14ymedio

Mexican Immigration Arrests Cubans with Humanitarian Parole and Holds Them Incommunicado

Yida, Dachel and Amehd were arrested last Thursday at the Mexico City airport.

14ymedio, Havana, 20 February 2023 — Cubans Dachel, Yida and Amehd, who have a humanitarian parole status for the United States, have been detained since February 16 at the Las Agujas immigration station, in Mexico City. According to Carmen Sardiñas, Dachel’s mother, “they took them off the plane and confiscated their passports.”

Sardiñas specified that Cubans and Venezuelans, about 10 in number, who intended to reach the United States, were taken off a plane, “put on a bus” and “taken prisoner.” All these details were reported by her daughter by cell phone. Because of this, they missed the flight and have been held “incommunicado” in Mexican Immigration.

Dachel had to pay an extortion fee to inform her mother about her detention, “which is a violation of her rights,” Carmen Sardiñas said on her social networks.

Despite the fact that the detainees insisted they had humanitarian parole granted to them by the US authorities, the agents of the National Institute of Migration (INM) told them that they “did not know” about that benefit and did not have knowledge of the “sponsorship or the flight permit or anything,” said Carlos Hernández, Yida’s father, in an interview for Telemundo. “You are illegally in Mexico,” they were told.

Hernández denied this. Relatives shared documents and the image of the humanitarian visa of one of the young women issued by the Mexican authorities, which is valid for one year. These Cubans boarded an Aeromexico flight in Tapachula to Mexico City, where they were arrested. continue reading

Immigration refused to give information to 14ymedio about the group of detainees. “Any request must be issued to the National Migration Institute,” said the person who answered the phone call.

The Las Agujas station has been highlighted by the testimonies of several Cubans as a center where agents threaten to deport them, extort them and violate their rights. In July of last year Angélica María Rodríguez Varela, Isael Meléndez Castro and Junier Blanco Hernández were allowed to leave after receiving a protection order.

Migrant defense attorney José Luis Pérez denounced the arbitrariness of the Mexican agents. Similar cases such as the three people detained in Las Agujas have occurred since the beginning of January. On January 21, Cuban Maidaly Martínez Rodríguez was arrested in Tapachula (Chiapas).

“They detained her despite the fact that she had a humanitarian visa that was given to her on January 16, which is valid for one year. She had to get a protection order to be able to board a flight from Tapachula to Mexico City and avoid being stopped.”

The lawyer reported the abuses by Migration officers in Chiapas. On January 28, “they tried to extort Mirsa Fernández Gómez at the Viva Mexico checkpoint, in Tapachula.” She left on a bus but the agents wanted to arrest her despite her “having a permit for 20 days and a protection order.” In the end, she was allowed to continue to the United States.

On Sunday, a bus in which 45 irregular migrants from Colombia, Venezuela and Central America were traveling to the U.S. border crashed on the road from Cuacnopalan to Oaxaca. It was reported that 15 people died and another 15 were transferred to the general hospital of Tehuacán (Puebla).

On Monday, the Mexican Secretary of State, Julio Huerta Gómez, announced that two of the migrants who were hospitalized have died. Regarding the accident, he indicated that the first investigations indicate that the driver lost control of the bus, and it crashed into a tree and overturned.

Last Friday, the U.S. Embassy in Cuba announced that 11,637 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans have benefited from the parole that allows them to receive travel authorization and stay for up to two years with a work permit.

The diplomatic headquarters reiterated that those who try to “illegally cross to the United States will be expelled and will lose the possibility of participating in this program.”

On Monday, the U.S. Coast Guard repatriated 31 rafters to the Island aboard the ship Joseph Poroo. The agency thwarted the journey of these people who were looking to reach Florida on two rustic boats.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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In Coyote Regimes

The former Cuban president, Raúl Castro, along with the president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega and their Venezuelan partner, Nicolás Maduro. (Twitter)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 18 February 2023 — We often read about that particularly predatory human subspecies that we call “coyotes,” unscrupulous subjects who live from the despair of those who seek to have a better life for themselves and theirs.

These people have no mercy. They traffic people, making them face countless dangers, like being kidnapped, raped or killed. It’s a dirty international business of billions of dollars in which organized crime has a great participation, an entity present in more than one government in the hemisphere.

It is prudent to wonder if that activity was in principle an invention of criminal-minded governments or simple criminals who are always looking for a greater fortune. The question is a consequence of the recent decision of the Nicaraguan dictatorship to banish 222 political prisoners, an act that confirms that the tyrants of Castro-Chavismo do not even respect their own laws.

This release of political prisoners to obtain some political or economic benefit was a practice that Fidel Castro instituted in the 1960s, when he put a price on the head of each and every one of the prisoners of the 2506 Brigade*. Later, every time an influential U.S. senator traveled to Cuba and interceded for a prisoner, the dictator released some of his slaves. The same happened with the few Ibero-American political leaders who were interested in those who were in the Caribbean tyrant’s dungeons. Even the Nobel Gabriel García Márquez was rewarded by his friend Castro with a slave, the already disappeared political prisoner Reinol González.

Castro-Chavista regimes dictate particularly repressive laws whose direct results are death or imprisonment and, nevertheless, they break them extremely easily if there is any benefit involved, because all those dictators share the greed of coyotes. continue reading

Of course, these exiles, in addition to looking for economic benefits, have political gains in their sights. The Ortega-Murillo duo seeks, with the banishment of political prisoners, an approach to the government of President Joe Biden, who apparently, as former President Barack Obama did, is in favor of a rapprochement with the despots that prevail in the hemisphere, perhaps with the naive idea that the bad guys give in to good examples.

Political prisoners are a by-product of repression, the greatest hallmark of Castro-Chavism. To achieve absolute social control, punishment is essential. That’s why in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia there are political prisoners who in most cases have not committed any crime; they have been punished for the right to think and give their opinion without hypocrisy, a crime for the autocrats who govern those countries.

The worst thing is that they use repression as an instrument of punishment, in addition to simulating changes. These regimes condemn a large number of people for no reason with the aim of breaking them, sometimes releasing them en masse and banishing them, in order to receive benefits from the government that welcomes them or, at least, making “useful idiots” think that the dictatorship is changing by exiling prisoners who did not commit crimes, as the writer José Antonio Albertini said.

The best evidence of this statement dates back to the arrival in Spain of several prisoners of Cuba’s 2003 Black Spring, something similar to what Ortega-Murillo did. On that occasion, Member of the European Parliament María Muñiz, of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, told Deutsche Welle: “We must appreciate this gesture of Cuba,” adding, “this will allow the European Union’s Common Position towards Cuba to be changed in the near future,” ignoring that the prisoners were unjustly sanctioned, as is the case with the banished.

It is not fair that tyrants are rewarded for rectifying their crimes. The Iranian autocrat, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, pardoned prisoners for the protests that motivated the murder of the young Mahsa Amini and, according to some rumors, the Cuban regime will release some of the protestors arrested on July 11, 2021. These injustices should not be rewarded by democratic governments by declaring that there are changes and granting benefits, when the dictatorship is actually preparing the prisons to receive new innocents.

