14ymedio

‘The Artist is a Dissident by Definition, says Cuban Filmmaker Orlando Jimenez Leal

Cuban filmmaker Orlando Jiménez Leal in an archive image. (EFE)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Ana Mengotti, Miami, 20 October 20, 2022 — We artists are by definition dissidents of reality,” says Cuban filmmaker Orlando Jiménez Leal, who took the path of exile after Fidel Castro banned his short film PM in 1961, warning those who protested, “against the Revolution nothing.”

“That was a before and after; it opened our eyes,” says Jiménez Leal, who has been in exile for 61 of his 81 years and will receive an award this Thursday for his career at the American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora in Miami.

Jiménez Leal left Cuba on January 2, 1962, and has never returned because, although he admits that he is “curious,” he finds it “embarrassing” to have to ask for permission to enter, he says in an interview with EFE.

When intellectuals asked Castro after the censorship of PM, co-directed by Sabá Cabrera Infante, if there was freedom in Cuba, he replied that “within the Revolution everything, against the Revolution nothing,” recalls the director, who, among other films, directed with León Ichaso El súper [The Super] (1979), a feature film presented and “applauded” at the Venice Film Festival.

The newly created Archive of Cuban Diáspora Cinema, an initiative that emerged at Florida International University (FIU), will give him an award this Thursday for his career.

The founders of the archive, Cuban filmmaker Eliecer Jiménez Almeida and Spanish professor Santiago Juan-Navarro, consider that PM, a short documentary about nightlife in the slums of Havana, is the “zero kilometer” from which Cuban cinema in exile begins. continue reading

For Jiménez Leal it’s exactly that: the start of a life outside Cuba with stops in the United States, Puerto Rico and Spain. He has been living in Miami now for nine years.

Although he says that his memory of life in exile is “aged” and the previous one in Cuba, on the contrary, fresh, the filmmaker perfectly remembers his time in Madrid during the final years of Francoism, what he calls “watered-down” Francoism.

At that time he was dedicated to advertising, which was also his livelihood in the United States and the way to finance the films he longed to make.

One of those ads was seen by Julio Iglesias in Puerto Rico and, as he liked it, he contacted Jiménez Leal to direct Me olvidé de vivir [I Forgot to Live] (1980), of which he remembers above all its protagonist, an “charming person” and a “good actor,” capable of improvising.

Previously, he had presented The Super in Venice, which he defines as a “Cuban neorealist film” that “opened the eyes to many who had a fixed idea of the Revolution” by presenting the truncated lives of the exiles in the United States.

Friend of film photography director Néstor Almendros, with whom he directed the documentary on the repression of homosexuals in Cuba, Improper Behavior (1984), and of the writer Guillermo Cabrera Infante, who went into exile like him, Jiménez Leal says that in Cuba they have not been able to “erase him from memory,” and he has become “a ghost that returns.”

Young independent Cuban filmmakers, many of them also outside Cuba, look for his films and declare themselves his admirers, he proudly says.

The authorities don’t mess with him. “As the saying goes, they (those who govern in Cuba) have other fish to fry,” and he mentions “the demonstrators who demand water, electricity and freedom” in the streets of Cuba, and the “imprisoned artists.”

Jiménez Leal no longer makes movies but is still very connected to the cinema and attentive to news on platforms like Netflix, although he confesses that he is, above all, reading books he has already read and watching classic films.

Cinema has changed a lot, especially with the incorporation of digital media. Before, you needed real talent to succeed in cinema; you had to know about technique and industry issues. Now there are more opportunities but there also is a lot of garbage,” he emphasizes.

Over the years, his cinematographic tastes have changed. The “arrogance of youth” made him consider Vittorio De Sica’s Miracle in Milan (1951), a minor film, while at the age of 81 it seems to him a “masterpiece.”

About Blonde, Andrew Dominik’s recently released film about Marilyn Monroe, Jiménez Leal says that it produces “a mixture of feelings” and exhibits the “exceptional” work of Cuban-Spanish actress Ana de Armas.

Among the things he knows he will no longer be able to do is a film that was to be called Cuba Does Not Exist, paraphrasing the exiled Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov, who in an interview proclaimed that “Russia does not exist.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba: Embargo, Yes? Embargo No? Exposing the Eternal See-Saw

Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodriguez

14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, October 21, 2022–It takes just a small step to go from the sublime to the ridiculous. Bruno Rodríguez, Minister of Foreign Relations of the Cuban communist regime, who just a day before publicly thanked the U.S. State Department for the $2 million in assistance for hurricane damages, the following day, in a speech widely covered by the state press, stated, “the world would be better without the blockade against Cuba.” I insist, from the sublime to the ridiculous.

With this blockade jargon, the Cuban communists have won the propaganda and misinformation battle. That there is no taro root in Cuba, is the embargo’s fault. That there is no electricity, the embargo’s fault. That tourists don’t go, the embargo’s. That financial markets do not lend Cuba money, the embargo’s fault. And so it is; every part of life in the nation are influenced by contentions with its neighbor to the north, the solution of which, on the other hand, is within reach of the communist regime. If it doesn’t do so, it must have its reasons.

And in reality, if there is no food in Cuba, one can observe serious shortages, stockouts, long queues, anxiety, among the population faced with difficulties to secure even the basic food basket, the only embago/blockade responsible for this situation is the internal one; the one imposed on the population by the regime and its economic model. Cuba can purchase food on the market of 192 countries around the world, and it also does in the United States. The problem is the availability of financial resources to make those purchases, which, due to non payment of its debts, are not easy to obtain. What deprives Cuba of access to financial markets is data on its failure to responsibly make payments on its debts. No one, under normal circumstances, is willing to lend to those who do not honor their commitments.

In any case, the blockade/embargo is one of the communications points the communist regime, devised by Fidel Castro, masterfully played in international fora, alarmingly obtaining alignment of countries with theses and arguments that do not fit within any basic economic analysis. continue reading

Such is the effort that a national report was promoted at the United Nations, under Resolution 75/289 of the U.N. General Assembly, titled “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba” (August 2021-February 2022), to which the Cuban communists dedicate special attention each year. The referenced document will be discussed for the thirtieth time on November 2nd and 3rd. They are already campaigning.

Moreover, each year, the regime takes advantage of any external factor to dress up the content of the report with a dramatic tinge. This year, why not, it’s Ian’s passage through Pinar del Río. It aggravated the effects of the serious international economic crisis, which is already being felt on the Island though ECLAC barely touches on it in its most recent forecast. The regime’s partners are not in a position, for example, to give away money.

