The Exodus in Cuban Chess

Leinier Domínguez, who currently lives abroad, was expelled from the Cuban national team this spring. (Baku World Cup 2015/Susan Polgar)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Ernesto Santana, Havana | 17 September 2018 — The last movements in Cuban chess have been three great escapes—in consecutive years, Yuniesky Quesada, Leinier Domínguez and Lázaro Bruzón—something that could be called the “American exit.” The game is in check, but in reality it is in keeping with the logic of all Cuban sports, where emigration and decline don’t stop.

That the official declaration announcing his expulsion from the national squad contained lies, as Bruzón claimed, is nothing new. “A fabricated note to make them look like heroes and me like a villain,” wrote the chess player from Las Tunas in his response to the National Chess Commission. Rather, it’s normal that the authorities lie about their own responsibility and denigrate the athletes. continue reading

Bruzón wonders where these words full of “negativity and hate” came from. The higher-ups only know how to throw trash onto the lower floors, in INDER (The National Institute of Sports, Physical Education, and Recreation) and in the whole community. It seems that they have no other methods. The athletes who decide to emigrate are, for the bosses, deserting soldiers, not people who want to make a change in their lives.

The expulsions of the three best current Cuban chess players—among the most notable in Latin America—is a devastating blow for national chess. It is even the end of a kind of myth, of a pleasant legend: the rivalry between Leinier Domínguez, from Güines, and Lázaro Bruzón, from Las Tunas, has come to its end, at least inside the country.

Born a year apart—Bruzón in 1982 and Domínguez in 1983—the two were friends since childhood, when they threw themselves into the tough dream of triumphing in the world of chess. Soon they began to receive laurels in Cuba and abroad, and they passed from FIDE Masters and International Masters to become Grand Masters. 2002 was the year of the takeoff of the two friends and rivals. Fifteen years later, the one from Güines settled in the United States. Now the one from Las Tunas is doing it. The dream was lovely while it lasted.

But this “American exit” is not exclusive to the three best. Even as of several years earlier, the United States had become the destination for other good Cuban chess players. In fact, that country is the one that has received the greatest number of these born here in the 21st century so far, and there are already several Cuban Grand Masters in the American ELO ranking.

However, it’s not only there that the exodus of our chess players is aimed. In the field of this sport in the world, more than a few who manage to change their national federation, but it is notable that, for example, in 2014 alone, of the 37 transfers approved by FIDE, five were of Cuban players. Currently, in addition to the United States, dozens of Cubans compete in countries like Ecuador, Paraguay, or Colombia.

The authorities brag that they are continuing to train chess players, but it’s clear that, despite a lot of talent, the new ones don’t end up being included in the elite. This sport is in check, on the verge of checkmate. Unless those above—those always worried more about themselves than about the athletes, and who believe themselves more important than them, although they live off of them—adopt a more realistic attitude.

In chess it is easier—in comparison with other sports—to allow athletes to compete for Cuba even though they live in other countries. They must come up with a solution more or less like this. There is no other path. And they need to do everything possible so that the most promising chess players can raise their ELO. Is it so difficult to offer them internet service, essential for them, which the Government provides to any mediocrity?

The board speaks clearly: there are no more moves and time is up.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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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.

The Greatness and Decadence of the United States

A Honduran family fled to the United States because gangs threatened to kill them one by one if they did not submit to extortion. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami | 17 September 2018 — A humble Honduran lady came to Miami to visit her family. All had fled their country in order to save their lives. One of her sons, a hardworking and decent young man, was assassinated with 38 stab wounds. In Honduras, her daughter was a good teacher and her son-in-law was a high-ranking official of a credit institution. Her three grandchildren were (and are) magnificent students. The gangs threatened to kill them one by one if they did not submit to extortion.

They decided to escape to Miami. The teacher today works as an aide in various homes. The accountant works in construction. It is a variant of the beginning of the American dream. Fortunately, the United States granted them asylum. This happened before Jeff Sessions declared that his country would not take into account the risk of losing your life as a sufficient reason to request asylum and protection from Washington. To me, frankly, I can not think of a more valid explanation to flee from a nation in which you were comfortably installed.

The Honduran matriarch admired the economic picture she found. “We live here like the rich live in Honduras,” she said. And then she explained why. They rent a comfortable house (in a clean and modest neighborhood) with three bedrooms and a bathroom that has hot and cold water. The house has electricity, telephone, TV, air conditioning and internet. They are paying for two small used Japanese cars, also with air conditioning, because they need them to work. continue reading

Everyone eats and dresses reasonably well. They have cell phones and, as they know how to save, have even gone on vacation for a week inside the country. The boys study at a good public high school and the girl, who is the oldest of the youthful trio, does so at Miami Dade College, where she has not gone unnoticed by the educated eye of educator Eduardo Padrón, President of that enormous state university, the largest in the country with more than 160,000 students. She is one of the best. She wants to be a doctor and she will achieve it someday. She has a surplus of talent and tenacity.

