14ymedio

20 Cubans Arrive in Florida on a Raft with a Russian Kamaz Truck Engine

A group of rafters from Matanzas recorded their journey to Florida. (Collage)

14ymedio, Havana, 6 December 2022 — The Cuban Leitian Cedré shared on Facebook last Saturday two videos of the journey of at least 20 rafters who managed to disembark in the Florida Straits after 19 hours on the water. “I know that the brothers who could not come in this round will make it and they will be able to get out of suffering at any moment,” he confided.

The rafters, originally from the province of Matanzas, set sail in “one of the best rustics that has come out of Cárdenas,” Cedré proclaimed. A diesel engine from a Russian Kamaz V8 type truck was adapted to the raft. This type of vehicle is used on the island to transport sugarcane or merchandise.

Cedré recommended to those who are about to leave Cuba, to put “the spirit and fight into it a little more so that they see that everything is achieved.” No further details were provided about the rest of the group, while the rafter shared a second video in which they are fueling a boat, in which, he said, they will go fishing.

This Tuesday, the US Border Patrol took into custody 33 Cubans, seven women and 26 men, who managed to make landfall in the Florida Keys. The chief officer of the Miami sector, Walter Slosar, shared the images of two rafts in which the migrants arrived.

Slosar has documented in his networks the arrival of 88 Cubans so far in the last month of the year. Last Monday he reported two rustic boats in which 30 compatriots left the island. On Thursday, he commented on a raft with 25 people, including a child, from Matanzas who disembarked in Marathon. continue reading

As usual in these cases, the rafters have the option of requesting asylum, which implies demonstrating before an official or judge that their fear of returning to their country is justified. If the Cubans convince the relevant authorities, they are given a bond and can request asylum.

The US Coast Guard has thwarted the arrival of several groups of rafters in Florida. (@USCGSoutheast)

Several attempts to achieve the American dream have been thwarted by the United States Coast Guard. This Monday, 126 Cubans were repatriated aboard the ship Pablo Valent. Lieutenant Paul Puddington warned of the patrols being carried out in the Florida Straits, the Windward Passage and the Mona Channel “to prevent the tragic loss of life from these dangerous and illegal sea voyages.”

According to official figures, maritime surveillance has made it possible to thwart the arrival of 2,755 Cubans in Florida in the last three months. The US agency detailed that last year 6,182 rafters were detained.

The intercepted Cubans are returned to Cuba as part of a migration agreement between Washington and Havana, although on some occasions this does not happen, due to situations of credible fear of returning to the Island for repressive reasons. This is the case of 22 people, among whom is the activist Yeilis Torres Cruz, who are at the Guantanamo Base waiting for refuge in a third country.

The migratory crisis that the Island is experiencing is taking place above all by land. According to data from the US Department of Customs and Border Protection, 224,000 Cuban migrants arrived in the last year.

The crossing of the Rio Grand in the Mexican state of Coahuila, to reach the United States, continues to be a common route for island nationals. On Monday, the chief officer of the Border Patrol for the Valle sector, Texas, Gloria Chávez, reported the detention of “three groups of migrants” in the first four days of December, “a total of 420 migrants: 103 family members, 56 unaccompanied children, and 261 single adults from Cuba and several countries in Central and South America.”

#IslaEnFuga Llegan 20 cubanos a Florida en una balsa con el motor de un camión ruso Kamaz https://t.co/O38S84qNgZ | Video: Leitian Cedré/Facebook pic.twitter.com/ywFlSES27n

— 14ymedio (@14ymedio) December 6, 2022

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‘The Rate of New Business Failures in Cuba Predicted to Exceed 90 Percent if Changes Are Not Made’

Privately owned cafes are forced to import products the state will not sell them. (Leandro Perez Perez/Adelante)

14ymedio, Havana, 2 December 2022 — The report on small and medium-sized businesses (MSMEs) that the Camagüey newspaper Adelante published on Friday lays bare all the regulatory hurdles facing anyone trying to set up a business in Cuba. The situation is so bad that Miguel Hernandez Fernandez, a member of a local group trying to promote entrepreneurship in the province, warns, “The [business] failure rate in Latin America is around 80%. If conditions do not change, it will exceed 90% in Cuba.”

The article, entitled “One Year, Many Problems, Meager Production,” begins by warning of the difficulties faced by small and medium-sized businesses throughout the world in setting up shop. Little by little, however, the focus shifts to the root causes of the island’s particular issues.

One year after MSMEs became legal in Cuba, 181 companies — all of them private except one — had been given the green light. Of those, 68% are currently inactive. The article cites the high cost of obtaining and outfitting commercial real estate as well as the shortage of raw materials as the prime causes. But later in the article it becomes clear that some of these problems could be solved if there were the political will.

“Among the main obstacles are the drawn-out approval process and the legal limitations placed on business professionals. They come here with very good ideas but either Decree 49 prohibits their specific kinds of economic activity or they cannot engage directly in foreign trade,” says Ernesto Figueredo Castellanos, a provincial economic official. Both issues could be resolved by changing the law but the state’s efforts to retain control remains one of the big obstacles.

The shortage of hard currency is no small problem either. New businesses need it in order to buy raw materials but getting it is impossible because the banks simply do not have it. Figueredo Castellanos goes so far as to admit that, under these conditions, merchants can only replenish supplies by accepting donations or turning to the black market. Even then, buying things under the table is not really an option. “Their activities as a company are traceable, which does not allow them, for example, to shop for flour on the street, so many have had to import it.”

As a result, it is nearly impossible to get necessary supplies. One example described in the article is a cafe whose owners explain how they have to bring in everything from outside, including water, because the state will not sell them anything. “We have to get everything from the wholesale market or import it. That’s money that leaves the country and there is no way for me to claim it as a business expense. It also also increases costs, to say nothing of the rent,” notes Pedro Cespedes Aguilar, a partner at Alegre SRL. continue reading

Another complaint that businesspeople have is that they may enter into only one kind of business arrangement. “You can no longer invest in a limited liability corporation (sociedad de representación limitada or SRL) and be an administrator in another. It is illegal for Cuban citizens living abroad to be partners, which means finding anonymous partners outside the country because, under current conditions, Cuba needs liquidity to do business and acquire imports,” explains Figueredo Castellanos, who is very critical of the current regulations.