*Translator’s note: The 2506 Brigade was made up of Cuban exiles, and in 1961 they landed at the Bay of Pigs [known as Giron in Cuba] to overthrow Fidel Castro.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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New Stores are Born in Cuba with a Strange Alliance Between the Private and State Sectors

La Bodeguita de San Rafael, on the Boulevard of the same name, in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez/Olea Gallardo, Havana, 20 February 2023 — A new market in the heart of Centro Habana, a ration store with various items, a stationery store in the Miramar Trade Center, a fabric and upholstery store in El Vedado, a re-opened Italian pizzeria in the same neighborhood… these establishments have three things in common: they have recently opened or reopened in the capital, they have very high prices, and now — with a new or former name — they are in private hands.

In the middle of Boulevard de San Rafael, the colorful poster of a large and well-stocked shop, inaugurated this Saturday, La Bodeguita de San Rafael, is a surprise. “The best of all I’ve seen so far; it’s one of the most beautiful,” said a customer, surprised at what the state clothing store that used to exist in that place had become.

But what left most people speechless were the prices: 34-oz. soft drinks at 450 pesos ($19), condensed milk at 550 ($23), a small tetrapack of tomato puree at 380 ($16), a pound of lentils at 400 ($17), a kilo of wheat flour at 590 ($25), two pounds of rice at 650 ($27), a simple glass of yogurt at 120 ($5).

“A woman spent almost 33,000 pesos ($1,375) in front of me,” said another man who went shopping. “I don’t know what she had in her shopping bags.”

Inside the store, a couple, a foreigner and a Cuban woman were talking. He asked her: continue reading

“Why do you go to the store in MLC [freely convertible currency] if they sell here in pesos?” She replied: “Because the prices are much higher; they are inflated. For example, that package of rice will cost 2 MLC or $1.90, and here it costs 600 Cuban pesos ($25).”

“It looks like they are reselling things from the MLC stores, but that’s not supposed to happen because it’s not allowed,” speculated an old man.

What seems clear is that, once again, the same scheme of the recently inaugurated grocery store of the Miramar Trade Center is being repeated, the same as what happened with the branches of the Sylvain chain and before that, the Fress. A variety of businesses have now gone from state hands to private hands overnight, without competition or prior notice.

Therefore, the inauguration the same Saturday of a “sodería-hamburger” shop called Complejo Zapata y 12, in that same municipality of Plaza de la Revolución, was striking. It was attended by Luis Antonio Torres Iríbar, first secretary of the Provincial Committee of the Party, and Reinaldo García Zapata, Governor of Havana.

Tribuna de La Habana reflected the same thing in a note published this Sunday. The initiative, reports the official press, is due to the “productive chain” between the state Provincial Company of the Food Industry (EPIA) and the private company Epcc, “with one person responsible.”

In this association, the text released by the director general of the EPIA, Abdelín González Mesa, explains, “The state entity provides the premises, the labor force and the technological infrastructure, while the private company supplies all the imported raw material and is involved in the manufacturing process.”

With this joint production, Tribuna continues, “the private actor has fewer costs and therefore can set more affordable prices for customers,” alluding to the surprising financing of the private company with public resources.

As stated with pomp, the establishment offers “several varieties of ice cream made in the unit itself, using natural fruits collected in the country and from imported components (chocolate, lemon, strawberry, orange and pineapple).” In addition, they boast that the offer “is marketed at prices lower than those currently set by other forms of private management”: the ice cream scoop costs 35 pesos ($1.45), and the simple hamburger costs 150 ($6.25).

This is one of the few occasions in which the official press publishes something related to new private businesses, whose proliferation was ratified by the meeting, last January, between Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and Kremlin adviser Boris Titov.

As revealed by Russian media at the time — not by Cuban officials — both parties agreed to transform Cuba’s economy into a “private enterprise” one. For voices in exile such as the Cuba Siglo XXI ideas laboratory, this means an imminent transition from a “state-controlled economy model” to the “old elite oligarchic Soviet scheme” of taking control of numerous businesses.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Iranian Refugee Keivan Esfandiyar Has Been Trapped in Cuba for More Than Four Years

Esfandiyar, in addition to being a teacher, has a degree as a nurse anesthetist. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 20 February 2023 — Keivan Esfandiyar taught teenagers aged 13 to 16 years at a school in Tehran, and although he taught Experimental Sciences, he used to make comments in class and with his colleagues about human rights, democracy and civil liberties. One day he received a summons to appear before the Judiciary and he knew then that he could no longer remain in his country.

Born in Tehran in March 1988, Esfandiyar, in addition to being a teacher, has a degree as a nurse anesthetist. He is married, he lost his mother when he was very young, but the rest of his family is in the Persian country. In November 2018 he arrived in Havana and after spending more than four years, he can no longer tolerate his status as a refugee in Cuba and his main concern is how to emigrate to any country that is not Iran.

This week, Esfandiyar spoke with 14ymedio from a funeral home in Central Havana, a place to evade prying eyes and also a symbol of the fatalistic state in which he feels his life on the Island has become.

Question: How did an Iranian end up as a refugee in Cuba?

Response: The most logical thing was to go to Turkey, with whom we share a border, but right now there are more than three million Syrian refugees there and a growing number of Afghans who are fleeing the Taliban and the situation is very difficult.

Q: Did you know that the Cuban regime is a friend of the Iranian government?

R: I learned that later, but what I do know is that Turkey is friendlier than Cuba to the Iranian dictators. They have returned thousands of Iranian refugees, many ended up in prison and several were executed. Cuba hasn’t returned any.

Q: But, why Cuba?

R: A friend told me that at least 15 Iranian refugees had been received here and that they were protected by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) offices. I then consulted the internet, read that in Cuba there was security and good health services and I entered through the airport in Havana with a tourist visa.

Q: Was it difficult for you to make the decision to emigrate?

R: In Iran, in every office, in every school or institution belonging to the government there is a man from the security forces. This man is responsible for surveilling, being aware and pressuring others to inform on their colleagues. They, in turn, inform their bosses at the political police. I was viewed as a bad influence on those young people, as an enemy of the government. They kill for those reasons. It was difficult to make the decision, but I had no other choice. continue reading

Q: You said that you spent two years as an “asylum seeker” and another two years as a refugee. You receive economic support for refugees from UNHCR which covers the basics. How has it been going for you in Cuba?

A: I live like a Cuban, with problems in the water supply, power outages, lining up to buy food and looking for medicine on the black market, but with the added difficulty that they see me and treat me like a foreigner who is here as a tourist, which makes people think I’m rich.

Not long ago I asked a man on the street to let me light my cigarette with his lighter. He was a middle-aged man with a respectable appearance who said, very seriously, “Give me 50 pesos and I’ll light your cigarette.”

Neither my wife nor I have a work permit, we spend the day in the small room we rent in a licensed private house, we do not have the luxury of doing anything fun like dining in a restaurant or going to the beach. The only advantage we have is that among Cubans we have not felt racism nor xenophobia.

Q: You place your hope in obtaining refuge in another country, especially the United States. What processes have you gone through or plan to undertake to achieve your objective?

