The opponent was transferred and hospitalized in Boniato prison after being assaulted by prison staff, says his family
Ferrer was one of the prisoners of the Black Spring of 2003 / Facebook / Ana Belkis Ferrer
14ymedio, Havana, November 24, 2024 — The opponent and leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu)José Daniel Ferrer was seen last Thursday in the hospital of the Boniato prison, in Santiago de Cuba, “very thin, brutally beaten and with a wound on his face,” said the sister of the political prisoner, Ana Belkis Ferrer. The news that the activist had been transferred and returned to the Mar Verde prison, where he was originally locked up, because he needed medical attention, put his relatives on alert, and they stood in front of the prison on Friday to demand proof of life.
According to the opponent’s sister, Ferrer’s transfer to Boniato was reported by “a person who was able to see him on Thursday at the Boniato hospital, a place where very few people were allowed to prevent him from being seen.” This was later confirmed by the prison authorities of Santiago de Cuba. Aside from that news, little else is known about the political prisoner’s condition.
According to the relatives, the complaint of the “beating” and the transfer were also reported by other political prisoners, who claim that the opponent had been attacked by prison staff and transferred to another prison with better medical facilities. The family also said that Ferrer has been admitted to Room A of the Boniato Prison infirmary for three days and that his health was already deteriorated. continue reading
Ferrer’s wife, Nelva Ismarays Ortega, stood in front of the Mar Verde prison with two of the activist’s children
After Ferrer’s wife, Nelva Ismarays Ortega, stood in front of the Mar Verde prison with two of the activist’s children – including a five-year-old – several organizations and activists began a campaign to demand that the prison authorities allow family members to see the opponent.
“Early on we demanded to be able to see my husband and the prison authorities denied us that right. Around three in the afternoon they let us, from a distance, see a car with several officers and a person dressed in white getting out. Supposedly, that was my husband. Until we are face to face with him we can’t say for sure,” Ortega said in a video on social networks that was taken in the vicinity of the prison.
“We don’t want photos, we don’t want a video, we don’t want a message, we don’t want to see him at a distance. We want to see him face to face to tell us what happened. We will continue to demand proof of life and freedom for Ferrer and all political prisoners,” she added.
Ortega also said that the leader of the Unpacu has been imprisoned since August 2021, and in the last year and nine months, the prison has prevented any kind of contact between him and his family, denying them family visits, conjugal visits and phone calls. “They are violating these rights,” denounced Ortega, who considers that, in these circumstances, her husband “is missing.”
“We want to corroborate whether what happened to Ferrer and his transfer to Boniato is true or not,” Ortega added
“We want to corroborate whether what happened to Ferrer and his transfer to Boniato is true or not,” Ortega added. “If nothing has happened, why don’t they tell us? We have the right to be told where he is and in what condition. The only person who can tell us is my husband, José Daniel Ferrer García.”
Several organizations and NGOs have shown solidarity with Ferrer’s family and have joined the demand for proof of life. Even the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Brian Nichols, said he was “outraged” at the news that José Daniel Ferrer is hospitalized after having received a “brutal beating.”
“We call on the Government of Cuba to allow immediate access for his family and to release him, along with the nearly 1,000 political prisoners unjustly detained in Cuba,” Nichols posted on his X account.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The couple also met with two people who enjoy maximum confidence from the regime, Lourdes and Rodolfo Dávalos
Anido with his mother and Díaz-Canel during a visit to the Vatican in 2023. / EFE
14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 20 November 2024 — Manuel Anido Cuesta is the only young man in the stuffy photo of the Cuban delegation that met with Pope Francis in 2023. His stepfather, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, introduced him to the pontiff as “the opposition in the family.” Lis Cuesta’s son managed to stay out of the spotlight until Wednesday, when ¡Hola!, the Spanish gossip magazine, photographed him in Madrid kissing Cuban actress Ana de Armas.
In the images released by ¡Hola!, Anido walks through Madrid with Ana de Armas, walking her dog, Salsa. They were also captured on their return from the Numa Pompilio restaurant, located in the exclusive Salamanca neighborhood. In addition, one of the photographs shows that they met with Lourdes Dávalos, the lawyer who defended the regime in the case for its debt with the CRF investment fund in London, and with her father, Rodolfo Dávalos, Fidel Castro’s trusted lawyer in international litigation.
Very little is known about Anido. “He is a law graduate, he works with me, he is the one who criticizes me the most,” said Díaz-Canel.
Very little is known about Anido. “He graduated in law, he works with me, he is the one who criticizes me the most,” Díaz-Canel told the Pope, under the tender gaze of Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez and his mother. Although he is credited with a position as an advisor to the president, his role in the government is not clear. He appears in photos of the president’s trips to Moscow, the United Arab Emirates and other countries.
The magazine had reported on the actress’s breakup with tycoon Paul Boukadakis, vice president of Tinder, the online dating app, and had continue reading
speculated about the existence of a new relationship. It had also reported on De Armas’ trips to Cuba, a growing and controversial rapprochement, given the critical situation on the island.
What for the world of showbiz and the paparazzi is a banal incursion into the life of the actress – “she has found a new dream” is the recurring headline – for Cubans is the confirmation of what the Spanish media have rightly called the couple’s “undeniable complicity.”
Actress Ana de Armas, at the San Sebastian Film Festival, in September 2022 / EFE
Like Marilyn Monroe, the legendary actress whom De Armas plays in Blonde, the Cuban – who emigrated to Spain at the age of 18 – has a fondness for the presidential environment. Last August, De Armas traveled to Cuba on a “private visit” about which her friends on the island – especially Claudia Alvariño, actress of La Colmenita and a staunch supporter of the regime – published photos. She was also in Havana last May, accompanied by Boukadakis, to celebrate her 35th birthday. In 2020, the “novio invitado” was Ben Affleck.
Although the island’s official press did not cover her achievements abroad until very recently, it has not been immune to her trips to Cuba. “’Ana, good morning, I’m Thalía Fuentes, a journalist from Cubadebate . Do you think you can answer a couple of questions? ’Excuse me, journalist, I’m on vacation. It’s a pleasure to greet you.’” This is how Fuentes described her meeting with the actress in 2023, a cold shower.
She then consoled herself for the fiasco: “I’m standing in the middle of the street. It’s understandable, she’s on vacation, she wants to be away from the cameras. We have to respect her decision. Being a public figure can’t deprive you of peace. Keep walking, enjoying Havana, that city that is hers, and that always welcomes her with open arms. Ana de Armas from Blonde is an actress and she’s Cuban.” Cubadebate was quick to delete the article.
The media then claimed that De Armas had declared she wanted to be part of the company, “but she couldn’t because he didn’t live in Havana.”
In April of that year, however, Cubadebate reported in great detail on her meeting with the children’s theater company La Colmenita (The Little Beehive). The media outlet then stated that De Armas had declared that she wanted to be part of the company, “but she couldn’t because she didn’t live in Havana.” Indeed, although she was born in the capital, her family moved to Santa Cruz del Norte during the Special Period.
De Armas has spoken kindly of that time in interviews – “the power went out, we ate fried eggs, rice and sometimes chicken” – and praised the fact that education in Cuba is “free” and “very rigorous.” Regarding her father, she admitted that he once held positions in a municipal government – although she did not clarify whether it was in Santa Cruz del Norte – and that he ran a bank.
Her brother, the photographer Javier Caso, who lives in the US, is known for his opposition to the regime and has repeatedly denounced the “dictatorship” that is “killing” Cubans. Caso was summoned by State Security in 2020 and managed to record the interrogation. One of the agents’ questions was about his sister. A year later, Caso reported that the artist Luis Manuel Otero was the victim of police harassment. For this reason, he went on a hunger strike.
Although De Armas is used to photographers – she confessed that her love life was in a sort of “controlled intensity” – the experience is totally new for the “royalty” of the regime. It has not gone well, for example, for Lis Cuesta, whose romantic effusions about Díaz-Canel – such as the memorable “dictator of my heart” or the soul “in dishcloth mode” – have been mocked by hundreds of Cubans.
