The Toronto Independent Festival Awards the Cuban Film ‘Plantadas’

Frame of the film ‘Plantadas’, by Lilo Vilaplana and his son Camilo. (Capture)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 10 October 2023 — The historical feature film Plantadas (Planted)* by Cuban directors Camilo and Lilo Vilaplana, won the award for best international film at the Toronto Independent Festival of Cift, in Canada, the directors of the event announced on Tuesday.

Lilo Vilaplana celebrated the award on his Facebook page and thanked his entire team for the production of the film. “I am very happy with this award. I really thank Reinol Rodríguez (activist and executive producer of the film) for electing me to do Plantadas.” He also praised his technical and production team, the actors, sponsors, businessmen and “everyone who contributed money, resources and support to Plantadas, but above all the former Cuban political prisoners who gave everything for Cuba, including the Cubans who are imprisoned today for thinking differently and asking for freedom for our beloved homeland.”

The award, added the filmmaker, “will greatly annoy the dictatorship, which will no longer be able to say that it is a film  awarded only in Miami. We are taking the message of the denunciation of castrismo to the whole world.”

The story of the inmates who opposed Fidel Castro after the triumph of the Revolution in 1959 was also awarded last March at the 40th edition of the Miami Film Festival. At the same event, El Caso Padilla (The Padilla Case), by Pavel Giroud, was awarded in the category of best documentary. continue reading

This film promises to be at least as valuable as the previous one, because it will collect the experiences of women who have faced the dictatorship

Vilaplana’s feature film was made after the success of his film Plantados, which forms, along with the most recent production, a duo that narrates the human rights violations of the Cuban prison system and illustrates the daily life of the first political prisoners imprisoned by Castro.

“This film promises to be at least as valuable as the previous one, because it will collect the experiences of women who have faced the dictatorship and who, for their actions, ended up in the dungeons of totalitarianism, suffering a systematic violation of their rights, including that of life,” said journalist Pedro Corzo in an article published in 14ymedio.

“The political imprisonment of Cuban women has been, without a doubt, the most numerous and extensive in years that the American hemisphere has suffered. It started in 1959 and it’s not over yet,” he said.

*Translator’s note: Plantadas refers to female political prisoners who resist, refusing to conform to the demands of their jailers. Brief history of plantados [male political prisoners who resist] here

Translated by Regina Anavy 

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORKThe 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Mexican Agencies Take Advantage of Cubans and Double the Cost of Tickets

Aerial image of migrants, including Cubans, in the Tapachula ecological park. (EFE)

14ymedio biggerEFE (via 14ymedio), Ángel Salinas, Mexico, 28 September 2023 — Travel agencies in Tapachula (Chiapas) are doubling the cost of tickets for Cubans who want to fly to Mexico City or the U.S. border. This was reported to 14ymedio by Yumara, a 29-year-old Cuban who was processed by the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar) for the “complementary protection” document that guarantees her stay in Mexico while requesting an asylum appointment for the United States through the CBP One application.

Yumara tried to buy a ticket at Tapachula International Airport, but Migration agents warned her that “it wasn’t allowed,” without showing her any official document. On the outskirts of the air terminal, she was offered a ticket to Tijuana (Baja California) for 16,000 pesos. “You arrive directly at the border to follow your procedure,” they told her. For a ticket to Mexico City, she was charged 15,000 pesos.

“What are these people thinking? I don’t have the money for this; I will try to go by land to Mexico City and from there to the border,” says Yumara, who knows of many Cubans, Venezuelans and Colombians who have paid the extra cost of the ticket sold by the travel agencies.

José Estrada, of the local agency Aerotur, argues that the increase in ticket price is due to the high demand caused by migrants. He also denies that the immigration authorities prevent them from boarding the flights. “They warn them that if they don’t have a transit permit, they can’t fly,” he says. continue reading

He insists on the extra cost of the tickets and points out that Volaris has flights from 7,000 pesos and Aeromexico from 9,000. “Nobody forces them to resort to an agency.”

Estrada says that 70% of the flights are occupied by migrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti, and the remaining 30% are Mexicans. Yumara says there are no Haitians buying tickets. “He is lying. They live on the street, and most of them are washing clothes or cleaning to have one meal a day. I don’t see them having to pay 15,000 pesos for a ticket.”

Volaris aircraft at Tapachula International Airport. (El Orbe)

Alfredo Gálvez Sánchez, from the Vuela travel agency, accepts that the cost of a ticket to Mexico City, which at the beginning of the year was 4,000 pesos, has risen to 15,000 pesos. “This is because people who arrive at the agencies want to fly the next day, and you have to look for seats among the airlines.”

According to figures from the IWA, the demand for tickets is 1,200 per day.

The new migratory wave in Tapachula has caused a shortage of eggs, bread, rice and beans, warn shelter directors and activists in the region, who demand the intervention of the Government. “In supermarkets, sugar has already doubled in price, between 33 and 40 pesos (1.8 dollars and 2.28 dollars) for 2.2 pounds,” the director of the Todo Por Ellos shelter, Lorenza Reyes Núñez, said in an interview with EFE.

The activist complained that the Mexican authorities “do nothing” to stop the migratory flow and leave all the work to Comar, which has collapsed due to the arrival of thousands of foreigners daily in recent weeks.

Tapachula has been the scene this month of stampedes of thousands of migrants seeking an asylum appointment in Comar, demonstrations in the offices of the National Institute of Migration and undocumented people sleeping on the streets.

Dani Rorube, a migrant from Cuba, said that they are dissatisfied with the lack of issuance of transit documents, so they will set up a caravan to leave Tapachula. “We have gone to Migration, from Migration they send us to Comar, and they have us by the hairs, as the Cubans say. Everyone wants to walk, go in a caravan or with a coyote, but it’s a lot of money.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORKThe 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Instead of Studying Themselves, Hundreds of Young Cubans Are Recruited To Alleviate the Deficit of Teachers

Students of Teaching will mainly cover primary and secondary education. (Invasor)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 10 October 2023 — With a deficit of about 634 teachers in all openings, the General Directorate of Education (DGE) of Ciego de Ávila, Cuba, has decided to interrupt the study cycle of hundreds of pedagogy students to incorporate them into schools. However, the 394 who have been recruited to date will barely be able to fill half of the vacant positions.

Days before the start of the 2023-2024 academic year, in August, the official newspaper Invasor reported on the terrible situation of teachers in the province. Of 7,116 positions, only 6,482 were covered. To alleviate the deficit, the DGE has incorporated 113 students from the top of the class at Raúl Corrales Fornos pedagogical school, and 141 from the Rafael Morales González school in Morón, two of the municipalities most affected by the absence of teachers.