R: I should say that UNHCR is not the problem, but rather the countries that should give us refugee visas. Canada does not receive any and the European countries have the idea that refugees who are in Cuba are the responsibility of the United States Embassy, but those offices have been closed for a long time and have not processed a case similar to ours through UNHCR. Now we have a bit of hope because they now have people working in the consulate.

Q: In August 2022 your daughter Viana was born in Havana; she is registered as a Cuban. Does that change the situation?

R: We decided to have a child now because we did not know if time would run out. We hope that with Cuban emigration [Directorate of Identification, Immigration and Foreigners] there won’t be a problem [for their daughter to leave the country], but they have told us that the Americans no longer provide refuge to Cubans and other countries have the same problem.

Q: How has it been for you with the free public health?

R: For the last year, we’ve had a card issued by the Red Cross, which states that it serves to “receive services at Health Units authorized by the Ministry of Health,” but the problem is that it is very difficult to obtain the medicine. I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and I need to take pills called sertraline and for five months, the pharmacies have not stocked them. This issue is not viewed as serious enough to obtain refuge in other countries. If I were diabetic it would be viewed as an emergency situation.

Sometimes I believe they are waiting for me to go completely crazy to process my case.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Inflation in Cuba was Out of Control in January

Black beans, a staple of the national diet, have had a recent cost increase of 10.5%. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 19 February 2023 — A bad start for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in Cuba in January. The Office of National Statistics and Information just released the data and it is not good. Prices increased by 2.32% in January compared with December. What’s worse, the interannual variability rate, which measures how inflation behaved between January 2022 and 2023 was 42.80% which is greater than what was reported in December, when it was 39%.

Furthermore, comparing the interannual rate from January 2022 (relative to 2021), which was 23.26%, the rate this year is practically double. This means that inflation in the Cuban economy is accelerating and gained speed once again at the beginning of the year, with its negative effects on the purchasing power of the population and relative prices. It gives the impression that the regime has thrown in the towel and is proving incapable of stabilizing the economy with appropriate fiscal and monetary policies.

Why have prices increased in Cuba so intensely in the month of January? In essence, because four relevant components of the CPI increased by 2% or more in that month.

The first was Restaurants and Hotels, with 4.96% (double the median), which increases the interannual rate to no less than 59.85%, raising the index’s total by 20%. Analyzing the products with the greatest increase in prices, once again leading are: Snacks with a monthly increase of 7.08%; followed by To-Go Prepared foods, 4.29%; and Lunch and Dinner, at 4.1%.

Basically, it has to do with goods processed by the activities of the sector, which charge higher prices because they need to pass onto consumers the increase in the costs of raw materias and ingredients they obtain from their suppliers. continue reading

In second place, Foods and Non-alcoholic Beverages registered an increase of 2.74% compared to the previous month (higher than the median) and also, the highest interannual rate, 67.97%, contributing 53.66% to the index.

The two most inflationary components are also those that are weighted the highest in the index. The acceleration in inflation in the coming months is set. Products that have registered the greatest increase in prices in the Food and Non-alcoholic Beverages group are once again cheese at 7.36%, ham at 5.96%, lamb at 5.34% and pork at 2.26%, products that are becoming more expensive in addition to being scarce in the markets.

The third most inflationary component was Furniture and Home Goods, which experienced price increases of 2.22% in January relative to December and with that, put the interannual rate at 18.83%. This is one of the components of the index which has gained strength relative to last year as cost increases are passed on to the sale price.

The fourth group is Diverse Goods and Services, with an increase in January of 2.01% which in the interannual rate increases to 18.49%.

One should consider that these four components are barely affected by import-related inflation, the argument being used by leaders to justify the out-of-control prices. It does not seem to be a result of the embargo or “blockade” either. The inflation has roots in the domestic economy and responds, ever more so, to the inability of the communist model that runs the economy, which should be regulated by the market — much more efficient.

Next, there are three components of the CPI that, though they registered increases below the median, had interannual rates above 10%. That is the case for Education (one of the achievements of the revolution, free of charge), with an interannual rate increase of 17.86%. Also, Transportation, with an interannual rate of 15.18% and finally, Home Services registered a 14.54% interannual inflation rate.

Transportation deserves special attention, since one of the items of the index with the greatest increase in January is in this group. Specifically, Urban Taxis and “bicitaxis” (as a group) increased by 10.59%, while urban transportation via motorbike increased by 4.31%. Once again, underlying inflation exerts influence on the accelerated price increases which will occur in the near future.

There is one component of the index, Alcohol and Tobacco, which experienced a 6.13% decline in the monthly rate, but its interannual rate still ended up being 18.7% which suggests that inflation is rooted in the economy (an underlying effect) and despite a few monthly improvements, the trend continues to rise.

The year is off to a bad start with inflation data, particularly negative for its impact on the purchasing power of salaries and pensions (declining for foods and necessary processed goods) and introduces a distortion factor because many activities must transfer cost increases onto prices to avoid becoming insolvent, as happened when the Ordering Task* went into effect.

Inflation takes root in the Cuban economy and causes negative effects such as, for example, a declining Cuban peso, cash shortages in the banking system or acting as an unfair tax which hits the poor with greater intensity. The regime, defenseless.

*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.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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‘No One Can Be Forced to Leave Cuba as a Condition for Release’

Three mothers of 11J prisoners demanding their release. (Facebook)

EFE (via 14ymedio) Madrid, 21 February 2023 — The release of detainees in Cuba due to protests such as those of the July 2021 protests should not lead to a “forced expatriation” as in Nicaragua, several Cuban human rights organizations warned on Monday.

The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, Justice 11J and Cubalex stated that “the recent release of 222 political prisoners from Nicaragua and their immediate deportation to the United States has raised an alert in Cuban civil society about a similar ’solution’ in the current context of the Island.”

“The alert is motivated by the talks between the Cuban State and agencies such as the Catholic Church, the European Union (EU) and the Government of the United States, which have expressed positions in favor of the unconditional release of political prisoners,” says the statement, disseminated by the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, based in Madrid.

The release of the demonstrators has become a key political issue in Cuba after Nicaragua’s precedent and the insistence on this matter by the United States, the European Union and the Vatican.

The possibility of prisoners being released for protests against the Cuban government is on the table in the context of a potential negotiation with the United States.

In this regard, these organizations recalled “antecedents” such as the release and exile in 2010 of “the majority of the political prisoners of the Black Spring” from 2003 as part of a negotiation process in the EU, and continue reading

in 2015 the release of 53 others imprisoned in this case in negotiations for the restoration of relations between Cuba and the United States.

The signatories of the statement cited that the UN Human Rights Council has denounced these “forced expatriations,” which they describe as “a systematic practice in repressive governments,” and they stated that “the Nicaraguan political prisoners did not participate in the negotiation process either” nor “were they informed that the condition for their release was forced exit from their country.”

“No person, much less in the inhumane conditions of deprivation of liberty in Cuban prisons, can be forced to leave the country as a condition of their release or of definitive freedom,” they claimed.

“Whoever negotiates with the Cuban State should request guarantees that the person deprived of his liberty will make the decision to leave the country without pressure from the organs of State Security,” they added.