Neither Anido nor his entourage are ready for the harassment of the tabloids in an environment like Cuba, so far from any romantic idyll. ¡Hola! has walked with the couple through the avenues of Madrid. Very far from the dull streets filled with rubbish in Cuba, where Ana de Armas and her “new dream” were born.
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The organization, based in Washington, says that it is the State’s obligation to ensure the integrity of prisoners
The exact state of Ferrer’s health is unknown, at least one week after he suffered an assault / Ana Belkis Ferrer García
EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, November 26, 2024 — The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) showed its “concern” on Monday after allegations of assault by the prison authorities of the opponent and political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer.
The organization, based in Washington, expressed on social networks its “concern about the complaints of physical violence by prison authorities against José Daniel Ferrer” and stressed that the dissident is “deprived of liberty in the context of the protests of July 11, 2021” and is a “beneficiary of precautionary measures granted by the IACHR.”
The commission also recalled in general terms that “the State must guarantee the personal integrity of persons deprived of liberty and avoid torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”
“The State must guarantee the personal integrity of persons deprived of liberty and avoid torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”
Last week, family members, human rights NGOs and Cuban dissident organizations denounced that Ferrer, considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International (AI), was hospitalized after receiving a “brutal beating” from the prison staff where he is imprisoned. continue reading
His relatives explained that other prisoners, for political reasons, had transmitted this information to them. Several NGOs, including AI and Prisoners Defenders, validated the story, as well as different opposition groups. For its part, the United States Government was “outraged” by the complaint.
According to the sources that informed the family, Ferrer was assaulted and couldn’t be properly treated in the infirmary of the Mar Verde penitentiary center (Santiago de Cuba), where he is serving his sentence. He was then transferred to the Boniato prison, which supposedly has a better medical center.
They added that he had been admitted to Room A of the prison infirmary for three days. No details are known about his state of health, which according to relatives had deteriorated significantly in the last months, with different health issues now added to previous ones related to his stays in prison.
A minor government media reported that the information about the beating “lacks foundation” and that Ferrer was in a “favorable” condition
The Cuban government has not reported on the matter, nor has the official press. A minor government media said that the information about the beating “lacks foundation” and that Ferrer was in a “favorable” condition.
Ferrer has been in prison since 11 July 2021, when he was arrested for joining the anti-government demonstrations that were taking place that day in different parts of the country in the largest protest in Cuba in decades.
The leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba had already been in prison previously for political reasons. He was one of the 75 intellectuals, journalists and opponents imprisoned in the 2003 repressive wave known as the Black Spring. In 2011 he was released but was subsequently arrested on several occasions.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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“Despite an investment of more than 24 billion dollars, the results show an alarming decline,” says Cuba Siglo 21
The report says that several tour operators and airlines have left Cuba, as is the case of the German giant TUI / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Madrid, November 25, 2024 — The most recent report on tourism in Cuba signed by the consultant Emilio Morales, published by the organization Cuba Siglo 21 this Monday and based on the information published in the independent press, especially 14ymedio, fully summarizes the catastrophic situation of the sector that the regime’s propaganda sells as the main engine of the economy. “Despite an investment of more than 24 billion dollars in the last 15 years,” says the text, without explaining where the Government obtained those funds, “the current results show an alarming decline in key indicators such as the arrival of tourists, hotel occupancy and the sector’s income.”
On this last point, the report says that income has decreased by 61.82% in the last five years, from 3,185 million dollars in 2019 to just 1,216 million in 2023. From January to October of this year, there were 1,718,636 foreign visitors in total, although the official figure, as collected by this newspaper a few days ago, is actually 1,844,917 tourists (128,256 fewer than in the same period of 2023).
The number provided by Cuba Siglo 21 – slightly lower than that offered by the National Office of Statistics and Information until September – 1,719,145 travelers – supposes, in any case, “a drop of 48.23% compared to the same period in 2019 (before the pandemic), when 3,563,494 tourists arrived.”
Another of the sector’s “setbacks” listed in the report is the “infrastructure crisis”
As for the hotel occupancy rate, the report states that it is 25%, “leaving a significant number of underutilized facilities.” The name of Gaesa also turns off the tourism industry. Morales points to the conglomerate of the Armed Forces as the main culprit of the situation. “The Business continue reading
Administration Group S.A. (Gaesa), with decisive control over finances and economic decisions, has prioritized excessive investments in tourism to the detriment of strategic sectors such as energy, transport and agriculture,” he says.
Another of the sector’s “setbacks” is the “infrastructure crisis,” which, with “constant blackouts, shortages of drinking water and urban deterioration, decreases the attractiveness of the country as a tourist destination.” In addition there are the epidemics such as dengue fever, the accumulation of garbage and the precariousness of the healthcare system.
“Everything indicates that Cuba as a tourist destination is beginning to disappear from the offerings of international tour operators”
Also discouraging travel to Cuba, the list continues, are the “increase in crime,” the “decrease of staff” – more than 10,000 “qualified” workers in the sector have emigrated in the last three years, says Morales – and the “failed foreign policies.” The consultant refers to the “support for Russia in its invasion of Ukraine,” which “has alienated key European markets” – an unconvincing argument in this case – and to the regime’s “alliance with international terrorist actors,” which “keeps it on that short list of countries associated with that scourge.”
In the midst of this dark panorama, tour operators and airlines have left Cuba, as is the case of the German giant TUI, which, as this newspaper published, suspended its flights from Amsterdam to Varadero last May due to lack of passengers. Also – this time without quoting 14ymedio, which first published the report – Canada issued a third travel alert warning tourists about the dengue epidemic, which joined two previous alerts about the increase in violence and the shortage of basic necessities.
“Everything indicates that Cuba as a tourist destination begins to disappear from the offerings of international tour operators,” says Morales, in contrast to other Caribbean destinations – such as the Dominican Republic – “which are registering sustained growth, expanding their infrastructures and improving their services.”
The recovery of the sector, in short, requires “profound structural changes,” which include solving the energy and health crises, improving transport and security, and “offering economic and political freedoms that attract foreign investment and the trust of the Cuban exile.” Without these reforms, the report concludes, “the tourism industry will continue to decline, leaving Cuba lagging behind its regional competitors.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Raymond Figueredo and Frank Luis Medina will play in Venezuela, while Pavel Hernández will play in Nicaragua
The Island team got a total of $180,000 for participating in the event and another $10,000 for their victory against the Australian team / Jit
14ymedio, Havana, November 25, 2024 — The compensation of $190,000 for participation in the Premier 12 tournament barely alleviates the failure of the Cuban team in the competition. That amount is trivial compared to what was received by the first three: $1,610,000 to Japan, $750,000 to Korea and $500,000 to Mexico.
Three other players, on the other hand, will play from now on outside the Island: Raymond Figueredo and Frank Luis Medina in Venezuela and Pavel Hernández in Nicaragua. Journalist Yussef Díaz confirmed on his social networks the arrival of the first two players to the Tigres de Aragua, a team that is in the penultimate place of the Venezuelan championship.
The managers gave a vote of confidence to Figueredo, despite the fact that in the Premier 12 he only pitched in the game against Japan. The athlete had a depressing performance against the Japanese. In two innings he allowed two runs and had to carry the weight of defeat.
The record of the Habanero refers to his championship title with Parma Clima of Italy, in 2024, where he achieved seven victories and two defeats. In 17 games he allowed 19 runs and struck out 45 rivals. On the Island he continue reading
won a runner-up with Artemisa and a third place in his time with Industriales in the II Elite League.
The managers gave a vote of confidence to Figueredo, despite the fact that in the Premier 12 he only pitched in the game against Japan
Meanwhile, Frank Luis Medina, who was injured in the last preparation match, was included in the negotiation. His departure from the Island represents a balm for this pinareño. Despite the fact that both players are capable of throwing pitches of 90 miles per hour, “control is the main enemy of their performances,” warned the specialized magazine Swing Completo.
