TRANSLATORS – Page 202 – Translating Cuba

"100% Noticias": A Stone in the Shoe of the Dictatorship

High up on the front part of the building facing the old Military hospital is a sign for 100% Noticias, but the bigger, the more visible sign, says “Jehovah.” (EFE)

14ymedio, Guillermo Cortés Dominguez, Managua, Nicaragua | December 25, 2018 — For the dictatorship, Miguel Mora became a “stone in the shoe.” For that they treated him mercilessly: high-profile smear campaign, stealing television cameras, beating reporters, intimidations, harassment, and threats against him, his wife, journalists, and other workers, as well as visitors to 100% Noticias, a violent raid of the media outlet, destruction of equipment, his kidnapping, that of his wife Verónica, his colleague Lucía Pineda, and four other employees, confiscation of the channel, the closing with zinc — like a tombstone — of its facade, the transport to El Chipotle and in less than ten hours to a court dressed in the blue of prisoners.

An aggravating circumstance for such malice is that for years the regime perceived him as “pro-government,” given that he was an activist for the FSLN party and he carried the agenda of the Government to 100% Noticias. They considered him one of their own, despite his lack of “discipline,” since he also reported events that from the perspective of Nicaragua’s First Lady Rosario Murillo, only done by “contaminated” media outlets. continue reading

For years, Mora distinguished himself by his pluralism, since on the channel there were non-“Orteguista” programs like “Jaime Arellano en la Nación” and “Café con Voz;” and on “IV Poder” critics of the regime were invited for debates. The complete dissidence, the spectacular “somersault” of 100% Noticias bumped into the beginning of the social explosion of April, the attack on a journalistic team, and the theft of a valuable TV camera, and later the press censorship for refusing an order of the regime not to report on the rebellion. Then its owner transformed the programming, and the outlet turned into the voice of the peaceful insurrection of the Nicaraguan people.

The channel dyed itself blue and white and its audiences, in an amazing manner, multiplied by the millions inside and outside of the country. Six months later the marches ceased due to the increase of the repression, but they continued daily on 100% Noticias, whose images of those oceans of flags of the homeland fed us and encouraged us.

For the Ortega-Murillo family this outlet became dangerous because it belligerently spread the popular fight and showed the abuses of the dictatorship. Going against national and international laws and the high cost it signified, now they silenced it, although not on social media.

In parallel to his political conversion that went along with concrete aspirations, like being President of the Republic, Mora experienced another one, spiritual, to the point of extremity, since he, his wife, and his Chief of Press daily showed themselves not only as devout Christians, but also as religious fundamentalists. He even made appearances on his outlet, as if he were an evangelical preacher. This is from his private reserve, but to bring it to 100% Noticias gave it a public connotation.

It was so cool that perhaps it was December that night, at a house where there was a party in one of the alleys of the Centroamérica neighborhood. A group of journalists was outside, on the sidewalk, passionately arguing — as often happens among colleagues — about the aspects of professional practice, when a “bold” youngster interfered in the chat and began “to spit in the circle.” We weren’t geniuses, but we were already established in journalism, and he intervened with audacity. It was Miguel Mora.

Later he made a brilliant career, graduated, began to work, was left so impressed with Ted Turner’s idea (CNN) to offer news 24 hours a day, that he proposed to do something similar, first creating a program and later realizing his idea, briefly interrupted by a fire in the location from which, paradoxically, through the economic help of persons from different political and economic sectors, he emerged strengthened.

Several times Miguel Mora invited me to his IV Poder Original, with Adolfo Pastrán, Xavier Reyes, and William Grigsby, the latter of whom insulted me verbally because he didn’t know how to debate. Strangely I remained calm and he got out of control. Miguel couldn’t do much to stop him, as it was his place to do as host. El Chele is a magnificent analyst, also an “Orteguista-Murillista” on short-circuit, who has broken with them several times, but who always returns to the fold. Mora also had differences with the power and the party and a lucrative state publisher even suspended him, but he knew how to sort it out.

With the imprisonment of Miguel Mora and the ultra fast political trial that they are already putting together; and the closure of the 100% Noticias channel, the citizenry suffers a strong loss, the absence of a daily companion that we are already missing a lot, and national journalism has received a stab wound from which much blood is flowing, which has left us stunned and several days later, we still haven’t gotten over the stupefaction and the pain of this hook to the kidney that sent us for a moment to the mat and from which we are sitting up with a grimace of pain and trembling in the legs.

High up on the front part of the building across from the old Military hospital is a sign for 100% Noticias, but the bigger, the more visible, the one that stands out, is one with enormous uppercase characters that says “JEHOVAH,” which gives the appearance that the place is an evangelical church and not a television channel.

Perhaps the religious ideas of Mora — that don’t combine at all with his political ambition nor with the professional practice of journalism — give him strength and hope to resist the rigors of prison, although what is most important is that a whole people accompanies him morally and that the international community of journalists, communicators, and defenders of human rights have made a cry to heaven about the barbarous repression against him and his TV channel. His freedom will depend on the reactivation of the peaceful resistance of the people.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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Editors’ note: This text has been published by the Nicaraguan digital outlet Confidencial, which has authorized us to reproduce it.

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Seamen, Invisible Victims of the Cuban State

Motonave ‘Huntsville’, built in Japan in 1971 which was part of Cuba’s Merchant Navy. (Webmar)

14ymedio, Miriam Celaya, West Palm Beach | 20 December 2018 –Health professionals were not the first to suffer a slavery system organized by the Cuban government itself. Long before, and without the media noise caused by the controversial departure of Mais Médicos from Brazil, sailors have been the invisible victims of the same abuses on the part of the State.

This peculiar “legal” network of human trafficking is attested to by Rolando Amaya (a fictitious name), an ex-seaman with a long history. A Mechanical Engineer who graduated from the Naval Academy, Rolando worked for several years as a machinist in the merchant fleet belonging to the Mambisa Navigation Company, the large shipping company created by Fidel Castro to transport goods to and from Cuba, mainly based on the active trade that existed at that time with the now defunct Soviet Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CAME). continue reading

“In the contract, it is clear that my salary stated what I should earn, what I was paid on board and what was sent to Cuba as ‘family remittance’, which was the euphemistic term they used to call the money they kept and that ended up in the government’s coffers, or who knows where or who benefitted from it,” he tells 14ymedio, under the condition to keep his true identity secret.

“’Family Remittance’ was the euphemistic term they called the money they kept and that ended up in the government’s coffers, or who knows where it went or who benefitted from it”

Over the years, Rolando has kept some of the documents or contracts he signed with the state company Selecmar, in order to support his testimony and “so that the truth of the exploitation suffered by seamen is known.”

The “family remittances” and other discounts reflected in Rolando’s documentation constituted no less than 80% of the monthly salary paid by the foreign company for the sailor’s work. Therefore, both he and the rest of those contracted had access to the remaining 20%.

In the 70’s and 80’s, Cuban sailors were considered a privileged caste. On the one hand, they had the possibility of traveling around the world, while most of the locals lived the obligatory insular confinement. On the other hand, somehow, they managed to import (smuggle) clothes, shoes and other products of the capitalist world that the majority of the population could not even dream of.

