Cuba is experiencing a deep shortage of commodities, high inflation, partial dollarization of the economy and frequent and prolonged blackouts. (14ymedio)
EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 12 December 2022 — The Cuban Government hopes that the national economy will grow by 3% in 2023, compared to 2% this year and 1.3% in the previous year, which would not be enough to recover the levels of 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil, announced these figures when presenting the 2023 Economic Plan on the first day of the tenth session of the current legislature of the National Assembly of People’s Power.
The Cuban regime, by making these data public, recognizes, without openly subscribing to it, that the forecast of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) that the Island would grow this 2022 by only 2% was finally correct compared to the 4% that the Government claimed.
The ECLAC also indicated last October, that the forecast for 2023 is even lower and remains at just 1.8%.
Gil indicated that in 2023 there will be “continued progress in the gradual recovery of the economy,” a “hard” job, although he assured that there are “bright spots, alternatives,” and “solutions.” continue reading
“2023 will be better than 2022,” said Gil, who who urged work to achieve the forecasts, because “nothing is going to fall out of the sky.” “Without triumphalism, but with optimism,” he added.
At constant prices, the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023 can reach – according to the ministerial plan — 53,931 million Cuban pesos (2,248.4 million dollars), compared to the 52,360 million pesos (2,182.9 million dollars) for 2022, the 51,334 million pesos for 2021 (2,140.1 million dollars), the 50,698 million pesos (2,113.6 million dollars) for 2020, and the 56,932 million pesos (2,373.5 million dollars) for 2019.
“The trend towards growth experienced during 2021 and 2022 is maintained, although the activity levels of 2019 are not yet achieved,” read the minister’s presentation.
Gil appreciated certain “conditions” that favor the economic recovery, such as the control of covid-19, the improvement that is expected for the tourism sector and the “results” of the international tour recently made by President Miguel Díaz-Canel.
Díaz-Canel visited Algeria, Turkey, Russia and China in November with the restructuring of public debt and energy supply as the main points of his agenda.
Cuba suffers a serious economic crisis due to the combination of the effects of the pandemic, the tightening of US sanctions and errors in economic policy.
This situation translates into a deep shortage of basic products (food, medicines, fuel), high inflation, partial dollarization of the economy and frequent and prolonged blackouts.
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
Ana Belkis Ferrer García, sister of the opposition leader, explained what happened on December 9. (Image capture)
14ymedio, Havana, 11 December 2022 — Opposition leader José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), has been the victim of a beating at the Mar Verde prison in Santiago de Cuba, the Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba charged in a statement. The activist protested against the violation of his correspondence, and the guards responded to his complaint with violence.
Ana Belkis Ferrer García, sister of the opposition leader, detailed in a transmission through the social network Facebook what happened on December 9, during the family visit that the activist received in the prison. The meeting was attended by his wife, Nelva Ismaray Ortega, and two of the dissident’s children, who witnessed the aggressive response of the guards.
“His little daughter, Victoria Fatima Ferrer, who ran to her father’s aid, was also assaulted, as was his wife Nelva. The psychological consequences of this unleashed violence will have a lasting and probably devastating impact on these young children,” the Council added in its statement.
The violence against Ferrer occurred after his wife told him that on November 30, after attending the conjugal visit, she was detained, and the guards confiscated the correspondence that the opposition leader had given her. They read the letters and “returned only some of them but kept the others,” according to the opposition leader’s sister. continue reading
Upon learning of this, Ferrer demanded the right of respect for his correspondence in front of the two guards who had been listening all the time to what he was talking about with his family. When the UNPACU leader complained, they began to beat him. “One held him down and the other hit him hard. Fatima, José Daniel’s daughter, tried to intervene to stop them from hitting her father, and they pushed her.
The activist was immobilized. “They covered his mouth because he began to shout ’Down with Raúl Castro, Down with Díaz-Canel, Down with the dictatorship!’ They threw him to the floor,” his sister said. Before he was taken out of the visiting room, the opposition leader managed to tell his wife that he was going on a hunger strike because of the violation of his correspondence and the non-compliance with his phone-call schedule.
For Ana Belkis Ferrer García, the reason for the restrictions on her brother’s phone calls is to prevent “him from making the complaints he made in those few minutes.” She explains that the opposition leader has been in a detention cell for 16 months “in cruel, inhuman and degrading conditions. Since he is on a hunger strike, they have taken away all his belongings,” she complains.
“José Daniel Ferrer must be released immediately and unconditionally, in the same way as all political prisoners. All of them are innocent. Amnesty, which is supported by the citizenry, is an appropriate way, supported by the international community that defends human rights,” says the Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba in its texts, and it also demands that “the perpetrators, uniformed or not, be punished for this atrocious and barbaric display of violence.”
Ferrer is one of nearly 1,000 political prisoners being held by the regime since the mass protests of July 11, 2021, or after the demonstrations of recent months.
Translated by: Hombre de Paz
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
In terms of sexist violence, October was the bloodiest month of 2022, with six murders reported by the independent press and feminist platforms. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana | 10 December 2022 — Miriam del Pilar Vidal Escoda, from Camagüey, is the 34th victim to die of sexist violence in Cuba so far in 2022. According to sources close to the 54-year-old woman, she was murdered by her ex-partner, from whom she had separated on several occasions.
The platforms that keep an unofficial record of sexist murders on the Island still do not confirm the death, but those close to Vidal Escoda said on social networks that it was a femicide. They even left comments on the Facebook profile of the alleged attacker, identified as José Alonso, in a post on November 7, 2022, where he had posted that he was “in a relationship.”
A source close to the victim confirmed to the newspaper ADNCuba that the crime occurred between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Wednesday, December 7, when the alleged attacker stabbed her in the chest with a knife. The source said that the subject cleaned up the blood and blocked the door with a bar.
