14ymedio

With Uniforms Donated by China and Without Textbooks, This is How the School Year Begins in Cuba

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, November 28, 2022 — Not even in Cuba, immersed in a deep economic crisis, do children cease to be excited about the first day of school. Thus, this Monday, when the 2022-2023 cycle begins, enthusiasm and shouts were evident at the school doors, not only in Havana but in other provincial cities.

Parents, of course, know full well that the course not only begins off balance, once again, due to the various interruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic, but with worrying shortages. Hence their long faces, distant from the enthusiasm of the children.

We walk around like crazy people looking for polyester for linings and fasteners,” a Havana mother complained this Monday. “Not to mention the price of backpacks or shoes, or all the notebooks that will have to be bought, because they have already said that they’re not going to distribute what they did in other years.”

Indeed, the Minister of Education herself, Ena Elsa Velázquez, explained the situation last week in State Television’s Roundtable program.

On the one hand, students would receive half of the notebooks that are usually given to them, Velázquez said, an “adjusted standard” that will also be applied to pencils: one per month, unlike the two that used to be offered.

Students will continue to use the dilapidated textbooks that have already passed through hundreds of hands. “We have indicated the need to recover the existing ones for redistribution,” the minister said, alluding to the custom of many students to “stay” with their books, often “solved” by paying the teachers for the privilege of a copy in good condition.

However, Velázquez assured that the books are also available in digital format for “students who have conditions for it,” a measure that, in her opinion, will be beneficial for “those who don’t have the necessary resources.” Although the school year is about to begin, the workbooks are barely “in production,” and the minister warns that there is little paper available in the print shop. continue reading

As for school uniforms, to the lack of which the population is already accustomed, there is a demand for 2,153,310 garments, according to Mirla Díaz Fonseca, President of the Light Industry business group. According to the official, the blackouts have prevented achieving the “work rhythm” necessary for the uniforms to be ready for the beginning of the school year.

Thus, only 1,274,000 garments can be delivered. The rest, if the materials are obtained, will have to wait until February. Díaz Fonseca explained that not even that amount would have been possible without “a donation from China” and the “new method” of re-dyeing the old mustard-colored uniforms blue. The old uniforms were worn in basic secondary schools before the change of design, which was carried out in the midst of a serious commodity crisis, and the dying process is now carried out by the textile manufacturer of Villa Clara.

The deficit of uniforms will be felt in the establishments provided by the Ministry of Internal Trade to sell them. Although it is customary to bribe the salespeople of these shops or to resell garments, the fact that the uniforms will be available for sale in only 1,900 stores will make the purchase even more difficult.

Those who don’t manage to get the uniforms or don’t reuse the ones they already have will still have to “attend school with the appropriate clothes,” said the Minister of Education. Without explaining where and how parents will be able to buy those clothes for their children, or defining what she considers “appropriate,” Velázquez apologized by stating that the school year was “a challenge for everyone,” and that things would be different if not for the US blockade, which is “hardening.”

Food is another issue that will not improve, and Velázquez avoided talking about it, although it mainly affects boarding schools, semi-boarding schools, households without subsidiary protection and basic secondary schools that follow the school snack regimen.

What she did say was that “the confrontation with cultural colonization” is, now more than ever, a priority of the educational system and its “political-ideological work system.” Invoking as “paradigms” Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, Velázquez said that the Ministry of Education is targeting those “young people who do not study or work” and teachers and managers who support “unacceptable” behavior, because “from indiscipline come crime and corruption.”

This newspaper has collected numerous testimonies of students in primary, secondary* and pre-university* schools who have been prohibited from entering classrooms with T-shirts that include the name of brands, signs or eye-catching figures. In some schools, the wearing of black T-shirts is not allowed, because black is considered “an opposition color.”

Another problem that the official media don’t talk about is the gap between those who have hard currency to buy what is necessary and those who don’t. “And now the cellphone is a problem,” adds a father of Sancti Spíritus. “Imagine that since everyone has a cellphone, my daughter also wants one, and I don’t know if we’re going to be able to afford it.”

As for the foreseeable lack of teaching staff, caused by last year’s unstoppable migratory exodus, the authorities did not give figures, but in schools in Havana they found many “new faces” among teachers. “And not all the positions are covered,” says a teacher from the capital who prefers to remain anonymous.

*Translator’s note: In the United States these designations would be “junior high school” and “high school.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba: Two Defense Attorneys Criticize the Prosector’s Evidence and Witnesses at Protestors’ Trial

Image from Cuban television of a trial related to July 11 protests. (Archivo)

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 25 November 2022 — At least two lawyers for fifteen anti-government demonstrators criticized legal proceedings against their clients in open court on Thursday. The fifteen are being tried for participating in public protests on July 11 of last year, the largest such demonstrations in Cuba in decades.

A source who was in the Havana courtroom on the second day of the trial said the fifteen defendants were charged with assault, public disorder, contempt and incitement to commit a crime. The defense attorneys discounted the witnesses and evidence presented by the prosecutor.

The source told the Spanish news agency EFE that she was surprised to see that all the lawyers were state attorneys. “None of them are independent,” she said, adding, “I have to say that I fear for their safety.”

The source quoted one attorney as saying, “It is time for the country to start healing its wounds. It is time for the country to sit down and talk. It is time for the country to create public spaces so that all those who think differently can demonstrate safely and legally without being charged with a crime.”

Similarly, another attorney quoted a line by Cuban poet and national hero Jose Martí: “With all and for the good of all.”

The source reported that the prosecutor had dropped all charges of assault, public disorder, contempt and incitement to commit a crime but was still charging the individuals with sedition. continue reading

The attorneys took issue with the charge, noting that the crime of sedition is defined in the Cuban penal code as “an attempt to destabilize state order.”

They argued that this does not apply to the fifteen defendants, who participated in a demonstration that occurred in the Havana neighborhood known as Diez de Octubre [Tenth of October], far from the seats of power, unlike other protests which took place outside the Capitol.

One of the recognizable faces at the trial was Jonathan Torres, who was 17-years-old at the time of the protests. Initially facing an eight-year sentence, it now appears he could instead be sentenced to correctional labor without internment. “They are asking that Jonathan get five years of ’subsidized sanction,’ meaning [he would be allowed to go] from home to work, from home to school,” said Orlando Ramirez, his stepfather.

Ramirez previously told Miami-based Martí News that the prosecutor had argued that officials had not used firearms in confrontations with the July 11 demonstrators. However, a witness presented by the Public Ministry said that some of his colleagues were in fact carrying firearms and that he had heard gunshots.

According to Torres’ stepfather, the sentence threatens to be stiffer in at least one case, that of Dayana Camejo Ramos, the only woman to be charged in this case. “They were asking for seven years. Now they’re asking for ten,” he said.

EFE has learned that, in its first filing from from December 30 of last year, the public prosecutor’s office accused the defendants of perpetrating acts “of unlimited violence.”

The written indictment describes them as throwing “stones, bottles, wood and other objects” at police and shouting slogans against the Cuban government and President Miguel Diaz-Canel.