And, since one thing cannot occur without the other, in this year’s report, Rodríguez Parrilla went on to explain that the blockade has taken on new forms, more detrimental if that was possible, in its attempt to accentuate the impact on daily life. Although for that they need to revert back to historic dosuments from 1960, such as that Memorandum of Assistant Secretary Lestor Mallory, who 62 years later continues to give opportunities to the Cuban communists to attack. C’mon it was not that long ago.

To this point, and with history’s rancid analysis, arrives a new estimate of the losses caused by the blockade, which according to the regime, between August 2021 and February 2022 were 3.806 billion dollars, a historic record during a period of only six months. It is as if the Cuban economy depended solely on the economy of the United States, a sort of anexionist focus or something similar.

The regime does not spare any effort. In six decades, at current prices, the cummulative damages total 154 billion, 217 million dollars. At the current price of an ounce of gold, taking into consideration depreciation, the cummulative damages amount to 1 trillion, 391 billion 111 million dollars. And clearly, the political conclusion is always the same: imagine what Cuban could have done if it had had access to those resources. What Cuba would be like if the country had used those resources.

Well, nothing. And everything. An economy doesn’t function better just by having access to money. Just the opposite. The key is how the money is used and whether the resources are allocated in ways that are profitable. And it does not seem that the Island’s prevailing economic model would allow it to reach such profitability with the resources. The blockade/embargo only goes so far, and no further. Everything else is science fiction.

In reality, the United States is the second largest tourist market for Cuba, it sends over 8 billion dollars in remittances per year and allows commerce and imports of 200 million dollars per year. No one sees the embargo anywhere, except for those who have a political interest in it being so. Going from the quantitative calculations of losses, be they the 3.806 billion dollars mentioned or the 6.364 billion dollars of the Biden era, the estimates in terms of GDP is risky and sets a bad precedent.

There is something in the estimates of losses in the report that merits attention for its novelty. The regime maintains that the GDP growth could have been 4.5%, had the blockade/embargo not existed during the period between August 2021 and February 2022. One cannot make heads or tails of this 4.5% and it forces a reflection on the cummulative economic magnitude, how they were calculated and what they really mean.

To begin with, it is convenient to really know how much the Cuban economy has grown in the period mentioned. Data on GDP growth are provided by the ONEI by quarter. Given the dates, it covers from the third quarter of 2021 to the first quarter 2022.

According to data from ONEI, the 2021 inter-annual growth in GDP was -1.4% in the third quarter, then it reached 10.9% in the fourth quather and another 10.9% in the first quarter of 2022. A simple mathematical calculation suggests that, in this period, the GDP grew by 6.8%, clearly more than the 2021 median, which was 3.2%. Then, what is the regime talking about with that 4.5%, which they say could have been achieved without the embargo?

Beware of unfounded statements, and with the calculations that are not adequately justified. Now it so happens that, even with the embargo/blockade, the Cuban economy grew faster than the rate desired by the regime if this dispute did not exist. Who do you believe?

The regime blames the embargo for: the lack of fuel; the obstacles in acquiring replacement parts and other resources based on American technologies; and the difficulties with regard to financial banking matters; commercial, financial or investment transactions; in the direct persecution of producers, transporters, shipping companies, insurers and freight forwarders; problems with the electrical energy system; and medicine. But in reality much of these claims have to do with existing obstacles that prevent the economy from functioning freely. That’s the real embargo.

Translated by Silvia Suárez

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Tobacco Planting Begins in the Area of Cuba Most Devastated by Hurricane Ian

The 2021-2022 campaign was affected by a lack of fertilizer and other inputs necessary for the cultivation of tobacco, the country’s main agricultural export. (Granma)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 22 October 2022 — The Cuban province of Pinar del Río, known for the cultivation of the tobacco leaves of the famous Havana puros [cigars], began planting this week, despite being the area of the Island that was the most devastated by Hurricane Ian at the end of September.

According to state media this Friday, planting began on about 15,500 acres of land, and the tobacco will be mainly destined for export.

The planting program will be extended until January 31 and will be concentrated in the municipalities of San Juan y Martínez, San Luis, Pinar del Río and Consolación del Sur, considered the “tobacco massif” of the province that produces half of the most demanded tobacco leaf. continue reading

About 2,200 acres of covered tobacco — intended for the wrappers of cigars — will be planted, along with other varieties such as Burley, Virginia and Vegas Finas, which are used in the production of pipe tobacco, will be planted, according to the delegate of Agriculture in the province, Víctor Hernández, as quoted by the state Cuban News Agency.

He said that plantings have also begun of seedbeds that were not damaged by the scourge of Hurricane Ian, which crossed Pinar del Río from south to north on September 27, where it left considerable damage to agriculture, housing, communications and electricity service.

He also specified that about 6,200 curing houses are needed — where the tobacco leaves are stored for natural drying — of the more than 10,000 that were damaged by the hurricane winds, equivalent to 90% of the approximately 12,000 in the region.

The impact of the hurricane also caused about 11,000 tons of tobacco that were in the process of curing to get wet, so many of them will have to be discarded, according to official reports.

This blow to the sector occurs at an already delicate time for the Cuban tobacco sector, which produced from January to June less than half of what was planned due to lack of basic supplies, logistical problems and breakdowns, among other problems.

The tobacco harvest, Cuba’s fourth largest income sector, went from 32,000 tons in 2017 to 25,800 tons in 2020, according to official data. The sector employs about 200,000 workers, which increases to 250,000 at the peak of the harvest.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba Needs 1.4 Million Travelers to Meet its Tourism Goal in 2022

Tourists in Havana before the pandemic. (EFE)

14ymedio, Madrid, 20 October 2022 — Three months after the end of the year, the goal of 2.5 million tourists that Cuba expected is confirmed as impossible. In the first nine months of 2022, 1,074,814 international travelers arrived on the Island, so in October, November and December, there must be 1.4 million more to reach the goal. Although the high season begins next month, the best figure of the year (152,480 in July) would have to triple in those three months to achieve it.

The Ministry of Tourism updated its data on Tuesday, with the publication in the National Office of Statistics and Information (Onei) of the arrival figures of travelers, including Cubans living abroad, through September. The figure reaches 1,553,461, an increase of roughly five-and-a-half times over the previous year. As for international visitors, discounting Cubans residing abroad, there were 1,074,814 in total, almost six times more than the 180,735 in 2021.