Gilmé Sánchez, a member of the DGE, announced that 140 young people who have already graduated from teaching and are currently completing their Compulsory Military Service would also be added.

The students who, as the newspaper headlines, “are already in the classrooms,” are in their fourth year and will work mainly with primary and secondary education, which has the greatest deficit of teachers. They will also be exempted from their own studies from Monday through Thursday, and only on Fridays will they have to attend classes. continue reading

According to the DGE, the subjects that will be given the most coverage are Chemistry and Mathematics

According to the DGE, the subjects that will be given the most coverage are Chemistry and Mathematics. On the contrary, those who study to be English teachers will not have to teach classes and will be able to dedicate themselves to their career.

The authorities did not specify what type of remuneration will be given to young people and whether it will be less than or equal to that of the rest of the teachers in the schools, but they did clarify that, due to the situation with empty teaching places, they are expected to contonue to teach in the same schools once they graduate.

As the official press itself has pointed out, the measure is “no more than a respite” because, in addition to the fact that they will not be able to cover all the places, the real problem lies in why the teachers leave.

Data offered by Invasor reveal that this year 97% of the 562 pedagogical careers offered in the province were covered, something that the authorities did not delay in celebrating. However, more important than this figure is the number that ends up really graduating without abandoning their career or leaving the country.

According to the statistics of the province for the previous year, the retention of students for the first year was only 80.8%, and for the entire career, 60%. It is worth clarifying that these numbers do not include the percentage of graduates who don’t work as teachers or who, after a few years, leave the sector in search of better salaries.

The DGE says that in Ciego de Ávila, as in the rest of the Island, measures have been implemented to retain teachers such as the payment of wages per hour of work

The DGE says that in Ciego de Ávila, as in the rest of the Island, measures have been implemented to retain teachers such as the payment of wages per hour of work. However, the “improvements” have not had much effect. Currently, the territories most affected by the lack of teachers are Havana, Artemisa, Mayabeque, Sancti Spíritus, Camagüey and Ciego de Ávila itself.

The provincial directorates of Education have also begun to make use of the Educando por Amor [Educating for Love] contingent, composed of more than 6,000 university students from all over the Island. The measure has been made effective in Las Tunas (where 700 teachers were missing), in Villa Clara, with the incorporation of 384 university students in the schools, and in Sancti Spíritus with 50 and Holguín with 52, among others.

So far, the authorities, busy praising the loyalty to the Revolution of these young people, do not seem to worry about the impact that this deviation of study time can have on university students, about the quality of the education provided by students who havenot graduated, or about the fact that some do not even pursue a pedagogical career.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORKThe 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Costa Rica Declares a State of Emergency Due to the Avalanche of Migrants, Many of Them Cubans

Migrants in a shelter in Paso Canoas, Costa Rica. (EFE/Marcelino Rosario)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Madrid, 28 September 2023 — Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves declared a state of national emergency due to the high number of migrants passing through the Central American nation. “The number of people who arrive exceeds the institutional support available to serve them,” said Deputy Minister of the Presidency Jorge Rodríguez, at a press conference on Tuesday, together with Chaves, who announced the measure.

Rodríguez explained that so far in September more than 60,000 people have crossed through Paso Canoas, on the border with Panama, mostly Venezuelans, Cubans and Haitians. “All that this generates in terms of demand for services, waste disposal and mobility, is a huge pressure on the community,” he continued.

The Costa Rican authorities explain that the declaration of emergency, which provides the Government with special powers, will make it possible to provide resources to the affected communities, in addition to guaranteeing the migrants “safe transit.”

According to official data, from the beginning of the year until September 23, more than 390,000 migrants had crossed the dangerous Darién Jungle, which separates Colombia from Panama. This is the highest figure ever recorded and far exceeds the 248,000 people who crossed  in 2022. continue reading

The president warned that he ordered the Ministry of Security “to take a firm stance against anyone who perceives the goodness of Costa Rica as a manifestation of weakness

The flow through Costa Rica, the next country after Panama traveling this route, has tripled in recent months, from 900 migrants per day in June to almost 2,700 in August.

When announcing the state of emergency, the Costa Rican president also warned that he ordered the Ministry of Security “to take a firm stance against anyone who perceives the goodness of Costa Rica as a manifestation of weakness” and that “deportation processes have already begun to return migrants.”

His Government made the decision a week after they arrested 25 migrants on the southern border, after a confrontation with police trying to avoid street sales in the area, which generated riots and controversy in the country.

The UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported on Wednesday an “unprecedented” increase in the transit of migrants through the region and called on the governments of Central America and Mexico to collaborate to address humanitarian needs.

Costa Rica experienced a similar moment of crisis in 2015, when thousands of Cubans were trapped on its northern border, in the face of Nicaragua’s refusal to let them pass. On that occasion, the Government of then-President Luis Guillermo Solís decided not to extend more transit visas to Cubans, due to the region’s refusal to seek a solution to the problem.

However, there have been several efforts of the Central American country in these years to deal with the passage of migrants on their way to the United States, such as making it easier for Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans to stay in the country with a special category of asylum.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORKThe 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Pemex Denies it Is Sending Donations to Havana Despite the Presence of a Cuban Oil Tanker in Veracruz

The ’Primula’ (here in Santiago de Cuba) is one of the ships involved in the transshipment operations of Venezuelan oil in the bay of Nipe (Holguín). (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Madrid, 10 October 2023 — Octavio Romero, general director of Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), denied on Monday that the state monopoly has donated crude oil to Cuba, four days after it was revealed that the United States canceled a multimillion dollar credit to the oil company in August, precisely because it had exported fuel to the Island.

“Petróleos Mexicanos has not made any fuel donation to any foreign government. I’m not lying,” Romero said in the Mexican Congress when asked about the issue by a deputy, according to the newspaper El Economista.

The official did not mention the shipments made by the Administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador to Cuban ports, 2.8 million barrels of oil so far this year – worth about 200 million dollars – according to calculations by the Energy Institute of the University of Texas, nor whether he has charged Cuba for them.

Much less did he refer to the fact that, precisely this Monday, the Cuban-flagged ship Vilma was still in the port of Pajaritos, in the Mexican state of Veracruz, where it has been for more than a week according to ship geolocation platforms. The tanker, say the specialists consulted by El Economista, is loading 400,000 barrels of crude oil for export to the Island. continue reading

Last Thursday, former Mexican diplomat Agustín Gutiérrez Canet revealed in his Milenio column, from financial sources in Washington, that the Bank of Exports and Imports of the United States (Exim) had canceled a credit to Pemex worth 800 million dollars, after getting knowledge of the donation of more than one million barrels of oil to Cuba between June and July, valued at 77 million dollars.