Those interviewed describe excessively high rents. Landlords are state-owned companies which charge 80,000 to 120,000 pesos, creating a financial burden for private businesses. “It would seem that companies would want to solve the rent problem,” says Hernandez Fernandez. He also notes that the level of computer skills remains very low. Registering an MSME is done through a digital platform without any support staff, and most of those filing applications do not have the required knowledge to do it.

“Communication with the Economics Ministry is something else that needs improving,” the article states. “During this investigation, it so happened that interested individuals wrote in but often received no response.”

“In Camagüey, there is an urgent need for the government to help private businesspeople connect with the rest of the local economy and develop a real relationship that enhances the regional development strategy. There are very good examples in Villa Clara and Havana that could well be implemented here,” says Hernandez Fernandez.

That is how Chefmigue has managed to survive. The company began production a year and a day after its business application was approved. The original intention was to produce fresh pastas but the price of wheat forced it to change course and it began processing fish for a state-owned company.

However, this is not without its own set of problems. The company is asking that it be allowed to import fishing gear, or hire fishermen, so it can obtain the best raw material. “The difference between the black market price and the one Fisheries wants to charge us is abysmal. And we don’t get access to the best fish. Lowering my costs would lower the price for consumers,” the owner claims.

“We cannot afford to get a divorce when what we urgently need is to join forces to increase the supply of goods and services for the people of Camagüey. We have to make sure that the sixty-four new food production MSMEs do not end up becoming part of the informal distribution network or leaving the province. To achieve this, they must be given the same attention as a state company,” said Yoseily Gongora Lopez, governor of Camagüey, in a meeting with businesspeople.”

Having the flexibility to import is a common theme among the businesspeople cited in the article. “If I could import flour directly, it would lower the cost of production along with the price consumers pay, which is our cost plus a 15% profit margin,” says Dayron, one of the founders of Marfoxi, a company which produces cookies, breads and other flour-based products. The owner reports that electrical blackouts have slowed production, which has motivated him to set up his own mill.

Madiu Quiroga Gomez, head of the Provincial Territorial Development Group believes several changes must be made next year if there is to be progress. “The new players need the option of managing collections and payments in hard currencies themselves and thus having cash flow out of the country. [It is important to] to support transparency in bidding procedures and the awarding of contracts, to promote national investment by Cubans in the economy and, above all, to develop training courses and opportunities for people not covered by current legislation,” she suggests.

The article ends by urging the state to get involved in finding solutions. The interested parties do not want it to completely let go of the reins, however. “You have to build it on the basis of state control,” it reads, “with the government playing a coordinating role, and with collaboration between the state and private companies steadily ’rowing’ towards a sound and sustainable economy.”

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“We Will Never Return to Cuba, We Will Not Have the Exiles’ Crick in the Neck”

The exhibition ’Martín Domínguez El exilio otro’ was inaugurated at the Taller Gorría Gallery, in Old Havana on December 5. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 6 December 2022 — An exhibition entitled Martín Domínguez El exilio otro [the Other Exile], inaugurated at the Taller Gorría Gallery in Old Havana on December 5 (coincidentally, the Day of the Builder in Cuba), did justice to the Spanish architect Martín Domínguez Esteban (1897-1970) who was behind works as important as the Focsa building, Radiocentro (today the Yara cinema and headquarters of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television), the current Ministry of Communications, the Marianao City Hall and numerous homes.

We say that he “was behind” because his name did not appear as a signing architect but as “treasurer” or “decorator” and this was because Domínguez never managed to have his professional title revalidated in Cuba.

He escaped from Francoist Spain where he had been “purged for life” for his role in building the military defenses of the Republican side of Madrid in 1936. He arrived in Havana, by the way, in January 1937 and stayed in this city for more than a quarter of a century.

Despite the burden of not being able to show a recognized title, many used his services, including former president Ramón Grau San Martín, who entrusted him with his summer residence in Varadero. continue reading

His son relates that Domínguez replied that he felt conservative in regards to the private family and liberal in politics. (14ymedio)

At the beginning of the Revolution, he participated in the construction of popular houses promoted by the National Institute of Savings and Housing. His reputation led him to the office of Commander Ernesto Guevara, who openly asked him for his political position. His son relates that Domínguez replied that he felt conservative in regards to the private family and liberal in politics. “We’re doing badly, Galician,” said the Argentine, and that same day he decided to leave Cuba.

He collected what he could carry in his car and put it on the ferry that still offered trips between Havana and Miami. He was in that city for a very short time because he decided to settle in New York.

Still in Miami, his son, a clever boy with the same name and who has also followed a career as an architect, was probing him to find out how that adventure would end. And this was the unforgettable response he received: “We are never going to return to Cuba. We are not going to have the exiles’ crick in the neck, like the Spaniards who said ’in two months we will be back in Madrid’. We are not going back to Cuba, we must look ahead and rebuild.”

And he didn’t come back. He died in New York in September 1970 at the age of 72 knowing that wherever he went he left a lasting and useful mark. His work is studied today on the subject of Modern Cuban Architecture. This exhibition, which will be open to the public until December 12, pays tribute to him and fills an unacceptable gap in the memory of Cubans.

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Cuban Bishops Call for Freedom for a ‘Good Number’ of Prisoners at Christmas

Prelates reflect on the current Cuban reality, but avoid explicit mention of the Government’s responsibility in the situation. (COCC)

14ymedio, Havana, 1 December 2022 — On Wednesday, the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba published a message in which it signaled “the hunger, loneliness and lack of freedom” experienced by the citizens of the Island and once again called for freedom for the political prisoners. The statement, whose theme is the preparation for Christmas, also recalls that 25 years ago the Government agreed to declare the day as a holiday.

The bishops announced the visit, this coming January, of Cardinal Beniamino Stella, who served as apostolic nuncio — ambassador of the Vatican on the Island — during the Special Period. Stella, a top diplomat and critic of Castroism, was the one who organized the trip of Pope John Paul II in 1998, the first made by a pontiff to Cuba.

The commemoration of the half-century of that visit, which “marked the history” of relations between the Catholic Church and the Cuban Government, was proposed by the bishops to Pope Francis at a recent meeting in Vatican City. Beginning January 24, Stella will tour all Cuban dioceses, the statement says.

The rest of the message is dedicated by the prelates to reflecting on the current Cuban reality, avoiding the explicit mention of the responsibility of the Government in the different crises that the country is experiencing. They suggest that an atmosphere of “fear, distrust, daily routine, lies and hatred” prevails in Cuba.