“He left with bloody but dry hands,” the source added, heading to the house of the woman’s cousin, not far from his residence, where he gave him a cell phone with the request to give it to Vidal Escoda’s daughter. Then he went to work in a bakery, where the police captured him hours later. The source said that the same relatives of the subject alerted the police to the incident, and when they knocked down the door, they found the woman’s lifeless body. continue reading
Vidal Escoda worked as a senior gastronomy specialist for the Provincial Tourism Company in the city of Santa María, and her daughter graduated with a degree in tourism from the University of Camagüey.
This femicide joins the long list that now has 34 violent deaths in 2022, most of them brutal murders by ex-partners. The most recent case was that of Yamila Batista, in the Mantilla neighborhood, in the Havana municipality of Arroyo Naranjo, who had recently moved home. Her aggressor took his own life after several days of harassment.
In terms of sexist violence, October was the bloodiest month of 2022, with six cases reported by the independent press and feminist platforms; the authorities don’t publish official records of these crimes. The only data available in state sources on gender violence come from a 2016 survey, which revealed that 26.7% of Cuban women between the ages of 15 and 74 said they had suffered some type of violence in their relationship in the twelve months prior to the study, and only 3.7% of those assaulted asked for institutional help.
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
“The objectives of the Economy Plan for 2022 were not achieved,” Gil summarized. “The approved measures have not had the necessary impact.” (Twitter/Communist Party of Cuba)
14ymedio, Havana, 10 December 2022 — The leaders of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) took advantage of the closure, this Saturday, of the 5th Plenary of the Central Committee, to justify their actions, which have led the country to a generalized crisis with daily blackouts. “It was a hard and difficult year,” admitted the Minister of Economy, Alejandro Gil Fernández, without at any time recognizing the responsibility of the leaders in the collapse of the national economy.
Raúl Castro was not present at the Party plenary, but it was attended by Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, in spite of rumors circulating this week about his death, and a special guest, José Ramón Machado Ventura, a member of the “auxiliary structure” of the Central Committee.
The official press was discreet when it came to discussing the specific issues addressed by the PCC cadres. Chaired by a silent Díaz-Canel and closely monitored by the military members of the Central Committee, the leaders have, since Friday, expressed their concerns about the critical situation of the Island and the “deviations of the Ordering Task”* implemented since January 2021.
“The objectives of the Economy Plan for 2022 were not achieved,” Gil summarized. “The approved measures have not had the necessary impact.” The minister quickly amended the pessimism of his statement and attributed the Island’s failures to the “hardening of the blockade” [referring to the American embargo], the covid pandemic, the rise in prices in the world market and global inflation, “beyond our organizational problems.”
Although nothing is as serious, he lamented, as the lack of hard currency. Everything necessary to boost the development of the country is approved by the leaders, he said, but simply “we do not have the resources.” continue reading
He added that there was some “recovery” thanks to the export of nickel, tobacco, rum, honey and seafood, but pointed out that only 1.7 million tourists have arrived in the country, leaving a need for 800,000 more to meet official forecasts, and almost 3 million more to reach the figures of the years before the pandemic.
“We cannot compare ourselves to 2021,” Gil said, after lashing out at agricultural leaders, whose results were remarkably low. “The country has induced or imported inflation,” he said, because importation “forces” the Government to raise prices. “We can’t do anything about that inflation,” he warned.
About the extra cost, he said, “we are including an internal component of indiscipline, diversion, speculation, resale.” He again stoked the idea of encouraging the “hunting” of resellers by ordinary Cubans.
Other leaders underlined Alejandro Gil’s observations. The common factor of the interventions was to describe the Government’s measures as “bold and innovative” and denounce their implementation by local cadres and the general population.
During the first session of the plenary, held this Friday, they pointed out the “progressive socioeconomic complexity,” attributed not only to the ’blockade’ and the coronavirus pandemic, but also to the explosion of the Saratoga hotel, the fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base and the passage of Hurricane Ian in the western part of the island, whose “devastation” destabilized the National Electric System.
“The effects of this scenario are reflected in an aggravated situation of material deficiencies that affects all social and economic sectors of the country. Undersupply and inflation persist, with insufficient results in the measures adopted, which maintains a direct impact on the quality of life of the people,” admits the report published by the Party during the event.
The text also points out that the shortcomings have had “a harmful political and ideological impact on different sectors of our society,” and caused an increase in “subversive and destabilizing plans, using a fierce media campaign as a spearhead.”
They considered it urgent to “improve the Party’s work in universities” and to “take into account the states of opinion of the population.” Although they referred — according to the newspaper Granma — to the East-West Transfer project,** carried out in Mayarí, Holguín, they did not offer too many details about the state of the investment in the work, which Vice President Salvador Valdés Mesa described as “futuristic.”
During the plenary, the deaths of two recently deceased military members of the Central Committee were noted: Brigadier General José Alberto Yanes and Major General Luis Alberto López-Calleja, former son-in-law of Raúl Castro, president of the Armed Forces Business Administration Group and one of the most powerful men on the Island.
Translator’s notes:
*The “Ordering Task” is a collection of measures that include eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso as the only national currency, raising prices, raising salaries (but not as much as prices), opening stores that take payment only in hard currency which must be in the form of specially issued pre-paid debit cards, and a broad range of other measures targeted to different elements of the Cuban economy.
**The East-West Transfer project involves major construction of aqueduct networks to conserve water and increase agricultural production.
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
Reineris Andreu was one of the medal options that Cuba had in the wrestling discipline. (Jit)
14ymedio, Havana | 9 December 2022 – The double world wrestling champion, Reineris Andreu, left Cuba’s national team after his participation in an event held in the Dominican Republic, the official media Jit confirmed on Thursday. The athlete’s escape is the sixth in this sport so far this year and was revealed, as usually happens, as “an indiscipline.”
The news was a bucket of ice water for the Cuban team that finalized the regional qualifying event in the Dominican Republic with 16 gold medals, one silver and one bronze. Andreu’s escape limits the Island’s possibilities at the Central American and Caribbean Games, said Miami-based Cuban wrestling coach Daniel Gómez.
