14ymedio

In Cuba, ‘There Isn’t Any’, Period.

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 13 January 2023 — In Havana it’s normal to find signs all over the place, offering articles or services. Written by hand, more often than not with spelling errors on an old scrap of cardboard with stains on it — from which one deduces it’s at the end of its useful life — these signs announce all those things which are difficult to find in the state-run shops. The most common one is for the sale of ice, but also many other things — as long as it doesn’t lead to problems with the authorities — from mouse poison to apartments, from plumbing services to fumigation.

One of these signs, attached to a balcony in the Havana district of Cayo Hueso, caught the attention. “There isn’t any”, it read. And that was it. No explanation, and no telephone number to ring. “There isn’t any”, as if that covered just about anything and everything, encapsulating in one brief phrase the entire state of the country. There isn’t any gas, there isn’t any bread, there isn’t any chicken, there isn’t any sugar, there isn’t any ham, there isn’t any transport, there isn’t any freedom. In Cuba, there isn’t any. Period.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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Bringing in Cuban Teachers is ‘Ideological Interference’ Denounces the Honduran Opposition

Cuba replicates in Honduras its Yo Sí Creo literacy program, criticized by the opposition for political interference. (Education secretary)

14ymedio, Havana, 13 January 2023 — The National Party of Honduras (PNH) described the hiring of 123 Cuban professionals in Education by the Government of Xiomara Castro as ideological interference. The opposition denounced that the objectives are “doubtful” and questioned the lack of transparency in the disclosure of the terms of the contracts.

The Honduran government signed a three-year agreement with the Cuban Ministry of Education on December 27 to “refound” the educational system of the Central American country. In a statement by the PNH bench, published on January 5, it was pointed out that this alliance is “opaque, not very transparent and with dubious pedagogical objectives.”

The bench questioned why the Cuban teachers will travel to the 298 municipalities, if the Honduran Ministry of Education assures that the professionals will only “advise” the ministerial cabinet. “This is illogical,” it clarified, at the time that it insisted that the doubts of different sectors of society “are obvious.” “There are many demands from Latin American countries about Cuba’s political and ideological presence on the continent, which uses health and education as a pretext for its purposes,” it added.

For the opposition party, there are enough pedagogues and teachers “with enormous experience” who can support the Ministry of Education to promote an efficient program to eradicate illiteracy, which affects 12% of the Honduran population. Also questioned was the fact that the Honduran government has not disclosed the profiles of Cuban professionals on its transparency portal when there is a history of “shady agreements” between the “dictatorial and repressive regime” of Havana in countries of the region, such as Mexico, Costa Rica and Brazil. continue reading

In its position, it concluded that the “Honduran people must be alert to stop Cuba’s interference.” “The 40 million (lempiras, equivalent to 1.6 million dollars) that the Government says will be allocated to pay the Island for the teachers should be an investment in hiring national teachers and repairing the educational infrastructure.”

The Tegucigalpa authorities have defended the agreement arguing that [Cuba’s] is one of the “best” educational systems in the world and that it will allow Honduras to achieve an equal one, “universal, inclusive, participatory, secular and scientific,” according to a promotional video published on government networks after the signing of the memorandum.

Before this agreement, Cuba and Honduras had another agreement to advise the national literacy plan, known as “Yo Sí Puedo” [Yes I can], which generated a wave of criticism from the opposition. The Honduran Vice Minister of Education, Edwin Hernández, insisted in August 2022 that the Cuban professionals will not give classes and will only dedicate themselves to developing the program, whose beginnings date back to the administration of former President Manuel Zelaya.

With the coming to power of Xiomara Castro, Zelaya’s wife, there were new rapprochements between her government and Cuba. In July 2022, a memorandum of understanding was signed to strengthen bilateral relations between the two nations, which opens the doors to “traveling on new paths” of collaboration in the fields of science, technology, literacy, and the exchange of scholarships, the Honduran Minister of Foreign Relations, Eduardo Enrique Reina said at the time.

The export of professional services – above all, doctors and teachers – is the main source of foreign currency for the Government in Havana, which has been the subject of numerous complaints from international organizations for appropriating most of the wages of its aid workers sent abroad.

The most recent data on the international missions of Cuban teachers dates from 2013, when there were 2,326 teachers placed in different countries. The largest group was in Venezuela, with 423, followed by Equatorial Guinea, with 221, and Angola, with 219.

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Cuba: State Employees in Holgun Don’t Receive Their Salaries Due to a Lack of Money in the Banks

Among the most affected are the employees of Education and Public Health. (Municipal Directorate of Education of Holguín)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 13 January 2023 — State workers in the province of Holguín are experiencing delays in the collection of their monthly salaries. Among the most affected are the employees of Education and Public Health who have not been able to receive their salaries due to lack of cash in the banks, according to testimonies collected by 14ymedio.

“Several state companies have not been able to get the money,” laments an employee linked to the Ministry of Internal Commerce in the city of Holguín. “When my company’s economics officer contacted the bank, they told him that at the moment the payment cannot be made because they do not have enough cash.”

