 reform, more than 45,000 people left, but in 2014, for the first time in over half a century, ONEI says that more people returned to Cuba than left.

These figures contradict the figures published by the United States, which registered the entry of 141,528 immigrants from Cuba since 2013, not including rafters, while the ONEI only reported a general total of 41,935 émigrés during the same four years.

In addition, the figures from Havana include all Cubans who leave the country permanently, whatever their destination. Ecuador, which was also a popular destination for Cuban emigration, received 33,700 people from the island since 2013. And in the same period Spain registered more than 15,000 new residents who were born in Cuba. That is, the sum of Cuban immigrants in Ecuador and Spain, not including the US, which is the primary destination of Cubans, exceeds the total number of migrants counted by Cuba’s ONEI.

Elaine Acosta, the sociologist, believes that both segments (the emigrants who maintain their Cuban residence and the returnees) have significantly increased the number of trips abroad from the island, as in the last five years almost half a million have gone abroad.

On the other hand, returnees were only about 14,000, according to the ONEI. This category implies that the citizen recovers his or her rights on the island, among which include participating in the electoral process, receiving free care in the national health system, being able to own property, and the coveted permit to pay import duties once a year in Cuban pesos (CUP) – versus in Cuban convertible pesos (CUC), worth 25 times more.

“The quality of migration statistics leaves much to be desired because they respond to an ideology and there are no studies to break down the figures,” explains the sociologist, who regrets that the ONEI figures do not say how many Cubans who travel abroad have another nationality or residence. Another shortcoming noted by the specialist is that only the number of departures is counted, not the number of individuals who have traveled abroad.

For the sociologist, based in Miami, the national press uses the official figures to “depoliticize” the causes of the exodus. “This is an instrumental use of emigration to reinforce the thesis of economic migration and hide the reality that people are living,” he adds.

Osmanis Gálvez, 42, who emigrated to the United States three years ago, says he returns to the island at least once a year. He was recently repatriated after paying 100 CUC in an office of the Ministry of the Interior.

“I will not go to live in Cuba, but this is a way to inherit my mother’s house and bring her the products she needs without having to pay for them in dollars at Havana customs,” he says.

Frank, a Cuban who has resided in Miami for two years, did not need to be repatriated because on obtaining his permanent residence in the United States, he immediately traveled to Cuba and was able to “enter” before the two-year term expired. Since then he has been traveling once a week to Cuba as a “mule”to carry products to supply the island’s growing black market.

Although travel is one of the most common desires among Cubans, it remains the preserve of those who maintain work and residence outside national borders or have relatives abroad to finance the escape, since on the island the average official monthly salary isn’t even $30, and a plane ticket to Miami costs almost a year’s salary.

The abrupt cut in imports stems from the decision to use 2.306 billion dollars to make payments on external debt, renegotiated with the Paris Club and other creditors, adds the former director of the Center for Studies of the Cuban Economy.

“They renegotiated a debt that they had not paid since 1986. Creditors waived up to 90% in some cases, but they had to pay that remaining 10% and could only do so by cutting imports,” he explains.

According to Perez, a contributor to the magazine Temas, the national economy is beginning to show signs of macroeconomic recovery but it is not enough.

“From the macro point of view, it seems that there will be a change in the trend line, but 1% growth does not tell you anything. The country needs to grow from 5 to 7% — and not just for one year — so that people feel it,” he adds.

“With this rate of growth, seeing an improvement in living conditions would take at least 30 years. How do you say that to a 50-year-old?” Pérez quips.

Cuba announced that at the end of this semester the economy had grown by 1.1%, after a GDP fall of 0.9% in 2016. Pérez attributes this positive result to tourism, which grew by 23%, and the sugar cane industry, which produced about 1.8 million tons of sugar.

“Tourism is changing lives in many parts of Cuba. For example, in the municipality of Trinidad, the revenues of the non-state sector surpassed those of state enterprises for the first time. In this municipality the private sector generated 56.9% of the total collected,” he says.

The Havana Consulting Group has just published very interesting data on the increasing contribution of remittances to the functioning of the national economy. The Miami-based consulting firm says remittances grew 2.7% in 2016 to $3.444 billion, surpassing net revenue from tourism that year, according to official sources.

The difference is even greater when compared to net tourism receipts, which will not exceed $1.3 billion after deducting the costs of imports needed to cater for tourists, especially food, as Cuba produces nothing.

Pérez Villanueva is worried about the strong impact that the eventual fall of Nicolás Maduro’s government in Venezuela would have on the Cuban economy.