With the escape of the Sancti Spíritus athlete, Gomez said on his social networks, “Cuba has few options for a gold medal in this division at the Central American and Caribbean Games.”
The coach, originally from Villa Clara, recalled that the regime punished the wrestler. “They didn’t give him the resources to participate in international youth tournaments.” Without Reineris Andreu and Alexei Alvarez, who “a few months ago asked for his release from the national team and currently resides in Spain,” the Island suffers from a lack of people in this sport.
“The exodus of Cubans transcends any category or branch of society,” published journalist Francys Romero, after learning that the first “undisciplined” from the event in Mexico, as the ruling party calls deserters, was the Olympic champion of Rio de Janeiro 2016 and two-time world champion Ismael Borrero.
To the desertions of Borrero, Solenzal and Cordero were added those of the pinareños Leonardo Herrera (60 Kg) and Amanda Hernández (53 Kg), two young talents who will seek to grow in their sport outside the Island.
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
A division is perceived between those who believe that the Congress has aligned itself with the “imperialist powers” and those who reproach Castillo’s performance this Wednesday. (Facebook/Pedro Castillo)
14ymedio, Madrid, 8 December 2022 — The Cuban chancellor, Bruno Rodríguez, so quick to comment on everything on his Twitter account, has not yet pronounced on the events in Peru and the imprisonment of an ally of Havana after his failing in an attempt at a coup. This silence contrasts with the stridency of his reaction, the day before, to the condemnatory sentence for Argentina’s Vice-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, when he wrote on Twitter: “We ratify our solidarity with @CFKArgentina in the face of judicial and media harassment, which has clear political purposes.”
Nor did Miguel Díaz-Canel spare any emotion: “We reiterate our rejection of politically motivated judicial processes and reaffirm all our support and solidarity to @CFKArgentina in the face of judicial and media harassment against her.” The president used the hashtags #CubaTeAbraza [Cuba Hugs You] and #TodosConCristina [Everyone With Cristina].
The two accounts remain in absolute silence so far about the fate of now former President Pedro Castillo in Peru, who this Wednesday tried to dissolve Parliament before a third motion for his impeachment, in a suicide move that didn’t even have the support of his own government.
Faced with the apparent bewilderment of Cuban leaders, who are traveling in several Caribbean countries, Granma, the Communist Party newspaper was ahead of the official position. On Thursday, Granma published a short article entitled “Another Parliamentary Coup” that contains some elements of what happened in the intense day experienced yesterday in Lima, mentioning very briefly the announcement of the dissolution of Congress by Castillo.
Granma’s peculiar interpretation consists of explaining that the Andean country is going through a “political crisis” caused by “the actions of the Peruvian opposition, the majority in Congress, that hasn’t let the president, elected by the people 16 months ago, govern.” continue reading
Unlike the chavistaDiosdado Cabello, who accuses Washington of being behind the fall of Castillo, Granma doesn’t pronounce on this aspect, but everything indicates that the members of the Sao Paulo Forum, including Cuba, are going along with that line.
Last night, the same newspaper published a text delving into the matter of Cristina Fernández with the headline “Adjustment of right-wing accounts,” in which the author says: “This procedure is not new, and I would say that it is quite recurrent on the part of right-wing governments against sectors of the left in the Latin American region, in order to stigmatize them as ’corrupt’ by resorting to a toxic system of ’justice’, accompanied by media work aimed at creating states of opinion based on lies.”
In Cubadebate, the information about Castillo’s case is even more like shorthand. So much so that some readers even ask for explanations about what happened. “And could he finally legally do what he did? Because by right he talks about a ’dissolved’ Congress, while Telesur talks about Congress without an adjective. The truth is I don’t understand anything,” a user asks. Another comes in, with little detail, to shed light on the matter: “He shouldn’t have done it. He committed the crime of sedition. Namely, he can be put in prison for 5 to 10 years.”
The division is perceived between those who believe that the Peruvian Congress has aligned itself with the “imperialist powers” to make life impossible for Castillo and those who, even so, reproach his performance this Wednesday. “Something is true: even if they don’t let you govern, you can’t take the law into your own hands,” says a reader.
To learn more, the readers of the official press will have to wait for the Cuban authorities to clarify their position.
Castillo is not Kirchner. Although the Cuban authorities never hid their preference for the leftist schoolteacher over his opponent, the right-wing Keiko Fujimori, Castillo did not show the gratitude that the Havana regime usually demands of its allies. In January of this year, the former president gave an interview to CNN where he talked about international politics and was insistently asked about his relations with the governments of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Uncomfortable, Castillo did not dare to go against them but was not in favor either.
“President, would you adopt the Cuban, Nicaraguan or Venezuelan model?” “Never,” he ended up responding. At the insistence of the interviewer on whether he considered Cuba a democracy, the Peruvian again showed doubt. “Cuba is a sister country,” he tried to escape before he ended up saying: “We will have to ask the Cubans. I would not like any other country or person to interfere in the lives of Peruvians.” He did the same when he spoke about Managua and Caracas.
His chancellor did not have the same delicacy and was clear when it came to condemning the elections in Nicaragua, whose development he said he had “followed with concern.” The Ministry of Foreign Affairs categorically said that the elections did not meet “the minimum criteria of free, fair and transparent elections established by the Inter-American Democratic Charter, damaging their credibility, democracy and the rule of law, and they deserve the rejection of the international community.”
This hesitant attitude of the Peruvian did not go unnoticed by Venezeulan President Nicolas Maduro. He wanted Castillo fully in the group, along with Gustavo Petro and Gabriel Boric, who criticized the Bolivarian regime at the beginning of the year. “Every day there is a campaign against Venezuela. There has emerged a cowardly left that bases its discourse on attacking the successful, victorious Bolivarian model, on attacking the historical legacy, and on attacking me as president,” said Hugo Chávez’s successor.