“This is a very sensitive time of the year because we have just come out of all the Christmas celebrations and people are short,” acknowledges the employee. “People spent what they had and what they did not have to try to guarantee dinner on December 31 and now the news comes that the payments are going to take time. How are we going to hold out until the money arrives?”

Some workers have suggested that their salary be put on their magnetic card, associated with a bank account where the salary is deposited, in order to be able to carry out at least electronic operations such as paying for electricity or others for which it is not necessary to withdraw cash, but the proposal has not received a positive response.

“You cannot pay in cash or with a deposit on the card because in any case if they go to the bank they will not be able to extract that money. We have to wait for the Banco de Crédito y Comercio (Bandec) to notify us that we already have the deposit to start pay the payroll,” emphasizes the accountant of a Credit and Service Cooperative in Holguin, also affected by the lack of money. continue reading

According to her account, up to now the civilian workers of the Armed Forces and also of other official dependencies have been able to be paid, but the most serious problems are the personnel of Education and other ministries that have a large volume of workers and who pay them at the same time. “In those sectors, there are those who should have been paid at the end of last year and still haven’t been able to,” she asserts.

Some state workers have had better luck, such as those from Telecristal, the local telecentre, who managed to collect their salaries, but “it was almost a stroke of luck,” admits an employee of the institution who preferred anonymity. “I was able to be paid, but my husband, who works in another company of the Ministry of Agriculture, has been put off for days.”

Some state agencies in the province have been able to access the salaries of their workers, as is the case of Tabacuba, whose payments were made around January 4. The payment dates vary between entities and especially if they are permanent workers, by contract or by agreement.

The lack of cash is not a something new and the Banco de Crédito y Comercio itself was forced to report, half a year ago, that it had run out of Cuban pesos to load into ATMs in some cities in eastern Cuba.

At that time, the Bandec authorities attributed the problem to the lack of high denomination bills and excused themselves, among other reasons, for the “coincidence of salary payments” in almost all the companies in the eastern part of the country.

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New Houses in a Ruined Neighbourhood for Victims of the Hotel Saratoga Explosion

The new houses for victims of the Hotel Saratoga explosion stand out among their surroundings. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 12 January 2023 – The residents who lived in the buildings at Zulueta 508 and 512 adjacent to the Hotel Saratoga have gone from having one of the best views in the capital to a view of the ruins which surround their new homes. After the tragedy on 6 May 2022, which caused them to lose their homes when the historical luxury building exploded due to a gas leak, those affected are now going to have a roof over their heads again, but the good news ends there.

On Avenida de España, better known as Calle Vives, between the streets of Carmen and Figuras, there are eight new houses which have been given to some of the victims of the Saratoga explosion, in which 47 people lost their lives. According to the official press, the buildings are “almost ready” and their new occupiers “may help in the finalisation of electrical details”.

Tribuna de La Habana published the news on Wednesday, detailing that in the houses they have used a system of ’formwork’ known as FORSA, for which they use precast concrete, and there’s a cistern for guaranteeing the water supply. “This Wednesday marks another day for demonstrating that with constancy, organisation and control, any target can be reached”, concludes the extremely short article, surrounded by close-up photos of the new buildings.

But you only need to zoom out a little bit to see the future occupants’ new reality. The surrounding houses are on the point of collapse, if they haven’t collapsed already, and there’s a stench which fills the streets of a district which, despite being in Old Havana, lacks any attractive features and hardly any tourists venture there. continue reading

Whereas before, they only needed to step outside of their homes to find themselves just a few metres from the restored Capitolio, the Brotherhood Park, the main taxi rank in the city, or the shops on Calle Monte and the restored areas around the hotels near to Central Park — now, their surroundings are much less pleasant.

As a street which takes you to Havana’s Central Railway Station, Calle Vives once had its fashionable heyday, due particularly to a constant flow of rail travellers and merchandise. However, with the passage of time this area suffered a deterioration of its building stock — via a decline in the Island’s rail system — and a disdain shown to it by plans for restoration of the Historic Centre, which have left this part of the city forgotten.

Now more of a neighbourhood with a bad reputation, Atarés lies among some of the the least valued districts of Old Havana, and not only because of its wrecked buildings and its potholed streets and its puddles of sewage water, but also because of its frequent problems in the water supply, which forces many residents to bring water in from other areas.

On one corner, a man selling chopos hesitates when a buyer asks him if they’re over-spicy. “Doesn’t matter — the customer concludes — I’ll have to eat them anyway, ’cause I don’t have anything else”. All the passers-by are residents of this forgotten corner of Havana, where the poverty feels even worse when compared to the more privileged area from where its new neighbours are about to arrive.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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Garbage Collection in Cuba: From Creative Resistance to Desperate Patch

“Many containers have lost their hitch and we had to get working to solve it because otherwise it would be more work for us.” (14 and a half)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 3 January 2022 — The rattle of the Community Services trucks has people climbing sidewalks to make way for the giant. Two men get out and push a garbage container cracked on its sides. Among flies and shouts, customers waiting to shop at the Plaza de Carlos III see the garbage bin rise, embraced by an improvised cloth band and drop the waste inside the truck. “Tremendous invention!” ironically exclaims one. “That is the creative resistance that [Cuban president] Díaz-Canel is talking about,” another mocks.

