Journalist Abraham Jiménez Enoa, co-founder of the independent magazine El Estornudo (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 14 July 2022 — Cuban Abraham Jiménez Enoa, co-founder of the independent magazineEl Estornudo, is among the last three winners of the International Press Freedom award granted annually by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The award is shared with him in 2022 by journalist Niyaz Abdullah, from Iraqi Kurdistan; Ukrainian Sevgil Musaieva, director of UkrainskaPravda, and Vietnamese Pham Doan Trang, who has been imprisoned since last December.
About Jiménez Enoa, who has lived in Barcelona, Spain, since 2021, CPJ emphasizes that he is “a prominent voice” within the Cuban media, that he “provides new perspectives on the challenges for independent journalists” and that he “reports on issues rarely covered by the state media, including racism in Cuba.”
As a columnist for Gatopardo and The Washington Post, he has also collaborated in other international media, such as BBC World, Al-Jazeera and Univision, and Cuban media, such as OnCuba and El Toque.
The Committee recalls that in retaliation for his work as a journalist, Jiménez Enoa has had to face interrogations by State Security and the cut off of access to the Internet, when he lived in Cuba.
In October 2020, the political police threatened to imprison him if he continued to publish in The Washington Post, and to prosecute him for “usurpation of functions*,” months after which he took the path of exile. continue reading
With its award, CPJ recognizes that the island “continues to be one of the most challenging environments in the Americas for the press” and that “a new generation of Cuban journalists who just a few years ago saw a ray of hope for their independent projects face the harsh reality of new restrictions and censorship that make practicing journalism in Cuba more dangerous than ever.”
As for the other winners, the organization highlights the nine years in prison to which Pham Doan Trang was sentenced, in a summary trial, under article 117 of the Criminal Code of Vietnam, which provides for the prohibition of broadcasting news “against the State.” In Vietnam another 23 journalists are in jail, according to CPJ’s census, which mentions that nation as one of the five countries in the world where the most professionals are imprisoned.
With regards to Kurdish freelance reporter Niyaz Abdullah, the Committee highlights the coverage of the repression against Kurdish journalists in 2021, which earned her harassment by the authorities of that territory in northern Iraq and forced her into exile in France.
Finally, CPJ ponders the work done by Sevgil Musaieva at the head of UkrainskaPravda, especially after Russia’s invasion of his country, from which an English version of the newspaper was launched: Ukrainian Truth.
*Translator’s note: “Usurpation of functions” as a term in Cuban law equivalent to “practicing without a license,” and is illegal. In addition, the law requires ‘licenses’ for work not commonly ’licensed’ in other countries, including journalism.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel seated second from left) and former president Raul Castro (seated third from left) with other government leaders. (@PresidenciaCuba)
EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 11 July 2022 — Cuban state media reported on Sunday that the Mariel Special Development Zone (ZEDM), the government’s flagship project intended to attract foreign capital, currently has 62 approved businesses with more than three billion dollars in committed investments, a bit more than it was expected to attract annually.
The figures were released during a meeting yesterday to review the project. Attendees included current Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel, former president Raul Castro and senior government officials.
ZEDM’s director general, Ana Teresa Igarza, indicated that, of those sixty-two businesses, fifty-six have already set up shop. The Cuban News Agency also reported that one billion dollars have already been invested. Madrid-based Cuban economist Elias Amor states, however, that only thirty-six companies are actually in operation.
Igarza reports that this strategic economic enclave, located twenty-eight miles west of Havana, hosts twenty-one countries and eleven multi-nationals, and employs more than 15,000 workers. continue reading
Among those corporations are Richmeat, a Mexican cured meat company; Profood Service, a Spanish food and beverage supplier to the hospitality sector; Cuba’s Mariel Logistic Services; and BrasCuba Cigarillos, a joint venture between Cuba and Brazil. Companies from the Netherlands, Belgium, Vietnam and Italy are also present.
Igarza states that the core industries represented at ZEDM are logistical services, biotechnology biopharmaceuticals and advanced manufacturing.
To develop economically, Cuba needs to attract $2.5 billion annually in direct foreign investment, with the focus mainly on key sectors such as manufacturing, agriculture and food production, tourism, mining, biotechnology, petroleum and renewable energy.
Announced in 2013, ZEDM is the first project of its kind on the island. It was conceived as a business center and mercantile port where the government hopes to locate a large number of such companies.
Engineering Services and Integral Management for Mariel Projects, under the direction of Osvaldo Bravo, has secured fifty investments deals with another twenty-one in the works.
The project now has roads and a rail line for transporting goods. The State newspaper Granma reports that the government has also invested in utilities and services such as electricity, water, sewage, drainage, liguified gas, telecommunications and broadband internet to the tune of 4.173 billion pesos.