The United States was already the largest economy on the planet at the beginning of the 20th century. How did it do it? There is no other secret: it is a country of laws and institutions and not of people. The independent nation surged with the industrial revolution and has grown and expanded little by little, at the rate of 2% per year for two and a half centuries, with the exception of the four years of the Civil War. The thirteen apprehensive states that declared independence, with just under 4 million inhabitants, today are 50 states and have 327 million people unequally distributed in a territory that is 6 times larger than the original.

Never has humanity lived better. Never has it lived longer and with more comforts. It is worth reading Steven Pinker’s books to contrast the data. All the reasoned information is there. The hard-working Honduran family participates in the accumulated American wealth (buildings, roads, sewers, bridges, parks, etc.) and the potential wealth that depends on intangible factors (institutions, rule of law, values and shared principles).

Someday, of course, the United States will no longer be at the head of the planet. It has always happened like that. The history of Greece, Rome, Spain, France, Germany and England proves it. China will probably replace the American nation. It is all in combining military power with technological and economic power. It’s possible it may discover a more efficient way to kill human beings than nuclear war. If this happens, maybe they will use it. It will happen in the middle of this century. I hope we old ones won’t live to see it.

Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria

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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.

28 Cubans Captured Tying to Cross Honduras Without Documents

Honduras is part of the so-called “Central American corridor” through which thousands of undocumented immigrants try to reach US territory. (Honduran Police)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Miami, 13 September 2018 — Honduran authorities reported Wednesday the capture of 28 undocumented immigrants from Cuba who were trying to cross their country in order to reach the southern border of the United States.

In an initial police operation, 19 immigrants from Congo, 17 Cubans, 6 Haitians and three from Ghana were arrested. According to the National Inter-Agency Security Force (Fusina), the migrants’ objective was to reach the United States but they were arrested for “illegally circulating” in Honduran territory on Tuesday in the sector of Guasaule, on the border with Nicaragua.

The immigrants were taken to the National Institute of Migration’s facilities in Choluteca, in the south of the country, where they will be able to apply for a permit to cross Honduras, otherwise they will be returned to their home countries. In the case of the Cubans, the majority are able to obtain permission, according to several testimonies of immigrants collected by 14ymedio. continue reading

In Bucana, another area of Honduras bordering Nicaragua, authorities also detained another group of immigrants, including 11 Cubans.

According to official data, during 2018 the Honduran authorities have detained more than 1,400 foreigners in their territory.

The arrests of Cubans take place in the context of the second round of migratory talks held in Tegucigalpa. The Cuban authorities indicated their interest in signing a memorandum of understanding in this matter to “stimulate and guarantee the mobility of people in a regular, orderly and safe manner”. The delegation from Havana was also interested in “enhancing cooperation between both nations in the fight against irregular migration, human trafficking and migrant trafficking.”

Honduras is part of the so-called “Central American corridor” by which thousands of undocumented immigrants try to reach US territory. Despite the end of the policy of wet foot/dry foot, which granted legal status to Cubans who reached the United States border, thousands of the islanders continue to make these dangerous journeys in order to seek political asylum.

Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria

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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.

A Cuban in the Court of Happiness by Decree / Regina Coyula

Regina Coyula, 11 September 2018 — A friend recently pointed out to me, the Granma newspaper was a magnificent source of inspiration for alternative journalism. I do not subscribe to the paper nor would I be capable of standing in line at a kiosk to buy it, so it is an exception when I find myself with a copy. This rarity led me to a pearl on Friday, an idyllic full-page article: “The Untold Reality of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”

The journalist seems to have written in situ about what he calls “the ignored realities.” He was very impressed after a visit to Songdowong International Camp, where he captures the opinion of a North Korean teenager: “The bed, the mattress and even the paper stuck on the wall are so fantastic that we fell asleep without realizing it.”

For most Cubans, still without access to open and verifiable information, this chronicle may even light a small flame of solidarity towards the North Koreans, trapped seventy years ago in the happiness by decree of the Kim dynasty; a dynasty with hereditary castes that depend on their ties to the government. continue reading

A full page article, analyzing it would require an essay and not a blog post, but the excited journalist doesn’t mention that the beach camp of his North Korean son known as the Songdowon International Children’s Union Camp, a set specially prepared by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for the benefit of foreigners, Tripadvisor site included.

