November 2024 – Translating Cuba

Medical Services Lead Export Sales from Ciego De Ávila, Cuba

This is followed on the list by a music marketing company and the Rensol International Economic Association

Rensol has become one of the most successful companies in Ciego de Ávila / Invasor

14ymedio, Madrid, 27 November 2024 — As of the end of September, Ciego de Ávila had exported goods and services worth 22.3 million dollars at the official exchange rate (1 x 24), 535,112 million pesos. There is satisfaction with the amount, which represents 86.9% of what was expected, since, although no one dares to say that there will be global growth at the end of the year, expectations are more closely met. In November 2023, foreign sales only accounted for 66% of the target.

The provincial newspaper Invasor celebrates this Wednesday the results, in which the sale of medical services and the music marketing company mainly stand out along with the contribution made by the Rensol International Economic Association. The three are the largest contributors to the good figures, although the amount of each one has not been specified.

These items are striking, in a province that five years ago had charcoal, honey, copper scrap and red pepper leading foreign sales.

Rensol, which mainly sells solar heaters, has become one of the most solid companies in Ciego de Avila Province. In fact, it was one of the few that was not in the red in 2022, one year after the pandemic, which was particularly hard for Cuban industries. In November 2023, Rensol signed an agreement with the Panamanian Cuex “for the export of its solar heaters and other equipment to the Caribbean.” continue reading

In November 2023, Rensol signed an agreement with the Panamanian Cuex “for the export of its solar heaters and other equipment to the Caribbean”

On that date, general manager Arley González Escalante said that after years of working in the country assembling hot water installation systems for hotels and companies, the agreement allowed him to expand the market.

“That is not achieved in one day, but we can position ourselves, meet national demand and at the same time export,” he said, although it is not yet known if these plans have already borne fruit or are expected to from now on. At the beginning of November, in a meeting of the Provincial Council, it was mentioned that this company had planned “the export of technical assistance services for renewable energy.”

As for the sale of goods, most of those that stand out are the usual ones, from charcoal of all qualities to bottled rum, cigars, honey and some fish products, such as shrimp and shark fin. They are joined by red pepper and fruit juices and pulp.

The achievements could be greater without the “resurgence of the blockade*,” the authorities maintain, who add other obstacles that supposedly derive from it, such as the lack of fuel and electricity. But they also mention other little-enunciated problems, such as “the network of internal and external obstacles [which] includes low levels of production (…) and difficulties with the release of containers and the movement of shipping companies.”

A not-so-good news that officials warn overshadows the panorama is the “imbalance in the price of coal, unfavorable for the State sector, and the insufficient entrepreneurship of some entities to manage exports.”

*Translator’s note – There is, in fact, no US ‘blockade’ on Cuba, but this continues to be the term the Cuban government prefers to apply to the ongoing US embargo. During the Cuban Missile Crisis the US ordered a Naval blockade (which it called a ‘quarantine’) on Cuba in 1962, between 22 October and 20 November of that year. The blockade was lifted when Russia agreed to remove its nuclear missiles from the Island. The embargo had been imposed earlier in February of the same year, and although modified from time to time, it is still in force.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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About 1,300 Holguin Residents Cannot Leave Cuba Because of Debts to the State

In the eastern province, 97% of the 314 MSMEs did not pay tax, for a total of 50.3 million pesos

So far this year, 24 suspected cases were reported in the Havana National Office of Tax Administration (Onat), of which nine ended in complaints / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Madrid, November 27, 2024 — Although non-compliance with tax obligations in Cuba is well known, the high figures in Holguín, disseminated this Wednesday by the provincial director of the National Office of Tax Administration (Onat), Jorge Félix Pérez Marrero, are still surprising. The official places at 1,300 the number of Cubans in Holguin who cannot leave the country because of their debts to the State. There are fewer in Sancti Spíritus, only 200 according to the official newspaper Escambray.

The numbers are heartbreaking in the eastern province, where 97% of the 314 businesses obliged to pay evaded taxes, a total of 50.3 million pesos that did not end up in a timely manner in State coffers. In the same situation are the self-employed workers, who presently owe 31.5 million. In total, there are 38,302 self-employed workers of whom 8,120 were inspected: 97.7% of them had defrauded the State, although Onat makes it clear that when a tax investigation is opened it is because there are already indications, based mainly on the cross-checking of data.

The largest volume of debts – 70 million – corresponds to a small group of 36 taxpayers, who have “high import volumes.” The supervision work achieved the collection of 79 million pesos, obtained from “firm actions on 745 debtors,” while more than 100 fines of 615,900 pesos were imposed after carrying out checks on 239 taxpayers with irregularities in their tax bank accounts. continue reading

Most of that extra collection is due to the end of the tax exemption for newly created ’MSMEs’

Despite these data, Holguín has raised significantly more than what was planned, since the goal was to contribute 3.5 billion pesos to the State budget at the end of October, and the amount is already 826 above, that is, 4,326. Most of that extra collection is due to the end of the tax exemption for newly created MSMEs*.

The measure was advanced in December 2023, when the Government – seeking to increase collection to reduce the deficit and increase income – talked about approving a package that included the elimination of the exemption from the 10% tax on wholesale marketing for MSMEs. The realization came in August, with the group of 19 rules that added another tax requirement to the previous one: private individuals would no longer be exempt from paying personal income tax for the dividends from their first year of operations.

As a result, 543 MSMEs have begun to pay taxes in Holguín, totaling 609 million pesos. They are joined by the 162 who already paid, from the total of 256 unpaid that were detected in the Onat inspections.

The province’s fiscal deficit is above 2.6 billion pesos, so officials consider that any effort is small when it comes to raising as much as possible. “The confrontation with tax evasion and the under-declaration of income goes beyond an obligation. It is a necessity, not only because of the financial resources that are rescued and put in function of social expenses, but because it slows down the environment of impunity and disorder that some try to impose,” Pérez Marrero told the official press.

Yosvanis Meneses Torres, the Onat manager interviewed, stated that tax evasion can lead to penalties of deprivation of liberty, as is the case for two men who are awaiting trial and a third who has already been sentenced to three years of correctional work with internment. In addition, according to the specialist, there are six other cases in the hands of the Prosecutor’s Office for “ignoring” their tax obligations. In Holguín there are 66,000 registered taxpayers.

Meneses Torres explained to the State newspaper Granma that when starting a proceeding three circumstances can occur: that the information is “defining,” that it is necessary to talk to the taxpayer to clarify the accounts, or that a third party is required to clarify a certain situation. “For example, this is done when State entities, for services provided or assets created, pay high sums to private individuals, but with indications that they contributed below what corresponded to them.”

The manager points out that they have detected that some companies declare stable sales at the same time that imports increase

The manager points out that they have detected that some companies declare stable sales at the same time that imports increase. “It may be that prices increase and demand decreases, but this is not presently the case. Even with a price increase, food maintains demand, and that gives a higher level of income,” he explains, in reference to one of Onat’s alarm signals.

The director confirms that in the context of inspections, private individuals have appeared who declare a loss. When asked if this situation can be interpreted as a camouflage to evade tax, he says it is being closely followed.