They alluded to “the families who suffer emigration” and called, cryptically, to recognize the “signs,” that are “guiding, encouraging and warning us of the dangers” in the country in which our history is being “woven.” They also regretted the “pain and loneliness of so many elderly people, sick or suffering from serious difficulties and deficiencies.” continue reading

At the most critical moment of the statement, the bishops mentioned “those who suffer hunger, loneliness, lack of freedom and who expect from us a gesture of clemency or mercy. How much joy it would bring for their families and people in general to know that, this Christmas, a good number of those who are imprisoned would be granted freedom and returned to their homes to re-insert themselves into their usual lives and begin the new year!” they declared.

The requests of amnesty for the prisoners have been frequent on the part of the Catholic Church, which in 2015 took advantage of the visit of Pope Francis and managed to get the Government to release more than 3,500 inmates. However, it has had little success in its demands for release of Cubans detained after the protests of July 11, 2021.

They called for the hope of the Cuban people “in the midst of so much darkness and discouragement,” and to commit to the transformation of history “from within.” “No one can fight in life in isolation,” they said, while pointing out the need for a “community, a homeland of brothers where everyone can live with dignity, where we listen to each other and engage in dialogue to discern the future, where we fight for the good of all, especially those who have been marginalized for different reasons.”

The text concludes by sending the blessing of the prelates to the Cubans of the Island and to those who are “dispersed around the world.”

For Jorge, a Catholic layman from the diocese of Santa Clara consulted by 14ymedio, the message of the bishops “has to do more with forgiveness,” although “the situation in Cuba stands out: hopelessness, sadness, divisions.”

“Some of us believe that the messages could be more out front against the Government,” he says, “but the bishops didn’t forget the families who suffer from the emigration of their members, the condition of the prisoners, the pain and loneliness of the elderly, those who suffer great shortages and lack of liberty. It’s a very simple message that is more about hope,” he says.

Jorge points out that the most interesting thing in the statement is the announcement of Cardinal Stella’s visit, “a nuncio who knows our reality perfectly.” The Vatican envoy will find, he thinks, “a Government that is on the defensive,” which will not welcome this visit or will interpret it as “supervision.” In addition, “they won’t have much time to prepare.”

Cardinal Beniamino Stella’s last visit to the Island took place in 2015, in the midst of the “thaw” between Cuba and the United States. His return occurs in a similar context, when new attempts at dialogue are being developed between the two Governments, which, unlike the last time, have dispensed with the mediation of the Catholic Church.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Hundreds of Young Cubans Dedicate Themselves to Robbing Ciego de Avila Farms

Bananas in La Cuba, located in Ciego de Ávila. (Invasor)

14ymedio, Havana, 6 December 2022 — To the multiple obstacles that complicate the work of banana producers in Ciego de Ávila – debts, bureaucracy, lack of agricultural inputs and a lousy distribution system – another one has been added: the violent theft of bunches of the fruit.

The list does not even include sales to the tourism sector. After several years of sale, the farmers realized that the Ministry of Tourism itself was cheating them. Victor Limia, official of the provincial direction of Finances and Prices, did not dare to admit it to the newspaper lnvasor.

“Either there are costs that have not been contemplated and they have to adjust the sale price, or Tourism imposed a purchase price ignoring the real value of what happens in the field,” he limited himself to saying. “We have to check the files,” he conceded.

With 70 million pesos in losses at the end of November, the case of the Ciego de Ávila agricultural company La Cuba – famous for the “exuberant productions” of yesteryear, affirms the province’s Communist Party newspaper – is a notable example of the gap between investment and gain.

The additional cost of La Cuba is 20 million pesos above the annual plan. The dilemma could be resolved if the administrators dispense with the purchase of fertilizers. But, without them, the company’s production would be mediocre, calculates Invasor. It is a vicious circle that affects, first of all, the pocket of the producer, who must forget about the advances and juggle to repay the credits on time.

Local officials, led by Liván Izquierdo Alonso, first secretary of the Communist Party in Ciego de Ávila, visited the company and concluded the obvious: the farmers “are earning very little.” continue reading

Izquierdo Alonso walked through the furrows and talked with the producers. Faced with the complaints of Armelio Díaz, a farmer of almost 60 years, the Party cadre said: “No, you have to earn more, because it is very hard work to hoe the fields starting from dawn.” Díaz replied that he usually couldn’t have breakfast, and that he had to make lunch at his house “because there isn’t any at the company.”

But even if the working conditions were given, the other great impediment to normal production is robbery in the banana plantations and banditry, which is increasingly violent. “Last night they almost killed me,” said Jorge Virella, another farmer. “The bananas are stunted and the theft of the bunches makes things worse. The bandits come in carts and they completely clean you out.”

Although the thieves were captured, there are hundreds of young people in the Avilanian countryside dedicated to robbing farms. The situation has worsened for exactly one year. In 2021, 38 of these criminal acts were registered in La Cuba, and the numbers, according to its directive at the time, “are not enough to describe the magnitude of the problem.”

Of those cases, the Police could only solve 20, which involved thieves from the three municipalities that surround the lands of La Cuba: Primero de Enero, Ciro Redondo and Baraguá. Half remained unclear, despite the fact that the company’s workers provided “lists of names of people who do not work and have been seen loaded with bananas or have engaged in pre-criminal behavior.”

“Everyone here knows who they are and they don’t even have a warning letter,” they denounce. With the shortages and the food crisis, criminals have redoubled their robbery attempts and have become even more aggressive against the farmers. Since then, the official newspaper affirms, they have used clandestine warehouses to store the hundreds of pounds of stolen bananas, which they transport in private trucks.

The bandits that the producers of La Cuba continue to complain about “go out at night in eight wagons and attack in groups throwing stones, shooting arrows with pieces of iron… In the face of this organized band, many, unprotected, fear for their safety; above all because blows and wounds are already experienced,” affirms Invasor.

At the end of 2021, the official newspaper reported a series of “energetic” measures taken by the provincial prosecutor’s office to intimidate thieves. A few days before the close of the year 2022, the situation remains the same.