The defendants range in age from 51 to 17. Trials for the July 11 demonstrators have been going on since late 2021.

Families of those found guilty and NGOs have criticized the trials, citing a lack of due process, fabricated evidence and overly harsh sentences. Neither foreign media nor independent journalists have been granted access to the proceedings.

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Raul Castro Spoke In Chinese, Will Diaz-Canel Do It?

14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 25 November 2022 — The chronicles of the time say that when he had already replaced his brother at the head of power, Raúl Castro received a delegation of Chinese in Havana and surprised everyone by speaking Chinese and singing songs from that country. Will Díaz-Canel do the same? Anything can be expected.

Well, after 15 and a half hours of flight from Ankara, Díaz-Canel’s pan-handling delegation arrived in Beijing, with the aim of raising money, this time from the supposed Chinese friends. And here the term “supposed” can be taken any way you want. Unlike the Russians, with whom there was an ideological connection from the early days of the so-called cold-war revolution, Chinese and Cuban friendship went through different stages, some of them complicated, especially when Fidel Castro publicly condemned Mao Tse Tung’s repressive action in the 1960s during the cultural revolution, standing alongside the Soviets.

Who would have thought? Almost half a century later, Castro’s heir arrives in the capital of the forbidden city precisely on the same day that the death of the maximum leader is commemorated. The Cuban communist state press has made it very clear to him: the front pages are for the immortal. The trip to China has been relegated to second or third place.

Someone might believe that this is due to the preeminence in Cuba of Fidel Castro, who is treated on the sixth anniversary of his death as if he were still alive. But no, it seems that the maneuver of ’disappearing’ the trip of Díaz-Canel’s entourage obeys more obvious reasons, such as, for example, that it is still a failure in terms of the collection of money and in the identification of a “milk cow” that provides the Díaz-Canel regime with financing in exchange for nothing, as the USSR and Venezuela did. Times have changed, and no one is ready for that game. And we shall see what happens with the Chinese. continue reading

Díaz-Canel said that he has presented himself in China with an invitation from the only party, the Chinese communist, whose leader, Xi Jinping, the same character who publicly purged his predecessor during the 20th congress and who questioned the Prime Minister of Canada for disclosing content to the press in the G-20. President Xi is someone who doesn’t mess around. Again, the Cuban communist delegation arrived at the Beijing airport at an untimely hour and was received by a very low-level government official, Xie Feng, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Facing the caravan’s media, and for domestic consumption, Díaz Canel said that “it is a pleasure to be in the People’s Republic of China. For us it is an honor that we have been invited, as the first country in Latin America, to visit China, after the successful celebration of the 20th Congress,” insisting once again on the invitation, because the cost of the trip, for a budget like the Cuban one, begins to be scandalous. An independent audit of expenses would show that, apart from the invitation, there is a lot of expenditure in this entourage that is little or not at all justified for the Cuban people, whom they claim to serve, and who are hungry.

It was announced that during the visit there will be official talks with Xi Jinping, Li Zhanshu, President of the National People’s Assembly and Prime Minister Li Keqiang, as well as the signing of more than ten agreements between the parties.

The good relations between China and Cuba are part of the global strategy of the Asian giant to occupy positions of economic control in Latin America. China, in its objective of becoming the world’s leading power, has developed a global extractive model of income and resources in the countries where it is established, and through this mechanism it increases its economic power, grants aid for cooperation, permeates financial systems and occupies commercial positions in sectors of interest.

Its interest in politics is relative. Countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America have witnessed that extractive invasion of China that has benefitted significantly from globalization. The strategy has worked well for the Asian giant. Producing low-cost goods worldwide by international companies installed in its territory, China has obtained substantial trade benefits that have increased its economic power. The rest is known.

And meanwhile, Díaz-Canel is talking about China as if it were an “ancient civilisation whose cultural and historical values have endured over time and constitute a heritage not only of China, but of all humanity”; or he’s recalling Che Gievara’s visit in 1960 to establish relations. And from all this he concludes that “this profile is the one that has captivated the Island despite the geographic distance.” This argument that can look pretty good in a second-class brochure, but it has very little to do with global geopolitics. Getting off the plane in Beijing, and wearing a black beret, Díaz-Canel, according to Granma, sent “the warmest congratulations to my counterpart Xi Jinping,” who at that time was sleeping soundly.

Another mistake by Díaz-Canel is to think that Cuba and China are today references for the construction of socialism. All you have to do is to take a walk around Beijing, or any of the great capitals that are filling up with skyscrapers, to verify the enormous distance between Chinese socialism and the communist destruction that exists in Cuba. Wanting to compare the two countries is an insult to intelligence, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Xi, with the character he has, commented on it.

Díaz-Canel has placed cooperation in the biotechnology sector as the main objective of the visit, but there must be more. In fact, China ranks second in the world as a commercial partner of the Island, a short distance from Venezuela, which is receding. Cuba’s exports to China reached 417 million dollars in 2021 (ONEI yearbook), 21% of the total, just behind Canada, which reached 613 million dollars. On the other hand, Cuba’s imports from China reached 972 million dollars, 11.5% of the total. In this case, China was behind Venezuela, with 1.245 billion dollars. This position of second trading partner of the Island is accompanied by a very unbalanced trade deficit of minus 555 million dollars that requires financing. On the other hand, in 2021 only 799 tourists from China came to Cuba, after reaching 49,000 in 2018.

The Cuban communist regime’s commitment to China carries risks. Basically, because the Chinese don’t give anything for free. They always demand something in return, such as the part of the sugar harvest that corresponds to them and which Cuba cannot manage to deliver, due to the low levels of harvests in recent years. Or in the case of minerals, or tobacco, the Chinese have travelled to Cuba to look for resources to extract, but the landscape they find is well known: devastation and widespread poverty. In addition, the Chinese are not interested in tourism or services, which is what Díaz-Canel offers. The Chinese don’t give a fig about coincidences on the political level with the Cuban regime; they want something else.

The visit to the Asian giant has just begun. The entourage is already tired of so many thousands of miles. The bet is high, but the results are uncertain. It doesn’t seem that China will become the substitute for Venezuela. It will ask for something in return.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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In Cuban Prisons, Prisoners Survive Thanks to Private Initiatives

The family of political prisoner Andy García Lorenzo manages the funds and ensures that they are distributed fairly. (Facebook/Roxana García Lorenzo)

14ymedio, Yankiel Gutiérrez Faife, Camajuaní, 26 November 2022 — Without the help of charitable organizations and private donors, prisoners would be on the verge of starvation in Cuban prisons, where they receive from the State the bare minimum to survive. “Lately the contributions have been greatly reduced,” laments Jonatan López, brother-in-law of political prisoner Andy García Lorenzo, who inspired the Funds for the Victims of Communism initiative. “We have up to 110 beneficiaries, but now we have resources for only about 44 detainees.”

“We’re a bridge for delivering food to prisoners in Cuba. We receive small donations from people who are sympathetic to the cause and help low-income families,” explains Jonatan López in conversation with 14ymedio.