However, Figueredo and Medina were included in the Venezuelan team because the first option to strengthen the team of openers, the American Alex Sanabia, “had visa problems,” revealed the newspaper El Emergente.
The Cuban Baseball Federation also managed to place Pavel Hernández. According to journalist Francys Romero, the player will join the Nicaraguan champion team, Gigantes de Rivas.
Hernández, who played with the Mexican team Rieleros de Aguascalientes and before in the Venezuelan club Samanes de Aragua, did not have a prominent place in the Premier 12. His best performance was in the 63rd National Baseball Series, when on May 7 at the Latin American stadium he had zero hits and zero runs against the Holguín team.
In addition to this, Cuba received 190,000 dollars from the Premier 12. This makes a total of 180,000 dollars for participating in the event and another 10,000 for Cuba’s victory against the Australian team.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Sartre wanted to read the palm of a country he didn’t understand at all. And as a palmist, he was disastrous.
Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre and Ernesto Guevara in Havana, 1960. / CC
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 20 November 2024– In these days shaken by earthquakes and cyclones, I have revisited Jean-Paul Sartre’s book Hurricane over Sugar. After finishing it, I could not help but feel a little sorry for the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Sartre wanted to read the palm of a country he did not understand at all. And as a palm reader, he turned out to be disastrous. Often, the greatest stupidity is that which accompanies intellectuals, like a blazer over the shoulders.
In his collection of reports on the nascent Castroite Cuba, Sartre was a victim of the “retinitis pigmentosa” that he himself criticized at the beginning of his articles. He fell into the same trap as those Parisians he describes in his essay Paris Under Occupation, enchanted by their own German executioners, accepting as natural what was not and being complicit in their infamy.
It is not surprising, however. Every dictatorship, however despicable its record, has always found a poet willing to sing its praises. In his book From Benito Mussolini to Hugo Chávez: Intellectuals and a Century of Political Hero Worship, sociologist Paul Hollander offered an interesting study of those romances that have brought the worst autocrats and supposedly lucid thinkers together under the same covers.
Every dictatorship, no matter how despicable its record, always found some poet willing to compose its praises.
Nicolás Guillén, considered Cuba’s National Poet, was once seduced by Machado. And I am not referring to Antonio, the Sevillian poet, but to Gerardo, the dictator born in Las Villas. It is said that Guillén belonged to his censorship corps and that he had to hide from the crowd after the fall of the Machado regime. Later he would be bewitched by another, even worse continue reading
dictator, on the other side of the planet. He himself composed the song to Joseph Vissarionovich “Stalin, captain / whom Shangó protects and whom Ochún protects / at your side, singing.”
Nicolás was named not only Guillén, but also Batista. Perhaps that is why he never became Castro’s favorite. And he worked hard to write the most childish poems anyone could imagine, like the one that said: “Oh, how beautiful my flag is, my little Cuban flag, without being sent from outside.” But the bearded man considered Guillén a drone incapable of producing poems to the rhythm of the harvest, as did, for example, the selfless Indio Naborí.
Cabrera Infante recounted that the poet confessed his panic to him under a mango tree. Fidel had criticized him at one of his university meetings, and the kids improvised a quasi-act of repudiation in front of his house, chanting the conguita: “Nicolá, you don’t work anymore / Nicolá, you are not a poet at all.” One day I asked Antón Arrufat about this anecdote and he told me that the writer could not be given much credit, but he did not doubt that the story was true.
Let us return to Sartre and his trip to Havana in 1960. He and Simone de Beauvoir had already been in an open relationship for just over 30 years. Sartre was her necessary love, although she would maintain countless contingent loves, devouring students, both male and female, without any discrimination. Beauvoir would confess in one of her letters to other lovers that Sartre never satisfied her sexually, but the ugly man was a genius with whom it was worth debating existentialism in and out of bed.
Havana at that time turned them on. She, perhaps, had an orgasm when Fidel Castro first shouted “Patria o Muerte” in front of 500,000 fans. Both of them got hot when Che, a cigar in his mouth, described their relationship as a “revolutionary love.” He, surely, suffered the biggest erection when he got Fidel Castro to sit his buttocks, for the first time, on a theater seat. Especially because it was one of his plays, La puta respeto (The Respectful Whore). The bearded man didn’t understand much about art, but he did about rifles, so his praise was less theatrical and more military: “I just discovered a tremendous weapon,” he told him backstage. And a blushing Sartre answered: “Well, use it.” From then on, perhaps, Fidel would assume his definitive role in the Cuban tragedy.
It is probable that neither Sartre nor his sweet Castor understood that testosterone-saturated island. But the people on the street sensed them immediately, improvising a conga that was much more suspicious and synthetic than the French intellectual’s reports: “Saltre, Simona, un dos, tres / Saltre, Simona, echen un pie.”
Hurricane over Sugar aged quickly and badly. Sartre would break with the Revolution a decade later, after the Padilla case. The employees of official thought try to justify their decision by blaming the bad influence of Carlos Franqui. What we could say is that, if Sartre and Simone were to come back to life and visit Cuba today, neither of them would find any reason to get excited. And the book would be called, without a doubt, Hurricane over Marabou.
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The regime reactivates its Film Commission to “attend” to the island’s filmmakers
The film has been described by European critics as “a Kafkaesque masterpiece.” / Miguel Coyula
14ymedio, Havana, 23 November 2024 — With almost all of its creators in exile or sidelined by the government, Cuban cinema continues to add triumphs abroad. Director Miguel Coyula, whose name is synonymous with independent and unreserved creation, won the Best Film award at the Envisión competition, awarded during the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA), for his film Crónicas del absurdo [Chronicles of the Absurd].
Coyula, whose production is unclassifiable within Cuban cinema, defined Cuba as a “dysfunctional country” during the award ceremony, which he attended with his wife, actress Lynn Cruz. In keeping with his film – he ironically said – his arrival in Amsterdam occurred after “a blackout day and night” in Havana. He also denounced the situation of political prisoners in Cuban jails.
“But we live in Cuba,” he added, “we want to continue making films in Cuba, we want to make them outside the system as the only way to truly have complete independence. Not in the sense that we pay for the films out of our own pockets, but independence in form and content.”
“We want to continue making films in Cuba, we want to make them outside the system as the only way to truly have complete independence”
The jury praised Crónicas del absurdo for being “formally complex and with a cinematic language that emerges organically and directly from its limitations.” The film, they added, is a testimony of “radical” creation similar to that of other artists who “refuse to be silenced.” The film has been described by European critics as “a Kafkaesque masterpiece.” Along with the trophy, Coyula won 15,000 euros. continue reading
For her part, Cruz revealed that IDFA’s artistic director, Syrian documentary filmmaker Orwa Nyrabia, had sent them a letter two months ago congratulating the couple on the film. “The work you have done is outstanding. It is obvious that the personal/political experience that the film shares with us is outstanding. Our solidarity must also be clear,” he said. “The process, the brave artistic choices, the way this enormous pain was shared with us is masterful and organic, deeply honest and loving. All this love and all this anger… is ours now.”
Coyula will be at the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid on Monday 25th and at the Casa de América on Tuesday 26th, also in the Spanish capital, to talk about his latest films. In addition, he will be presenting Nadie, a documentary about the Cuban poet Rafael Alcides, at this venue.
The profile of Coyula collected by IDFA explains that, on the Island, the government controls and censors national film production, a rule against which Coyula and Cruz – along with a new generation of filmmakers – have rebelled with their films. Coinciding with the director’s success, the Council of Ministers published an agreement on Friday to ratify the Cuban Film Commission as the “governmental body” responsible for controlling and financing the Island’s cinema.
The profile of Coyula collected by IDFA explains that, on the Island, the government controls and censors national film production, a rule against which Coyula and Cruz –along with a new generation of filmmakers– have rebelled with their films. Coinciding with the director’s success, the Council of Ministers published an agreement on Friday to ratify the Cuban Film Commission as the “governmental body” responsible for controlling and financing the Island’s cinema.
