14ymedio

Cuban Writers in Exile Celebrate Their 25th Anniversary with PEN International

Luis Paz, president of the PEN Club. (Facebook)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Jorge I. Pérez, Miami, 25 August 2022 — The PEN Club of Cuban Writers in Exile, a subsidiary of PEN International, celebrates its 25th anniversary this Saturday with a new book about its history and the “stigma” of being a “political organization” financed by the United States, something that according to its president, the poet Luis de la Paz, “is a fallacy.”

“Our organization responds to the statutes of PEN International of writers, but these 25 years we have had to fight against an aggressive campaign by the Cuban Government that calls us ’second-rate’ writers, a political organization and one funded by the CIA and the American Government,” De la Paz tells EFE in an interview.

According to PEN International, one of the first NGOs in the world founded in 1921 by the British woman, Catherine Amy Dawson Scott, “PEN centers are the voices of literature and freedom of expression in their respective countries.”

The organization, based in London and currently chaired by Kurdish novelist, Burhan Sönmez, is present in more than 100 countries.

“We were the first world organization and group of writers to emphasize that freedom of expression and literature are inseparable,” declares the organization.

Its name was conceived as an acronym for Poets, Essayists, Novelists (PEN), which was later expanded to poets, playwrights, editors, essayists and novelists.

The history of the Cuban PEN writers dates back to 1945, when the journalist Jorge Mañach, author of one of the most controversial biographies about José Martí, “Martí the Apostle,” founded the subsidiary. continue reading

Then “long years” were interrupted, says De la Paz, when the Government of Fidel Castro arrived, and cultural institutions such as the state Casa de las Américas and the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba were created, which “displaced” it.

The Cuban PEN, according to De la Paz, ceased to function after the Government took measures based on “Words to the Intellectuals,” in a speech given by Castro shortly after coming to power, at the National Library in 1961, in which he said: “Within the revolution everything, outside the revolution, nothing.”

“Censorship began, and many took the path of exile,” explains its president.

“It was at the 64th Congress of PEN International, held in 1997 in Edinburgh, Scotland, when, by unanimous vote, the creation of the PEN Club of Cuban Writers in Exile, based in Miami, the capital of Cuban exile, was approved,” recalls De la Paz, also a journalist based in Florida.

The poet and former political prisoner, Ángel Cuadra (1931-2021), along with other writers in exile, was the one who reactivated the Cuban PEN center, in 1997. During his captivity, Cuadra had been an Honorary Member of the Swedish PEN.

For the Cuban writer Rolando Morelli, “the Pen Club in exile must be considered, properly speaking, as a continuation of the one founded by Mañach.”

“We went into exile to preserve and conserve an ideal Cuba outside the island; that is, a symbol and embodiment of the best of our traditions,” Morelli adds from Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), where he directs the publishing house La gota de agua [The Drop of Water], which, he said, is preparing a report on the Cuban writer exiled in Spain, Gastón Baquero (1914-1997).

“Naturally, I’m honored and satisfied to be part of an institution that is a global and local reference for commitment to freedom and the defense of writers,” said Morelli, a member of the Cuban PEN in exile.

De la Paz, for his part, is proud to present this Saturday, in Miami, a book that collects all this history: “Homeland and Culture, 25 Years of PEN”, by the poet, Sara Martínez.

Next September, De la Paz and Morelli will travel to Uppsala, Sweden, to participate in the 88th PEN International Congress, which will take place from October 27 to October 1.

There they will present a resolution where “the arbitrary imprisonment of writers and plastic artists and the increasing persecution of intellectuals are denounced.”

“In exile we don’t have major problems with freedom of expression, but we do reject the lack of it on the island. Artists such as Tania Bruguera and Yunior García Aguilera are being forced into exile. The Cuban government used to try to prevent you from leaving; now it invites you to leave and doesn’t let you return. This is what is happening now,” said De la Paz.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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In Nuevitas, Cuba, ‘The Little Roosters Dress in All Black and Walk the Streets to Instill Fear’

“There’s a ton of people who are not from around here patrolling the streets, some dressed in civilian clothing.” (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 25 August 2022 — Dozens of neighbors went out to the street on Wednesday night to the Humberto Álvarez people’s council in Matanzas. “There were a lot of people and the police could not do anything,” stated a resident of the settlement near the old Dos Rosas sugar mill, between Santa Marta and Varadero, where many of the residents are migrants from the eastern part of the country and several makeshift neighborhoods.

“The place is quite violent, so it is not easy,” said the same source.

In videos shared on social media, it is possible to hear, amid the tumult, the sound of banging on pots and screams of: “join us.” At this time, that area does not have internet access.

Meanwhile, in Nuevitas (Camagüey), the regime has managed to quiet, with repression and for the moment, last week’s mass protests, the most important in Cuba since July 11th, 2021 (11J).

“Here, people are very scared because many people have been arrested who didn’t even go out to protest that day, simply for being on their porch filming those who passed,” says one of the residents from the Pastelillo neighborhood, one of those that spilled into the streets last Friday.

The young lady didn’t even want to give 14ymedio her name, “My mother is scared and does not want me to tell anyone what is happening, so I won’t be the next one they take.”

On her block, she says, “they’ve taken two, one of them a kid who keeps to himself and has a young daughter.” His wife, she says, “is desperate because she has no news about where he is being held, though she says they are being transferred to the city of Camagüey.” continue reading

“There are a bunch of people who are not from here patrolling the streets, some wearing civilian clothes and also the little roosters, who dress all in black,” she says, referring to the Black Wasps or Black Berets [Army Special Forces]. “There is a lot of discomfort about that because you can tell they walk down the street to instill fear.”

Furthermore, she adds, “Two nights ago they shut off the power and played loud music at the Bar La Patana. People were pissed off at that because the entire neighborhood was dark and they were having fun there and provoking people with their songs. I’ve seen many older people put up with what they are doing to us. Even one of my neighbors who until last week was a badass has retreated because one of her nephews is among those detained and they beat him, forcefully taking him from his house.” The neighbor told her that they didn’t give her nephew any option but to protest, “because all he’s ever had in his life is misery.”

The internet signal, which they had cut off in Nuevitas for more than three days, is returning bit by bit, but the police is heavily guarding the stores that sell in freely convertible currency (MLC).