“Andy knew what it was to go to bed hungry, without being able to satisfy himself with the small portion of food they get in jail,” López says. On each visit, they assure, they tried to bring the young man everything he needed. “But he always asked for more, because he wanted to share his food with the others.”

Funds for the Victims of Communism — promoted on social networks under the name of Help the Brave of 11J [11 July 2021 protests] — is responsible for raising money so that families can provide prisoners with food, toiletries, cigarettes and everything they need during their imprisonment. continue reading

The organization takes care of raising money so that families can provide prisoners with food, toiletries, cigarettes and everything they need during their imprisonment. (14ymedio)

The economic crisis on the Island and the increase in the price of food and basic necessities have had a negative impact on the situation of prisoners, and it’s difficult to provide them with the bag of supplies during family visits.

The visibility of the García Lorenzo family, following the multiple complaints made by its members, contributed to the project gaining notoriety and interest from donors. After initially refusing to send money, they decided — in December 2021 — to create a structure to collect funds.

The initial recipients were 15 families of political prisoners in Villa Clara, but the direct transmissions of Roxana García Lorenzo — Andy’s sister — and the complaints of other activists allowed increasing the number of donations and expanding the scope of the organization.

At the moment, the funds are destined for the families of 44 inmates in the western and central regions of the Island, for whom 3,000 pesos per month are deposited on their cards to buy products intended to cover their basic needs. The same amount has been given, at least once, to 110 prisoners.

Jonatan López, recently exiled in Germany, explained to 14ymedio that “to assist 110 prisoners, 4,500 to 5,000 dollars must be paid monthly, in order to distribute 6,000 pesos to each prisoner. And even so, their needs are not fully met, but it would be a huge relief for those families who, in many cases, have run out of their main economic livelihood,” he said, alluding to the fact that the work of many of the young people arrested was what supported their families.

The García Lorenzos manage the funds and ensure that they are distributed fairly. Activist Samuel Rodríguez Ferrer, a resident of the United States, is responsible for managing the PayPal and Zelle accounts opened for donations, which are then sent in their entirety to Cuba, without subtracting administrative or promotion expenses from the initiative. Ways have been found, says the activist, so that “the dictatorship does not access this currency” at the time of the transfers.

In addition, as they clarify on their website, the organization “is not political, nor is it affiliated with any party, organization or government. We do not receive a federal grant from the United States, or from any other country. Donations come from individuals and independent companies.”

Jonatan López records the donations in a public Excel document, to ensure transparency, while Pedro López, his father — also in the situation of asylum seeker in Germany — and his wife, Roxana García, from Santa Clara, are responsible for managing the organization. Through different channels, with the help of people traveling to the Island, the money reaches the families of the inmates.

“This project is so that they don’t feel alone, and they know that there are people outside and inside helping them,” Pedro López explains to 14ymedio. “You go against the dictatorship, they try to isolate everyone who dissents, and one of the ways is to tell them that they are alone. They try to demoralize them,” he says.

Despite their exile, Pedro and Jonatan López took measures so that the project didn’t stop. So far, they say, State Security has not confiscated their supplies, which in some cases are transported on national buses.

“It’s not difficult to work from the outside. We created an infrastructure made up of the same relatives, so that it wouldn’t stop when we left,” Pedro López says.

The work of the organization has not been without controversy. Several opponents have opined that the project “accommodates the relatives of prisoners,” which prevents them from “protesting” for the freedom of their relatives. These criticisms “do not make sense,” says Jonatan López. “The funds barely alleviate the situation of the families, and, in addition, the prisoners are not to blame for not assuming a ’frontal position’ against the regime in their homes.”

“We believe that it’s unfair to deprive them of this help, which is only the most basic, food, because their families don’t want to protest,” added the young man who, exiled in Germany due to pressure from State Security, confirmed to this newspaper his willingness to continue working on the project, combined with other initiatives such as I lend you my voice, Justice 11J, Where you fall, I’ll pick you up and the Accompaniment Groups of the Cuban Conference of Clergy (Concur).

For her part, Roxana García — known for her strong denunciations of the Government for the harassment of her brother — remains in Cuba, along with her parents, to continue demanding his freedom and that of the almost 1,000 political prisoners of the Island.

Several relatives of the prisoners have expressed their gratitude to the Funds for the Victims of Communism. Yanet Rodríguez from Holguin pointed out that the project has provided “help to the east of the country,” since most of the initiatives of this type are concentrated in the western region or the main cities of the Island.

Saily Núñez, wife of protester Maykel Puig, described the work of the organization as “extremely transparent,” while Niurka Ricardo, mother of prisoner Mario Josué Prieto, described the project as “something extraordinary and very human,” since it guarantees the food and medicines that are sent in the jabito (“little bag) to the inmates.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Record-High Abstentions in Cuba’s Elections, 36 Percent According to the Latest National Data

According to the last data shared, two hours before the closing of the schools, the participation rate was at 63.85%, 18.2 percentage points below the rate at the same time during previous local elections. (EFE)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 28 November 2022–Sunday’s municipal elections in Cuba are on track to surpass the highest ever abstention rates in local elections since these were first held on the Island in 1976.

Closing at 5 pm local time, according to the last information shared two hours prior to the closing of the polling places, which were set up in school buildings, the participation rate was 63.85% (36.15% abstentions), 18.2 percentage points below the rate recorded at the same time in the previous elections, in 2017.

Since 1976, when the first elections of this type were held since the triumph of the Revolution, the participation rate ranged between 98.7% in 1984 and 85.94% in 2017.

Voters seemed reluctant to participate although closing time was shifted by one hour, to 6pm local time, “at the request of the electoral councils of various territories and voters themselves,” explained the National Electoral Council (CEN) without providing more details.

The documented levels of demobilization are reminiscent of the 26% abstention rate in the referendum on the Family Code in September. At the time, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, referred to it as a “punishment vote” for the pandemic’s economic consequences. continue reading

Included among the reasons for this abstention rate, according to different observers, are: weariness among a portion of the population after two years of serious economic and energy crises; lack of information in the absence of electoral campaigns, and a call by the opposition, on the island and abroad, to not vote.

Early in the morning, Díaz-Canel highlighted from his own polling place that the country heads to the polls despite the “stifling economy” and a “smear campaign.”

“This exercise is a citizen responsibility because we are electing our representatives to municipal organizations, the country’s primary government structure. This is in line with the work in the last several years to perfect socialist democracy,” he added.

He stated that the district delegates who will be elected today “will take on and approve development programs according to the priorities of the country. Later, the communities participate to implement their own proposals which have been approved by their participation mechanisms.”

For a few weeks, different opposition groups — especially from the exile community — pushed the option of abstaining on social media, although there is really no way to measure the extent to which these might have influenced the final outcome.

Also in the morning, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodríguez, stated that the dissident campaign “doesn’t make a dent” on people and predicted “very high participation.”

“These are attempts, they bark, which means we will get on the horse and move ahead (…) it is a shame,” added Rodríguez.