Meneses Torres also explains that some MSMEs declare losses during inspections but denies that it is necessarily due to attempts to evade tax. “Many MSMEs and self-employed workers have not done a correct study of suppliers and buyers. Perhaps initially, some of these economic actors will register losses by combining the effect of the acquisition of goods with the creation of infrastructures,” he concedes.

Granma’s article addresses with Dayamí Roger Hernández, first deputy director of the Holguin Onat, the differences among the defaulters who comply within the same month, although not voluntarily, and the debtors who do not pay at the end of the term and are penalized with a fine and surcharge. To the latter, in a new policy that has turned out to be “necessary” due to the increase in MSMEs (currently 560 in the province), a preventive embargo can be applied until they comply. So far this year, that decision has affected 150 taxpayers.

The penalty for evaders can entail five years of deprivation of liberty, which is extended to between seven and 15 years in the most serious cases, when there are additional crimes such as belonging to an organized network. In these cases, where there have been fraudulent actions to evade payments, paying off the debt does not exempt them from the criminal process.

“It cannot be overlooked that in the context of imposing order and ending illegality, the purpose of educating people in the fulfillment of duties and, with it, making them grow in civility is always present,” the article concludes. It does not address, however, a problem that is the root cause alleged by many Cubans when it comes to tax evasion.

Behind the lack of citizens’ conscience when it comes to complying with the State are the distrust in institutions, the lack of transparency when explaining what public money is used for – the authorities limit themselves to offering percentages of the large budget items, without breaking it down by ministries – and the discomfort generated by the high amounts that are allocated to activities that are currently unproductive, such as the construction of hotels, among others.

*MSMEs – Micro, Small, Medium Enterprises (’mipymes’ in Spanish)

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Pharaoh’s Tragic Legacy

They do not accept rivalries, they reject dialogue or debate, force is the main argument in promoting the political model they defend.

Unfortunately for the Cuban people, Castro had a long and unproductive life, making his legacy even more pathetic. / Silvio Rodríguez/Cubadebate

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, November 24, 2024 — Though eight years have passed since his death, we must acknowledge that his ill-fated legacy remains. The totalitarian regime that Fidel Castro built has fulfilled his sole purpose in life: to seize and preserve absolute power.

The Cuban dictator ruled like an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, with overwhelming power. He controlled the lives and properties of his subjects, projected an imperialist attitude and expected submission from his neighbors.

The totalitarian constitution of 1976 was drafted to institutionalize his will. This became all too obvious when the Castro legislators, on orders from their sovereign Fidel, decided to amend the constitution in reaction to the threat posed by Oswaldo Paya’s reform initiative, the Varela Project. They declared that socialism — meaning totalitarianism — was irrevocable.

Unfortunately for the Cuban people, Castro had a long and unproductive life, making his legacy even more pathetic. Totalitarianism has survived because it has been able to pass on to his followers the malevolence and inefficiency that characterized his life.

The totalitarian constitution of 1976 was drafted to institutionalize Castro’s will

Sadly for us, Fidel Castro has subjugated the country and its people for more than six and a half decades. His supreme mandate lasted forty-nine years, making him the longest-serving ruler of the 20th and 21st centuries.

It is true that the system’s never-ending state of decline has gotten so bad that it seems irreversible. Though the end may be in sight, the prolonged agony will make things even more disastrous for the Cuban people.

Perhaps the dictator-designate, Miguel Díaz-Canel, will be its gravedigger. Hopefully, the system and its fugitives will be buried together. Nevertheless, we cannot ignore the fact that the nation’s future is seriously threatened by the corrosive teachings and practices of totalitarianism. continue reading

Cuban totalitarianism gave itself new laws. Its parodies of legal proceedings allowed for public murders. Shootings were carried out in parks, cemeteries and schoolyards. Society was militarized. Terror took root. A framework that promoted hatred was adopted. Machine guns were used to resolve differences. The cultural and moral foundations of the nation — part of the National Plan, which sought to recreate civic awareness — were broken in order to introduce new values and dogmas that have left many without ethical principles, forcing them into moral bankruptcy.

Cuba’s crisis of civility runs very deep. Norms of coexistence, respect for differences and even common courtesy have been trampled by the government for more than six decades, a situation that can be seen in how large segments of the population are treated, including some of those who reject the regime.

Fidel Castro’s legacy is one long criminal rap sheet

Education was largely replaced by the culture of the barracks. Whoever had the biggest stick was right. The regime announced it intended to create a “New Man.” It denied parents the right to participate in the education of their children. It combined school with work, creating dysfunction in the family.

The consequences of an exclusionary system like the one imposed in Cuba are very pernicious. The island’s civil rights lawyers have a huge job ahead of them. They will have to work very hard to change the mentality of a large portion of the population, to make sure that citizens are aware of their rights and responsibilities.

Many Cubans, especially those who identify with the dictatorship, tend to react violently to those with different points of view. They are intolerant of rivals. They reject dialogue and debate. Force is their main tool for promoting the political system they are defending. This has led to a rise in crime which, despite brutal repression, is still not under control.

Castro’s supporters act as if they were defending a religion. The writer José Antonio Albertini was correct when he described the Cuban regime as more genuinely autocratic than that of Iran because it had a living god in the person of Fidel Castro and a high priest in the person of his brother Raúl.

Fidel Castro’s legacy is one long criminal rap sheet. His violent crimes are many but the most devastating, as Dagoberto Valdés has noted, are those that have caused human damage to young generations of Cubans.

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In Florida, Agencies That Ship to Cuba Fill Up With Customers ‘Before Trump Arrives’

Alarm spreads among Cuban migrants due to the unfounded fear that the president-elect will restrict parcels

“It looked like a line in Havana, with people waiting inside and outside, standing and sitting on the sidewalk,” outside the Cubamax agency / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Alejandro Mena Ortiz, Miami, November 27, 2024 — Ramón had to wait more than four hours this Tuesday before being able to send a package to his family in Cuba from the Cubamax office in Miramar, in Broward, Florida. “It’s on fire, down hill without brakes,” he heard someone say after two hours. “It was the first time I saw it like that. It looked like a line in Havana, with people waiting inside and outside, standing and sitting on the sidewalk,” the young man, who emigrated to the United States three years ago via Nicaragua, explains to 14ymedio.

“There were people coming from other neighborhoods,” he continues. “A lady, for example, arrived from Miami Lakes, because, she argued, “the Cubamax of Hialeah can’t cope and the lines are worse than those here.” Inside the office, the space was large – 12 chairs plus the three customers who could be served at the same time. There was, Ramón continues, “a real mountain of packages everywhere. They filled the waiting room, because there was no more place to put them.”

It is common that every year at this time agencies such as Cubamax, Cuballama and Cuba Encarga have more customers, because Christmas is approaching. However, the reason in Broward this Tuesday was different. When Ramón was finally able to ask the employees, they replied: “Many people come and say that they have to take advantage now, because when Trump arrives in January, he will surely remove the shipments of packages and foreign exchange to Cuba.” continue reading

“The packages filled the waiting room, because there was no more place to put them”

The workers were somewhat outraged by this false news, the young man says. It is true that the president-elect has promised to tighten migration policies from the first day of his mandate on January 20, but he has said nothing about shipments. “People are very sick in the head, letting themselves be guided by TikTok videos,” said one of the employees. “Trump is not going to take anything away, and if he restricts packages, they’ll find a way to send them through a third country, even if it’s more expensive.”