However, the Government is fooling itself again, since the 2021 figures are not comparatively useful. Although they do serve to measure the recovery of the sector after the pandemic, you have to put them in context with those of normal years for tourism, which between 2020 and 2021 plummeted worldwide due to covid-19. If you compare the data of international travelers between January and September of this year with those of 2019, 3,327,392, the difference is a decline of 68%. The contrast is even worse compared to the previous year, 2018, when 3,540,543 arrived. The decline in this case is 70%.

In detail, you can see how the collapse of Russian tourism is affecting Cuban accounts. The statistics break down the number of travelers from each country and compare it with the previous year, so in all cases it grows, given the closure of borders that was in force for much of 2021. Powerful examples are that of Canada, the first country to send tourists to Cuba traditionally, which increases from just 9,265 last year to 324,252 this year. continue reading

Cuban-Americans grew from 19,003 in 2021 to 240,197 in 2022, and the Spanish, at the head of European tourists, who as of September last year totalled 6,091, this year reached 62,157. This is repeated for all the main indicators, even for the catch-all category of “other.”

However, in the case of Russia, the figure completely reverses. In the first three quarters of 2021, 111,228 Russians arrived in Cuba, and this year in the same period barely 38,883 did so. In addition, as expected, almost all arrived until February, 35,871. At the end of that month, on the 24th, the invasion of Ukraine and the international sanctions on Russia began, which left many Russians unable to fly to certain destinations due to the ban on crossing European airspace.

This October, the Russian company Aeroflot resumed its flights to Havana, with routes bordering the North Pole to avoid the exclusion zone, so it’s possible that in the last quarter the numbers of tourists from that country will rebound, the only one that grew in visitors before the pandemic. The market, however, was showing symptoms of exhaustion already at the end of 2021, when the Island was reopened to travelers, and it was shown that the Russians had changed their preferences for the Dominican Republic, which with its strategy positioned itself at the forefront of Caribbean tourist destinations since it opened its borders in September 2021.

In recent months, the Cuban authorities are giving their all to recover one of the sectors that brings the most foreign exchange to their coffers, discounting remittances and “medical missions.”

This week the Health Tourism Fair takes place in Havana, where Cuba tries to sell all kinds of therapies and medical services with a view to the Caribbean. At the end of September, the XIII International Nature Tourism Event was held, in which an attempt was made to convince potential travelers that the Island is more than sun and beach. And also in the middle of last month, the Varadero Gourmet International Festival took place, which generated discomfort in the population for being a showcase of products that citizens can’t even dream of.

In all of them, Manuel Marrero, Prime Minister of Cuba, has supported the target of 2.5 million visitors, defending the idea that it will undoubtedly be achieved despite the difficulties. Months earlier, in May, the leader was the first to postpone the recovery of the sector to 2023, contradicting the rest of the Government and the minister of the branch, Juan Carlos García Granda.

“Next year the leisure industry will recover in Cuba, and for that purpose, the development of FitCuba 2022 will mark a before and after,” Marrero said then at another event in the sector, the Varadero Tourism Fair, to end up joining the official speech. Perhaps his thesis, that of a man who was Minister of Tourism for 15 years, should have prevailed.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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A Cuban Pilot Escapes From the Island in a Russian Plane and Lands in Florida

The pilot landed the Antonov An-2 at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport. (WPTV News/Screen capture/YouTube)

14ymedio, Havana, 21 October 2022 — Cuban pilot Rubén Martínez left the Island this Friday in a Russian-made Antonov AN-2 aircraft with registration 1885, which landed at Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, Florida, around 11:30 am.

According to local U.S. media reports, the authorities confirmed that the pilot had flown from Sancti Spíritus and that he “took a selfie next to the plane after landing,” reports NBC Miami.

In the Dade-Collier airport, located on Tamiami Trail, in the middle of the Florida Everglades and west of Miami, Martínez was interrogated by Customs and Border Protection agents.

The air terminal where the Cuban landed was built for supersonic planes and sometimes is used for pilots to practice takeoffs and landings, said WSVN News, which added that Martinez remains in the custody of Customs and Border Protection. continue reading

The AN-2 model, a single-engine biplane designed by the Russian company Antonov, had its first flight on August 31, 1947. Due to its versatility, it has been used as a tanker aircraft during forest fires. It has a capacity to transport 12 passengers and has also been used as an air ambulance. It is usually used in fumigation work.

A fleet of this type of aircraft was assembled in Cuba in 2017 for fumigation, offering services to the tourism sector, cargo transportation and firefighting, as published then by the official press.

Rubén Martínez was a pilot of the Cuban Air Services Company (ENSA) that belongs to the Cuban Aviation Corporation administered by the Cuban Government. ENSA provides services mainly with fumigation aircraft.

In 2003, an Antonov 24 aircraft from Cubana de Aviación was diverted from the Island to Key West (Florida). The Cuban Adermis Wilson Gonzále, armed with a hand grenade, wanted the plane to land in Miami, but due to lack of fuel the pilot had to make an emergency landing at the José Martí airport in Havana, where he stayed 14 hours.

After intense negotiations, 22 passengers were released, and the plane departed with 25 other people and six crew members to Key West, where it arrived on April 1, 2003, escorted by American warplanes.

A year ago, González, who worked as a civilian construction technician on Isla de la Juventud, was released after serving almost 20 years in a U.S. prison, after being sentenced by a Florida court for air piracy.

Rubén Martínez’s escape this Friday dusted off the case of spy René González Sehwerert, who in 1990, when Cuba began to feel the economic havoc after the fall of the Soviet Union, took one of the small planes from the airfield where he worked as a flight instructor to leave the Island and arrive after an hour’s trip to the United States.

Between October 2021 and August 2022, more than 200,000 Cubans were intercepted by U.S. authorities, according to data from the United States Customs and Border Protection Office. So far, in the first month of fiscal year 2022, more than 400 were intercepted at sea aboard rudimentary vessels.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cubans Have Lost Their Smiles

That laughter on the lips or the cackles set off by anything at all have disappeared from Cuban streets. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 21 October 2022 — We are a dozen people waiting in line. The woman in front of me has her lips pursed as if she is avoiding saying anything. The young man in flip-flops and jeans turns his head from side to side from time to time, while next to him a teenager does not take her eyes off her phone and frowns. The man at the end of the line has released some insults for the delay and even the store’s guard can’t stop complaining. No one smiles, no face even hints at a gesture of joy or complacency.