Justicia 11J confirms this scene in a statement shared on Wednesday, “The park in Nuevitas is completely militarized. They’ve informed us that they can observe about 8 policemen on motorcycles, 6 patrol cars, 3 black beret cars and innumerable policemen.”

At the moment, the organization, which maintains a register of about fifty arrests in all of Cuba since mid-June when the cacerolazos (pot banging) began in response to the scheduled blackouts, denounced that the number of arrests in Nuevitas exceeds 18.

Among them, the 11-year-old girls who were beaten by police the night of August 19th. “This morning, Ivón Freijoo and Daimarelis Echeverría, along with their daughters, Beatriz Aracelia Rodríguez Freijoo and Gerlin Torrente Echevarría, respectively, were taken to an interrogation,” stated the organization in a post on Facebook, reiterating the denunciation made by the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights.

The organization revealed that Beatriz’s father and Ivón Freijoo’s husband, Frank Carly Rodríguez Ultra, arrived in the United States and that at this time, “is being held in custody by the Coast Guard.” For this reason, they warned of the “danger that a return to Cuban represents for this father and this family,” and asked American immigration authorities to “assess his political asylum claim based on credible fear.”

Related to that, the young neighbor who spoke to 14ymedio assured, “I know there are people who participated in the march who jumped on a raft over the weekend. There were about ten young people who knew that if they were caught they’d end up jailed.”

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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After Milk and Beef, Bread Disappears from the Cuban Table

Bakery on Carlos III Avenue in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez and Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 24 August 2022 — From the balcony, Yudineya watched dozens of bread and cookie sellers pass by every day in her neighborhood of Los Sitios in Havana, but for weeks they have practically disappeared. The shortage of wheat flour has hit private bakeries hard and has also put state bakeries in check.

For decades, “bread with something” has been the fundamental comfort food in Cuban homes. From the elaborate bite of ham and cheese to the poorest bread with oil and salt, the snacks of students and workers depend to a great extent on that baked product that has been disappearing in recent weeks.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do when our child starts school,” says Yudineya, 38, whose son will start the second grade of elementary school in September. “What my son always takes for a snack is bread with whatever appears, but now not even that is available,” she explains to 14ymedio.

In Nuevo Vedado, a colorful private bakery that until recently offered bags of the so-called “ball bread” in addition to hard-crust French bread, baguettes and rolls, now offers only roasted peanuts and egg-white merengue. “We’re not offering bread because we don’t have any flour,” the employee explains. “Sales have fallen a lot, and if we continue like this we’ll have to close.”

Line to buy bread on August 24 at the Pueblo Nuevo Council, Central Havana. (14ymedio)

But it’s not only bakeries that are feeling the blow of the shortage of wheat flour. Businesses that base their gastronomic offerings on pizzas and sandwiches are also suffering. “We were selling bags with 10 pizza crusts for 300 pesos, and now we’ve had to raise the price to 500,” says the delivery man of La Paloma, a private business in Diez de Octubre. continue reading

In front of the bakery on Carlos III, one of the few that still sells “released” [unrationed] bread, the elderly, physically disabled, kids, mothers and all kinds of people begin to show up. Neither age nor the numerous ailments exempt the Cuban, who must defend his place in line as if he were in a besieged fortress.

An employee announces that they will soon sell a few breadsticks. What in Creole gastronomy used to be long and crunchy, in socialism assumes the dictionary definition: “small stick, crude and poorly made.”

Invoking strength that they don’t have, battered Cubans, hoping to get a breadstick, stampede to take their place in line. One woman complains, “All we can get is a little piece of breadstick per person.”

Once the “sticks” have been bought and packaged, the crowd recovers its place in the shade. They must keep waiting: in an hour, they think, the bakery will take out a small amount of garlic bread.

“It will get worse,” predicts a bakery employee. “As of September 1, only the popular council can buy bread here. We’ve been told that there must be an establishment in every place that takes care of the people in that area.”

The shortage of flour occupies the gossips, as do the newspaper articles, the panic of daily hunger and the comments about the imminent school year. It scares mothers and overwhelms retirees, accustomed to a Spartan ration of bread and water with sugar.

An audio circulated on social networks, attributed to a Commerce manager, whispers to anyone who wants to listen that there will be no more flour. “Neither for hospitals nor for the army,” says the anonymous voice. Some sacks of flour will be available for standard bread and some for prisons, whose tranquility cannot be risked.

A prison riot, in a country where a protest can break out every night, has become one of the favorite topics to discuss during the blackouts and domino games.

At the bakery on Reina Street they handed out shifts before selling bread this Wednesday. (14ymedio)

“Today for breakfast I had only a hard roll that I brought from Havana several days ago,” Kenny Fernández Delgado, one of the Havana priests who bothers State Security the most, wrote on his social networks.

Fernández lambasted “communism,” which “took away my beef before I was born, and my milk at the age of 7” and now even “the ‘released’ bread has become a prisoner… Take everything away from me and that’s it,” the priest concluded, “as they did to Jesus Christ on Good Friday, because that way I will know that Easter Sunday is closer.”

The Government, as usual, used the State newspaper Granma to “rewrite” the alarming reality on the Island. “There are no problems with the production and distribution of bread from the Regulated Family Basket and the Cuban Bread Chain,” the media said, citing a note from the Ministry of Internal Trade.

He admitted, however, the “difficulties in the import of wheat,” attributed to the embargo, Cuba’s “financial constraints” and the “international logistics crisis.” The report concluded by “calming down” the vulnerable sectors of the population, apparently saved from scarcity.

Meanwhile, the official reporter Lázaro Manuel Alonso was trying to reconcile the fiction with reality: “Señores, stop the interpretations now,” he demanded on Facebook, supporting Granma’s version.

However, he admitted in the same publication, “Yes, there have been difficulties with the processing of bread due to the lack of electricity, which has nothing to do with the supply of raw materials for production.” Regardless of the contradictions within his own message, he tried to settle as “false” the rumor of scarcity that “some users have shared on social networks.”

The “white dust crisis,” as some Cubans have begun to call it, keeps private producers in suspense. Pastry shops have substantially reduced their supply, while the price for any empanada, jam or cake, no matter how squalid, is increasing.