In addition, they demanded “the participation of people deprived of liberty and their families in the process of negotiating the exit,” along with “minimum guarantees for those who freely and voluntarily decide to leave the country, such as facilities in the relocation process to access the legalization of their immigration status.”

“We oppose laudatory pronouncements such as those issued by the US State Department, in which a human rights violation act is presented as a ’positive success’ for the consolidation of relations between countries and the path to democracy,” they stressed.

“However, we receive with hope the idea that they will be released, in any of the possible ways,” they concluded.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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No Customs, Thank You

Customs Officer in the process of confiscating the belongings of Eliecer Avila. (Somos+)

14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 18 February 2023 — My Cuban friends come from the Island to Europe and are amazed that when we travel to different countries when we arrive at the airports there are no “customs” or police controls. The magic of Schengen Area for Europeans (Spanish Cubans too), the disappearance of customs and controls, is one of the greatest successes of this part of the world. It wasn’t always like that.

The European Union, which was the architect of this congregation of nations that opted to eliminate barriers to the free movement of people and goods, allowed circulation through the countries of the west before the collapse of the Berlin Wall. But with the disappearance of socialism, Eastern Europeans also integrated into the Schengen area and others, those who were left out, did their best to make entrances more flexible. Customs are part of “cold-war” past, which Europeans have forgotten, as if Europe had been transformed into a kind of United States of America.

By contrast, in the Cuban case, Customs has existed for six decades, and those who return to Cuba or want to enter must face a complex and absurd barrier of entry that has been done and undone during its existence. To be honest, there are few reasons for celebration.

Shall we start?

Customs was responsible for the shameful searches that were made of people fleeing the country in the early sixties, a real dispossession of scarce, last-minute belongings that Cubans managed to remove from the terrible communist inventories of their homes.

There, in the presence of those who fled communism, boxes were available to throw all kinds of requisition objects, certainly with little or no professionalism. It was the years of militarized Customs, which created a bitter experience for those continue reading

who sadly left their lives behind. That image of a predatory and vengeful customs remained for decades, and many Cubans remember it that way.

Customs, in this case, which guards the Island, has committed terrible crimes such as the incident of the 13th of March tugboat, at a much later date, where murder was committed against young children. This work of surveillance and control of territorial waters to prevent the flight of Cubans has been a source of atrocities that have never been punished, and which in many cases are not even known.

But true, the years are passing and on February 5, General Customs turned 60, and for that reason Randy Alonso invited to his Roundtable program on State TV William Pérez, deputy head of Customs; Yamila Martínez, general director of Customs Processes; David Fernández, director of Technologies and Infocommunications and Glenda González, secretary of the Communist Youth Union.

Tremendous program. There, some keys were given to “orient” the audience on the functioning of Customs in the service of the communist regime. As a starting point, the reference to political-ideological work, “in the interest of strengthening the institutional image and strengthening the sense of belonging of workers” gives a good idea that Customs, far from being governed by technical criteria, does so by the communist party, no more or less than the rest of the inefficient monstrosity of the state.

Some facts are surprising. Of those employed, 66% are young and 70% are women. This attraction of young people is apparently attributed to a youth detachment called 60 Socialist Customs, composed of the 60 most prominent young people in the country; the development of an internal festival of amateur artists; and other communication and information actions.

For Customs managers, this web that traps young people in its service is a positive point and, as could not be otherwise, most of them come from the Comminist Youth Union, which even has a secretariat in Customs, to ensure ideological purity. The young people of Customs must be proud to be part of the “60 Socialist Customs” detachment, cited above, and must participate in the activities organized outside their specific activity in Customs by monitoring the borders.

A piece of advice to these young people. Don’t have too many illusions. No matter how efficient and quality Customs services are, this entity would have its days numbered in a democratic, free country and, of course, with another economic model, in line with what happens in other countries. The communist customs that has worked with its light and dark tones in these six decades could not remain the same in a democratic and free country. Let them think that their working lives are not going to end there.

On the Roundtable program the purposes of Customs were reported to be facilitate customs policy, consolidate the customs confrontation system (together with the Ministry of the Interior), eliminate of obstacles, simplify of procedures, and the develop the integrated system of attention to the population, which has been an important handle to perfect the work.

It was said that the employees come from the Higher Customs Technician course, which this year in its third edition graduated more than 300 people. In other words, Customs has been operating for 60 years, but only in the last three years has there been for training professional specialists. Ask yourself where the previous employees came from. They have announced for 2024 a Bachelor of Law with a Customs profile, which would promote the improvement of the labor force of that organization. For human resources and qualification, this all very recent.

And of course. Customs, following the guidelines of Díaz-Canel’s doctoral thesis, also has a sectoral program in science, technology and innovation and computerization.

From this preamble, the functions of Customs began to be defined, and the first task is border security. I remind you again, Europe does not have customs in 27 countries, and that security requirement does not exist. Something doesn’t fit here.

In this case, Customs in Cuba exists to “prevent acts of terrorism, drug trafficking, smuggling and other demonstrations that threaten the security of people and the environment. To do this, and to the extent that international crime becomes more sophisticated, the preparation of human forces has had to be improved and the borders have been equipped with new technologies.” So, what does the police, state security and the entire repressive apparatus of the communist regime do that is any different? Will we not be facing an eventual duplication of functions?

They also explained that to provide better service they are in a process of updating regulations and simplifying customs processes, which in Cuba means more bureaucracy, obstacles and obstructions. Contributions such as the Single Customs Window were cited, which they say allows the management of documents, procedures and collections for foreign trade, mainly imports and exports that are carried out digitally.

Another step of alleged flexibility is the consolidation of the Authorized Economic Operator program, conceived and promoted by the World Customs Organization, to facilitate trade. It classifies entities with high security standards in their logistics chain. In reality, these globally competitive entities have very little to do with customs processes. And Cuba is an island.

They said that, since last August, two rules have been published that have allowed the increase of the import capacity by the passenger and shipping route. These are Resolutions 175 and 176 of 2022. With these measures, it is intended to better carry out risk studies and the management of Customs to the fundamental lines of confrontation, and to not be so much concerned with counting and seeing other goods that are not of priority interest and, ultimately, to solve problems for the population. There have also been changes and new procedures with the six freight forwarders that operate cargo from non-natives. As a result, postal clearance was automated.

More bureaucratic work. The advance passenger information form in digital format was implemented, in conjunction with the Ministry of Transport and other agencies that exercise border control, and the Predespacho Pasajero APK has been developed and updated, which allows passengers to organize their luggage before arriving in Cuba.

It’s a network of controls and interventions to prevent anything from escaping the control of Customs. There are no data from surveys of citizens who are subjected to customs controls when they arrive in the country. I suggest such a quality survey because at this time they would get some surprises. And in the end, let no one be deceived, it should not be forgotten that behind the customs racket there is a collection purpose.

In fact, that collection power is the main justification for the customs that survive in the world. In particular, in the Cuban case as if it were a gracious decision of power, it was reported that the tariff benefit that authorizes, exceptionally and temporarily, the non-commercial import, without limits in its value and exempt from payment of customs duties, food, toiletries and medicines will remain in force until next June 30.

And, until March 31 of this year, the tariff benefit that exceptionally authorizes non-commercial importation, above the value established for air, sea, postal and courier shipments, of power plants with a power greater than 900 watts.