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Cuban Embassy in Madrid Activates an Alarm to Ward Off Otero AlcAntara’s Friends

Amnesty International and some friends of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara brought a cake to the Cuban Consulate in Madrid. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Madrid, 2 December 2022 — About twenty activists from Amnesty International (AI) and friends of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara gathered this Friday in front of the Cuban Embassy in Madrid to remember the birthday of the artist, who has been in prison since July 11, 2021, and to demand his release .

Olatz Cacho, spokesperson for the NGO in Spain, knocked on the door of the diplomatic headquarters with the intention of leaving a cake and a letter addressed to Otero Alcántara, but was ignored. “A fire alarm started to sound,” he told 14ymedio. “They have not opened the door for us or told us anything. We have been there for a while but then we have had to return, with a rather uncomfortable noise in our ears.”

The objective, according to Cacho, was to celebrate the anniversary of Luis Manuel, who turns 35 this December 2. “We want him to be released immediately and unconditionally. He has already been in jail for two years and he is a prisoner of conscience who should never have spent a single day there,” the activist asserted. continue reading

Along with AI were several friends of Alcántara, including Luz Escobar, Julio Llópiz-Casal, Carolina Barrero, Solveig Font, Nonardo Perea and Yanelys Núñez. Those gathered remembered some of the artist’s performances, such as ¿Dónde está Mella? [Where is Mella?], with which in 2016 he became a living statue of the student leader Julio Antonio Mella to ask where his statue, which was located in the Manzana de Gómez, had ended up after his conversion into a luxury hotel.

Núñez spoke with Alcántara yesterday and told this newspaper that the artist was “fine, there, surviving.” The activist said that, at least, the leader of the San Isidro Movement had not had problems with other common prisoners, as has happened on other occasions, and that he had no health problems. “Today he had a visit from the family, luckily, that’s a good thing, so he doesn’t spend his birthday too far from the people he loves.”

Alcántara is serving a five-year sentence in the maximum security prison of Guanajay, Artemisa, for the crimes of insulting the symbols of the country, contempt and public disorder.

The artist was arrested on July 11, 2021 before being able to join the protest that day in Havana and tried along with several people, including rapper Maykel Castillo Osorbo, also in prison now for political crimes.

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There Will be a Third Round for the Municipal Elections in 9 Constituencies in Cuba

The polling stations reopened this Sunday in Cuba for the second round of the municipal elections. (Wilfredo Yera/Invader)

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 5 December 2022 — On Sunday, Cuba celebrated the second round of the elections of the delegates to the municipal assemblies of People’s Power in 925 constituencies, with a call to the polls of almost one million voters.

The National Electoral Commission (CEN) reported that on this day 2,748 polling stations were enabled for voting in constituencies where none of the candidates proposed by residents reached more than half of the valid votes in the elections held on November 27.

The president of the CEN, Alina Balseiro, told state television that the elections have taken place “with discipline and organization” and that their final results will be announced next Wednesday, December 7. The official also added that there was “a high rate of participation,” although no data has been released so far to support it.

Participation in the first round of these elections was 68.58% (31.42% abstention), the lowest since 1976, when this type of voting began on the Island.

That figure represented 5.7 million Cubans out of a total of just over 8.3 million called to the polls and 11,502 delegates were then elected, according to preliminary data on the results released by the CEN authorities. In addition, more than 10% of people voted blank or null. continue reading

Balseiro indicated this Sunday that nine constituencies from seven provinces are expected to hold a third round next Thursday. In those cases there are those where there are ties between two candidates or none of the proposed obtain more than half of the valid votes.

According to CEN authorities, in the 15 provinces there was at least one municipality in the second round and Havana and the eastern Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo and Granma were the regions with the largest number of polling places on this occasion, due to the high numbers of registered voters. on your electoral roll.

The function of the municipal delegates consists of “exercising government, to intervene in state decisions that affect the entire community” and they will represent the problems, complaints and opinions of their constituency, according to the website of the National Assembly.

The candidacies of the delegates are proposed directly by the residents of the electoral constituencies – although independent candidacies are hindered to prevent them from prospering – while those of the deputies to Parliament are entrusted to candidacy commissions.

Based on the results of the process, on December 17 the municipal assemblies will be constituted, in addition to the election of their presidents and vice presidents and the appointment of secretaries.

The election of delegates to the municipal assemblies of Popular Power is held every five years and is the first step in the electoral process that will close in 2023 with the gradual renewal of the country’s main political positions, including the President of the Republic, a position to which the current head of state, Miguel Díaz-Canel, can run for a second term.

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“With These Prices You Can’t Do Anything” Protest the Tenants of Rice Land

Rice cultivation in Los Palacios, Pinar del Río. (Cubadebate)

14ymedio, Havana, 30 November 2022 — Ten days have been enough for the pinareños [people of Pinar del Río] who requested idle land to grow rice, encouraged by the visit of Deputy Prime Minister Jorge Luis Tapia Fonseca, to be disappointed. “If I knew it was going to be like that, I wouldn’t have requested land. They gave me two caballerías* and I’m grateful because before it was difficult to get any area. But with these prices I can’t do anything,” Yoserky López Llobera tells the provincial newspaper Guerrillero.

The young man worked at the Jorge González Ulloa cooperative, one of the largest grain producers in the country, until a few years ago, with about 100,000 quintales** according to the newspaper, but its harvest has plummeted. Coming from the outskirts of Sierra Maestra, where 800 of the more than 1,000 hectares ceded in usufruct by the Agroindustrial Grain Company of Los Palacios are located, the boy was one of the 200 employees who were left without work due to the decrease in production.

Ariel García Pérez, director of the company, said that the delivery of land that was no longer used due to lack of resources would be beneficial, although the transfer was barely 10% of the total available. “They provided me with two caballerías of land, which were broken up according to the old cost sheet,” says Loivan Hano Abrahantes, who already had land and requested more. “The rice needs no less than four cultivations, which amounts to about 5,000 pesos. It costs 10,800 just for preparation, not counting the rest of what needs to be invested.”

Hano, who belonged to the cooperative, had his land broken up as of November 22, like Yoserky López, but they still haven’t signed the invoice for the change in the cost sheet. continue reading

“What the deputy prime minister explained during his visit was that the minimum per hectare*** was about 13,000 pesos of profit, but now they changed the price of everything: water, seed, transport, and if there is no technological package (kit of fertilizers, pesticides and other chemicals that has been distributed for years), we practically sow at our own risk. That was not what they said at the beginning,” protests Hano Abrahantes, who adds other problems.