Not only flour, but also eggs, sugar, oil and other ingredients of the family pantry will be removed from the symbolic Cuban’s table. The meats, the fruits and now, finally, the bread basket are also gone.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba: Protests and the Declaration of the Civil Society

Last Thursday night, the population of Nuevitas took to the streets in protest against the blackouts lasting more than 10 hours. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Ariel Hidalgo, Miami, August 24, 2022 — To those who asked when the Cuban population would return to take to the streets, when another July 11 would be repeated, it must be said: the people have already taken to the streets in many cities every day. Every day is July 11. And this is just the beginning, because, curiously, it’s the authorities themselves who give the signal for the protests to begin.

That “signal” is called a blackout. And apparently they are going to happen more and more frequently. They thought they had found the formula to prevent any mass protest in a city from spreading throughout the country: cutting off the internet, but they themselves are inadvertently putting into practice another formula to summon them: cutting off the electricity.

The difference with July 11, 2021 is that it was then face-to-face and held at the same time in many places at once, like a disadvantageous frontal war against a powerful enemy. Now, it is more like a guerrilla war, where even darkness is the best ally.

However, last week, the people of Nuevitas not only protested in the streets, but also faced the dictatorship’s attack, and there were injuries on both sides. All the demonstrations have been peaceful, but the population cannot be asked to turn the other cheek in the face of a brutal repression that makes no distinction for age or gender.

So where is all this going to go? Because cutting off the Internet no longer works for the regime, when today no city or town waits for a San Antonio de los Baños to initiate a protest. There will come a time when every town and city is protesting in the streets, and the whole country will shudder with another social explosion, this time more forceful, and then no one will be able to stop it.

The only thing that would be missing today is the common position of that civil society in rebellion, something to which Manuel Cuesta Morúa, vice president of the Committee for the Democratic Transition, was referring when he made a proposal a month after those glorious protests last year: “I think that what should happen now is to translate the social explosion into a political proposal.” And he added: “This has to be led, coordinated and activated by civil society.” continue reading

Prominent philosophers such as Spinoza and Kant agreed to define civil society as “a collective body constituted by the individuals of a society, which is positioned outside the limits of the State.” Civil society, being composed of all those who participate in that community, has a moral force superior to the State, so the State must submit to it, and not civil society to the State, especially when the party leadership that controls it was not elected by the citizens. Jean Jacques Rousseau went much further when he said: “The voice of the people is the voice of God.”

When it comes to civil society, a declaration that reflects its common position cannot be ideologized, because it would contain all the diversity of a political tuning fork, but it must address the concrete problems that are affecting us all. And this is precisely what was reflected, in just two pages, by a group of Cubans in their Manifesto of Cuban Civil Society. In a few days they collected more than 80 signatures from inside and also outside Cuba, “since the Cuban nation extends beyond the Cuban archipelago to any part of the world where there is a Cuban identified with the collective aspirations of his compatriots.”

The manifesto, which aims to collect thousands of signatures, doesn’t ask anyone for anything, but demands respect for all our legitimate rights and the release of all those imprisoned for practicing or defending them. Each signatory must give the details of his name, profession or activity he carries out, the organization to which he belongs if any, city and country where he resides, and send them to concordiaencuba@outlook.com, to proclaim to the world and to the oppressors, that the Cuban people are already on the move and that nothing and no one will be able to stop them from reaching their destination: a homeland of freedom and life.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Italy to Hire 497 Cuban Doctors for 28 Million Euros a Year

The president of Calabria, Roberto Occhiuto, and the Cuban ambassador to Italy, Mirtha Granda Averhoff, during the signing of a healthcare agreement on Wednesday. (Facebook/Roberto Occhiuto)

14ymedio, Madrid, 18 August 2022 — A total of 497 Cuban doctors will be sent to Calabria beginning in September, as announced on Wednesday by president of that Italian region, Roberto Occhiuto, in a video broadcast on his Facebook page on Wednesday.

Occhiuto explained the decision was necessary due to a personnel shortage that hospitals around the country are experiencing, especially those in Calabria, which he described as having “an unattractive health care system.” “Every region is doing everything possible to recruit doctors,” he says, adding that most have not been able to fill open positions.

“What are we supposed to do? Close the hospitals? Fire the support staff? Not guarantee Calabrian citizens’ right to health care? No!” he says forcefully into a camera before announcing the agreement with a Cuban government corporation, Comercialzadora de Servicios Medicos (CSMC), which handles the export of Cuban medical services, the regime’s primary source of income.

Occhiuto, who is a member of Forza Italia, the right-wing party found by Silvio Berlusconi, praises “the extraordinary work” of the Cuban medical missions sent to Italy in March 2020 at the height of that country’s Covid-19 pandemic. continue reading

He also notes that CSMC is “the same government company that supplies thousands of doctors to many countries around the world with great success in terms of quality and experience because the Cuban medical school is one of the best there is.”

The three-year agreement was signed on Wednesday at the Cuban Embassy without the the official fanfare that typically accompanies such events.

According to Italian press reports, the two sides spent weeks in negotiations, with Calabria ultimately agreeing to pay 3,500 euros per doctor with an additional 1,200 euros for living expenses, lodging, travel and training.

The reports did not indicate how much each participant would receive though the Cuban government often retains about 80% of an individual’s salary — the exact amount can vary country to country — with the remaining 20% going to the contract employee.

A local newspaper, La Nuova Calabria, reports that this will require CSMC to set up a branch office in Catanzaro, the regional capital.

The newspaper calculated the potential cost: “If the agreement is fully implemented, meaning that if all 497 doctors cited by Occhiuto were employed at the same time, their services would cost Calabria in excess of 2.3 million euros a month, or 28 million euros a year.”

The United States has added Cuba to its list of countries that do not meet international standards regarding to human trafficking, specifically as they concern Cuba’s international brigades. International organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Prisoners Defenders have accused the regime of holding its healthcare workers in conditions of forced labor.

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Rolando Cubela, the Cuban Commander who Conspired to Kill Fidel Castro, Dies in Miami

Faure Chomón, Fidel Castro and Rolando Cubela after the triumph of the 1959 Revolution. (El rastro del invasor)

14ymedio, Havana, 24 August 2022 — Commander, former political prisoner and doctor Rolando Cubela died at the age of 90 on Tuesday morning in the Miami hospital where he had been admitted for several weeks, according to family sources. A member of the Rebel Army, the guerrilla leader was part of a conspiracy to kill Fidel Castro in the 1960s.