For years I had to explain to my foreign students who came to learn Spanish on the island that the laughter of Cubans should not be interpreted as synonymous with happiness. “Even at funerals, and despite the sadness of the death of someone close, people will make their jokes and can burst out laughing,” I described. But the stereotype that people in this country felt content and lucky to live under the prevailing political system was as difficult to eradicate as lice in elementary school classrooms.

So, I drew on more data. I spoke to them about the repression, the domestic conflicts fueled by the housing deficit, the high divorce rate, the drama of the suicides about which the ruling party jealously guards the numbers, and the dream most shared by Cubans, that of emigrating to any other place in order to leave this Island. However, my explanations that a thousand and one dramas could hide behind those smiles tourists saw in the streets did not achieve any effect. The cliché of national contentment was stronger than any argument or statistic. continue reading

But even the most widespread and enduring clichés may one day run into the reality that proves them false. That laughter on the lips or the cackles set off by anything at all have disappeared from Cuban streets. The faces of sorrow and annoyance are seen on all sides and, instead of those jocular and hilarious phrases of yesteryear, now emerge complaints, insults and offenses. It gives the impression that a conflict is always about to break out with fists or that anyone might jump down another’s throat at the slightest difference of opinion or friction.

A French friend who worked in Cuba for a foreign firm for many years returned a few days ago after more than five years in Europe. “What has happened to the people?” he asked me. “No one laughs,” he added when he saw that I didn’t understand him. He concluded with a phrase that made me realize that we all have long, serious faces 24 hours a day: “All the faces I see are sad, even the children don’t smile.” We don’t even use that mask that we put on so many times to exorcise pain or dissatisfaction. We have stopped even wanting to pretend that we are happy.

After that conversation I walked down the Avenida de los Presidentes in El Vedado, turned onto Calle 23, continued to L, approached Infanta and quickened my pace towards Belascoaín. Not a single laugh the entire way.
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New Cuban Film ‘Plantadas’ Tells the History of the Island’s Female Political Prisoners

Frame from “Plantados” — Lilo Vilaplana’s earlier film about male political prisoners in Cuba. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 18 October 2022 — Cuban filmmaker Lilo Vilaplana recently announced that he had concluded the filming of Plantadas, a more than necessary historical document, which will do justice to the thousands of Cuban women who have been and are in prison for their struggle for freedom and democracy on the Island.

Vilaplana made a fundamental contribution to Cuba’s historiography when he filmed the epic Plantados, which shows the cruelty of the Castro prison system and the rage of the jailers, who apply the rules of Island totalitarianism. It also documents the patriotism of political prisoners.

This film promises to be at least as valuable as the previous one, because it records the experiences of the women who have faced the dictatorship and who, by their actions, ended up in the dungeons of totalitarianism, suffering a systematic violation of their rights, including that of life.

Cuba’s political prison for women has undoubtedly been the largest and most extensive in the American hemisphere for years. Its construction began in 1959 and is not yet finished, as reflected by journalist Yolanda Huerga in a work published on Radio Televisión Martí. In it, a young political prisoner, Rosa Jany Murillo, in response to a blackmail from her jailers, says: “I have nothing to learn. I have only one ideal, one principle, one concept: I want communism to fall, that there be democratic parties, that my people can be defended and served by a government. You don’t do it; therefore, I have nothing to regret.”

The courage of this young Cuban woman behind bars has been known in women’s prisons since the dawn of the Revolution. Behind those same bars, in different dungeons, thousands of women from different generations have demonstrated their commitment to freedom as did Cary Roque, Ana Lázara Rodríguez, Gloria Lasalle, Isabel Tejera, María Amalia Fernández del Cueto, Nelly Rojas, Maritza Lugo and Marta Beatriz Roque Cabello. We will learn about these heroines when Vilaplana and his team deliver Plantadas. continue reading

Trying to synthesize the heroism of the Cuban women in prison in these 63 years is almost an odyssey. There are many events to be noted — the shootings of friends of the cause, escapes, tortures, beatings, hunger strikes, deaths, separations from family, from their children for complying “with the Homeland,” the lack of the most essential resources, an infinite list of regrets that honors the deeds of these women, who always demonstrated the most worthy stoicism.

The teacher of every decent Cuban, José Martí, wrote “he who honors another honors himself,” and therefore it is right and appropriate to mention the person who, in my humble view, has promoted the filming of Plantadas like no other: Reynol Rodríguez, an activist in favor of democracy and the freedom of Cubans, who has dedicated his life to the fight against dictatorships.

Rodríguez is one of those people who understand that the struggle has many facets without denying any. He is a man of proven heroism, who participated in armed incursions against the dictatorship and supported with all zeal people like the unforgettable Vicente Méndez, who fell in combat a few days after arriving on Cuban coasts.

This fighter for freedom worked month after month to organize fund-raisers for this historical documentary on Cuban women. The organizing committee fully reached its objective, and I must highlight two members: Pedro Remón, another brave compatriot who never says no, and the son of Osvaldo Ramírez, a glorious martyr in the fight against Castroism who was the second head of the uprising of the Escambray mountains in the early 60s, also named Osvaldo Ramírez, another compatriot who joined all the efforts for democracy.

The exiled filmography dedicated to directly collecting the struggle for freedom has several filmmakers who, like Vilaplana, have demonstrated a commitment to Cuban art and reality: the pioneer Eduardo Palmer, Iván Acosta, Luis Guardia, Daniel Urdanivia and Wenceslao Cruz. We owe all of them, for their quiet efforts, a profound respect.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba’s Guiteras Thermal Electric Plant will be Out of Service for Three Months for Repairs

The Antonio Guiteras power plant managed to enter the National Electrical System on Tuesday, after repairing a breakdown in the boiler. (TV Yumurí/Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 19 October 2022 — The announcement that the Antonio Guiteras thermal power plant, in Matanzas, must be disconnected for three months for a comprehensive repair definitively contradicts Miguel Díaz-Canel’s promise about the end of the blackouts by December.

Outdated and defective technology, natural disasters and increasingly serious breakdowns, plus the impossibility of thorough maintenance, make the operation of the largest thermal electric plant in the country impossible. Its directors have received a “barrage of bad news,” said the official reporter Lázaro Manuel Alonso in a report on Cuban Television.