Alexis Triana, president of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC), said that the Commission already existed but had never had any work objective. Now, he added, there is a “policy aimed at Cuban cinema” supervised by the Council of Ministers, to “attend” to directors and producers with more attention.
The Commission will be composed of several ministerial representatives, including one from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, one from the Ministry of the Armed Forces and one from the Ministry of the Interior.
In addition to the Minister of Culture and Triana himself, the Commission will be composed of several ministerial representatives, including one from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, one from the Ministry of the Armed Forces and one from the Ministry of the Interior. The Minister of Culture, as president of the Commission, may invite any other state official to the sessions.
Among the measures – described in an Official Gazette published this Friday – is to offer “the possibility for independent audiovisual production companies, which currently number 65, to become small or medium-sized film companies if they so wish.”
The Commission also aims to “promote Cuba as a destination for national and foreign audiovisual and cinematographic productions,” help with the paperwork for filmmakers authorized to travel to present their work abroad, and draw up a schedule of permits for producing works and financing them through a Development Fund.
Although neither Triana nor the document mention it, the publication of the agreement comes months after numerous conflicts between the government and the Assembly of Cuban Filmmakers, an initiative to maintain the independence of film creation. Less controversial than at its origins, the Assembly has lowered its tone and quite a few of its founders have left the country.
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A Cuban relates his experience of the orderly admission of migrants on the border between Mexico and Texas
A group of migrants on U.S. soil being processed by the authorities after illegally entering the country / EFE
14ymedio, Lorey Saman, Eagle Pass (Texas), November 24, 2024 — “What is your date of birth?” the American officer with Latin features and in Spanish mixed with English, a legacy of her Hispanic family, asked firmly. “I don’t know,” the Guatemalan whispered, barely understanding what she was asking. “You don’t know the date you were born?” the woman asked. “No. It’s what my document says there.” The man tried to save himself but could not dodge the successive questions of the agent, who arranged her glasses to take a good look at him.
That was the first scare I experienced when, after five in the morning on November 5, I crossed the bridge that divides Mexico and the United States between Piedras Negras and Eagle Pass (Texas) to enter the U.S. with an appointment from CBP One (Customs and Border Protection Office). Below, the Rio Bravo [‘Rio Grande’ in the US] roars between the whirlpools, illuminated from shore to shore. In one part, you can cross freely; in the other, a fence with barbed wire forms other whirlpools and prevents passage. It’s needless to say which side is in the south and which is in the north.
I arrived in Piedras Negras two days before my appointment. I was worried about the rumors of drug trafficking around the border. Luckily, I got one of the quietest points, according to what I read and heard on networks and from acquaintances. However, some migrants did not have the same good luck.
A Venezuelan was robbed in the middle of the street, before arriving at the hotel where most of the applicants were staying, and a Honduran was assaulted and lost all the documents that would prove to the Mexican authorities that he had an appointment for that day in Eagle Pass. It was striking that they let him through, but not without first warning him that if he did not appear on the CBP list, he would be returned and prosecuted for fraud. It was not necessary: he was one of the first to be called by the U.S. authorities. continue reading
We formed a line after 3:00 am in front of the Mexico Customs parking lot in Piedras Negras
We formed a line after 3:00 am in front of the Mexico Customs parking lot in Piedras Negras. There were supposed to be 30 migrants, and only 26 arrived, including seven children. In Eagle Pass they do not process more than 60 appointments per day. Half enter at 5:00 am and the rest at 1:00 pm.
We had to bring five pesos to go through the turnstile on the Mexican side. We began to walk on the right side of the avenue that connects the two countries; that stretch of sidewalk was fenced. From there I could see the Rio Bravo. A very long, slow freight train passed on the railway bridge that was seen in many videos during the exodus of 2021 and 2022. The migrants crossed there, they said, because the water wasn’t as deep. In the middle of the Rio Bravo you could see a small islet, a piece of land where migrants stopped to pluck up their courage to continue their fearful steps toward the American dream.
The CBP agents arrived punctually at the dividing line. We were lined up in the order in which we were called, and, without delaying the process, they took us to their facilities 600 meters away. At that moment we already had our cell phones inside our luggage and couldn’t use them. In the building they took a photo, DNA samples and examined us in an infirmary. We went to another room for another photo and fingerprints. Those who were being processed had to state their date of birth in “the chronological order that is used in the United States,” clarified the CBP agent, which made the Guatemalan nervous: “Here in the United States we say month, day and year,” explained the woman, about 28 years old and who, apparently, was in a bad mood.
Finally, the Guatemalan’s fingerprints were taken, and he was sent to the next room, as happened with everyone. We sat in groups at three tables. At mine there were three Cubans (along with me, a couple from Holguín), the Venezuelan who was robbed as soon as he arrived in Piedras Negras, a Honduran who helped the Venezuelan after being assaulted, a Salvadoran and two Guatemalans. We filled out a form to confirm our data and put down the reason for entering the United States. Many wrote a paragraph; I put only two words: “political asylum.”
The man from El Salvador was my age, 40 years old. Since we were face to face, he was the one I talked to the most. He told me about Nayib Bukele, whom he supported at first but now hates, because, he says, he is a dictator and a white-collar thief. All of the Salvadorian’s brothers are in the U.S., and two of them have gone to the border to receive him. Of all of present, he showed the least concern. He dressed very differently from the rest of the migrants; he had a place to go; he felt confident; and he spoke very good English, he told me.
A 32-year-old Guatemalan mother, exhausted, sat on my left; everything she had experienced in her life made her appear 45. She spent the whole year working outside her home in Guatemala City. Her daughter, just six years old, is being raised by her parents, and she sacrificed herself for the little one. Every time she mentioned her girl, whom she wants to bring to the U.S. when she can, her eyes lit up. I know that look well: it’s one of emigration and pain for departure, for being away from loved ones.
Latin American migrants on Mexican soil ready to cross the Rio Grande to the U.S. / EFE
To the right of the Salvadoran, in front of me, was the other Guatemalan, who intended to work cleaning houses or at whatever job he could do to get ahead. He is 28 years old. He left his parents, his brothers and an adored cat that is now in the care of his a niece. He did not miss a chance to mention God, pray and tell me that in the migrant camp in Guadalajara, where he arrived after a long trek from the south, he spent 36 days with a group that had CBP appointments. This was the same number of days it took for my appointment to arrive. The young woman confided that they all fasted and asked a lot from God; then she began to pray and we all shut up.
I could not talk to the Cuban couple, the Venezuelan and the Honduran. They called them apart and processed them in the first room; they were the last to be called. The CBP agents who processed us next were nicer. There were seven, and each one attended from three to seven migrants; families were processed by a single officer.
After three hours they offered us a small breakfast: a burrito, candy and water. By then four of the seven children who accompanied the group were sleeping on mats in the living room. Tired, many put their heads on the tables and even snored. They again called the Guatemalan who couldn’t read. They asked him several questions. We all got nervous; nobody could understand what he was saying. More agents surrounded him, saying it was to help. The man had misplaced the address at which he was supposed to arrive in the United States, and due to his illiterate condition, he was actually being aided by the staff. Finally they called him for some signatures and in 15 minutes gave him his file. He was the first to leave those desperate walls. He said goodbye to everyone shortly after 10 in the morning
They didn’t ask anyone present about “credible fear” during the interviews. The agent who attended me, along with the Salvadoran and another Honduran, asked me only what I did for work in Mexico and how long I had been there. We were all called little by little, and before 12 pm we were out with our respective paroles. From the Cuban couple, the first to come out was the girl, who was given an entry permit for one year and a month; the husband received a permit for two years and two months. I got a one-year parole. The three of us were relieved: it’s enough time to invoke the Cuban Adjustment Law.