In 1982, it was established that a minimum part of a sailor’s payment be made in foreign currency. Since then, recalls Rolando, the sailors began to see US $1 per day of navigation, a figure that has approximately doubled since 1985.

At the end of each trip, the hard currency was deducted from the salary in national currency and, if they did not spend that allowance, they could collect it in the form of “certificates” (chavitos) that allowed them to make purchases in several specialized stores to which foreign technicians also had access. These technicians were mostly Russians who resided in Cuba temporarily. These establishments were banned to the rest of the population and, in fact, they remained closed and with thick curtains behind the stained-glass windows, so that it was impossible to glimpse at those products to which common mortals had no access.

Former sailor Rolando Amaya’s contract document. (Courtesy)

This payment system was maintained until the loss of the Cuban merchant fleet, in the 90’s, when, with the disappearance of the USSR and the Eastern allies, the subsidies suddenly vanished and commerce became dramatically depressed. Cuba fell into the deep economic crisis from which it has not recovered to date, and the merchant fleet that had been Castro’s pride became a burden, as useless as it was difficult to sustain.

Finally, after several failed experiments to try to save the ships – including a process of merger and separation of the national shipping companies, the ephemeral association with recognized entrepreneurs of foreign shipping companies and the creation of short-lived joint venture companies – the ships were sold to the highest bidder or destined to be scrapped after remaining idle for a long stretch of

However, that did not mean the total extinction of the state bureaucratic apparatus. Mambisa survived as a niche that would direct the lobbying and business necessary to achieve foreign exchange earnings. There were no ships, but there was still a very valuable resource: the sailors. Paradoxically, the shipping company, already without vessels, found a way to become productive without the need to invest to renew or maintain a very expensive and inoperative fleet.

There they were, within reach, desperate to earn money, hundreds of sailors who were “available,” as the unemployed are euphemistically called in Cuba.

“It is then that Agemarca (Maritime Employer Agency of the Caribbean) and Selecmar are born, among other agencies in charge of subcontracting Cuban sailors to foreign shipping companies. Of these, the best known among us sailors, was Boluda, a Spanish company named after its owner, Vicente Boluda, with whom the Cuban government still conducts business,” says Rolando, who – like many others – emigrated years ago and has not returned to Cuba.

In order to mask the violation of the rights of these workers before the world organizations, the Cuban Government launched a fraudulent ploy

“There were also contracts with other companies in Africa, the Caribbean and Europe. I know of some of my colleagues who were hired by those companies, who were as poorly paid as I was. In their cases, the Government received most of the contract money, although I don’t know the exact details, since I haven’t had access to their documents,” he explains.

To mask the violation of the rights of these workers before the world bodies responsible for ensuring their compliance – especially the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) as a qualified authority to represent seafarers before the International Organization of Labor (ILO) – the Cuban Government launched a fraudulent ploy.

The ruse consisted in having the seafarer sign a document, a copy of which he would not receive, in which he would state that he was earning a salary of between US $3,000 and $4,000 or more, depending on the position; that is, a figure much higher than what he really got. “This (false) document is the one that is shown to the international authorities that require it,” denounces the ex-mariner, who, although he emigrated over 10 years ago and has lost contact with his former work companions, has no doubt that “the exploitation continues.”

“It was customary to receive a some boss or company official who checked and corrected anything concerning the documents, inventories and everything related to the Quality System (by virtue of which each sailor must have updated the certifications that guarantee his ability to perform the work for which he was hired) who always somehow reminded us how bad the situation was in Cuba, the number of unemployed in the company, how poorly dressed they were, going through tough times, waiting to occupy our positions,” he continues.

“Many believed, and I dare say that even today they still believe that they are privileged even knowing that a significant part of their salary is being taken from them. It’s sad”.

This “worked as a kind of warning that you had to behave yourself or you would be out on the street.” Intimidation was always present, in a veiled or open manner. Many believed, and I dare say that even today they still believe that they are privileged, even knowing that a significant part of their salary is being taken from them. It’s sad,” says the former sailor, who is now almost 60 years old.

“One of the big problems that I had in the last years with the fleet was the age of the crew. It was an aging crew and, as far as I know, there was no way to replace them in the short term.”

Rolando believes that this, added to the fact that many of the sailors left Cuba in different ways and for different reasons, has led to the loss of trained personnel. “It has been a constant leak. Today I find some of them in the social networks, living in all parts of the world, much of that skilled labor that Cuba lost, and nobody stole it, Cuba lost it because of its exploitative politics.”

Translated by Norma Whiting

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Supporters and Opponents of Gay Marriage Both See a Government Maneuver on the Constitution Referendum

Cuba’s Family Code will be what determines who will be allowed to marry, after this issue has been removed from the constitutional reform. (David Himbert)

14ymedio, Havana, December 19, 2018 — Religious groups that were pleased by the announcement of the National Assembly’s announcement that Article 68, which would open the door to marriage equality, would be removed from the constitutional reform, have announced this Wednesday their intention to mobilize against the Government’s project to include, within two years, that same concept in the Family Code.

“The news that the National Assembly of People’s Power has discarded the proposal of Article 68, because it was shown that a majority of the Cuban population rejected it, gives a measure of how strongly the thinking of the Evangelical Church of Cuba represents the Cuban People,” the Methodist Church of Cuba wrote on its Facebook page. continue reading

This declaration is a response to National Assembly deputy Mariela Castro, director of the National Center of Sexual Education (Cenesex), which has explained via its Facebook account that Article 82 will now define the institution as a fundamental union “in free consent and in equality of rights, obligations, and legal capacity of the spouses.”

The daughter of ex-president Raúl Castro assured that the “new formula retains the essence of the formerly proposed article (68), since it erases the binary of gender and heteronormativity with which marriage was defined in the Constitution of 1976. There’s no going back, the essence of Article 68 remains, the fight continues, now let’s say YES to the Constitution.”

Mariela Castro attributes the confusion of recent hours to poor communication from the National Assembly. “The Commission proposes deferring the concept of marriage, that is to say, that it is removed from the Project of the Constitution, as a form of respecting all opinions. Marriage is a social and legal institution. The law will define the rest of the elements,” said the Parliament on its Twitter account.

“Unfortunately the message tweeted by our legislative body mutilated the new proposal and with an inappropriate approach threw into the fray what many people are interpreting as a retreat,” clarified Mariela Castro.

The news had fallen like a bucket of cold water among the defenders of marriage equality who viewed the decision as a step back.

One of the first to react was the journalist Francisco Rodríguez Cruz, who has the blog Paquito el de Cuba. “Neither between man and woman nor between two people: the Constitution will not say what marriage is. The future Law will,” he detailed on Facebook. “To say it politely: take your marriage and shove it!” the activist also added.

The new wording opens, also according to Mariela Castro herself, the door to legalizing other types of couples. “It places domestic partnerships as a novel element, without tying them to a specific gender; this form, in the long term and according to statistics, is [currently] the most used in our society,” she reminded.

From Placetas, Villa Clara, on Facebook Live the journalist and LGBTI activist Maykel González Vivero said that the news had not taken him by surprise. “Some people close to Cenesex had notified us that article 68 wouldn’t be in the project of the Constitution.”