The tanker, the specialists say, is carrying 400,000 barrels of crude oil for export to the Island

The bank agreed at that time, apparently at the express request of Pemex according to the article, to keep it silent, and the oil company withdrew the request for the credit without explanation, as stated in the record.

When the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Alicia Bárcena, told Bloomberg last month that Mexico should start charging Cuba for oil to avoid sanctions, analysts interpreted that to mean the country could not afford to give away millions of barrels at the current price of crude oil, since it was in a deep economic crisis.

However, the revelations about the cancellation of the credit showed that the measure was not preventive, but a reaction to the sanction.

Despite the fuel crisis that does not subside, Cuba continues to receive oil not only from Mexico but also from other allies, mainly Venezuela and Russia. Thus, Caracas sent in September, according to Reuters data, one of the highest amounts recorded since 2016: a total of 86,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil, fuel oil, diesel and gasoline, although a part of it arrived in Cuba during the first week of October.

The figure far exceeded the 65,000 bpd in August and was more than double that of January, the month with the least Venezuelan fuel received in the year, 40,000 bpd.

The tanker Petion is unloading in Cienfuegos, and in the Bay of Nipe (Holguín) three ships (Primula, Marianna and Equality) participate in the oil transhipment operations that the Sandino brings from Venezuela, according to the information provided by the expert of the Energy Institute of the University of Texas, Jorge Piñón.

When it lost its storage capacity in Matanzas due to the Supertanker Base fire, Cuba had to transfer the oil that arrived to other ships and then distribute it in several ports on the Island.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORKThe 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Melia Is Congratulated for Its Respect for the Environment in an Area of Cuba Destroyed by Tourism

Meliá Las Dunas hotel complex, in Cayo Santa María, Villa Clara. (Meliá Las Dunas)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Madrid, September 26, 2023 — The Spanish hotel company Meliá received favorable attention from the official Cuban press on Monday. Reproducing a statement from the company itself on the occasion of the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, on September 16, the Prensa Latina agency highlighted that “several of the facilities” of the chain on the Island “are free of harmful substances” for the atmosphere.

This is the case of the Meliá Internacional Varadero, Meliá Varadero and Meliá Las Américas, in the Matanzas peninsula, and Meliá Buenavista, Meliá Cayo Santa María and Sol Cayo Santa María, in Villa Clara. All of them, the article mentions, received the corresponding recognition from the Cuban Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment.

The “new certifications” continue, joining those already held by the Paradisus Los Cayos and Meliá Las Dunas hotels, in Cayo Santa María; Sol Varadero Beach, in Matanzas, and Sol Río de Luna y Mares, on the north coast of Holguín. continue reading

“It is curious that the Government speaks in these terms, when it has always done very little to protect the environment of the large hotels of the Keys”

The official agency, in three complimentary paragraphs, insist on the same idea: that Meliá has a corporate strategy for the protection of the environment.

“It is curious that the Government speaks in these terms, when it has always done very little to protect the environment of the large hotels of the Keys,” says a specialist who collaborated in the late 90s and early 2000s with the Institute of Ecology and Systematics so that the construction of tourist infrastructure in the Keys of Ciego de Ávila and those of Villa Clara did not affect the environment as the others were doing.

For example, says the same specialist, who requests anonymity, “there was a small team that went to Cayo Guillermo and discovered that the construction of a local airport had devastated not only an archaeological site of the Siboney Indians, but also the entire area where the flamingos
nested.” After “a lot of noise and a report,” the specialists managed to get the Academy of Sciences to press for legislation on archaeological and natural heritage. “It even earned those involved a stimulus of 40 CUC [Cuban Convertible pesos, a currency no longer used], but like so many things in this country, it was just a piece of paper. The heritage continues to be destroyed.”

In just under three months, a new Law for the Protection of Cultural and Natural Heritage will come into force on the Island, with the aim of strengthening the preservation of protected sites. “It will be another decree that will not be complied with,” the specialist predicts. “Since the construction of the first causeway – an artificial road erected on stones to connect the island and the beaches of Los Cayos – there have been teams and more teams of scientists, sent by the commissions in collusion with those who direct the construction projects. Lots of reports have been written with numerous recommendations, just for the fun of it.

In just under three months, precisely, a new Law for the Protection of Cultural and Natural Heritage will come into force on the Island

He gives as an example the first causeway to Cayo Santa María: “A well-known botanist complained that the construction rules to maintain the marine flow from one side of the road to the other, through ducts beneath the causeway, were not being complied with. By violating this, the salinity of the sea on the coast of the Ciego de Ávila area increased, harming the mangroves and all the life that depended on it, including the fishing economy. In the town of Punta Alegre, it even affected the fishing cooperative.”

On top of this, he concludes, the violation of these rules not only generates “very big expenses because the road is always under repair,” but it is also “very dangerous”: “Once we got a downpour going over the causeway, and we had to stop the car because we thought we would end up overturned in the water, something that has happened to a few drivers.”

He also dedicated an official press release in Punta Alegre, in Ciego de Ávila, on Monday. Specifically, a group of 30 pink flamingos were “rehabilitated” in the mangrove thanks to the “international project” Coastal Resilience, which has the “accompaniment” of the United Nations development program in Cuba and funding from the European Union through the “Global Alliance for Climate Change Plus.”

According to Invasor, the ecosystem had been damaged not by tourism but by Hurricane Irma, in 2017. “Look,” says the same source. “The poor flamingos that were in Cayo Santa María and Cayo Las Brujas have been disappearing. They migrate and no longer return because the hotels and the constant repair of the causeway are displacing them and killing their food.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORKThe 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

The Cuban Regime Mobilizes Its Allies To Give Credibility to the ‘Attack’ Against Its Embassy

Demonstration of sympathizers of the Cuban regime this Monday, in front of the Cuban embassy in Washington, USA. (EFE/ Octavio Guzmán)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Madrid, September 26, 2023 — A slogan runs this Tuesday through the official Cuban press and accounts related to the regime following the alleged attack, on Sunday, of the Island Embassy in Washington with two Molotov cocktails: #NoAlTerrorismo. Although the United States called the event “unacceptable” and prefers not to speculate while an investigation is being carried out, both the Government of Miguel Díaz-Canel and its allies describe it as a “terrorist act.”

On Monday afternoon, about 30 people, summoned by the National Networks on Cuba group, demonstrated in front of the diplomatic headquarters, located on a street that will soon bear the name of Oswaldo Payá, to demand the US authorities to remove the Island from the list of states that support terrorism.