According to Alonso, Guiteras is faced with a dilemma: the progressive collapse of pipes, boilers and equipment, which makes it necessary to suspend service for 90 days, and, on the other hand, the impossibility of stopping the generation “under present circumstances.” At the moment, the journalist claimed, what’s left is only “innovating,” the euphemism that the managers continue demanding from the technical staff of the plant, until “better times” arrive.

It’s not strange that, in the face of the collapse of the plant and institutional pressure, many of its workers have decided to “emigrate” not only outside the Island, but to other less demanding and better-paid positions in Etecsa or outside the state sector. In addition, Alonso admits, there is a serious “wage demotivation,” since most technicians earn about 6,700 pesos*, an insignificant figure in the midst of the inflation that the Island is experiencing. continue reading

“After the financial reordering, we fell to a low level,” complained Yoandry Flores, one of the operators of the thermoelectric plant. Before, the Electric Union enjoyed good salaries, which covered his “needs,” he said.

In spite of everything,” justifies the reporter, “its workers, with low wages, now keep the unit online with more than 230 megawatts (MW),” a generation capacity that has demonstrated little stability in recent weeks.

The plant managed to enter the National Electricity System on Tuesday, after repairing a breakdown in the boiler. However, a cleaning of the structure and the replacement of several of its connecter tubes is still essential.

“It’s working but with risk and tension,” said Javier Quiroz, one of the directors interviewed by Alonso.

Meanwhile, the toll of the SEN’s collapse continues to be measured in the number of hours of blackouts, which reach twelve per day in most of the Island. Neither the continuous protests and caceralozos [banging on pots and pans] nor the dismissals of the Minister of Energy and Mines and the director of the Electric Union have solved the energy crisis on the Island.

*Translator’s note: The official and information market exchange rates between the dollar and the peso change constantly but, as of this writing, 6,700 pesos at the official exchange rate would yield $279 US. The informal market (often the only available) exchange rate would yield roughly $33 US.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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More Than 4,000 People are on the Waiting List to Buy Dollars at a Currency Exchange in Havana

If a walk by the ATMs of Havana demonstrates the shortage of pesos in the country, a stroll by the Cadecas [currency exchanges] illustrates another lack: that of dollars.

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 20 October 2022 — This Wednesday, in the Cadeca on Belascoaín, in Central Havana, only 10 people were served. Taking into account that, according to the official provisions in force since last August 22, each individual can get a maximum of 100 dollars a day, the branch sold only 1,000 dollars.

The Cadeca, located in the municipality with the maximum population density, cannot meet the demand: to date, the police officers in charge of “keeping order” in the line have a waiting list of 4,000 people. “In the next century maybe I can buy,” a young man said sadly this Thursday, as he walked away.

At the El Vedado Cadeca, located at 23rd street between J and L, the panorama is slightly more encouraging. Every day about 30 buyers manage to be served, which means a maximum sale of 3,000 dollars. However, more than two weeks ago there were 700 people on the list to enter, and this Wednesday, the number was 275.

“From what I see there are new faces, who don’t know how this works. I always start with the most important part: discipline.” The policeman in charge of the Cadeca on 23rd says, with his words denoting that day by day he usually attends to the same people, and takes pride in the good progress of that branch.

“Here there has to be order, citizen tranquillity, respect for the person. From here [the line] to there [the door] there will never be a lack of respect,” he continues. “From there to here it has to be the same. I say this because other citizens of other municipalities, such as Arroyo Naranjo or Diez de Octubre, come here imposing. Nothing is imposed here. I don’t impose on what we’re doing. Everything is working fine.”

The officer warns that “scams cannot happen here” and that citizens who come to “propose” one must be denounced. “I’m going for fourteen scams here to clarify,” he says, while assuring that those suspects “have disappeared,” and clarifies, referring to the Havana prisons: “in the best sense of the word, of course: Valle Grande, Combinado del Este….” Thus, he says that six people have been arrested. continue reading

The idea of aiming at 700, he says, occurred to him two Saturdays ago, when such a tumult was organized that the authorities had to close the street. “There have been 275 people. We have about 425 left. When am I going to write them up, that’s what interests you the most?” he asks in a pedagogical tone, to answer, diffusely: when the list stays at “100, 150, or 200 and up to 300.”

“Three hundred! That’s a fantasy,” replies a woman, laughing, who has been approaching the Cadeca for several days in a row, and the policeman reprimands her: “Discipline, compañera, discipline.”

The reason, the officer explains, is because he has to “juggle the availability of what the Cadeca compañeros have and what the compañeros of the Ministry, the Management, tell me to do.” Indeed, as indicated by the rules approved in August, each branch will only be able to sell the few currencies it bought from customers the day before.

Normally, they let between 30 and 40 people pass, but one day, suddenly, 60 people managed to enter, which caused many to lose their place in line. “The one who missed his turn lost,” says the officer, who also warns that no one can take more than one turn, even if he comes with someone else’s card.

“The problem is that if you don’t know how many turns there will be, you have to come every day,” laments an old man in line, once the policeman has retired. “This is a debacle,” interjects a middle-aged man, who nevertheless concedes: “And this is the best Cadeca; the rest are dying. In Monaco [on Diez de Octobre] there is no list. You can go to sleep from one day to the next and you won’t qualify.”

I’ve been here for two weeks and haven’t been able to sign up, and I see how the list stays the same,” complains another woman, who immediately takes things with resignation and says sarcastically, “That’s the way it is. Imagine: we are happy here.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Despite the Change of Minister, More Power Plants are Shutting Down in Cuba

The breakdown will translate into more blackouts not only for Cienfuegos, but also for other provinces that depend on the generating capacity of the plant. (Cubadebate)

14ymedio, Havana, 18 October 2022 — On the same day that the official press dedicated a triumphalist article to the “stability” of the thermoelectric plant (CTE) Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, in Cienfuegos, unit 4 of this plant was disconnected from the National Electrical System (SEN).

With the usual euphemisms, a brief note from the Cuban News Agency reported on Monday that, due to “boiler failures,” the unit is subjected to a “natural cooling” process that will last three or four days, even if “forced-air fans” are used.

Beyond the technical explanations, as usual, the breakdown will result in more blackouts not only for Cienfuegos, but also for other provinces that depend on the generating capacity of the plant. “We have had to provide part of the energy that other thermoelectric plants have not been able to generate due to technical problems,” the general director of the Céspedes, Yeranis Zurita García, complained to the official newspaper Granma.