“It’s clear that the Family Code as well will be submitted, within a period of two years, to a popular consultation. At the end of the day what the National Assembly has done is prolong and delay the moment in which the right to marriage will be established for everyone in Cuba,” laments González, director of the independent publication Tremenda Nota.

Pastor Bernardo Quesada, one of the most fervent opponents of article 68 as it was worded in the project of the Constitution, doesn’t feel satisfied with the change announced in Parliament, although he minimizes its importance.

“More important than the issue of marriage, it worries us that neither freedom of association nor freedom of religion is specified,” reports Quesada to 14ymedio. The pastor recognizes that there is “much confusion” with the news that has been coming out in recent hours about a parallel popular consultation, to include the definition of “marriage” in the Family Code.

“It’s a maneuver to seek the approval of the Constitution in the referendum, because of that our churches are going to reject that. At least those of us who have five senses are not going to be tricked nor convinced to approve this Constitution,” he explains.

In July five Cuban evangelical denominations made public a declaration against marriage equality. The document affirmed that the “ideology of gender” had no relation with Cuban culture “nor with the historic leaders of the Revolution.”

In temples and Christian churches all over the country article 68 was openly criticized, a situation that made the Government fear a massive No vote against the Constitution. Evangelicals have had a rapid growth in recent years and it is calculated that the Methodists alone count more than 80,000 faithful in the entire country. Additionally, the Cuban Episcopal Conference also rejected allowing persons of the same sex to marry.

With this turn, the Government postpones the controversy and casts off an issue that could have brought No votes to the constitutional reform.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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Dozens of Passengers Protest at a Bus Stop in Havana

14ymedio, Havana, December 20, 2018 — This Thursday afternoon dozens of people circled a bus that was traveling on Calle Monte in Havana to demand that the doors be opened and that it transport those who were waiting at the stop. The passengers positioned themselves in front and on the sides of the bus to keep it from continuing its route and, a few minutes later, the police intervened to break up the protest.

The events occurred before it started to rain in the city, affected by the arrival of a cold front that has brought abundant rain and the danger of coastal floods to the west of the country. The passengers demanded to be transported toward their destination after the bus driver did not stop at the bus stop. continue reading

When the downpour started the people ran to the covered sidewalk to keep from getting wet and the driver took advantage of that to depart, leaving the passengers at the mercy of the rain.

An hour after the incident several police cars were continuing to circle around the area to avoid a second protest.

In the last few weeks the public transportation situation in the Cuban capital has gotten worse after the Government implemented on December 7 a series of measures to regulate private taxis. The self-employed transport workers responded to the new regulations with a strike that paralyzed the country’s biggest city for 48 hours.

Although in recent days some of these private vehicles have started circulating again, transportation is still very affected because hundreds of drivers refuse to take up the job again under the current circumstances.

The drivers are demanding freedom of movement, right to work all over the country, access to a wholesale market, the ability to import parts, and permission to have independent unions, among other demands.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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Civil Defense Warns of Possible Coastal Flooding in Eastern Cuba

Hurricane Michael left widespread coastal flooding this October in Cuba’s Artemisa province. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, December 20, 2018 — The Forecast Center of the Meteorology Institute warned of possible coastal flooding in eastern Cuba with the arrival of an extratropical storm formed on Wednesday morning. Since early Thursday morning the winds from the south, between 30 and 45 kilometers per hour and with higher gusts, will affect the eastern provinces and Isla de la Juventud.

Faced with this situation the National General Staff of Civil Defense issued an “early alert” warning and has called on all governing bodies, state bodies, economic entities, and social and territorial institutions to “fulfill the planned measures in your respective plans for risk reduction in disasters.” continue reading

Civil Defense insists in the call that the population be alert, “pay attention to information from the Meteorology Institute and Civil Defense, and obey with discipline the guidance of local authorities.”

According to the report from the Forecast Center, this weather situation will cause swells on the southern coast from Pinar del Río to Cienfuegos, including the special municipality of Isla de la Juventud, causing coastal flooding.

The sea could penetrate up to a third of a mile inland in Batabanó, and two-thirds of a mile in the low zones of Artemisa province.

It’s expected that, with the advance of this system, early Friday morning the winds will persist for a period of approximately 24 hours, with strong coastal floods predicted in low zones along the coast, including the Havana breakwater, starting the same morning.

In a broadcast from the Havana Channel the forecasts warned that the coastal flooding in the city could reach as far as Calle Línea in the lowest areas.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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A Decree That’s Not All It’s Cracked Up To Be / Fernando Damaso

Máscara [Mask]. Work by Rebeca Monzó, Havana.

Fernando Damaso, 16 December 2018 — Decree 349, which concerns regulations governing the broadcast, exhibition and promotion of artistic products, has created much concern among creators. The problem is not about “the enemies” making propaganda against it, but rather the real danger that the decree represents.

The danger consists in that, under its shelter, the authorities could establish censorship over what is authorized, as well as over the strict political/ideological criteria used–in place of intrinsic value–by those who evaluate artistic products. continue reading

This is not a new phenomenon and it has, in our country, its closest antecedent in the sadly known “grey decade,” during which the cultural bureaucrats of the National Cultural Council approved or disapproved creations, taking into account the creators’ militancy, or lack thereof.

The phenomenon had already been manifested before in the now-extinct USSR and other socialist countries, when everything new and innovative was persecuted and prohibited, shielded by the supposed defense of the socially convenient. Further back, it had emerged when the so-called “academies” refused the works of the Impressionists, Cubists, abstractionists and modernists in the fine arts, and the new tendencies in music and dance.

In other words, the concern is valid.

I ask myself, who are the “superfunctionaries of culture” selected to determine the good and the bad, and what should be authorized or prohibited? I don’t believe they exist.

To date, just as has occurred in the economic sector, I only know bureaucrats who strictly comply with the orders from the powers that be in defense of their political/ideological interests–which are not necessarily those of the majority of the citizens. Besides, we Cubans tend, by custom, to hold back or overdo it–more often the latter than the former.

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

National Identity / Fernando Damaso

Fernando Dámaso, 21 November 2018 — The theme of national identity, along with that of sovereignty and independence, form the favourite triad of the official idiotology. Everyone talks about that.

National identity is not an ideological abstraction, but a historical reality, which comes loaded with its baggage of events and personalities from the colonial era up to the present day, without artificial black holes or spaces edited out for political convenience. continue reading

It is made up of the good, the bad, and the ordinary. Intelligent people and stupid people. People who get things done, and those who don’t. Pimps, prostitutes, thieves, liars, and decent people, of either sex. Also, people with different political, ideological, economic, social, sexual opinions, sportsmen and artists. This mixture of different people makes up the national identity.

No-one has done more to attack the national identity than the regime founded in January 1959, dislocating the national, provincial and municipal structures, with absurd changes and transformations to economic, political and social levels.

Now, our towns and villages aren’t anything like the way they used to be, with only little bits surviving which have been saved by municipal and provincial historians. Popular traditions have been lost or adulterated, all the economic and commercial structures have been taken apart, along with their well-known factories, businesses and establishments. Most of them disappearing, or given new names without meaning or popular support.