On the other hand, one item is beginning to have success in these offices: power generators. In Cubamax, for example, they have an offer of 99 cents a pound when sending this type of device, only on Wednesdays. “I don’t understand how people keep sending them when it’s a hassle in Cuba to find fuel to get them going,” said María, a Cuban from Pinar del Río.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Ciego De Ávila, Cuba, Foresees the Fiasco of the Present Sugar Harvest and Anticipates Future Failure

The province has planted only 24% of the planned amount of land

Ciego de Ávila planned to produce 30,500 tons of sugar / Invasor

14ymedio, Havana, 28 November 2024 — With a run-down and ancient group of 15 sugar mills at their disposal, the Cuban authorities declared last Monday the start of the 2024-2025 milling throughout the country. In Ciego de Ávila, however, it is not the present sugar campaign that worries the workers, who already foresee the failure of the future harvest. According to the local press, there has been a delay in the planting, and the amount of land worked is minimal. Of the 7,541 hectares projected, only 24%, or 1,801, have been planted.

“The lack of diesel has been the fundamental cause” for the delay, Cuban Vice President Salvador Valdés Mesa told Invasor, after visiting the region. According to the newspaper, the next few weeks will be “vital,” but the figures are too similar to the 23% of the October campaign.

The numbers — “lean” as the newspaper describes them — do not promise the glorious recovery of the sugar industry that the State has been announcing for years. On the contrary, the debacle seems more irreversible than ever.

“It was impossible to take advantage of the Ciro Redondo Sugar Company land. The raw material for the mill, the “Colossus,” inactive in the last campaign, along with the continual lack of fuel and organizational problems in the Enrique Varona,* also threatened the success,” says Invasor. continue reading

At the moment the province is focusing on quickly planting 180 hectares in the final stretch of the year

At the moment, says the media, the province is focusing on quickly planting 180 hectares in the final stretch of the year, 50 of them for the Ciro Redondo mill, the only one that joined the Avila campaign this year.

Invasor has been announcing the slow pace of the expected Ciego de Ávila harvest for months. For the production of molasses, for example, which should have begun 15 days before the harvest, the sugar factories had not yet finished creating “the conditions.”

However, the scenario described at the beginning of November was less worrying than now. The authorities then predicted 444,854 tons of milled cane to produce 30,500 tons of sugar, and said that the preparation of the machinery had advanced to a reassuring 75% and transport to 94%. Even in the bioelectric plant, which produces energy from the bagasse derived from the harvest, “Chinese investors” explained that there would be no problems in connecting it to the plant.

The planting, however, was still stagnant at the same 24% that Invasor criticized a few days later. Before, in October, expectations were even higher, and the province expected to plant all the available land with cane before December 31. Since then, only 66 hectares have been planted.

In other provinces the panorama is not very different. In Las Tunas, where the plan is to reach 45,000 tons of sugar, workers have been forced to extend the work “up to 10 and 12 hours a day to meet the repair schedule, affected, among other causes, by the late arrival of some resources, electrical interruptions, the potential threats of Hurricane Oscar and the rains,” explains Periódico 26 in an article published on November 19.

“There we find men who have been working continuously for almost 10 hours”

“There we find men who have been working continuously for almost 10 hours, and their overalls, hands and faces carry stains of grease and sweat as symbols of the arduous day. Stains that do not hide the joy of knowing they are essential,” romanticizes the local newspaper.

At the national level, and based on past campaigns, the authorities do not expect good results either. “A very complex harvest is coming,” William Licourt González, general secretary of the sugar workers’ union, said in October, before calling on the entire sector to work. On that occasion he also announced that 15 mills would be in charge of grinding, compared to 25 a year earlier and the 161 active on the Island in 1959.

The sugar industry, once a jewel in the crown of the regime, this year reached its most critical point. The Government has not only been forced to cease most of its important sugar contracts, such as the one it had with China, but also this 2024, for the first time, the Island imported more sugar than it exported.

At the domestic level, sugar has become priceless for Cubans, who find it increasingly difficult to find and with very high prices. This week, in the Plaza Boulevar market in Sancti Spíritus, a pound reached 550 pesos.

*Translator’s note: The Enrique Varona sugar mill has its own railway transport system.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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One Step Away From Its Worst Record in History, Cuba Drops a Step in the World Baseball Rankings

Cuba is facing a decade with more defeats than victories in international tournaments

Cuba finished with one win and four losses in the last Premier 12 / ’Jit’

14ymedio/Swing Completo, Havana, 28 November 2024 — Team Cuba will close 2024 close to its worst position in history in the international baseball rankings. The island dropped one step in the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) ranking, published this Wednesday, and is in tenth position, just one step away from its worst record – 11th place – in 2021.

The Cuban team generated the fewest points during 2024 within the top 10 of the world ranking. The team could only add 401 points, far from the second worst team in the year, the Dominican Republic, with 760. For the classification, what was achieved in the lower categories is also taken into account, where there were also no great results.

The Cuban team generated the fewest points during 2024 within the top 10 of the world ranking.

Poor performance has also caused Team Cuba to fall even at the regional level, although in 2012 it was the world leader in the rankings. Today it is ranked sixth in the Americas, behind Venezuela, which is now third in the world, with 4,846 points.

Also on the list are Mexico (4,729), the United States (4,691) and Panama (3,334). Japan is firmly at the top of the World Baseball Softball Confederation rankings, despite losing to Taiwan in the final of the last continue reading

Premier 12. It has 6,866 points, well ahead of the Taiwanese, who are in second place, with 5,489.

Cuba’s poor results in international tournaments have been a constant for a decade. Its record in 2013, after playing in the World Classic, was the last time the team had more wins than losses in a year, winning four games and losing only two.

During the 2015 Premier 12, the Cubans qualified in the second round, where they fell to South Korea. Thus they closed that year with a 3-3 record. Two years later, in 2017, they again played in the World Classic. In that tournament, they reached the second phase of the event, where they fell by a thrashing (14-1) to the Netherlands. With that defeat, their record was 2-4. That has been, so far, the worst performance for Cuba in that tournament; in 2006 they were finalists.

During the 2015 Premier 12, the Cubans qualified in the second round, where they fell to South Korea.

In 2019, in the second edition of the Premier 12, the island was eliminated for the first time in the group stage. It finished in tenth place overall, with one win and two losses. That same year, the team competed in the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru. The competition, which Team Cuba dominated throughout history – with 12 titles, 10 of them consecutive, from 1971 to 2007 – ended with three losses in four matches and the team remained in third-to-last place. At the end of the year, its record was 2-5.

Two years later, the 2021 Pre-Olympic tournament was held, on the way to the Tokyo Games, another event in which the Cuban teams had shown superiority, with three gold medals out of a possible five. Only on a couple of occasions did they have to settle for silver. However, those hopes of recalling old glories did not come true, since they did not get the ticket. That year they won one game and lost two.