Ambassador Lianys Torres Rivera and the diplomats did not participate in the demonstration, says the Spanish agency EFE, which certifies that the participants were, for the most part, U.S. citizens. continue reading

Moscow also demands that Washington “unconditionally guarantee the security of the diplomatic missions of foreign states located in its territory

For its part, Russia not only “strongly” condemns the alleged attack on Tuesday, but even asks the United States “not to let it go unpunished, and that those responsible for its organization suffer severe sanctions” after a “quick and thorough” investigation, according to EFE from statements issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Moscow also demands that Washington “unconditionally guarantee the security of the diplomatic missions of foreign states located in its territory in strict accordance with international obligations” and has taken the opportunity to defend Havana, with which it maintains increasingly close relations, remembering that it is not the first “crime committed against the
Cuban mission in Washington, which unfortunately, occurs in the context of an atmosphere of threats against the Government of the Isle of Freedom, which continue to be cultivated in the United States.”

The Government of Honduras, headed by Xiomara Castro, has also expressed its “solidarity” with “the brother people” of Cuba, while condemning what it called a “criminal fact.” In the same vein, the chavista Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (Alba) said that the “Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations establishes the obligation of the receiving State to respect and protect the premises of the diplomatic mission.”

Other voices in defense of the regime’s point of view given in different official media are the Union of Cuban Residents in Argentina, a group of Cubans in Germany, the Popular Vanguard Party of Costa Rica, the Martian Association of Cubans Living in Panama and the Syrian Association of graduates in Cuba.

All of them remember, as did Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, that Sunday was the “second violent attack on the diplomatic headquarters in Washington since April 2020,” when an individual fired an assault rifle at the headquarters.

The Proyecto Inventario platform demanded that the Cuban government publish the videos of the “alleged impact”

For those events, the Cuban Alexander Alazo Baró was arrested and charged with shooting with firearms in a violent act, violently attacking an official with a deadly weapon and damaging  the property of a foreign government in the United States and possession of weapons.

The penalty foreseen for those crimes was 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000; however, the last that was heard about the attacker in 2022 was that he was in a correctional facility awaiting a ruling on his mental state. Alazo, according to acquaintances, was diagnosed with schizophrenia and lived obsessed with the idea that State Security was after him.

Meanwhile, there are many suspicions aroused by the event, for which the alleged attacker had to launch homemade projectiles from the street over the high fence of the Cuban delegation and avoid two columns, before they landed in the corner of one of the windows on the ground floor. The Proyecto Inventario platform demanded that the Cuban government publish the videos of the “alleged impact,” showing the places on the facade of the building where three security cameras are located.

The organization also denounced the dissemination of false images from a news story about France in 2018, published at the time by the Russian agency Sputnik, in the propaganda disseminated by the media related to the regime.

Several users on networks, on the other hand, questioned the facts when they saw the true photos, published by Ambassador Torres herself on her X account (Twitter), in which the papers inside one of the explosive bottles were not burned. “What damage can there be if he didn’t set that cocktail on fire?” asked one user. “The papers are intact. They just threw away the bottle with the papers  to pose for the photo. Don’t they realize it?” Another replied sarcastically: “They couldn’t burn them because the matches hadn’t arrived at the bodega (ration store).”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORKThe 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Electricity and Gas Services Go From Bad to Worse

Cuba’s Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, during a visit to the Cienfuegos thermoelectric plant. (CanalCaribe)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 1 October 2023 — Not many days ago, Cuba’s Minister of Energy, Vicente de la O Levy, announced the great success of drilling a third gas well that would allow the joint venture Energas to increase electricity generation. The state press welcomed the information as if it were the solution that all Cubans were expecting.

This year two wells had already been drilled, in the months of May and June, to provide 14,125,867 cubic feet of gas and thereby increase electricity generation. In those months, 330 MW of power were not available due to lack of fuel, and before this, the electricity moved between 250 and 260 MW.

De la O Levy then announced, surprisingly, that Energás would begin a mandatory maintenance process, which had been delayed since May, so that the plant in question could go into operation on October 3, with higher generation power thanks to the third well.

And here comes something eye-catching. A few days later, the state press reported that there would be an immediate impact on the manufactured gas service in Havana, because the maintenance work at the Energas production plant would cause a decrease in the volume of natural gas that is supplied to the capital from 9:00 pm on Sunday, October 1 until 6:00 am on Tuesday, October 3. So one is broken; one is disconnected, and the third well is at rock-bottom. continue reading

The service impact, which could be partial or total but wasn’t clarified, would be felt in the municipalities of Plaza de la Revolución, Cerro, Old Havana, Central Havana, 10 de Octubre, Playa and Marianao.

Citizens don’t know what to say. On the one hand, they have a minister who announces more gas supply, and on the other, the directors of the entity responsible for the service who, as a result of the maintenance work, decide to reduce it. A few weeks ago, similar work in the Refrigeration Section of Energas began on September 20 and produced a bad smell of gas in numerous areas of the capital that alarmed the population.

So despite the drilling of a third well and the construction of a 13-mile pipeline whose valves are closed, residents in Havana will have to settle for cuts in the gas supply.

Nobody understands how these setbacks can occur in something as standardized as continuously providing electricity service to consumers. Apparently, the strategy followed since February to increase the hours of planned maintenance, in order to recover power and not have to make repairs, is partly responsible for the breakdown in the service.

Nor have new investments that should guarantee the stability of the electricity service served to increase consumption. So the fuel supply and the technical status of thermoelectric plants continue to be the vectors that distance the Castro electricity sector from any solution to the serious problems.

And of course, since there is no way to solve the energy crisis that grips the country, the minister attributes to the U.S. economic blockade the sole responsibility for an energy policy that responds to the terrible design of the communist economic model, inadequate to meet the needs, which exerts a key influence on the normal functioning of the entire country.

The company suggests that the completion of the repair work will allow greater reliability in the distribution of natural gas to the production plants of the Manufactured Gas Company, but consumers hardly believe these arguments, because the same problems of supply and blackouts continue.

This is the day-to-day of Castroism. The propaganda and demagogy of the regime on the one hand announce new wells that will solve all the problems and on the other, facts without solutions. Cubans are aware of the dynamics of these events, and after almost two long years of poor service, they have lost all hope.

The daily reports about the service published in the state press as warnings of what cannot be avoided are unique in the world. There is no other country in which citizens have this type of terrible service and are also informed by the government of the distribution of consumption.