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
The western provinces were the ones that reflected the greatest number of abstentions. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Carlos Espinosa, Havana, 8 December 2022 — The Cuban provinces most punished by Hurricane Ian — which hit the western end of the Island at the end of September — recorded the highest rates of abstention and blank votes in the municipal elections of November 27, according to official data released this Wednesday.
In these elections, the highest percentage of abstentions since 1959 was recorded: 31.44%, according to official figures, cross-checked by EFE.
Although this data may be normal in other latitudes, it’s unusually high for Cuba. The Island is accustomed to participation rates even above 90%, although they have progressively decreased in recent years.
In Havana the abstention was 42.89%, an unprecedented rate and the highest among the 15 provinces, while in Isla de la Juventud it was 31.63% and in Matanzas, 31.14%.
These three western territories, among the most damaged by Ian, were among the five with the lowest participation. In the previous municipal (2017) elections, they were not among the highest rates of abstention.
In addition, three of the five provinces in which abstention increased the most compared to the municipal elections of 2017 and those of this November were also in the west: Havana (+27 percentage points, the fastest growing), followed in third and fourth place by its neighbors Mayabeque (+23.01) and Artemisa (+22.69). continue reading
Pinar del Río, the territory most affected by Ian, recorded the highest percentage of blank votes, 7%. For its part, in Mayabeque, practically one in 10 voters annulled the vote.
For three experts consulted by EFE, this demobilization is a form of rejection, which in a Western liberal democracy could be translated as a “punishment vote.”
The president of the country himself, Miguel Díaz-Canel, already used this expression in the referendum for the new Family Code and advocated incorporating it in the face of controversial issues “in the midst of a complex situation,” in reference to the serious economic and energy crisis that the country is suffering.
Experts consider that abstention, in the Cuban case, has a message. “Not voting in Cuba is a very important act of rebellion,” Leandro Querido, executive director of Electoral Transparency and author of the book Asíse vota en Cuba [This is How Cuba Votes], tells EFE.
In similar terms, Diosnara Ortega, Cuban sociologist and director of the Chilean School of Sociology of the Silva Henríquez Catholic University, also speaks of “a politicized abstention.”
“Although in the rest of the world (abstention) responds to a process of depoliticization (…) in Cuba it is the opposite because (citizens) find in that recourse a way of dissenting from a power structure, not just from a Government,” she tells EFE.
Some experts go further and add the abstentions to the null and blank votes for what they call the “rejection” rate.
In the November municipal elections, that rejection rate reached 38.91% throughout the country, which is 17 percentage points higher than in 2017. In comparison, the Family Code rate was 30.13% (not counting the “no” votes), and in the 2017 municipal elections it stood at 21.59%.
Here the western provinces stand out again: Havana (49.75%) in first place and Mayabeque (39.85%) in second, followed by Isla de la Juventud (39.18%) and Artemisa (38.92%).
The region also stands out in the increase in the rejection rate compared to the municipal elections of five years ago. Havana (+26.07 percentage points) is at the top of the list, followed by Cienfuegos (+23.85), Mayabeque (+23.36), Artemisa (+21.07) and Isla de la Juventud (+20.57).
The president of the National Electoral Council (CEN), Alina Balseiro, stated that this rejection rate “is not a legal term” and considers that the results of these elections cannot be compared with those of previous elections, because they are “processes of a different nature” and because of the changes that the country has undergone since then.
Experts believe that the reasons for abstention are multifaceted, although they coincidentally point to the boredom and frustration of the population after two years of serious economic and energy crises as common elements.
The sum of the pandemic, the tightening of US sanctions against Cuba and errors in domestic economic policy have caused a great shortage of essentials from food to medicines and fuel, plus galloping inflation, prolonged and frequent blackouts and massive emigration.
In the west is added the damage caused by Ian, with winds of up to 125 miles per hour, which caused damage to more than 100,000 homes and serious damage in the countryside. Repair work is progressing slowly despite efforts.
Experts go beyond the economic and say that electoral criticism points to the entire political system in Cuba. This is pointed out by Ortega and Hilda Landrove, Cuban researcher, cultural promoter and candidate for a doctorate in Mesoamerican Studies from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
The latter reminds EFE that these demobilization percentages were not recorded even in the so-called Special Period, the serious economic crisis that followed the fall of the Soviet bloc.
“In Cuba 15-20 years ago, the speech of unanimity continued. We cannot forget that when there are elections, what comes into play is the validation of a system,” concludes Landrove.
Despite the adverse data, Alina Balseiro yesterday declared the election as “a victory for the people.” The president of the CEN even went so far as to say that the participation was a “clear expression of support” by “a majority.”
Electoral Transparency, which already made a critical statement at the end of the first round, made public a second text in which it insisted on the need to carry out an audit to verify the data of elections that are “incontestable.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
This connection “will give the country a new route for international services, geographically diversifying current connectivity,” Etecsa said. (14ymedio)
EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 7 December 2022 — The Cuban state telecommunications company Etecsa announced on Wednesday an agreement with the French company Orange to build an underwater cable between Cuba and Martinique to improve internet access on the Island.
The announcement came just a week after experts from the U.S. Department of Justice advised against installing what would have been the first submarine telecommunications cable to connect the Island to U.S. territory.
Etecsa explained in a statement that it has signed an agreement that will allow it to “expand and diversify international capacities, given the growing demand for internet connection and broadband services” and “support its international expansion.”
“It will allow, in accordance with the country’s economic possibilities, to continue expanding international connectivity,” the company said.
This connection “will provide the country with a new route for international services, geographically diversifying current connectivity.” Cuba has only one submarine cable for the internet, the ALBA-1, which has been connecting it to Venezuela since 2012. continue reading
It added that Orange will deploy the submarine cable through its subsidiary Orange Marine, to connect the province of Cienfuegos with the island of Martinique, a French overseas territory almost 1,200 miles away.