So it is totally consistent that a child in attendance asked to talk with a representative of a friendly government, does not dwell on slogans in his statement, but is honest about what really impresses him about the place: the bed, the mattress, the wallpaper…

From the National Highway to the Information Highway / Regina Coyula

Source: Wikipedia

Regina Coyula, 13 September 2018  — In the 1980s, when driving along the brand new highway pompously named Ocho Vías (Eight Lanes), one’s attention was drawn to the small sheds distributed along the way. It was then for coaxial cable, but it would be for fiber optics. The latest. Those little sheds promised (or seemed to promise, would be more accurate) modern telecommunications thanks to a fast and reliable technology, even in the face of storms and our traditional hurricanes.

But it was the ’80s, the country was pointed towards (and bolstered by ) the societal project of the New Man, and with the demise of that project a slow death has taken over what came to be constructed of the National Highway, which should have ended in Santiago de Cuba, but lurched toward and ended at the center of the island. The same fate must have befallen the other project of the small sheds, regarding which there is no news.

I was thinking about this on this weekend in 2018, when I tried to connect through the free test announced by Etecsa, the phone company, which was meant to allow us to connect to the internet via cellphones.

Translated by Jim

Prior Censorship, Decree 349 and the Constitutional Project of the Cuban Communist Party / Cubalex

Cubalex, 11 September 2018 — Decree 349/2018 sets up a system of prior censorship of cultural and artistic activities and other forms of expression, violating the freedom to carry out creative activities and the right to develop the human personality. It also offends against freedom of thought, belief and religion: and the right to hold opinion, to associate and to peaceful assembly.

In the Constitutional Project of the Cuban Communist Party, there is recognised, among other things, in relation to all citizens (although not all persons) the right to education, to culture, and its comprehensive development. Every person has the right to participate in the cultural and artistic life of the country. Men and women have equal cultural rights and obligations. Citizens should protect the natural resources and the cultural and historical heritage of the country. continue reading

The state recognises that the forms of artistic expression and artistic creation are free, but affirms categorically that its content must respect the values of a socialist Cuban society. This statement is a tacit recognition that prior censorship will be employed to supervise the content of the forms of artistic expression and artistic creation.

According to the Committee of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in its General Observation 21: The right of every person to participate in cultural life (Article 15 paragraph 1(a)), and also the other rights established in the International Agreement on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, imposes on the states three types or levels of obligation:

a) the obligation to respect;

b) the obligation to protect, and

c) the obligation to comply.

The obligation to respect requires the Cuban state to refrain from interfering, directly or indirectly, in the enjoyment of the right to participate in cultural life, which includes the creation, individually, or in association with others, or in a community or group, which implies that the state should abolish censorship of cultural activities imposed on the arts and other forms of expression. In other words, it is necessary to repeal Decree 349 and provide a constitutional project which may be supported by all of us.

(1) Art. 43 of the draft Constitutional bill

(2) Art. 45 section 1) of Article 91 of the draft Constitutional bill

(3) Section h) of the draft Constitutional bill

Translated by GH

Animal Protection… Also for Oxen

The economic crisis has meant that for decades most work on the land is done with oxen. (A. Bielosouv)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Marcelo Hernández, Havana, September 13, 2018 — One of the subjects that has come up most frequently in the meetings where the reform of the Constitution is being debated is the necessity to have a Law of Animal Protection. The majority of the people who have launched the proposal are thinking especially about the infinite number of abandoned dogs and cats in Cuba’s cities, the violence they are victims of, and the irresponsible abandonment that they suffer at the hands of their owners.

The bad working conditions of thousands of horses used for passenger transport all over the country is also on the minds of many of those demanding an end to such bad treatment and the establishment of a law that prevents excesses. However, few think about the many oxen used for farming labor all over the country, made invisible as a matter of course, but in a situation many times worse than that of those horses who pull coaches packed with people or of abandoned pets.

The long economic crisis in the country and the lack of a market selling agricultural machinery has meant that for decades the majority of work on the land is done with these animals. Without the plow, with its corresponding yoke of oxen, it wouldn’t be possible to produce many of the products sold on the stands in markets. With the lack of tractors and mechanized combine harvesters, a large percentage of the harvest in rural areas rests on the backs of these animals. continue reading

In the Matanzas plain, Rigoberto takes care of his two oxen like they are the apple of his eye. He raised them from birth and they answer to the names General and Florentino. “Without these animals my family would be even worse off,” recognizes the farmer, who grows greens and vegetables. “I take care of them like they were my own children,” the farmer shares, although he recognizes that his story isn’t very common in the surrounding area.