The trick is more desperate than artifice. “Many containers have lost their coupling and we had to get up to do something because otherwise it would be more work for us,” laments one of the workers from the State company who carries one of these bands in case he needs them. “Without this, part of the garbage would fall on top of us when we lift the container or we would have to use shovels to throw it into the truck. Nobody wants to work in these conditions, but it is what it is.”

For decades, Cuban authorities have boasted of the achievements of the National Association of Innovators and Rationalizers (ANIR), an entity that seeks to inventively solve the problems of supplying spare parts. But behind the praise, when an employee replaces an imported gear with one made on a domestic lathe or repairs complex foreign machinery with wire and old tubes, there is more desperation than ingenuity. continue reading

“First we had to invent a soyuz (coupler) to be able to use the garbage trucks donated by Japan with these containers because they were not compatible”

“First we had to invent a Soyuz (coupler) to be able to use the garbage trucks donated by Japan with these containers because they were not compatible,” Walfrido, a former garbage collection truck driver, explained to 14ymedio. Last April, the state worker was blunt when he defined the “little blue ones”: “They are not just bad, they are very bad.” After a few months, the original Soyuz was useless because, in most cases, the latching mechanism of the tanks broke.

When the azulitos (little blue ones) began to appear on Havana street corners a few years ago, they had that air of novelty that had many believing that the garbage problem in the Cuban capital was going to be solved. But the poor quality of these waste bins soon began to be noticed and was fatally combined with the looting that their less colorful cousins have always been subject to but have also ended up torn to pieces or disappeared in the streets of the Island.

“The pay is low, the salary is not enough for hardly anything and the working conditions are very difficult, but if the daily norm is not met then they are paid much less,” Walfrido details. “Now these bands have been devised, tomorrow we will have to use something else, and the day will come when the garbage will be collected all over Havana with a bulldozer if things continue like this,” he laments. While the “creativity” is provided by the Communal Services employees, the challenge falls onto the residents of the city, who will have to live with more mountains of waste.

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Prisoners Defenders Reports More Than 11,000 Cubans are in Prison for ‘Pre-criminal’ Convictions

Every year, says the organization, an average of 3,850 people are sentenced from 1 to 4 years in prison for pre-criminal dangerousness. (EFE)

14ymedio, Madrid, 12 January 2023 — More than 11,000 people in Cuba have “pre-criminal” convictions, that is, punishment without having committed any crime, nor even attempted one. It is one of the data points that stands out from the latest report by the organization Prisoners Defenders (PD), made public this Thursday and which, once again, confirms the deplorable state of human rights on the Island.

Those thousands of convicts – “the vast majority of them are young and black,” emphasizes the Madrid-based NGO – are convicted based on article 72 of the Penal Code, in force until November, which provides for penalties “for conduct that is observed in manifest contradiction with the norms of socialist morality.” This, denounces PD, survives in the new Criminal Code, in force since December 1, in article 434: “The competent authority of the Ministry of the Interior can officially warn anyone who repeatedly performs actions that make them prone to committing crimes or break the social and constitutional order.”

Every year, says the organization, an average of 3,850 people are sentenced to from 1 to 4 years in prison for this cause. “The mere report by the police authorities indicating ’inappropriate conduct’ allows, without any crime, summary imprisonment year after year for immediate decisions and without possible defense,” the report asserted.

The NGO registers 29 new political prisoners, “mainly in the protests that take place throughout the country, but also due to the persecution of their social networks and positions disaffected with the criminal regime in Havana.” With these, the total number of prisoners of conscience, as of the last day of 2022, was 1,057. Six came off of that list in December, some after fully served the sanction imposed, and others, for having fled the country during their prosecution. continue reading

Prisoners Defenders laments that 36 minors (31 males and 5 females) are still on the list, who are either still serving their sentence (27) or are being criminally prosecuted (9). The figure does not include “many other children” who have already left the list for having fully served their sentences, clarifies the NGO.

Prisoners Defenders dedicates space to the unstoppable exodus, “the largest recorded in the entire modern history of Cuba,” with “between 225,000 and 300,000 Cubans (close to 3% of the population in 12 months)” who have fled to different countries of the world, the vast majority of them to the United States.

The report also criticizes the regime for its “criminal alliances”: “Lacking the ideological or moral support to justify raids and barbarities against human rights, international relations and the search for illegal income lead Cuba to inevitably strengthen the bloc’s dependence on the world’s totalitarians, now led by several countries, including Russia and Iran”.

Equally, it dedicates words to the “high personalities and references of the Spanish left,” such as the artists Joaquín Sabina or Joan Manuel Serrat, who have criticized the Government of Havana in recent months, as “some of the many symptoms of ideological dismantling of a regime that has lost all ideological or moral credibility for the true European and world left.”