In the same report, the Granma boasted that in the daily deliveries, generation of the Cienfueguos thermoelectric plant is “recognized in the country for its levels of stability.”

Zurita indicated that, “despite the problems,” they exceeded their gross generation plan at the end of September with 132.4%, a surplus that had to be sent to other territories of the country.

Less optimistic, engineer Dariel Jiménez, of the Céspedes Brigade of Protections and Electrical Schemes, admitted that “practically every day there are breakdowns or other difficulties.” continue reading

“The breakage of the main transformer of the machine outlet had to be resolved “in a matter of 15 minutes,” he said regretfully, a not-ideal solution at which the technicians arrived “with what we had at hand.”

Urgency and short-term solutions are the daily bread of Cuban thermoelectric plants, said Jiménez, whose team is required to fix everything “in the shortest possible time” on a technology “with many years of exploitation.”

The head of maintenance of Céspedes, Yunior Estrada Zambrano, said that “we have characterized ourselves as always doing everything we can, sometimes against the short time that the system gives us.” However, he recognizes that the generation is “very depressed.”

Determined to highlight “the sacrifice and effort” of the Céspedes, Granma didn’t flinch in recognizing that unit 4 had left the National Electricity System (SEN). As the Unión Eléctrica logbook points out, it is added to the list of blocks out of service next to units 6 and 7 of the CTE Mariel (Mayabeque), the 4 and 5 of Nuevitas (Camagüey), the 2 of the Felton (Holguín), the 3, 4 and 5 of Renté (Santiago de Cuba and the only one of Otto Parellada (Havana). About the CTE Antonio Guiteras, which left the SEN this Friday, the official reporter Lázaro Manuel Alonso announced on his networks that it had already been “synchronized” again and that Televisión Cubana would offer more details about its operation.

The UNE report adds that the maximum impact during the night, this Monday, was 1,568 megawatts (MW) at 7:20 p.m., while this Tuesday a maximum demand of 3,200 is expected for a deficit of 1,125 MW.

The National Electricity System hasn’t shown signs of improvement in recent months and has been especially affected by the explosion of the Matanzas Supertanker Base and the passage of Hurricane Ian through the west of the country.

On Monday, the seriousness of the energy situation cost the Minister of Energy and Mines, Liván Arronte Cruz, and the director of the UNE, Jorge Amado Cepero Hernández, their positions. The new managers of the SEN, Minister Vicente de la O Levy and director Alfredo López, will have to attend to a system whose collapse has caused numerous protests against the long blackouts.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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By Noon There is No Cash Left in Havana’s ATMs

“You have to leave early to get in line at the ATMs and wait for them to be supplied when the banks open,” says a 62-year-old Havanan. (*14ymedio*)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 19 October 19, 2022 — “It’s not worth going to the ATMs in the small banks; you can only find money in the most central,” observes Pedro Luis, a 62-year-old Havanan who travelled to several municipalities of Havana this Tuesday trying to withdraw cash from his bank account. “In the end I could only do it on on Obispo Street, because it’s in a tourist area.”

The shortage of cash jeopardizes any daily operation in Havana. From paying in a cafeteria to paying for service at a beauty salon, people are hindered by the lack of money. “You have to leave early to stand in line at the ATMs and wait for them to be supplied when the banks open, but already by noon most are empty.”

In the bank on Conill Street, very close to Ayestarán Avenue, an employee blames the problem on the fact that “the prices of everything have gone up, and now people need more money to pay.” In the small branch, located in an area where “not many people pass,” cash barely lasts a few hours in the morning. “People from Diez de Octubre, Rancho Boyeros and even Lisa come here to try to use the ATMs.”

But this Tuesday, frustration was painted on the face of those who approached this bank because “before ten in the morning we had already exhausted the cash at the ATM, although certain small amounts could still be extracted,” says the branch worker. “The problem is that the name on the debit card must match that of the identity card, and there are many people who get cash from the ATMs with someone else’s card.” continue reading

“The bills that run out faster are the 50 and 100 pesos; sometimes the cash can be subtracted from a 500-peso bill, but the ATMs reject the operation if it includes different denominations,” he explains to this newspaper. “Also customers are now looking for more cash at once so they won’t have to stand in line several times a week, and this has made demand skyrocket.”

“Soon we’ll have to go out with a wheelbarrow to carry the money that is needed in a single day because so many pieces of paper won’t fit in our wallets,” says a young woman in line at the ATM in the basement of the Ministry of Transport in Plaza de la Revolución municipality. “Cash evaporates like water, and the 10 and 20 bills are almost useless because nothing is that cheap.”

To overcome the difficulties, some private businesses offer the customer the possibility of paying by Transfermovil, the application that allows both the payment of a electricity bill and making transfers to another client. “Many people prefer to do it this way because it saves them from having to stand in line at the bank,” says Rodniel, an employee in a restaurant on San Lázaro Street. “Our clientele is mostly young, and at their age the use of Transfermovil is very widespread.”

In some hotels, the rule has been extended so that you can only pay with magnetic cards, which can be in Cuban pesos, freely convertible currency or belong to a foreign bank. “We don’t work with cash,” clarifies an employee of the cafeteria of the recently opened Grand Aston hotel on the Havana coast. Some customers, when they pay their bill, add a tip in CUP for the waiters.

“I walked all over Línea Street, from the tunnel near Playa, and I didn’t find a single ATM with money. In the end I ended up at the bank on 23 and J, which, as it is so central, had cash but, of course, I had to stand in line for more than an hour,” regretted another customer on Tuesday night. He had to delay his dinner in a restaurant because “they only accept payment in cash.” By the time he finally managed to make the withdrawal, it was already after ten, and the romantic moment with his girlfriend had faded.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Released From Prison, Two Young People Arrested During the Protests in Calle Linea in Havana

14ymedio, Havana, 20 October 2022 — Two of the protesters arrested on 2 October in a popular protest on Havana’s Calle Línea were released on bail on Wednesday. Rosmery Almeda (Alma Poet) and Danilo Martínez have been able to return home after more than two weeks detention, relatives of the two young people have confirmed.

“Alma Poet is home now, she’s lost three kilos, her smile is hollow, her gaze is sombre, she’s just really empty. But she’ll revive, I am sure she will, she will revive,” wrote activist Arián Cruz, known as Tata Poet and partner of Almeda, on Facebook. “She doesn’t yet have her phone back, but when she does, she will thank everyone so much for their love and support — with her own voice”, he said.