The streets and avenues have not escaped the ideological cruelty, losing their familiar historic names in favour of less important ones, or those indicative of cheap political messing about. Nor have the arts or sport escaped, with renowned figures, who form a legitimate part of the national identity in their own right, wiped out. The same thing has happened to education and health centres.

A time traveller from the 19th century or the first half of the 20th, would find themselves completely lost in today’s Cuba, with almost no discernible references to the past or to those who constructed it or graced it with their presence.

Everything has been replaced with stuff done in the last sixty years. A monster born of chaotic thinkers and worse doers, elevated into decision-makers, ruling by economic and political power, in the name of an obsolete ideology and a failed system, which has destroyed the country, converting it into a sad residue of what it used to be.

Translated by GH

Marriage Equality Eliminated From the Constitutional Reform Project

Cuba’s Family Code will determine who can marry, as this issue has been dropped from the constitutional reform. (David Himbert)

EFE via 14ymedio, Havana, December 19, 2018 — The commission preparing the draft of the new Cuban Constitution eliminated the article that would open the door to gay marriage, after the opposition to this matter that surfaced during the popular debates on the reform of the Constitution, which have been taking place for the past three months.

“The Commission proposes deferring the concept of marriage, that is to say, that it has been removed from the Project of the Constitution, as a way of respecting all opinions. Marriage is a social and legal institution. The law will define the rest of the elements,” reported the Cuban Parliament on its Twitter account. continue reading

#ConsultaPopular #Cuba adds a chapter only for the family, where legal and current ties are recognized, and the right of each citizen to start a family, without distinction to their nature. #ReformaConstitucional #HacemosCuba @DiazCanelB @anamarianpp pic.twitter.com/1iCZ82oc0M — AsambleaNacionalCuba (@AsambleaCuba) 18 de diciembre de 2018

The initial proposal aimed to change the concept of marriage that appears in the current Constitution (1976), where it is defined as the union between a man and a woman, a meaning that it proposed placing with “union between two persons with the legal capacity for it,” without specifying gender.

This change of direction was made known this Tuesday during the commissions prior to the plenary session of the National Assembly on Friday, in which it is anticipated that the constitutional draft, to which has been added suggestions received from citizens during the process of debating the text, will be submitted to a vote.

According to the account of the Assembly on the Twitter, in the new Constitution “a chapter is added only for the family, where legal and current ties are recognized, and the right of each citizen to start a family, without distinction to their nature.”

Via this means, the Cuban Parliament also specified that “in the Family Code it will have to be established who can be subjects of marriage” and a popular consultation and referendum will be held “within a period of two years from a proposed transitional provision in the project itself.”

The constitutional modification that would have supported a future law of gay marriage had opened an intense debate in Cuba, with campaigns in favor by the LGTB community but also against from the Catholic and evangelical churches, the latter of which have more and more followers on the Island.

In accordance with the report that the secretary of the Council of State of Cuba, Homero Acosta, gave to the deputies yesterday, that article (number 68 of the constitutional draft) was the one most tackled in the popular consultation, considering that it came up in 66% of the meetings.

192,408 opinions on the matter were gathered, of which 158,376 proposed “substituting the proposal with what is currently in force” (the definition of marriage as the union between man and woman).

The draft of the new Constitution will be voted on in the National Assembly of People’s Power this Friday, and once approved will be submitted to national referendum on February 24.

The proposed text, which doesn’t incorporate changes to the political system, recognizes private property, eliminates references to communism, and establishes the position of prime minister, among other changes.

The constitutional Commission that prepared the initial draft and that has modified it introducing some of the proposals made by Cubans during the popular debate is headed by the ex-president and leader of the Communist Party of Cuba, Raúl Castro.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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Tania Bruguera Sues Official Media for Defamation

Tania Bruguera during her “performance” during the XII Bienniel of Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, December 18, 2018 — The artist Tania Bruguera made public this Tuesday a text in which she reports on a lawsuit she has brought against various official press outlets and against some of their most visible spokespersons.

“Tired of suffering defamation by the country’s official press outlets like Granma and Razones de Cuba (“Cuba’s Reasons,” apro-government blog) and of websites backed by the Ministry of Culture, like La Jiribilla, I have decided to bring a lawsuit against the actions of all legal and natural persons who have affected me and my family psychologically, professionally, and socially,” said Bruguera in a statement accompanying the lawsuit brought on December 11.

The artist told 14ymedio that she filed the penal lawsuit at the Old Havana municipal police station against the citizens who have signed any of the texts of those publications as is the case of Arthur González; Antonio Rodríguez Salvador; the director of the website Cubadebate, Randy Alonso Falcón; the director of La Jiribilla, Anneris Ivette Leyva; and the director of the newspaper Granma, Yailín Orta Rivera. continue reading

Bruguera claimed in her text that the campaign of defamation against her has not taken place only in media outlets, but also in executive meetings of the Ministry of Culture and of the Ministry of the Interior, of the directors of national museums and other leaders and cultural agents of the Government, with young artists, students, curators, and creators, with the objective of discrediting her.

The artist told this newspaper that after making the complaint she delivered copies of all the documentation of the legal action to the Attorney General of the Republic and the public services office of the Council of State. She also reported that in the public services office of the National Revolutionary Police they confirmed to her that the case was registered in the “national system” of complaints.

“They didn’t tell me anything about the period of time to receive a response but I asked a lawyer and she told me that it must be within 30 days,” she detailes. “What I am asking for is not economic compensation, but rather the retraction in the same media outlets where the articles originally appeared, and that they put an explanatory note on those that are on the internet,” clarified Bruguera in the text.

The artist told 14ymedio that she consulted with various lawyers on the writing of the text and that they told her that it is very possible that there are no precedents of a similar legal action to this one and that it would be the first of its kind in Cuba. “So then let it be the first of many and let it mean that, for next person who makes them uncomfortable by saying or doing what they think, the officials reflect on it better,” before defaming that person publicly, she added in her statement.

After this action Bruguera believes that other artists and citizens may be able to use the legal structures that exist in the Government for their protection against defamation.

According to the current penal code, defamation “requires the complaint of the offended party” and the crime takes place when a person, in front of a third party, “imputes to another a conduct, an act, or a characteristic against their honor, that may damage their social reputation, lower them in public opinion, or put them at risk of losing the confidence required to carry out their charge, profession, or social function.” It is sanctioned with “deprivation of liberty for three months to a year or a fine of 100 to 300 ’shares’* or both.”

The Government’s official media outlets, equally in printed form, digital, or telivision, frequently accuse leaders of the opposition, artists, journalists, and independent members of civil society of being “salaried employees of imperialism.”

“The Cuban Government cannot keep using the laws as they please, nor only to protect those who work for their political ends. The Government cannot be exempt from responsibility,” she said. Tania Bruguera supports the campaign against Decree 349 that a group of artists initiatated after it appeared published in the Official Gazette on July 10, along with a package of measures directed at limiting the work of private businesses.

The first week of this month the artist was detained in Havana along with other independent art figures, and advocates of the campaign, like Luis Manuel Otero, Yanelys Núñez, Michel Matos, and Amaury Pacheco. The arrest occurred after Bruguera, on December 7, participated in a “peaceful sit-in” in front of the Ministry of Culture in Havana to demand the repeal of Decree 349. That day she was released after some hours but later, on two other occasions when she attempted to reach the scene of the protest, she was arrested by State Security officials.

