14ymedio

The Wave of Crime in Cuba Claims the Life of a School Custodian in Santa Clara

Celia Sánchez Manduley Elementary School, in Santa Clara, where the victim worked. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 28 February 2023 — A man was killed early this Sunday morning in the José Martí neighborhood, on the outskirts of Santa Clara, Villa Clara. Activist Jonatan López identified the deceased as Miguel Contino Moro, one of the security guard of the Celia Sánchez elementary school. According to their version, the killers intended to “steal some televisions,” old computers and “even food” from this school.

López, brother-in-law of political prisoner Andy García and exiled in Germany, added that the fact touches him “closely,” since his family still lives in that neighborhood and he studied in primary school where Contino was a security guard. The security guard “lived alone and was everyone’s friend.” The criminals, the activist said, attacked Contino with “a knife.”

Some readers of López’s report on Facebook commented that the Police carried out a “large deployment of military cars” during Sunday morning in the vicinity of the school. The body, they say, was “unrecognizable” by the “viciousness” of the thieves. Other versions have also circulated about the motive of the murder, including that of an alleged settling of accounts by a relative or acquaintance.

Neither the authorities nor the relatives of Contino have spoken out about it, and the Communist Party newspaper in the province — with its website out of service for months — has also not reported the death on its social networks.

López took advantage of his post to denounce the police inaction in the face of violence that is experienced in the peripheries of many cities on the Island. He mentioned some officers of the Police and State Security who reside in the José Martí department and demanded a more active participation in the preservation of tranquility in the neighborhood. continue reading

In addition, he recalled that when it came to repressing his family and political prisoner Andy García, officers and whistleblowers of Santa Clara — whom he identified as Yamileth and Leandro Sarduy — acted quickly.

The escalation of violence and the increase in crime in Cuba have not stopped in recent months. The official press and the Ministry of the Interior hide most of the cases and only agree to reveal, with very few details, those crimes that have had wide coverage on social networks and that it is no longer possible for them to ignore.

The murder in Jatibonico of Yanquiel Jiménez, a 19-year-old boy who died after being stabbed in the neck, shocked the province of Sancti Spíritus last week. Only after his case was reported on Facebook did the Police offer an official version in the Escambray newspaper.

In the midst of the increase in crime on the Island, the number of victims of femicide is one of the most alarming. With 14 women killed so far this year, according to several independent platforms, and a government that devotes more resources to the repression of opponents than to the security of the streets, Cubans feel increasingly helpless.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba’s Demographic Crossroads: No Young People of Working Age in Sight

Cuba’s population is aging rapidly, and the Island does not have enough young people able to produce. (EFE)

EFE (via) 14ymedio, Laura Becquer, Havana, 26 February 2023 — Cuba faces a crossroads in the midst of one of its biggest economic crises in history: how to recover when its society ages rapidly and does not have enough young people able to produce.

The Island now has the oldest population in Latin America and the Caribbean. Two out of ten Cubans (21.9%) are at least 60 years old, the director of the Center for Demographic Studies of the University of Havana (Cedem), Antonio Ajá, told EFE.

This means that of the 11.1 million Cubans, about 2.4 million exceed the barrier of six decades of life.

The academic emphasizes that this is the result of social policies implemented decades ago that have extended life expectancy (approximately 79 years for both sexes).

However, this brings with it a problem from an economic and social point of view.

“The economically active population that is smaller is a challenge for the social security systems, healthcare and the protection of the elderly,” he said.

Which means that there are more and more elderly and fewer young people of working age to sustain the economic activity of the country. And, in the long run, to finance the pension system. continue reading

Data from the National Office of Statistics and Information show that 99,096 births and 167,645 deaths occurred in 2021.

“Cuba has a demographic behavior similar to that of developed nations (low fertility, high life expectancy), but the difference is that they are countries that receive immigrants and also counteract demographic aging with their economic development,” he said.

Cuban economist Tamarys Bahamonde says that the number of “dependent” people who live on their pensions is increasing on the Island. (Image Capture)

“Dependent” people are also increasing: those who do not produce and live on their pensions after having contributed to the economy, Cuban economist Tamarys Bahamonde explained to EFE.

The retirement age in Cuba is 60 years (women) and 65 years (men) with a minimum monthly pension of 1,528 Cuban pesos (12 dollars at the official exchange rate and the equivalent of $8.70 in the extended informal market).

The loss of young people of productive age is explained, in large part, by the unprecedented migratory exodus that the country is experiencing.

Last year alone, more than 313,000 Cubans were intercepted by the United States at the southern border with Mexico. This represents 3% of Cuba’s total population.

The figure does not include the thousands who went to other destinations such as Mexico, Spain or South America.

This phenomenon was recognized a few days ago by Ángel Luis Ríos, general director of Productive Links of the state sugar agency, Azcuba.

Ríos assured the official newspaper Granma that the sugar mills — another engine of the economy — have a reduced and aged staff due to “the effect of migration,” and that this has translated into a deficit in the harvest.

“Cuba has a negative migratory balance since 1930 that was reinforced beginning in 1959 (when the Revolution triumphed), so it has lost population in full reproductive and productive capacity,” Professor Ajá said.

Internal migration is also negative with “depopulated and aged” rural areas, a “worrying” issue for example when it comes to producing food because there are no people to work the land, according to the expert.

Another reason for the labor flight is the lack of incentives. Cuba’s average salary is about 4,000 Cuban pesos ($32 at the official exchange rate).

The fertility rate in Cuba is 1.4 children per woman, one of the lowest in the region, for which the rate around 1.85 in 2022, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

To maintain the level of replacement in the population, a woman must have two children and one of them must be a girl, explained Ajá, who highlighted that “Cuba has been below that indicator since 1978, with extremely low values in recent years.”

The loss of young people of productive age is explained, in large part, by the unprecedented migratory exodus in Cuba. (EFE)

For Bahamonde, meanwhile, “the very low birth rate has its cause in the economic crises that have been chaotic for society, especially for women because they have the responsibility to take care of the elderly.”

By 2030, elderly Cubans will represent 30% of a population that will not exceed 10 million, according to Professor Ajá.

Among the measures adopted by the Government to address the situation is the construction and maintenance of childcare centers, nursing homes and maternal homes, as well as supporting fertility programs and care for mothers with more than three children.

However, for Bahamonde, “the first thing is to respond to the serious economic situation and then think about the implementation of complementary policies that stimulate the birth rate.”

In the same vein, Ajá considers that “we must work to improve the economy and reflect its growth in increased income for families.”