Etecsa did not announce deadlines or the cost of the plan. It only indicated that the project is “under development,” that it has “all permissions for deployment” and that “the physical structure” of the cable will be ready in 2023.
The week before, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission recommended not granting an underwater cable license to the ARCOS-1 USA system to connect Florida to the Island.
The U.S. Department of Justice stated that the Cuban government represents a “counter-intelligence threat” to the United States because Etecsa would manage the cable landing system, and then Havana could “access sensitive U.S. data traveling through the new segment of the cable.”
The Cuban government criticized this decision and said that it causes “harm to the Cuban people.”
On the other hand, the Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodríguez, on Wednesday, “strongly” denounced a cyberattack on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that occurred yesterday.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported on Twitter that its internet portal “had limited access to users for several hours from 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday.”
The cause, according to the Chancellery, was “a cyberattack that was intended to intentionally saturate bandwidth on the network.”
Rodríguez said that “illegal actions by cyberpirates are part of the unconventional war against Cuba in (the) communication and digital spheres.” The Foreign Ministry’s statement also pointed to the “communication war” against the Island, without offering more details.
The Foreign Relations complaint happened just two weeks before the Government held its “National Cybersecurity Day, whose “objective is to raise awareness and propose concrete actions in the technological field.”
“A computerized society, increasingly present in cyberspace, requires and defends its security,” said the Ministry of Communications, which used the hashtag #CybersecurityForAll in several publications.
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
A ship in the port of Cienfuegos, where the gravel that will travel to Mexico is stored. (ACN)
14ymedio, Havana, 12 December 2022 — A total of 20,000 tons of rajón stone — a type of gravel — is ready to travel to the Yucatan peninsula, in Mexico, for construction work on the controversial Mayan Train, one of the emblematic projects of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Administration.
As explained by the head of the operations group of the Central Port Services Company, Andrés Díaz Guerrero, and reported by the official press, the 20,000 tons correspond to an upcoming first shipment and is in open-air warehouses in the port of Cienfuegos.
When commercialization begins, added the official, 90,000 tons of stone must be handled in the first month, a figure that will increase in stages, until reaching a rate of 200,000 tons per month.
The stone that will be exported to Mexico comes from the Arriete quarry, in the Cienfuegos municipality of Palmira, the article specifies, and it is transported by rail to the yard of the maritime terminal.
The use of Cuban gravel for the Mayan Train megaproject — a railway line of some 1,550 kilometers that will cover the three states that sit on the Yucatan peninsula (Yucatán, Campeche and Quintana Roo), connecting them with Tabasco and Chiapas — was announced by López Obrador himself last month.
The project is surrounded by intense controversy in Mexico. Numerous activists accuse the Government of ignoring environmental legislation for its execution, and accuse it of alleged irregularities in the management of the budget, which exceeds 15 billion dollars.
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
The Cuban troubadour and composer Silvio Rodríguez Domínguez received the Coral Honor Award at the 43rd edition of the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema. (ACN)
EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 10 December 2022 — The Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez was awarded, this Friday, with the Choir of Honor at the awards gala of the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana.
The gala was the culmination of the festival, which since December 1 has screened hundreds of films, and the singer-songwriter caused the biggest wave of applause of the night when he went up to collect the award and address a few words to the public.
“The revolution is lucidity and not complacency,” said the musician, who wished that Cuban cultural institutions “be increasingly wise and inclusive” to bring the country closer to “the fullness that we usually dream of.”
Rodríguez recalled in a brief address — and quoted one by one — all the members, “present and absent,”,of the nueva trova, the musical movement he founded 50 years ago, among others, together with the singer-songwriter Pablo Milanés, recently deceased.
For his part, Milanés received the greatest applause at the opening gala of the Havana film festival, when a heartfelt tribute was paid to him by the organization shared by the attendees, mainly from the world of the arts.
The Bolivian film El gran movimiento monopolized the main awards of the night, including Best Fiction Feature Film and Best Director, which went to its director Kiro Ruso. continue reading
Among the recognitions, the awarding of the new Arrecife prize to the Colombian and French production film Un varón, by director Fabián Hernández, was also highlighted, as the jury considered that it was the festival’s work that best reflects the reality of the LGBTIQ+ community.
The film Argentina 1985, which was screened at the festival’s opening gala, won Best Art Direction, Best Screenplay and Best Male Performance, as well as the Signis, awarded by the Catholic World Communication Association.
Several first works were also awarded, including the Chilean-Argentine 1976, by Manuela Martelli, and Amparo, by director Simón Mesa Soto, a production from Colombia, Sweden, Germany and Qatar.
The 43rd edition of the festival, the first edition in a traditional format after two years of the pandemic, included 185 works in the official selection, including fiction short films, debut films, documentaries and animated works.
This year a total of 15 works competed for the Best Feature Film Award and as many for First Works, and there were 17 documentaries, 15 fiction short films, ten documentaries in short film format, 29 animated films, 32 unpublished scripts and 30 posters. The most represented countries among the selected films were Argentina, Mexico and Brazil, although the organizers highlighted the presence of films from Bolivia and Costa Rica. Beyond the American continent, Spain, France and Portugal were also present.
The festival also included a series of parallel events, among which the tribute to Cuban filmmaker Nicolás Guillén Landrián (1938-2003) stood out, which included the projection of some of his restored works and a documentary about his life, by Ernesto Daranas.
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
Two ‘campesinos’ observe the deteriorated machinery with which the harvest is carried out in a Cuban sugar cane field. (EFE / File)
EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana | 10 December“Although the benefits of the measures and their encouragement in sugarcane production are recognized, there is a group of objective and subjective factors that limit their scope,” said the president of Azcuba, Julio García, at the 5th plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba that has been in session since yesterday in Havana.
The functionary mentioned, according to the official newspaper Granma, that these limitations are related “to the completion of the labor force, the creation of conditions to organize the collectives, labor and technological discipline.”
He added that there are also “financial problems and lack of inputs.”