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A Student is in Serious Condition After the Collapse of a Wall Mural in Sancti Spiritus, Cuba

14ymedio, Havana, 10 January 2023 — Pre-university [high school] students Javier Enrique Pino Burgos and Manuel Enrique Cancio Amador have been hospitalized since January 6, after a wall mural collapsed in Sancti Spíritus and fell on top of them. Both of them, like another young man who was also injured, were taken by surprise by the incident while they were waiting for the Freedom Caravan to pass, which recreates Fidel Castro’s journey to Havana in 1959.

Cancio Amador, who suffered “multiple vertebral and lumbar fractures,” is in “serious condition,” informed the doctor Darelsy Balsaín Mencía, director of the José Martí Pérez Provincial Teaching Pediatric Hospital, speaking to the official Escambray newspaper.

Because Cancio Amador required specialized care due to the multiple trauma’s he presented, he was taken and admitted to the José Luis Miranda Provincial Teaching Pediatric Hospital in Santa Clara. Balsaín explained that the patient underwent a “nuclear magnetic resonance of the lumbosacral spine” and “traumatic herniated discs” were detected.

Due to the “fracture of the L-3 and L-5 vertebrae” presented by the student, Dr. Balsaín mentioned that in the coming weeks the Neurosurgery service of the Villa Clara Pediatric Hospital will re-evaluate the patient for possible surgical intervention.

Pino Burgos, the other injured student, had an exposed fracture of his left tibia. His extremity was immobilized with a plaster cast and “he remains admitted to the Pediatric Hospital in Sancti Spiritus, currently under care,” the doctor stressed. continue reading

Lázaro Emmanuel Cabrera Pérez, the third injured party, had a concussion, but his evolution was favorable and last Saturday he was discharged.

#The provincial director of Education in Sancti Spíritus, Andrei Armas Bravo, mentioned that the injured are tenth grade students of the Honorato del Castillo Urban Pre-University. According to his account, “a group leaned against a mural by plastic artist Alexander Hernández Chang, which is embedded in the wall and made of concrete, bricks and other heavy materials, and it collapsed.”

The director’s statement was questioned by an on-line commenter identified as Annia, who said that surely the wall was “glued with saliva because they stole the cement” and lamented the impunity towards the authorities: “Nothing is wrong with those responsible. It’s incredible.”

At the end of September of last year, the engineer Miguel Díaz Sistachs died in an accident when he was trying to place a flagpole in the José Martí Civic Square in Marianao (Havana) for the celebrations for the 61st anniversary of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR).

That same month, the Guantánamo Provincial Directorate of Education confirmed the death of the girl Magalis Vázquez Gómez, a second grade student at the Amador Martínez Wilson elementary school, in the municipality of El Salvador. The Education directors argued that the minor was “hit by a signboard” during “recess hours.”

In January 2020, the girls María Karla Fuentes, Lisnavy Valdés Rodríguez and Rocío García Nápoles, about 11 years old, who were studying in primary school at the Quintín Banderas center, died after a balcony collapsed in Old Havana, between Vives and Revillagigedo streets, from the Jesus Maria neighborhood.

Neighbors of the place commented that the back of the building had begun to be demolished, but the area was not marked as would have been necessary to avoid situations like this.

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From 23 January Cuba will Require all Tourists to Complete a Digital Registration

Check-in desks at José Martí International Airport in Havana (14ymedio)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 12 January 2023 — Cuba will require all travellers to fill out an online form from the end of January (which will include personal and health related information) up to 48 hours before travelling, authorities on the Island announced on Thursday.

The measure was published on Thursday in the Gaceta Oficial and it will come into force from one minute past midnight on 23 January. The announcement had been made in a press conference by Rita María García, director of Aerial Transport and International Relations at the Cuban Institute for Civil Aviation.

The registration will be made on the “D’Viajeros” platform, which has been working in a test phase and which has so far been used by 1.7 million travellers.

The previous option of filing in a paper form on arrival at the airport will no longer be available. continue reading

“The filling out of forms in advance will minimise physical contact and shorten a traveller’s time in the epidemiological surveillance queue/line, which will help to avoid bottlenecks”, said Carmelo Trujillo, head of Sanitary Control at the Ministry of Public Health.

Once the form has been completed, including information about possible contacts with Covid-19 infection, the platform will generate a QR code which will be required to be shown at check-in of the airport of departure, as well as in Cuba on arrival.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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Activist is Beaten in Santiago de Cuba for Visiting Jose Daniel Ferrer’s Wife

Unpacu activist Rafael Puentes Cremé. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, January 4, 2022 — On Monday morning, 57-year-old activist Rafael Puentes Cremé was beaten and arrested after visiting the wife of José Daniel Ferrer at Unpacu’s headquarters in the city of Santiago de Cuba. During the arrest, an officer attempted to photograph the opponent with a sign that read “Long live Fidel and Raúl,” he denounced.

Puentes Cremé, who lives in Guantánamo, told 14ymedio that he traveled to the Unión Patriótica de Cuba (Unpacu) in the Altamira area of Santiago to offer his condolences to Nelva Ismarays Ortega Tamayo, Ferrer’s wife, following her mother’s recent death. As he was leaving the home he was intercepted by a man dressed in civilian clothing who demanded that he accompany him.