Translated by Regina Anavy
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORKThe 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Cuba and Honduras, the Latin American Countries With the Most Children Displaced by Climate Events

Leymida Chávez’s family has been waiting for a solution for almost ten years for her house in Palma Soriano, one of the 7,000 that are still half-demolished after the passage of Hurricane Sandy. (14ymedio)

14ymedio biggerEFE (via 14ymedio), Panama City, 7 October 2023 — Cuba and Honduras are the countries in Latin America and the Caribbean with the most children uprooted due to climate-related dangers, in a region where floods and storms caused the displacement of 2.3 million minors and adolescents between 2016 and 2021, UNICEF said on Friday.

“Every day, floods, landslides and hurricanes are uprooting more and more children and adolescents in Latin America and the Caribbean,” said Unicef’s regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Garry Conille.

The report “Children Displaced by Climate Change” says that between 2016 and 2021 in the region, “Cuba and Honduras recorded the highest number of children and adolescents displaced due to climate-related hazards in absolute numbers,” with 670,000 and 370,000, respectively.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the number of minors and adolescents displaced in those six years by floods and storms rises to 2.3 million, according to the report of the United Nations Children’s Fund or UNICEF. continue reading

Worldwide, these phenomena caused the forced displacement of 40.9 million children in the same period

Worldwide, those phenomena caused the forced displacement of 40.9 million children in the same period, mainly in China and the Philippines.

In these circumstances, “children and adolescents not only lose their homes, but also their access to education, health, water and protection,” Conille stressed.

In the coming decades, “this worrying trend will only accelerate, giving rise to a generation of ’climate migrant children and adolescents’ throughout the region,” said the regional director of UNICEF.

In the next 30 years it is expected that in Latin America and the Caribbean floods alone will displace 4.6 million children, the report indicates, although it warns that “due to the increase in the frequency and severity of meteorological phenomena as a result of climate change, the real figures will almost certainly be higher.”

In Brazil, the document mentions, floods and storms could displace 1.5 million children and adolescents in the next 30 years

In Brazil, the document mentions, floods and storms could displace 1.5 million children and adolescents in the next 30 years, and in Mexico, up to 672,000.

In this context, UNICEF urged governments, the private sector and donors to protect minors and adolescents by ensuring that essential services, including education and health, “can respond to shocks, are easy to move and include most people, such as those who are already uprooted.”

The UN body asked to prepare children and young people to live in a world of climate crisis, “by improving their capacity for adaptation and resilience and encouraging their participation in the search for inclusive solutions.”

That is why UNICEF also urged to give priority to children and young people, “including those who have already been uprooted, in action and financing in the field of disasters and climate, in humanitarian and development policy, and in investments to prepare for a future that is already here.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORKThe 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

The Other Side of Cuba: Luxury, Drugs, Expensive Alcohol for ‘Well-Off People’

Behind the bar, with dark glasses and a cocktail shaker in his hand, the bartender prepares everyone’s favorite drink. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Nelson García/Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 8 October 2023 — The atmosphere is electrifying, and the music is very loud. Everyone knows him and wants to know – both in Havana and outside Cuba – the coordinates for the most exclusive bar in Cuba: Mío and Tuyo (Mine and Yours). Prostitution, drugs, the best alcohol and the best cigars – multiple rumors surround the administration of the premises. It is claimed that the owner, Elio Ahumada, is a close friend of Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, alias El Cangrejo (The Crab), Raúl Castro’s grandson and bodyguard. Allegedly armored by the regime, Ahumada has a slogan on social networks: “Speak comment, defame.” The gossip can only give publicity.

Located in Miramar, on 5B and 42nd streets of the municipality of Playa, the white fence of Mío y Tuyo, in addition to the security personnel who guard it, makes one thing clear: not just anybody can get in. It’s commonly said that only the “beautiful people” go there – with the intention of spending “the best nights in Havana” – but also the wealthiest, the one who dresses best and the one who has the most contacts, in addition to having transportation to return home in the early hours of the morning.

Behind the bar, with dark glasses and a cocktail shaker in his hand, the bartender prepares everyone’s favorite drink. Some are known, like a mojito, and some are far-fetched, like a social-climbing coyote. There are no limits, and the radiant bottles behind him attest to this: for whiskey, Johnnie Walker – blue label, one of the most expensive – Ballantine’s and Chivas Regal; for vodka, Grey Goose Magnum and Belvedere; for rum, wonders from one shore to another.

Those who prefer to smoke have a special patio and comfortable benches. There are also three exclusive VIP areas: to the left and right of the entrance door, and another at the back of the lounge. Many have gotten drunk at these tables, to which Ahumada’s Instagram attests, everyone from Rihanna to Gente de Zona, from Alexander Abreu to Isaac Delgado and continue reading

Paulo FG. Sandro Castro, Fidel Castro’s grandson, is also seen often. From time to time, security guards let in someone “poor”: it’s a strategy, some say, so that no one accuses its owner of practicing social apartheid.

Las jineteras del Tuyo y Mío cuentan con entrada libre y un “espacio” bien delimitado en el salón. (14ymedio)
The jineteras (hookers, or prostitutes) of Mío y Tuyo have free admission and a well-defined “space” in the lounge. (14ymedio)

What is the secret of Mío y Tuyo? What guarantees its continuous supply, its survival as a business, in the midst of a devastating economic crisis? Who protects Elio Ahumada? The “friend” in the dome who is most often pointed out is the famous grandson, who has been photographed more than once in the bar in the company of several young women. However, nothing – except the operation at full speed of the establishment – can show the link.

“Elio is a personal friend of El Cangrejo,” Omar, a former security employee of Mío y Tuyo, tells 14ymedio. “He earns his slice of money in exchange for sponsoring the place. He enjoys the open bar and all the free services provided, in addition to being able to organize private parties.” For Omar, the strategy is clear: “The Crab is the real owner; Elio is just a facade.”

Mary, a young woman who used to clean the bar, says that it’s a cover for the regime’s “dirty business.” “More than once I saw people using cocaine in the bathrooms,” she says. “When I told the management, they turned a deaf ear for a while. Shortly after, Elio himself told me that he would dispense with my services.”

To the alleged businesses of sale and consumption of drugs is added, according to observations in the bar and the comments of former employees, an orderly system of prostitution

To the alleged businesses of sale and consumption of drugs is added, according to observations in the bar and comments of former employees, an orderly system of prostitution. The young women entrench themselves in the VIP areas and wait for the arrival of potential customers: foreign businessmen, wealthy Cubans and members of the leadership who usually themselves show up with several women.