Thus, the elections occurred–as happened with the referendum on the Family Code, approved with 66.87%–amid the worse economic and energy crises since the 90s at least, which translates to shortages of basic goods, runaway inflation and blackouts which are ever longer and more generalized.

EFE was able to confirm a low turn out on a trip to three polling centers in the early hours of this election day. Those who appeared from the opening of the polls at 7:00 am were mostly older people or government sympathizers.

Another common denominator was the lack of voters younger than 30. According to official data, 22,205 young people were eligible to vote for the first time.

For Richard Romero, 41, we need to “reach” young people. “We need to know how to approach them. Young people are into other things,” he told EFE after casting his vote in the Havana municipality of Playa.

During this trip EFE was also able to confirm a certain level of ignorance, among what more than a few participants, about the role of neighborhood delegates on the political organization chart.

Delegates are responsible for the direct management of problems and complaints in their communities and sit on the Municipal Assemblies of the People’s Power, the administrative level closest to citizens. Among the functions of this assembly is putting in place a Commission of Candidates, which selects candidates for Cuba’s unicameral parliament.

These elections are, in fact, the start of a process which will conclude next year to form the Parliament, which in turn, will elect the President of the Republic. Díaz-Canel could opt for a second consecutive term, according to the Constitution of 2019.

On the Island, political campaigns do not exist. However, in the days prior to the election, state media shared information on the elections, although without providing practical details nor stressing the importance of the election as the starting point for the process of replacing principal positions in the country.

This last scope was unknown to a significant number of the voters interviewed outside their voting centers, including the spokeswoman for one of the voting locations. “I don’t know, they help us a lot, but I wouldn’t know what to say about that.”

Another element which marked the day were the complaints of independent civil society due to the arrests of activists who attempted to exercise their right as observers of the process. They also denounced that security forces prevented some of them from leaving their homes.

According to official data, of the more than 26,000 candidates who ran in the elections, 70% are from Cuba’s Communist Party (PCC) or the Union of Young Communists. In addition, 44% are women, 7% are young people and only 27% were incumbents seeking an additional term.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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China and Cuba: a Lot of Noise, Little Action

Díaz-Canel with his wife Liz Cuesta boarding the plane from Ankara to Beijing. (Cuba Presidency)

14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 27 November 2022 — Back in Havana, the state press has started a propaganda campaign aimed at exalting the results of a trip, which leave much to be desired. The first to speak has been exactly the one who should be silent, taking into account that little or nothing has been achieved by his department on this trip. We refer to Alejandro Gil, Cuban Minister of Economy, who described relations with China as “a new starting point, a relaunch of our country’s relations with the Asian giant.” So he wishes.

It is true that “twelve legal instruments” were signed as Granma says, but there is a long stretch from the saying to the fact. The minister even dared to quantify at 100 million dollars the Chinese donations to Cuba (practically nothing) and the reopening of new state funding, but in reality, like most of the trip, Chinese support is aimed at old projects that are either underway or have not even started, like the Floating Dam project, which since 2019 and even before has not been completed.

The lesson that Díaz-Canel and his entourage have learned from this trip is that the Chinese have not given money for banalities or to sustain an inefficient political system, as the USSR or Venezuela did, but have provided funding for concrete projects to be developed by the Cuban communist state. And this is the source of the main problem.

The communist regime inherited from Fidel Castro has more than shown its inability to develop investments in infrastructure, in fixed capital, in projects of mid-life cycle, in energy, housing and real estate developments (except hotels). At the same time, it has an extraordinary voracity for spending on current projects, which is consumed in the annual budgets.

The data are eloquent. The share of the investment aggregate in the GDP of the economy, about 10%, is less than half of that recorded in Latin American countries. The low investment in Cuba is the result of a political choice that has conditioned the state’s intervention in the economy, which has resulted in the deficient general state that it presents. continue reading

The Chinese money is a double-edged sword, because it requires discipline, efficiency and effectiveness from the Cuban communist state — attributes that it lacks — in order to undertake projects of a certain magnitude with the guarantees provided. So the money will be there, in front of the eyes of Díaz-Canel and company, but its execution will be problematic if things do not change, and by a lot.

It’s like the Algerian power plant. Who is going to build it, with what technology and at what cost of time and money? The Chinese have put their cards on the table, and although they have granted money — this is undeniable — they have sent a message to the Cuban communists that the waste, adventure and the little campaigns to organise trouble in other countries are over. China is not Venezuela, nor does it want to be.

In that sense, one has the impression that the “legal instruments” that Granma talks about are designed, precisely, to adjust the accounts to Cuban partners, and that China plans to give money as the projects progress.

The question is, is the Cuban communist state ready to undertake all those investments and make it through? There are doubts.

In the Cuban economy there is everything. From planned and never-executed investments to investments with an advanced degree of execution, but which are pending some administrative work. And others that, when executed over very long periods, end up being allocated to different purposes than those for which they were planned. The Chinese know this situation and don’t believe in that model. Its economy advances along a different path in which the expected profitability of the projects is the determinant of investment, while the political criteria have gone to a better life.

So in the end, the only thing that will benefit the Havana regime is the donation of the 100 million dollars that Minister Gil talks about. For the moment he is the only one who has mentioned that figure, and the debt negotiations with China are reaching out-of-control dimensions, as this country becomes the second buyer and supplier of Cuba’s foreign trade.

The Chinese, who were sympathetic to the economic situation of the Island, want to collect or at least secure the payment, and there doesn’t seem to be good news there either. And for this they demand adequate plans for the ordering and restructuring of the debt, because otherwise, the credits associated with China’s investment projects in Cuba will be paralysed.

It’s the same as Díaz-Canel’s idea of attracting Chinese companies to invest directly in Cuba and that it not be all state aid. No matter how much political convergence exists between the two countries, these Chinese companies respond to management boards oriented by the perspective of profit, and they will not be willing to invest in ruinous businesses in Cuba. There are no data to justify it, but the low Chinese direct investment in Cuba since the adoption of Law 118 is amazing.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba and Spain Share a Common Creative Space in a Collective Exhibition

The Cuban artist Francisco Alejandro is part of the exhibition, installed in an old factory in Havana. (EFE)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 28 November 2022 — On Saturday, ten Spanish and eight Cuban creatives inaugurated an exhibition titled: “Artists in Production”, a joint project which uses only the materials already available in the exhibition space — an old factory.

The project, promoted by the independent art studios, Estudio 50 and Figueroa–Vives, in Havana, and Nave Oporto from Madrid, proposes 18 installations which will “use elements already existing in the space”, explained Cristina Vives, curator of the show, speaking to EFE.

“None of the works should arrive here at Estudio 50 (the exhibition’s site) in a finished state, instead it’s all about how the space itself can intervene in the creation of the work”, the art critic added.

In the middle of setting up the exhibition Vives recounted that “it’s been ten whole days of sharing ideas on how to complete each of the works, whilst also thinking about the world in which we live, as well as our own artistic inclinations”.