The activist refused to comply with the individual’s request; he said he belonged to State Security but never showed identification to prove it. Puentes, who is also a promoter of the Cuba Decide campaign, said that upon hearing his refusal, the presumed political police officer began beating him.

“I defended myself as best I could and I had some time to yell at the neighbors who were nearby that I was a peaceful activist who was being attacked by the political police.” The dissident showed us the abrasions on his knees as a result of the attack, his glasses, which the man broke, and also marks left by the beatings on his chest and abdomen.

Following the assault a patrol car arrived and took him to a hospital. “They took x-rays and other tests but they did not give me a report of the injuries,” explained Puentes who participated in the mass popular protests of July 11, 2021 [commonly referred to as ’11J’] which shook dozens of places throughout the Island. On that very day, before he was able to join the protests, Unpacu’s leader, José Daniel Ferrer, was arrested; he has been held since then without trial. continue reading

Once the medical exam was completed, the opponent was transferred to a police station known as El Palacete, where an officer who identified himself only as “Mario” lunged toward him with a stapler and placed a sign on his clothing that read, “Long live Fidel and Raúl.”

“As soon as I realized what the sign said and that they were trying to take pictures of me with that, I ripped it off.”

The dissident showed us the abrasions on his knees as a result of the attack. (14ymedio)

After he removed the paper and ripped it, Puentes says Mario beat him as punishment and threatened to charge him with assault. They finally released him at noon on Monday, but not before forcing him to sign a warning where he had to agree not to visit Santiago de Cuba again.

In the 1980s the activist was dedicated himself to teaching and after the economic crisis of the 90s he began working as a cobbler. At the beginning of this century he approached opposition groups in Guantánamo and later joined Unpacu.

The opposition organization’s headquarters for years has been the center of many police operations, perimeters with surveillance, and raids. Repeatedly the home has been raided by uniformed police officers who have arrested the activists inside and also confiscated computers, hard drives, and mobile phones.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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I Have a Friend Unjustly Imprisoned, His Name is Jose Daniel Ferrer

José Daniel Ferrer, leader of Unpacu, who is now imprisoned in Santiago de Cuba, shown in a file image. The sign reads “On Hunger Strike” (Capture)

Note from Translating Cuba: Somehow this article from December of last year got ‘missed’ and so we are posting it now.

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Desde Aquí, Havana, 12 December 2022 — I could add more names to the title, mentioning, for example, Félix Navarro or Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, but Jose (here without an accent) is the one who is having the worst time of all my friends in prison and he is one of all the prisoners for whom I have most appreciation.

Many see José Daniel Ferrer as that grim face that shoots slogans with an almost military tone, but I know the other one, the one who laughs at himself and who has more reading matter than all his jailers and most significantly, more than all those who identify themselves as “counterintelligence officers,” more than the prosecutors who put together his case, more than the judges who sentenced him.

In that dark corner that is euphemistically defined as a “punishment cell” Jose fights with an army of insatiable mosquitoes that suck his blood and leave him unbearably itchy. He does his best to ignore a permanent noise that doesn’t let him sleep or concentrate. Those are his worst enemies; worse than the henchmen who hijack his mail, kick him in the head, and mistreat his family.

During these Christmas days, while we enjoy the family warmth, Jose remains half-naked and only enduring the low temperatures of this tropical winter, in a humid and pestilential cell, but I know that his suffering is different. José Daniel Ferrer is suffering for us. The lines that have to be stood in to buy food hurt him, the blackouts hurt him, the loss of wages, the gag that does not allow protest, the sentences of the other innocents. continue reading

Everyone who has a friend unjustly imprisoned feels guilty for not doing something to free him: Write letters, make a public protest, organize a rescue team. José Daniel Ferrer has plenty of political maturity to understand everyone who has abandoned him; to understand those who, due to opportunism, ambition or cowardice, do nothing to get him out of there.

José Daniel Ferrer is my friend and he is unjustly imprisoned.

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Cuba: January 1959, Dorado was a Shampoo and the Utopia was a Fraud

It is not an exaggeration to associate that communist utopia with Pinocchio’s Land of Toys, imagined by Collodi, where vacations begin on January 1st and end on December 31st. (Netflix)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 4 January 2022 — The main marketing operation of certain leftist politics throughout the 20th century and so far in the 21st has been to sell an elusive product labeled utopia.

Any remotely decent person should feel miserable if they don’t agree with that chimera that tends to associate itself to an unreachable horizon, which should guide those who instead of believing that “a possible world is better” maintain that “a better world is possible.”

While it seems like a play on words, in the difference between one optic and the other lie the lives of nations and of people, because what is advisable at the end of the path is what determines the route and the route is the day-to-day, the life of those who purchase tickets to one destination or another.