The year 2023 was bittersweet. On the one hand, the team reached the semifinals of the World Classic and qualified for the second round of the championship with a 2-2 record. In the quarterfinals, they defeated Australia in a tight match (4-3), but then lost to the United States in the semifinals (14-2). Despite the positive scenario, the record in the tournament was three wins and three losses. That same year, they played in the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games and were eliminated in the first phase. They were only able to win one game out of four to end the year with four wins and six losses.

Finally, in 2024, they played five games, all within the framework of the Premier 12, with one victory and four defeats, leaving a total record of 13 games won and 24 lost in more than a decade.

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The Cuban Government Reacts for the First Time to Trump’s Victory: “The Country Is Prepared”

“For us, the results of these elections are not new. It was an expected scenario,” said Díaz-Canel.

Miguel Diaz-Canel (right, front row) during his visit to Lajas, Cienfuegos. / Perlavisión

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 27 November 2024 — The Cuban government referred for the first time on Wednesday to Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections 22 days ago and said that the result was within expectations, so “the country is prepared.”

President Miguel Díaz-Canel made these statements during an informal but planned meeting with a group of residents of the municipality of Lajas, in Cienfuegos, during one of his visits to the provinces without international media. His speech was broadcast on state television and on official social media profiles.

“For us, the results of these elections are not new. It was an expected scenario,” said Díaz-Canel, who is also first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC, the only legal party). “It was a probable scenario and we had been preparing for this scenario,” he added.

Díaz-Canel criticized the US sanctions against the island, which he described as “perverse and genocidal.” He recalled that the last series of sanctions was imposed during the first term of the Republican Trump and that the current US president, Democrat Joe Biden, has “maintained the same position of hostility.” continue reading

As usual in his speech, he reiterated that the United States sanctions are the cause of the current crisis that the country is suffering.

The president, who expressed his willingness to engage in dialogue “on equal terms” and “without impositions” with Washington, said that his government will not accept “interference” nor will it renounce its “model of socialist construction.”

As is customary in his discourse, he reiterated that US sanctions are the cause of the current crisis in the country, blaming them for the blackouts and shortages of basic goods such as food and medicine. “It is true that we have suffered,” the president acknowledged.

The serious crisis, which has lasted for five years, has generated growing discontent, visible in the unusual protests that have been recorded in recent years and the unprecedented migratory exodus that the country is experiencing.

Cuba’s gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 1.9% in 2023, according to official figures, and the government has already announced that it does not expect growth in the current year.

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Carlos Aldana, the Ideological Guru of the Party Ousted by Castro During the Special Period, Dies

Known as El Mulato, he had been admitted several weeks ago to the Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital for brain trauma following a fall

Norberto Fuentes (left) with Carlos Aldana (right) in a file photo / Norberto Fuentes

14ymedio, Havana, 28 November 2024 — “Carlos Aldana was the ideological secretary of the Party and a rising star in the Castro firmament.” The phrase, by the writer Norberto Fuentes, was enough in 1989 to define the then third man of the regime, who was ousted by Fidel Castro in 1992 and who died this Wednesday in Havana after pneumonia, at the age of 82.

Known as El Mulato, Aldana had been admitted several weeks ago to the Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital for brain trauma after a fall. He also suffered from Parkinson’s and other ailments related to his age, according to Fuentes speaking to Café Fuerte. The novelist also said that the fall had caused Aldana to have a stroke and that he had undergone surgery.

Born in Camagüey in 1942, Aldana held various positions in the regime’s nomenklatura and was a protégé of Raúl Castro. In his chronicle of the high political and military spheres of the regime, Dulces guerreros cubanos, Fuentes – who was a friend – describes him as the Castros’ right-hand man in a decade that ended with the execution of high-ranking Army officials and the announcement that the Soviet Union was about to fall.

Like two of those sentenced to death – General Arnaldo Ochoa and Tony de La Guardia – Aldana was one of the regime’s key men in Africa. He acted as negotiator and spokesman for Cuba in Angola and Namibia. After his dismissal, he was erased from the official account and his name only appears once in the Ecured encyclopedia: where it is misplaced in the list of participants in the Third Congress of the Communist Party.

In 1992, at the age of 50 and with an extensive record of service in the Central Committee, Aldana was ousted for “serious defects in the performance of his duties” and his “serious personal errors,” two accusations that the regime continues to use as an alibi to cover up the real causes of its “movements of cadres.” In addition, he was accused of corruption for his links with Eberto López, manager of the importing company Caribbean Audiovisuales, who ended up being sentenced to 15 continue reading

years in prison for fraud.

After his dismissal, he was erased from the official account and his name only appears once in the ’Ecured’ encyclopedia.

Abroad, Aldana was regarded as a sort of reformer and natural successor to the so-called historic generation. He had met privately with Mikhail Gorbachev and was considered open to the changes proposed by the Russian leader. But Castro, faced with the dissolution of Soviet communism and an international environment against which he preferred to entrench himself, dismissed El Mulato, replacing him with José Ramón Balaguer, the former ambassador to Moscow.

By this time, Aldana was the one who had the last word in the Party in terms of ideology, international relations and education, an accumulation of powers that Castro could not tolerate in the hands of any party leader other than himself.

Castro and Aldana had also had a high tension episode when, in 1987, El Mulato organized a meeting with journalism students from the University of Havana. The exchange failed, since the leader interpreted the critical comments about the island’s press and the management of the staff as out of place. It was Aldana who, on Castro’s orders, purged the Faculty and recalibrated teaching and communications, and also extended the purge to the editorial offices of the official media where Glasnost was beginning to take hold.

His ouster was followed by three decades of ostracism and silence, which he broke only once, when the newspaper El Sol de México interviewed him about his departure from office. Not deviating one iota from the official version, he attributed his departure to his “mistakes” and “carelessness,” and declared his loyalty to Fidel. He had been sent to work in tourism, in a minor management position, in Topes de Collantes, Trinidad.

In Dulces guerreros cubanos, Fuentes offers a detailed portrait of Aldana. He describes him as an official who was “weak in contradicting the Commander.” He recounts his meetings with Raúl Castro, of whom he was a confidant and companion in his almost daily drunken binges, and he assesses his role in the investigations that led Ochoa to the firing squad.

The most recent information about Aldana’s activities which 14ymedio had access to dates back to a few years before the Covid-19 pandemic when he worked as a professor of Marxism and political economy in a classroom for senior citizens located in the facilities of the Parque Zoológico on 26th Street in Havana. His students were mostly disillusioned former Communist Party militants and disgraced former officials.

Not deviating one iota from the official version, he attributed his departure to his “mistakes” and “carelessness,” and declared his loyalty to Fidel.

Aldana’s dismissal was one of many that Castro carried out to cut off the succession of the historic generation by those who grew up with the Revolution. Seven years later, another “rising star” of the nomenklatura, Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina, also fell. Personally protected by Fidel, he was expelled from the Party in 2001 and ended up dedicating himself to art.

He was succeeded by Felipe Pérez Roque, who along with Carlos Lage, vice president between 1993 and 2009, was also removed from office. “The honey of the power for which they had known no sacrifice awoke in them ambitions that led them to an unworthy role,” Castro wrote at the time.