“Venezuela continues to be Cuba’s number one trading partner, despite its crisis. For the past two years, the problems of that country have been growing, but no measures have been taken to counteract the end of that trade relationship,” he says.

Perez believes that Havana should be thinking of sending its highly skilled labor to other countries with oil reserves like Angola or Algeria. “It will never be the same as with Venezuela and those countries could not absorb the number of doctors [that Venezuela has been paying for], but at least it would cushion the blow,” he says.

Cuba could take advantage of currently low oil prices to buy fuel from other allied nations, such as Russia or Algeria, but the lack of credit is a chronic problem, according to the Minister of Economy and Planning, Ricardo Cabrisas, who acknowledged in the Report on Behavior of the Economy and Planning 2017 that the Island’s ability to obtain loans is affected by the amount of debts due.

However, according to Pérez, Cuba is trying to strengthen new mechanisms to generate electricity from renewable sources, but “it needs time and money.” There is also an attempt to revive national oil production, which is declining due to the depletion of the wells.

“If the supply of Venezuelan oil is stopped, it would not be as it was in the USSR. We receive from Venezuela half the fuel we need, and in the time of the former Soviet Union we received virtually all of it,” he added.

“The country should bet heavily on foreign investment,” says Pérez Villanueva, who was ousted after a series of lectures in which he displayed his critical opinion on the economy’s progress on the island.

“The guidelines say that foreign investment is not a complement to domestic investment but rather a part of the national investment, but in practice the level of appropriations is not noticeable,” he adds.

Despite continuing to publish the portfolio of foreign investment opportunities, the investment flagship project, the Mariel Special Development Zone, continues to be bogged down with small investments.

For Pérez, the country has to immediately expand trade on its own, something that seems very distant, especially after the freeze in the granting of new licenses for self-employment announced last Tuesday.

“There is a mass of workers who could leave the guardianship of the State and pay taxes in activities related to what they studied [at the universities]. This would prevent engineers graduating in Computer Science from leaving for Canada or quitting to drive a taxi “.

However, Perez believes that the state does not want healthy competition to exist because the great socialist state enterprise remains its model. “In Cuba, ideology continues to set the tone, not the economy.”

“I made the decision to leave Cuba when they discovered a corruption plot in Puerto Padre’s retail network,” said Sao. In 2016, a series of audits revealed that several of the bodegas in Puerto Padre, where she worked, had irregularities in their accounts. Although there were invoices covering the sales, the money was never deposited in the bank. The directors of the institution are serving sentences of up to eight years for misappropriating state funds.

“I had nothing to do with that,” said the woman from Las Tunas province, defending herself. According to her, her business was to sell rice, sugar, and contraband cigarettes she bought on the black market, instead of the products sent by the state for “free” – that is unregulated – sales, which covered articles outside the rationing system.

Although basically she did not alter the prices of the products, she committed a crime because the rigid centralized economic system did not allow her to market articles that were not sent through the channels authorized by the authorities.

“I gathered my people and I told them about the situation, because the big fish always eats the little one,” she says. Sao’s family includes her husband, Yoendry Batista, a welder by profession, her three children ages 19, 10 and 7 years, and her parents. They made the decision that she should leave Cuba and asked relatives in Florida for $10,000.

“With that money I went to Havana. I wanted to go by boat to the United States, but instead of paying a ticket on the speedboats that traffic people to Miami, I learned that there were people who sold parts to build a boat, and after a phone call my husband came to Havana and we began to build the boat,” she says.

In the heart of Havana, a few blocks from the Sanctuary of the Virgin of Charity, they began the construction of the boat that would take them to the United States. The materials cost $7,500 and each of those interested in emigrating did their bit. All under strict secrecy, as the construction of boats to leave the country is punishable by law.

“We made the boat with polyethylene and sheets of platinum [an alloy so-called in popular slang] and iron. That’s illegal, it could cost us up to 15 years in jail,” says Yoendry Batista, Yudenny’s husband, who had never built a boat in his life. After weeks of working under the summer sun in a Havana courtyard the boat was ready.

“To take it to the coast we had to pretend we were moving. At three o’clock in the morning we started to assemble furniture and parts of the disassembled boat in a closed truck that carried supplies to the foreign exchange stores,” recalls Sao.

They headed towards the north coast, to the mouth of Arroyo Caimito. There they spent eight days together with another 17 people eating the bare minimum to conserve food for the trip. After weeks of preparation they were finally about to leave for the United States.