“That has to be accompanied by policies that benefit the construction of housing, guarantee a solution to the problem of caring for the elderly and children and attract the Cuban population abroad,” added the director of Cedem.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba: Matanzas Shipwreck Survivor is Summoned to Identify the Found Remains

Yaylin Mesa Vázquez said nine people remain missing after the shipwreck in January in Matanzas. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 23 February 2023 — Almost a month after the shipwreck, around Cayo Cruz del Padre, in the province of Matanzas, three unidentified bodies remain in the Legal Medicine facilities. This was reported on her Facebook account by Yaylin Mesa Vázquez, one of the survivors of the incident that occurred on January 23, who was summoned because “the found body of a woman appeared” to be that of her sister Yamily Triana Vázquez.

Mesa wrote last Tuesday on her social networks that she was able to “confirm” that among the clothes they showed her “are my sister’s belongings.” The young woman said that the garments were found “near a floating corpse,” something that “nobody can explain, but that’s how it was.”

The 27-year-old survivor specified that “it may be a coincidence that the found remains could be her [Yamily], but it is not yet fully confirmed.” She explained that this must require a process to “be certain” that she is her blood relative. “They have to compare everything and then it will be known if she is my sister or not.”

Yaylin has doubts that “the bones found floating in the water” are those of her sister.

“They have to compare everything and then it will be known if it is my sister or not”

Yaylin Mesa spent about 24 hours adrift until a fishing boat carrying foreign tourists rescued her, dehydrated and with sun-burned skin. Her sister, who as of now is still missing, left behind an 11-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl. The family, 14ymedio learned, has been the victim of the siege and repression following the demonstrations on July 11, 2021. Yarelys, another of the sisters of the survivor, was arrested by Black Berets for participating in the protests and sentenced to seven years in prison.

The figure released by the official media was 28 shipwrecked, fewer than the 31 initially claimed by the relatives of the victims who were on the boat on January 23. According to the Cuban authorities, 11 people survived and 12 are missing.

Mesa stressed: “So far, to clarify all doubts, there are 11 survivors, 8 bodies already fully identified” and another 9 are missing.

On the last day of January, the bodies of young people Nayelis Rodríguez, 19, Kevin Medina, Tito González and Yoan Karel Almaguer Tamayo were identified on social networks by their relatives.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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Some 10,000 Workers in the Electricity Sector Left Their Jobs in Cuba in 2022

8,089 workers left their jobs in the first nine months of last year. (Escambray)

14ymedio, Havana, 27 February 2023 — Every day, more workers in the state electricity sector leave their jobs in Cuba. In the first six months of 2022, 21 a day left their jobs; in the following three months, while the country was experiencing the prolonged blackouts of the summer, the number was 26 a day. In total, 8,089 workers ceased their activities in the first nine months of last year, and at this rate, it is estimated that there were about 10,000 by the end of the year.

The figure, provided this Sunday in an article in the state newspaper Trabajadores, makes 2021 look pale, when 6,612 electricians left their jobs. The text does not mention migration and refers only to the exodus to the private sector, personified in an industrial mechanic from Cienfuegos, José Manuel Hernández, who nostalgically remembers his 20 years at the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes thermoelectric plant but left because of the tiny salary he received.

“The money I earned didn’t help me at all. Then a friend told me he was forming a small private company, one of those they call SMEs,* to produce food, and I went with him. Now my salary is more than double what I earned at the plant,” he reveals in the middle of a heartfelt story about his love for the factory.

According to the author of the text, the general secretary of the union bureau of the thermoelectric plant, Carlos Rafael Quintero Cabrera, said at the last Plenary of the Provincial Committee — held at the end of December — that there were more than 40 vacant jobs in the plant and that the effort to generate electricity was enormous. “Workers have to feel materially and morally stimulated,” he said.

The trade unionist then stated that an attempt was made to increase the qualification of those who were studying, but the training courses have been going on for up to five years. “The concern is how we are going to retain that workforce because they are leaving for the SMEs,” he said. continue reading

Last October, Cuban television broadcast a report from the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant, in Matanzas, in which one of its workers, Yoandry Flores, head of the block and a control room operator, attributed to the Ordering Task** the wage collapse in the sector. “Mostly, the operations personnel decide to leave because of the cutbacks in wages. At one point, before the reorganization, we were one of the companies that was most favored in terms of salaries, and workers could meet their needs. After the reorganization we fell to a lower level,” he said.

Salaries, after the implementation of the Ordering Task in January 2021, were between 4,000 and 8,000 pesos ($167-333) per month for workers in the electrical industry, although with options to increase pay according to their jobs, in addition to the company’s ability to increase wages according to efficiency, results and other concepts.

But the article in Trabajadores speaks of a drop in staff that dates back to the last four years. Ulises Guilarte De Nacimiento, a member of the Political Bureau of the Party and Secretary General of the Central Union of Workers, referred to that period and warned of the need to address the situation. “You can’t be indifferent to union work, which means to the tasks proposed by the Government, and they must receive prioritized attention,” he explained.

George Batista Pérez, General Secretary of the National Union of Energy and Mines, told the newspaper in the middle of last year that there was “a very serious problem in the sector.”

“The labor fluctuation is linked to the difficulties with food, transportation and salary. Decree 53 offered a salary increase for efficiency, but it did not cover expectations from the distribution of profits,” said the official, who also pointed out that the Ordering Task was a turning point for the sector. As he explained, some of the traditional benefits of employees in the electricity sector were abolished with the new rules.

Among them, he cited the fall in piecework payment due to the lack of financing (the result of the lack of resources), the shortage of funds that would allow the distribution of profits and the lack of money for technological improvements that would alleviate the workload. “As a result of all this, working conditions have only worsened. But the allowance for the purchase of food has also been eliminated, and the workers who had a differentiated offer are totally unprotected if the high prices approved are taken into account.”

The union that leads, the article says, has proposed 12 actions to recover the morale of its workers and avoid the constant loss, but when it comes to finalizing the proposals, they seem rather theoretical. They include the “establishment of a system of care and follow-up with the administrative directorates for the gradual and systematic improvement of the working and living conditions of workers; the realization of emulation checks*** with the required frequency; the review and evaluation of collective labor agreements; and payment for high performance.”

The article, which comments that time must pass in order to see the effectiveness of these approaches, adds that in the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes thermoelectric plant, something visible and immediate is being done: a new system to increase salaries. But no details are given, nor is it known how it’s working.

The workers in the electricity sector are under constant stress due to the situation of the National Energy System and the constant efforts they must make, with fewer hands, throughout the Island. This Sunday the power generation deficit again recorded high numbers, up to 513 megawatts at peak time, 7 p.m.

The population of the eastern area of the country experienced four prolonged blackouts in the 10 days between February 13 and 22, and their discomfort was reflected on social networks. “The month of March 2023 was the same as March 2022. Please use empathy, put yourself in the place of those in the middle of eastern Cuba! Use intelligence. We have been a year without rest, without tranquility, because in December and January, when we had electricity, there was stress and the fear that we would have another blackout. Seek help from experts around the world if we don’t have it here; let’s not be so proud and self-sufficient and inefficient,” exclaims an electricity customer with whom most users agree.

The Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, announced two weeks ago that an attempt would be made to cushion the situation for half of the Island, starting in March, with the return of the Lidio Ramón Pérez thermoelectric plant, from Felton, in Mayarí (Holguín) and the transfer to the south of one of the eight patanas, the floating Turkish generators, located north of the Island. But almost no one expects any patch to give results at this point, and the heat season is already lurking.

Translator’s notes:

*SMEs are small and medium sized private businesses.
**The Ordering Task is a collection of measures that include eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso as the only national currency, raising prices, raising salaries (but not as much as prices), opening stores that take payment only in hard currency, which must be in the form of specially issued pre-paid debit cards, and a broad range of other measures targeted to different elements of the Cuban economy.
***Emulation is the need to equal or surpass others to achieve something, a kind of socialist competition.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Province of Havana Meets Only 42 Percent of Its Food Production Targets

A Ration store located on Valle Street, in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, February 26, 2023 — The food production plan targets in Havana for January 2023 were met by just 42% of what was expected. In a meeting held this Friday, the provincial authorities discussed the implementation of 12 actions to remedy the crisis, although they did not encourage too many expectations for the recovery.

The official press had been showing signs of the economic debacle in the capital’s food sector for weeks. With the announcement that there was not enough rice, beans and oil for the rationed market, the Government once again invoked the wild card of the blockade [i.e. the US embargo] and the “involuntary delay of imports.”

In the economic balance sheet of the capital for the first month of 2023 there was no way to disguise the meager results. The province still has 877 acres of uncultivated land. One solution, the leaders calculated, could be to speed up the process of delivering land to producers, in addition to increasing the assortment in the markets and implementing mechanisms to reduce the high prices for the products of the ’basic basket’.

About twenty companies recorded losses last January, although, according to the Government, there were 15 fewer than at the end of 2022, because the majority met their “social objective” and operated despite limited prices. continue reading

Among the Havana institutions that exceeded the production targets is the Provincial Accommodation Company, with a compliance of 183%, followed by state restaurants with 177.8% and social circles with 122.5%.

To increase sales and reduce inflation, Reinaldo García Zapata, Governor of Havana, said that companies have to “insert themselves into other scenarios.” They must be “creative” to reactivate the economy, he said, without noting that many business units do not meet their production programs due to the lack of inputs, most of them imported at high costs.

At the meeting it was also reported that the staff of inspectors in Havana is at 68% coverage, while that for auditors reaches only 28%. Although the Government does not mention the causes of this deficit, it coincides with the flight of professionals in the midst of the largest exodus since the 1959 Revolution.

The authorities of the municipalities proposed that, to reverse the situation, priority be given to the training of young graduates of the Accounting and Finance career, to whom “appropriate attention must be given to stimulate their permanence.”

In addition, there were complaints against drivers and state entities that do not respect authorized passenger stops. In this regard, the Government promised to put back into service some buses that were deactivated due to breakages.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba: All Books Have an Owner

Raúl Martínez’s “Nine Repetitions of Fidel and Microphones” (1968) serves as a metaphor for Castro’s obsessive rewriting of the historical narrative and his own image.

14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Havana, 26 February 2023 — History is the most deceptive and refined form of fiction. The talent of historians to disguise their prose, hide their voice and their focus, how discreet the selection process and editing of life, the skill with which they choose a leader, a time, a territory, converts their discipline into verbal acrobatics.

Luckily, citizens or readers have something in their favor: an absolute brotherhood of historians does not exist, there is no complete book compatible with all regions and policies. We cannot count on, to state it that way, one true universal history. That helps so that a simple comparison between a book in its own country and another abroad may reveal anachronisms, conspiracies and splinters.

There are some familiar examples. What is known in Cuba as the War of ’95 or — as the martiana* propaganda called it — Necessary, in Spain is referred to as the War of ’98. While 1895 marked the end of containment for us, three years later the Spaniards would see their fleet bombed, the nation in a depression and the old empire defeated. For Cuba, ’95 brings independence; for Spain,’ 98 was Baroja and Unamuno**, crisis, meditation and a rebirth.

Since 1762, islanders spoke of the takeover of Havana by the British, as if they were not conquerers, but tourists, who had entered the city. The British, who referred to the Spanish War of Independence using the gentle name of Peninsular War, correctly define it as a seige or invasion.

But, there is no need to go so far back. No era has been more battered by official historians than the last 120 years. The Republic born in 1902, after decades of tension and bloodshed, Castro dismissed as a Pseudo-republic, a Mediated Republic or Neo-colony. That is how we learned it, wasting words, and that is still repeated — with little innocence — by our grandparents, often loyal to the caudillo, forgetting Eliseo Diego’s bittersweet poem: “It has to do with how my father used to say it: the Republic. . .with his chest puffed, as if referring to the soft, ample, sacred woman who gave him children.” continue reading

Contrasting one book with another it is not only fruitful to consider the space where it was written, but also the time. It is sufficient to compare the first histories of Cuba–those of Bishop Morel and José Martín Félix de Arrate — with the manual of Soviet echos used by university students. Clearly, I’m not referring to the evident differences in style, the methods or the rigor of the research. I am referring to the master which the books serve — all books have an owner — who is interested in viewing life a certain way, who wants to reassure or to destroy.

The misrepresentation of national history that Castro made was so grotesque, and the historians so submissive, that very early on, it provoked the mockery of Manuel Moreno Fraginals in History As a Weapon. “Students,” he worte in 1966, “are perplexed by the works that pretend to be the immediate antecedents to the present we are living and that nonetheless have nothing to do with it.” The new past Castro offered was an epic series of nonsense that, I imagine, the old republican authors such as Roid and Ortiz would not be able to read without blushing.

Moreno Fraginals, lucid and misunderstood, author of the best book ever written on the history of Cuba, died in Miami in 2001. Fidel Castro, for his part, was rewarded for his delirium with the 2008 National History Award. His brother, Raúl received it in 2021.

We’ve always been at the mercy of words. Playa Girón, booming and triumphant or Bay of Pigs, geographic? October Crisis or Missile Crisis? Separatism, reformism, or anexationism? Blockade or embargo? Socialism, communism or capitalism? Protests or disruptions? Emigration or exile? The confusion, which spans from the private to the judicial, is contagious.

The drafters of the Constitution of 2019 ignored that it is an error to refer to La bayamesa*** as the Hymn of Bayamo. When it was printed, disregarding the warning, several writers proposed that — to be true to the sudden fervor of referring to all symbols by their place of origin — they should refer to the Seal and Flag of New York, the city where Miguel Teurbe Tolón designed them in 1849.