“We have to work together. However dynamic, independent and creative we are as individuals, we can achieve much more together”, said the curator of a project which is also supported by the Spanish and Norwegian embassies in Cuba. continue reading

The concept of converting old factories into spaces for exhibiting contemporary art is the line promoted by the Nave Oporto studio in the Spanish capital, which has taken the idea to Cuba to promote this collective show, in which artists such as Miguel Fructuoso, Elvira Amor and Miki Leal are participating.

Fructuoso commented that beyond the mere artistic process itself, the essential thing has been the “human connection” with Cuban colleagues participating in the exhibition, including Francisco Alejandro y Lorena Gutiérrez.

For his part, Alejandro expressed that it has been an opportunity to “exchange ideas between, and enrich current cultural contexts in” Cuba and Spain.

They each agree that it has been a “marvellous experience” for both parties.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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With Dams Invaded by Weeds, Aquaculture Reduces its Production by Half in Cuba

The Sancti Spíritus Fishing Company reports that the catch deficit in the province is 1,694 tons. (Escambray)

14ymedio, Havana, 24 November 2022 — The aquaculture workers of Sancti Spíritus have been able to fulfill only 57% of their production plan for 2022. A lower presence of species, the shortage of fuel to carry out the extraction work and the lack of maintenance of the dams are some of the difficulties they face.

Miriam Solano Valle, a specialist in Aquaculture at the Sancti Spíritus Fishing Company, told the provincial newspaper Escambray that the production deficit to date is 1,694 tons. The decline will affect the production of foods that use fish as raw material and that are distributed in the network of specialized ’boxes’.

Solano Valle indicated that the different fishponds, mainly the Zaza dam, have not received maintenance or cleaning in the areas covered with invasive plants since 2017, due to fuel shortages. The same cause hinders the entire food and beverage industry on the Island and has slowed down production from bread-making to meat plants.

As a result, the company spokeswoman explained, 40% of the surface of Cuba’s largest pond is covered with weeds and the invasive marabu, which hinder the fishermen’s maneuvers, since fish find refuge in the weeds. continue reading

To the rosary of problems that afflict the sector are added the damage to the ice plant and the freezing tunnel and delays attributed to the excessive rain from Hurricane Ian, at the end of last September.

Nor has this 2022 been able to increase the offspring at the Alevines Station of the Sancti Spíritus municipality of La Sierpe. Of the 31.4 million offspring that are destined each year for this fish pond, about 30 million were sent to Zaza, where 87% of the catches in the province are obtained.

Solano Valle pointed out that the decline in fishing is also due to unprotected exploitation in the intensive cultivation of clarias and tilapia, which are then used as raw materials in the production of feed for farm animals.

The crisis of the fishing sector in Cuba doesn’t seem to ease, nor is there a glimpse of the possibility of recovery. A year ago, in December 2021, the Government recognized that this sensitive sector for Cuban families will not recover the levels of production it experienced more than three decades ago.

Aquaculture has been a lifeline in Cuba, because the country cannot fish in international waters since it doesn’t meet the requirements and has not renewed its old fleets. In addition, the Island has no truly fast-flowing rivers that allow adequate freshwater fishing.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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A Stranger is Shipwrecked in Cabo Lagarto, Land of Tobacco and Forbidden Women

The ruin and demolition site of the Hotel Cosmopolita, in Camajuaní, originating from 1880, inspired a number of passages from Náufrago del tiempo (Castaway in Time). (Elena Nazco)

- An extract from the novel ‘Náufrago del tiempo’ (Castaway in Time), published by la editorial Verbum (2022)

14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 26 November 2022

The village lives in a perpetual silence, as though words had the power to unleash a tempest. The women believe that any festivities would bring bad luck and catastrophe; the men never speak to one another and the children are forbidden from playing outside, to avoid the wind from disorientating them and snatching them away from their mothers.

When my daily work is done, someone from the village will usually give me the basics to survive. They think I’ve gone crazy because I keep breadcrumbs, fruit skins, grains and bits of anything digestible in the deep pockets of my shirt. These are for the little cat that follows me day and night, which is, after all, the only companion I have in the old hotel.

It’s to him that I owe the old pallet that I use as a bed, and the continual revelations that I have about the building.

His body is as skinny and ghostly as a blade, and it’s because of this that he’s able to understand the anatomy of the hotel better than I do. He knows all the passages, all the cracks that lead into the bedrooms, the crevices between the bricks, the strange creatures that live in all the pipes and tubes.

I try to sleep when I arrive back at the old hotel, in order to save any energy I get from the little food I have to eat. Even from within the ruins you can feel the electrified air and an atmosphere that becomes more and more charged, as though a hurricane were to come and shake the village’s foundations at any moment. continue reading

Sometimes the insomnia is too strong and I only get to sleep as morning approaches. In those moments I drift in and out of dreaming like someone drowning at sea, I hear all kinds of vermin scratching at the hotel’s walls, I see my father’s face, and the women’s faces. At the same time the creatures start to move, scuttle inside the piping, watching me with their little eyes, burning with night blindness. I know I’m not just imagining these creatures because the cat, which is my night guardian, also follows them with his hunter’s eyes.

Yesterday, thanks to my companion, I found a hotel bedroom door that was easy to break down. After I’d cleaned up the debris I was able to sleep, once again, this time on a relatively soft mattress.

I get the impression that everything I do is somehow bound up with the cat. He guides me through the hotel’s darkness, a veritable labyrinth that he knows better than I do, and he shows me which wall to tear down or when I should sleep. Whilst I get hungrier and hungrier and can start to see my ribs showing, he grows fatter, feeding on whatever I bring him each evening, as an offering to stop him from abandoning me to my fate in the middle of the storm that will soon arrive.

***

Since the dawn, the cat has started to nibble affectionately at my big toes. He does it to demand food, or when he wants to show me something new in the hotel. Obstacles broken through, and new passages discovered, the cat has brought to my attention a shaft of light, very weak, coming from the other side of a wall where I’d thought there were no more rooms.

I looked for the iron bar that I use for pulling down walls and gave this one a blow. On the third attempt the bricks gave way and I walked through the cloud of dust and into the space where the cat wanted to take me.

What I found there was both marvellous and terrible, and words themselves are useless at describing it properly.

***

In one place, as the prophets had foretold, there was the serpent and the dazzling bird, the stream filled with fish of every colour, docile beasts which grazed on grass and creatures that crawled up into the branches of the trees, the scaly bright lizard, bees, moths and ants in search of food; there were all kinds of plants, clinging onto healing stones and onto walls sculpted by time, fruit which ripened in seconds and fell to the ground only to become at one with the soil and the coldness there; and there was light, a golden, greenish light, almost as if the air itself were covered in moss, all a brightness and a heaven, with no indication at all of the approaching storm.

It was then that I remembered the hotel had once been a monastery; perhaps, before being a monastery it had been a piece of Eden itself, later recovered by the very words spoken by the monks.

Cover of the novel ‘Náufrago del tiempo’ (’Castaway in Time’) released in November by the Spanish publisher Verbum.