Born in 1932 in the city of Cienfuegos, Cubela studied medicine and was a leader of the University Student Federation (FEU). After Fulgencio Batista’s military coup, on March 10, 1952, he joined the Revolutionary Directorate, a group founded by José Antonio Echeverría and Fructuoso Rodríguez.

Cubela was part of the clandestine cell that murdered Colonel Antonio Blanco Rico, head of the Military Intelligence Service, in Havana on October 27, 1956. After that action, he went into exile in Miami, where he was when his colleagues from the Directorate raided the Presidential Palace, on March 13, 1957, and failed to kill Batista.

Upon his return to Cuba, he established himself with other members of the Revolutionary Directorate in the guerrilla struggle in the Escambray mountains, where in 1958 he signed the Pact of El Pedrero with Ernesto Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos, an alliance with the July 26 Movement that allowed the capture of the city of Santa Clara, in which Cubela was injured.

After Fidel Castro came to power, he was promoted to the rank of commander of the Armed Forces, and in 1959 he was elected president of the FEU over the other candidate, Pedro Luis Boitel, who in 1972 died on a hunger strike in prison. From the first years, Cubela began to have profound differences with the communist course of the revolutionary process. continue reading

In November 1963, a CIA agent met Cubela in Paris, who then held the position of military attaché of the Cuban embassy in Madrid. There he was given a feather, with poison in the quill, to puncture Castro when he was near him. But Cubela never used the device, since he preferred to use a rifle with a telescopic sight and silencer so as not to be so close to the target.

The delivery of the rifle was delayed, and the Cuban intelligence services ended up encircling Cubela, who was arrested in February 1966 and sentenced to death, although, due to Castro’s direct intervention, his sentence was commuted to 25 years, of which he served 12. In 1979, he went into exile in Madrid, where he worked as a doctor, and in 1988 he obtained Spanish nationality.

His profile in Madrid was very discreet due to the danger of being killed by Castro. In 2007, he participated in two public events organized by the Democracia Ya Platform, one of them in front of the Cuban Embassy in Madrid. Unlike other exiled commanders, such as Huber Matos and Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, Cubela did not found an anti-Castro organization during his time off the island.

After retiring from his job as a doctor, he settled in Miami, where he also maintained a low profile. The man who could have killed Fidel Castro survived him by at least six years.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba Receives Humanitarian Aid from Nicaragua and Bolivia Due to the Matanzas Fire

A cargo plane from Bolivia arrives at José Martí International Airport with 62.3 tons of aid due to the fire, this Monday in Havana. (EFE/Ernesto Mastrascusa)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, August 23, 2022 — Cuba received shipments of humanitarian aid from Bolivia and Nicaragua on Monday due to the fire in the Matanzas Supertanker Base, the largest in the history of the country.

The donations consist of food, medicine and medical supplies, according to the Cuban Government.

The aid coming from Bolivia — more than 62 tons — arrived at the Havana international airport José Martí, and the Nicaraguan aid arrived at the port of Mariel on the ship Augusto César Sandino, which had left Arlen Siu a few days ago.

During the reception at the airfield, the deputy minister of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Deborah Rivas, thanked Bolivia on behalf of the Island government and added that the country will also support La Paz “whenever they need us.”

Likewise, in the port of Mariel, Betsy Díaz, Minister of Internal Trade, said that the donation reaffirms the “unyielding will to strengthen historical ties” between Havana and Managua, especially “at such a difficult time.”

Other countries, such as Argentina and Spain, have already announced they are sending humanitarian aid to the Island after the accident, which left 16 dead, 146 injured and 17 hospitalized. continue reading

On August 5, a huge fire broke out at the Matanzas fuel tank base, the most important in the country, when lightning struck one of the eight tanks in the industrial park, according to the Cuban authorities.

The fire — which affected four tanks with a capacity of 13,208,602 liquid gallons — caused strong explosions, with flares of hundreds of feet, and a column of toxic black smoke that reached Havana, 60 miles away.

The island decreed two days of official mourning that ended last Friday with a posthumous tribute to 14 of the 16 victims, who until last week were still considered missing, and whose bone fragments were found at the scene of the accident.

According to Cuban experts, the degree of calcination of the remains made it impossible to extract their DNA, but he said that it corresponds to those of the missing, some of whom were young people doing their military service.

The Government revealed last week the names of the 14 people but not their ages, amid criticism of dissent and NGOs that claimed that several of them were young people in military service.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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No Blackouts in Taguayabon, Cuba

Taguayabón and Rosalía seem to be among those “untouchable” points on the map of Cuban blackouts.

14ymedio, Yankiel Gutiérrez Faife, Taguayabón (Villa Clara), 23 August 2022 — A blackout in the city is not the same as one in a rural area. When the power goes out in an urban center, even in smaller towns, the buzz of voices begins to break the silence, the heat gets people to talk, scream, bring their furniture onto the porch, and it is possible to smoke and listen to a portable radio.

In contrast, in a settlement, on the side of the road, or by an old sugar mill, blackouts are all-consuming and inhospitable. It’s the ideal opportunity for local thieves, nocturnal marauders, and bandits who always know the area’s uneven geography very well.

Amid the energy crisis some places in Cuba are apparently spared the outages scheduled by Unión Eléctrica. The settlements of Taguayabón and Rosalía, between Camajuaní and Remedios in Villa Clara, seem to be among those “untouchable” points on the map of Cuban blackouts.

The residents, accustomed to an Island where nothing is logical, know that at any moment they will lose the “privilege” of electricity. Suddenly, they explain the miracle alleging that both settlements are close to an area the government considers essential to the functioning of the province, however precarious.

In an “exceptional” stroke of circuit luck, both settlements are near General Docente 26 de Diciembre Hospital, at the entrance to Remedio, and the meat packing plant known as Osvaldo continue reading

Herrera in the people’s council of Vega de Palma on the route to Vueltas.

The bus always takes the same route as the meat: as soon as it passes Camajuaní it takes the bumpy road to Vueltas. (14ymedio)

The population of each of these areas is small, and thus they do not use excessive amounts of electricity; Taguayabón has 3,308 residents, Rosalía 235 and Vega de Palma 238. Vueltas, Camajuaní, and Remedios, which have tens of thousands of residents, can’t be spared the blackouts.

“We are well,” a resident of Taguayabón told 14ymedio, “but that does not mean we don’t know anything about the blackouts and the protests in other areas. In Camajuaní and Remedios they shut the power off six or twelve hours in a row, but those towns around here haven’t had a blackout in a month. Some joke that this is the new Marianao [a desirable neighborhood in Havana] and they want to move here.”