But if dictators know how to calibrate history and reorganize words, nothing compares to the way in which the domestic narrative is concocted and, even more shameless, the personal narrative. At the end of the day, we are the stories we tell about ourselves, the versions that become nuanced or disolve, a fiction continually touching up what we said, did, or thought. We were the first to use history as a weapon — more like a pocket knife or dagger.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

Translator’s notes:
*”Martiana” refers to José Martí
**Baroja and Unamuno were two Spanish authors of the late 1800s.
***La bayamesa is the Cuban national anthem.

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Less Repression and More Freedom: The Solution to Lower Prices in Cuba

Food prices in Cuban markets and establishments have only risen in the last two years. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 27 February 2023 — Does anyone believe that the regime’s shakeup in Cienfuegos against those who raise their sales prices are conducted to improve food for the people? Not in the least. For too many years we’ve seen the same harassment practices and knocking down those who attempt something so legitimate and normal as earning money, end similarly: lack of food, scarcity and rationing. And now, since the reordering task, uncontrollable prices.

The communists repress freedom, policies and economies. Everything that is separate from the official collectivist and obedience paradigm must be extinguished from the root. The fines and sanctions applied to vendors for what the regime describes as abusive food prices are an instrument of repression so that no one can profit. They’ve even confiscated goods, as if this were 1968.

We are facing practices that try to identify crimes where they don’t exist. The regime’s repressive behavior only serves to dwell on the problem, rather than reaching a solution. While it is true that the state security apparatus dedicated to these tasks must be given their daily assignments, but up to a certain point.

When the communists begin harshly repressing those who they call “illegal agriculture vendors, price distorters, hoarders and others who assault the correct development of social dynamics,” they do nothing more than eliminate a good portion of the informal economy that exists on the Island, basically because the formal economy, organized under the communist model, simply does not function. It is no good.

It is not easy to find a country in the world with a payroll so loaded with inspectors, comptrollers, vigilantes, police officers, informants, snitches, and others in charge of repressing the people. The regime calls them “specialists in the struggle against crime,” but considering their modus operandi, and the results of their activities, there is little specialization and much totalitarian attitude. continue reading

Furthermore, we can observe that as control and persecution grow, the size of informal economy — which struggles to create space within the regime’s rocky interventionist system — increases. Such that all these semi police teams charged with confronting that which the regime refers to as “illegalities at the points of greatest commercial interest” end up doing as they wish under the astonished gaze of the citizens. Hunger is generalized and does not discriminate in that every-man-for-himself that has become of Cuba’s communist economy.

The accusations described by the teams of repressors are not crimes, because all vendors have their papers and permits in order. The crime is selling agricultural products at prices higher than those set by the provincial governor. As if the governor really knew what the costs of the products were and at what price they must be sold. This bureaucrat, sitting in his comfortable, air conditioned office, is empowered by the communist regime to decide on supply and demand, on freedom of choice and on decisions of purchase and consumption.

In a free market economy it is so much easier. Without the need for useless bureaucrats, consumers visit different establishments or navigate online until they find the product and price they are most interested in. There is neither coercion, nor repression, and everything is easier. Simply, people don’t purchase from those who sell at a high price. That is the punishment for those who are inefficient. When in Cuba people buy from vendors at high prices, it’s for a reason. Does the regime have an answer for that?

No. It neither has one, nor is it searching for one. When vendors or consumers do not obey, the regime turns to fining and sanctioning, and if the accused protests or returns to selling at a high price, additional, harsher measures are put in place, including forced sales or confiscation.

Cubans are surprised by the high prices for basic products. A dozen eggs for 500 pesos, tomatoes for more than 100 pesos. And so on. Faced with these prices, bureaucrats try, with resolutions and official orders, to fix prices at lower levels, to save themselves and unleash repressive actions. The result of all of that is that products disappear from the market and later they can’t be purchased, even at double the price. This process by the authorities goes against economic rationale and the public interest.

So, what is the solution, if there is one? Well of course there is, and it is very easy. What they need to do is increase supply so that those who aspire to sell at high prices find themselves in a market that does not accept those prices. Supply and demand, if functioning freely, ensures that adjustment. Cuba’s problem is that, its economic model does not produce enough because it is in the hands of an inefficient state, unconcerned about profitability. Authorities, which fully desire greater prosperity and economic production, manage to do just the opposite: repress producers and vendors, converting legal actions into illicit, persecuting and repressing behaviors that are not criminal, but rather caused by the regime itself.

At some point, communists must realize that the only thing capped, fixed and centralized prices generate is an informal economy searching for room to grow and develop. What the communists refer to as violations and crimes are nothing more than rational and efficient behavior reacting to the regime’s aggresive environment which blocks people’s decisions. Rather than betting on being more energetic and preventing people from acting with impunity, that is, instead of repressing and suffocating freedoms, the regime must incentivize production and give producers and vendors freedom to access markets without restriction or threats. There is no other way.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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The Grief of Cuba’s ‘Peter Pan Children’ Comes to the Miami Film Festival

A group of Cuban children arrives at the Miami airport in 1961, as part of Operation Peter Pan. (Barry University/Archive)

14ymedio, Emilo J. López, Miami, 25 February 2023 — The documentary El adiós de la esperanza [Journey to Hope], by Lieter Ledesma, a Cuban actor and presenter based in Miami, is a tribute to the more than 14,000 Cuban children who suffered the “uprooting of separation” when they were sent by their parents alone to the United States between 1960 and 1962, according to its director.

This debut film by Lesdema reveals those painful experiences through the testimony of five people who as children participated in Operation Pedro Pan (Peter Pan), a massive and heartbreaking exodus that was carried out clandestinely in the early years of the Castro dictatorship.

Ledesma says that many Cuban parents warned about the “radicalization of the revolutionary process” that involved “the closure of private schools, the prohibition of religious education and the stigmatization” of those who did not sympathize with the Revolution.

Many of those parents made the hard decision to put their children on flights to Miami to begin a new life in freedom. continue reading

The film, 52 minutes long, presents “intimate details” of the family separation caused by this exodus in the testimonies of Antonio Tony Argiz, today a successful businessman who founded and directed a firm with 800 employees in various parts of the United States, and of Eduardo Padrón, the Rector Emeritus of Miami Dade College.

“During the filming we met people who remember their childhood being shattered by the separation from home. Some can’t help but burst into tears with those memories,” says Iliana Lavastida, executive director of Diario Las Américas, the newspaper responsible for the production of the documentary, which is recorded in Spanish with English subtitles.

The memories, anecdotes and testimonies of these children of the Cuban exile, continues Lavastida, were marked by “traumas of experiences in orphanages or with unfamiliar families,” in addition to having to learn to communicate in an unknown language.

Those children, today adults, have a deep feeling of gratitude toward their parents, “whom they identify as the real heroes for having had the courage to give up watching them grow in order to ensure them a better future,” the producer emphasizes.