To the expenses are added obstacles from the municipality, which requires him to harvest rice in a month but still won’t give him credit. In addition, he claims that there is a five-month delay in payment.

“This is new. No one ever thought that agriculture could be done without a technological package. Today the technology package is the land, man, water, and fuel that can be acquired,” says Yoannis Campos Segura, president of the cooperative.

Another of the producers consulted, Agustín Echeverría, has found replacements for the technological package, and his rice is doing better, but he doesn’t stop complaining either. “Here they haven’t come to explain anything, neither from the Bank, nor from the CAI (Agroindustrial Azucarero Complex, which delivers fertilizers), nor from transport. Meanwhile the rice continues without sowing, and the farmer without work.”

According to him, since Tapia Fonseca passed through the area, about 50 producers have joined, but he wonders how they will be able to sow, if they can’t make a profit with the increase in prices.

The price of the quintal of wet rice husk, when sold to the company, rises between 1,000 and 1,300 pesos depending on the cost sheet. “There are many producers who have to apply for a credit, and 53 of them are cut off. First they must become customers of the Bank, and according to their policy, they must present a co-debtor with no less than 35,000 pesos,” adds Campos Segura.

In his opinion, along with the technical and chemical limitations, there is the money: “The most effective way for there to be production is through approving credit for the certain, effective producer so that, even if the Company can’t provide help, the farmer can can hire individuals, either through SMEs**** or through a contract in the cooperative, with the prices set by mutual agreement.”

The official points out an additional problem: there are those who have applied for a loan from the bank and, once granted, leave the country. Agustín Echeverría, along that line, accuses young people of a lack of commitment to the land. “What the young people do is come for a year, harvest a small amount, collect the money and leave. That way we can’t raise production either.”

Since the lands in Pinar del Río were ceded in usufruct, a process that was — they explain — fast, because the land will also be used for livestock, 70 people, most of them unemployed, are in the process of joining the cooperative, and there are 27 farmers who have expanded their area.

The Jorge González Ulloa groups together 320 associates, of which 290 are rice farmers and, according to Campos Segura, “a wooden housing module will be assigned, with a solar panel, so that the farmer can remain on his lot and give it the attention that cultivation requires. This would also help the family’s connection to the field.”

Translator’s notes:
*Caballeríasare an ancient Spanish land measure of varying size, about 33 acres in Cuba.
** Quintales are a unit of mass, typically 100 pounds.
*** One hectare equals 2.5 acres.
**** SMEs are small and medium-size enterprises.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Official Version is a ‘String of Lies,’ Claims the Mother of a Young Man who Died in the Bahia Honda Speedboat Attack

Yeni Meizoso insists that the Cuban government maintains the version against her son because he is dead, otherwise he could refute it. (Collage)

14ymedio, Havana, 4 December 2022 — Yeni Meizoso Fabelo, the mother of one of those who died in the sinking of a boat in Bahía Honda, on October 27, has come out to deny the official version, despite the pressure received by the Government. “Do you know why they say it? Because that son of mine is now dead,” were her harsh words in a message posted on networks in which she demanded “that they no longer tell lies.”

Meizoso Fabelo begins her moving story by referring to her son, Yerandy García, as “the one killed by the Border Guard Troops,” about whom “they told a string of lies.” The mother’s position contrasts with the official who blames the migrants for the incident. The woman explained that the agents first broke the motors of the boat and then hit them on the side.

Since the first testimonies came to light, State Security has harassed and pressured survivors to change the initial version of the ramming of the boat in which seven migrants died, including a two-year-old girl, while trying to leave the Island. “They don’t want to see the truth or they don’t want you to tell the truth,” added Garcia’s mother, whom the regime accuses of having organized the group that was on board the boat.

“I need them to continue investigating so that they see that this is a lie and that Yerandy never in his life looked for people for the group, to leave, because he happened to be at my house that morning,” she continued recounting in a video shared by journalist Mario Pentón. The woman insisted that the Government maintains the version against her son because he is dead, otherwise he could refute it. continue reading

“I ask that they analyze that and go there to see how deep it is. At no time did that boat leave the place, that boat, when its engines broke, it could not move from there and they pushed it aside,” she insisted, accusing the Border Guard ship of ramming the migrants.

The Government attributes the responsibility to Héctor Meizoso, who lost three relatives, for organizing the group. In addition, the authorities insist that García was a coast guide for the illegal boats, like Michel Arronte Sánchez, who is in custody. But the border guards do not appear on the list of culprits.

The Home Office investigation concluded that the collision was “virtually unavoidable” because “the boat had already gotten into [the path of the Border Guard patrol] from a sharp turn.” Víctor Álvarez Valle, an agency specialist, described the event as “a human trafficking operation organized from the United States by sanctioned persons” in Cuba.

The official reconstruction of the events indicates that the boat had 26 people on board and 13 15-gallon fuel tanks, although it was initially designed for six passengers. 150 meters from the coast of Bahía Honda, with a swell of 0.5 to 1.5 meters in height, the border guards collided with the boat.

The authorities affirm that the boat was illuminated as on all occasions, but its driver, shouting “the Griffin is coming!”, turned sharply to avoid the encounter, hitting the seabed. The Government assures that “there were no invasive or aggressive actions” and that it was, instead, the weight of the boat and the movement that caused it to collapse.

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Two Mothers of 11 July (11J) Prisoners Were Detained for a Few Hours Along with the Leader of the Ladies in White in Cuba

Norabel Herrera and Marilin Cabrera managed to evade the repressive siege of State Security and join Soler. (Angel Moya Acosta)

14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 5 December 2022 — The leader of the Cuban dissident collective Damas de Blanco [Ladies in White], Berta Soler, was arrested this weekend along with the mothers of two prisoners for the massive protests of July 11, 2021 (11J), the regime opponent Ángel Moya reported on Monday.

Norabel Herrera and Marilin Cabrera managed to evade the repressive siege of State Security and join Soler, who has already been detained 32 times since she decided to resume her Sunday protests at the beginning of the year and with the release of those detained for 11J as the main reason.

Moya explained on his Facebook profile that his wife and leader of the Ladies in White was arrested, as is customary, when she was trying to leave the headquarters of her association in Havana on Sunday morning, together with Herrera and Cabrera.

Soler, who was fined 30 pesos, was released this morning, hours after the other two women were released, Moya said.