Bruguera believes that it is time to be in one’s country when it is going through a moment that is “crucial for freedom of expression in Cuba and also in the world.” The artist recently declined an invitation to participate in the Bienniel of Kochi, in India. “Although, in the circumstances in which we live in Cuba today, they have made us feel that asking for your rights is a useless act, all of us as citizens must be listened to, our rights to be compensated, and to receive a response when defamed, as is anticipated in Article 63 of the current Constitution of the Republic,” said Bruguera. In her statement she expressed: “A nation only exists when the rights of its citizens are respected.”

*Translator’s note: The Cuban penal code establishes fines in terms of a number of “shares.” This is done so that, instead of having to amend every fine established in the code, the amounts can be changed in all instances in the code simply by amending the value of one “share.”

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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Requiem for the Payret Theater / Miriam Celaya

Payret Theater (historiacuba.wordpress.com)

Cubanet, Miriam Celaya, Havana, 14 December 2018 — The recent news about the possible transformation of the iconic Payret Theater into a five-star hotel has fallen like an icy shower over Havanan moviegoers, especially the residents of the municipality of Old Havana, where the building is located, as well as the residents of the adjoining municipality of Centro Habana, which for years had yearned for the restoration and reopening of this classic jewel, unique among the first-run movie theaters of the capital and all of Cuba.

Located in what was then known as “Barrio de las Murallas” (Neighborhood of Ramparts) the area with the greatest cultural and recreational activity of its time, the Payret was inaugurated in January 1877 by a wealthy Catalán who resided in Cuba, who gave it his surname. It was also one of the first theaters to become a cinema hall and one of the favorite places of the most select society of Havana at the time.

During the years after its inauguration, and the years of the Republic, the Payret Theatre had several owners and underwent a number of renovations. It was finally demolished and re-erected, and in 1951, it acquired the architectural image that turned it into today’s iconic structure: neoclassical lines of successive arches, pillars and awnings in its exteriors, combined with eclectic elements typical of the buildings in its surroundings. Its refined interiors include the elegant lobby with the sculpture known as The Illusion, the work of the Cuban artist Rita Longa, and the famous high reliefs representing the nine muses – done by the same sculptor – on both sides of the stage of the once majestic hall of projections, where the intense red color of the curtains, the carpets, and the upholstery of its chairs stood out. continue reading

In short, the Payret shone among the best in luxury and comfort in a city that had more cinemas than New York in 1958 and was known as one of the capitals with the best equipped cinemas in the world. After 1959, with better and worse moments, the Payret was kept regularly elegant and went through a couple more restorations until the crisis of the 90’s arrived and this beloved icon of Cuban movie enthusiasts deteriorated by leaps and bounds because of material deficiencies and official neglect, until several years ago, when it finally closed to the public in order “to make repairs.”

Surprisingly the alarms are now sounding with rumors about this untimely hotel project, whose details were published on this page last Tuesday, December 11^th, giving an account of the ambitious construction plan of the Business Group of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), Gaviota SA, which would confiscate the whole block occupied by the old theatre, the “Kid Chocolate” room – a true architectural aberration, conceived and built in a hurry to function as a boxing chamber during the Pan-American Games held in Havana in 1991 – and several residential buildings in precarious conditions where more than a hundred families coexist.

The reports on this project and the final destination of the Payret have not yet been announced by the official press, but information is circulating informally among the group “in the know,” especially among neighbors close to the area and culture groups involved with the capital’s cinematic industry. There are many who feel “betrayed” by the turn of events because, until relatively recently, “what was known” was that the Payret was being subjected to a highly expensive capital restoration which, as has become customary, had been stopped for prolonged periods on several occasions, both for lack of materials and lack of financing, which explains, to some extent, the delay in the long-awaited reopening.

“They said that a budget had been earmarked for a complete restoration, then it was said that it fell short of the initial amount and that between the ICAIC and other entities committed to the work, new funds were being allocated to finish the work. It has even been said that the space will be transformed into a multiplex, when two smaller rooms in the old area are converted,” says Amelia González, an enthusiastic photographer and passionate Centro Habana filmmaker who lives very close to what she still calls “her favorite movie house.”

Like her, hundreds from several generations of Havana inhabitants who reside in the surrounding neighborhoods have the Payret as a reference of better bygone times, when visiting the dark room in this comfortable and beautiful cinema to enjoy a premiere was a pleasant and cultural experience all at once, an outing within easy reach of any pocket.

“I used to come here with my wife often, while it functioned as a movie house to show new movies and as one of the subsidiaries of the Latin American Film Festival, because on my income I can’t afford to go take her a date to a restaurant or to enjoy a show at a nightclub. So every time I passed the Payret, closed for so long, I would ask the custodians if they knew of a reopening date for the cinema, but none of them could tell me, nor was there a sign that indicating anything about it,” complains José Antonio, a fifty-something native of Old Havana who has kind memories of this place. And he adds: “Likewise, there was not even a notice indicating it was being restored, as they do with other works by (Eusebio) Leal (Havana City Historian)… We just chose to believe what the newspaper said”

Because it turns out that the new hotel project that would change so dramatically the function of the Payret is inserted in the construction plan promoted by the Office of the Historian with a view to celebrating the half-millennium of the Cuban capital in November 2019. When it comes to obtaining foreign exchange not even the Historian himself stops to reflect on such nonsense as the maintenance of the Patrimony. In any case, it has already been shown that the architecture of the facades can always be preserved, if the forms are kept. For its part, the plebs will be kept at a distance from the new spaces, because a luxury hotel does not count the proletarian rabble among its clientele.

So far it has not transpired that any official or personality of the world of cinema and national culture has issued an opinion for or against the projected cine-cide.

The proposal to turn the cinema into a hotel, however, is flagrantly contradicted by an article published more than three years ago in the official Granma newspaper “on the subject of the situation of cinemas and video rooms in the capital and other regions of the country.” (” Cuba: do you lose the magic of the movie houses?”, 11 June 2015), where it was stated: “The Payret case is separate (from the rest of the Havana cinemas) because, being an institution of high patrimonial value, it was decided it would be a target of investment, and its financing is much greater.”

The aforementioned article affirmed, citing words of Danae Moros, official at the head of the Provincial Film Directorate in Havana, that in 2015 “1,800,000 pesos in national currency and 700,000 convertible pesos for equipment purchase had been raised. That amount is already running out and we are going to request an increase because it is taking a lot more money.”

The same official assured that the restoration works of the Payret had begun the previous year (2014) with a “first stage” that included the roof, the hydro-sanitary network and the Alhambra room. The latter would be what he called “a polyvalent space” (?). The total reconstruction should be concluded before December of the same year, 2015, “because we want it to be ready for the Film Festival.”

However, three years and three film festivals later, not only has the Payret, which continues to be closed, not been restored, but there is no public information about where the funds allocated to that work ended up and, for greater uncertainty, now the death certificate is taking shape for a movie theater which, for over a century was the pride of Havana and certainly a space of great patrimonial value.