One ride on the hellish “Slaughterhouse bus,” which takes workers from Salamina near Santa Clara to Vueltas, is enough to make you understand the importance of the meat packing plant in Vega de Palma. The rickety vehicle, loaded with university students, sleep-deprived travelers, and employees of Cárnicos Villa Clara, runs slowly down the road to Camajuaní and takes a detour toward Salamina.

That slaughterhouse, along with two others — Lorenzo González in Sagua and Chichi Padrón in Santa Clara — is responsible for providing the raw materials to the Vega de Palma packing plant. The bus follows the same route as the meat: as soon as it passes Camajuaní it takes the bumpy road to Vueltas, passing el Entronque, another poor settlement.

The Osvaldo Herrera packing plant is run by the Ministry of Food Industry. It employs 250 workers and produces croquettes, canned goods, and sausages, including the unpleasant Cuban version of mortadella, the consumption of which is rationed by the government. Some of the products, those of higher quality, are sent to hotels in the nearby area of Cayería Norte. Another, non-negligible percentage of the sausage “tubes” ends up on the informal market or available through online food stores, which require prepayment in dollars from abroad.

The products at Vega de Palma also require flour from Cienfuegos, and soy from Santiago de Cuba necessary to make mincemeat, another gastronomic headache for Cubans, while other companies provide nylon, cardboard, and preservatives to package the products.

In Vega de Palma there are two sausage-making machines, one meat grinder and one for boneless meat, five steamers with a capacity of 1,500 kilograms, fans, showers for cleaning the meat, and cold storage.

Yolanda, an employee at the packing plant, tells 14ymedio that for a long time her company has not had a backup generator for emergencies. “It depends entirely on the national electric system,” she states, “and although no one confirms that is the reason we don’t have blackouts, we know. Everything would spoil!”

“Some joke saying this is the new Marianao and that they want to move here.” (14ymedio)

If a blackout would break the cycle, the hotels wouldn’t have sausage, the butchers would not receive the monthly mortadella ration and the government would add another crisis to its long list of unresolved problems.

Nonetheless, not even uninterrupted power guarantees the packing plant’s function. Ernesto, another one of the employees, states that the company does not work every day.

“Sometimes the work is interrupted because there is no gas for the trucks that bring the meat from Salamina. Other times, what is missing is the raw material. We run out of wheat flour and it is impossible to make croquetas. Then we have to make mincemeat or mortadella, while we have the pork or chicken,” he concluded.

The other “guardian angel” against blackouts for these rural settlements is the hospital in Remedios. With 480 workers, of which 67 are doctors and 138 nurses, patients in serious condition are sent here from nearby municipalities including Camajuaní, which only has one polyclinic serving outpatients.

In the old yet very effective hospital, there are pediatric, obstetric, gynecology, anesthesiology, general surgery, intensive care, clinical laboratories, and other wards. A prolonged power outage would be fatal during surgery or for patients on life support.

Of course, neither the colossal packing plant nor the hospital in Remedios provides long-term guarantees. The residents suppose the government has weighed its options: it maintains the power supply because it would be more expensive to fuel generators for both centers.

No one holds out too much hope that the situation will remain as is, of course. If small towns in the Villa Clara countryside have not been affected much by blackouts, it is precisely because they are small. The Cuban government and its energy bureaucracy know where to shut off power and for how long. It is the reason for popular discontent, less controllable as time goes on, and its direct consequence — the nighttime protest.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Cuban Boxer Billy Rodriguez Escapes after Winning Against Luna in Mexico

Boxer Billy Rodríguez left the Domadores de Cuba team after his professional debut in which he beat Miguel Ángel Luna. (Collage)

14ymedio, Havana, 22 August 2022 — Cuban boxer Billy Rodríguez traveled to Mexico with one goal: “to come out victorious and then enjoy myself,” he stated in an interview with the official site Jit. He showed his qualities last Friday in his professional debut against Miguel Ángel Luna, whom he beat by a technical knockout, and with his escape he gave another hook to the liver of the boxing team Domadores de Cuba.

El Niño Rodríguez, as he is known within the Cuban Boxing School, became, like every athlete who escapes, a traitor, who “turned his back on contractual obligations” and “whose attitude must be condemned.”

According to journalist Francys Romero, with Rodríguez’s abandonment there are now 31 athletes who have escaped this year from Cuban teams during international competitions, including those who have decided to end a contract with Cuba’s National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (Inder).

“These 31 include baseball players Alfredo Fadraga and Yosvany Ávalos, who were captured and deported back to Cuba last June,” the journalist said on his social networks. “It’s the reality right now of sport and Cuban society. The situation will only get worse. In 2023, there will be Central American and Pan American Games in the same year.

Billy Rodríguez’s escape is a serious setback for the Cuban regime that highlighted the young man from Havana as a revelation and Cuba’s hope in the 108-pound division. He was due to debut on June 5 in Buenos Aires, but host Sergio Daniel Rosales said he didn’t comply with the weight requirement. continue reading

Last Friday, Rodríguez showed himself against Luna as a fast boxer, with variety in his punches and a solid right, which took down his opponent. He exhibited in the ring the teachings of his mentor, Diógenes Luna, 2001 world champion in Belfast.

Rodríguez has defined himself as a boxer who likes to exploit his right, who likes to strike, dodge and counterattack. He is also a follower of Olympic and world champion Julio César La Cruz, but his idol is Lázaro Álvarez.

El Niño is gone from Cuba. The future may bring opportunities in boxing but also professionally, as this young man has completed his studies as a physical education teacher, said Cubadebate.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Angola Resumes its Air Relations with Cuba

The flights between Luanda and Havana will start this November 8. (TAAG Airlines)

14ymedio, Havana, 23 August 2022 — Angola’s state airline, TAAG Airlines, will cross the Atlantic Ocean again from Luanda to Havana beginning November 8, according to an official announcement by the company.

“After the positive evaluation of business for the intercontinental routes (America and Europe), TAAG is in a position to resume connections with Cuba/Havana,” the Angolan Day published a few days ago.

The flights will be made on board a Boeing 777-300 on a biweekly basis, starting in November, and it’s expected that weekly trips can be made from December. Later, in February 2023, the biweekly frequency will be resumed, says the Angolan newspaper.