For Ledesma, Operation Pedro Pan was a “dramatic event that many families chose as a desperate solution. The Pedro Pan children, for the most part, grew up marked by the longing for a broken home and a land where they were born, which they mourn and feel is theirs.”

The operation, which began on December 26, 1960 and officially ended on October 23, 1962, with the suspension of all commercial flights between the United States and Cuba, took place shortly after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution.

The details of what to this day is considered the largest mass exodus of unaccompanied children on the American continent serve also to “demystify a certain narrative” that says Pedro Pan was an operation organized by the US State Department and the CIA to destabilize Cuban society in the 1960s.

“In the statements of the interviewees in the documentary, they make it clear that it wasn’t,” say Ledesma and Lavastida.

The architect of Operation Pedro Pan was Monsignor Bryan Walsh, who was in charge of receiving the minors, who were later transferred to camps, orphanages or adoptive families, initially until their parents managed to leave Cuba.

The other three testimonies in the documentary correspond to Miami businesswoman Aida Levitan, president of The Levitan Group; Enrique Ric Prado, who was director of Special Operations of the CIA Counterterrorism Center, and Eduardo Eddy Álvarez.

The five interviewed for the documentary are joined by the artists Willy Chirino and Lissette Álvarez, the Archbishop of Miami Thomas Wenski, the former mayor of Miami Tomás Regalado and the well-known Miami real estate developer Armando Codina, among some twenty testimonies.

The documentary directed by Ledesma will be shown on March 6 at the Miami Film Festival, organized by Miami Dade College.

This year’s programming includes more than 140 productions of various genres from 30 countries, including feature films, short films and documentaries, and more than a dozen world premieres, three in North America and seven in the United States.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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A Pound of Sugar Approaches 200 pesos ($8.30) on the Informal Cuban Market

Sign in window: “We buy sugar.” A private business buys sugar from customers to make their chocolates. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 26 February 2023 — Rice and sugar seem to have launched a competition in Cuba to see which increases the most in price on the informal market. While rice already exceeds 200 pesos ($8.30) a pound in several areas of the Island, sugar, once the national emblem, is on its heels and also sells for around that number and, in some provinces, even exceeds it.

“I sell 17 pounds of sugar at 180 pesos if you buy them all; if you only want a part then it’s 190,” reads an ad published in a sales group on Facebook that in a few hours accumulated dozens of comments. “It’s in Central Havana and I don’t have home service,” said the informal merchant, who shortly after updated the information with a brief message: “Sold, and I don’t have any more.”

In the previous harvest, the production of Cuban sugar mills barely reached 480,000 tons of sugar out of the 911,000 that were planned, a failure to meet the target that caused a deficit of 60,000 tons for national consumption and seriously affected exports.

Given the disastrous numbers, the product has been even more restricted in the ration stores in recent months. “They only sold me one pound, and they say that this month it’s not my turn anymore,” a lamented a retiree this Friday, noting that she buys her basic normal basket in a place on Conill Street, in the municipality of Plaza de la Revolución. continue reading

“During the Special Period (the crisis of the 90s) at least there was no shortage of sugar,” said the woman. “Many people survived those years thanks to sugar water, so now the situation is worse because we don’t even have that.” Comparisons between the current economic difficulties that the Island is going through and those suffered after the collapse of the Soviet Union are frequent.

“In my house we permanently had a bowl with sugar on the table so that everyone who came to visit us could eat a few tablespoons to be able to continue on their way,” recalls Evaristo, a resident of the neighborhood of El Cerro who this week bought “ten pounds of sugar at 170 pesos” and considers himself “lucky” because “you can’t find it now at that price.”

Recently, the Ministry of Internal Trade recognized that the delivery of sugar from the rationed market will depend on the existing availability in the country. The first results of the 2022-2023 harvest indicate that production will again be down in the dumps and far from the goal of 455,198 tons.

There is also no shortage of those who see in the product deficit a possibility of doing business by importing substitutes. “I sell 500 grams of aspartame, a sweetener that sweetens more than sugar. It is ideal for businesses that prepare sweets. The bag costs 60 dollars. I only accept this currency,” reads a very popular classifieds portal.

Others, given the price similarities between some foods, propose a barter. “I will trade five pounds of rice for three pounds of white sugar,” suggests someone in another Facebook group where the exchange of goods has gained space. The galloping loss of value of the Cuban peso makes many prefer to offer their merchandise in exchange for other foods rather than receive the national currency.

Inside people’s homes consumption is cut, coffee is taken more bitter, and fruit desserts in syrup are scarce. “Now I can’t even think of offering you anything sweet when you visit. The little sugar we have left is for the family’s consumption. There is not one more spoonful for anyone,” says Evaristo, who was born in 1959, when Cuban sugar mills achieved more than 5 million tons of sugar.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Energy Collapse of Recent Days is ‘Unprecedented’ in Cuba, Recognizes an Electric Company Employee

The fires have damaged the transmission infrastructure in the province of Ciego de Ávila. (Electric Company)

14ymedio, Havana, February 25, 2023 — The energy collapse that has caused four major blackouts on two-thirds of the Island in just nine days “is unprecedented,” Daniel Pérez García, director of the Electric Company of Ciego de Ávila, acknowledged on Thursday.

For the official press, which defines blackouts as “deplorable facts,” the crisis began on Monday, February 13, with the first disconnection of the National Electricity System (SEN) from Ciego de Ávila to Guantánamo due to a fire in a cane field. On Saturday, the 18th, the second blackout of up to six hours occurred in the network that connects Matanzas to Guantánamo, attributed to “human error.”

The service was interrupted again on Tuesday, the 21st and Wednesday the 22nd, with cuts caused, respectively, by a fire and a breakdown whose causes are still unknown.

Blackouts have mainly punished families in the central and eastern provinces. The “starting point” of the crisis is due to the weakness of the electrical system, Carlos Arencibia Fernández, director of the Provincial Loads Office, said at a press conference. Any disturbance causes an automatic frequency trigger as a “protection measure,” he added.

The official said that the system is not robust enough to withstand the maintenance load and the breakdowns in thermal generation units, in addition to the difficulty of obtaining fuel. continue reading

The age of the SEN’s infrastructure, with thermoelectric plants more than 40 years in operation, makes it vulnerable to any extreme climatic event. For Arencibia Fernández, the occurrence of fires during the drought period, which extends from November to April, is “normal” under the high voltage networks of 110 to 220 kilovolts (kV). Then, there are the effects on the transmission of energy due to thunderstorms in the summer season.

But in previous years “there were no current consequences because the generation was compensated,” he said.

The fires recorded in Ciego de Ávila have put the electricity infrastructure of the province in tension, warned Pérez García. In recent days the flames have come close to substations such as Morón Norte and Santana, but without impact.