“When we heard the sound of the engine we were happy, we shouted ‘Adios, comandante [Fidel]’ and we embraced,” recalls Sao. However, the happiness was short-lived. The engine barely lasted 1 hour and 15 minutes. The swell flooded the electrical system and they were adrift. They had to get rid of the engine that cost them $2,000 and the gas drums they had for the trip. If the Coast Guard found them with that equipment they could be in serious legal trouble.

“The Cuban Coast Guard appeared around noon. My wife had fainted from lack of food and dehydration. They had us handcuffed and in the sun picking up other rafters for hours. That August 12 they collected 32 rafters whose boats had broken down,” explains Batista.

Dehydrated and hungry they were exposed to the sun all afternoon on the deck of the boat and were taken to the port of Mariel. After being fined 3,000 pesos, they were released. “What saved you is that we are making preparations for the Commander-in-Chief’s birthday celebration,” the head of the military unit told them. August 13, 2016 was the culmination of a program of celebrations to commemorate the 90 years of the old ex-president Fidel Castro, who died three months later.

Without money, they returned to Havana to try to build a new boat. “We spent sleepless nights thinking what to do with a debt of $10,000 without even having left the country. In Puerto Padre the investigations began and Yudenny’s time was running out. It occurred to them to bribe a policeman to “throw them through the system.” Because they had no criminal records they could apply for a passport and travel legally to Guyana.

“We paid $100 to the police and because we had no priors we got our passports (which cost $100 per person). That’s how we traveled to Guyana and from there we embarked on the journey to the United States,” explains Sao.

From Guyana they went to Brazil, where she was employed domestically for some months. Her husband worked as a builder, not without being cheated by those who saw undocumented migrants as cheap labor with no rights.

“He worked in malls. On one occasion they promised 100 reals a week and in the end they paid him 40,” says Sao. Her husband, on the other hand, has good memories of the towns where he spent the time. “You get another image of these countries because it is not what they tell you in Cuba. In these countries there are many people with good hearts and they help the migrant,” he says.

After collecting some money they left with another 60 Cubans via the Amazon river and after more than 20 days of travel crossed Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. The Darien jungle was the most difficult for Sao, diabetic and hypertensive.

“I did not want to continue, but my family sent us 200 dollars from Cuba. That, together with what we had earned, allowed us to pay the guides who guided us through the jungle,” explains Cao.

In Panama they took refuge with the Catholic charity Caritas, where they received the news of the end of the wet foot/dry foot policy. They stayed with Caritas until they were forced to leave for the eventual transfer to the holding camp at Gualaca. “I don’t care where, it can be Haiti, but I cannot go back to Cuba,” she says with regret.

The house where Sao and her husband took refuge in Panama City, after escaping from Gualaca, belonged to some Panamanians they met through Cáritas. During the weeks they stayed in it they refurbished, cleaned up the gardens and planted bananas.

“We are not going to pick the crop. Of that you can be sure,” says Batista.

A week after telling their story to this newspaper they left for Costa Rica, where the authorities seized their passports. They continued their journey and are now in Mexico, waiting for a humanitarian visa to continue their way to the United States and seek political refuge.

“The Cuban government is responsible for everything we’ve been through. Everything you have to do to have a decent life depends on them. To buy a pair of shoes for your children you have go without eating for five months,” says Sao, adding that she never would have left her village if it weren’t for the crime imputed to her. “It’s a macabre system.”

Note: Our apologies for not having the following video subtitled in English

_________________________________________

This article is part of the series “A New Era in Cuban Migration” produced by 14ymedio,  Nuevo Herald and Radio Ambulante under the auspices of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

The economic aid will be delivered at the airport, before the migrants board the flight that takes them to Cuba. Those who do not want to avail themselves of the Panama government’s offer could return to the point where they entered the country, or continue their journey undocumented.

“That’s all they have given us,” Yelisvarys Pargas, a migrant to Gualaca, told 14ymedio, because although the proposal appears good, he distrusts the Cuban authorities.

To attend the meeting, the deputy minister traveled by helicopter to the camp, an area of 104 acres far from any population center in the east of the country. The Panama government had transferred 128 Cubans there in April, after closing a temporary shelter maintained by Caritas in Panama City. Nine migrants escaped from the shelter of Gualaca, which is guarded by the presidential police and Migration and Public Security personnel.

“Panama and Cuba have diplomatic relations, and we have consulted representatives of the consulate and the Cuban embassy in the country about this option,” said the deputy minister.