As with Aldana, at that time Raúl Castro washed his hands of the matter. He argued that it was not he who had chosen that series of leaders about whom “the enemy was filled with illusions.” There was not going to be a substitution of “Fidel’s men” by “Raúl’s men.” However, power – at least virtually – did eventually remain with one of Raúl Castro’s favorites.

With Miguel Díaz-Canel, a mediocre survivor of the purges of his generation, the regime found the longed-for “continuity” without reform that it failed to achieve with El Mulato Aldana.

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Mother of Two Girls Murdered With a Machete in Guantanamo, Cuba

On November 10, Daynilis Lobaina Torrell was attacked by her partner in her home in Maisí

Lobaina Torrell was 30 years old. / Facebook/Daynilis Lobaina Torrell

14ymedio, Havana, 16 November 2024 — Daynilis Lobaina Torrell, 30, was the victim of a femicide murder on November 10 in her home in the municipality of Maisí, in Guantánamo. According to what her family and other close sources have published on social networks, the woman was attacked by her partner, leaving two girls aged 9 and 14 orphaned

According to Daribel Lobaina Torrell, who identified herself as a relative of the victim on social media, the attacker hit her several times with a machete. “Her aunt told him not to hit her any more, but he did it more and harder,” she says.

“I can tell you that what the boy did was terrible, unforgivable and incomprehensible, because I participated in the girl’s autopsy yesterday and it was disastrous. In the years I worked at the morgue, I have never seen anything like it,” said another poster on social media.

The posts also identify the alleged aggressor as a violent person who has been involved in several crimes. According to CiberCuba, which contacted a source close to Lobaina Torrell, the murderer fled after the murder, but was captured shortly after by the municipal authorities. continue reading

Last Wednesday, Vania Mojena, 43, was also murdered by her partner.

Cibercuba also claims that Lobaina Torrell’s partner acted with “premeditation and extreme violence,” and that he planned to attack not only the victim, but also her daughters and other close relatives. “He also seriously injured the woman’s uncle, who is hospitalized, while a cousin suffered less severe injuries,” it adds.

Three days later, last Wednesday, Vania Mojena , 43, a resident of the town of Mabay, near the city of Bayamo, in Granma, was also murdered by her partner.

A post on the Facebook group Revolico in Mabay, made by an anonymous user, reported the femicide murder of Mojena. According to close sources, after returning from a trip to Russia, the alleged aggressor visited Mojeda’s home on Wednesday night where he dealt her several machete blows “in front of her children.” According to reports, the victim was a mother of two minors and an adult daughter, who confirmed the events in a comment at the bottom of the post.

The independent platforms Yo Sí Te Creo en Cuba and Alas Tensas confirmed the femicide of Elaine González Estrada

On Thursday, 24 hours later, the independent platforms Yo Sí Te Creo en Cuba (YSTC) and Alas Tensas confirmed the femicide of Elaine González Estrada, mother of a girl. According to them, González disappeared on November 3 after making a trip to a recreational center on the outskirts of the city of Santa Clara, in the province of Villa Clara, and, two days later, she was found dead in the house of her ex-partner. According to the report of this Thursday by Alas Tensas and YSTC, the aggressor fled, but was captured by the Police.

In total, there have been three femicides this November and 45 throughout the year, according to records kept by 14ymedio. In October, the month in which the highest number (seven) of femicide murders has been recorded so far this year, Dianelis Veloz Hernández was murdered in Havana; Yoannia Hernández in Holguín; Liz Yohana Jiménez Morales in Sancti Espíritus; Yadira Moreira in Mayabeque; and Tamara Carrera, Yucleidis Morales and Dagnis Alida Hernández Milanés in Santiago de Cuba. All were attacked by their partners or ex-partners, and three of them were attacked in public spaces.

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Battered by Exodus and Crisis, Havana Takes Refuge “Behind the Wall” To Celebrate Its 505th Anniversary

The gala included a wide repertoire of ballads, boleros, romantic and traditional music, as well as songs in English, the language that makes officials nervous.

The show ’Behind the Wall’ was directed by baritone Ulises Aquino. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 16 November 2024 – On Friday night, Havana had a respite from its long decline. In the Plaza de Armas, a few meters from the point where the city was founded 505 years ago, music forced a pause in the midst of the agitation and despair that permeates every wall of the Cuban capital. The show Detrás del Muro (Behind the Wall), directed by baritone Ulises Aquino, was one of the few public tributes that the Island’s most populated city has received this year.

Getting to the almost perfect square guarded by the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales and the Palacio del Segundo Cabo was quite a heroic act, given the transport collapse that paralyzed Havana’s streets. “I was able to come because I ordered a car on the La Nave app, it cost me 1,200 pesos from my house in Cerro to here and I’ll have to pay another 1,200 pesos to get back,” said an elderly woman waiting on the other side of the protective fence surrounding the chairs.

Some tourists looking on with curiosity hovered around the area, hoping to sneak into the free concert and take a few snapshots of the moment. The poor, homeless people, with a limping appearance and outstretched hands waiting for some banknotes, preferably in foreign currency, also did not miss an opportunity; nor did the living statues that put their hats on the ground while holding their breath and acting out the cold bronze of a sculpture; and the matrons dressed up as 19th century Havana commoners, with their headscarves and flowers in their hair.

The front rows were reserved for senior officials of the capital and other figures of the ruling party. / Facebook/Government of Havana

As daylight faded, the place became a magnet that also attracted nearby residents, increasingly absent in a historic center where museums abound and residents are missed. Some arrived with annoyed expression asking what was happening, without remembering that old Havana is blowing out the 505 candles of its existence this Saturday. Joining forces to remind them were the Symphony Orchestra of the Gran Teatro de La Habana, the Chorus of the Teatro Lírico, together with the orchestra and chorus of Opera de la Calle.

The words of Eusebio Leal — the Historian of Havana who died in 2020 — which resonated at the beginning of the show seemed more like an obituary than a text describing a living city. His voice made a tour of the intramuros town and the republican city, stopping at the proclamations, the awnings, the nightly concerts and the commerce in the streets, a vibrant image that continue reading

has nothing to do with the almost deserted avenues and the countless collapsed houses that characterize Villa de San Cristóbal today.

“I come every year when they do this show because I live nearby and it’s free. I also worked for many years with the Teatro Lírico and this reminds me of those good times,” says Ernesto, dressed for a solemn celebration. The old man, with his impeccable hat, long-sleeved guayabera buttoned up to the top and shiny cane, resembled one of those Havanans from the republican prints that hypnotize you when you look at them and make you sigh with nostalgia.

Ernesto finally got a seat and managed to sit in “the poor people’s area,” he said ironically. “But it sounds perfect because the audio, unlike other years, has been very good,” he said during a short break in the gala. “The stage should have been a little higher to see it well from here, but it’s a minor detail. I’m leaving happy, you can see that they’ve worked hard.”