As if that were not enough, he added, there have been 34 interruptions in the service so far in 2023, due to the change of 86 poles that have been affected by fires that occurred as of February 19. In the municipality of Baraguá alone, 17 infrastructures were damaged, he said.

One of the fires also triggered the bioelectric line of the Ciro Redondo power plant, whose function is to protect the transmission of the boilers. Pérez García considered it urgent that it be solved in the coming days to guarantee “better conditions” in the service. For the time being, the directors pointed out that the priority is to restore the supply of electricity to “vital centers,” such as hospitals, dairy companies and sugar mills.

Meanwhile, the Electric Union (UNE) expects the system failures to be solved with the mobile generation in a floating Turkish generator which is being installed in the bay of Santiago de Cuba, as well as the activation of unit 1 of the Lidio Ramón Pérez thermoelectric plant from Felton in Holguín, after several weeks of maintenance, said Alfredo López Valdés, general director of the UNE.

After a 2022 with blackouts of up to 12 hours, the Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, warned at the beginning of this year that the cuts would continue between January and April for the maintenance of the generators, but he promised that they would be localized and not “as traumatic” as those experienced between August and October of last year.

A month had passed since those statements, when he hardened his prognosis for the power cuts and said that they would occur three hours a day until May.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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With the Blackouts, Charcoal Making Starts Up Again in Cuba

Between the sun and the weight of the logs, being a charcoal burner is an overwhelming routine for two retirees, but in Cuba they need to find a way to make a living. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Yankiel Gutiérrez Faife, Camajuaní, 21 February 2023 — The hands of Emilio, a 66-year-old farmer, say everything about his trade: rough, firm, and smeared with soot. For decades he has gotten up at dawn, along with his brother Daniel, and they go to work in the fields of Vueltas, a town a few kilometers from Camajuaní, in Villa Clara. Five years ago, when blackouts became common again in Cuba, they decided to build charcoal ovens.

Emilio translates his business into figures: up to 25 sacks is the yield from each oven and each one is worth 300 pesos. What the resellers do next is not his problem. The effort is enormous to achieve an acceptable result, but the market is on the rise. The charcoal burners are one of the few sectors that have benefited from the scarcity of fuel, the lack of gas and the instability of the National Electric System.

Emilio’s house, the typical Guajiro construction, made of wood, is on the side of a dam, a few meters from his ovens. He likes to brew coffee before the sun rises, take his first puffs of tobacco and, to stay in shape, he stretches before going to work.

To make a charcoal oven, the men have to prepare the process a month in advance: sharpen the machetes, cut the marabou, pile up the trunks and put them to dry for several weeks, in a place where the sun hits them hard. (14ymedio)

To make a charcoal oven, the men have to prepare the process a month in advance. Emilio and Daniel sharpen their machetes and go out to cut the invasive marabou weed. They pile up the trunks and put them to dry for several weeks, in a place where the sun hits them hard. For the transfer they use a cart towed by oxen, but the hauling of the sticks is their responsibility. Between the sun and the weight of the trunks, it is an overwhelming routine for two retirees, but they have to have something to live on, Emilio affirms with resignation. continue reading

After five years of work, the soot doesn’t leave their bodies no matter how much they wash. Often, Emilio calls one of his neighbors at dawn, to share his coffee. “Did you bathe well yesterday?” the man often asks, pointing to a spot behind the ears or on the charcoal burner’s elbow. Emilio laughs and goes looking for his brother to start working again.

Daniel helps him lift the pile of wood for the oven. They arrange the trunks one next to the other, and they form five or six layers of sticks, depending on the thickness. Then they cover everything with a layer of grass, another of earth and some palm fronds. The oven is lit from the center. After a week of slow burning, the fire will have reached the surface. The result: the yellowish pieces of marabou will have turned into gleaming pieces of charcoal.

They have to spend the whole week watching over the pile, in case some accident happens or the fire gets out of control. While everyone sleeps, Emilio spends several nights awake in front of the wooden piles. There he must be watching in case the oven explodes or the fire catches somewhere. “You could pass the charcoal and spoil it,” he says. “It’s like cooking.”

The oven is lit from the center. After a week of slow burning, the fire will have reached the surface. (14ymedio)

The process is difficult, but there is a lot of demand in the towns and cities. “In the last year the consumption of charcoal has increased and it shows, because many people come to the countryside looking for someone who is selling it. In the town everything about cooking has become complicated, many do not have gas, there are blackouts and there is a great shortage of fuel right now,” he says.

At one point, Daniel explains, his main client was Gaviota, the hotel company managed by the Armed Forces. Due to the proximity of the northern keys – one of the most important tourist poles on the Island – Gaviota bought charcoal for cooking. However, the pandemic brought the suspension of contracts.

Surely, Emilio assumes, Gaviota will contact them again, but the brothers suspect that the business will not be favorable for them. “We would have to see,” says Daniel, “if they continue as before, there is no deal. After the Ordering Task*, individuals began to pay us 300 pesos for the sack. Before they paid 10, but the Government offered us 8. They always want to take it at a lower price and that doesn’t suit us.”

“Young people don’t want to do this job,” laments Yuri, another 63-year-old retiree who gave up farming and sold his cattle after suffering multiple thefts. In Rosalía, a rural town not far from Vueltas and Camajuaní, there are only four people who make charcoal. “We are all gray-haired,” says Yuri.

Emilio translates his business into figures: up to 25 sacks is the yield from each oven and each one is worth 300 pesos. (14ymedio)

“Some boys from around here tried to start the business. When they saw the work that it takes to make just one sack, they immediately gave it up,” says the farmer. Yuri sells a can of charcoal for 100 pesos to a contact in Santa Clara, who comes to his house every month to pick up the merchandise. “I can’t give charcoal away,” he said, alluding to the rising prices. “The job does not only consist of cutting the marabou, you also have to spend many sleepless nights, taking care of the piles.”

With the decrease in blackouts at the beginning of the year, the demand for charcoal fell. But the less optimistic know that as soon as the heat returns, the most prudent thing to do is to have an alternative on hand. Gas stoves, increasingly rare in homes, are also facing a supply shortage at the Villa Clara filling plant.

Although the most common thing in the countryside, Yuri notes, is still firewood. “People here don’t have much of a need for charcoal, but in a pinch, it’s always good to have a few cans on hand,” she explains.

Bibian, a housewife from Camajuaní, remembers that in the eighties there was no electricity in the neighboring area of La Bajada. “My mom was used to cooking on charcoal and wood stoves,” she recalls. “When clothes had to be ironed, the irons were heated over the fire. For cooking, the same thing, and I even liked the taste of smoked food better.”

For Bibian, in the kitchen firewood is superior to charcoal. “It burns much better, the embers last longer and retain heat better. The downside is that wood smoke affects your health a lot, it hurts your lungs. Charcoal smoke does less damage,” she says.