But the fact is that if the force that pulls the strings of this ambitious construction project – which is said to include other emblematic buildings of that strip of the capital – is the all-powerful Gaviota military company with the French company Bouygues Batiment International, and the romantics of nostalgia and inveterate capital film buffs can kiss their dreams of recovering a renewed Payret goodbye. The designs of the military consortium created by the power elite have two essential features: they are conceived in secret, like conspiracies, and they are – in keeping with the classic spirit of the cinema of yore – as definitive and unappealable as the thread of the Fates.

Thus, and probably in less time than we imagine, the Payret will disappear from Havana’s geography to give way to the overwhelming machinery of the state capitalism monopoly under the baton of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) leaders. Without further ceremonies there will be another decline in the narrow list of 42 cinemas that, according to official figures, still existed in 2015, in a capital that in its past glory days boasted of having more than 150 dark rooms.

Of those 42 spaces (not “cinemas” properly speaking) that miraculously survived in 2015, only 13 continued in precarious operation, 8 of which presented construction problems; while the 29 “closed ones” were going to be delivered to other “cultural institutions” because – always in the words of the official Danae Moros – “it is a policy of the Ministry of Culture to maintain in each municipality at least one or two rooms, but they must be comfortable and have good equipment.” It goes without saying that this policy has not been met either.

It remains only to point out such paradoxical and relevant detail in this requiem for the Payret cinema, pride and patrimony of Cubans, and that their loss occurs precisely as a result of the confrontation between artists and the officials in charge of high culture around the application of the controversial Decree 349, within the framework of which the latter publicly insisted in the media that the administration of national culture “is in good hands.”

The fate of Payret, in particular, and the depleted real estate of Cuban cinema in general, confirm the exact opposite.

Translated by Norma Whiting

’Cuban Food Stories,’ the Island Told Through its Flavors

Asori Soto brought his film to Cuban screens as part of the 40th International Festival of New Latin American Cinema. (EFE)

EFE via 14ymedio, Yeny García, Havana, December 16, 2018 — A country rich in culinary traditions and diverse in flavors, even faced with scarcity and shortages, is the surprise revealed now in Havana by ’Cuban Food Stories’, a documentary that traces the map of the island through the stomach and the nostalgia of a Cuban filmmaker.

Eating before going to the cinema is almost an obligatory requirement to see this film, which debuts on Cuban screens as part of the 40th International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, fruit of a “debt” of its director, Asori Soto, an expatriate who has used food as a pretext to rediscover his country.

“Some people were asking me, why are you going to make a movie in Cuba, if in Cuba there’s no food? And I said to myself, even if that was the reality, in the absence of food there is also a story. But what we discovered was something totally different,” explained Soto to EFE. continue reading

The serious economic crisis of the 1990s sunk the country into one of its worst moments, desperate to survive in face of the scarcity of food and forgetting its rich culinary heritage, in a lethargy that seems to still exist today, when shortages still exist as a brake on creativity in the kitchen.

After 45 days traveling around the island — and 12 extra pounds — the filmmaker proved that “even though there is scarcity,” in Cuba there exists a world of flavors that go further than the traditional duo of congrí rice and pork.

“Cuban cuisine is extremely rich, what we haven’t known how to do in recent years is represent it onscreen. If something is not represented, it doesn’t exist,” pointed out Soto, who took around two days to film each story in the movie.

In what is almost an anthropological investigation of what makes up Cuba culinary identity, the documentary takes the spectator by sea and land, from cities to places as remote as the banks of the river Toa or the almost isolated Baracoa, the first Spanish town in Cuba, both in the eastern region of the island.

’Cuban Food Stories’ is not a “film about food, but rather about people,” who still jealously guard dishes inherited from their elders, the majority of which have nothing to do with the idea that many have made of the island’s cuisine, “in which exists a place like Baracoa (east) where they cook with coconut milk.”

The film shows native dishes of each region, but strangely little known beyond their borders, like cornmeal with crabs and shellfish in coconut milk, all without forgetting the eternal roast pork, the jewel of the crown in the island’s festivities.

Passing through, the spectator can also catch a glimmer of Cuban folklore, beyond gluttony, and get to know one of the best-kept traditions of the country, in the Christmas Eve dinner filmed in the famous parrandas — food and drink fueled celebrations — of Remedios, declared in November to be an Intangible Heritage of Humanity by Unesco.

“In the film they only visit one restaurant, the rest are people in their houses. Is there anything better than eating shrimp from the river, caught 30 yards away, cooked in coconut milk that was just extracted in front of you?” insisted Soto.

However, beyond representing inherited and little-known flavors of Cuban cuisine, ’Cuban Food Stories’ has turned into an initiative that tries to promote the practice of a “’leveraged” cooking, taking advantage of what is available, sustainable, current, and very necessary.

“Cuba is a country with economic problems and even so, food is wasted. (…) Dishes have more than one life. It’s not necessary to throw away bread because it has gotten hard. Our mission is to try to change that mentality, better understand our culinary culture, and that we start to create, taking that as a base,” he added.

Exchanges with cooks from countries like Vietnam, which has an “extremely rich cuisine marked by famine,” various social and development initiatives, are some of the projects that Soto has in mind, and on which he is still working “one by one” before launching them.

“We would love it if people would try. It’s complicated to cook when sometimes you don’t have the elements, but if you feel proud of what you are doing and keep trying, you’re going to succeed,” he insisted.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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Police Raid Against Illegal "Almendrones" On Two Wheels

The motorcyclists of Santiago de Cuba are the main private transportation in the city. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Ernesto Camué, Santiago de Cuba | 17 December 2018 — Authorities in Santiago de Cuba are determined to impose order on mototaxis (motorcycle taxis), the main method of transportation in the city. In the last few weeks, an expanded body of inspectors and police officers has been trying to check the illegal motorcyclists, around nine out of every ten circulating around the city.

The profession laments that, in a context of new regulations for the private sector, the controls in the transportation of passengers are significant. The worst nightmare of these drivers is the motorized police, caballitos, who in the last few weeks have determinedly pursued motorcyclists to demand that they show their licenses.

The peculiar topography of the city, with steep streets, means that mototaxis are the best solution for passengers who want to cross it rapidly and without having to wait too long for a bus. Consolidated for decades, mobility on these two-wheeled “almendrones*” was legalized in 2014, but convincing the motorcyclists to formalize their activity has turned out to be an almost impossible task. continue reading

Of the 15,000 bikes providing service in the city, less than a tenth have a license to practice the occupation in a self-employed manner, according to the local press.

The majority prefer to do it outside of the law to evade the monthly payment for the permit which, along with the social security fee, can reach around 400 CUP (Cuban pesos, about $16 US), in addition to paying 300 CUP for the operating license once a year. The motorcyclists, additionally, justify their position by arguing that local authorities haven’t fulfilled the initial promise of providing them with spare parts and fuel at preferential prices to perform their work.

A mototaxi makes at least ten journeys a day, according to various motorcyclists consulted by this newspaper, from which the weekly earnings can top 3,000 CUP. However, these freelancers allege that spare parts and private maintenance garages have very elevated prices and that fuel, at 1 CUC (Cuban convertible pesos, about $1.00 US) per liter, is an unsustainable price.

Four years ago, Maira Pérez González, vicepresident of the Provincial Administration Council, assured that maintenance and repair garages would be authorized with facilities for these motorcyclists and that they would be sold oil, greases, body work, paint, and electricity.