Some of us, without planning it, got together outside the CBP property to blow off some steam]]
Some of us, without planning it, got together outside the CBP building to blow off some steam, and then we began to walk towards a shelter that was a kilometer away to try to spend the night and see what they could offer us. We didn’t make it. On the way we were approached by a Mexican woman who was advising migrants. She took us to her office and charged 50 dollars each for an employee to transport the group to San Antonio. That city has the closest airport to Eagle Pass, and we had to get there to fly to our final destinations, except the Salvadoran who was picked up by his brothers and remained in Texas.
On the way to San Antonio I was able to talk to the Cuban couple. They spent six months in Mexico and were going to Florida just like me. She was 30 years old; he was 34, and they were now overtaken with fatigue. They left us at a shelter in San Antonio around five in the afternoon. My flight was at 10 am the next day, and theirs was at 2 pm. We met several times at that air terminal and also at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, where the three of us made a stopover for a few hours. We told each other our stories, laughed and were silent remembering what we had left behind. They called many relatives in Cuba and friends who stayed in Mexico in the hope of entering before Donald Trump assumes the Presidency next January. At 7 pm, I took a plane to my final destination. It was my first flight within this country, and, surely, it will not be my last.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 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.
Democracy is a contract whose guarantor is a committed citizenry. Every right dies if duties are not exercised
Image of elections in Cuba. / EFE
14ymedio, Miami, 17 November 2024 — Unfortunately, a significant number of citizens around the world do not fully realize the absolute truth expressed by Winston Churchill when he said: “Democracy is the worst system of government, except for all the others that have been invented,” a reason that leads many to neglect it and fail to enjoy it.
A genuine democracy must be shaped by the full enjoyment of freedom, the rule of law, fair justice and equality of opportunity for all.
Democracy requires powerful political parties, not fraternities. Parties are the appropriate instrument to educate the electorate and those aspiring to public office. The ideal link between the electorate and the candidates, a relative guarantee that the elected official will adjust to the proposals of the political group to which he belongs.
The media, whomever they may be, play a fundamental role in democratic society, as long as they are not corrupted by spurious interests. continue reading
It is very true that democratic management is not perfect, that a well-orchestrated electoral machine can bring the most vile to power and, even worse, that this same democracy disappears because we elect to lead it those who are committed to its destruction, as has happened in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia.
It is very true that democratic management is not perfect, that a well-orchestrated electoral machine can bring the most vile to power
We must never lose sight, even in the most solid democracies, that behind every electoral crusade and the most relevant politicians, there are operators and managers who are the ones who draw up many of the guidelines on which the campaign will be developed. Subjects who study our expectations to achieve their purposes, not always beneficial.
These strategists seek to reduce the votes for their opponents, in a kind of war without shots where enemy casualties lead to victory, not always for the best, but even so, democracy, as long as it is respected, must offer us the opportunity for periodic change, the alternation in power, one of its key premises.
These are unavoidable risks, but there are also antidotes, and that is to fulfill our obligation as citizens to be informed. Investigate different sources about the candidates and the proposals. Try to find out what and who is behind the formulas, particularly those that appear to be the most beneficial.
Political campaigns are risky for candidates, but also for the electorate. We should never choose a candidate based on their appearance or the sympathy they generates, skin color, gender, nationality or religion. Our commitment is to choose the most capable and the one who can show the electorate the best record of public service.
Awareness of this dilemma has led our Alexis Ortiz, a Venezuelan journalist and politician who honors me with his friendship, to start a project on the popular YouTube network that gives the title to this column.
The main objective of Ciudad Democracia is to motivate and encourage citizens to actively participate in the enjoyment of their rights and the fulfillment of their duties. To raise awareness that there are no rights if obligations are not fulfilled and vice versa.
Ortiz and his team are driven by the experience of having lost democracy in Venezuela
Democracy is a contract whose guarantor is a citizenry committed to its enforcement. Every right dies if duties are not exercised, because predators will never be lacking in any society, including a democratic one, where conditions exist for them to strip us of our prerogatives.
Ortiz and his team are driven by the experience of having lost democracy in Venezuela through elections, while appreciating that there are other nations at risk of losing it due to the same conditions.
The military coup of 1992 did not bring Hugo Chavez to power, it was the popular vote, the frustration of an electorate disillusioned by the mismanagement of some unscrupulous politicians, who betrayed the social contract to which we all owe ourselves, which was also not fulfilled by the voters by not subjecting the candidates to an appropriate examination.
Ciudad Democracia has made a global commitment to participate in the education of all, fulfilling Martí’s postulate – “education is the only way to save oneself from slavery… A nation of educated men will always be a nation of free men” – while teaching us that there are nations with an imperial vocation, such as Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, committed to totalitarian variants that lead to slavery.
The project of Ortiz and his associates is important for everyone. Let us support Ciudad Democracia to defend the rights of all.
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 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 farmer had to hire several people to do the threshing by hand / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Yankiel Gutiérrez Faife, Rosalía (Villa Clara province), 23 November 2024 — To plant peanuts, without which Villa Clara’s famous turrones* would not exist, three things are needed: experience, technique and luck. Braulio, a 62-year-old farmer from the Rosalía sugar workers’ town in Camajuaní, certainly has the first two. The third is harder to come by. Nevertheless, this year he decided to take a chance and sank twenty-five pots into the ground instead of the usual three. His neighbors, with the usual wisdom of the Cuban countryside, foresaw a good harvest and even better sales.
In October, the radio began giving news of Cyclone Oscar, and Braulio’s life got complicated.
Even for an expert in the cultivation of peanuts like him, the rules of the game had changed. The plant depends on the level of humidity. It is sown in the rainy months, and the furrow needs to be wet, but not too wet. Otherwise, the plant will rot. The downpours that the hurricane brought put Braulio face to face with that risk, and he had to counterattack quickly.
He hired four locals for a few days to speed up the harvest, paying them 600 pesos for the morning shift and another 600 for the afternoon. For the rice and beans – which he also had to collect – he paid a similar amount or made a payment in kind. After the downpours, the peanuts showed unequivocal signs of maturity: yellow flowers with dark spots. continue reading
Once the plants were uprooted, they had to dried / 14ymedio
Once the plants were uprooted, they had to be dried, an almost impossible mission until Hurricane Oscar departed from Cuban shores. Some peanut pods had begun to germinate. For Braulio, it was the sign that he had to start threshing. He promised each guajiro 150 pesos for each can of peanuts that they managed to collect. The work was not easy: it was necessary to separate the healthy pods from those that had already sprouted or rotted.
The threshing is done by hitting the peanuts in a tank or on a canvas, but in the face of urgency, Braulio had to hire several people to do the process by hand, pot by pot. When the sun finally came out, they stretched the canvas on the lawn of the farm and let the pods dry for three days.
The result was satisfactory: 210 cans of peanuts in good condition; about 190 to sell and the rest for sowing next year. “Last year there were few farmers planting peanuts,” says Braulio. “A can was worth up to 2,000 pesos because there was little availability in the area, and the turrones demanded it. Five or six buyers a month came looking and couldn’t find them.”
After the harvest, Alberto, a friend of Braulio who makes turrones and lives in Zulueta – a town in neighboring Remedios – went to his farm to buy his peanuts. He left with the 190 cans that Braulio had planned to sell, at 1,500 pesos each.
The predictions of his colleagues in Rosalía were not wrong. With the sale he earned 285,000 pesos. He subtracted 49,500 pesos for the payment of workers and 14,000 for herbicides, insecticides and other supplies. The net profit brought by the harvest was 221,500 pesos, much more than in previous years, but on the informal foreign exchange market, this exceptional performance is equivalent to just $675 for an entire harvest.
From Braulio’s furrow to Alberto’s factory, the route of turrones in Villa Clara is one of the most traditional in Cuba / 14ymedio
From the furrow of Braulio to Alberto’s factory, the route of the turrones in Villa Clara is one of the most traditional in Cuba. The peanuts are cleaned and ground by hand – Alberto designed a peeling machine -, and the resulting dough is sold to the confectioners of the province. In Santa Clara, for example, one of the most successful businesses is that of Orelvis Bormey, whose original motto for his Casa del Maní, located a few blocks from Vidal Park, left no doubt of its quality: “unshelled and peeled.”