Systems and policies adopted in the zone are intended to encourage sustainable economic development through foreign investment, technological innovation and industrial concentration. The hope is that these will increase exports and reduce the need for imports.
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Young Andy Agüero Barrios died, after waiting for an ambulance that didn’t arrive, according to his mother. (Facebook/Maritza Barrios)
14ymedio, Havana, 15 July 2022 — Problems are accumulating for the Cuban authorities, and not even the old jewel in the crown can give joy. The latest worry has been the deaths from dengue hemorrhagic fever of a girl under the age of seven in Cienfuegos and a pregnant doctor. In addition, another minor died in Havana, while waiting unsuccessfully for an ambulance.
These deaths are an example of the bad situation on the island with the disease, which forced the Minister of Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda, to give a press conference this Thursday.
The Paquito González Cueto pediatric hospital in Cienfuegos published a letter defending what they consider an attack on its professionals and the use of a minor’s death by the Miami press. Paola Patricia Rodríguez, seven years old, died on Wednesday in this center after several days in intensive care, and the news circulated a day later amid criticism of the institution for failing to save the little girl.
“Our institution, since the night of last July 13, began to receive attacks from social networks on doctors, pediatric intensive care workers, nurses and other workers,” says the letter, disseminated on the institution’s Facebook account. “Those who are trying to hurt and distort the facts should know that there is no greater pain for a pediatric institution than the death of a girl or a boy. The pain is intensified because we are attached to our patients,” it continues.
The letter calls for an end to the manipulation and use of other people’s pain and claims that patients are important for health professionals. Hundreds of people expressed solidarity with the text, although some comments indicate that the problem is not the hospital workers, but the inadequacy of the human and material resources to treat the patients, a result of the deep crisis that the country is suffering.
The death is in addition to that of Mercy Hernández, a Cuban doctor whose death was reported on social networks by a friend who shared images of her funeral. The cause of the young woman’s death has not been revealed by this person, who only said that her pregnancy was complicated, but a Facebook user in the province commented that the doctor had dengue hemorrhagic fever. continue reading
The epidemiological situation in this regard is worrying, as confirmed by the data indicated by Portal Miranda on Thursday. In the first six months of the year, 3,036 cases of dengue were detected on the island in 12 provinces, and the forecast is not good. The minister was clear about it: “We are not at the worst moment.”
In the coming months, heat and humidity will function as an ideal breeding ground for the spread of the disease, according to the ministry’s forecast. In addition, the incidence rate has grown by 42% compared to the previous period, so the Minister of Health has called for extreme precautions.
Last week, Madelaine Rivera, National Director of Surveillance and Vector Control of the Ministry of Public Health, placed the increase so far this year at 21.7%, so the speed at which the situation is worsening is evident.
“Cuba has experience in the management of dengue, and the health system is prepared to assimilate the number of cases; however, what we don’t do now can complicate the epidemiological scenario in the coming months, which are the most complex for this disease, which is transmitted by the Aedesaegypti mosquito,” said Portal Miranda, although he acknowledged that the situation is problematic and the lack of basic medicines seriously affect the problem.
Several people confirmed to 14ymedio that at least two hospitals in Havana, Calixto García and Manuel Fajardo, are overwhelmed and materials of all kinds, including reagents, are missing. In Santiago de Cuba there is also a lack of bags for transfusions, according to this newspaper’s sources.
No mention was made, however, of the lack of fumigation reported by the residents of the capital, one of the areas most affected by dengue along with Holguín, Santiago de Cuba and Camagüey. The arrival of the mosquito brigades is always a cause of discomfort for citizens, who must leave their homes for the operation, but the effect of their lack is being noticed.
But the problems don’t end with dengue. Portal Miranda warned this Thursday of the increase that is occurring in data on COVID-19 infections. The disease has already reached its subvariant BA.5, derived from omicron, and the whole world is noticing its effects. The strain is transmitted even faster than its “mother,” and although it doesn’t seem to impact hospitalizations and deaths, countries are aware of the effect it can have, since the more people infected, the more chances of cases with complications.
“Although it’s more transmissible, so far it has not had an impact on health services or intensive therapies,” Portal said. However, the authorities have been recommending for days that the habit of a mask not be abandoned in crowded places.
The death of another minor in El Cotorro, Havana, while waiting unsuccessfully for an ambulance, gives emphasis to the situation. Maritza Barrios, mother of Andy Agüero Barrios, asked for help through her Facebook profile due to the lack of transportation to transfer her son, autistic and blind, to the hospital to receive an urgent transfusion. Although it is unknown what afflicted the boy, his mother desperately said that he needed an ambulance that was impossible to locate. A few hours later, according to the mother herself, the child died.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Disguised and with false documents, Ernesto Guevara traveled to Bolivia in 1966. (Diario del Che en Bolivia)
14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 16 July 2022 — Ernesto Guevara’s incursion into Bolivia to organize a guerrilla is the only espionage story that Castroism tells children. The story has all the ingredients of a James Bond movie: a charismatic and cynical protagonist, false passports, codes and code words, disguises to mislead the enemy and, of course, a license to kill.