“They told us that they were going to open a store where we could buy cheaper parts and tires to repair the motorcycles, but the supply lasted a very short time,” details Yunior, a 32-year-old motorcyclist who has spent seven years “evading the police” to avoid the fines of up to 500 CUP that they impose on illegal drivers.

The motorcyclist believes this is the only advantage of legalizing the business. “Everything else with being self employed is about obligations to the State, not rights: you have to pay more and the earnings are very little. We would have to set prices that customers aren’t willing to pay,” he tells 14ymedio to justify his decision to work outside the law.

If until a few months ago there was a certain permissiveness with the illegal motorcyclists, the outlook has radically changed at the end of 2018. “Before they would stop us so that we would wear a helmet and so we would carry another one for the customer, but now it’s a hunt to give us fines and even threaten to confiscate our motorcycles,” says Jorge Valdivia, a motorcyclist who had a license for several years until, in April of 2017, he decided to return it and continue “at his own risk” in Santiago’s streets.

“Now we have to tell the customer to pay discreetly because if the police see us accepting money they give us fines,” he adds.

Valdivia rides a bike of the MZ make, which along with Jawa and ETZ motorcycles are the most common ones in private transportation in this part of the country. “I bought this one from a Cuban who studied in communist Germany and brought it with him when he came back,” he tells this newspaper. They are among the few motorcycles with fuel motors that have been permitted to enter the country in half a century.

Currently customs laws only allow the private import of electric motorcycles, nor are models that consume fossil fuels sold in national stores. On the informal market one of these vehicles can cost 7,500 CUC or more, depending on its technical state and on the improvements made by its owner.

“I bought this Jawa a year ago and I still haven’t managed to recoup the investment, so I can’t pay for the license,” explains a young rider who preferred to remain anonymous. “If I get my license I will have to pay almost 500 CUP each month between one thing and another, so there would remain very little for me,” he details.

Along with the advantages in mobility that motorcycles offer in Santiago de Cuba is the price. There are rates by section and a standard trip costs 10 CUP, but one can also negotiate with the driver for longer distances or to use the vehicle to transport shopping, furniture, and even raw material for other private businesses.

“Without the motorcycles this city would be paralyzed because not even the guarandingas (a truck fitted out to operated a bus), nor the Diana buses (assembled on the island) manage to offer an efficient service,” says Carmen Rojas, a resident in the vicinity of the central Alameda of Santiago de Cuba. “Although not everyone can afford a moto, what’s certain is that they alleviate the transport problem a lot.”

*Translator’s note: The vehicles used in private, shared and semi-fixed route taxis in Cuba are commonly classic American cars from the 1950s or earlier, which are called “almendrones” in reference to their “almond” shape.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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Dengue and Zika Advancing in Cienfuegos

A doctor attends a child with fever in one of the attached rooms of the hospital in Cienfuegos. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Justo Mora / Mario J. Pentón, Cienfuegos/Miami, December 12, 2018 –Winter hasn’t managed to contain the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is grazing freely in Cienfuegos. 198 people have been seen in the past week under suspicion of dengue, and 22 suspected cases of Zika have been recorded, which makes the province one of those most affected by the presence of the mosquito, according to official figures obtained by 14ymedio.

“We have around 200 patients with symptoms of having contracted zika or dengue,” one of the doctors directing the fight against the epidemic explained, under condition of anonymity. “Additionally, the confirmed cases in the same period of time are 33 of dengue and 25 of zika. The epidemiologic situation is difficult in the province and the population doesn’t doesn’t realize the risk.”

The most affected municipality is Cienfuegos, with 118 cases of patients with fever, because of which they have had to equip rooms and annex hospitals to attend the flow of patients. In the province, 45 sources of the mosquito Aedes aegypti have been counted, of which the majority, 40, are in the city of Cienfuegos. continue reading

Areas of Cienfuegos where the mosquitos that transmit dengue and zika are common. (14ymedio)

The city’s newspaper, 5 de Septiembre, published an article at the end of November warning about the presence of a type of dengue in the province that hadn’t been seen since 1977 and that can cause death.

Authorities classified the health situation in the province at that moment as “alarming.”

“We have some shelters in the Faculty of Medical Sciences, in the Cinco de Septiembre polytechnic, and in other areas like Caunao. We were thinking that in 15 days the situation would be resolved, but to date the outlook remains very complicated,” he added.

The majority of the annexed rooms and shelters in which the patients with fever are being hospitalized don’t have the necessary conditions for good care. The patients are being crowded together, with terrible hygiene conditions and bad food, as 14ymedio was able to confirm during a tour of those spaces. Added to this are a lack of medicine and the bad state of the equipment, some of it in a deplorable condition.

Despite the growing number of cases of dengue and zika the water leaks continue to proliferate in many neighborhoods of the city (14ymedio)

In Cienfuegos there are 25 confirmed cases of zika, a virus that causes the appearance of reddish spots on the skin that may be accompanied by mild fever, headache, conjunctivitis, muscular pains, diarrhea, vomiting, and loss of appetite.

In the case of pregnancies, it is believed that zika can cause microcephaly, because of which health authorities warn pregnant women to avoid traveling to areas where the virus is present. In Cienfuegos, so far there have been confirmed 12 pregnant patients.

“The Aedes mosquito reproduces in clean waters. In Cienfuegos we have a precarious situation with the water supply, so people use tanks, buckets, barrels, and whatever they have on hand so that they don’t run out. There are areas where there has been no water for up to 15 days. This is the perfect place for sources to be generated,” warns the doctor.

“Luckily we have a health system that has its faults, but in coverage is very effective, otherwise, the situation would be worse. Until now we have not had to mourn deaths due to dengue or zika,” he added.

Numbers of cases of dengue and zika by area in Cienfuegos. (14ymedio)

Yamilka Portuondo, a Cienfuegos resident who lives in the Buena Vista neighborhood, doesn’t even remember the mosquito bite, but one morning she woke up with fever and her whole body hurt. “It was as if I had been beaten,” she explains. She spent almost a week with high fevers, abdominal pains, and weakness.

“Late at night is when the mosquitos start to go out and no one can escape them. Here there are many water leaks, that’s where they bred,” she says via telephone.

“I was in bed at home for a week. I had to commit to staying in my room with a mosquito net and not going out*. My dengue wasn’t the worst case, because of that a doctor friend of mine let me stay at home, but the majority of people have to go to the hospital,” she comments.

Her family got meat, oil, and vegetables for her diet, a luxury for the poorly supplied local markets. “My family members in Miami sent me a package of food that also helped. Dengue makes the platelets go down a lot, so doctors order a reinforced diet. Without my family I don’t know what I would have done.”

*Translator’s note: Patients can become a link in the transmission chain if uninfected mosquitos bite them, catch the virus, and then pass it on by biting other people.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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The Lack of Personnel and Maintenance Sink Government Childcare Centers

Social sectors with higher incomes seek specialized care and better infrastructure for their children. (Charles Pieters)

14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 16 December 2018 — Incomplete staffing and an excessively high ratio of children to teachers along with the lack of maintenance has led to remarkable deterioration in the childcare centers throughout the country, 57 years after their founding, according to the official press.