The evening was led by the Symphony Orchestra of the Gran Teatro de La Habana, the Chorus of the Teatro Lírico, together with the orchestra and chorus of Opera de la Calle. / 14ymedio

The first rows of seats were reserved for high-ranking officials of the Cuban capital and other figures of the government, and members of the diplomatic corps of Spain and France were also expected. Guests of the artists who went up on stage also sat in that area, located in front of the façade of the Santa Isabel hotel, in a view from which part of El Templete, the founding auricle of the heart of Havana, could also be seen.

Seen wearing military uniforms were the president of the National Assembly, Esteban Lazo, the secretary of the Communist Party in Havana, Liván Izquierdo Alonso, and the governor of the city, Yanet Hernández Pérez. The olive green color of their attire, the stern look in their faces, and the initials “CDP” on their epaulettes, to warn that they are still mobilized by the Provincial Defense Council after the passage of Hurricane Rafael, seemed as incongruous as arriving at a trench in high heels or participating in a funeral in carnival clothes.

Dressed in civilian clothes were the Vice Prime Minister, Inés María Chapman, and the Vice President of the Republic, Salvador Valdés Mesa. But even their more informal attire did not help them fit in very well at an event where, unlike official events, political slogans, poetic verses intended to praise some leader and party slogans were conspicuous by their absence. Instead, the gala included a wide repertoire of ballads, boleros, romantic and traditional music, as well as songs in English, that language that makes officials and censors nervous.

The weight of the spectacle fell on the actress and singer Gretel Cazón, the tenor Humberto Bernal and Aquino himself.

The weight of the spectacle fell on the actress and singer Gretel Cazón, the tenor Humberto Bernal and Aquino himself, the latter being the mainstay of the gala and a true one-man band who was not discouraged. Minutes before the instruments began to play, the founder and director of Ópera de la Calle was still fighting against the obstacles of bureaucracy and was going from one side to the other trying to tie up the last organizational loose ends in the midst of a context where apathy and improvisation ran rampant.

There was also a hint of support at the end, when the performers were heard singing Silvio Rodríguez’s song Venga la esperanza (Welcome Hope), a song that sounded like an urgent call for hope and enthusiasm to return to the corners of Havana. “Hínchese la vela, rora el motor” (Swell the sail, roar the engine), was the demand in the town whose patron saint who carries a child on his shoulders to the other side of the river. A premonitory metaphor for the exodus and the coyotes that have come to define the city today.

However, it was the song dedicated to the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, patron saint of Cuba, that was the most emotional moment of the concert. The composition by maestro Ernesto Lecuona describes Cachita as a “sweet and dark mother, who showers you with your piety.” The end of the song mobilized enthusiasm by becoming a call “for freedom to shine radiantly in Cuba.” Repeated loudly, that word made hearts beat, provoked tears and turned the faces of the officials in the front row marble.

The attendees loudly applauded this slogan, which, repeated in the streets of Havana during the popular protests of 11 July 2021, cost so many protesters of that historic revolt years in prison. Just a few meters from the spot where the city was once born, on Friday night its residents set themselves a goal more difficult than fighting pirates, building a strong wall or turning this piece of land next to the bay into a dynamic port of the New World. Havana was revered by being reminded of exactly what it lacks most.

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After Its Judicial Defeat in London, the National Bank of Cuba Speaks of ‘Dialogue’

The National Bank of Cuba (BNC) says it respects “legitimate debts” but rejects the claims of the CRF (Cornerstone Total Return Fund)

The BNC assures that it owes nothing to the “vulture fund” / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, 22 November 2024 — In contrast to the arrogance and speed of its reactions in the preliminary stages of the trial, the National Bank of Cuba (BNC) has taken several days to reflect before commenting on the rejection of its appeal before the Court of Appeal in London in its litigation against the CRF (Cornerstone Total Return Fund) investment fund, which is demanding payment of some 78 million dollars in sovereign debt derived from loans taken out in the 1980s. Its tone was also calm, when it announced this Friday that it is “analyzing its defense position for the next steps to follow (and) ratifies, once again, its firm will for dialogue and unwavering respect for debts that have been legitimately contracted.”

“From the very beginning of the process we have maintained that said fund has no relationship with the institution’s financial instruments and, therefore, has not been and is not a creditor of the National Bank of Cuba,” it said in a statement on its social networks.

The official position of the BNC had been revealed hours earlier by the regime’s official spokesman, Humberto López, who, at the bottom of a Facebook post, and with words not far removed from those used by the financial institution, declared that Cuba owes nothing “to the vulture fund.”

As in the official statement, López downplayed the London court’s dismissal: “What has happened now is nothing more than the determination of jurisdiction. In other words, the appeal determines whether or not a new process will be opened to know the merits of the matter,” said the spokesperson, who also stated that the Cuban State “already won” in April 2023. continue reading

As in the official statement, Lopez downplayed the London court’s dismissal

In reality, the court ruling on that date only determined that the State was not the guarantor of the debt, but, as López admits, the BNC “remains within” the dispute, “with much less harmful implications” for Cuba and “different rules.”

López’s half-hearted statements were not overlooked by users, who reminded him that the legal battle continues and “they have not won anything.” “They only changed the name of the debtor. The underlying problem is still there. Otherwise they would never have appealed the sentence. They have put the noose around their necks because, by denying them the appeal, they have done nothing but legitimize the debt,” responded the lawyer Manuel Viera.

The National Bank of Cuba, however, does not consider this to be the case, and the decision of the Court of Appeal is only an affirmation that the entity “would remain in the process.”

Jeet Gordhandas, a representative of the investment fund registered in the Cayman Islands in 2009, said on Tuesday that “this unanimous decision is a fundamental milestone in our efforts to achieve justice and enforce contractual rights.” CRF says it holds a portfolio worth a total of about 1.2 billion euros, although it is not now claiming all of it from the island.

The investment fund also announced that it will proceed with the next phase of the trial, where it hopes to “achieve a victory,” although the BNC can appeal Tuesday’s ruling before the Supreme Court. “The facts are clear: Cuba borrowed those sums and did not comply with its payment obligations, a constant pattern in its dealings,” it said in its note.

The National Bank of Cuba argued that this transfer was not valid because Olivera did not follow the appropriate internal processes.

Last April, Judge Sara Cockerill concluded that the BNC – now dedicated to the management of the pre-1997 external debt – is the debtor of CRF. The Cuban financial institution then responded with an appeal in which it argued that Cockerill was wrong to accept the transfer to CRF of the contractual rights over the securities derived from the original loans granted by two European banks, signed on November 25, 2019 by its former director of operations, Raúl Olivera Lozano, who is now in prison in Cuba in relation to this case.

The National Bank of Cuba argued that the transfer was invalid because Olivera did not follow the proper internal procedures, which the fund disputed. It also claimed that it did not receive, in the manner required by contract, the advance notice necessary for the reassignment of the debt, which it initially contracted in 1984 with Credit Lyonnais and Istituto Banco Italiano and which it later transferred to ICBC Standard Bank (a British subsidiary of the Chinese bank ICBC), from which CRF obtained it.

During the proceedings, CRF also maintained that, even assuming that Olivera had acted without authorization when he approved the reallocation of the debt, the BNC later validated it in practice by responding to the letters from its British legal representatives.