The jineteras (hookers, or prostitutes) of Mío y Tuyo have free admission and a well-defined “space” in the lounge. When they manage to “hook” a client – whom they monitor and select from the VIP platforms – they take him to the dance floor. Although they often go in groups – in case the client can pay for an orgy – there are also “independent” ones, who must then give a commission to the administrators.

The security guards preserve order among the “girls” of the bar and the “independents.” There can be no conflict in the facilities, and that’s why they are so scrupulous about who enters and who stays out. No one knows who may be behind the surveillance cameras. After all, another motto of Elio Ahumada, which seems like a private joke among friends, is that the luxurious bar is “more yours than mine.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORKThe 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

The Emirates, a Springboard for Ordinary Cubans and a Potential Patron for Havana

Tickets to Dubai are expensive because the journey is very long, with layovers. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana/Madrid, October 3, 2023 — Ricardo Cabrisas, Cuba’s minister in charge of begging for foreign exchange, oil and debt renegotiation for the benefit of the Havana regime, began on Monday a working visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a country that exempts Cubans from visas and is becoming a springboard for those fleeing the Island.

Officially, the Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment traveled to that federation of emirates, on the shore of the Persian Gulf, to thank the local authorities “for the funds provided to various social projects in Cuba.”

The delegation, made up of several officials of the Island and their Emirati counterparts, will “review the state of trade, financial and cooperation relations in various spheres (…) to materialize the will expressed by both Governments to raise the ties of cooperation to the same level of the excellent political-diplomatic relations they have maintained during the last 20 years.”

The vagueness of the statement makes one suspect that Cabrisas, once again, is on a mission to search for and capture financial and oil aid to alleviate the disastrous situation of the Cuban economy. continue reading

The vagueness of the statement suggests that Cabrisas, once again, is on a mission to search for and capture financial and oil aid

In line with this visit, 14ymedio has contacted some of the Cubans living in Dubai, the main city in the Emirates. Dayana, a 35-year-old journalist from Cienfuegos who emigrated to Dubai in 2022 with her family and then traveled to Spain, explains that, despite not knowing what she was going to find upon her arrival, she and her husband – both employees at the University of Cienfuegos – decided to move with their children to the UAE due to the difficult economic situation on the Island. The simplicity of processing the visa – in a matter of days – and the opportunity to be legalized quickly, were key factors when choosing the country to which they would emigrate.

The problem, she says, “is that you have to have an account abroad or a friend who can pay for this procedure, because it can’t be done from the Cuban banks. Likewise, you have to buy basic travel insurance, which is also done online, and you need to pay for it from abroad.”

The family gathered the money to pay for the visas (169 dollars plus travel insurance of 99 dollars) and the plane tickets, whose price was around 1,300 dollars, more or less the price paid for a flight to Nicaragua. “The tickets are expensive because the journey is very long, and there is always a stopover somewhere. So you have to make sure that the country of call is also free of visas or apply for a transit visa,” she explains. Among the countries most frequently used for transit are Turkey, Russia and Germany.

The tourist visa with which you arrive in Dubai is only for 60 days, but it can be extended, and it is time that, according to Dayana, emigrants take advantage of to get a job and have their employer manage their residence or apply for it themselves. “A lot of work is done in all sectors of tourism as a cook, clerk, receptionist, musician, event organizer, dancer,” she says. Also, finding a job can be easier if you know some other language, because “speaking English or, in the best of cases, Arabic, opens many doors.”

The tourist visa with which you arrive in Dubai is only for 60 days but can be extended, and it is time that, according to Dayana, emigrants take advantage of to get a job

“You can get to the country now with an employment contract, which means that the contracting company usually pays the travel expenses and health insurance; in addition, in many cases they help with the rent. But this is not common,” she says.

Javier, a habanero who worked as a tour guide in Cuba, was lucky that the 360 Agency, a company that connects employees from around the world with companies in the Middle East, recommended him to a hotel in Dubai.

“After several interviews I was hired with all the expenses paid, including my departure from Cuba,” says Javier, who also explains that his wife, whose expenses were not covered by the company, managed to get hers paid through Dubai Hispano, a company that is in charge of processing this type of situation.

The former tour guide, who has the advantage of speaking English, recognizes that opportunities are not the same for everyone who arrives in Dubai. “I know a couple of Cubans who arrived without knowing English and found work taking care of houses rented by a Colombian. She cleans, and he maintains and assists customers in general,” he said, explaining that the UAE is not only a popular destination among Cubans but also among many Latin Americans.

You have to have a very good salary to be able to pay for a school (even if it is the cheapest of all) and much more to afford good health insurance. Nothing is free

“The good thing here is that you arrive and you are already a person when you enter the airport. You don’t spend months without papers or sweating because the mail from the Embassy doesn’t arrive,” he says. “The processes to legalize you here in Dubai are extremely simple. This is because it is the Government’s intention that certain positions be occupied by foreigners.”

As for the cost of living, “rent is one of the biggest expenses and depends on the site,” and prices start at $500 for a small apartment, up to a more comfortable two-bedroom apartment for $1,000. “With tourist status it is not difficult to get something, but it will always be more expensive because you can’t have it for a long time. After being a resident you can opt for a long-term contract, which allows you to pay a little less,” says Dayana, who arrived with  two children aged 8 and 10, who had to enroll in a private school, since there is no public education.

“You have to have a very good salary to be able to pay for a school (even if it is the cheapest of all) and much more to afford good health insurance. Nothing is free,” she says. Annually, the most affordable schools in Dubai charge more than $1,000 per student. The most expensive can be close to $10,000.

“The standard of living is very expensive, all tourist attractions, shops, services. Except for the food, if you know where to buy, of course. There are very cheap markets and others that are extremely expensive,” enumerates the journalist, who says that in Emirati society, especially one as varied as that of Dubai, very different lifestyles coexist.

“The culture is totally different, the way of life, of communicating, dressing, eating, interacting in society. It is a contradictory city, with a lot of consumerism, extremely modern and technological, but at the same time with an ancient mentality trying to adapt to the 21st century. Very patriarchal, capitalist, regulatory and authoritarian.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORKThe 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Celia Cruz, Joined With ‘Patria Y Vida’, the Anthem of the Protests in Cuba

Celia Cruz, in an image of the video clip of the new version of Patria y Vida. (Capture)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 3 October 2023 — Since this Monday, Celia Cruz and Patria y Vida (Homeland and Life), two of the greatest Cuban musical symbols of recent times, are united in a new video clip of the song that became a dissident anthem since its premiere, in February 2021. In this new version, the song incorporates in some fragments the voice, recreated with artificial intelligence, of the Queen of Salsa, who died in 2003.