A year ago, during the 3rd Plenum of the Central Committee of the PCC, these measures were implemented, which included actions aimed at the generation of electricity, the production of cane and its derivatives, as well as provisions on financing, logistics, business management and science, technology and innovation.
At the partisan meeting this Saturday, the Central Committee’s head of the Agrifood Department, Félix Duarte, affirmed that “this harvest will be the smallest in 64 years of Revolution.”
In other times, the sugar industry was Cuba’s economic engine, but it suffered a drastic drop in production starting in the 1990s with the crisis after the fall of the Soviet bloc.
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
The Hotel Saratoga will be stabilized while several nearby buildings will be demolished. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 6 December 2022 — Seven months ago, on the morning of May 6, an explosion rocked central Havana, destroying the Saratoga Hotel. It took the lives of 47 people, most of them hotel employees who were finalizing preparations for its reopening, which had been scheduled for May 10. Several neighbors and passersby were also among those killed.
While not as serious, the damage was anything but minor for those who lost their homes, especially the residents of the adjoining building, or their vehicles, which were parked on the adjoining streets. For them, the ongoing wait seems eternal.
“They haven’t yet settled on a plan for what they’re going to do with the Saratoga. They’re not going to completely demolish it, just what’s necessary to stabilize the structure. The estimated time is eight to ten months,” one of the area residents tells 14ymedio.
One resident was told by an attorney that he will not receive any compensation until it is determined who is responsible, something that does not seem to be a pressing issue for authorities. “They’re not saying anything. The culprit and the executioner are one and the same,” he says. continue reading
The source, who prefers to remain anonymous, states that he and other victims have not been told of any third-party insurance that would compensate them for their losses. He does point out, however, that the hotel was covered by an insurer whose name he does not know but who will be the one on the hook for repairs.
“The demolition, stabilization and construction of the buildings’ concrete structures will be carried out by Almest (a real estate company operated the Cuban Armed Forces) and the Military Construction Union (UCM), together with a French company,” he explained. Although it is not yet known which company that might be, the French firm Bouygues has previously partnered with the state to build twenty-two luxury hotels on the island, including the Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski, which faces Central Park in Old Havana.
According to the source, neighbors hope that Almest and UCM will be the ones to carry out the project from start to finish because, it is felt, “they have the best materials, technology and technical staff.” The hotel’s structure is linked to that of 609 Prado — the neighboring property, which suffered extensive damage — and the Baptist church. The three must work together, although the government’s plan is to restore the Saratoga and demolish the two others.
“Diaz-Canel said from the beginning that these buildings were going to share the same fate, though they won’t all be completely demolished. They say that they’re going to redo them, not the same as before in terms of design, but that their previous sizes — the square meters of each apartment — will be respected” he adds.
For the time being, the architectural design of the new buildings will be handled by Havana City Design with funds provided by the government and the Ministry of Planning and Housing. “This is all we know. They’re not even saying what will happen later, although they mention that the decision to tear down 609 Prado and the church might be in the hands of the Ministry of Construction.”
As for the residents, the source says that they will most likely continue to be temporarily housed at Villa Panamericana. “I estimate this will take four or five years, if they’re lucky,” he admits.
One of the residents, Barbara Tenreyro, regularly posts monthly recollections of the event on social media. On November 6, the six-month anniversary of the explosion, she once again painfully described what she lost that day.
“It’s been four months but it feels like yesterday,” she writes. “That’s when, amidst all the pain of what we lost, we began fighting to have our houses rebuilt, to be heard, for our problem to be given priority in the midst of so much chaos. Because of the delay, many of our neighbors will not be able to enjoy their newly remodeled homes. For them, it will be as though they died the same day as the deadly incident. For those of us who remain, we hold in our hearts the hope that we’ll be able to return to our homes, to restart our lives. We are eternally grateful to those whose worked and sacrificed to see that we received donations and to everyone who expressed their support during this time.”
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
Residents of Luyanó were complaining that the authorities are turning a blind eye to irregularities between employees and coleros. (14ymedio)
The “Operation to Fight Coleros*,” (LCC) which began in Havana in August 2020, is coming to an end. The innumerable cases of corruption linked to these groups, called to organize the waiting lines outside stores, have forced a change in the sales policy in the capital that will hand over control to store personnel, so there are already those who predict that illicit enrichment will simply change hands.
The Havana Government abruptly made the announcement of this imminent change this Wednesday, which begins to be applied today in the municipalities of Centro Habana, La Habana Vieja, Regla, Cotorro and Arroyo Naranjo, although it will also be extended to the rest at a later date.
Each family nucleus will be able to purchase the ‘released’ products — that is the unrationed ones — controlled in the TRD and Caribe stores, through a ticket system that will include the name of the establishment, the number of the store and the nucleus, the number of consumers and a consecutive number. continue reading
“Everyone will know the day and place they’ll be assigned to buy, so as to avoid the exhausting lines and individuals who take advantage of the current situation to act illegally and enrich themselves”
“Everyone will know what day and location they have been assigned, so as to avoid the exhausting lines and individuals who take advantage of the current situation to act illegally and enrich themselves,” states the Capital’s Government.
There will be five defined ‘controlled’ products for sale: chicken, chopped meat, sausage, oil, and detergent. Regarding sales cycles, families of up to eight people will be allotted 5 kilos of chicken, two bottles of oil, four tubes of chopped meat, one kilo of detergent and two kilos of sausages. The figure doubles for family nucleus of nine to 16 members and triples from 17 on.
There will be extended business hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 10 am to 7 pm, for those who cannot go during normal business hours for work reasons. Sundays are fixed for those who cannot go shopping on their turn or to pick up products that “due to a greater problem” made it impossible to guarantee the day when they were supposed to buy them.” The latter is such a common situation that it threatens to overwhelm Sundays. Another of the weaknesses of the system is the organization outside the stores, which will be done “in order of arrival,” that is, a new lie, although a priori on a smaller scale.