But there, in the middle of all that, there was also a man, sitting at the head of a long wooden table, being served with fruit and other delicacies, which the animals had brought for him. He remained completely still, eyes half open, naked as though it was his turn to be the Adam of that garden. His hands, long and bony, were ploughed through with small wounds that looked as though they’d been caused by a needle.

The cat jumped onto the table, took a bite from the fruit and lay down, very close to the man. Cautiously, because one doesn’t expect anything good to come out of Cabo Lagarto, I asked the man who he was, and where were we.

“I am the rock which supports the world”, he said to me, hardly opening his lips. “And when I fall, the globe too will fall”.

***

The man’s throat sounds deep and dusty, full of words, but from a place where time gets bogged down and becomes stone, bones, motionless matter. A rheumy liquid runs from his wrinkles, as though he had never closed his eyes. His grey beard covers his throat and his chest, and he spreads his hands as if, indeed, the very destiny of the cosmos depended on his steadying of the table and everything on it.

When we speak the animals look at us, from the grey cat to the lizards whose bodies are impossible to see completely because of all the weeds covering them.

The man speaks little and always replies in riddles. On the first day I limited myself to looking around the cloisters or the inner courtyard of the hotel, which was already a small universe for me. As the days went by the man became more revealing.

Sometimes he would say:

“I am as old as the stones and the mountains; the moon gave birth to me, the sun gave me life; I pronounced the first word ever spoken in the world, but I forget what it was. That’s why I’m here.”

Or he’d lower his forehead until it touched the table, and then changed his story:

“I fought hard during the war. The victors accused me of being a spy; the vanquished said I brought them ill fortune. Both sides sentenced me to death and decreed they’d erase my name from everywhere. I escaped and came here to take up this monastery”.

His hands appeared to be tied by some invisible chain. He moved them only once: to explain to me why he didn’t eat any of the delicacies on the table.

“I swore I’d kill the world and the world never forgets”, he said, as he moved his fingers to reach out for an orange. “Watch what happens if I dare to contradict my own blasphemy”.

At that moment, mice, cockroaches, insects and other vermin I can’t even name began to climb up the table legs. Birds came flying down from all parts of the ruin, and, while the old man tried to reach the fruit, the animals bit his fingernails and pecked his hands until his thick blood began to mess up the food along with the birds’ feathers and all the bugs.

“Now do you understand the weight that I carry?”

I wanted to reply, but I couldn’t speak, I was too full of revulsion for what I’d just witnessed. The only thing I could do was run, knock down the walls, get covered in dust and fall exhausted onto my rickety bed in the reception hall.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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The Harvest Begins in Cuba After the Worst Planting of Sugarcane in More Than a Century

In other times, the sugar industry was the economic engine of Cuba but it suffered a drastic fall in production from the 1990s. (ACN)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 26 November 2022 — Cuba’s 2022-2023 sugar harvest began this Friday with the goal of producing 455,198 tons of sugar in a harvest that will be “small,” seeking to resuscitate the depressed sector.

In this harvest, started in the central province of Cienfuegos, it is planned to grind 6.5 million tons of sugar cane with only 23 factories, 13 fewer than in the previous harvest, according to the strategy set out by the Azcuba state group, which manages the area.

It’s about making an “objective and flexible harvest, although small, with good practices,” concentrating resources in fewer sugar mills with the aspiration to achieve “greater efficiency,” as explained by the president of Azcuba, Julio García Pérez.

The purpose will be to concentrate production for family consumption through the rationing book — which delivers 4 pounds of sugar per person per month — as well as for tourism, medicines, industrial production and export. continue reading

In addition to producing to satisfy national consumption, the sector’s plans aim to produce more alcohol, electricity and derivatives for domestic consumption and the foreign market.

Cuban President Diaz-Canel Gets a Donation From China of 100 Million Dollars and More Cybersecurity

Rodrigo Malmierca, the Cuban Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, has carried out all the concrete negotiations in Algeria, Turkey, Russia and now in China. (Cubadebate)

14ymedio, Havana, 26 November 2022 — In China, the last station of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel’s panhandling tour, the Cuban delegation signed a dozen agreements and appealed to “friendship among the peoples” to extend Havana’s debt terms with Beijing and get an “emergency donation” of about one hundred million dollars.

The negotiations focussed on biotechnology (essential to continue manufacturing vaccines), energy and the most recent obsession of the Cuban regime: cybersecurity and computer surveillance, which will give it more technological resources to control the population and prevent new protests such as those of July 11, 2021.

Locked in a “bubble” against the resurgence of coronavirus that China is going through, Díaz-Canel told the journalists who accompanied him on the trip that the results “are above our expectations.” According to him, Xi told him that “we have to find solutions to all of Cuba’s problems,” despite “the challenges with debt.”

His “small country” — as he has also defined Cuba in front of Putin and Erdogan — will pay, although he is not sure when. We must provide China, he explained, with guarantees to “help our friends feel secure about what we are doing,” because “they’re taking off a little” to accommodate the default on the debt, whose repayment has been impossible since 2019. continue reading

Díaz-Canel affirmed that he felt the need to “explain” to Xi the rosary of “involuntary” calamities that have shaken the Island: accidents, hurricanes, coronavirus and, of course, the “hardening” of the US blockade, which has caused a “tense situation” for his government. “It’s not the same when you can talk, when you can explain, when things can be understood from sensitivity,” he said.

The Chinese “are open,” the president concluded, which he interpreted as a sign that his arguments about Cuba’s willingness to accept foreign investment had worked.

Díaz-Canel will return to Cuba with an “emergency cash donation” of about one hundred million dollars, the result of one of the twelve agreements signed with Xi. In addition, there will be another donation of food and medicines, signed by Rodrigo Malmierca, Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, who has carried out all the concrete negotiations in Algeria, Turkey, Russia and now China.

Beijing will also offer the Island the indispensable raw materials — in addition to an economic donation — to complete the number of school uniforms for the year that begins next Monday, which will start with a notable deficit of material. Another of the contracts guarantees the supply of “kitchen utensils for high-impact programs.”

Several agreements, the most ambiguous, define a “plan of political consultations” between the Cuban and Chinese Ministries of Foreign Affairs. Signed by Chancellor Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, it was not explained what the nature of these “consultations” would be, which Cuba will be obliged to offer until 2025. The contract for “exchange and cooperation” between the Cuban Communist Party and the Cuban Communist Party is also political.

The expansion of the new Silk Road and the role of “entry” to Latin America that the Island has were ensured by several “memoranda of understanding,” signed by Malmierca.

In an interview published in Cubadebate, Alejandro Gil, Minister of Economy and member of the Cuban delegation, assured that these agreements are the gateway to “new financing” from Beijing. Funds will be provided to activate the Floating Dam installed in 2019 — essential for the construction and repair of ships on the Island — and to execute a program of “reconversion or modernization” of the Cuban press, one of the main interests of the Chinese Communist Party, according to Gil.

In addition, the financing of a wind energy park, another solar park in Las Tunas and two bio-pesticide plants in Havana and Villa Clara will be explored. And Chinese companies have been invited to make “direct investments” on Cuban territory, the minister said.