There is already a flight schedule that includes November 8 and 22, and December 6, 13, 20 and 27. On the other hand, in January 2023, travelers will be able to book on February 3, 10, 17 and 24, and also on February 14 and 28. continue reading

Departure from Luanda will be at 10:00 p.m. and a landing in Havana is scheduled for 6:00 a.m. the next day, local time. Departures from the Island will be at 11:30 a.m., with an arrival in Luanda at 7:00 p.m. the next day. On its social networks, the airline has begun to promote its relaunch to the island and invites bookings on the first dates.

TAAG Airlines paused its flights due to travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic and was only allowed some humanitarian or cargo trips. This airline had operated without interruption between the two countries from 1984 to 2020.

In June of this year, the CEO of TAAG, Eduardo Fairen, announced that the company is preparing to be privatized before 2025, as has happened with the rest of the companies involved in the aviation sector, prior to the open skies agreement.* Several months before these statements, in February, the company acknowledged that its debts to international suppliers are around $250 million.

Cuba and Angola established diplomatic relations on November 11, 1975 and have maintained close ties since then. Between that year and 2002, more than 300,000 Cuban soldiers participated in the civil war that broke out in Angola after its independence from Portugal, a colonial power for four centuries.

Earlier this year, the Minister of State of Angola, Adao de Almeida, visited the island and together with Cuban Deputy Prime Minister Ricardo Cabrisas reaffirmed the desire to promote “economic cooperation” between the two countries. “Today, Havana and Luanda are focusing on promoting the links between the Mariel Special Development Zone and the Special Economic Zone of the Nation of West Africa,” says a statement from the Cuban Foreign Ministry, dated February 28 of this year.

With the election in 2017 of a new president, João Lourenço, a review of the cooperation with Cuba began, which the former head of state, José Eduardo dos Santos, handled with a suspicious generosity.

In December 2020, Luanda annulled a million-dollar contract with Havana for “failure” of its obligations in the construction of a road. The company Imbondex Construcciones y Materiales de Construcción S.A. belonged to the Cuban military conglomerate Gaesa (Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A.).

In 2015, Cuba had more than 4,000 aid workers deployed in Angola, including 1,800 doctors and 1,400 teachers.

A few days ago, more than 260 young Angolans returned to their country after graduating in healthcare specialties in Cuba, including Medicine, Stomatology, Optometry and Optics, Rehabilitation, Hygiene and Epidemiology, Nutrition, Health Information System, Veterinary Medicine, in addition to others such as Agronomy and Civil and Industrial Engineering. According to the Cuban Foreign Ministry, the island has trained about 45,000 Angolan students.

*Translator’s note: An agreement in which aircraft can fly between two countries without any restrictions.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Official Sale of Dollars in Cuba Begins and Each One Will Cost 123 Pesos

The purchase can be made at 36 exchange offices and a branch of the Banco Popular de Ahorro in Isla de la Juventud. (14ymedio)

14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 22 August 2022 — The Cuban government announced on Monday that it will start selling dollars to the population on August 23 at a rate of 123.60 Cuban pesos (CUP) per dollar. The 37 premises authorized to carry out this operation will report daily the number of people who can buy that day, “depending on the availability of foreign currency,” said the Minister President of the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC), Marta Sabina Wilson González, on the Roundtable television program, hosted by Randy Alonso.

Initially, a person will be able to buy only $100 or its equivalent in other currencies, although Wilson González did not specify how often this can be done. The sale will begin in 36 exchange houses (cadecas) and a branch of the Banco Popular de Ahorro in Isla de la Juventud.

The official said that both the exchange rate, for now 120 CUP for a dollar, and the margins, will be adjusted if necessary. In addition, the purchase limit of $100 per person “can be extended” later.

“If the dollar is the most difficult currency we have for export, then the idea is for people to demand that currency, and we want that purchase to be fundamentally from the dollars we have in stock in the cadecas,” said the minister president of the Central Bank.

The Cuban authorities said that the euro is the currency that has entered the official foreign exchange market the most since they implemented the new exchange rate at the beginning of the month, followed by the dollar, the pound sterling and the Mexican peso. continue reading

The Minister of Economy, Alejandro Gil, for his part, acknowledged that “there is a demand for cash dollars” on the Island, whether to emigrate, to go shopping abroad or for other reasons. However, he clarified that right now the only way out for these dollars is to sell them on the foreign exchange market.

Cubans buy dollars to emigrate, make domestic transactions and leverage their little savings in the face of the collapse of the power of the CUP to buy goods and services. Inflation and lack of productivity have pushed the national currency into abysses never before seen.

“We’re not going to fall behind the exchange rate of the informal market,” Gil said for those who expect the official rate to compete against illegal networks. “The first step is for the State to regain control of the value of the currency,” the minister clarified. “This is not a market economy,” he stressed.

“Little by little, the State will advance in controlling the foreign exchange market,” Gil reaffirmed. But “if you have a partially dollarized market,” there will always be a demand for foreign currency. “We will reach a time of lower demand for foreign currency when we have more products available in Cuban pesos.”

The minister, who repeated the word “challenge” several times to describe the foreign exchange market, warned of the need to relaunch Cuban industry in order to sustain the pulse of the currency and reiterated his criticism of the “voluntarist” vision of the economy. “The strength of the economy is what will allow us to stabilize the exchange rate,” he explained. “You have to come down to earth and understand the sense of urgency,” he confessed.

“This is not for the new rich,” Gil defended himself. “This is not a measure for those who receive foreign currency,” he said in a speech, trying to reinforce the idea that there is an official script that includes, in the medium and short term, an improvement in daily life. “It’s not improvisation; nothing we do is improvised,” he said in the midst of a climate of increased social criticism.

Reactions to the new announcement flooded the social networks. Cuban economist Mauricio De Miranda Parrondo said ironically on Twitter: “I think the next decision of the Government will be to sell foreign currency through the ration book in Cuba. Randy says that they will assign turns in the line. I imagine they will end up making phone appointments.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Former Cuban Officers Call on the Eastern Army ‘Not to Comply with the Orders of the Dictatorship’

A special forces agent faces demonstrators in Nuevitas, Camagüey. (Captura)

14ymedio, Madrid, 22 August 2022 — The group Military Conscientious Objectors (MCO) calls on the agents of the Cuban security forces to put themselves “on the side of the people” and help “end this corrupt mafia dictatorship.”