After that, it will be collected again.

It was finally reported that Customs is also being digitized in an alliance with the University of Computer Sciences that will be realized in eight projects to manage customs processes, the deployment of a tool for administrative procedures and the computerization of the Customs school. They are working on artificial intelligence projects for the integration of technologies (scanning, image and information processing) and the improvement of cybersecurity. And what about state security? Won’t it be connected? Let me know. In the program, not a single word was said about the cost of this to the state coffers and, above all, the measurement of the effectiveness of its services. Randy didn’t even ask about that. Too bad.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Biden Extends the Ban on U.S. Ships Docking in Cuba

Boats registered in the United States have not been allowed to dock in the ports of Cuba since 1996. (Norwegian Cruise Line)

14ymedio, Havana, 18 February 2023 — On Friday, Joe Biden’s government extended for another year, until 2024, the ban on ships with American flags docking in the ports of Cuba. Almost three decades have passed since this measure went into effect, and Washington still considers that Havana has not demonstrated that it will refrain from the use of excessive force against its boats or aircraft.

In a note sent to Congress, Biden says that the entry of any unauthorized vessel into Cuban territorial waters “remains harmful” to US foreign policy, a fact that could facilitate irregular migration from the Island.

“Massive migration from Cuba would endanger national security by posing a disturbance or threat of disruption of U.S. international relations,” President Biden says in the note.

The United States declared a national emergency on March 1, 1996 after, on February 24 of that year, the Government of Cuba ordered a military maneuver against three civilian planes of the Brothers to the Rescue group, dedicated to spotting rafters fleeing the Island. continue reading

The Cuban Air Force used MiG fighters, who managed to shoot down two Cessna Skymaster planes from the exile organization and kill the planes’ four of the crew members. This event triggered President Bill Clinton to issue the ban, which his successors have kept in force.

At that time, Havana alleged that small planes had violated Cuban airspace, while the United States maintained that they were in international airspace, north of the island.

In the note, the US government says that the proclamation came into force 27 years ago due to the threat of disturbance caused by the “destruction” by the Cuban Government of those two unarmed civilian planes.

The state of emergency was reactivated on February 26, 2004, when the United States implemented sanctions to deny monetary and material support to the regime. The measure was softened, although not revoked, during the Barack Obama administration.

With the arrival of Donald Trump there was a new chapter in the tightening of economic measures, including sanctions for airlines and cruise ships that maintained operations in Cuban terminals.

At the end of December 2022, federal judge Beth Bloom sentenced the cruise companies Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian Cruise Line and MSC Cruises to pay more than $400 million for docking at the Havana terminal. The judge considered that companies violated Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, issued in 1996 and activated by Donald Trump in 2019. The companies have appealed that sentence.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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‘The Grandchildren Law is Going to Drive Us Crazy’ Complain the Employees of the Civil Registry in Cuba

The real difficulty in small, sparsely staffed municipal offices is being able to attend to the large number of requests (14ymedio)

Yankiel Gutiérrez Faife, Camajuaní | 14 February 2023 — The peace of a small town like Camajuaní, in Villa Clara, is only disturbed for three reasons: partying, surprise supplies in hard currency stores and the queues at the paperwork offices. The most extensive is the one that is organized every morning in front of the Directorate of Identification, Immigration and Aliens, in the vicinity of the Police unit, although those of the Civil Registry and other dependencies of the Ministry of Justice have nothing to envy.

Spain’s Democratic Memory Law – called the “law of grandchildren” – triggered requests for documents and caused a deficit of stamps at the national level to which Camajuaní was no stranger. But the real difficulty in small municipal offices is being able to attend to the large number of requests that are made with very few personnel and even fewer technological resources.

Located on Raúl Torres Street, the Camajuaní Civil Registry sees applicants arrive almost at dawn. “We cannot serve everyone. There are too many orders and we can only collect ten cards per day,” explains Migdalia, one of the local workers.

Stunned by the accumulated requests, Migdalia tries to calm things down in the queue and expedite the procedures. “If they don’t suspend the ‘law for grandchildren’ soon, we’re going to go crazy or we’re going to ask for a leave. I can’t sleep without taking my nerve pills,” she laments.

The line can be organized first thing in the day or “inherited” from the night before. A calculated business of coleros and “friends” keep turns to have guaranteed entry to the office when morning comes. There are even private “guardians” who ensure order and take turns watching at dawn.

Located on Raúl Torres Street, the Camajuaní Civil Registry sees applicants arrive almost at dawn. (14ymedio)

“Lists until March 18 are already in place to collect the documents in the registry,” says Miriam, a primary school teacher who has to give all kinds of excuses at work to go out and line up. “Those of the corrections, on the other hand, are already organized until April 11.” continue reading

The uproar of the applicants is such that the neighbors have filed numerous noise complaints and, in some cases, have thrown buckets of water from the doorways of their houses during the night to dissipate the noise and be able to sleep.

In theory, all the necessary documents can be requested electronically. The Ministry of Justice provided a digital form which should facilitate the process. But the reality is quite different.

“Civil Registry forms have been available on the Ministry of Justice website for a year,” explains Yanet, a shop assistant at the nearby freely convertible currency (MLC) store. “At the time, this measure managed to speed up the process and stop the queue. However, today it’s one more obstacle. Everything is slower. What I could solve in three or four days before, now I can’t even do it in a week”, she points out.

“People are already very upset. The situation is the same in all offices. Very slow, and when they finally give you the documents, they always have errors and you have to start the process all over again. It’s a never-ending story”, complains Anabel, a housewife. “The most common justification is to say that this whole situation with the ‘grandchildren’s law’ is unforeseen, since they did not plan it. But people are not to blame for that.”

“People are already very upset. The situation is the same in all offices. Very slow, and when they finally give you the documents, they always have errors

Jamikel, a young man from Santa Clara, had to request paperwork in Camajuaní for his father, who spent a week lining up, but to no avail. He intended to request a verbatim copy of certain documents. When it was finally his turn to pick up the papers, and after a twenty-mile drive and seven-hour wait, the officials told him that he had done everything wrong and that he had to reactivate the application. His son then helped him complete the online process. “We’ll have to see if he’s got better luck this time,” says Jamikel.

In Vueltas, in a period of a month or two, they print the documents and call the interested party to mark their turn in line to pick them up. (14ymedio)

The other option the elderly and those who do not have smartphones have is to go to the Youth Computer Club of the town, where a technician will help the interested party when requesting documents. Even if the effort does not produce results, the 10 pesos fee for each request is still due and payable.

Some have suggested that the Ministry of Justice offer the option of reviewing the document in PDF format before picking it up. The applicant could then verify it and, if there is an error, request the correction by e-mail. “But no. They prefer for everything to have obstacles and to complicate everything”, says Alicia, Yanet’s partner at the MLC store.

To make matters worse, the delivery of documents follows a rigid but inefficient order: Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays are for regular processing, Wednesdays for corrections, and Thursdays for those who need documents related to agriculture. Altogether, they only deal with thirty collection requests per week, while on Wednesdays ten additional files are received for corrections, and on Thursday another ten for procedures related to agriculture, which are resolved more quickly, for a total of fifty.