The most disturbing agreements, however, are those that promise Chinese aid in the digital and telecommunications fields. In addition to the execution of a “Biocubafarma Cloud Telepresence System,” which promotes digitization in the vaccine and drug manufacturing sector, China signed a project to organize a National Identity System for Natural Persons and another Wireless Network Supervision System.

To both projects — backed by an economic donation — is added a Forensic Data Laboratory that the Government plans to execute. The implications of these contracts for espionage and state surveillance of the Cuban population will be notable, since they guarantee the use on the Island of the digital monitoring systems that Xi Jinping and his Government have been implementing in their own country for years.

With the creation, this Wednesday, of a National Working Group for Cybersecurity, the Cuban regime is taking more concrete steps in the surveillance of the digital environment and Cuban communications. A recent alliance of Xetid, the technology company of the Armed Forces, with Etecsa, makes evident the growing government interest in executing an “offensive” on social networks.

This was confirmed by Cuban Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, who together with Álvaro López Miera, Minister of the Armed Forces, organised a cybersecurity workshop to display surveillance equipment — several of Chinese manufacture — that the Government will install on the Island.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban President Diaz-Canel Arrives in China to ‘Promote the Adaptation of Marxism to Our Time’

14ymedio, Madrid, 24 November 2022 — Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel is heading to China now. It’s the last stop of a presidential tour aimed at courting some partners to whom, in return, little can be promised except influence on the American continent and agreements in countries where the Island still retains some prestige, such as in healthcare.

On the eve of this visit, the Chinese ambassador to Cuba, Ma Hui, offered an interview to the Xinhua state agency in which he made clear the idea: “We will work together to promote the great practice of adapting Marxism to our time and, together, undertake a new socialist construction with its own characteristics, for the benefit of the two countries and the two peoples, and make new and greater contributions to the bright future of humanity.”

Ma Hui stressed that both countries have had a high level of cooperation for 10 years, the greatest example of which has been the Chinese aid sent to Cuba during the pandemic and the three great tragedies that took place in 2022: the explosion of the Saratoga hotel in Havana, fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base and the passage of Hurricane Ian.

According to the ambassador, the areas of collaboration will be extended from this visit to energy, agriculture, biomedicine, science and technology, education and culture. Few sectors are left out of this cooperation, since some agreements were not mentioned but are already known to exist in transport and industry. Those that were named involve exports from the Island that include the typical rum and tobacco, honey and other products that have disappeared from the life of Cubans, such as sea cucumber, eel and some fruits.

It’s important to take care of the relationship, then, since it affects almost everything. Good proof of this is that even the most unsuspected things have a Chinese hand behind them. “We have been able to secure the clothing that we already have available thanks to a donation from China,” revealed the Cuban Minister of Education, Ena Elsa Velázquez Cobiella, appearing Tuesday on State TV’s Roundtable program, referring to the school uniforms.

The official explained that the start of the 2022-2023 academic year will begin next Monday, November 28, after accumulated delays due to the pandemic, and China is providing the financing. Mirla Díaz Fonseca, continue reading

President of the Business Group of Light Industry (GEMPIL), stated that the initial demand was for 2,153,310 garments, but the quantity had to be adjusted to 1,274,000 garments, of which 100% have been delivered to primary schools.

Uniforms are lacking, the officials said, basically because of the blackouts, and they have had to resort to techniques such as the blue-dyeing of the old mustard uniforms. “We have asked for help from the seamstresses in the sports industry, for example, and we are talking about using the GEMPIL carriers to distribute the fabric, pieces and buttons,” they added.

However, little would have been achieved without the aid from China, which, in addition, provided financing; however, no further details were given.

All this exchange, which has made China the second largest trading partner of the Island, provides the Asian giant with a gateway to Latin America, where it has been consolidating its influence over the years. This Thursday, the country’s state press pointed out that the volume of bilateral trade between China and Cuba increased by 7.2% in 2021. In addition, trade continued to grow in the first three quarters of this year, and China’s imports from Cuba even increased by 18.1%.

The improvement is reflected on the rest of the continent, since, according to a spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce, 21 countries in the region have signed some type of collaboration with the New Silk Roads, also known as the Belt and Road Initiative. The Chinese plan to build roads, railways, ports, logistics platforms and other infrastructure in more than 60 countries.

“The Chinese and Latin American economies are highly complementary, and among them there is enormous potential for cooperation,” said the spokeswoman, adding that the volume of trade between the two regions “has fully recovered and already exceeds that existing before the COVID-19 pandemic.”

According to the Chinese ambassador to Havana, “China and Cuba are linked by common ideals and beliefs, and as traveling companions of socialism, they will take advantage of this visit as an opportunity to continue strengthening the relationship between the two parties and the two nations.”

Hardly any information has emerged about the official agenda, although it’s expected to develop in an “anti-covid bubble,” through which the entourage’s contact with the outside is avoided.

Carlos Miguel Pereira, Cuban Ambassador to China, just announced that Díaz-Canel “will honor Chinese heroes” and stressed that after 62 years of uninterrupted diplomatic relations, bilateral ties “have reached full maturity.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Of Monuments and Ashes: Fidel Castro in Moscow

Detail of Fidel Castro statue in Moscow. (Sputnik)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 15 November 2022 — Looking at a photo of a recently unveiled statue in Moscow, I was reminded of the joke about the man who asked to borrow money. “I swear on my father’s ashes,” he said, promising to repay the loan promptly. Almost convinced, the would-be lender said he did not know the man’s father had died. “He hasn’t,” said the borrower, “but he smokes a lot.”

After Fidel Castro decided to quit smoking (at least in public), no senior government or party official was ever seen with a cigar or cigarette again. The decision to immortalize Castro in bronze with “the smoking gun” in his hands, to say nothing of the deceased’s wish that no statues of him be erected, perpetuates the image that he was a chain smoker.

There are other less monumental statues of Castro in South Africa, Mexico and Vietnam (the latter looking vaguely Asian) but the one in Moscow is the most imposing.

The ten-foot-tall figure stands on a rock in front of a bas-relief map of Cuba. His left boot points toward the eastern provinces, his right to Pinar del Rio. Located in Moscow’s Sokol district, in a square that has borne his name since 2017, the piece was jointly sponsored by the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Russian Military-Historical Society. Estimated to have cost 35,000 dollars, it is the work of sculptor Alexei Chebanenko and architect Andrei Bely.

Those who grew up in the Soviet Union might well remember that, when the comandante visited Moscow for the first time, in May 1963, he impertinently strode down plane’s boarding stair with a cigar in his mouth. Those close to him say this was to prevent having to exchange the traditional kiss with his Russian hosts, a gesture that a homophobic guy like Castro could not tolerate.*

This historic slight may be why it was decided to portray him with such an unusual object in his hand. Chebanenko was even careful to include some fledgeling ashes at the tip of the cigar. Cuban officials, who promise to pay the money they owe the Russians, can swear by them.

*Archival footage is available here.