“The five other guys from Línea y F aren’t back home yet, explained Aylín Sardiña, girlfriend of Martínez. “It’s lovely to have Danilo and Rosmery out on bail but it’s only thanks to everyone who fought for it and to the defence lawyer”. The young woman considers that “they should never have been in there”, referring to the detention centre known as 100 y Aldabó in Havana.

In the early hours of the Sunday on which both protesters were arrested, the locals closed the central avenue at the intersection of Calle F on the route through which traffic joins the Malecón. They blocked off the traffic with upturned rubbish bins, tree branches that had come down with Hurricane Ian that had lashed the island the previous Tuesday, as well as other objects.

A human chain also moved into the road, which was lit by streetlights, and they chanted slogans like “Freedom!”, “Put the power back on!”, “Put the electricity on!”, a demand that was met a short while later by the arrival of a bus and lorries full of shock troops in civilian clothing to oppose the protesters.

According to data provided on Tuesday by the organisation Justicia 11J, since 29 September the number of Cubans arrested in the whole of the island during the power-cut protests has already risen to 52. Since the 11 July 2021 demonstrations at least 1,753 Cubans have been detained for peaceful protests.

For their part, the independent Proyecto Inventario registered more than 200 protests against daily power cuts between 14 July and 15 October. This week alone Cubans have ventured onto the streets in the suburbs of Vista Hermosa in Santiago de Cuba, Buena Vista in Las Tunas, and in San Andrés, Holguín.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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‘Thanks to Independent Reporters, Cuba Now Has Its Own Voice’

Escobar receives her award from Isabel Díaz Ayuso, president of the Community of Madrid. (Alberto Di Lolli/El *Mundo*)

14ymedio, Madrid, Havana, 19 October 2022 — Cuban journalist Luz Escobar, member of the editorial staff of 14ymedio and winner of the Press Freedom Award of the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, declared on Wednesday night that, thanks to independent reporters, Cuba has “its own voice.”

The award ceremony of the XX International Journalism Awards, chaired by Isabel Díaz Ayuso, president of the Community of Madrid, was held at the Museo Nacional del Prado. During the celebration, exiled Russian reporter Alexey Kovalev, director of investigative reporting at the Meduza newspaper, also received the Best Labor Journalism Award.

Escobar alluded in her speech to the difficulties Cubans have in leaving the Island, subject to the control of the regime and as “hostages of a power that treats us like small children who are forbidden to travel.”

She also pointed out that, in Cuba, the word “journalist” is equivalent to that of “enemy,” and she described the ruling media as “propaganda spaces for the only party allowed. In the faculties of journalism, we are taught to revere the Government without questioning, and the list of prohibited subjects is too long for one article,” she said.

On the dangers of the profession, Escobar denounced the “strangulation of the press” by the Government, whose objective has been to “impose a single narrative about what was happening inside and outside the Island.” “Assassinating journalism,” she said, has been the task of those who have been plotting a “triumphalist story about the national situation” for six decades, while attributing to Europe and the rest of Western democracies a “catastrophist” panorama. continue reading

Luz Escobar and Alexey Kovalev, winners of the XX International Journalism Awards. (Alberto Di Lolli/El Mundo)

As examples of the regime’s media manipulation, Escobar said that the phrase “special military operation” that the official media gave to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, following direct instructions from the Kremlin, justified the conflict and denigrated opposition reporters like Kovalev.

Independent journalism was born as an alternative to that story, she said. According to Escobar, its origins are in the regime’s prisons, “when a political prisoner sent the first piece of paper, precariously written, to report a beating,” issued “a complaint through a restricted phone call” or “painted a symbol on a wall.”

Founders such as the poet and journalist Raúl Rivero, one of those convicted during the so-called Black Spring of 2003, or her own father, Reinaldo Escobar, censored by the regime in 1988, have served as inspiration when it comes to assuming the “high personal, family and social cost” of her work.

Escobar denounced the arbitrary arrests, threats and police cordons she has suffered in her own house, in addition to campaigns to “destroy my reputation.” “After July 11, 2021,” she said, “Cuban authorities have become much more susceptible to information,” and are paying greater attention to social networks and independent media content.

In addition to a thorough repression against those who expressed their desire for change and freedom on that date, the regime has forced dozens of reporters to renounce their profession in what the journalist described as “a twist of censorship.”

However, “we have shattered the regime’s old monopoly of recounting reality,” said Escobar, who also alluded to her work in the 14ymedio newsroom, which continues publishing “despite the repression, threats and blocking of its website on Cuban servers.”

The newspaper has helped to “elevate press standards on the Island” and demonstrates that “journalism can inform with immediacy and quality.”

The winners along with the organizers of the ceremony, President Ayuso and the Minister of Defense of Spain, Margarita Robles. (Alberto Di Lolli/El Mundo)

For his part, Alexey Kovalev, forced into exile after legislation from the Russian Parliament that criminalized independent journalism, stated that Putin’s war against Ukraine “is based on a lie,” so his job is to defend the truth. The reporter, whose family remains in Moscow, thanked El Mundo for its recognition of the importance of the free press.

In praise of the winners, Isabel Díaz Ayuso pointed to Escobar and Kovalev as “examples of journalism as a fourth power and commitment to freedom.” “Democracy is not something that is conquered forever but must be defended, and this isn’t possible without freedom of the press,” she added.

She claimed that in international spaces it’s necessary to “call things by their name,” which implies “saying that Cuba is a dictatorship and its government, tyrannical.” As for Escobar, she said that in addition to being a journalist, she is a mother, something that the regime has used against her. She also commented that those responsible for El Mundo had to make numerous arrangements so that the reporter could attend the ceremony with her daughters.

The award reception dinner, organized by Joaquín Manso and Marco Pompignoli, directors of El Mundo and the Unidad Editorial group, respectively, was attended by Escobar’s family and colleagues, in addition to Cuban activists and intellectuals Dagoberto Valdés, Yoandy Izquierdo, Yunior García Aguilera, the Venezuelan politician Leopoldo López, and the Spaniards Adolfo Suárez, Jr., Inés Arrimadas and Edmundo Bal.