Politicians shouldn’t have the right to place the fantasies of poets in their electoral programs nor in their justifications for holding on to power. Rarely have poets converted their verses into electoral slogans, though they’ve declared parties, “party until it stains,” as Gabriel Celaya defined “the necessary verses” when he said, “They are cries in the heavens and acts on earth.”

But the acts on earth have different consequences than cries in the heavens because time on earth is human and heavenly time is ethereal. This is why it is possible to say that Eden was the first documented utopia and, as is well known, it is Adam’s fault that it didn’t work. The first human disobeyed the rules and, with that, thwarted the original plan. The consequence was that Adam, along with his long lineage, was condemned to earning his sustenance through sweat, that is, work.

Karl Marx, who rarely needed to work to feed his family, imagined communist society as a place where material goods flowed, where those who benefited from them were free to spend their time on many recreational activities and where work would no longer be necessary, but rather be done for pleasure. continue reading

It is not an exaggeration to associate that communist utopia with Pinocchio’s Land of Toys, imagined by Collodi, where vacations begin on January 1st and end on December 31st. Work was not necessary, nor was school, but those who let themselves be fooled by these promises ended up dumb.

It is legitimate to suspect that leaders who promote these political utopias, be it scientific communism or 21st century socialism, know perfectly well that their biggest promises — those that are set in the long term, and for which they demand nameless sacrifices — will never be fulfilled. This is why triumphalism becomes a common denominator of these “leaders of peoples” who, in light of good will, appear to be blind, naive or delusional, when they are actually just cynical.

There are plenty of historical, literary and mystical examples that demonstrate the gross manipulation to which those individuals recruited into fanatical sects with the hope of reaching paradise on earth are subjected. Behind the slogans, teeming with bad poetry used to mobilize the masses, there is usually some theoretical foundation, almost always difficult to understand, for the consumption of the newly initiated. Further back, or further down, lies that unspeakable truth that is not even put on the table when the hierarchs are designing their ambitious plans.

In those cabals, everyone wears their mask and they all know the others wear them as well. Utopia is invoked like an invisible specter, the memory of some founding father is revered, and any act that suggests an intent to reveal the great secret is viewed with distrust… until one day reality appears at the window or knocks down the door.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Cuba: A Raspberry for the Little Dictator

A gentle ’tilt-up’ shows us the model’s shoes and suit, to end up in extreme close-up, with more filters than on Instagram. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, January 3, 2023 — Almost everyone has heard of the Golden Raspberry Awards, popularly known as the Razzies or the anti-Oscars, where the worst films and performances of the year are recognized. The video presented by Díaz-Canel to welcome 2023 could very well sweep those awards, if they were to consider it.

With violins in the background, the camera begins its journey revealing the Cuban flag behind some support columns. And there, in front of the sequestered plaza of a silent Martí, appears the divo of Placetas (not to be confused with Eduardo Antonio). A gentle tilt-up shows us the model’s shoes and suit, ending up in an extreme close-up, with more filters than Instagram.

The hand-picked president of Cuba has not learned (and will not learn) to read the teleprompter with ease. His gestures remind us of elementary school mornings, where some ‘pioneer’ recited verses without having the slightest control over the movement of his or her hands. The president’s makeup artists went above and beyond in their efforts to make him look like the late Walter Mercado, the famous Univision astrologer. And the worst thing, after the completely empty speech, was hearing a “venga la esperanza” [hope, come] said in such an inorganic way, that Corina Mestre herself, an official Politburo hack, must flatly deny having advised him.

We already know that the electric engineer (now also a doctor in who knows what subject) does not possess the characteristics for oratory. Although, to be honest, he has not shown to have the slightest idea about communication, economics, public administration, international law or diplomacy either. His very low level of English made him look ridiculous on his recent tour of the Caribbean. And it must be recognized that he has made a great effort to differentiate himself from Fidel Castro, who neither sang nor danced, but Miguelito did not hit a note either.

The whole world has recognized Vladimir Putin as the worst figure of the year. And the Cuban dictator went to Moscow a few months ago to lick the boots of the new Stalin. All of Europe took note of the meeting and very soon the smiling photo will begin to take its toll on the island’s regime. Díaz-Canel returned to Cuba from that trip with little more than a cold and new debts that he will not be able to repay. continue reading

Upon stepping on national soil, Cubans welcomed him with an historical level of abstention in municipal elections, demonstrating that fewer and fewer are pretending to believe in the dictatorship’s electoral farce. Now the National Electoral Council is in a rush, wondering what tricks they can come up with to avoid another disaster on March 26, 2023, when the time comes to unanimously renew Parliament. Math never falters. Considering Cubans’ behavior at the polls during the last electoral process , only a gigantic fraud would prevent a new record of abstention.

For the New Year’s video, Díaz-Canel donned a white jacket, perhaps to be in tune with the Letter of the Year, during which, according to the Ifá priests, Obatalá will be the ruling deity. Díaz-Canel forgets that on November 15, 2021, many Cubans were violently repressed for dressing in that color. He forgets that 2022 has been a terribly dark year, marked not only by the worst revolutionary blackouts, but also by perennial shortages, protests, persecution, exiles, banishment, and death.