With a novel advertising and distribution system, in addition to deals with the State to export, Bormey and his wife, Jenny Correa, have been producing peanut butter for more than a decade. They also owned one of the 315 pioneering businesses that became private enterprises in 2021.
Although the activity in networks of the Casa del Maní decreased considerably after the pandemic, they then received their raw material from state cooperatives of Encrucijada. That year they came to have three points of sale in Santa Clara and Encrucijada, and their products were sold at Abel Santamaría International Airport and in several hotels in the central region.
Already at that time – after having made a first shipment of their turrones to Italy – they regretted that the lack of agricultural inputs complicated the acquisition of raw material and that they would have to resort to coconut, cheaper, to maintain diversity in their catalog.
Last June, at the Expocaribe fair in Santiago de Cuba, Correa was still looking for international customers. “Entrepreneurs with very particular interests have approached us,” he said with enthusiasm, “but without clear results.” Contradicting its founding motto, Bormey presented among its products “unshelled roasted peanuts.”
*Translator’s note: Turrones are similar to nougat confections but use sugar instead of honey.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The price of meat has always worked as a thermometer to measure the state of the domestic economy.
The rise in the price of pork comes to a large extent from the fall in national production / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 24 November 2024 — It became so common on Cuban tables that someone proposed to remove from the national shield the Cuban tocororo, that bird that few have seen, to replace it with a good chubby pig. Pork was our Thanksgiving turkey, our Mother’s Day delicacy, our Christmas dish and our December 31 dinner. Nobody questioned the crown ingredient of festivities, the protein of family meals and the protagonist of the boxes that were sold in street stalls.
But Don Cochino has changed and is no longer seen on solemn occasions. This week, in the 19 and B market of El Vedado, Havana, the price of a pound of pork reached 1,000 pesos, twice as much as a year ago. For their part, the offers with skin, fat and bone are up to 900 and for ribs with little to bite you must pay 850. That increase, a few weeks before the New Year’s Eve celebrations, augurs a Christmas without chicharrones or masitas fritas [fried pork chunks] in many homes.
“Here I have 5,000 pesos, and this is not enough for two meals for the four people in my house,” lamented a woman in front of the butcher counter. Shortly before, she had managed to discreetly get 20 dollars from an informal money changer at the entrance. “With what’s left of my money, which is not even 2,000 pesos, I am going to buy some tomatoes and a cabbage,” she sighed.
If in November 2023 a pound of pork reached 500 pesos, which made many Cubans raise their eyebrows and clutch their wallets, the beginning of this year behaved like a launch pad that boosted the price, which in April exceeded 1,200 pesos. By May, it seemed that the rise was beginning to slow down, but in the last quarter of the year it gained height again. continue reading
This week, in the 19 and B market, the price of a pound of pork reached 1,000 pesos, twice as much as a year ago / 14ymedio
The price of pork has always functioned as a thermometer to measure the state of the Cuban domestic economy. While a few decades ago the calculation separated families according to the part of the animal they managed to eat, now it has only two categories: those who cannot afford to sink their tooth into a piece of pork and those who still manage to pay for the meat of what was called “the national mammal.”
“When I was a child my family was poor, my mother worked in the gas company and my father was a driver on Route 22, but in my house they bought steaks, legs, liver and even heart,” recalls Alejandro, a resident in Old Havana who this Thursday tried to buy a pork shoulder in a market on Monte Street. “I couldn’t. When the butcher weighed the piece, it was above 10,000 pesos, crazy.”
“My dad, in the 80s, guaranteed with his salary that we would not miss the year-end pork,” he recalls. Alejandro’s family, without having a high income, was among those who could afford to roast a medium-sized leg for New Year’s Eve. “There were some neighbors who had very few resources and bought fat, necks or even ears, but no one was left without their little piece of pork.”
Now, Alejandro, his wife and their three children have been on the other side of the measurement. The line that divides those who can afford a piece of pig, whatever part of the animal, has thrown them into the area of those who must be content with savoring the memories. “The smell of pork can’t be hidden. When you fry chicharrones it’s like when you cook shrimp, lobster or squid: everyone in the neighborhood knows what you’re doing,” says this 51-year-old from Havana.
“When that smell comes from a house on my block, everyone draws their own conclusions: that family has money and lots of it, because pork is very expensive.” Alejandro does not rule out that some even open the windows and leave the door of the living room open so that the aroma floods the neighborhood and exhibits their purchasing power.
“A plate of pork now says more about your pocketbook than a gold chain,” he jokes. “Look, if you go out on the street with a piece of fried pork hanging around your neck it will cause more of a stir than if you wore an 18-carat gold chain.” In his opinion, the rise in the price of pork is largely due to the fall in national production and the arrival on the market of a product imported mainly from the United States.
“The breeding cycle was broken a few years ago when many females were slaughtered due to a lack of feed”
In the area of Alquízar, current province of Artemisa and former land of pig-breeding to nourish the voracious appetite of the habaneros, “the guajiros no longer want to dedicate themselves to this business,” confirms Mildred, who together with her husband supplied pork loins, with or without skin, with or without bone, to numerous residents of Nuevo Vedado, in the Cuban capital. “There is no feed for the animals,” she says.
“The breeding cycle was broken a few year ago when many females were slaughtered due to a lack of feed. Now people raise pigs for their own consumption and to sell a few animals. The Cuban pig that is currently bred cannot compete with the one that comes from the U.S., neither in size nor quality of meat, and much less in presentation.”
An American pork loin, from the Smithfield brand, is sold in private shops at a price of 1,100 pesos per pound, but “it is clean, very well packaged and with very little fat,” says Mildred. The lean pieces, the sanitary check stamps and the “Made in USA” sign attract more than “the legs full of flies hanging from the hooks of the agromarkets.”
“Most farmers have to slaughter the animal early in the morning to sell it the same day because there is no way to transport refrigerated pieces,” she points out. “In addition, here the pigs are stunted because they hardly let them grow. The lack of food accelerates the slaughter and does not allow them to be fattened. Before you could fatten up three pigs; now you can’t even bring one to a decent size.”
Mildred’s family, however, has saved their leg for the end of the year. “My brother bought it for me. He left a couple of months ago and is now in Tapachula, waiting for the appointment to enter the United States and working as a welder.” The piece that will delight the family on December 31 comes from Brazil. “We are crossing our fingers that there is no other big blackout because we have it frozen.”
If the national electrical system collapses again and the pork for December spoils, no one can predict how much a pound of pork will cost. The animal has already earned a place on the national coat of arms of the dreamed-about Cuba. In that coat of arms, the chubby animal frolics in an idyllic field with a lonely palm. On its head a key in the middle of two pieces of land is the symbol of an Island, in a strategic commercial and political position, that no one inhabits.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 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 country sent technical advisers to help the province plant 1,000 hectares, 5% of the land available for rice cultivation.
Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel visits rice fields in Palacios with Vietnamese advisers. / Guerrillero
14ymedio, Havana, 21 November 2024 — Despite the failure of similar projects in the past, Vietnam will begin a new rice-growing effort on the island this winter. The project involves planting an initial 1,000 hectares with rice in Palacios, a town in Pinar del Río province. So far, 50% of the seeds have been delivered.
The site, inspected on Thursday by Miguel Díaz-Canel during a visit to the municipality’s Agro-Industrial Grain Company, consists of 300 hectares to be planted by the end of December — the first planting is set to begin on November 15 — with the rest to be planted by February 2025. Provincial officials note that, if all goes well, the project will be expanded to 5,000 hectares.
His face reddened by the sun and his arms draped over the shoulders of Vietnamese technical advisers, the Cuban president cited the importance of the project, stating, “Cuba could be self-sufficient in rice and achieve food sovereignty.” The chance of that happening, however, is far from certain. The size of the available rice-growing acreage in Palacios is, according to state media, roughly 20,000 hectares. Assuming Cuba does provide all 50% of the required seeds, the Vietnamese project will use no more than 5% of that land.
