English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, 11 July 2023 — Dark shirt, mask and authoritative gesture. This is how Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel appeared before the television cameras on the 11th of July 2021, when the largest popular protests in the history of Cuba shook the streets of the Island. It was at that moment that he spoke the phrase … Continue reading “The 11th of July in Cuba, ’11J’, the ‘Combat Order’ Still Stands”
14ymedio, Havana, 11 July 20210 – In a Sunday afternoon address, Cuba president Díaz-Canel called for civil war on the island. In his speech he called on the communists to take to the streets, starting now and in the coming days. “We will be in the streets fighting,” threatened the president, in response to protests … Continue reading ““The Combat Order is Given: Revolutionaries Take to the Streets,” Threatens Cuban President Diaz-Canel”
14ymedio, Madrid, 26 January 2024 — In just two hours, a storm of indignant comments has fallen on the Facebook page of the Electric Union of Cuba (UNE), which announces for this Friday a deficit of 1,010 megawatts (MW) during peak hours. The figure is one of the highest that can be remembered, after November … Continue reading “With the Felton and Guiteras Power Plants Out of Combat, a New Season of Blackouts Arrives in Cuba”
14ymedio, Mexico, 11 February 2023 — Mexicans did not welcome the reception of Miguel Díaz-Canel by his counterpart Andrés Manuel López Obrador this Saturday in Campeche, in the southeast of the country. The rejection increased when it became known that the Cuban president will be decorated with the degree of the prestigious Mexican Order of … Continue reading “Outrage Grows in Mexico Over the Award of the Order of the Aztec Eagle to Cuban President Diaz-Canel”
14ymedio, Havana, 13 December 2021 — There will be changes to correct the deficiencies of the failed Tarea Ordenamiento (Ordering Task), which was planned for more than ten years and whose execution even the Cuban authorities themselves consider catastrophic. In his 2021 accountability report, presented this weekend, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero admits that “the objective of this … Continue reading “Faced With the Failure of its ‘Ordering Task’, the Cuban Government Talks About ‘Rectification’”
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 5 October 2017 — Half a century after the death of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, the official narrative of what happened on October 9, 1967 in La Higuera, Bolivia has significantly changed. After repeating for decades that Che was murdered in a school in that South American country, the Communist Party’s propaganda media, and in … Continue reading “Crime or Combat? The Death of Che”
EFE / 14ymedio, Havana, 7 March 2016 – Cuban President Raul Castro urged an increase in discipline and acting “energetically” against the unfinished and “constant” hygiene campaign undertaken on the island to combat the mosquito that transmits the Zika virus and other illnesses, according to the official media on Monday. “This cannot be one more … Continue reading “Raul Castro Calls For More Discipline In Combating The Mosquito That Transmits Zika / EFE, 14ymedio”
The Cuban government on Saturday ordered the immediate closure of small private cinemas, which for months have been operating in private homes, because “they were never authorized,” in a note published in the local press. The directive is signed by the Council of Ministers chaired by Raul Castro, and refers to the situation of self-employment … Continue reading “Government Orders Immediate Closure of Private Cinemas / Cubanet”
THE DEATH OF THE PORTERS No one in Cuba thinks about them, of course: they are the first killed anonymously, the porters, the gatekeepers, the doormen in every patriotic adventure of our most newsworthy pistol packers. It is the doorman of the Moncada Barracks (he’s just one example) in a drunk post of the early … Continue reading “OF THE COMBAT RUN, PORTENTIOUS PORTERS / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
14ymedio, Jorge Ferrer, Ginés Górriz and others, Barcelona, 29 July 2021 — We have witnessed a popular uprising in Cuba like no other that has been known in the last 60 years. The inertia and fear generated by decades of that sinister cocktail that is made by mixing enthusiasm with repression — the exact symbolic reverse of … Continue reading “‘Call the Dictatorship by its Name’, Ask Cubans Living in Spain”
Between the 11J protests in 2021 and those of this March there are multiple points in common, as ’14ymedio’ and ‘Yucabyte’ confirmed 14ymedio/Yucabyte, Havana, 21 April 2024 — On March 17, the flood of rumors reached a fever pitch comparable to, though less intense, those of 11 July 2021 (which were quickly baptized ’11J’). Fed … Continue reading “A Flotilla from Miami on March 17, One of Many Rumors from Cuba”
14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 14 February 2024 — A company logo, a restaurant’s refrigerated packaging or the typical colors of a home delivery service are enough to catch the eye of a thief. In a country ravaged by economic crisis, couriers transporting goods to customers’ homes are being targeted. Easy to spot, with some … Continue reading “Home Delivery Now a High Risk Job for Cuban Drivers”
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 24 January 2024 — The Homeland, or what remains of it, is in danger of extinction, and the data prove it. It is not a campaign of the regime’s enemies; their own statistics say it clearly, even if they try to hide them, delay them or cover them with clumsy … Continue reading “Little Homeland, Too Much Death”
14ymedio, Mercedes García, Havana, 21 December 2023 — Although the issue has ceased to appear in the official press, the presence of the giant African snail continues to spread through Cuba, and the economic crisis makes it almost impossible to combat it, due to the lack of resources and fuel. In Sancti Spíritus, the plague … Continue reading “Sancti Spíritus, the Cuban Capital of the Giant African Snail”
Jeovany Jimenez Vega, 18 August 2021 [Correct date, translation delayed] — Well, what was always a very high possibility is now a crude certainty: the Gag Law for the Internet in Cuba has just come into force! Decree-Law 35, which has recently been published in the Official Gazette, has as its declared aim the silencing … Continue reading “Proposal for Introduction of Decree Law 35 / Jeovany Jimenez Vega”