In May we suffered the explosion of the Saratoga hotel, with a total of 47 fatalities. In August we dressed in mourning once again following the fire at the Supertanker Base in Matanzas, where 17 people lost their lives. And in October the disastrous history of the tugboat 13 de Marzo was repeated when 7 Cubans, including a two-year-old girl, lost their lives after the sinking of a boat off the coast of Bahía Honda.

For Díaz-Canel 2023 does not bode well, with the exception of “creative resistance”, a synonym for more misery, sacrifices and waiting. His only success has been to stay in power. However, in a country where people cannot freely elect their representatives, where a single party has a monopoly on weapons, where the courts are obedient inquisitors, that “success” is nothing more than a Pyrrhic victory.

The little dictator has already more than earned the rejection of the vast majority, though we do not have democratic and peaceful means to remove him from power. For his terrible performance, both in front of and behind the cameras, Díaz-Canel deserves more than a raspberry.

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An Inflation Rate Above 40 Percent in 2022 Sinks More Cuban Families into Poverty

Black beans, another staple of the national diet, is second on the list with a cost increase of 10.5%. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 9 January 2023 — The increase in food prices continues to push inflation in Cuba and accounts for 70% of the increase in the consumer price index last November. Restaurants and hotels (14%), which include breakfast, snacks and meals consumed outside the home, and transportation (5.5%) are the three sectors that contributed most to the variation that month, according to data published on Friday by the National Statistics and Information Office (ONEI).

November marked the third largest increase in the cost of food in the last 16 months, 6.2% relative to October as economist Pedro Monreal explains on Twitter. The Cuban expert highlighted that, without access to the data from December, he estimates the Island will end the year with an inflation rate above 40%, “close to the 46% estimated by the Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU). It would be a very high inflation rate with a ruinous effect on purchasing power,” he adds.

The increase in Consumer Price Index (CPI) this month was 4.1%, very similar to the previous month (4.2%), but the cumulative rate for the year is already at 34.05% and is over 40% when compared to November of 2021, a year which was even worse — despite last year’s catastrophic data — and ended with an official annual inflation rate of 70%. This year, analysts estimate that the real increase in prices in the informal market, which moves the Island’s real economy, was 740%.

With regard to food, which determines the inflation rate according to the authorities themselves, the prices increased 54.22% relative to October and 62.83% compared to November 2021, indicative of the untenable daily situation for millions of Cubans. Although pork prices continue to increase and have increased by more than 9% compared to last month, coffee heads the list with an increase of 11%. Black beans, another staple of the national diet, is second on the list with a cost increase of 10.5%. The prices of snacks and ham are also increasing, by more than 8%, but that of tomatoes has fallen by 2.4.%, a product for which the market price has been capped in several provinces, with uneven results. continue reading

In the hotel and restaurant sector, prices are increasing faster in the latter; of note are increases in the price of snacks (8.8%), prepared, to-go foods (5.7%) and breakfast and beverages, with an increase of 5.5% for each. In the case of transportation, another basic need of daily life for Cubans, it experienced an increase of 1.04%, most noticeable in long distance taxis (6.2%), auto repairs (4.4%) and other long distance transportation (4%). In the case of urban transportation, the increase is not small, with an increase of 3.5% compared with October.

The remaining areas analyzed to determine how the CPI behaved also increased in November (none decreased compared to the previous month), although their weight in the calculations is lower. Goods and services (1.67%) and Furniture and Home Goods (1.2%) are, in that order, the sectors with increases greater than 1%. All other sectors, including education, health, communications, recreation and home services, were below 1%.

However, if we observe the year-to-year variation, we can observe rapid increases in the price of activities, such as leisure (61.2% compared to November 2021) or alcoholic beverages and tobacco, 26.75% higher than the previous year.

The numbers show that the lauded strategies, in place since 2021, to improve agricultural production do not go beyond words and have no effect. The markets continue to experience shortages and prices increase, even without taking into consideration the asking price for products on the parallel market.

In this context, the Cuban government has been forced to continue turning to its northern enemy to obtain the small amount of chicken people fight over. In November there was a spectacular increase in the amount and price of this U.S. product in Cuba, at a total cost of $32.06 million. This was a 56% increase in value and a 70% increase in tons compared to the previous month.

Cuba purchased 27,136.7 tons of poultry from the neighboring country, compared to 15,980 in October and 25,100 in September. Nonetheless, the record for highest imports were in the months of February 2022 and December 2021 when they surpassed 30,000 tons. However, with the current price increases, the costs are much higher. The price for a kilogram of chicken declined slightly in November compared to October, when it reached an historic record of $1.29, and sold for $1.18, though the total expenditures for Cuba were higher because the total amount imported was greater.

“Even without December data, 2022 is already the second best year (after 2021) for U.S. chicken exports to Cuba, both in value and in tons. It is one of the best case studies on the ineffective agricultural policies in Cuba,” stated Monreal.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Cuban Dissident Oscar Elias Biscet is Arrested by State Security

Archive photo of the Cuban opponent Óscar Elías Biscet. (EFE/Paco Campos)

14ymedio/EFE, Havana, January 9, 2023 — Cuban opponent Óscar Elías Biscet, founder of the Emilia Project to restore democracy in Cuba, was arrested on Monday near his home in Havana, his wife, Elsa Morejón, confirmed to 14ymedio.