The Panamanian authorities are also allowing migrants to pre-register for a application for a visa that would allow them, once in Cuba, to get an interview at the Panamanian consulate to obtain a tourist visa. With this visa they will be able to travel to Panama to make purchases for their businesses, according to the deputy minister. For migrants who have been away from Cuba for more than two years and so have lost their right, under Cuban law, to reside in the island, the Panamanian Government would facilitate the process of their return to the country.

Addis Torres, who was with her 13-year-old son and her husband in the shelter was devastated by the news. “I will continue, I cannot return to Cuba at this point. I will continue,” Torres said after the meeting with the deputy minister.

Nirvia Alvarez, another of the migrants said in a voice filled by emotion that Rosario’s proposal left her “on the verge of a heart attack.”

“After six months in this desperate wait and now they come out with this shit. I do not have a house in Cuba, I have nothing, because I sold everything I had. Go back, why? To live under a bridge?” protested the migrant, who is accompanied by her 11-year-old son and her husband.

When asked about the migrants, del Rosario explained that there are no options to emigrate to third countries. “To this day we have had no response from any country,” he explained. Nor did he open the door to regularizing the status of the Cubans in Panama, since the entry of migrants in an undocumented way precludes any kind of formalities for their regularization.

“There are other countries that have different migratory policies, maybe some of you want to return legally to Ecuador, what we can’t do is send you to a third country if we do not have the guarantee that the third country will welcome you,” said del Rosario.

After the presentation of the deputy minister, many of the migrants expressed their doubts about the proposal, arguing that Cuba is not a state of laws and that is why they fled the government of the Island.

Faced with the reluctance of migrants, del Rosario said that so far none of the people who have been returned to Cuba (more than 90 since the signing of the deportation agreement between Cuba and Panama) have filed a complaint at the Panamanian embassy to denounce the violation of their basic rights. “You have free will,” said del Rosario.

Both Constantín and García Basulto have been expressly forbidden to practice journalism on the island and the judicial process opened against them has been criticized from various international forums, including the Inter American Press Association (IAPA).

Human rights lawyer and activist Laritza Diversent explained that there are more than 300 items within the Penal Code to crack down on dissent and journalism on the island

The OCDH also denounced the arrest of journalist Manuel Alejandro León Velázquez, a contributor to Radio Martí and Diario de Cuba . Leon returned from a trip to Spain and has been accused of “usurpation of legal capacity, association to commit a crime and dissemination of false news,” according to the organization.

The accusations against the three communicators are based on Article 149 of the Cuban Penal Code, which punishes those who carry out “acts of a profession for the exercise of which one is not properly qualified.” If they are tried for this offense they could face a sentence of up to one year of deprivation of liberty.

In Cuba, all the media belong to the State, according to the Constitution of 1976. However, the absence of a Media Law has allowed the independent press to flourish with sites such as El Estornudo, El Toque, Cubanet, CiberCuba, Diario de Cuba, Periodismo de Barrio, On Cuba, among others.

In Cuba, all the media belong to the State, according to the Constitution of 1976. However, the absence of a Media Law has allowed the independent press to flourish

Human rights lawyer and activist Laritza Diversent, who recently became a refugee in the United States, explained to 14ymedio via telephone that there are over 300 items within the Penal Code to crack down on dissent and journalism on the island.

“State Security is looking for different strategies to prosecute all types of dissidents or critics in Cuba,” explained Diversent, president of the legal group Cubalex, who went into exile after a police and State Security operation against her.

“Both illegal economic activity and the usurpation of legal capacity are nothing more than resources to punish any type of activism within the Island. Legal insecurity is very high because both the criminal law and the criminal procedure law have been designed as tools of repression,” said Diversent.

Independent journalist Maykel Gonzalez Vivero, who was arrested last October in Guantanamo and suffered the confiscation of his tools of the trade while covering the recovery in Baracoa after the passage of Hurricane Matthew, confirmed the difficulties of practicing the profession on the island.

“We do not have a law that supports us and protects the exercise of journalism, we are at the mercy of the arbitrariness of the authorities”

“We do not have a law that supports us and protects the exercise of journalism, we are at the mercy of the arbitrariness of the authorities,” he said. On that occasion, a team of correspondents from Periodismo de Barrio suffered the same fate as Gonzalez Vivero.

Other independent publications, such as Convivencia magazine, have been harassed during the last year with the arrest of members of its editorial team and threats by the authorities against its contributors. Foreign correspondent Fernando Ravsberg has been threatened with expulsion from the country and even with “having his teeth broken” for the critical entries he publishes in his personal blog Cartas desde Cuba.