The situation of La Bajada did not improve during the Special Period. “The oil at that time was gone, there wasn’t even enough for transportation. So my husband went to the fields to see what he could get and returned with a sack of charcoal. It cost him 300 pesos. It was a lot, but from that time, every time the power went out I went to the stove and the charcoal got me out of trouble. My rice never spoiled again because of a blackout,” smiles Bibian.

Maritza, another housewife from Taguayabón, a neighboring town, shares Bibian’s opinion about the usefulness of charcoal in times of scarcity. Her stove is made of welded rods and she lights the coals by burning a piece of nylon, when, as is often the case, she has no oil. “They only give us fuel in the hurricane season, and very little, barely for two months,” she complains. Charcoal is fussy to light, she says. Her method to light it is to get at least a couple of lumps to burn well. “Then I put a fan on them to fan the flames and quickly reach for the pots.” The technique, which others also perform with a hair dryer, has never failed her. Although, of course, this can only be done when there is no blackout.

Ramón, 56, calculates that the price that used to be charged for a single sack of coal in Camajuaní – about 100 pesos – is now less than what a can costs. “Not everyone has gas, in the villages there is no firewood, it is not like in the countryside. There is no free fuel either. A sack of charcoal, for those who cook every day, lasts a little over a week.” The bills at the end of the month, he reflects, are scary.

The measure used by charcoal burners is an old square tin, from jam or oil. The resale price of each can in Camajuaní is 150 pesos. The sack that is bought directly from the charcoal burner costs 300 pesos. The resale of the complete bag can reach 450 pesos. As the summer months and blackouts approach, the charcoal trade is reviving. Now, on Facebook or on the Revolico online sales portal, prices are rising at the rate of inflation. For Emilio, Daniel and Yuri, the effort and the long sleepless nights will have been worth it.

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

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The Cuban Regime Sees a Conspiracy in the Closing of Facebook Accounts

On Twitter, the accounts of propaganda programs of the Cuban regime such as Con Filo, Cuadrando la Caja and Chapeando were eliminated. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 25 February 2023 — The official propaganda launched its counterattack this Friday against the US company Meta, which manages platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, for having eliminated hundreds of ghost profiles on social networks related to the Cuban regime. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parilla also offered the government’s vision, which attributes an “ideological bias” to the company and accuses it of “manipulation.”

An extensive article published this Saturday in Cubadebate by the official spokesman Randy Alonso Falcón admits that Meta closed, “in one fell swoop,” 363 Facebook profiles, 270 pages, 229 groups and 72 Instagram accounts.

Alonso Insists that the regime has witnessed with alarm the activity of “los chicos of Mark Zuckerberg” – the founder of Facebook – who have launched their “hunting dogs” to track the activity of hundreds of users financed by the Government, a situation which, according to a company report, occurred with similar characteristics in countries such as Serbia and Bolivia.

The objective of these hyperactive profiles is to “create the perception of broad support for the Cuban government,” says Meta, while, according to Alonso, the suspension of their accounts aims to “cut off the presence of the media, professionals, and supporters of the Revolution on the networks.”

In the usual terms, Alonso describes Meta as an accomplice to “the terrorist and subversive activity of the United States Government,” exposing with very poor arguments Zuckerberg’s “submission” to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and mentions profiles whose closures particularly hurt the regime. continue reading

This is the case of the page of Raúl Capote, editor-in-chief of the international section in the official Communist Party newspaper Granma, whom the CIA tried to recruit, he says, to carry out “anti-Cuban plans” in the cultural sector. With the same arguments, he regrets that another company, Twitter – managed by the South African-born tycoon Elon Musk – eliminated the accounts of propaganda programs such as Con Filo, Cuadrando la Caja and Chapeando. The media that kept their accounts were described as “affiliated with the Government of Cuba,” which annoyed the authorities.

Alonso claims that the suspension is not due to a “short circuit” in Meta, but a conspiracy to destroy the regime. In this way, the dissemination of content was lost, which, the spokesperson insists, was made by the 650,000 accounts that followed the government pages, the 510,000 affiliated with Facebook groups, and at least 8,000 Instagram followers.

“The individuals behind this operation published Spanish-language videos, audio clips, articles, photos, and memes criticizing members of the opposition and those who have questioned the government, including members of the Cuban diaspora in the United States and elsewhere,” quotes Alonso, alluding to the report published by Meta.

Finally, the director of Cubadebate summarizes the “state of digital” on the island this year, to conclude that 7,970,000 people have access to the Internet, 6,690,000 are users of social networks and there are 6,670,000 active mobile connections.

The Cuban foreign minister, in a Twitter thread, flagged the guideline followed by all the official press for the criticism of Meta. He asserted that the company “should explain its own inauthentic and biased behavior in allowing the denigration, stigmatization and hate campaigns from Florida to our country.”

“Despite the attempts to censor our voice and make the truth invisible, Cubans will continue to defend our Revolution and its socialist system of social justice, also in the digital field against harassment and destabilizing operations,” he snapped, with the usual rhetoric.

Reluctantly, Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel joined the controversy hours later and limited himself to repeating, also on Twitter, that the regime was against the “new hypocrisy and complicity” of the US company.

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The Renegades of Castroism

Daniel Alejandro Gutiérrez Cruz, former Sector Chief for the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) in Corralillo, Villa Clara, Cuba, is accused of using dogs to chase rafters who were trying to leave the country illegally. (FHRC)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 25 February 2023 — Political rivalry and enmity should not lead to the victimization of the adversary, as happen with the Castro regime and its peers such as Marxism and Nazi fascism, all inspired by ideas that conceive government management as divine acts that cannot be questioned.

Supporters of these regimes act as if they were members of a confraternity. They invoke the word of their lord with devotion and if they are ordered to slaughter their victims, they have no qualms about executing them. However, despite the evil they show, there are people who may have doubts about victimizing these victimizers when they deny the faith for which they were willing to end the lives and rights of others.

Victimizers should not be turned into victims. However, it is necessary, for moral and physical health, that their faults be recognized. Forgetting, forgiveness and punishment is optional for those who were abused, but society has the right to demand an act of contrition from those who used evil as a way of life. There should be no crime without punishment.

Castroism, like its sequels in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, plus other rulers prone to the “totalitarian temptation” described by the French philosopher, journalist and author Jean-François Revel, are generators of victimizers of varied criminal intensity. Nevertheless, in all these mandates without exception, they have produced desertions of predators of the trade who, on occasions, transform from renegades to opportunists, capable of imposing the ’New Word’ with blood and fire if given the opportunity. continue reading

Through the years I have met and shared with some renegades. Good people who admit to having been wrong and had the courage to rectify their course by confronting whatever risk was necessary, including jail, the motivation for their probable injustices. I confess that I admire these people, although not as much as those who never allowed themselves to be dazzled by utopia. They deserve respect for their rectification, but above all, for their decision to fight those who turned them into an instrument of hate.