The day of purchase that corresponds to each family nucleus will be set by the order of the consecutive number and depending on the daily capacity of the establishment, which must clearly display at the entrance those numbers of each item that are bought each day and the number that is intended for sale to those who could not attend on the scheduled day. The information will also be offered to citizens through the application, and will contain the distribution cycles and the order, by days, of stores and consumers.
The situation will be in the hands of “a person who enjoys prestige and authority in the community to exercise control of the number of products that the establishment receives daily”
n any case, the situation will be in the hands of “a person who enjoys prestige and authority in the community to exercise control over the number of products the establishment receives daily, with the aim at defining the number of families that can purchase available products that day.” The chosen one, whose merits are not a guarantee of his power to resist bribery, must review the stocks, define and inform the nuclei what they can purchase that day, as well as take stock at the end of the fulfillment of what was planned.
In the case of the “vulnerable,” who will be defined by the municipal governments and will have a document that accredits them as such, they can buy for themselves or through someone who can help them by presenting their identity card and the certificate.
The article released by the Government to announce to the population what changes are being made contains a series of measures that must be taken prior to the establishment of the new system, which makes it doubtful that it can enter into force immediately.
Among the measures is preparing, at a seminar, the personnel who will have control of the ration books and those in charge of supervising the inventory of products. In addition, there is talk of “setting up a meeting with the administrators or managers” to detail the new format and work on a program that communicates the strategy to the population, as well as a pilot test of the TeToca (it’s your turn) and Ticket applications, which will facilitate the organization.
The authorities claim to have made these decisions after verifying that there were “difficulties in the functioning of the municipal groups” and “insufficient confrontation with the ‘coleros’, resellers and hoarders”
The authorities claim to have made these decisions after verifying that there were “difficulties in the operation of municipal groups” and “insufficient confrontation with the coleros, resellers and hoarders” despite the fact that the authorities have “faced” 1,352 so far this year. Especially significant is the allusion to the “repeated statements of opinion of the population on the functioning of the LCC (Fight Against Coleros) groups, conditioned by irregularities.”
The reaction to the news, disseminated in the official media, has been mostly positive, including requests that it be extended to other provinces soon, and celebrating the end of the “abuse” and “mistreatment” attributed to LCC groups, although there have been demands made about distribution of products by the store or doubts about the new system that seems hasty at the very least.
*Translator’s note: A line or queue in Cuba is called a ’cola’ (literally ’tail) and ‘coleros‘ are people who others pay to hold their place in line, lines that can be hours, or even days, long.
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
In Cuba, 188 adult protesters were charged with sedition, of which 174 are serving an average of 10 years in prison. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 9 December 2022 — With 24 new arrests this November, the Cuban government keeps a total of 1,034 political prisoners incarcerated, according to what Prisoners Defenders (PD) denounced this Friday. In its latest monthly report, the Madrid-based organization exposed the “inhuman repression” that “dominates Cuba since 11 July 2021 (11J).”
PD clarified that thousands of people are systematically persecuted and harassed on the Island, and that the accusations – and subsequent imprisonment – of activists, independent journalists and protesters have not stopped since the massive protests of 2021.
“The general population is fleeing en masse from the repression,” says the report, which reports that many of the prisoners released by the regime — and even several of those who have left briefly “on passes” — take the opportunity to escape the country by throwing themselves into the sea aboard precarious rafts.
Those who have not been able to get out of prison “are tortured,” laments PD, which presented a report on 101 random cases of mistreated prisoners on the island before the Committee Against Torture. In addition, last June they demonstrated before the Committee of the Rights of the Child that Cuban minors are not safe from government repression. continue reading
The organization points out the upward trend in the number of political prisoners, from the 805 registered in December 2021 to 1,034. (PD)
Through a graph, the organization points out the upward trend in the number of political prisoners, from the 805 registered in December 2021 to the 1,034 recorded on November 30 of this year. The total number of new prisoners listed up to that date is 576.
The 24 inmates reported in November were imprisoned throughout the national territory. That same month, 17 citizens left the list, after full completion of their sentences, in most cases, and the rest left the country through illegal means.
In its report on the 1,034 Cuban prisoners, PD details that, of these, 29 are boys and 5 girls, for a total of 34 minors serving sentences (27) or going through criminal proceedings (7). Although the Government claims to have detained them in “comprehensive training schools,” the minors are in common penitentiary centers, with appalling living conditions and locked up in cells.
In addition, PD provides the information that an average of 150 children under the age of 16 are imprisoned on the Island for various reasons every twelve months. Not to mention the 260 adolescents aged 16 and 17 who, according to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the regime sends in the same period of time to conventional prisons.
Regarding minors prosecuted for the crime of sedition, the average sentence is 5 years, denounces PD, which constitutes an increase in the sentence requested by the Prosecutor for the same crime before the July 2021 protests.
Likewise, 188 adult protesters were charged with sedition, of which 174 are serving an average of 10 years in prison. Up to 30 years of imprisonment was the sentence for 792 inmates. As if that were not enough, the sentences of 17 citizens exceed 30 years of imprisonment and several of them suffer life imprisonment.
The situation of women and members of LGBTI+ collectives is no more optimistic. Trans women have been confined in prisons for men, in total disrespect for sexual diversity. PD also exposes that, while these citizens were imprisoned, a sector of Cubans applauded the new Family Code, which “eliminated the parental authority of Cuban fathers and mothers [so that the government] can snatch from their families the children of the protesters or those disaffected with the regime,” says the organization.
PD concludes that in Cuba there are 751 ’convicted’ of conscience, 253 ’condemned ’of conscience and another 30 inmates of difficult classification. In addition, the organization indicates the existence of another 11,000 civilians who suffer “pre-criminal sentences,” classified by the regime with people “with a tendency to commit crimes in the future,” who were sentenced to between 1 and 4 years in prison “without [any] crime: neither investigated, nor happened, nor committed, nor attempted.”