Last year the IAPA emphasized, however, the timid rebellion of some official journalists against the information policy directed from the Communist Party. Among the examples cited by the IAPA was a letter signed by young journalists published by the Villa Clara newspaper Vanguardia, in which they claimed their right to collaborate with other media.

The IAPA also recalled the case of a Radio Holguin journalist Jose Ramirez Pantoja, expelled from the profession for five years for making public the remarks delivered at a conference where Karina Marrón, deputy editor of the official daily Granma, compared the country’s situation to that of the 1990s when massive protests occurred in Havana, which came to be known as the Maleconazo.

The camp that houses the Cubans was built by the Swiss brigades which, in the 1970’s, built the La Fortuna dam. It is 104 acres, occupied mostly by forests and a stream. One hour from the nearest city, the humidity is such that mushrooms and plants establish themselves even in the fibrocement roof tiles.

A day in the migrant camp for Cubans stranded in Gualaca, Panama (our apologies for not having this video subtitled).

Along with the wooden buildings, deteriorated by the passage of time, there are still satellite antennas, electric heaters and, according to the migrants, from time to time they find foreign currencies buried in the vacant land.

López was born in Caibarién, a city on the north coast of Cuba. Although he had the opportunity to emigrate using a speed boat to cross the Florida Straits, he preferred the jungle route to avoid the seven years moratorium on being able to return to Cuba that the government imposes on those who leave Cuba illegally.

“I wanted to go back before 7 years was up. I have my mother and my sisters in Cuba,” he explains.

He worked as a chef specializing in seafood at the Meliá hotel in the cays north of Villa Clara, earning the equivalent of $25 US a month. With the money from the sale of his mother’s house he traveled via Guyana and in Panama he was taken by surprise by the end of the wet foot/dry foot policy that allowed Cubans who reached American soil to stay.

“Here we pass the hours between chats with our relatives in Cuba and the United States, and searching the news for clues that will tell us what is going to happen to us,” he says.

The migrants in Gualaca not only do not have permission to work, but they can only leave the camp one day a week to go to Western Union, with prior notice and accompanied by presidential police officers, who are guarding the site.

Some, however, have improvised coffee sales and even a barbershop. The locals also set up a small shop to supply the undocumented immigrants with the personal care products and treats, which they pay for with remittances sent by relatives from the United States.

The authorities gave themselves 90 days to decide what they would do with the 126 Cubans who accepted the proposal to go to Gualaca. Two months later, the patience of the migrants is beginning to wear thin. At least six escapes have been reported since they were moved there. The last one, on Monday, was led by four Cubans, two of whom have already returned to the camp while two crossed the border into Costa Rica.

Since dawn, Alejandro Larrinaga, 13, and his parents have been waiting for some news about their fate. Surrounded by adults, Alejandro has only one other child to play in the hostel, Christian Estrada, 11. Neither has attended school for a year and a half, when they left Havana.

Alejandro spent more than 50 days in the jungle and, as a result of severe dehydration, he suffered epilepsy and convulsed several times. “It was difficult to go through it. It’s not easy to explain: it is one thing to tell it and another to live it,” he says with an intonation that makes him seem much more adult.

“We had to see dead people, lots of skulls. I was afraid of losing my mom and dad,” he recalls. But, although tears appear in the eyes of his mother while he recalls those moments, now he says he feels safe in Gualaca and spends his days playing chess.

“I want to be a chess master, which is more than a champion. Someday I will achieve it,” he says.

His mother, Addis Torres, does not want to return to the Island where she has nothing left because she sold their few belongings to be able to reunite with Alejandro’s grandfather, who lives in the United States. Although they have a process of family reunification pending at the US Embassy in Havana, the family does not want to hear about returning to Cuba.

They eat three times a day and even have a health program financed by the Panamanian government, but for Torres “that’s not life.”

“Detained, without a future, afraid to return to Cuba. We need someone to feel sorry for us and, in the worst case, to let us stay here,” she says.

Liuber Pérez Expósito is a guajiro from Velasco, a town in Holguín where he grew garlic and corn. After the legalization of self-employment by the Cuban government, Pérez began to engage in trade and intended to improve things by going to the US.

In Gualaca he feels “desperate” to return to his homeland, but he has faith that, at least, he will get the help promised by the Panamanian Deputy Minister of Security, and leave a door open to engage in trade.