“Then one has to hear Díaz-Canel talking about eliminating bureaucracy, but they create more. Everything is hypocritical and disrespectful”, Alicia insists. “It seems unbelievable that the Ministry of Justice is one of the main defaulters of delivery deadlines.”

Miriam, a woman from Santa Clara who tried to evade mistreatment and bullying at the Santa Clara Civil Registry, finds herself in a similar situation and has not been able to process a document that she has been looking for since October. “The birth registration is supposed to be in Colón, Matanzas, but that civil registry is not even in the digital application system”.

The situation of the Civil Registry offices in other towns in the province is just as precarious. Vueltas, a few kilometers from Camajuaní, is part of its jurisdiction. The workers review the procedure code, previously assigned by the website of the Ministry of Justice. Then, within a month or two, they print the documents and call the interested party to get their turn in the queue to pick them up.

As for Remedios, a neighboring municipality of Camajuaní, the stagnation is similar. Both the list to carry out the procedure as well as the list of corrections will not be complete until the month of April.

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The Useless Diversity of the Cuban Parliament

Official propaganda defines the Cuban Parliament as a showcase of national diversity. (Minrex)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 17 February 2023 — Beyond any semantic or etymological definition, the action of parleying is always interpreted as an act of negotiation between individuals or entities that, having different interests, try to reach an agreement.

Hence, the most desirable feature of a Parliament, as a government formula, is that the various political tendencies are represented in it, provided that their presence is proportional to the preference of the citizens expressed in the vote. Easy to say.

Since 1976, Cuba has had a kind of Parliament called the National Assembly of People’s Power. The official propaganda defines it as a showcase of national diversity, which is intended to be demonstrated with the data of its composition that reflect how many women and men, whites, blacks and mestizos, artists, athletes, scientists, workers and farmers, have a seat.

It is significant, even surprising, that the balance in the proportions of this diversity is the product of the random will of the proponents and not (as it seems to be) the result of meticulous planning.

But a balance based on the variety of genders, ages, races and occupational profiles, even when it responds to a mathematical model in relation to the proportion of these elements in reality, fails to disturb the monopoly of that political tendency that manifests itself in a more that 90% communist militancy. A militancy — that is active membership in the Communist party — which in real life does not exceed 7% of the population.

This perhaps explains why, in almost half a century, not a single proposal brought by the Government to Parliament has been disapproved, and even worse, that they have all been approved unanimously or by an overwhelming majority. It’s called partisan discipline. continue reading

The fact that the only political party allowed in the country is the Communist Party, like its youth organization, does not mean that there are not other citizens who feel liberal, Christian-Democratic, social-democratic, environmentalist or any other denomination and, even more so, who would like to see themselves represented in Parliament and who, given the opportunity to freely present their proposals, would have followers, meaning voters.

To make matters worse, when the voting process (not the election) takes place to approve the candidacy of the deputies to Parliament, the voters only know the photo and a biographical summary of the candidates that they have to approve according to their municipality.* Election campaigning is prohibited and with this prohibition the promotion of different platforms that compete to conquer the electorate is prevented.

When in the polling station a citizen votes in favor of the candidacy of one of those proposed on the list for their district, they find out that the candidate served on some internationalist mission, is an engineer and is 42 years old, but the voter does not have the slightest idea of how this candidate will raise their hand in Parliament when something that interests this voter is being discussed.

If that deputy is the one who is going to vote on behalf of his constituents, the latter should know if their candidate wants to favor the socialist state company or if he chooses to benefit non-state forms of production and services; if he prefers to propose relaxations in immigration laws or new restrictions; if he agrees or is against expanding the right to property or whether professionals can practice on their own; that private parties can import for the purpose of marketing; if the freely convertible currency stores should be expanded or eliminated; whether to continue building hotels or to build houses and many other things.

If being black, white or mulatto, man or woman, peasant or intellectual could define the political position of the deputy at these crossroads (which are the ones that matter), the proclaimed diversity of the National Assembly would make sense.

If that diverse condition does not contribute to the way in which you are going to vote on behalf of your constituents, then it is useless.

*Translator’s note: The only ’campaigning’ that is allowed is the posting in a window of a one page ’biography’ of each candidate, with their photo, and this bio is not prepared by the candidate themselves. In one election, independent candidates’ biographies described them as “counterrevolutionaries.” In the final round of elections there is only one candidate for each position; voters can vote yes or no, or deface the ballot or turn it in blank.

The Last Cuban Parliament With the ‘Historicals’

Among the 470 proposed candidates, and who will surely be elected, 128 deputies from the previous legislature repeat: they are the supervening ones. (Twitter/Cuban Parliament)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 12 February 2023 — If the massive abstention is as successful as the opposition expects in the electoral process scheduled for March 26, none of what is outlined here would make sense.

The Cuban Parliament scheduled for the X Legislature of the National Assembly could be the last to have the presence of members of the so-called “historical generation”: Raúl Castro, Ramiro Valdés, José Ramón Machado Ventura, Guillermo García and Ramón Pardo Guerra — all nonagenarians — will return to their seats again, but they will have very little chance of being around to be re-elected in 2028.

In the recently released list of candidates, the notable absences are striking: the one who was held as the manager of the Ordering Task*, Marino Murillo; the Minister of Culture, Alpidio Alonso; the Minister of Science, Technology and the Environment, Elba Rosa Pérez Montoya; the Minister of Education Ena Elsa Velázquez Cobiella; the Comptroller of the Republic Gladys María Bejerano; Rodrigo Malmierca, Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment; Samuel Carlos Rodiles Planas, President of the Physical Planning Institute; and the cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo; they no longer they will raise their hands again to approve what they propose.

Among the 470 candidates proposed, who will surely be elected, 128 deputies from the previous legislature repeat: they are the survivors of the drastic reduction of the number of seats in Parliament. continue reading

If the current occupant of the position of President of the Republic were not appointed to repeat his mandate (which is unlikely, but possible), a member of Parliament under 60 years of age would have to be elected by law. These repeaters are supposedly the ones who would have the best chances against the upstarts.

Among them there are 33 born between 1963 and 1968 who on this occasion meet the requirement of not exceeding 60 years of age to be appointed as president of the Republic, but who by the next election, in 2028, would already be past that age.

This forecast can be closer to reality if it is specified that, among the 33 blessed (and punished) by the almanac, only 4 are members of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party: Manuel Marrero Cruz, who is also Prime Minister; Roberto Tomás Morales Ojeda who is the second in the hierarchy in the structure of the Communist Party; Marta Ayala Ávila, General Director of the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology; and Teresa María Amarelle Boué, who is a member of the Political Bureau for being the general secretary of the Federation of Cuban Women.

Four others belong to the Council of State and also appear on the Central Committee, these are: Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, Miriam Nicado García, Homero Acosta Álvarez and Ana María Mari Machado.

I conclude the list with: Luis Antonio Torres Iríbar, and Jorge Luis Tapia Fonseca, members of the Central Committee and first secretaries of the communist party in the provinces; José Ángel Portal Miranda, Minister of Public Health; Inés María Chapman Waugh, Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic; and Rogelio Polanco Fuentes, member of the Secretariat and head of the Ideological Department in the Central Committee of the Party.