“On the closest cooperatives and on the state-owned farms, these animals are exploited and so they have a short life, because they aren’t given time to rest nor the food that they need,” Rigoberto believes. “When a guajiro (Cuban farmer) is the one who has a yoke of oxen, he tends to take care of them more, because it is very expensive and it will take a long time to get others.” General and Florentino sleep under a roof in an improvised shed that Rigoberto made. “You need to have a veterinarian look after them and give them fresh grass along with enriched fodder,” he points out.

However, another view appears as soon as one leaves this Matanzas man’s farm. Ribs sticking out, snouts injured by a badly placed nosering, and workdays that never seem to end is the most common lot of the area’s oxen. Those that hope, along with dogs, cats, and horses, that legislation is passed in their favor.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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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.

A Supposed Historic Right / Fernando Dámaso

Fernando Damaso, 15 August 2018 — The supposed historic right of the current Cuban Communist Party is fairly questionable.

In the first place, it is not the continuation of the Cuban Revolutionary Party (PRC), founded by José Martí to organize and carry out war against Spain for Cuba’s independence, which, according to its statutes, ceased to exist once that ended, leaving its militants free to found new parties, according to their economic, political, and social interests. Martí never demanded that the members abandon their political ideas to belong to it, but rather only that they desire and fight for independence.

The first Cuban Communist Party was founded on August 16, 1925 by Carlos Baliño and José Antonio Mella, on the base of the so-called Communist Association of Havana, founded by the former on March 18, 1923 with only fifteen members who later increased by organizing communist associations in other places. It was always a minority party. continue reading

Expelled from the party for not sharing some of its political aspects, when he was assassinated in Mexico in 1928 Mella was not fighting in it, but rather was a member of the Central Committee of the Mexican Communist Party.

Under the direction of Blas Roca, it turned into a party affiliated with the Third International, subject to its policies and those of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union under Stalin, which brought as consequences a complete gap from the situation at producing the fall of Gerardo Machado’s regime and the so-called Revolution of 1933, with calls for the occupation of the factories by the workers and of the central sugar plantations by workers and peasants, just like in the USSR.

To avoid chaos this erroneous policyhad to be repressed by the Ministry of the Interior (Antonio Guiteras) of Dr. Ramón Grau San Martín’s government, who turned into the target of the party, conspiring against the unity necessary at that moment to consolidate the revolution, assisting their own downfall and the rise to power of Colonel Fulgencio Batista.

In 1940, after the start of the Second World War, six of its directors (Juan Marinello, Blas Roca, Esperanza Sánchez, Salvador García Aguero, Romárico Cordero, and César Vilar) formed part of the Governing Coalition in the Constituent Assembly, selected to write the new Constitution of the Republic. They played their role, like those of other parties, among the 77 delegates to the Assembly, achieving the historic and never surpassed Constitution of 1940.

Later, the Communist Party formed part, along with other parties, of the so-called Democratic Socialist Coalition, which brought to power Fulgencio Batista, who ruled between 1940 and 1944. In this government Juan Marinello and Carlos Rafael Rodríguez participated as Ministers without a Portfolio.

During the governments of the Authentic Party (1944-1948 and 1948-1952), the first with Dr. Ramón Grau San Martín and the second with Dr. Carlos Prío Socarrás as Presidents, the party, by now called the Popular Socialist Party, formed part of the opposition and centered its attention on dominating the unions, which in a large measure it achieved.

After March 10, 1952, when Batista carried out a coup, the party inserted itself in the political fight against him, but without participating in the armed fight, which it criticized until nearly the end of the fall of the regime, when it created a small group of gunmen in Las Villas under the command of Félix Torres and, at the same time, situated, both in the Sierra Maestra and the Sierra Cristal, some of its leaders in the respective guerrilla leaderships, but without direct participation in combat.

At the triumph of the Revolution, it participated actively in its consolidation, as in the formation of the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations, of sad remembrance because of its manifest sectarianism, creating problems with the 26th of July Movement and the Revolutionary Directory of the 13th of March, principal organizations in the fight against Batista.

Separately, Aníbal Escalante and his followers in 1963 formed part of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution (PURS) and later, in 1965, of the Cuban Communist Party, Blas Roca delivering the banner of the party to Fidel Castro as its leader.