According to Morejón, he was arrested at 8 am on Milagro and 8th, in Lawton, where the family lives. There, “two patrol cars” with State Security agents were waiting for him. Since then, she has not heard from him.

This January 9 marks the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Emilia Project, and Biscet was going to a meeting with other leaders of that initiative when he was arrested.

Almost three years ago, the opponent was arrested for five hours, while State Security agents searched his house and took all kinds of electronic devices.

Biscet, age 58 and a doctor by profession, was arrested at the end of 2002 and sentenced to 25 years in prison during the so-called Black Spring. He was later released in 2011 as part of a negotiation process involving the Vatican and the Spanish Government. The dissident was also a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize and presided over the Lawton Human Rights Foundation. continue reading

After being released, under the condition of non-parole leave, he was only allowed to travel outside the Island on one occasion.

Creator of the Emilia Project and decorated with the Medal of Freedom of the United States Congress, Biscet began his rebellious work by criticizing the practice of abortions in Cuba, while working as a doctor.

Police records are a frequent repressive practice in Cuba and have been widely reported by national human rights organizations and international organizations.

The Emilia Project is named after one of the Cuban heroines, Emilia Teurbe Tolón, the first Cuban woman banished for political reasons.

“Those of us who subscribe to this document, inspired by its patriotic example, intend to carry out this project whose essential objectives are the conquest of fundamental human rights, democracy and the freedom of the Cuban people,” says the website.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The First Data for the Sugar Harvest in Cuba Confirm the Worst Official Forecasts

The sugar industry was an important economic engine in Cuba, but it suffered a drastic drop in production beginning in the 1990s. (Granma)

14ymedio, Havana, January 6, 2022 — As expected, sugar production in Cuba does not seem to surpass the worst prospects. In the first two months of the 2022-2023 cycle, only 69% of what was expected has been obtained, the state group Azcuba confirmed to the State newspaper Granma. The problems remain the same as in previous years: the lack of funding to acquire inputs and the energy crisis, says the Communist Party newspaper, in an article that moves away from the usual triumphalism, as reflected in the title: “It’s getting better, but not all the expected sugar is produced.”

The sugar harvest began at the end of November with the goal of producing 455,198 tons after the lean results of the previous year, when production closed at its lowest level of the last century, and only 68% of the 1.2 million tons planned was met.

Dionnis Pérez, director of Informatics, Communications and Analysis of the state monopoly, told the official newspaper that the small harvest — November and December — was 2.3 times higher than that of the previous campaign. This slight rebound is explained by the recovery of about 7,000 tons of sugar “in terms of industrial efficiency,” which improved yield by 1.14%, he explained. continue reading

However, the spokesman for the state group pointed out that only seven sugar mills complied with the small harvest plan, including the 14 de Julio (Cienfuegos), Melanio Hernández (Sancti Spíritus), Ciudad Caracas (Cienfuegos), Fernando de Dios (Holguín) and Héctor Rodríguez (Villa Clara).

With a 15-day delay, the Boris Luis Santa Coloma sugar mill, in Mayabeque, has the most delays in the production plan. Followed by the Mario Muñoz (Matanzas) and Enidio Díaz (Granma) mills, with four days, as well as Ciro Redondo (Ciego de Ávila) and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes (Camagüey), with two.

Pérez acknowledged that sugar production faces the same difficulties as a year ago, associated, on the one hand, with the lack of resources to buy the inputs and machinery necessary in the activities of the mills and the cultivation of cane, and, on the other, with the constant blackouts that the Island suffers at the time of repairs.

The sugar sector, which at other times was considered the engine of the Cuban economy, also operates with obsolete machinery and suffers from constant breakdowns. According to the official, the deficiencies that most affected the grinding occurred in the turbogenerators of the Urbano Noris (Holguín), Mario Muñoz (Matanzas) and 30 de Noviembre (Artemisa) power plants. In addition, there were problems in the air compressors in the mill of Dos Ríos (Santiago de Cuba) and in the centrifuges of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes (Camagüey).

To ensure production, the official added, the group will resort to cutting at the Primero de Enero headquarters (Ciego de Ávila), in addition to guaranteeing the early start of Ecuador (Ciego de Ávila), Antonio Sánchez (Cienfuegos) and Majibacoa (Las Tunas).

Twenty-three mills are participating in this harvest in order to “ensure sugar from domestic consumption and other prioritized destinations,” adds Granma’s note.

After having been one of the world’s leading exporters for decades, the Cuban sugar industry has collapsed and no longer covers domestic consumption, which ranges between 600,000 and 700,000 tons per year with the distribution of four pounds per person per month through the ration book. In recent years, Cuba had to import beet sugar from France to meet its internal needs and to be able to dedicate part of its production to export contracts signed in advance with China.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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