“I am here against what my family’s thinking. There (in Cuba) I have my wife, my nine-year-old son and my parents, they want me to come back and pressure me but I am waiting for the opportunity to at least recover some of the 5,000 dollars I spent,” he says.

His mother-in-law, an ophthalmologist who worked in Venezuela, lent him part of the money for the trip. Indebted, without money and without hope, he only thinks of the moment he can return.

“During the day we have nothing to do. Sometimes we play a little dominoes, we walk or we go to the stream, but we have 24 hours to think about how difficult this situation is and the failure we are experiencing,” he says.

Liuber communicates with his family through Imo, a popular videochat application for smartphones. “They recently installed Wi-Fi in Velasco and they call me whenever they can,” he adds.

“Hopefully, this nightmare we are living will end soon. Whatever happens, just let it end,” he says bitterly.

——

This article is a part of the series “A New Era in Cuban Migration” produced by this newspaper, 14ymedio, el Nuevo Herald and Radio Ambulante under the auspices of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Roque was the only woman of the group of 74 dissidents who were arrested, tried and condemned to long sentences for crimes against the security of the state in 2003, an event known as the Black Spring that shocked international public opinion. That was her second conviction; in 1997 she was tried for writing the document “The Nation Belongs to Everyone” when she was part of the Working Group of the Internal Dissidence.

“Often the opponents go out into the street and shout ‘Down with Fidel, down with Raul, long live human rights,’ but people don’t even know what their rights are”

“Often the opponents go out into the street and shout ‘Down with Fidel, down with Raul, long live human rights,’ but people don’t know what human rights are, often they don’t even know what their rights are,” she added.

The opponent recalled how the demonstrators sent by the government itself often shout, “Down with human rights!”

“We have to reach the people through things that interest them. The Cuban opposition hasn’t found a strategy that links to the people and their problems,” she said.

The government opponent believes that the people have not been allowed to talk about their rights for a long time, so it is useless to try to explain hypothetical proposals for reforms in the Constitution.

In her opinion, among the serious problems that Cuba is experiencing is the absence of a future.

“Cubans have no future, so they want to emigrate because they know that Cuba has no future. We must try to make people understand the importance of building that future,” she added.

On the Venezuelan situation and its repercussions on the island, Roque believes that Raúl Castro’s government “fears” the consequences that could come with the end of Chavismo, to which is now added the increasingly clear position of the American president, Donald Trump, on the policy towards Cuba.

“I think things are going to change a lot in Cuba if they change in Venezuela,” she said. She also said that the path found by the Venezuelan opposition was very difficult for Cuban dissident groups, because the conditions are very different.

“I think things are going to change a lot in Cuba if they change in Venezuela”

Roque believes that the absence of concrete actions against the Raul Castro government by the Trump administration “gave the regime a lot of strength to continue repressing the opposition” and in particular to groups “that annoy them a lot.”

The 72-year-old woman does not believe that significant changes should be expected from Raul Castro’s promise to step down as president of the Council of State in 2018.

“Castro does not leave power, he continues to lead the Party and in Cuba the Communist Party is who has power, which means that he’s not going to leave power at all,” she added, adding that the advent of new figures such as current vice president Miguel Diaz-Canel will not mean a change in the system.

“Diaz-Canel is a puppet who just opens his mouth when they tell him to say what they want him to say,” she added.

Despite the grim picture, the dissident says that there is “slow movement” within the opposition in Cuba and that this year will see the first fruits of “the long struggle of the exile and opposition to bring freedom to the island.”

“We are working under a lot of pressure because the Medical Mission is adept at continuing to insist that services not be closed and that we maintain our position here in spite of everything,” he adds.

“We are afraid every day about what could happens to us. Sometimes they throw stones at us or they yell all kinds of insults at us. Every day there are demonstrations in front of the medical unit and nobody protects us”

In Venezuela there are about 28,000 health workers and thousands of others who are sports instructors, engineers, agricultural technicians and even electricians. The model of paying for Cuban professional services through the export of oil to Cuba has never been clearly exposed by the Venezuelan government.

According to Nicolás Maduro, since Chavez came to power, more than 250 billion dollars have been invested in the so-called “missions.” The former Minister of Economy of the Island, José Luis Rodríguez, published last April that Cuba received 11.5 billion dollars a year in payment for professional services rendered abroad, most of which comes from Venezuela. Other sources consider, however, that this is a very inflated number, although Havana’s profits are undoubtedly very high.