Unfortunately for Guevara – who ended up dead, a trait that differentiates him from 007 and other agents – his adventure in Latin America also depended on the tension between the United States, the Soviet Union and the local communist parties which, aligned with the Kremlin, did not welcome with great enthusiasm the presence of a scolding and authoritarian Argentine, no matter how enlightened he thought he was.
Fidel Castro, the Richelieu of this fable, should be added to the equation; Fidel’s pro-Soviet moves showed Guevara that he had nothing left in Cuba.
A careful reading of these last days of Guevara is offered by the writer Alberto Muller in his book Why Did Fidel Abandon Che?, published this year by the publishers Betania (Madrid) and Universal (Miami).
According to Muller, the rupture between Guevara and Castro began with Guevara’s withering anti-Soviet speech in Algeria, during the Economic Seminar of Afro-Asian Solidarity in 1965. At that time, the Cuban Revolution had gone from the utopian hallucination of Fidel to an increasingly obvious guardianship of the Soviet Union. Guevara had already promoted the drastic executions of La Cabaña and failed in his management as a minister and president of the National Bank.
Between 1964 and 1965, at numerous international forums, he continually preached about the need for a revolutionary utopia. He traveled to the Congo, Guinea, Egypt, China, as well as Algeria, where he accused the Soviet Union of exploitation similar to that of the United States and of political pettiness with underdeveloped countries.
Upon his return to Havana, a harsh discussion took place between Guevara and Raúl Castro, in which the latter offended the guerrilla and accused him of being a Trotskyite, without Fidel defending him. After this dispute, Guevara discreetly breaks with the dome of power in Cuba. continue reading
Muller describes that the escape responded to a pattern of behavior in Guevara. Asthmatic since childhood, he had incorporated in his psychology the desire to move away from the suffocation of the center towards the periphery. Among the derivations of this escape is his constant abandonment of home and the family in search of adventure.
In 1965, Guevara had already disappeared from public life. He was in hiding in Prague after the failure of the guerrilla in the Congo, which Egyptian President Gamal Abder Nasser had mocked in a previous interview. The president had asked him if he believed himself to be Tarzan, because “a white man like him had no business” among the Congolese guerrillas, who smeared dawa magic ointmentand got drunk with pombe to be invulnerable to bullets.
After the African failure, Guevara begins to plan his incursion into Latin America, with the aim of taking Argentina as a base for a continental revolution. However, Castro and Manuel Piñeiro Barbarroja–- the famous architect of Cuban State Security -– redirected him to Bolivia, a country that did not offer favorable conditions for the guerrilla focus that Guevara intended to organize.
Disguised as a bald and myopic economist, Ernesto Guevara landed in La Paz on November 3, 1966.
Mario Monje, president of the Bolivian Communist Party, had held several meetings in Havana with Castro, Guevara and other officials in the first five years of the 1960s. In them he had argued that Bolivia would not respond to any revolution because the peasants owned their lands and the Party was against the armed struggle.
For this reason, Muller argues, the interference in Bolivia was a strategic suicide, since not even the communist cadres themselves supported the guerrillas. In a meeting with Monje in Ñancahuazú, the Bolivian leader leaves enraged by the guerrilla’s authoritarianism. Guevara, of course, interprets it as a betrayal of his movement.
Monje informs Fidel of the rupture –- which the American Central Intelligence Agency would also find out about -– but he never reveals the letter to the guerrillas, who are already going through their worst moments. Muller notes that, in the famous Diario del Che in Bolivia, Guevara writes feverishly, over and over again: “Total lack of contact with Manila.” Manila was the code name for Havana and Fidel Castro.
After an accusation, the guerrillas engage in combat with the Bolivian army in the Quebrada del Churo, on October 7, 1967. Guevara is captured by the military, who order his execution, despite the US request to keep him alive.
Guevara’s death was the result of what Muller calls “links of abandonment” between Fidel Castro and the Argentine. Because of his inflexibility and his criticism of the Soviet Union – Guevara preferred the alliance with China – he had become undesirable on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
The writer affirms that the abandonment was a tactical procedure that Castro carried out frequently. That is why his book includes a long and documented list of historical figures whom Fidel eliminated or dislodged – from Huber Matos to General Arnaldo Ochoa – considering them an obstacle.
“El Diario del Che en Bolivia,” according to Muller, “is the great prosecutor against Fidel Castro. There is no need for subterfuge or speculation or inventiveness. The document is available to everyone. Read it.”