In a statement issued on Sunday, the organization, founded in 2021 by former Cuban officers in exile, refers to the “new national wave of repression” posed by the actions against the protests in Nuevitas (Camagüey) this weekend, and asserts that “it must be decisively rejected by the whole country but especially by the Revolutionary Armed Forces.”

“Our comrades in arms cannot and should not comply with the orders emanating from a dictatorship that has ignored the well-being of the people and today pushes Cubans into increasing misery,” they say in their statement.

MCO urges General Rigel Tejeda, head of the Eastern Army, to ensure that “his troops don’t act as minions or mercenaries of the new oligarchy.” His was quoting his predecessor, General Onelio Aguilera Bermúdez, who “did not stain his hands with blood on July 11, 2021. Don’t give in to pressure that would smear your name and that of the commanders under you.”

The Eastern Army, the retired soldiers insist, “shouldn’t act as private troops in the service of those who spend time on their yachts while millions of Cubans go to bed without food, without electricity, without medicines and without a roof over their heads.” continue reading

In addition to expelling the current rulers from power, former officers call for the “nationalization” of the Gaesa military conglomerate, which they allude to as “the monopoly that this new oligarchy has registered as a Panamanian company, which controls 60% of the economy and is not accountable to any institution in Cuba. It left tens of thousands of Cubans to die during the pandemic due to lack of oxygen tanks, medicines and ambulances, while spending billions of dollars on building new luxury hotels.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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More Police and Arrests and Fewer Blackouts to Calm Things Down in Nuevitas, Cuba

Moment in a video during the second protests in Nuevitas, in the early hours of Saturday, in which protesters are seen facing an agent. (Captura)

14ymedio, Havana, 22 August 22, 2022 — The Camagüey city of Nuevitas, a protagonist on Thursday and Friday of the largest demonstrations in Cuba since July 11, 2021, wakes up on this repressed and silent Monday. Throughout the weekend, its inhabitants had their Internet access restricted, and the streets were patrolled by police, soldiers and civilian agents.

Eyewitness testimonies about the protests, published on social networks, have been deleted. Thanks to these videos, it was possible to observe the crowd that made up the demonstrations, where along with demanding an the end of the blackouts — “turn on the power, dickhead” – they shouted other high-sounding slogans, such as “freedom” “homeland and life” or “Díaz-Canel, motherfucker, the people are tired,” and sang of the national anthem.

There is also no trace of what happened in Nuevitas in the official press. The provincial newspaper Adelante limited itself to announcing this Sunday a new “energy schedule,” inferring that there will be fewer blackouts.

In an attempt to appease the spirits of the population, they also reported that the Diez de Octubre thermoelectric plant, in Nuevitas, which had stopped working due to breakdowns, “synchronized” two of its units to the National Energy System. The title of the note published on Saturday, Thermoelectric unit of Nuevitas integrated into the national generation of was, however, misleading: both blocks later, were again “off-line” because of problems with the boilers, and the only unit that works in the plant is the VI.

Some official media did allude to the protests on their social networks, only to dismiss them. Thus, Radio Nuevitas reproduced on Facebook a publication that calls peaceful demonstrations “disruptions of public order, always encouraged from the outside to incite hatred, popular discontent and violence.” continue reading

The text, signed by Pedro Alexander Cruz Moiset of Radio Cadena Agramonte, extends to the opinion that “none of those who call for a regime change in Cuba have lived under capitalism, much less delved into the history of capitalism.”

The author suggests that “rather than inciting hatred, the call must be for unity, discipline, order, the collective search for the solution to the real and objective problems that the nation is experiencing,” and ends by calling for “the defense of the Revolution and its conquests” with the slogan “homeland or death, we will win.”

The publication was strongly criticized in the comments. “You have to be really cold to blame others for what happens in Cuba! Enough is enough! No one believes you!” writes Indira C. Martínez. “Be ashamed of your complicity and do real journalism!” asks Gissel Herrera.

A Cuban woman, resident in Miami, Alina Jalil, argues: “They could say that Cubans were asleep because there was no internet, and they barely had communication with the outside world, buddy! But now? It’s shameful that they publish this! Who is that note for?”

And the Havanan Niurvis Delgado says: “The people are tired of so many unfulfilled promises. They protest to ask for change and demand that they be heard, because they know that there’s a better life and that what they lead is not life,” while encouraging: “We are all Neuvitas! Poor, brave people!”

Meanwhile, Justicia 11J reported that the relatives of Mayelín Rodríguez Prado, La Chamaca, were informed by the police of Nuevitas that the 21-year-old girl was transferred to Camagüey. “We don’t take this information for granted until Mayelín makes the regulation call that would put an end to her disappearance,” clarifies the legal platform, which registers a total of 42 detainees in the protests that have occurred on the Island since the beginning of the “scheduled blackouts” in mid-June.

On Sunday, the organization mentioned ten others arrested for the demonstrations in Camagüey. Two of them are José Armando Torrente and his wife, parents of Gerlin Torrente Echevarría, the 11-year-old girl who along with two others was assaulted by security forces in the early hours of Saturday.

In addition, they report that the hairdresser Josué Nápoles Sablón, El Nene, and six demonstrators from the peoples council of Camalote were arrested: Yasmani García Ramírez, Michel Escalona Ramírez, Kenay Perdomo Soria, Héctor Curbelo, José Antonio Rodríguez and Richard Conte Betancourt.

Finally, they confirmed the arrest of Julio Gil de Montes, related, says Justicia 11J, “to his critical statements about the first secretary of the Party in Camagüey.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Every Man for Himself, Blackouts are Growing in Cuba and so is the Market for Generators

Since August 15, Cubans are allowed to import up to two power generators without commercial purposes. (CMKX Radio Bayamo/Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 16 August 2022 — “Noiseless and efficient,” according to the text that accompanies the photo of a power generator that, for about $4,000, promises to exorcise the demon from the blackouts. The most precious status symbol on the Island is a device that keeps appliances running when the government cuts off the power. Only surpassed by a plane ticket to emigrate.

The energy deficit, due to the poor state of the thermoelectric plants and the lack of fuel, has plunged Cubans into darkness. In large areas of the country, electricity appears for only a few moments, not exceeding ten hours of service per day. Cooking, cooling off or being able to drink a glass of cold water depend on running devices that invariably need power.