The guests also attended the temporary exhibition “Another Renaissance,” in the Prado Museum, which has collected the work of Spanish artists in Naples at the beginning of the Cinquecento, the 16th century period of Italian art that reverted to classical forms.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba Charged Bolivia Millions of Dollars for 5,000 ‘Free’ Medical School Scholarships

A group of Bolivian health workers who graduated in Cuba. (UPEA)

14ymedio, Havana, 18 October 2022 — The 5,000 medical scholarships that Cuba touted in 2015 as a donation to Bolivia, cost Evo Morales’s government millions of dollars. The Island charged “registration for each student, annual tuition, room and board, transportation, health insurance and even for the students’ clothes,” a report from El Deber uncovered.

Annex IV of the confidential report, accessed by the Bolivian media outlet, indicates that the Island received $1.5 million as payment for the students’ room and board, as well as $17,000 dollars per person for tuition and another $1,000 for registration.

The information, which was corroborated by the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, confirms that Morales’s government signed aggreements, but “not for donations received nor to benefit from the implementation of programs, but rather to provide economic assistance” to the Island.

The awarding of 5,000 scholarships was part of the 11 points signed by leaders Evo Morales and Fidel Castro on December 30, 2005.

A decade later, on September 6, 2015, Cuba’s ambassador to Bolivia at the time, Benigno Pérez Fernández, representing Minister of Public Health Roberto Moralez Ojeda, and former Bolivian Minister of Health, Ariana Campero Nava, classified the agreement as “confidential.” continue reading

Bolivia and Cuba committed to “not divulge, share or make public any information exchanged between them or to which they had access during the implementation of the agreement, so long as the information was not already in the public domain, required by law or through mutual agreements between them.”

The program came to light in 2012. The Executive Committee of Universidad Boliviana denounced that a portion of the group who received scholarships and “graduated” on the Island, which did not exceed 1,600 “did not even complete 70% of the core subjects required in the Bolivian academic system,” published Radio y Televisión Martí.

Universidad Boliviana confirmed that the graduates on the Island not only did not comply with the “minimum requirements to practice their profession” but also, despite that, the government of Evo Morales hired some of them.

The Bolivian Minister of Health at the time, Juan Carlos Calvimontes, argued that the posts filled by the health workers trained in Cuba were those that Bolivian doctors did not want to cover.

Calvimontes confirmed that of the 5,000 alumni who received scholarships since 2006, most spent six and a half years studying. Others, without saying how many, stayed an extra year of obligatory social service on the Island and six more months in Bolivia.

Bolivian doctors trained in Cuba. (Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Bolivia)

The controversy has followed Bolivia’s relationship with Cuba. In January 2020, Bolivia’s attorney general arrested and accused Carlos de la Rocha, — who was acting national coordinator of the government’s health program under former president Evo Morales — of corruption for alleged anti-economic behavior, not fulfilling his duties, and aggravated robbery.

After the scandal, the Colegio Médico de Bolivia [Bolivian Medical School] requested an investigation into the funds earmarked by Morales’s government for contracting doctors from the Island. “We are discovering that state funds were squandered, deposited in individual bank accounts, supposedly, to pay Cubans when these resources should have been in a government account,” said the president of the Colegio Médico de La Paz [Medical School in La Paz], Luis Larrea.

After Evo Morales left power, Cuba withdrew more than 700 “cooperators” it had in that country. After their exit, data began to emerge: only 205 of the 702 Cubans that were on the medical mission in Bolivia had medical degrees, according to revelations by the Minister of Health of the Andean country, Aníbal Cruz. Most were technicians or drivers.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Staff at a Hospital Lab in Havana Have Left the Country

The labs at Havana’s Salvador Allende Hospital, also known as Quinta Covadonga, are unstaffed.

14ymedio, Havana, 17 October 2022 — Havana’s Salvador Allende Hospital, located in the Cerro district, will open its emergency room on Monday without the required staff. That means doctors will not be able to order lab tests due to an alarming shortage of workers. Sources at the hospital, also known as Quinta Covadonga, report that its young that lab technicians resigned en masse and without warning in order to “leave the country.”

The island, which is currently in the midst of a dengue fever epidemic, has also long suffered from a serious shortage of medical testing supplies, which has prevented doctors from correctly diagnosing the disease. Now there are not even enough staff to perform the tests.

“In Cuba we can’t afford to get sick anymore. This is serious,” confesses the same source, noting how pointless it is to ask for reinforcements because “every Havana hospital has a staff shortage.”

The news comes on the same day as the opening of the Medical Tourism and Wellbeing Fair in Havana, which will run until October 21. The event serves as an opportunity for Cuban Medical Services (CSM) to promote the country’s health care industry to potential clients. continue reading

The staffing shortage contrasts with the ongoing export of healthcare workers to countries such as Mexico. On October 13, the government of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced the imminent arrival of eighty-four Cuban doctors as part of a contingent hired to reduce “the shortage of specialists.” There are currently 436 Cuban healthcare workers assigned to various Mexican states, which include areas of the country that are remote or are experiencing violence.

Last week the European parliament debated an agreement signed in August for 497 Cuban doctors to be sent to the southern Italian region of Calabria to alleviate a shortage of qualified personnel. Several parliamentary deputies signed onto a letter from Prisoners Defenders to Calabrian governor Roberto Occhiuto, reminding him that Cuba’s overseas healthcare workers labor under almost slave-like conditions. The Madrid-based human rights organization also noted that these workers do not enjoy full rights in the countries to which they are sent and that they receive less than 20% of the salary the Cuban government receives as payment for their services.

In August Occhiuto justified the agreement, saying efforts to fill vacant positions for doctors had been unsuccessful. “There are not enough doctors in our hospitals. There are not enough doctors in Italy,” he said. “All the regions are doing their best to recruit them and they are not succeeding. What are we supposed do? Close the hospitals? Close the emergency rooms?”

In spite of the shortage of healthcare staff, the Cuban government does not seem inclined to make any effort to retain those it has trained. Last week 14ymedio reported that medical schools were experiencing the same ongoing exodus as the rest of the country.

The situation is perhaps most serious in Artemisa province, where more than twenty medical students from one class left en masse. The students at the school — formerly one of the country’s most prestigious, whose graduates were among the country’s best paid — grew increasingly alarmed at how difficult it was becoming to treat patients without adequate means or medications.

They also saw their quality of life dramatically declining, especially in contrast to self-employed service workers, who were earning much more money. They were also being forced to work ever longer shifts due to staffing shortages. And to top it off, they were not allowed to leave the country because they were performing work considered strategically important by the state.

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