Since the 9/11 demonstrations, several people have been detained for protesting for the release of their relatives. Some members of the family of political prisoner Andy García, detained in Villa Clara, have been harassed and interrogated on several occasions by State Security this year.

In February, Yudinela Castro Pérez, mother of 18-year-old Rowland Castillo Castro, was arrested in Villa Marista, Havana, for demanding her son’s release. The same thing happened with Migdalia Gutiérrez Padrón, mother of one of the protesters from La Güinera, detained by the Police during the anniversary of 11J for wearing white. continue reading

Bárbara Farrat , mother of the young Jonathan Torres Farrat, only 17 years old, was imprisoned for several hours on December 24, 2021, for claiming that Cuban families should be together during Christmas and the end of the year. State Security has threatened Farrat several times with the possibility of prosecuting her for sedition.

Berta Soler is one of the founders of the Ladies in White, a group that emerged at the initiative of several women, relatives of the 75 dissidents and independent journalists -including Moya- convicted during the 2003 wave of repression known as the “Black Spring.”

The European Union and the NGOs Human Right Watch and Amnesty International criticized that wave of arrests and convictions, describing them as political. The Cuban authorities alleged that the accused dissidents were violating national sovereignty on orders from the United States.

The Ladies in White received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament in 2005.

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Pablito, and Selective Historical Memory

Pablo Milanés performed for the last time in Cuba, in June, in a concert not without tension and polemic. (Pablo Milanés Archive)

14ymedio, Ariel Hidalgo, Miami, 3 December 2022 – Those who today, even after his death, reproach Pablo Milanés for what he said or stopped doing in previous times, have a very selective memory. The majority of people who lived during the first two decades of the Revolution belonged to the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution and were present at the mass rallies in Revolution Square. So did those, who, not as long ago, supported in one way or another the condemnation of asylum seekers in the Peruvian Embassy or those who emigrated from the port of Mariel. These days many of them condemn Pablito for his past, but not for anything in the world do they acknowledge criticism of their own past.

You could understand criticism of anyone who left Cuba before 1968, a period when, through the so called “Revolutionary Offensive“, everything remained controlled by the Party-State elite, when it wasn’t yet possible to work independently of the state, and it was imperative, if you wanted to get a job, to be part of the so-called “organisations of the masses”. These people didn’t really live in a totalitarian dictatorship. But to those who lived through it you have to say: “don’t ask others to do what you weren’t able to do, and don’t criticise others for doing what you too, in one way or another, also did yourself”.

If you say that Pablito was very late in correcting things in order to be on the right side of history, then what exactly is the right moment for separating the “early” from the “late”? Perhaps the day they “changed their opinion”? And if our melodic poet changed his opinion very late then what can we say about those who haven’t yet done so themselves, but could still one day do so? continue reading

And this is the message that he is sending to them: “Dear repressors, keep repressing the people. Dear police and soldiers, keep supporting the tyranny. Dear intellectual apologists, keep on defending the disgrace. All of you, carry on supporting those responsible for the misery and oppression of all the people, because, at the end of the day, the eternal condemnation of History will inevitably fall upon you”.

I don’t know about History, but with this message the ignominy will be maintained far beyond these guys’ lives, and the guiltiest people will be quite happy with this tremendous service that they are giving them.

If you announce to the defenders of a besieged garrison that they’ll all be executed when the stronghold is overrun, then nobody will surrender and the battle will be prolonged, because everyone will fight to the death at the cost of more lives on both sides, that is if there’s anyone left surviving at all.

On the other hand, it has to be said that if we are fighting for a Cuba in which all the rights and liberties of its citizens are to be respected, then you have to respect the rights of those who still believe in, and defend, the badly named Revolution, without violating the rights of those who think differently. But one needs to send a different message to those from the other side who violate those rights — a message like the one that the glorious Oswaldo Payá launched at his persecutors: “I don’t hate you Brother, but I’m not afraid of you either”.

I pity those who still call for “those guilty of the Cuban tragedy to be hung from guasima trees with barbed wire”, a view generally held more commonly among those who have suffered the least, those who ignore the lessons of history and wish for the repetition of the same mistakes that brought us to this calamitous situation; those who packed the squares and yelled for the death of those supposed guilty of other mistakes of the past and later were forced to go into exile or wound up in prison. Or, worse, like that commander of the Revolution, doctor Sorí Marín, who signed the decree of executions and was later executed himself for the law which he himself redacted. So many innocent people lost their lives in front of firing squads having been sentenced without due process.

History’s reach goes further than this; when they said that there could not have been anything worse than the machadato [1920’s tyrannical government of president Machado], and, after that was over, the mobs took to the streets to lynch anyone who was marked out as a porrista [government cheerleader], though it was never proven, and they were dragged through the streets in a general chaos which Machado himself prophesied whilst boarding the plane that took him to exile — a chaos that has continued to this day — well later came even worse: el batistato [the Batista regime]. And many said: “there can’t be a regime worse than this”. And the blood flowed, and it carried on flowing, after the arrival of a newer, and worse regime still. And today they’re still saying the same thing.

Enough. We have to put an end to this prolific chain of tyrannies — an end to hatred and reprisal, each time more shameful than the last — before we all drown in a sea of blood.

We cannot build a republic of peace on the foundations of the gallows. Or as a visionary named José Martí once said about the Russian revolutionaries of his time: “The steel of incentive is no use for the founding hammer”.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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Cubalex Denounces 26 ‘Incidents of Repression’ During the Municipal Elections

The high abstention rate, for Cuba’s participation rates, marked this Sunday’s elections. (14 and a half)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 1 December 2022 — Cubalex reported this Wednesday that, so far, it has documented 26 incidents of repression during the elections for delegates to the municipal assemblies last Sunday.

According to the organization, these events occurred in at least seven provinces of the island, with the largest number, 12, concentrated in Havana.

The organization points out that, according to the data collected, “the Cuban authorities continue to use the criminal investigation procedures, provided for by law, as a repressive instrument.”

Likewise, Cubalex registered “13 incidents of harassment” with 34 victims, of which 20 were women and 14 were men.

Among the actions detected by the group is the obstruction of “political participation, arbitrary arrests, surveillance operations and selective internet cuts.”

According to the organization, the objective was mainly focused on preventing activists from being able to act as observers during election day.