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The New Electric Tricycles in Havana are (Practically) Phantoms

Electric tricycles, presented by the Havana authorities, for operating on the new routes in the Playa (Beach) district. (Tribuna de La Habana)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 25 November 2022 — The authorities in Havana have twice announced, in their customary pomp, the arrival of electric vehicles onto new transport routes in the Playa district. The first time, two weeks ago, the official press assured us that a tricycle service would commence on 15 November, but this didn’t materialize.

Days later, and without any explanation, Tribuna de La Habana changed the start date: it would be the following Monday, 21 November, when a total of 20 electric tricycles would begin to operate, increasing later to 25, They would be organised on three routes: from 3rd and 80 to La Ceguera hospital; from avenue 120 to the hospital; and from 120 to La Puntilla, on a timetable running from 7am to 7pm.

“People will be able to access an affordable, quick and efficient alternative to, and complement to, the public bus service, which will generate local employment”, boasted the provincial newspaper.

However, the vehicles didn’t appear anywhere. At La Puntilla, for example, the supposed final stop on one of the routes, none of the local residents said they’d seen the new means of transport, which was meant to help alleviate the ever pressing crisis of mobility in the capital, owing chiefly to the shortage of fuel.

Neither could any signage be seen at the supposed stops along the routes, such as on Calle 0 and 1.

Julio, who works near to the Sierra Maestra building — headquarters of the Cimex Corporation — was already thinking they must be nothing more than “phantom tricycles” when, on Friday, he finally got onto one. “It was quite by chance. I found it when I was walking down Third street, but hardly anyone knows about them, so much so, that where I boarded there were no other passengers waiting, and just one woman got on board during the whole journey”. continue reading

The vehicle, which has a capacity of 6 passengers and a range of 120 km, was driven by a woman, like other electric tricycles operating in Havana, but on these new routes, according to the driver, they have hired men too.

At a price of 4 pesos people usually pay 5 and don’t expect any change. “I’m not going to ask for one peso back”, Julio explained. “No, and I’m not going to give it to you!”, replied the driver, laughing — in a country where the decreasing value of small denomination notes and coins makes them more and more useless for making everyday payments.

Regarding energy sources, there’s still no news about those solar powered hubs that were promised for the Ecotaxis in Central Havana. “This thing is charged up on the normal mains power supply, no solar panels or anything like that”, explained the vehicle’s driver. “Those kinds of things only work on television. Beyond that, no, nothing”, her passenger replied, cynically.

It goes without saying that the arrival of the new tricycles is designed to force a lowering of prices by the taxi drivers operating the beach zone. One journey in a big almendrón* taxi costs at least 50 pesos, but the likelihood of a price drop remains far off. While the old Chevrolets or Fords circulate constantly around the city, the new initiative by the authorities can hardly be seen. They might have three wheels, but the others have many years of struggling with inflation and with state experiments.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

*Translator’s note: Almendrón — from the Spanish word for ‘almond’, because of the shape — is the name given to the large classic American cars operated as taxis in Cuba.

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The United States Calls for the Release of Cuban Protesters Detained on 11 July 2021 (11J)

Photo of Jonathan Torres Farrat with his mother published by Nichols to demand the release of the llJ prisoners. (@WHAAsstSecty)

14ymedio/EFE, Havana/Washington, 24 November 2022 — The United States called for the release of Cuban demonstrators detained in the protests of July 11, 2021, who are being tried this Wednesday, including Jonathan Torres, a minor when the events occurred.

“We are concerned about the upcoming trial of Jonathan Torres Farrat, who was only 17 years old during the 11J protests. He faces up to 8 years in prison,” the Undersecretary for Latin America of the State Department, Brian Nichols, said on social media.

The message is accompanied by a photograph of the young man, who was accused of “public disorder” and “assault” after participating in the largest protests in Cuba in decades. “Families must be together. The Cuban government must release Jonathan and other detained protesters,” adds the head of relations with Latin America holding the foreign portfolio.

Torres’ mother, Bárbara Farrat, said she felt hopeful after the first day of the trial, speaking to the Spanish agency EFE. “There is hope that a lower penalty will be achieved,” she said.

Farrat, who defends her son’s innocence, said she observed that the president of the Havana court who judges him could opt for the penalty of “correctional work without internment.” continue reading

Torres’ mother had been summoned to testify against her own son, but refrained from doing so, she told EFE.

In the first session of the trial, the testimony of one of the witnesses for the Prosecutor’s Office — a police officer who claimed to have been assaulted by the demonstrators — was discarded after he contradicted himself and failed to identify his attackers, according to the mother and her husband, Orlando Ramírez. “They presented videos as evidence (against the 15 prosecuted), but there were times when an expert said that he could only be 50% sure that it was Jonathan. They also wanted to say that it was him because of the color of his shoes,” Ramírez said. An agent, Ramírez recalled, even said that there was a video of the assault, but this turned out not to be true.

Despite what they saw in the courtroom this Wednesday, Ramírez and Ferrat doubt that there may be an acquittal. “We all know the situation that the boys are in,” they said regretfully.

According to the letter to which EFE had access, the defendants are accused of throwing “stones, bottles, pieces of wood and other items” at the police and shouting slogans against the Government and President Miguel Díaz-Canel. According to the prosecutor’s petition, dated December 30 of last year, the defendants carried out actions “of violence without limits.”

The ages of the defendants range between 17 and 51 years old, with Torres being the youngest. He is one of the 55 protesters between the ages of 16 and 17 who face criminal proceedings for the events.

Although the Supreme Court alleges that in all cases “due process” is observed, the relatives of the convicted and some NGOs warn of the constant irregularities. In addition, access to the trials for the independent or foreign press or the diplomats who requested it has not been allowed.

After the 11J protests, about 600 sentences have been handed down, some up to 30 years in prison. Several of the magistrates who are judging these cases have been added to the list of repressors prepared by the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FDHC).

Precisely, one of the people on the list is the Cuban prosecutor Vivian Pérez Pérez, who prepared the dossiers against the 15 defendants now in Havana, in addition to another for San Miguel Padrón. In both cases she requested very high penalties.

“Since June, Pérez Pérez can be found under file number 597 in the database of Cuban repressors, for having produced two unjust dossiers in the preparatory phase against peaceful 11J protesters,” said Rolando Cartaya, a specialist in the FDHC program.

“In the first, number 755, she requested penalties of between 5 and 14 years in prison for 15 of those who protested in the municipality of San Miguel del Padrón, mostly young people, accused of public disorder, contempt, assault and incitement to commit a crime. At the end of October, the relatives of these defendants received word of the final sentences: between 3 and 10 years in prison.”

“It is now announced that 15 other protesters of that popular uprising will go to trial on November 23 and 24, but in the municipality of Diez de Octubre. Prosecutor Pérez Pérez was even more severe in asking for sentences of 7 to 12 years of deprivation of liberty for the same crimes. But in this case, 13 of the 15 defendants face prosecutors’ petitions for 10 years or more.”

“Prosecutor Pérez Pérez could be accused of two malfeasance charges for requesting these sentences, obviously unfair and disproportionate,” Cartaya concluded.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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