Both in the pre-1959 stage as well as later, the Communist Party has shown signs of mistaken assessments of the situation and of enormous errors in economic, political, and social management, which have affected the country and the citizens, incapable, in sixty years of exercising absolute power, of achieving its development and solving old and new problems. The facts are too many and known by everyone, and it’s not worth repeating them.

All this invalidates it, from the so-called “historic right,” from setting itself up as “the superior leading force of society and the State.”

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

The Original Sin / Fernando Dámaso

Fernando Damaso, 21 August 2018 — In the current project of the new Constitution one finds the original sin, which has been present in Cuba since the year 1959: confusing Homeland with Party and Nation with Revolution.

The bishiop of Santiago de Cuba, Monsenior Pedro Meurice, warned of this publicly during Pope John Paul II’s visit to that province in January of 1998.

The Homeland and the Nation are concepts that come up with nationality, and they hold up over time until its disappearance and, because of that, enjoy a long life. The Party and the Revolution are temporary concepts, corresponding to specific moments in the life of the Homeland and the Nation and, because of that, their life is limited. continue reading

Mixing them and manipulating them, with the dark purpose of prolonging the existence of the latter, and granting them a role and importance that they lack, only serves to confuse citizens and make them commit errors in assessment and analysis on the questions that concern the country and themselves.

Its application in Cuba demonstrates it: here the Party and the Revolution occupy the foreground and the Homeland and the Nation are simple catch-alls. Everything that is carried out, in any sphere, is an action or result of the Revolution, which prolongs itself indefinitely over time, while everyone knows that it is simply a temporary phenomenon, framed within a start and a finish (the time of transformations), which then gives way to the establishment of its precepts in a government.

Here nobody says “the government did such and such,” but rather “the Revolution did it,” adding, furthermore, “under the direction of the Party.”

This induced confusion of concepts has served to dismantle the characteristic public-spiritedness of Cubans, during the second half of the 19th century and the first of the 20th, that made them active subjects of society, substituting it with a fanaticism, also induced, responsible for the loss of values and the current civic passivity, waiting for the problems of the Homeland and the Nation to resolve themselves, worried only about surviving, whatever it takes.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

Panamanian Arrested for Transporting 10 Cubans Over the Border With Colombia

Cubans cross the Darien forest to reach Panama. (Courtesy / Archive)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Miami, September 10, 2018 — The Panama border police announced this Sunday the detention of a Panamanian who was transporting ten Cubans through a zone of the border with Colombia, in an alleged case of human trafficking.

The Panamanian, whose identity was not revealed, was driving a truck containing the ten Cubans, and was detained at the Agua Fría control post, in the province of Darién, bordering Colombia, the National Border Service (Senafront) reported this Sunday. continue reading

“It was coordinated with the Deputy Prosecutor’s Office of Primary Care for the corresponding procedures in this proceeding” after the arrest “of those involved in the alleged crime of international human trafficking,” added Senafront in a statement.

Illegal migrants who seek to reach the United States come from all over the world arrive in Panama, the doorway to Central America, after a route of thousands of kilometers, transported by international human trafficking mafias, in a business that generates hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

The massive arrival of Cubans a few years ago created a humanitarian crisis in Panama and Costa Rica, considered a consequence of the thaw in relations between Cuba and the United States and the end of migration benefits for Cubans in the US.

More than 100 Cubans have been expelled from Panama so far this year and 298 have been arrested for being in the country illegally, as the National Migration Service reported to 14ymedio. According to official statistics Cubans occupy the second place in the number of detentions, only behind Colombia and Venezuela, both bordering countries.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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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.

"A Spaceship Fell in Our Neighborhood"

The Packard, with 312 rooms, has wide glass windows, sharp corners, and an entranceway that is integrated into the promenade. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Marcelo Hernández, Havana, September 11, 2018 — Gerardo Carbonell chews tobacco, seated in the doorway of a housing complex on Calle Prado, as he says that in his neighborhood “a spaceship fell.” The dazzling object in fact is identified and is no other than the recently inaugurated hotel Grand Packard, the second five-star-plus hotel in Cuba.

The facade shines under the September sun and although one does not yet see the coming and going of tourists, the accommodation is already causing a stir. “In the last few days many important people have come to see it and participate in the inauguration,” says Carbonell, although “they don’t move much, they don’t walk this way,” he laments.

The housing complex where this retired Havanan has lived for 60 years is only meters from the impressive construction but they seem two worlds apart. “This is like the sun and the moon, day and night,” he believes. “Now these houses are looking more deteriorated because in comparison with this new thing everything seems much older.” continue reading

By “old” Carbonell doesn’t refer only to the age of the colonial style building where he lives with his wife and three children, but also to its facilities. “On this site the pipes collapsed years ago and all the water that we consume has to be taken in buckets from the cistern or carried to the rooms by our own power.”