Around 2,500 of the province’s farm workers are being employed in this winter’s rice planting drive
According to an official report released in early November, around 2,500 of the province’s farm workers are being employed in this winter’s rice planting drive. The plan calls for 5,500 hectares to be planted, which should yield between 1.7 and 2 tons per hectare. The province consumes about 1,873 tons of rice a month. With the 6,000 hectares harvested last spring, the continue reading
province should have enough rice to last a year. That assumes, however, that each hectare achieves maximum yields and that none of the rice is exported overseas or diverted to other sectors of the economy.
“Rice production will continue to grow in the immediate future. The expansion of cultivated areas through different means will also play a key role as long as resources for production are available,” officials promised on November 1. Five days later, Hurricane Rafael hit Cuba’s western provinces, causing major damage to agriculture.
There is no guarantee that Vietnamese aid will help revive the rice industry. Though state media alludes to a “rice-growing tradition” in Palacios, there has also been a history of failures in rice cultivation.
Vietnam has been investing in the town since at least 2009. The highpoint of this partnership came in 2019 when the country spent more than 20 million dollars on machinery, technicians and laboratory supplies to insure that the rice crops thrived, something that did not happen. The province had planned to sow 1,200 hectares in the winter of 2022, a time when the covid pandemic was still raging. State media did not clarify whether or not this was to be done with Hanoi’s help, but the production target of 3.5 tons per hectare was not met.
The rice-growing region of Sierpe is another example of Vietnamese failures
Its experience in the rice-growing region of La Sierpe is another example of Vietnam’s failures in cultivating the grain on the island. The Sur del Jíbaro farm in Sancti Spíritus province seemed not to have been affected by the economic inpacts of covid-19 when it was the subject of a 2021 article in state media which noted that, in spite of the difficulties facing the island’s rice growers, it managed to produce 5.3 tons per hectare, an all-time record.
But by early 2023, Vietnamese tolerance of “Cuban inefficiency” had reached its limit. “They came here twenty years ago but they grew tired. It was worse than trying to grow crops in the sea,” a farmer told 14ymedio at the time. The final blow, he said, was the lack of fuel. A year later, the company’s crop yields fell by 62%.
Last September the government announced it had found a new partner, a privately owned firm, which had agreed to get production at Sierpe up and running again. That partner is Agri Vma, one of the five Vietnamese companies operating in the Mariel Special Development Zone. The firm arrived in Cuba with an initial investment of 21 million dollars in early 2023. Though its business is mainly focused on animal feed, livestock breeding and poultry, its proposal was to launch an experimental planting program with hybrid seed varieties from Vietnam.
“We will share information on growing techniques and provide technical support to ensure success,” said one director, who claimed the company intends is to continue planting the same type of seed on 15,000 hectares throughout the island beginning at the start of the winter season in November. “This harvest, like the previous one, will be donated to the Cuban nation,” she added.
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 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.
Gina Montaner narrates the end of life of her father, the man who knew how to listen, the antithesis of Fidel Castro
The book has other interpretations through the prism of Cuban history. / EFE
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, 23 November 2024 — Just by reading the first pages of Wish Me a Good Journey we already know the ending: this is a book that ends with death. We enter into the narration of the last months in the life of Carlos Alberto Montaner, the Cuban writer, journalist and analyst. However, it is not a heartbreaking approach to the end of an existence, but rather a testimony built from the sweetness and understanding of a daughter who asserts, not without doubts and pain, her father’s will to die.
The volume, which has just been published by Planeta, shows Gina Montaner’s maturity as a writer, an exercise in which it is easy to detect her training and experience as a journalist. We are faced with a carefully crafted account, which largely maintains a linear chronology, although with the necessary leaps into the past to explain eight decades of a man who seems to have compacted several lives into one.
Gina gives us a map, but not a treasure map. She spreads before our eyes a plan to follow the rough road of saying goodbye to someone we love. If, in addition, that person is going to close the door of their own free will, choosing the month and the day, Wish Me a Good Journey will then be an indispensable companion on the road. Little has been written, in Spanish literature, about euthanasia, much less by a front row witness to the emotions and responsibility.
In just over 200 pages, we witness with Gina and Carlos the long and tortuous bureaucratic process of claiming the use the Euthanasia Law that was passed two years ago in Spain. The family returns to the place they considered home after the exile they were forced into six decades ago. In Madrid, they deal with bureaucracy, emotions and the deterioration of Montaner’s health due to progressive supranuclear palsy, the neurodegenerative disease that affected his facial expression and continue reading
locomotion, as well as his ability to speak and write.
Montaner imparts a master class in courage that his daughter manages to capture in the small anecdotes of everyday life
However, even though the reader sees a man who was synonymous with elegance in language and politics gradually deteriorate and fade away, CAM, the acronym by which many called him, emerges in a greater light. Without excesses, without displays of feigned courage or lessons of bravery in the face of the approaching Grim Reaper, Montaner gives a master class in bravery that his daughter manages to capture in the small anecdotes of everyday life. From the enjoyment of the cinema in the family room, even hours before his death, to his calm but determined stance in front of the doctors.
We walk alongside them and Linda, the eternal partner who shared her life with Montaner, through the paths of health bureaucracy. A journey that is sometimes frustrating and moving in circles, but flanked, of course, by a right that Spanish legislation enforces and to which, little by little, patients and doctors are getting used to, the latter often anchored to the conviction that euthanasia goes against the Hippocratic oath.
The book also has other readings through the prism of Cuban history. Carlos Alberto Montaner is confirmed to us as one of the most lucid and consistent human beings who inhabited the rarefied scenario of the politics of this Island. The most libertarian among the island figures, he exercised his will until the end, deciding the way and the moment of leaving this world. With the exception of several famous national suicides, Cuban leaders have shown attitudes towards death that range from the irresponsible search for a heroic end to the fearful denial that the last breath is approaching.
Fidel Castro, the man who was Carlos Alberto Montaner’s nemesis in so many ways, clung to a long and debilitating final agony with the sole objective of prolonging his control over the lives of Cubans. The dictator spent ten long years fading away and writing delirious reflections in which he mixed moringa plantations with the light years that separate us from the most distant galaxies. In the face of death, he hid, behaving in the same way as in that early morning of 26 July 1953, when he did not enter the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba but ordered dozens of young people who blindly followed him to die and be killed.
Montaner took his last breath surrounded by the family he founded, a brotherhood based on love and understanding.
While Montaner knew how to put a final point, already in time, to the articles of international analysis that he published punctually each week, Castro imposed the diffusion of his ramblings on the front page of the main media on the Island. One had the nobility to spare his readers any stumble that cognitive deterioration could cause him, and the other forced us to listen to his disjointed litanies read by the anchors of the main news program and repeated in morning school assemblies and party meetings.
Montaner took his last breath surrounded by the family he founded, a brotherhood based on love and understanding. Castro hid his children and his wife for decades, he even refused to give his surname to several of his children and those who knew him closely defined him as a person incapable of feeling empathy for anyone, not even for those who carried his own blood. Authoritarians are known by their lives but above all by how they die. Perhaps it is because they sense that after closing their eyelids they will no longer be able to dictate orders, imprison enemies and shackle countries.
The leader and the writer portrayed in their final moments. One, with his sickly need to dictate to others what they should do, even after his death. The other, gathered in that intimate circle made up of his wife, his children and his granddaughters, doing what he did best: listening. Because Carlos Alberto Montaner was one of those rare Cubans with the ability to listen to others, to sit back and become all ears while his interlocutor told him about prisons, exiles or literary projects.
Reading Wish Me a Good Journey is especially emotional and at times very difficult.
If one asked for a mausoleum to be erected for him that must be visited, the other knew that the most honorable pantheon where his memory should rest was in the books he left behind, the family he founded, and the thousands of friends he had everywhere. For the latter, reading Wish Me a Good Journey is especially emotional and at times very difficult. We are witnessing a testimony that confirms what we already knew but had not wanted to accept: that the most complete public figure that Cuba has produced in the last half century is no longer here.