Since August 15, with the easing of customs measures, Cubans can import up to two generators with a maximum power of 15,000 watts without commercial purposes. The duty payment may vary depending on the capacity of the device and whether the traveler brings in other goods that are also taxed, but that small opening has been enough to trigger the market for generators.

Ibrahim has been traveling to Panama for six years to import household appliances. “The pandemic almost put me out of business because I couldn’t travel for some time, but now I’m back on track,” he tells 14ymedio. “The most profitable thing right now is to bring in generators, because people are desperate and pay well for them. If you don’t have a generator, you don’t have quality of life.”

Those who don’t have the resources to buy one appeal to ingenuity: blades of a fan that are driven by pedaling a bicycle, improvised beds in the doorway or on a terrace to take advantage of even the smallest breeze in the early hours of the morning, and the traditional hand fan that serves to refresh the skin and scare away mosquitoes are just some of the ways, but they are only palliative and barely calm the discomfort. continue reading

Living in the Havana neighborhood of Nuevo Vedado, Ibrahim’s clients are middle-income people, often with families abroad who can help them with their expenses and who don’t want to go through the blackout without being able to turn on at least one fan, a rice cooker or a television. “I haven’t left Cuba yet, and I already have six orders for generators.”

“The most in demand right now are those that use both gasoline and propane, because there’s no guarantee that one of the two can always be bought. Diesel ones also have their market,” he explains to this newspaper. “The problem is that now it has also become a problem to get the fuel, so buying the device doesn’t end the problem,” he admits.

Among Ibrahim’s clients are families who seek to ease domestic life during power outages but also some entrepreneurs. “I have people who can’t afford to lose power because valuable merchandise will spoil, or they’ll lose a lot of money because they can’t work.” As an example, he mentions “informal shrimp and lobster sellers,” in addition to a home beverage business that sells its products online and promises them “always cold.”

The prices vary. Ibrahim sums it up: “For every watt I generate you pay me a dollar. But if it’s a powerful generator of more than 4,500 watts, I can provide it, and there are discounts that make the price cheaper. If, in addition, the client wants it to be home-delivered, that can be arranged.”

But it’s not all a matter of money when it comes to acquiring one of these devices that saves you from darkness and heat. “My brother has been insisting that I buy one for a long time, but I live on a street where everyone is a big gossip,” laments Juan Carlos, a resident of the city of Alquízar. “If, in the middle of a blackout, the only house that is illuminated is mine, people will start talking.”

Juan Carlos runs a modest business selling fresh cheese and yogurt. Most of his business is informal, and he’s afraid to keep his lights on when the neighbors can’t even see their hands. “The least that can happen is envy, and the worst is the thieves, who might think I have a lot of money because I have a generator.”

The theft of these devices is becoming more frequent. “In the early hours of the morning they took the generator that we had secured behind a padlocked fence,” a resident of El Vedado, who managed to use her generator for only a few weeks, explains to this newspaper. “It was wonderful, although a little noisy,” she says. “We never filed a complaint with the police because we had bought it on the black market.”

Ibrahim doesn’t want to import a generator for his family. “My thing is to make money to get my wife and my two children out. If I have to spend that time fanning myself with a piece of cardboard, I’ll do it.” In advance, he already knows what devices to bring to the island in the first days of September. The classified ad he has put in several places shows a large generator, with wheels and accompanied by a phrase: “Sleep all night without worrying about blackouts.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Police Thwarted Andy Garcia’s Release from Prison and His Exit from the Country, His Family Denounces

Family members of Andy García Lorezno, one of those arrested for July 11th (11J), in front of his home in Santa Clara. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 19 August 19, 2022–Andy García Lorenzo, one of the men prosecuted for last year’s ’11J’ (11 July) protests in Santa Clara, was punished once again for his activism. The young man was transferred to a maximum security prison known as El Pre, his sister Roxana denounced on Thursday after the order for him toserve his sentence in a labor camp was revoked.

“That is what they told us, but we’re not sure of it,” said the young woman, who reminded us that it is not the first time State Security has lied to the family.

García Lorenzo’s transfer occurred just two days after his family denounced that the 24-year-old was “in poor health.”

“As of yesterday, my brother had not eaten for two days,” stated Roxana García during a live stream on Facebook, during which she said that Andy was in prison “in terrible conditions, without food. Most likely he hasn’t eaten anything. We don’t really know what is happening with him, what the justification was for his transfer, under what conditions, and in what manner.”

In the video, the young woman addresses State Security and revealed that the family “was preparing itself” because Andy would be out “soon” and the family would leave the country with him. “You have shown us that you will do everything possible to try to break up the family,” she said, but “Andy’s family will be around him for quite a while.”

Since García Lorenzo was arrested on the afternoon of July 11, 2021, Roxana as well as her husband, Jonatan López, and both of their fathers, Nedel García and Pedro López have been very actively defending 11J political prisoners and on several occasions have denounced the harassment of the political police.

The young man was sentenced to four years in prison for public disorder, contempt, and assault during a trial held on January 10, along with 15 other protesters. He was supposed to have served that time interned in a correctional labor camp known as El Yabú. continue reading

Before going to that center, García Lorenzo was able to spend close to two weeks at home while awaiting the paperwork to enter the penal system, but the joy was short-lived; after spending two days with his family, he was arrested on the street, while riding a motorcycle with his father, and transferred to the camp.

According to reports by the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH), Andy García Lorenzo’s case is another one among many opponents who endure terrible medical care in prison. On Friday, the Madrid-based organization demanded the International Red Cross and the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions be allowed to visit Cuban prisons.

The Observatory allegedly received “information of health conditions that have occurred or have been aggravated among political prisoners and prisoners of conscience. In several cases, the allegations include indifference on the part of prison authorities or the lack of appropriate treatment for their illnesses.”

In addition to García Lorenzo, the Observatory has registered the cases of Angélica Garrido Rodríguez, “with facial paralysis following threats and intimidation by prison authorities”; Maikel Puig Bergolla, who suffers from diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and a skin infection; Félix Navarro, also diabetic and who has been infected with COVID-19 twice, experiencing drastic weight loss and infections.

The organization adds to that list prisoners Yuri Valle Roca, Mario Josué Prieto Ricardo, Dayron Marín Rodríguez and Walnier Aguilar Rivera. “From past experience,” it concludes, “we know the experience in the regime’s prisons has been nefarious for the physical and mental health of many Cubans.”

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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