I recently appreciated the validity of this issue at a conference sponsored by the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, directed by Tony Costa, skillfully led by the journalist Maite Luna, who showed the high number of subjects who, in their complicity with totalitarianism, acted with extreme cruelty and insanity, against people who were only exercising their citizen rights.

The investigator Luis Domínguez and the journalist Rolando Cartaya presented an extensive report on some twenty henchmen of the Castro tyranny who, after their harmful actions, sought refuge in the United States. Some even have documents that legalize their stay, despite having been widely known repressors.

Luna explained that the repressive acts have no justification, that the famous ’due obedience’ does not exempt the predator from his guilt, as is the case of the subject Daniel Alejandro Gutiérrez Cruz, nicknamed El Perrero [‘the dog guy’] for chasing potential rafters with dogs.

Gutiérrez Cruz, like other renegades who served as predators, must confront his victims, acknowledge his guilt and ask for forgiveness, as Nelson Mandela demanded at the end of apartheid, which does not exempt him from taking responsibility, before the Cuban people, for other possible transgressions.

Those who serve ruthless dictatorships such as those promoted by Castrochavism — Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Bolivia — are complicit in the actions of the regime they support, whether or not they have engaged in abuses, so those who are guilty must be willing to admit their faults, for their own redemption.

Many years ago in the Radio Martí newsroom [in the United States], I met a man who had held high positions in the Castro regime economic sector in the 1960s and 1970s. He boasted of his adventures in his own actions in his position and as there was no shortage of people who laughed, I said, “I don’t understand you. You are in exile. You always praise capitalism and now you boast about having served the man who destroyed your country and drove you away from your land.” At first he was upset, then he said, you’re right that has always been rubbish.

José Martí, although I do not doubt that someone would describe the phrase as macho, wrote it and said very clearly, “Only the truth will wear the manly toga.” Let us claim our truths even if censorship claims the streets.

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Cuban Exiles Ask the US to Designate Organizations on the Island as Terrorists

A group of repressors of the Cuban Government during the protests against the electricity cuts of October 2022. (Collage)

EFE (via 14ymedio) Miami, 21 February 2023 — The Assembly of Cuban Resistance (ARC), which consists of 35 civil entities on and off the Island, sent a letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken this Tuesday, asking that Cuban Government institutions be included on the list of terrorist organizations.

The coordinator of the ARC, Orlando Gutiérrez Boronat, announced at a press conference that the letter was sent to Blinken to “unmask” organizations that include: the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (Icap); the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR); the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC); the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP); and the Workers’ Central Union of Cuba (CTC).

Gutiérrez Boronat told EFE that these organizations are dedicated to “promoting subversion in Latin America,” in addition to noting that “it is internationally documented” that they promote terrorism.

The letter details that in 2021, the US already sanctioned officials of the Cuban Ministry of the Interior and the Prevention Troops (TDP) of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces Ministry.

On July 30, 2021, President Joe Biden, the letter continues, declared that new sanctions would be imposed against repressive Cuban institutions if they “continued to violate human rights.” continue reading

The ARC emphasizes in the letter that since the protests of July 11, 2021, “the regime has used local nuclei of the CDR, FMC, ANAP and CTC to identify and repress protesters” in Cuba.

The letter highlights that the role of these organizations “in the recent waves of repression” extends to the trials against the protesters of July 11, 2021, since their members, along with law enforcement officers, are the only citizens who have been allowed to be witnesses for the prosecution. And the ARC denounces that hundreds of peaceful demonstrators have been sentenced by virtue of false testimonies.

In addition, the letter states that Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, who served a 16-year sentence in the US for espionage, is the current coordinator of the CDRs, while ICAP is led by Fernando González Llort, sentenced to 15 years for the same charge.

It denounces that ICAP often organizes meetings with representatives of the Syrian, Iranian and Russian governments and coordinates activities with organizations from these countries.

“We are concerned about the growing presence of Russia in Cuba, which threatens the security of the United States and Cuban citizens. Since 2014, the Castro regime and the Russian Security Council have maintained a Security Cooperation Memorandum,” it says.

It recalls that “the Castro regime” has supported the war in Ukraine and has renegotiated a debt of 2.3 billion dollars with Russia.

Gutiérrez Boronat also announced the celebration, next Saturday, of the ARC National Convention in which a National Salvation Program will be announced that will lead to a political transition within 2 years.

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The Building Next to Hotel Saratoga, Abandoned to its Fate

The residential building next door to the Saratoga continues to look like an empty dolls’ house. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez/Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 23 February 2023 — The members of the Cuban Parliament who are elected on 26 March will not be able to avoid the sight of the ruin of the Hotel Saratoga, right opposite the Capitolio Nacional building. Habaneros, however, are already well accustomed to seeing the state of the building, which exploded on 6 May 2022, killing 47 people, and which today evokes a sickly-looking house of cards.

The top floor is the only one which remains intact, like a grotesque reminder of what the Saratoga used to be, surrounded as it is today by sheets of red zinc. But the hotel is barely the centre of gravity of the collapse: its neighbouring residential building, which features in some of the most dramatic photos of the disaster, continues to look like an empty dolls’ house.

A comparison between the first photographs of the building, taken just after the explosion, and the scene which is presented to any pedestrian today, shows that the building has been systematically ransacked, not only by its former residents but by criminals and random passers-by. Where there used to be a mounted picture frame, a piece of furniture or a kitchen appliance, now there is only a stark bare wall. continue reading

Various parts of the structure which survived the explosion have been removed by the construction workers, or have collapsed under their own weight. Nevertheless, the aura is not one of a reconstruction site, rather one of just another building which has been abandoned to its own fate.

The people who lived at Prado 609, an annex of the hotel, were rehoused in the precarious Havana street of Vives, between Carmen and Figuras. It’s been a double tragedy for them: not only have they lost their homes but the new ones given to them by the government not only lack any charm but were constructed from cast concrete in one of the most “troubled” areas of the capital.

“They have no plans yet about what they’re going to do with the Saratoga. They’re not going to demolish it completely, only what’s necessary to stabilise the structure. The timetable is for 8 to 10 months”, a resident of the area told 14ymedio in December.

The company that the government commissioned for the work is Almest, a property developer linked to the Armed Forces, and a hitherto unknown French company, although evidence suggests that it’s the construction company Bouygues, which has worked on the construction of 22 luxury hotels on the island.

If one thing is clear it is that the fate of the Saratoga is bound up with that of the neighbouring buildings, among which there is also a baptist church. It would seem that the Cuban government has not yet decided on the move that will resolve the problem of one of the most central blocks of Havana.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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