The song also features the interpretation of the trumpeter Arturo Sandoval. The short film, directed by actor Carlos Ever Fonseca, includes images of the original version, directed by Asiel Babastro and of the duo Gente de Zona, Eliexer Márquez El Funky, Maikel Castillo Osorbo and, without singing, the activist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, wrapped in the Cuban flag of the San Isidro Movement.

The video contains a few words of tribute to these last two artists, who are serving nine- and five-year sentences, respectively, in Cuban prisons after the island-wide protests of 11 July 2021 (11J). “Patria y Vida” was, precisely, one of the most repeated screams on that day of demonstrations. continue reading

Celia wants to stay alive in her music and her fight for the rights of Cubans,” said the Spanish Beatriz Luengo, one of the authors of Patria y Vida

The Spanish actress Beatriz Luengo, Romero’s wife,  published on her social networks a thank you to the heirs of Celia Cruz, who agreed to add the Guarachera of Cuba’s voice to the song. “We started by going to Omar Pardillo (Cruz’s producer) and her heirs to ensure that they also considered it appropriate to do so,” Luengo explained.

“Celia wants to stay alive in her music and her fight for the rights of Cubans,” Luengo continued. “As a woman, I have loved that Patria y Vida has a female representation. It was already significant that five Afro-descendant boys put the regime in check. Now there are five Afro-descendants and a woman.”

Through their social networks, both Cruz’s heirs and her producer thanked Luengo and Romero for their work with the short film and the recovery of the Cuban artist’s voice.

Last February, Luengo herself announced the premiere of a documentary about Patria y Vida and the “hard reality of the Island.” “The interesting thing about the documentary is that it is about a living movement. Movies are usually made when things have already happened,” Luengo said in an interview with EFE in Miami, less than a month before the premiere of Patria y Vida: The Power of Music.

This September several media announced the nomination of the documentary for the Latin Grammy 2023, an award that the song itself received in 2021, in two categories, after it became the anthem of the massive protests that have come to be known simply as “11J”.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORKThe 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Where Are You Going, Colombia?

Protesters with banners and speeches against the Government walk the streets in Cali (Colombia). (EFE/Ernesto Guzmán Jr.)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio Pedro Corzo, Miami, 7 October 2023 — I visited Colombia a few days ago on a tourist and family trip. In both visions I could see that the Government doesn’t have much sympathy. A significant number of those who say they voted against President Gustavo Petro seriously question those who elected him. Even more, I saw graffiti on historic walls that, among other criticisms, asked the president why the cost of living had become so expensive.

When I traveled to Venezuela for the recall referendum, in 2004, I told my Venezuelan friends that I had the perception that, with or without cheating, Hugo Chávez would win. Now I wonder how Petro won the elections last year if most of the people I talked to, almost entirely unknown, spoke against him. I did not see any fear of the authorities, since the individuals talked freely.

My first stay was in the fabulous Cartagena de Indias. It is a city full of contradictions. Its historic walls always move me, but what pleasantly impressed me was the progress in the modern area called Bocagrande. Hopefully Gustavo Petro will not be determined to destroy the development achieved, as his peers in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua did when they took power. Their eagerness to curtail freedoms and end economic and social advances is unhealthy and criminal. continue reading

When I traveled to Venezuela for the recall referendum, in 2004, I told my Venezuelan friends that I had the perception that, with or without cheating, Hugo Chávez would win

Bocagrande – or South Miami, as some call it – is beautiful, vibrant and rich, with the busiest beaches in that part of the country, although I confess that I still prefer the walled city, with its convents and its legends of apparitions. By the way, the assistant in a bar we visited told us that she would never be alone in that place because she had already had a scare. In addition, the churches, aged buildings, car rides and the San Felipe de Barajas castle transport us back in time.

The history of that part of the city is that of the entire hemisphere, of our most emblematic villas of the colonial era, in which at least two Cuban cities are distinguished, Havana and Trinidad. By the way, one of the guides told us that a certain Cuban was considered a hero in colonial times, for his leadership in an insurrection.

In Cartagena, at one of the restaurants where we had lunch, I sampled my first coconut lemonade, a real feast for the palate. There, inadvertently, politics broke out. The lady who served us, realizing that we were all Cubans with the exception of my wife, brought out her artillery against the president. She described how much life in the region had changed for the worse and the many fears about the future that overwhelmed the citizenry, both rich and poor. She was critical of the presidential flirtation with irregular groups, including drug traffickers, and of his approach to the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro.

Our arrival in Medellín coincided with Petro’s visit to the United Nations, where he was snubbed and overshadowed by the remarks against the mayor of the city, Daniel Quintero, an ally of the president.

Quintero is noted for having forged a strong business alliance with Venezuelans who enriched themselves under the autocracies of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro

Quintero is noted for having forged a strong business alliance with Venezuelans who enriched themselves under the autocracies of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. A harsh report by the newspaper El Colombiano describes a network of interests, which offers grounds for a judicial investigation so that a conscious electorate does not vote for the candidate who supports the current office holder.

In the capital of Antioquia, in the face of renewed criticism of Petro, I asked again how he had been elected. The answer did not surprise me: my interlocutors said that it was the vote of the young people, trusting in the Petrist promises, that brought him to power. A pity, because the leaders resemble the brothers Castro, Chávez, Maduro, Daniel Ortega and Evo Morales, in my opinion Gustavo Petro’s fellow travelers, the ones who most damage the possibilities of achieving a society like the one that the despots promise in their speeches.

I told my friends Horacio and Consuelo Puertas that Colombia enjoys spaces that no longer exist in the Castro-Castrochavista States, with a very energetic civil society that will be difficult to crush. However, I suggested with great respect that they could not be negligent, because “the shrimp that falls asleep is carried away by the current.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORKThe 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

1,053 Athletes Have Fled Cuba in a Decade, 82 of Them So Far This Year

The general director of Inder High Performance, José Antonio Miranda, says that Cuba is living “an atypical year” due to the escapes of athletes. (Capture/Mesa Redonda)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 6 October 2023 — “The migration of athletes and coaches has affected us,” acknowledged the general director of High Performance of the National Institute of Sport, Physical Education and Recreation (Inder), José Antonio Miranda, at the Round Table last Tuesday.

From 2022 to September 2023, 191 athletes broke off their relationship with the sports authorities. As of Tuesday, Miranda counted the escape of 78 athletes. As usual for the Cuban authorities, the main cause of the desetions is the American “blockade,” to which he added the “complex economic scenario” that the country is going through.