It also added that the relatives of the demonstrators imprisoned for their participation in the 11 July 2021 (11J) protests “were threatened with the transfer of their children to remote prisons and with harming them in court if they made publications contrary to the elections.”

Last Sunday, Cuba held the municipal elections in which the highest percentage of abstentions was registered since 1959.

Preliminary data from the National Electoral Council (CEN) released on Monday show that 31.42% of the eligible voters did not go to the polls. This is a particularly high figure on the Island, which is used to participations above 85%.

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Cuban Carlos M. Alvarez Wins the Anagrama de Cronica Award with a Book on the San Isidro Movement

Álvarez’s work is a review of Castroism not only as an expression of state power, but also as “a habit, a culture, a doctrine that shapes you emotionally and intellectually.” (Facebook/Carlos Manuel Alvarez)

14ymedio, Havana, 30 November 2022 — Cuban writer and journalist Carlos Manuel Álvarez won the Sergio González Rodríguez Anagrama/UANL Chronicle Award this Tuesday in Mexico with his unpublished book Los intrusos [The Intruders]. According to the author, the text addresses his “long quartering” with the San Isidro Movement, in November 2020.

The award jury was made up of the writers Juan Villoro, Leila Guerriero and Martín Caparrós, the editor Silvia Sesé and the Secretary of Extension and Culture of the University of Nuevo León, José Javier Villareal, who made the decision public during the Fair International Book of Guadalajara, Mexico

Los intrusos – presented under the pseudonym Yorik – won among the forty manuscripts submitted to the contest, which celebrates its fourth edition this year. The endowment of the prize, offered by the Anagrama Chair of the University of Nuevo León, is 10,000 euros.

After learning of the ruling, Álvarez thanked the jury in a Facebook post and defined his text as a “mixture of reporting, testimony, profile and memory,” and attributed to the protest in San Isidro an irreversible change in the “political-sentimental map of the Island”.

The book, in the words of its author, constitutes an intimate account of his experience with State Security, and a theoretical exploration of the terms “revolution, dictatorship, language, and totalitarianism.” continue reading

“We are not victims who suffer Orwellian customary repression, nor are we actors subject to the closed framework of the Cold War, but individuals who fight and lead another possible conflict of modernity and its truncated horizons,” Álvarez points out, referring to the new generation of opponents. inside and outside Cuba.

The writer adds that his work is a review of Castroism not only as an expression of state power, but also as “a habit, a culture, a doctrine that shapes you emotionally and intellectually.” In short, it is a question of describing the “aesthetics of militancy at risk,” Álvarez emphasizes.

As for his companions from the San Isidro Movement – most of them in exile or suffering prison, such as Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Castillo ’Osorbo’ – Álvarez defines his chronicle as “a dizzying operation” for the San Isidro strikers, whom he thanks “the treasure of being able to belong.”

The violent eviction of the strikers from San Isidro, on November 26, by State Security agents dressed in protective suits (the excuse was that the activists had violated the covid protocols), in turn provoked the solidarity of more than 300 artists gathered the next day in front of the Ministry of Culture to request dialogue with the authorities. Álvarez is interested in leaving a record of those days through an artistically worked story, even if it refers to real events and characters.

Carlos Manuel Álvarez was born in Cárdenas, Matanzas, in 1989, and lives in New York. For his report Tres niñas cubanas, [account of event in English] published in the magazine El Estornudo – of which he is the founder – he was awarded the Don Quixote Prize for Journalism, in 2021. He has published the novels Los caídos (2018) and Falsa Guerra (2021), in addition to the book of stories La tarde de los sucesos definitivos (2013).

Recently, Álvarez denounced that the Cuban regime prevented him from traveling to the island, when he was denied “from Havana” to board an American Airlines flight. The journalist then assured that he was willing to return to Cuba “by any other means.”

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‘Cuban Students Are Waking Up Now, They Don’t Believe in the Revolution’

The University of Camagüey tried to “wash its hands” of him by offering Tan Estrada several jobs as a technician in places that have nothing to do with his profile. (Courtesy)

14ymedio, Havana, 3 December 2022 — Last Monday, the directors of the University of Camagüey (UC) detained professor and journalist José Luis Tan Estrada, when he was about to go home. In a kind of improvised trial, they recited to him a rosary of “incidents” against the Government. They notified him that he could no longer teach at his faculty and — as a consolation — they offered him a couple of jobs in a canning factory and at the municipal headquarters of Hydraulic Resources.

It goes without saying that he did not accept. Upon leaving the UC, he could not help but take a picture of the old mantra of State Security, freshly painted on the wall plaster: “The university is for the revolutionaries.”

14ymedio. It gives the impression that you are accused of carrying an “ideological poison.” What is the negative influence attributed to you on the faculty?

Tan Estrada. For a while now, I have more followers on social networks, mainly on Facebook, for my work as an activist and my journalism. There I have denounced the arbitrariness of the regime, telling life stories and giving voice to people whose problems are not solved by the Government or the local authorities.

At the university, the head of human resources and the dean told me that the students follow me on social networks, they agree with what I publish and with my ideas. No one has published anything, of course, because they are afraid of losing their university career. They are afraid of being repressed or closely monitored by a professor.

Another element, according to them, is that I am a negative influence on the students, due to my openly contrary position to the Island regime. If I do not agree with the political system or the people who lead it, how can I prevent students from feeling themselves reflected and doing the same? continue reading

It seems that they do not know that a university student – and much more so those in journalism – has the ability to reason and realize the social problems we are experiencing. Everyone is suffering from them equally.

14ymedio. Why take this measure against you right now? Did you expect that level of radicalism that involves discarding a professor in the midst of the educational crisis that the Island is going through today?

Tan Estrada. Cuban universities have been characterized by being a repressive body against anyone who, within the faculty or students, opposes the Government. Because, supposedly, as it is written on that famous sign at the entrance of the UC, “the university is for revolutionaries,” complemented by that other no less famous: “Within the Revolution everything; against the Revolution nothing.”

There are plenty of examples. At UC itself, we have José Raúl Gallego, José Alemán, Henry Constantín, Eliecer Jiménez… countless students and professors who have gone through the university and who have experienced that type of repression. I am neither the only nor the first, nor will I be the last.