This hypothetical investiture, even if they have no aspirations, is presented to these 13 as a last chance. In five years the list of possible suitors would be made up of virtually unknown people, unless the age requirement is modified.

There can always be surprises. The first would be that Miguel Díaz-Canel does not continue in the position of President of the Republic. The second is that someone is appointed to replace him who is not mentioned in the previous paragraphs.

It is not that the country is inevitably headed for a radical change, nor that because another person mentioned here is placed at the helm of the nation, these changes will occur in the necessary direction, depth and speed. It is not about that, but that the changes towards democracy and economic freedoms are the main demand that is being called for with more pressure from within and from without, and that nothing would delay this process of change more than the continuity that is proclaimed today as a motto from power.

*Translator’s note: Tarea ordenamiento = the [so-called] ‘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 many other measures related to the economy.

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The Official Cuban Press Once Again Uses the 1898 Explosion of the US Battleship ‘Maine’ to Justify the Regime

Cuban schools still teach that “the majority of the crew were black” and that the ship’s staff had abandoned them in the bay to die. (US Naval Institute)

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 15 February 2023 — As every February 15, official propaganda dusts off its theories about the explosion of the US battleship Maine, sunk in Havana Bay in 1898. After 125 years, the version of the “self-sabotage” of the ship by the US as a pretext for Intervening in Cuba’s war against Spain continues to be taught in Cuban schools and reported in the press as an irrefutable truth.

Although the “blasting” of the Maine is the cornerstone of the regime’s historiography against the US, none of the investigations carried out in the past have been conclusive about the cause of the explosion. Why does Havana continue to manipulate the facts with such insistence? The response of the official site Cubadebate response is clear: this version is defended because “it sustains the irrational blockade policy,” another ideological symbolic catch-all of the regime.

This Wednesday, in the Communist Party newspaper Granma, officials assert that the battleship was sent as a “steel Trojan horse” to the Island. Knowing “the truth,” however remote it may seem, means winning the “battle of ideas in which this is enshrined to the Cuban people.” continue reading

The ship that exploded in the Havana port in February 1898 was a second class military vessel, 324 feet long and 54 feet wide, able to open fire from both sides and with a ram on the bow. Its launching took place on November 18, 1889, but it did not enter service until six years later. The officer who took it to Havana as part of a “friendly visit” in January 1898 was Captain Charles Dwight Sigsbee.

Granma selected and reproduced several telegrams from Captain Sigsbee, the US consul on the island and the US Secretary of State, whose placement suggests that the Maine was not in Havana to protect the citizens of that country present in Cuba, but rather “there was an ulterior purpose”: to produce an “agitation” against the island’s autonomous government – constituted only a few weeks earlier – and to achieve “in all probability” a protest.

From this correspondence, which refers only to the climate of political tension that prevailed at the time, the official State newspaper draws a conclusion: the explosion was caused “by the Yankees themselves” to interfere in “another people’s war,” which was already “virtually won” against Spain by the Cuban Liberation Army.

In the explosion, 254 sailors and six officers died, of the 328 member crew. It was a crew made up of American citizens of German, Swedish, Irish, Norwegian, Danish, and even Russian and Finnish origin. In Cuban schools, however, it is still taught that “the majority of the crew were black” and that the ship’s staff had abandoned them in the bay to die. Cubadebate itself admits that this information is a flagrant lie, although it only acknowledges that it has been disclosed in Cuban education “sometimes.”

The only truth in the version of events repeated by the regime was the media hysteria that followed the event, the responsibility, to a large extent, of two famous American press magnates at the time: Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst.

With the slogan Remember the Maine – recycled in 1961 by the pro-government singer Carlos Puebla as Remember Girón [referring to (what is called in the US) the Bay of Pigs] – the US newspapers created an unfavorable opinion of Spain among readers, which undoubtedly facilitated the recruitment of young people to participate in the war.

“With the Maine, the independence of Cuba collapsed,” conclude Granma and Cubadebate, also manipulating a few quotes from the book How the Battleship Maine Was Destroyed, by US Admiral HG Ricover, without mentioning that this author does not find the “self-sabotage” hypothesis viable either.

The Cuban historian Manuel Moreno Fraginals, in his book Cuba/España, España/Cuba (1995) – one of the most reviled by the regime – affirms that the government of Fidel Castro gave the explosion “the easiest and most convenient interpretation,” in the purest propaganda style of the Cold War, when “in reality there is not a single piece of evidence that leads to such an interpretation.”

“The Americans had plenty of political reasons and internal public opinion to take part in the conflict without resorting to the dangerous extreme of blowing up one of their navy cruisers, killing [more than] 250 marines. The Spanish had even less reason to carry out sabotage of this category. For the Cubans it was almost impossible,” continues Moreno Fraginals.

An updated study on the subject, by the Spanish historian Tomás Pérez Vejo (3 de julio de 1898, el fin del Imperio español , July 3, 1898 / The End of the Spanish Empire, 2020), agrees that the US intervention was going to take place anyway, “regardless of of the causes of the sinking of the Maine .” The problems, he says, were “deeper.”

In addition to all this, the official Cuban press is especially offended by a theory that involves neither the “self-attack” by the US nor an aggression by Spain. It is about the possibility that Cuban insurgents caused the explosion, indignant with the passivity of the United States in the face of the cause of independence, to force the US to intervene.

This hypothesis, collected among others by the classic Cuba: the Struggle for Freedom (1973) by the English historian Hugh Thomas, describes that by 1898, the desire for annexation to the United States was not unheard of among a faction of the rebels. Those who most fervently opposed union with the north were José Martí and Antonio Maceo. Both had died. “Cubans were capable of such an act, as anyone would be after three years of all-out war,” Thomas suggests.

Even a serious naval historian like the Cuban Gustavo Placer Cervera continues to tear his hair out at this possibility. His arguments, however, are not very objective and border on the naive: “Terrorism was not the method of struggle of the Cuban independence fighters,” he affirms. The Cubans did not want to “change ownership” and the US was an “allied country” for the insurgents.

Regardless of the propaganda, Cuban, Spanish and American historians agree that the most likely explanation is an accident. “The Maine blew up because she was carrying a large quantity of the new gunpowder she needed for the heavier guns and which, in its early years, often set off explosions,” Thomas concludes.

The ship remained in the bay until 1911, when the US pulled the wreck and the corpses of the crew out of the water. On March 16 of that year, the Maine was towed several miles from the Havana port and, after several salvo shots to honor the dead Marines, she was sunk again at a depth of more than 1,000 meters.

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A List of 20 Alleged Cuban Repressors is Published in the United States

The director and president of the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, Tony Costa, during the ceremony this Thursday in Miami, Florida (USA). (EFE / Ana Mengotti)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Miami, 16 February 2023 –On Thursday, in Miami, the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FHRC) released a list of “20 repressors of the Cuban dictatorship” who are in the United States, in order to contribute to the end of impunity and not, it says, to encourage “hate crimes.”

Among those included in the list, all of them arrived in the US in the last year and a half, there are several identified as participants in the repression unleashed as a result of the peaceful protests of July 11, 2021 in Cuba, as announced in a press conference.