The Cuban bank, meanwhile, said that CRF wants to use its litigation to “block Cuba in the financial markets” in order to facilitate the collection of all its unpaid debt portfolio.

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More Than 1,000 Students in Pilón, Cuba, Attend Class in Courtyards and Tents

Image of the damage to the infrastructure of the Augusto César Sandino semi-boarding school in Pilón. / Facebook/Alma Mater Magazine

14ymedio, Havana, 22 November 2024 — Classes for 1,188 students in Pilón, Granma province, have had to be moved to businesses, backyards and even tents. The earthquakes of November 10, with magnitudes of 6.0 and 6.7, damaged the infrastructure of the Pequeñines de Celia daycare centers, the Juan Vitalio Acuña Núñez junior high school and the Augusto César Sandino semi-boarding school, and they are in danger of collapse.

According to the official magazine Alma Mater, the region saw “41 schools, out of a total of 75, eight of them completely” affected by the earthquakes, which since the 10th of this month have already caused more than 5,000 aftershocks. The damage to the school network is so great that “they are working in the variants of classrooms attached to family homes, the homes of teachers and workers in the sector, and state institution premises, in a single session, and without food service,” the same newspaper published.

The head of the Social Care Department, Jorge Luis Broche Lorenzo, confirmed that after an assessment and due to the damage to its structure, specialists have recommended “demolishing” the Augusto César Sandino semi-boarding school. A collapsed roof, cracks in walls, a sinking floor and the collapse of beams are some of the damages to this school, which was founded in 1974 and had an enrollment of 552 children between five and 11 years old, who received classes in 24 classrooms. continue reading

A total of 350 students from the Augusto César Sandino semi-boarding school will receive classes in tents. / Facebook/Jorge Luis Ríos Frías

“Do we have to reorganize the school network? Yes! Now the immediate solution was to look for alternatives,” said the official. Broche Lorenzo also reported that the Pequeñines de Celia daycare center is also considered a total loss and acknowledged that “it will take time to rebuild these two educational institutions.”

The Cuban Communist Party echoed the statements of the director of the semi-boarding school Marlene Mayaso Araujo in which she stressed that “the pioneers (students) began the school year, not in the way we wanted, but we know that they are receiving their academic content.”

Journalist Jorge Luis Ríos Frías, who shared images of the tented classrooms, proclaimed that the so-called “Little Friends of the FAR” [Revolutionary Armed Forces] has the “necessary conditions that ensure the quality of the teaching process” for “350 pioneers of the Augusto César Sandino semi-boarding school.”

Meanwhile, the kindergarten students have had to take classes in classrooms and on the terraces of their homes, while another group of 20 of the 173 students have been cared for since last Monday at the Almeida hostel, located on Camilo Cienfuegos Avenue in the coastal municipality of Pilón.

Since last Wednesday, restoration work began on the Pequeñines de Celia daycare center. / Facebook/CNC TV Granma

Granma TV shared photos of the work of the Provincial Company for Education Assurance and Services in the daycare center.

While the remodeling work begins and to prevent theft, teachers from the Juan Vitalio Acuña Núñez urban basic secondary school (Esbu) work four-hour shifts to guard the facility from outside.

Another school affected by the earthquakes was the mixed center in the People’s Council of Seville. Due to the damage, classes are offered in shelters.

The passage of hurricanes Oscar and Rafael, two major earthquakes and a series of blackouts in less than a month have been the trigger for international humanitarian aid to begin arriving on the island, which is in the midst of a serious economic, food and energy crisis.

A second ship with 200 tons – mostly of construction materials – was sent by the Venezuelan government. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil indicated that the cargo will arrive between next Monday or Tuesday at the port of Santiago de Cuba.

Teachers at the Juan Vitalio Acuña Núñez urban basic secondary school work four-hour shifts to prevent theft. / Facebook/Alma Mater Magazine

On November 6, Venezuela sent a first ship with more than 300 tons of aid in the form of kitchen utensils, mattresses, galvanized zinc sheets, iron pipes and ceiling hooks, as well as personal hygiene products.

In recent weeks, the governments of Mexico, Japan and Russia have also sent shipments of humanitarian aid. The European Union and the United Nations sent 94 tons of medicines, medical supplies and other essential goods.

Other donations followed: nine tons from Spain, $160,000 worth of essential supplies from Japan, $600,000 from Norway via the UN Central Emergency Response Fund and 40 tons of powdered milk from Slovakia via the World Food Programme (WFP).

Several NGOs have also revealed their plans to assist the island, such as the 24 tons of humanitarian aid from the International Red Cross, which arrived last week. For her part, the newly inaugurated president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, justified the sending of fuel to Cuba on “humanitarian grounds” following reports that she was sending 400,000 barrels of crude oil to the island after the blackout that left the entire country in darkness for several days in October.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1583813745574077&t=19

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Only One Doctor Works at Night in the Emergency Room of the Pediatric Hospital in Cienfuegos

“I knocked on the doors of several clinics, but no one answered,” says Ivis, who came to the center to get care for her daughter.

Image of the waiting room at the Paquito González Cueto Pediatric Hospital. / 14ymedio

Julio César Contreras, Cienfuegos, 23 November 2024 — The night Ivis arrived at the Cienfuegos Pediatric Hospital with her daughter in her arms, she could not have imagined that institutional neglect and the rest of the crises affecting Cuban Public Health would have had such a profound effect on the center. Because the care is specialized for children and adolescents, the hospital had always had better conditions than others in the province, but the day her daughter suffered an epileptic episode, “there was not even a doctor in the waiting room.”

The bad times for Ivis began, however, before arriving at the Paquito González Cueto Pediatric Hospital. “At seven in the evening the girl began to have strong convulsions and I immediately called the hospital to send me an ambulance, but no one answered the phone,” the mother told 14ymedio. “In my desperation I went out into the street and found a máquina [shared taxi]. Although it may seem unbelievable, the driver charged us 1,000 pesos from our house in the Pastorita neighborhood to the hospital.”

Paying the price for the transport was the least of it, laments the Cienfuegos native, who after entering the Paquito González Cueto did not see “a soul.” “I knocked on the doors of several clinics, but no one answered. Then the security guard appeared, who told me that the doctor on duty was eating and that we had to wait for him,” she explains, pointing out that the memory of that night still bothers her.

Ivis waited for about half an hour until the health worker returned to the office.

Ivis waited for about half an hour until the paramedic returned to the office. During the time she was waiting, she points out, she did not see any medical personnel, whether nurses, laboratory technicians or cleaning assistants, pass by. “They had already told me that this was bad, but I never imagined that at 8:00 at night in the corridors of the Pediatric Hospital there would be no one to help the patients. In my nervousness I asked a woman if she had already been seen, and she told me that she was there to charge her phone, because there was no electricity at home,” she says. continue reading

After going to the doctor’s office, the mother stressed that the doctor’s care was good, but in the current conditions of the health system, with a chronic lack of supplies and medicines, there was little that the health worker could do. “He prescribed a course of clonazepam, but he himself told me that there was none in the hospital pharmacy. Luckily, since the girl is epileptic, I always have these medicines on hand, even if they cost me dearly on the informal market,” says Ivis.