Of course, I knew that a measure would come against me, because of my “antecedents.” I lived closely the case of Professor Gallego, as he was prosecuted and discriminated against for his political ideas, despite being an excellent professional. One of the best I’ve had, without a doubt. What I did not expect was that the summons would be surprising, without prior notice, almost at the time of going home.

It was a kind of circus. How could I imagine it? That half hour showed me that the dictatorship can be unpredictable and knows how to shuffle its cards well.

Of course, having a regime opponent inside a university is not the same as being expelled “washing their hands,” of me as they did. They told me openly that the reason was because my statements, ideas and attitudes were against the principles of the Cuban Revolution. In addition, I was told that I used my knowledge and intelligence based on that negative influence.

Unfortunately, students do not decide, or do not have the courage yet, to pronounce openly.

14ymedio. What did you teach them?

Tan Estrada. The subject of Hypermedia Journalism, in the day course, to journalists; and that of Digital Language and Hypermedia Communication to social communicators, in the course for meetings for workers.

14ymedio. What did those young people think of your expulsion?

Tan Estrada. Many sent me messages of support, standing against the measure and the way it was taken. They tell me that I will continue to be their professor, as I said on Facebook. I posted those messages to show them what my “bad influence” on students consisted of. If I were so bad, they wouldn’t have sent even a message. I am very attentive to them and if something happens to them I will report it.

14ymedio. Don’t the most innocent “other jobs” that they offer you have a kind of humiliating intention?

Tan Estrada. Humiliating, crushing, repressive. A low intention and blackmail. I am sure that both the provincial director of Labour, the Human Resources and the dean of my faculty knew that none of those places have to do with my profession. The intention was to lower myself from graduate to technician. They want to shut me up and overshadow me. It’s normal.

14ymedio. Does the radicalism of the State and its “educational arm” force it to be more radical?

Tan Estrada. The radicalism of the State consists of repressing everyone who wants to unmask it. If you have a photo [on Facebook] and don’t use a fake profile, they increase the repression. And then you’re forced to increase your fight against this dictatorship. They force you to separate yourself from your friends, from your students, from everything you have built.

My commitment, my strength, is with the Cuban who has to fight to see what to wear, how to dress, what to eat. Those stories that the regime silences and hides, through my weapon, which is journalism, I need to make known.

14ymedio. Can you expect an awakening from university students?

Tan Estrada. University students are already waking up. Camagüey, with the famous “conga” of protest, was a clear example. Without fear, everyone, more than a thousand young people, rushed to demand water, electricity, food. They don’t believe in the Revolution or in student organisations, even less in the Party. They are disappointed and don’t see a life project in thiis country. They don’t see their future here. This dictatorship doesn’t not have the capacity to guarantee a life for a young person.

The reality is direct, it is raw. University students are no stranger to it.

14ymedio. How do you evaluate the scenario of the Cuban press, both the official and the independent?

Tan Estrada. The official Cuban press is far removed from the real problems of Cubans. The Cuban public agenda does not correspond to the media agenda. They are nothing more than means of propaganda of the Communist Party, where a tweet from Díaz-Canel determines the headline of the news. They put the most absurd degree of pressure on critical journalists, those who think, because they are unacceptable for their press media.

The official press is “mechanized”; no one believes in their triumphalism or propaganda anymore. It lacks, of course, the basic standards of journalism

That is where independent journalism plays an essential role, it has been in charge of showing the world the reality of the country. Truthful, accurate, direct and timely information, which does not mask reality. Despite the limitations and danger, it is the only one that reflects the day to day.

14ymedio. Do you think the regime’s pressure will make you go into exile?

Tan Estrada. I don’t know. There are many examples of independent journalists, opponents, activists whom the regime has repressed and censured, even with the threat of imprisonment and death, which has forced them to leave. My only plan now is to fight for Cuba and denounce the arbitrariness that the regime commits on a daily basis.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Newspaper Readers Denounce the ‘Ruthlessness’ Against Sancti Spíritus in the Distribution of Blackouts in Cuba

“Let’s stop fooling ourselves, we all know the almost obsolete state of Cuban thermoelectric plants, built more than 30 years ago,” says an ’Escambray’ reader.

14ymedio, Madrid, 2 December 2022 — The call this Thursday of the Escambray newspaper to its readers to leave a “question, reflection or opinion” for the Sancti Spíritus Electric Company immediately had angry responses.

The official media announced that the state company will appear on December 7 in its newsroom “to clarify, as far as possible, the doubts, concerns and disagreements” of the citizens, given “the delicate energy situation that Cuba has been experiencing for months.”

“I have several questions, the first is why Sancti Spíritus, being the least densely populated province in the central region, suffers the worst blackouts,” says Ricardo, who says that he is aware of “another reality” in other provinces and also questions whether there is “ruthlessness” with some of the “blocks” into which the distribution of scheduled blackouts is divided and which suffer more than others from power outages.

The reader Rey follows the same line, but is harsher: “The electric company has social networks, telephones, etc. They have communication channels to give answers to the population. Do you think it is necessary for the press to be a mediator? If you analyze only this, you will already realize that everything in the electric company is malfunctioning.”

The man from Espiritu makes a request to the provincial newspaper: “You, as the press, should be a little more on our side. For example, investigate why the current is not turned off in Havana, publish about it, and ask for answers. Should we from the field assume the entire deficit?” And he concludes: “This is not the time for photos and explanations, it is time to have light. Almost a whole year of blackouts that instead of being solved are getting worse. December has arrived. It will be another broken promise.”

“Blackouts and alumbrones* are the main topic of daily conversations, and no matter how much the corresponding entities explain in terms of limitation in thermal generation, capacity deficit, units under maintenance, breaks, lack of fuel… of the only thing Cubans understand is the 10 hours or more that goes by without power,” says Maydelis, who asserts: “The situation Cuba is experiencing with fuel is not a secret to anyone, but let’s stop fooling ourselves, we all know the almost obsolete state of the Cuban thermoelectric plants, built more than 30 years ago, which no longer can be maintained.”

For the reader Chino, Escambray’s call is useless: “What is the point of posting questions in this way if the Sancti Spíritus UNE [Cuba Electric Union] has a channel and a Telegram group with more than 51,000 members and they keep it private, that is, that we cannot comment or publish anything? In the end we all know that the country’s energy situation is not going to be resolved or improved considerably before December 31.”

*Translator’s note: Alumbrone is a word coined to mean the often unexpected times when the electricity is on.

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