The official said that “solutions are being sought” to retain athletes. So far these options have been a failure. The same day he talked about the “atypical year” they were having, it was confirmed that baseball player Yobanys Millán escaped from the Hilton Garden Inn hotel in Yucatan (Mexico), where the Alazanes de Granma team stayed while participating in the Baseball Champions League of the Americas (BCL).

Among the strategies to prevent escapes and abandonment, the Cuban Baseball Federation offered 80 players to talent scouts from Japan, South Korea, the Dominican Republic and Ecuador at the beginning of September. continue reading

The so-called first international baseball tryout represented a source of income for the Island. It came just as the sports authorities confirmed the suspension of the National U-23 Baseball Series due to the “difficult economic situation facing the country.” The crisis also forced the cancellation of the national championship for 9-10-year olds, the final stage of Baseball 5, the Women’s National Baseball Cup and the U-18 National Championship, which has not even concluded.

Yariel Rodríguez Yordi, who broke his contract with the Japanese team Dragones de Chunichi, reached an agreement to be a free player. (Dragones de Chunichi)

Among the Cuban talents in the first tryout was the right-handed pitcher of the Industriales team, Silvano Hechevarría. This 20-year-old habanero, 6 feet 4 inches tall, was followed by the headhunters who attended the Latin American Stadium in Havana, but no specific offer was presented.

Days later, on September 27, Hechevarría boarded a flight to the Dominican Republic, where he will train until he obtains free agency and be able to show himself to headhunters of teams from the Major Leagues of the United States.

“Cuban baseball players continue to leave the country. No possible hope of a contract or of pursuing a career in Cuba keeps them there. Cases like Hechevarría’s are the test,” journalist Francys Romero published in Baseball FR!

The salary for players on the Island is unattractive. In 2020, before the Ordering Task,* a member of the national pre-selection who participates in the National Series receives 3,725 Cuban pesos (19 dollars) monthly; a member of the Reserve of the National Pre-selection and National Series receives 2,400 (12 dollars).

The escape of athletes does not stop. The 11-year-old players, Kendry Enrique Abreu and Mario Serra, who participated in the 2023 Pan American U-12 in Mexico, are in the Dominican Republic, where they seek to perfect their skills to get an opportunity in a U.S. Major League team.

On Wednesday, the arrival in the United States of the Cuban triple jumper Davisleydi Velazco was confirmed. The gold medalist at the U-20 Pan American Games in Peru (2017), the NACAC U-23 championship in Querétaro (Mexico) and the Alba Games in Venezuela (2023) made a 19-day journey.

Cuban triple jumper Davisleydi Velazco arrived in the United States last Wednesday after a 19-day journey. (Instagram)

On the same day, baseball player Franky Quintana left the pre-match hotel, between Cuba and Curaçao, in the Caribbean Baseball Cup in Puerto Rico. With Quintana’s escape, there are 51 Cuban athletes who have left behind contracts or delegations in 2023, said baseball specialist Francys Romero.

Quintana had been selected by Armando Ferrer to reinforce the Cocodrilos de Matanzas in the second edition of the controversial Elite League.

The figures on escapes of Cuban athletes are devastating. In January, the official weekly Trabajadores counted the abandonment of 862 athletes in a decade, of which 635 were baseball players. If the recent data offered by the Inder are added, there are already 1,053 athletes who abandoned the sport.

The general director of Inder High Performance, José Antonio Miranda, said that the escape from the Island happened before the Pan American Games in Chile, which will be held from October 20 to November 5. “That impact has been felt,” he said.

Cuba brings to Chile a very “young” delegation made up of 362 athletes (187 women and 175 men). For “62% of the athletes, this will be their first competition in the Pan American Games,” he said. “This didn’t happen to us in previous cycles.”

Miranda was measured when talking about the medals. “Cuba’s main potential is between 18 and 22 gold medals. On that basis we will be working, although the scenario will decide how far we can fulfill that purpose.”

*Translator’s note:  The Ordering Task is a collection of measures that include eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso (CUP) as the only national currency, raising prices, raising salaries (but not as much as prices), opening stores that take payment only in hard currency, which must be in the form of specially issued pre-paid debit cards, and a broad range of other measures targeted to different elements of the Cuban economy.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORKThe 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Cuba Registers 62 Femicides So Far This Year, Adding Two New Confirmed Cases

From left to right, Olaida Casanova and Nectaly Aguirre. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 5 October 2023 — The independent Cuban platforms https://www.yositecreoencuba.org/ (YSTC) and Alas Tensas confirmed two new femicides on the Island on Thursday, bringing the number of sexist murders verified so far this year to 62. The latest victims were Olaida Casanova and Nectaly Aguirre, 30, reported by activists on the social network X (Twitter).

According to the report, the first woman was murdered by her partner on September 21 in Cárdenas (Matanzas), while the murder of Nectaly occurred between the 27th and 29th of the same month in the province of Holguín.

The report expressly denounced “the disappearance and extreme violence” to which Aguirre was subjected, although they did not offer more details, and they regretted that this young woman left four minor daughters. continue reading

The activists also warned of five sexist assassination attempts and a similar number of cases that require access to the police investigation.

The joint under-registration of these platforms that collect data on femicides – in the absence of official statistics on sexist violence – accounts for 62 cases verified so far in 2023.

The activists also warned of five sexist assassination attempts and a similar number of cases that require access to the police investigation.

At the end of September, 23-year-old Yolanda Justiz Utria was allegedly murdered by her ex-partner on the 24th of that month in Guantánamo. The Yo Sí Te Creo and Alas Tensas platforms also lamented the murder of the victim’s eldest son, 11 years old.

The number of 34 femicides in Cuba verified in 2022 has already been exceeded in 2023.

The work of these feminist groups and their dissemination in the unofficial media have contributed to focusing on the cases of sexist murders and disappearances of Cuban women in recent years.

Activists insist on declaring a “state of emergency for gender violence”

The activists insist on declaring a “state of emergency for gender violence” and regret that the Government does not take action in this regard.

In addition, they advocate a comprehensive law against gender violence. Sexist murder is not in the Criminal Code; nor is the implementation of protocols to prevent these events, as well as the creation of shelters and rescue systems for women and children in danger.

Last April, the president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, assured that there would be “zero tolerance” for sexist violence.

The official Cuban Women’s Federation created at the beginning of June the Cuban Observatory on Gender Equality, which includes statistics on “women who have been victims of intentional homicide as a result of gender violence in the last 12 months.”

This record totaled 18 cases in 2022 – compared to the 34 verified by independent platforms – a figure that coincides with the number of convictions for murder handed down in that year and linked to gender violence, according to the People’s Supreme  Court.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORKThe 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.