An article published this week in the newspaper Granma details the difficult time that state daycare centers are going through. Currently, these centers provide care for 18.5% of the population that is less than seven years old, about 134,000 children.

Despite the low birth rate in recent years, at least 48,000 families across the country are still waiting for their children to obtain a place at one of these centers, according to information from Mary Carmen Rojas Torres, an official of the Directorate of Education of Early Childhood in the Ministry of Education. continue reading

The closure of 36 childcare centers throughout the national territory and the deficit of specialized personnel cause many families to opt for private care, a phenomenon that has gained strength in the last two decades, especially among the sectors of society with higher incomes that seek specialized care and better infrastructure.

A resolution has been in place since last year requiring that a child enrolled in state day care be the son/daughter of an active worker, be at least 11 months old and able to walk. Employees from military and police institutions, public health and education centers have priority, while private sector workers were set aside on the list.

The low salaries that educators receive from the state locations, less than 40 CUC (Cuban Convertible Peso, roughly $40 US) per month, means that many of the graduates in this specialty end up opening their own childcare businesses or employed in private daycare centers.

“There are 183 closed locations due to lack of personnel, which translates into a deficit of 181 educators and 2,379 teacher’s assistants,” acknowledged Yoania Falcón Suárez, an official of the Ministry of Education. To alleviate the deficit, a higher children to educator ratio was authorized and in addition staffers now get a salary increase depending on the number of children, but these measures have not solved the problem.

Carmen María is one of the more than 7,000 mothers in the city of Havana who, for months, has requested a spot in a state child care center for her one-and-a-half year-old twins. The woman works as a waitress in a private restaurant and laments that the employees of the state sector have priority for obtaining a spot.

“I’m going to wait a couple of months to see if I’m lucky and I can enroll the children in a state childcare center, because it’s cheaper, but, if not, I’ll have to end up hiring a private caretaker in order to keep my job.” At the moment Carmen Marías children are under the care of their grandmother during her working hours.

The woman also thinks that “there has been a deterioration in the pedagogical quality of the workers in these places because before they were closer to being true teachers but now they are more like assistants who are there to take care of the children, but they do not teach them many things.”

An official of the Ministry of Education explained to 14ymedio the reasons for prioritizing the state sector. “The cuentapropistas (self-employed) have higher incomes and that is not a secret to anyone,” explains the worker of this ministry, on condition of anonymity. “In the midst of the difficulties we have with the number of locations and specialized personnel, we are trying to help — first of all — the mothers with the lowest salaries,” she says.

“We also have a policy that all those women who work in strategic state sectors can have their childcare guaranteed even if they do have to wait a long time to obtain a place,” the official added. “Childcare centers are subsidized and should benefit those who need this support, because other families can pay for a private caregiver.”

The child care educators are trained in mid-level courses in pedagogical schools for young people who have graduated from the 12th grade. At the moment there are more than 3,700 students training in these centers who are destined to occupy positions in state child care centers and preschool classrooms. But many of them will end up deserting the profession.

Rosario García has been managing a private daycare center in Candelaria for seven years. The self-employed manager explains that she has no problems hiring staff, because many educators from day care centers in the area have expressed their desire to work in her small business. For García, the greatest difficulties are on another side.

The woman considers that if private caregivers could rent larger spaces in the state’s own day care centers, have access to educational resources at preferential prices and be respected and considered by the government to be educators, that would help meet the high demand for child care.

Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria

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After Months Of Testing, The First "Online" Shopping Site In Cuban Pesos Doesn’t Manage To Overcome Faults

Customers complain about the slow download of the page which makes it inconvenient for customers (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, December 13, 2018 — Last summer testing began for online shopping in national money (Cuban pesos, or CUP) in Cuba but the official launch happened this Wednesday in the Caribbean Chain of Stores on 5th and 42, in Miramar. After months of waiting and tests on the web, the first shopping site in CUP, accessible only from within the Island, registers many errors and has set off the complaints of users.

Customers, who must take away the merchandise acquired in a face-to-face manner, have confirmed the slowness of the page, which has suffered successive issues this Wednesday (its first day available) and security risks due to lack of an SSL certificate to guarantee the privacy of bank details entered by users.

Mario, one of those who yesterday was showing his discontent, said that the page “seems to be designed so that people get tired and give up.” He also pointed out that, to choose a product, previewing is very slow. “If they don’t improve it, customers won’t accept it,” he maintains. continue reading

According to its creators, the website will be available at any time of the day, but it will be suspended between 8 and 9 in the morning for maintenance and to update the available products. The products on sale, for the moment, are food, drinks, home goods, and cleaning products, although previously they included others such as electrical appliances, furniture, and hardware.

In this first phase, online shopping is only available in this store in the capital but it is predicted that the service will be extended to at least one store in each province during the first half of 2019, as Marta Mulet Fernández, commercial specialist in the sales department of the Caribbean Chain of Stores, indicated to the official press.

“This service is aimed primarily at the capital’s residents, but if you find yourself in another province of the country you can do the same thing and shop for friends and family from the capital,” she added.

“How lovely, doing shopping for friends in the capital…We peasants for the dear residents of the capital,” mocked another user, visibly annoyed by the privilege for Havana residents.

The head of the sales group of management of the technical market, Aurora Milanés, specified that Camagüey and Holguín would be the next provinces where users would be able to shop virtually.

Mulet Fernández explained that upon accessing the site, a warning appears informing the user that he is entering an unsecured connection because it doesn’t have “a certificate supported by any certification authority… The great majority of these authorities are American and the blockade prevents them from being sent out to .cu domains,” explained the specialist, who added that “the store is designed as a secure portal.”

The executives of the Caribbean Chain of Stores recommend that to shop online the user access it from a computer because the interface is “friendlier” from this device, although it is also possible to do it from a mobile device, a piece of advice that some have criticized, demanding that the company adapt itself to consumers and not the other way around.

To be able to use this page of electronic commerce one needs to use a magnetic card from any banking entity of the country and in national money (CUP), in addition to having one of the service cards for electronic banking (Teleblanca) distributed in the branches of Banco Metropolitano, BANDEC, or BPA.

Another of the users, happy with the launch of the store, wonders nevertheless how one would buy with Telebanca if they are not making cards at the moment. He also complained about the slowness of the website and suggested “a little more RAM and CPU for the server” where the page is housed. “It’s very slow and the images don’t load entirely,” another customer was lamenting.

This morning, after 9:30, the website was not available, as 14ymedio was able to confirm. Upon attempting to access it, the user could see the warning that the site was in “maintenance mode” and that the store would be “temporarily offline.”

Once the shopping is done, the bill and receipt for the transaction are sent via email. The payment system via which the products are purchased is managed by the Company of Information Technologies for Defense (Xedit), as the national press reported when the testing period began in July.

Mulet Fernández explained that for now only the method available for pickup will be in store, always starting 48 hours after the purchase and between 9:30am and 7:00pm from Monday to Saturday. Home delivery will not be available until the end of January and will cost an additional fee, yet to be specified.

Cubans, who for years have had to wait in long lines to shop in the country’s stores, have been thankful for the beginning of this type of sale, but many still wonder what sense there is in shopping from a distance if it’s still necessary to go to the store to pick up the product.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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