“We are afraid every day about what could happens to us. Sometimes they throw stones at us at the CDI [Centro de Diagnóstico Integral, doctor’s offices] or they yell all kinds of insults at us. Every day there are demonstrations in front of the medical unit and nobody protects us,” explains the doctor.

“So far they only attack us with words. They shout at us to get out of here, that they do not want to see themselves like us and other atrocities,” he adds.

The doctor, however, assures that those who work in the missions also do not want to be in that situation, but they are forced by the Cuban Government, that exerts pressure through diverse mechanisms.

“If we leave, we lose the frozen accounts maintained for us in Cuba. Also, if you leave the mission you are frowned upon in the health system and you have no possibility of being promoted,” he explains.

The Cuban government deposits $200 a month in a frozen account that at the end of the three years the mission lasts in Venezuela, totals $7,200. If the professional maintained “proper conduct and did their duty,” they can withdraw that money upon their return to the island. If they return before the established period or their participation in the mission is revoked (among other reasons for attempting to escape) they lose all that money.

In Cuba 250 dollars a month are deposited that can be withdrawn when the professional on the mission visits the Island once a year. Meanwhile, in Venezuela, they receive 27,000 bolivars, less than 10 dollars a month.

“If we leave, we lose the frozen accounts maintained for us in Cuba. Also, if you leave the mission you are frowned upon in the health system and you have no possibility of being promoted”

In the case of health technicians, Cuba pays them 180 dollars in a current account and another 180 dollars a month in an account frozen until the end of the mission.

A Cuban radiologist who is in the Venezuelan state of Zulia explains that for months they have no “Mercal,” a bag of food delivered by the Government of Venezuela.

“We live in overcrowded conditions with several colleagues and we do not even have potable water,” he adds.

“Thanks to some patients we can eat, but they are having a very bad time. We are repeating something like the Special Period that we experienced in Cuba,” he says.

Although he fears for his life because of the situation in the country, he says he is determined not to return to the island. “We have to endure until the end. It is not fair to lose everything after so much sacrifice,” he says.

Following the outbreak of the protests in Venezuela, Cuban aid workers have been directed not to leave their homes and have experienced reduced communications with their families in Cuba.

Following the outbreak of the protests in Venezuela, Cuban aid workers have been directed not to leave their homes and have experienced reduced communications with their families in Cuba

“The internet is very bad, you can not even communicate. We have been forbidden to go out after six o’clock in the afternoon, as if we were slave labor, and on television they broadcast news that has nothing to do with what we are living through,” he explains.

Julio César Alfonso, president of Solidarity Without Borders, a Miami-based nonprofit organization that helps Cuban health personnel integrate into the US system, says the exodus of professionals has increased in recent weeks.

“Even without the US Medical Professional Parole Program, which allowed doctors to obtain refuge in the United States, they continue to escape because of the situation in Venezuela,” said the physician.

Alfonso added that his organization is lobbying to re-establish the Parole Program, eliminated by former President Barack Obama in January, and allowing more than 8,000 Cuban professionals to enter the United States.

Eddy Gómez is an critical care doctor who worked in the state of Cojedes in western Venezuela. He decided to escape because he was afraid of the difficult conditions in which he was forced to work.

“We had to work in dirty places, without air conditioning, exposed to the fact that even the patients insulted us because we nothing to treat them with,” recalls the doctor who now lives in Bogota and acts as spokesperson for dozens of other professionals who escaped medical missions.

“We left Cuba looking for a better life, but in Venezuela we discovered a real hell”

“After the end of Medical Parole program people have continued to escape and come to Colombia. There are more than 50 professionals who left Venezuela after President Obama’s decision to eliminate it. We hope that Trump will admit doctors again,” says Gómez.

To escape Venezuela, the Cubans have to pay the coyotes about $650 to take them to Colombia. The path, full of dangers, includes a bribe to Venezuela’s Bolivarian National Guard that protects the borders, and to whom they must be careful not to show their official passports issued to them by the Cuban government because they would immediately be deported to the Island.

“There are many Cubans who have died violently in Venezuela, but the Cuban government does not tell the truth to their families, nor does it pay them compensation,” explains the doctor.

“We left Cuba looking for a better life, but in Venezuela we discovered a real hell.”

El Sexto recently concluded the exhibition Angels and Demons in San Francisco, where he staged a three-day performance in which he was enclosed in a replica of the punishment cell in Havana’s Combinado del Este prison where he was held.

The artist has been arrested three times for political reasons.