However, the least of their problems is carryong the water from one part of the complex to another, the most difficult is getting it to the complex. “We have a supply once a week, maybe twice. The rest of the time you have to pay for pipas (water trucks) or take care of your needs elsewhere,” he maintains.

The retiree points out the places in the area where he frequently goes to use the bathroom. “In the Hotel Inglaterra there are good bathrooms and they aren’t such a pain about it, also in the Parque Central they have a good supply of toilet paper, but in the Telégrafo you can’t even enter because the security is really strict,” he explains.

The Grand Packard, developed by the Spanish company Iberostar Hotels & Resorts, will not have problems with water. This Monday the water trucks supplied it very early, in a routine carried out by all the hotels in the area, which has among the worst water shortages in Havana.

With ten stories and an exceptional view, the accommodation promises its visitors the chance to get to know an historical and well-trafficked part of the city. The shopkeepers in the area hope to benefit from the clients who venture out to eat and have a few drinks outside of the hotel facilities at a time when the drop in tourism worries everyone.

“We are on the same sidewalk and we’ll get a slice of this cake,” predicts an employee at the nearby private cafeteria La Tatagua. The place, small and well designed, has a view of the Paseo del Prado and a wifi connection that clients can use as they eat. “Although the Packard has all types of luxuries, there are always those who want to touch reality with their own hands,” he adds.

Reality is a vague concept in one of the most touristy areas of the country. On one hand, there are the spectacular old cars, many of them convertibles, that offer trips through the most famous areas of the urban landscape, but a few meters away are buildings, miracularly still standing, in which dozens of families are packed.

The floor of the central promenade has recently been polished and this week various workers continued working on the streetlights that line the route. “The whole area has made itself beautiful for the occasion, especially the green areas just in front of the hotel,” assures one of the guards, in a perfect suit and tie, who watches over the entrance.

Property of Gaviota, the state-owned hotel business controlled by the Armed Forces, the Packard has come to underline the contrasts in a area where the hotel Manzana Kempinski was already viewed as “something fallen from the sky,” as Carbonell jokes.

“This was a ruin, because before that the Biscuit hotel was here, which was inaugurated in 1911 and which my grandfather told me was a marvel,” insists María Eugenia, who lives in another housing complex on the opposite side of the street “with a direct view of the new hotel. Now I wake up and when I look out the window I feel like I’m in another country,” she remarks ironically.

The Packard, with 312 rooms, has wide glass windows, sharp corners, and an entranceway integrated into the shady promenade, typical of the area. Its impressiveness and size — it occupies almost an entire block — have few rivals in the area.

The facade, however, has its detractors. “Although part of the original exterior structure has been preserved, the majority of the elements are modern and break with the dominant aesthetic in the area,” believes Laura Fumero, graduate in architecture, who works with a small private design firm.

“The height of the entryway seems to make the building look big, but my major concern has to do with the demand for energy, water, and other resources that this hotel will have when it is fully operational. It is not much use to have something so luxurious in a place with general infrastructure that’s over a century old,” she points out.

The architect goes further and calls into question the need for hotels of “high volume.” The decision “would be more accepted if we were experiencing a dramatic increase in tourism, but that’s not the case,” she specifies. “It’s also a matter of a type of accommodation aimed at high income visitors, but right now we’re experiencing a fall in the number of Americans who come and they are the ones who are, for the most part, most likely to spend more,” she believes.

In the first half of the year global tourism numbers, about 2.5 million visitors, went down more than 5%. Taking into account only American tourists, the drop in that time period was about 24%. Between January and March, 240 groups of Americans cancelled their reservations due to the new restrictions that Washington has placed on trips to the Island.

In June, the nearby Manzana Kempinski was down about 20% in occupancy, according to testimonies given to 14ymedio by various employees. “It’s a difficult gamble to make, because in this area there is already a large saturation of rooms and we are in a difficult moment,” confirms a tour operator who preferred to remain anonymous. Despite that, the general director, Xavier Destribats, assured that the Swiss hotel group that manages it has various other projects in conjunction with the state-owned Gaviota.

“Every inauguration increases the pressure and urgency to attract more tourism, but we don’t see another boom happening like what happened with the rapprochement of Barack Obama,” explains the specialist in reference to the diplomatic thaw between the two nations that began in December 2014. “It would have to change somewhat drastically for the number of tourists to reach what it needs to be,” he affirms.