The foundation’s investigation has so far led to four formal complaints before the courts, the last one made by Idael Ramos Rodríguez who, on Thrusday, signed the sworn statement required to denounce these individuals and encouraged others to do so, although he said that he does not rule out that they could suffer retaliation.

The person denounced by this young man, who arrived in the US in May 2022, is a former police officer, Daniel Alejandro Gutiérrez Cruz, known as El Perrero and who arrived in the US last month on a raft, according to the complaint. continue reading

Curiously, he is accused of chasing with dogs those who tried to leave the country illegally at night along the beaches of Corralillo, on the north coast of Cuba.

The accusation that will be brought against him in the Miami courts will be for an alleged immigration crime, not for the crimes against human rights that he allegedly committed in Cuba, the Foundation’s spokespersons specified.

Pedro Rodríguez and Tony Costa, director and president of the Foundation, respectively, pointed out that in order to obtain permission to enter the United States, a questionnaire must be answered that contains at least four questions, including one about belonging to a communist party, to which the 20 must have responded with “lies” if they were given the “green light.”

The list presented includes former prosecutors, police officers, jailers and Interior Ministry officials, as well as former coordinators of medical missions abroad and other “white glove” repressors, according to former Cuban politician and journalist Rolando Cartaya, who leads the “Cuban Repressors” effort.

Each piece of information they receive about the presence of an alleged repressor in the United States is investigated and, if it is not just “gossip” and is proven, the members of the program contact the person.

Names on the list include Daniel Alejandro Gutiérrez Cruz, Yaima Camba Rodríguez, Maray Suárez Rodríguez, Iran (or Iram) Septiem Suárez, Bruce Iam González Marrero, Yosbel Nieves Regalado, Raúl Omar Rodríguez Gracia and Yerandy Martín González.

Also on the list are, Celaida Gil Villarreal, Manuel Santos Rodríguez, Raudel Moreno Bergolla, Susel Álvarez Tasses, Reiner Dueñas Noda, Adrián Rodríguez Santana, Yoel Vázquez Ortiz, Yaíma Salomón Torres, Orlando Nápoles Sánchez, Lyomaris Vara Fuentes, María Antonia Guerrero Tellería and Lester Amaury Martínez Quintana.

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Thieves in the Sale of Dollars in Cuba Make a Lot of Money

The investigations of the Ministry of the Interior have required the “ingenuity” of the officers, who have had to explore the digital platforms used by scammers. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 17 February 2023 — The Cuban Police arrested 126 people last year and deactivated 12 networks linked to the scam in the sale of foreign currency. According to a report published in official site Cubadebate, the Ministry of the Interior detected another 17 criminal plans and charged 67 suspected criminals, currently in pretrial detention, on whom, it assures, “severe sentences of deprivation of liberty” will fall.

It is not known how much money Cuban families have lost due to scam networks, but the number, the note suggests, is considerable. The Police warn that thieves are versatile when it comes to changing their modus operandi and constantly vary their strategy to avoid investigations.

The criminals, the report states, have a variety of methods to “hunt” the victims through social networks, in which they provide telephone numbers and offer attractive prices for the sale of dollars.

During the call, they appear to be people “supposedly correct, with impeccable vocabulary and they gladly agree on the address” for the exchange. Some criminals even use the victim’s home as a meeting point, passageways or multi-family buildings, and then carry out the violent robbery, with the help of knives or firearms. continue reading

The authorities do not report fatalities, but they acknowledge that there are people who have been seriously injured when they tried to confront the criminals.

Cubadebate warns that scammers make people believe that they are looking at a good deal, but do not identify themselves by their real name or give the victim clues as to where they can be located in the future. Contacts almost always occur on digital platforms, where there are “numerous candidates” due to “the lack of legal offers.”

As usual, the Government attributes the ultimate culpability for these events to the economic sanctions of the United States. The financial “suffocation” of the Island, they justify, produces little availability of exchange in state banks and the need to resort to the informal market to get dollars.

Most of the people accused of fraud, the report says, have criminal records and the Police attribute “terrible social behavior” to them, in addition to “being very violent to steal the money.”

The investigations of the Ministry of the Interior have required the “ingenuity” of the officers, who have had to explore the same digital platforms that fraudsters use to discover profiles of suspects.

People who are dedicated to selling foreign currency usually hang around the ATMs or exchange houses, where they offer a much more favorable exchange than does the State for dollars or freely convertible currency (MLC).

The illegal sale of currency is also the only way that some families have to obtain basic necessities that are scarce on the Island and are only sold in MLC.

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Havana’s Latin American Stadium Will Have to Generate 30 Percent of its Budget

14ymedio, Havana, 16 February 2023 — The National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (Inder) still has not managed to connect a good hit with the “new forms of economic management” that they have intended to implement in the Latin American Stadium since October 2021. According to the vice president of Inder, Omar Venegas Echemendía, the objective is to recover strategic spaces that have been lost at the headquarters of Havana’s baseball team, the Industriales.

Venegas spoke this Wednesday of the “step from the Latin American Stadium, to a budgeted unit with special treatment,” a management model in which the Coloso del Cerro, as the property is known, must generate 30% of its budget, while the other 70% will be provided by the sports organization.

The official did nothing more than summarize part of the speech from almost 16 months ago by the president of the Cuban Baseball Federation, Juan Reinaldo Pérez, about an “experimental” model that will now be applied for a year to “evaluate its feasibility.” continue reading

For this strategy, according to Venegas, “various services will be hired,” without indicating which ones, “a store specializing in sports paraphenalia will be opened” and they intend to “link the Latin American Stadium with tourism.”

Almost two years ago, there was talk of “opening the door” to ” MSMEs (small and medium sized private businesses) and cooperatives to present projects focused on shared benefits,” but apparently the hook was not as attractive as the sports authorities thought.

With the 62nd National Baseball Series, which will begin on March 22, with the first stage ending on June 3, the Latin American Stadium must show the management changes and improve the food and drink on offer for Cuban baseball fans, currently reeling from the lack of results in tournaments abroad and the flight of players.

The Latin American Stadium, which last October was declared a National Heritage, was built in 1946 and remained for more than 60 years with hardly any modifications. It was in 2014, according to a construction worker speaking 14ymedio, that the poor conditions of “the sanitary services, the hydraulic system and especially the roof” forced its remodeling.

During the repairs, new warm-up areas were defined at the bottom of the dugouts, the old batting cages were removed and the foul ball area was expanded.

On the other hand, the Island continues to lose players. Ronald Elías Terrero, who was part of the Cuban team in the Under-15 World Cup that took place in Mexico last September, is already in the Dominican Republic. According to the journalist Francys Romero, the athlete is from Isla de la Juventud and is 15 years old. “After September he will apply for free agency” in search of a major league team.

The baseball player is training in San Pedro de Macorís at the renowned Fernando Tatis Academy. With Terrero there are now nine Under-15 baseball players who have left Cuba. The other eight are Alejandro Prieto, Segian Pérez, Ernest Machado, Dulieski Ferrán, Alex Acosta, Jonathan Valle, Christian de Jésus Zamora and Yosniel Menéndez.

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