The cienfueguera gave the medicine to her daughter and sat in the waiting room to give it time to take effect. “I started talking to a woman who was there with her grandson. It turned out that she had been waiting since 4:00 in the afternoon for a vehicle to take her to Cruces. The child has respiratory problems and an ambulance or one of the taxis that work with the hospitals was supposed to take him home,” she recalls.

The elderly woman assured Ivis that “she had a hard time even giving her grandson a spray”

The elderly woman, desperate from fatigue and the approach of night, told Ivis that, despite having brought her grandson to the provincial capital seeking specialized care, “she had a hard time even giving him a spray.”

Outside, sitting on the hospital porch under the dim lights of the ceiling, some young people were talking and laughing. According to Ivis, “they are from nearby neighborhoods who, instead of going to the malecón where there is no electricity due to the blackouts and they are exposed to being assaulted, they come here to take advantage of the electricity a little.”

The woman says that after seeing them, an idea came to her mind: “In this country everything is backwards. Parents would like not to have to bring their sick children to those dirty and dark hospitals, but healthy children come on their own for a few hours of electricity and cool night air.”

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Chucho Valdés Considers Himself Exiled and Again Denies Having Approved the Execution of Three Cubans

The Cuban pianist was interviewed by Juan Manuel Cao on América TeVé

Chucho Valdés this Saturday on Cao’s program / Screen capture

14ymedio, Madrid, 25 November 2024 — At 83, the Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés has been trying to detach himself from the Cuban regime for more than a decade, although never with as much effort as since he supported the anti-government demonstrators in 2021. “It makes me very sad what my people are suffering, including my family. It hurts a lot to see the subhuman conditions in which they subsist. Enough of deception and lies. International humanitarian aid is essential,” he wrote that day.

It did not take long for those who recognized his courage to respond, but so did those who reminded him of the episode for which he will never be forgiven among many exiles who doubt the artist’s honesty: his signature on the letter in 2003 that almost thirty Cuban artists and intellectuals signed supporting the shooting of three young people who tried to hijack the Regla ferry to escape to the United States.

This Saturday, the artist was on the program A Fondo, presented by Juan Manuel Cao on América TeVé, where he vindicated himself as an exile and again strongly denied having signed the letter.

“It’s one thing that they put your name in a newspaper for no reason and try to sully your prestige and career in such a disgraceful way. And it’s another that there is a doubt, that there is a doubt”

“Never, never,” insisted the musician, asked by the journalist. “It’s one thing that they put your name in a newspaper for no reason and try to sully your prestige and career in such a disgraceful way. And it’s another that there is a doubt, that there is a doubt,” he lamented. continue reading

Valdés explained that not only would he be unable to support something like that, but that he was not even on the Island when the events occurred. “I was here, in Miami, when all that happened. I was on tour in the United States, on the spring tour I always do, it was in March or April. And I find out, here in Miami, when I was in a hotel with a friend of mine named Raúl Artiles, and he tells me that I’m in a photo and that my name is there. I was destroyed, because it’s very sad that they use you,” he says.

The artist assures that of all the things that have been said about him, this is the worst that has happened in his life, because he cannot erase the doubt that remains in many people, although he did say he was “calm” with respect to his family and friends, who “know it never happened.” The pianist is the son of another piano legend on the Island, Bebo Valdés, exiled since the Revolution destroyed his work in the Cuban music scene. Having lived in Mexico, the United States, Spain and Sweden – where he settled in 1963 and remarried – he died in 2013, after having returned to stunning success and performing with his son, who this Saturday agreed when Cao said he was exiled.

“Yes, yes, I live in Broward,” said the artist, referring to the county of East Florida where he has his main home, although he also spends time in Malaga, where his father had a residence, after becoming famous with the help of film director and music producer Fernando Trueba. Both, in fact, participated in the multi-award-winning documentary on Latin Jazz Calle 54, which the Madrid filmmaker shot in New York in 2000 and which featured other Cuban artists.

“There is no respect for the Constitution, which is the greatest mistake that a country can make, and they have abused and created horrors for many years”

Many missed the presence in the film of Arturo Sandoval, who later recorded an album called Calle 54: Music for Friends. He also spoke on Cao’s program this Saturday and referred to the matter.

“It’s very sad, very sad. That is the result of a hateful dictatorship that uses everything and everyone at its convenience. In Cuba the law does not exist; absolutely nothing is respected. There is no respect for the Constitution, which is the greatest mistake that a country can make, and they have abused and created horrors for many years,” he said before joking and showing his affection and respect for his friend, Chucho Valdés, who closed the program by playing, as in the opening.

Silvio Rodríguez, although more lukewarm, also distanced himself years ago from having signed the letter of support for the shootings. “I never supported those executions. And I’m sure none of the signatories of that letter did,” he said in 2020, almost on par with Valdés. Too late, for some.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Cuban film ‘Natural Phenomena’ and the Chilean ‘Black Island’ are Awarded in Geneva

Natural Phenomena tells the story of Vilma, a young nurse who lives in the late 80s on an isolated farm in a Cuban town

A scene from the Cuban movie ’Natural Phenomena’ / endac.org

EFE (via 14ymedio), Geneva, 24 November 2024 — The Cuban film Natural Phenomena, by Cuban Marcos Antonio Díaz Sosa and Isla Negra, by Chilean director Jorge Riquelme Serrano, were awarded at the Latin American Film Festival in Geneva, which ends its 26th edition this Sunday.

Always sensitive to social cinema that treats human rights from different perspectives, the jury awarded Isla Negra for being a “bold and moving work that addresses a theme that is still very little treated, that of the exile of entire populations because of the exploitation of their lands,” said the organization.

Riquelme closes with this production, premiered exclusively at the festival, a trilogy that began in 2016 with Camaleón, his debut film, and continued in 2019 with Algunas bestias.

With the Young Jury Award for Natural Phenomena, Díaz Sosa’s debut as a director, the festival joins the voices of those who oppose the Cuban regime, “a dictatorship that keeps its people in a dramatic situation and exercises arbitrary and uneducated censorship against artistic creation and critical thinking.” continue reading

“The work captivates with its representation of a strong and determined woman, who faces personal and social challenges while seeking to emancipate herself in a context that limits the possibilities”

“The work captivates with its representation of a strong and determined woman, who faces personal and social challenges while seeking to emancipate herself in a context that limits the possibilities,” said the jury, composed of eleven high school students from Geneva accompanied by the Argentine director Pablo Briones.

Natural phenomena tells the story of Vilma, a young nurse who lives in the late eighties on an isolated farm in a Cuban town

The 10-day festival was attended, among others, by the Spanish director Fernando Trueba, whose penultimate film, the animated documentary They Shot the Pianist, was screened this Saturday at the Grütli cinema that hosts the festival.

Filmar, one of the biggest events in Spanish cinema outside Spanish-speaking countries, showed 39 feature films from 15 Latin American countries.

Directed since 2017 by Vania Aillon, the festival has had, as in previous editions, a special love for social cinema, with a good number of films dedicated to issues such as the environment, freedom of expression, the situation of minorities and indigenous peoples, and the fight for equality.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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