Further from the worries of architects and tour operators, the Grand Packard hotel’s closests neighbors, like María Eugenie and Gerardo Carbonell, fear that the building’s demand for resources will harm their delay routines.

“We will have to get used to the noise of the water trucks from early in the morning and the coming and going of supplies, security in the area area will increase and that will affect the black market,” he points out.

“Many people are afraid that this way of opening luxury hotels will continue and that Calle Prado will end up completely dedicated to tourism,” she warns.

Above their heads, on a brilliant terrace filled with attractive offerings, the first curious people look toward the horizon and once in while turn their gazes down.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

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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.

Habeas Corpus Proposed in the Constitutional Reform is Ineffective / Cubalex

Habeas Corpus will be elevated to constitutional status

Cubalex, M.sc. Laritza Diversent — Article 50 of the constitution, as proposed to the National Assembly by the Cuban Communist Party, will recognise Habeas Corpus. This guarantee against illegal arrest was the subject of parliamentary debate. The Deputy for Baracoa in Guantanamo province, Tamayo Mendez, made reference to this precept.

“Any person who is deprived of his liberty,” he read. “Here we are affirming that it was foreseen that someone may be illegally penalised,” he added. “No, not penalised, but illegally deprived of their liberty,” he was corrected by Deputy Jose Luis Toledo Santander, member of the constitutional editing commission. continue reading

“What is being addressed here is the protection of the right of an individual who is deprived of their liberty to due process as established by law. This process exists in the Law of Legal Procedures,” explained Toledo Santander.

Due process” for Habeas Corpus and the authorities’ practices

In effect, Habeas Corpus is regulated in domestic law, but offers no protection against arbitrary detention, nor against enforced disappearance.

For example, one of the “processes established by law” is that of denying Habeas Corpus, if, during the arrest, a “sentence of or order for a limited period of imprisonment” was decreed. Every year, the Cuban state and its agents undertake thousands of arbitrary detentions as a punishment for exercising freedom of expression, meeting and association. 

Additionally, it requires that “the place where the person is held be identified, as well as the official or his agent or the functionary who is holding him.” The government agents employ pseudonyms, wear plain clothes and do not identify themselves. As far as human rights defenders are concerned, they do not complete any detention paperwork, to isolate them and make it impossible to identify their location, opening the door to their enforced disappearance.

The tribunals limit themselves to verifying that the required procedural criminal documentation exists, and reject pleas for habeas corpus, without requiring the police officials to produce the person who has been detained and to explain when and why he was detained. It is unlikely they would agree to an applications for oral hearing.

Awarding constitutional status to a guarantee which does not comply with international standards does not constitute any advance in human rights, and is obviously ineffective.

M.sc. Laritza Diversent

Translated by GH

"Here We Haven’t Asked for Anything"

Like every other September, parents participated in an assembly to apportion responsibilities and conduct the necessary collections of money. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 6 September 2018 – “Here we haven’t asked for anything” was the most repeated phrase during the parents’ first meeting of the year in an elementary school in the municipality of Plaza de la Revolución, in Havana. The emphatic clarification, accompanied by gestures with eyes and hands that seemed to negate it, was made by the teacher after the authorities of the Ministry of Education called on their employees to not demand resources and money from parents in order to shore up the material precariousness of the classrooms.

Like every other September, the parents participated in an assembly to apportion responsibilities and conduct the necessary collections of money that allows for  purchases from fans to cleaning supplies. However, unlike other years, teachers were warned by their directors that they could not participate in the appeals for, or in the organization of this aid. “You already know that I cannot be here when you collect money, so act like I don’t know about it,” the teacher warned. continue reading

For decades, and in view of the deterioration that public education has suffered on the island, it has become common practice for families to finance part of the resources used collectively in the classroom. These contributions are not only used to buy brooms or trash cans, but also to pay people who clean the classrooms “under the table”. Some of the money can also end up in the hands of the teachers to “stimulate” them to continue with their work despite the low salaries.

Faced with constant criticisms and denunciations motivated by this situation, the Ministry of Education decided to cut it off, but not by prohibiting the parental aid, but by appealing to the ostrich technique. “As I do not know, then it is not my responsibility,” opined the overwhelmed educator in front of those who calculated the amount of money that each household would have to give. “That is your thing and I cannot get involved,” the teacher repeated, but everyone understood that it was a formality to save her from liability.

“She knows that without this money it would be very difficult to keep a functioning classroom, but instead of giving her more resources now the Ministry tells her to look the other way,” criticized a grandmother. “This support will now be more clandestine, but it will continue,” said the lady who was already preparing to hand over about 10 CUC (convertible peso) in the coming weeks.

Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria

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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.

Cuban Policeman, Rafter and Now Confessed Murderer of Two Women in the United States

The bodies of Angie and Elizabeth Rodriguez Rubio, granddaughter and grandmother respectively, were found in Shenandoah National Park. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Mario J. Pentón / Manuel Mons, Miami | 6 September 2018 – Cuban police captain Hareton Jaime Rodríguez Sariol, who arrived as a rafter in the United States in 2016, is the main suspect in the death of Elizabeth Rodríguez Rubio and her granddaughter, Angie Carolina, whose bodies were found in Shenandoah National Park, in the state of Virginia.

Harrisonburg police confirmed to 14ymedio this Thursday the finding of the bodies of the two Colombians, aged 48 and 12 years, missing since August 5.

In exchange for his cooperation in leading the police to the location of the victims’ bodies, the Cuban will avoid the death penalty. continue reading

Sariol faces a grand jury indictment in Rockingham County on September 17 and could receive a 20-year prison sentence for each crime or life imprisonment.

Elizabeth and Angie were last seen at Dukes Plaza in Harrisonburg on Sunday, August 5. Rodriguez Sariol was going to take them to his home in Maryland, but they never got there. The police issued an alert, on August 7, for the missing child and her grandmother.

The vehicle in which Rodriguez Sariol was driving both women, a red Honda Civic, was found on fire on Interstate 66. After this the suspect drove a 2000 Volvo truck on August 6 and 7 to different parts of the country. Rodriguez Sariol was arrested in Lackawanna, Pa. “The captain was madly in love with that woman and was obsessed with her,” said a source close to the Cuban police officer.

Rodríguez Sariol came to the United States in April 2016 aboard a raft with 25 other emigrants when the wet foot/dry foot policy was still in effect, which granted refuge to all Cubans who stepped on US territory.

The video that recounts part of his journey went viral on social networks because he and another officer, Michel Herrera, arrived wearing their National Revolutionary Police uniforms.

As they said at the time, they did not take off their uniforms in order to avoid being detained when they were moving the boat to the coast in Cuban territory.

“The Captain,” as he is called by his acquaintances due to his rank while in the National Directorate of Transit in Cuba, denied having repressed dissidents or participated in acts of repudiation against the opposition in several interviews given to the South Florida media.

The rafters left Guanabo, east of Havana and were at sea for more than 30 hours before reaching the United States. Once in the country, Rodriguez Sariol received help from the Government and settled in Virginia.

Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria

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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.

Cubans and Venezuelans Among The Most Detained and Expelled From Panama

A group of Cuban migrants in Canoa Passages (Panama) during the 2015 crisis. (EFE /Marcelino Rosario)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Miami, 6 September 2018 – More than 100 Cubans have been expelled from Panama so far this year, according to figures revealed by the National Immigration Service to 14ymedio.

Cubans occupy fifth place in the number of nationals expelled, deported or voluntarily returned, surpassed only by Venezuela, Colombia, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.

According to the National Migration Service’s explanation to this newspaper “the deportation of Cuban citizens maintained an upward form in the months of May (13), June (17), July (18) and August (27), while the largest amount of expulsions of the islanders thus far in 2018, occurred during the month of May. continue reading

The authorities added that the main causes for expulsions are irregular stay and residency in the country and the expiration of visas.

“The foreigner who has been deported may not enter the country for a period of 5 to 10 years,” warns the National Immigration Service.

298 Cubans with irregular status in Panama have been arrested thus far this year. According to official statistics, Cubans occupy second place in the number of arrests only behind Colombia, a border country, and Venezuela, which is experiencing an unprecedented exodus.

Panama, along with Costa Rica, are countries of transit for thousands of Cubans who come to the United States border every year seeking refuge. In 2016, both countries were the epicenter of a crisis when thousands of Cubans were stranded in their territories. After an agreement with Mexico and economic aid from the United States, more than 9,000 Cubans were transported on two airlifts to the southern border of the United States.

In January 2017, a few days before the end of his term, President Barack Obama put an end to the wet foot /dry foot policy, which provisionally welcomed Cubans arriving in the United States. Although the number of Cuban migrants to the United States dropped drastically, thousands continue arriving at the border to ask for political asylum. Some Latin American countries have experienced a rapid increase in Cuban emigration.

Panama is also one of the main destinations for “mules”, Cubans who travel legally to buy products and resell them in the island’s large black market. So far this year more than 25,600 entries have been recorded coming from Cuba.

Translated by Wilfredo Díaz Echevarria

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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.