In 2014 he tried to stage a performance titled “Animal Farm,” in which he intended to release two pigs with the names Fidel and Raul painted on their sides. Although he never managed to stage the performance, it cost him 10 months in Valle Grande prison, on the outskirts of Havana.

The artist has been arrested three times for political reasons

In the dark hours of the morning after the announcement of the death of Fidel Castro, Danilo wrote “He left” on one of the walls of the Habana Libre Hotel, which cost him another 55 days in prison.

“This can not be a one-day protest, right now this is happening in many countries, even our neighbors, and we have to report it,” Maldonado told EFE in reference to repressive actions against dissidents and human rights activists.

During the 36 hours of the performance in San Francisco, titled Amnesty, El Sexto remained without food in solidarity with the Cuban political prisoners Eduardo Cardet and Julio Ferrer, among others. The artist also dedicated his hunger strike to Leopoldo López and the other Venezuelan political prisoners.

Maldonado took the pseudonym El Sexto (The Sixth), with which he signed his graffiti on the streets of Havana, as an ironic response to the Cuban government’s campaign for the return of the so-called “Cuban Five,” five spies who were then in prison in the United States.

In 2015, Danilo Maldonado, 34, received the Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent, awarded to activists “who engage in creative dissent, exhibiting courage and creativity to challenge injustice and live in truth.”

José Yans Pérez Jomarrón, Salazar’s husband, has tried unsuccessfully to escape from Cuba six times, but has been intercepted by the Cuban Coast Guard or returned to the authorities of the island by its American counterparts. On his last voyage he took refuge, with some twenty Cubans, in a lighthouse 30 kilometers northeast of Key West.

José Yans Pérez Jomarrón, Salazar’s husband, has tried unsuccessfully to escape from Cuba six times, but has been intercepted by the Cuban or American Coast Guard and returned to the island

Although most of the rafters managed to be admitted a special program that gives them the opportunity to be relocated in a third country, because they were able to demonstrate “credible fear” of being persecuted in Cuba, for Pérez Jomarrón the outcome was different.

“When I finished my military service they offered me a job with the Ministry of the Interior (MININT). As an inexperienced boy I agreed and when the immigration agents in the United States learned that I had once belonged to that repressive organ, they returned me to Cuba,” explains the rafter-turned-entrepreneur who at the moment is in Guyana looking at the possibility of some business linked to his commercial activity.

Police and State Security agents accused Solayni Salazar of being an accomplice in the theft of the boat and described all the members of her family as antisocial and counterrevolutionary. “They offended me with their words as much as they wanted and when I threatened them with filing a complaint they were indifferent, because they know nothing is going to happen to them,” says the wife, age 31.

“They threatened to arrest me. But they never brought the witnesses (required by law) when they did the search and they never showed me a court order to enter my home. And they did all this in front of my little boy,” she says.

In addition, she says, she was told that her husband was in Guyana escaping from the law, an argument that Salazar considers “completely false.”

Salazar believes that the authorities are persecuting her family due to her husband’s multiple attempts to illegally exit the country and because of his opposition to the government

“I fear for what will happen to my husband when he returns from the trip. Surely they will try to arrest him or persecute him for a crime he has not committed,” she says.

Salazar believes that the authorities are persecuting her family due to her husband’s multiple attempts to illegally exit the country and because of his opposition to the government.

“They do not want to give me jobs in state institutions. It’s a way to persecute those who disagree with official politics,” says José Yans from Georgetown via telephone.

The situation is increasingly complex for the Cuban authorities. “Now not only do we have to pay for a ‘crime’ we didn’t commit but we are suspected of everything else that happens in the country.”

Alfredo Mena, a rafter who tried four times to leave the island, was also searched last Wednesday.

Alfredo Mena, a rafter who tried four times to leave the island, was also searched last Wednesday

“They came to my house and broke down the door without a search warrant. They took me to the police unit and accused me of having stolen a boat belonging to the FAR (National Revolutionary Police),” says Mena, nicknamed El Pelú, by the locals.

“The officers who were dealing with me asked me why we wanted to go to the United States, because there they killed people like us and another series of lies,” he adds.

Mena, 50, a native of Granma province, says he was threatened with being “deported” to the East, because he resides in Havana without having an address officially registered in the capital.

Mena was fined 2,000 pesos for the crime of “receiving” for buying supplies for his work as a welder. Although he swears he is innocent, those metal parts are an indispensable component in the manufacture of the makeshift boats used to emigrate.

“Nothing they took had anything to do with the supposed theft of the boat. The only thing they do with these things is to reaffirm one’s desire to escape from such garbage,” he adds.