The man who taught us not to fear freedom, which of course implies immense amounts of responsibility and civic maturity, has left us; nor to fear the leader who sank a country run by an ancient family clan that has caused the ruin of the nation, the greatest exodus in our history, and a political infantilism that is horrifying. The writer who did not reach the shelves of our national bookstores but who people sought out with the eagerness not only for what is forbidden but for what is of value. The analyst who had read with delight and was one of the most cultured minds that has represented our country on the world stage.
The book ends, the last page finishes before our eyes. We must say goodbye, or better yet, hasta luego. The journey continues and Carlos Alberto Montaner has left us the map to explore it fully and at will.
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 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.
Alexei Zhuravlev believes that this is the best way to respond to the West for assisting Ukraine in the war
Alexei Zhuravlev, first vice president of the Duma’s Defense Committee / AGN Moscow
14ymedio, Havana, 22 November 2024 — The first vice president of the Russian Defense Committee, Alexei Zhuravlev, proposed this Friday that the Kremlin place missiles in Cuba and Venezuela to “attack the United States.” It is not the first time that the Duma deputy suggests returning to the tension of the October Crisis in 1962, but this time he does so in relation to the aid that the West provides to Ukraine. “This would be an appropriate response,” he says.
In conversation with the Russian news media NEWS, Zhuravlev explained that Moscow’s response to Kiev “is already underway, and with considerable success; we are moving forward and we will continue to move forward until they understand that Ukraine must simply capitulate.” However, the deputy believes that a forceful warning to Ukraine’s allies is necessary.
“The answer can be the following: supply medium and short-range missiles to Venezuela and Cuba,” repeated the parliamentarian, whose vision of Moscow’s “partners” has the militaristic and utilitarian tang of relations with the disappeared USSR. The intention remains, however, to respond to the “Ukrainian attacks with British Storm Shadow long-range missiles on continue reading
Russian territory.”
He also recalled that the United States gave Poland an anti-missile system and that the country, bordering Ukraine and Belarus, “can launch Tomahawk cruise missiles” that could easily reach Russian territory.
“Likewise, it is necessary to supply Venezuela and Cuba with similar means, such as air defense”
“Likewise, it is necessary to provide Venezuela and Cuba with similar means, such as air defense, with the capacity to launch missile attacks on the territory of the United States,” he reaffirmed.
Just a few days ago, U.S. President Joe Biden authorized Ukrainian forces to use long-range tactical missiles to attack Russian targets. In response, Moscow modified its military doctrine, which now contemplates the use of nuclear weapons in case of attacks that compromise the sovereignty of Russia and Belarus.
Zhuravlev is not the only one in favor of the militarization of Venezuela and Cuba by Russia. Last July, legislator Sergei Mironov, leader of the Just Russia coalition and close to Vladimir Putin, suggested a similar deployment. The politician, a member of the Lower House of Parliament, said that installing weapons on the Island is one of the Kremlin’s many options if it wants to respond to Western support for Ukraine.
Mironov explained that if Russia sends missiles to Cuba, it could give a signal to the United States, whose missiles were used in Ukrainian attacks against Russian targets in Crimea. “The possible use of a base in Cuba, which was recently visited by Russian ships transporting hypersonic weapons abroad, is just one of many options,” he said in a statement at the time.
Since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, the Kremlin has revitalized some old alliances
Months earlier, in January, Zhuravlev had already made another of these proposals, which in that case involved nuclear weapons
Since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, the Kremlin has revitalized some old alliances that have been on ice since the Soviet era. In Cuba, this relationship has included a series of military exchanges, as well as the visit of a Russian naval flotilla in June, headed by a nuclear-powered submarine.
When the Russian flotilla entered the capital’s pier at the beginning of June, the Kazan submarine and the Admiral Gorshkov frigate were carrying missiles of various types: Zircon hypersonic, Kalibr cruiser and Onyx anti-ship. On their way to Havana, the ships passed very close to Florida and carried out exercises with “high-precision missiles” in the Atlantic, which set off alarms in the United States, which also deployed a flotilla in the area and sent a nuclear-powered submarine to the naval base of Guantánamo.
Nor is Cuba conflicted about presenting itself to its allies as a key military point in the region. Last December, the Cuban Army allowed a reporter from the Russian channel Zvezda to record part of its underground arsenal that includes war tanks, missile launchers, Russian Ural-4320 trucks and Chinese Howo trucks.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 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.
They demand proof of life from the Cuban regime for political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer
José Daniel Ferrer, leader of Unpacu, imprisoned in Santiago de Cuba, in a file image / Screen capture
14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 22 November 2024 — The United States said on Thursday that it was “outraged” at the complaints of family members, human rights NGOs and Cuban dissident organizations that claim that the opponent and political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer has been hospitalized after receiving a “brutal beating.”
“Indignant to hear the reports that José Daniel Ferrer was beaten in prison and transferred to another facility,” said Brian Nichols, in charge of Latin America at the Department of State, in his X account.
“We call on the Government of Cuba to allow immediate access to his family and to release him, along with the nearly 1,000 political prisoners unjustly detained in Cuba,” it added.
Ferrer’s sister reported this Wednesday that she was aware of the situation thanks to the testimony of a prisoner in Boniato prison, in Santiago de Cuba, which has a hospital where Ferrer was taken from Mar Verde prison, in the same province, where he has been serving a sentence since 2021.
According to the sources, Ferrer was seriously assaulted, and not being able to be properly treated in the Mar Verde infirmary, had to be transferred. continue reading
The leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu) has allegedly been admitted to Room A of the infirmary of the Boniato prison for three days, although no details are known about his state of health, which, according to his relatives, had deteriorated significantly in recent months from existing conditions related to his stays in prison.
The Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba denounced “this act of violence, which shows the systematic dehumanization of conditions in Cuban prisons.”
The Cuban Democratic Directory, based in Miami, held responsible “the communist regime of Cuba in its entirety, especially the hitmen of the dictatorship who serve as prison officers. We demand proof of life for José Daniel Ferrer, his freedom and freedom for all political prisoners in Cuba,” adds the statement of the exile group.
Cuban civil society organizations and individuals asked last August that political prisoner of conscience José Daniel Ferrer García be proposed for the Sakharov Prize, awarded by the European Parliament.
Cuban civil society organizations and individuals asked last August that the political prisoner of conscience José Daniel Ferrer García be proposed for the Sakhorov Prize
According to the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, based in Madrid, the petition was signed by a “coalition of human rights organizations” with the aim of achieving the “protection and safeguarding” of Ferrer, whose physical and psychological integrity is at “extreme risk.”
On 11 July 2021, Ferrer was arrested along with his son, for participating in popular protests against the Regime, when he was under house arrest after a four-year sentence imposed on him for “corruption” in 2019.
Since then, he has remained in Mar Verde, where he has been subjected to “ill-treatment and violations of UN recommendations on the treatment of prisoners.”
In December 2022, he began a hunger strike in prison, and since March 2023, he has not received family or conjugal visits and is in an isolated cell with hardly any light.
His last known visitors were the Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, Dionisio García Ibáñez, and the priest Camilo de la Paz, in charge of the Pastoral Penitentiary of the diocese, on September 7. According to his wife, Nelva Ortega Tamayo, they found him in a “not entirely good” state of health, although he was strong in spirit.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 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.
14ymedio, Havana, November 24, 2024 — The opponent and leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu) José Daniel Ferrer was seen last Thursday in the hospital of the Boniato prison, in Santiago de Cuba, “very thin, brutally beaten and with a wound on his face,” said the sister of the political prisoner, Ana Belkis Ferrer. The news that the activist had been transferred and returned to the Mar Verde prison, where he was originally locked up, because he needed medical attention, put his relatives on alert, and they stood in front of the prison on Friday to demand proof of life.