The new Penal Code, in force since December 1, predicts new sentences and an increase in the number of political prisoners before the end of the year, says PD, because “the mere report by the police authorities indicating ’inappropriate conduct’ allows, without any crime, summary imprisonment year after year for immediate decisions.”
An aggravating factor in the ethical unacceptability of the Cuban government is, for PD, the fact that its leaders rub shoulders with Russian President Vladimir Putin and congratulate him on his invasion of Ukraine, when it is clear the invasion has “the condemnation of most countries of the world.” Another indicator is the indecency of the island’s diplomacy, which makes a special effort to collect votes of support, in international organizations, for the Russian and Iranian dictatorships.
The international position of Cuba, affirms the text, is that of “enemy of Europe and of the freedom of the world,” but it points out that groups from the European Left have been accomplices of the “pantomime” that Cuba has been carrying out since 1959 at the international level.
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
Gutiérrez-Boronat pointed out that he had come to defend “the truth of the Cuban struggle” and was pleased that the professor was willing to discuss her premises and receive criticism. (Collage)
14ymedio, Havana, 10 DecemberThe controversial book Cuban Privilege (Cambridge University Press, 2022) – about US immigration policies towards Cuba – by American academic Susan Eckstein, was presented this Friday at Florida International University (FIU). The event included comments from the author and journalist Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat and the moderation of Jorge Duany, director of the Cuban Research Institute of the FIU.
The event, Duany said, “has attracted considerable interest from the community and the media.” The professor considered it necessary to clarify the role of the FIU in organizing events of this type, which consists of “dissemination of knowledge about Cuba and its diaspora,” in addition to creating a “space for the open discussion of ideas in a safe and respectful way.”
As the author of a Cuban-themed book, the FIU considered that Eckstein – despite the fact that her opinions could be “controversial” – was capable of motivating a debate on a controversial aspect of Cuban reality.
He also pointed out that, in the past, the FIU has invited numerous dissidents and organizations opposed to the Cuban government. However, he clarified, in none of the cases, should the opinions of the speakers be considered as official points of view of the institution or its faculty.
He added that the institution expected the audience to behave with “decency” and ensure “civilized discussion.”
Professor Susan Eckstein had twenty minutes to present the main ideas of her book. She said “I had studied the Cuban issue for quite some time,” as well as migratory movements from the Island to the US. “My text is completely focused on US policies,” she insisted, although that also implies explaining the causes and consequences of these policies and, of course, defining Cuban-American influence in Miami. continue reading
Eckstein concentrated on providing data on the measures implemented by different US presidents – although regulated by Congress – starting in 1959 and describing their effect on the growing Cuban immigration in his country.
One of the most controversial ideas mentioned by Eckstein was the questioning of the status of “refugees in the US” of Cuban migrants. According to the academic, the US government doubted, at least since 1980 – with the Administration of President Jimmy Carter – that Cubans could fit into a legal situation of political asylum.
This leads, Eckstein suggests, to a systematic review of migration policies and the benefits received by Cubans, which, as her book states, other migrants have not enjoyed. Those benefits were “an instrument of US foreign policy during the Cold War,” she concluded.
As of today, Eckstein calculated, “there are at least ten Cuban-Americans in Congress,” for which the community should be “proud,” she said, to a standing ovation from the public.
However, she regretted, while Cubans can quickly request asylum, other Latin American migrants cannot claim this reason to reside permanently in the US. Due to time constraints, the academic was unable to finish her argument.
The writer and journalist Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat, charged with the academic counterpoint with Eckstein, indicated that he came to defend “the truth of the Cuban struggle.” He was pleased that the professor was willing to discuss her premises and receive criticism, and announced that he would comment on what, in his opinion, is the essential postulate of the book: “Cubans have been considered as refugees despite the fact that what is at risk is not your life, it’s your lifestyle.”
Gutiérrez-Boronat said that the book was written from an “ideological prejudice” of the author. This bias jeopardizes the credibility of Eckstein’s arguments, he opined.
The Cuban listed the misconceptions on which Eckstein bases her arguments, such as the idea that the Cuban regime is based on “altruistic values” or that it is not a totalitarian government. He pointed out the omissions, in the text, of the Military Units to Aid Production (UMAP) camps, the surveillance of State Security, the torture and executions, and many other examples of repression.
“These are not ’low moments’ of the revolution, as the professor affirms, but rather they were there from the beginning,” says Gutiérrez-Boronat. Finally, he criticized the accusation of drug trafficking attributed by Eckstein to the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) and described it as “serious.”
“We continue dreaming of a free Cuba,” said Gutiérrez-Boronat, to which the audience reacted with great applause. At the end of the interventions, Professor Duany announced that it was time for the public to present their questions.
The president of the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association, Rafael Montalvo, congratulated the Cuban community attending the presentation for respecting the nature of the debate. “That’s how it’s done,” he affirmed, while slogans of “Down with communism!” “Homeland and Life!” and “Cuba libre!” were repeated with greater emphasis at the end of the event.
The journalist Ninoska Pérez accused Eckstein, during her presentation, of “being distracted by defending the communist regime in Cuba.” “For you, Raúl Castro, Che Guevara and Fidel Castro are still heroes, and that is insulting,” she said.
Eckstein defended herself against some of the public comments, saying they were “offensive and off-topic.” “This is supposed to be a book launch,” she lamented. “I am also the daughter of refugees,” said the teacher, “I understand the pain they have gone through.”
Some attendees congratulated Eckstein and Gutiérrez-Boronat for holding the event despite extensive criticism and pressure from various activists in Miami. The conversation, which was to be held at the Books & Books bookstore in Coral Gables, had to be moved to the larger FIU facilities. At that very moment, in the vicinity of the university, a group of Cuban-Americans carried out a protest – called for weeks – against the presentation of Cuban Privilege.
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 12 December 2022 — The Cuban Government hopes that the national economy will grow by 3% in 2023, compared to 2% this year and 1.3% in the previous year, which would not be enough to recover the levels of 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