Lastly, the book contains a collection of key files to understand the estrangement between Guevara and Castro, and how the latter turned the former, after his death, into one of the most invoked amulets by the international left.
The master move came from Castro himself, who built a mausoleum in Santa Clara in 1992 to house the supposed remains of the guerrilla and those of his fallen comrades. It was the definitive step to consolidate the romantic myth of Che Guevara and attract those nostalgic for communism to visit the Island.
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The author of ¿Por qué Fidel abandonó al Che?, the journalist and professor Alberto Muller, was born in 1939 in Havana and spent 15 years imprisoned in Castro’s dungeons. Even today, an official encyclopedia defines him as a “terrorist.” When he met Jorge Luis Borges in 1983, in Caracas, and they talked about the Island, the Argentine writer pronounced the phrase with which Muller titled his memoirs: “Poor Cuba!”
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Evo Morales during the interview on the Argentine public channel. (Capture)
14ymedio, Havana, 14 July 2022 — “I saw the best democracy in Cuba, what dictatorship?” Evo Morales said on Argentine public television last Tuesday during prime time. The former Bolivian president visited the country for an official meeting with president Alberto Fernández, and to participate in an academic event. In an extensive interview – which was followed by a documentary entitled The Return of Evo Morales – he addressed the current status of his country and the continent.
The benefits of Cuban democracy, for the Bolivian leader, reside precisely in the fact that there are no political parties. “I saw there how, from the neighborhoods, they are debating who is going to be their assemblyman. Being an assemblyman is not a business, it is a service,” he argued.
“There, for example, there is no political expense, which is what many people reproach in other countries. They meet on time to approve something,” says one of the program’s collaborators, Néstor Espósito, while Morales nods.
The Bolivian had previously been asked about the Island and Venezuela as countries identified as undemocratic and not protecting human rights. “In Venezuela, I have seen, there is freedom of expression, right?” Morales starts. “The great advantage is that Venezuela rises after the economic blockade. Imagine the very beginnings of Donald Trump, how he planned to end Maduro’s life, a military intervention… but [Venezuela] has defended itself, defending political and economic sovereignty. Now, look, the president of the United States, instead of negotiating with Guaidó, is negotiating the sale of oil with Maduro. He has therefore succeeded,” he says. continue reading
Morales also exposes his particular opinion on the war in Ukraine, deeply aligned with Russia. “It is an armed confrontation caused by NATO and the United States, which wanted to take Russia. They were getting closer, and any country wants to defend itself,” argues the former president, who believes that the United States lives from war and warns of the risks of multilateralism.
In addition, the former president also has a recipe to end hostilities. “Dialogue would be good, but, above all, that sovereignty be respected and that NATO does not continue advancing. Unfortunately, I do not understand that some European countries form NATO to invade. Why invade countries? To plunder natural resources. That it is the struggle of humanity,” explains Morales, four and a half months after Russia launched an offensive occupying part of Ukraine.
Evo Morales also criticized the media that do not defend his postulates. “You said: ‘If there were no media there would be no right’,” the interviewer said. To which the former president replies: “No. I have no problem with the right-wing media, but they are only dedicated to talking about Evo, to slander… if not, they would have nothing to talk about,” he said.
“I say that some media, especially those that accompany the policies of the empire, are worse than the atomic bomb. They destroy humanity. That is why we have a huge responsibility to have the media,” he continued with a reference to those created by his party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS).
Morales was exiled in Argentina after leaving Bolivia after the 2019 elections. The elections were considered fraudulent by the Organization of American States (OAS) and were followed by the interim government of Jeanine Áñez. The former president returned to his country in November 2020, one day after Luis Arce, from his party, was sworn in after winning the elections.
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Portrait of Alina López Miyares, the Cuban-American teacher who was sentenced on the island to 13 years in prison for the crime of espionage. (Capture)
14ymedio, Havana, 15 July 2022 — A military court granted parole to Cuban-American Alina López Miyares, sentenced in 2017 to spend 13 years in prison for the crime of espionage. The order bases the change on the pianist and teacher’s “good behavior in prison,” according to the document, to which CiberCuba had access.
López Miyares, 62-years-old and with hypertension, will not be able to leave the island until 2030, which is when her sentence ends, according to what is read in the order, dated July 8. In addition, it states that the parole can be revoked for “misconduct” or “declaration of dangerousness.”
Eight months before this resolution, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions of the United Nations Human Rights Council denounced that López Miyares was tried by a military court while she was a civilian.
The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation considers that the professor was imprisoned for “political reasons,” for which she and her husband, Félix Martín Milanés Fajardo, a retired diplomat, were included in the list of political prisoners. continue reading
The independent lawyer Edilio Hernández Herrera, coordinator of the NGO Grupo Jurídico de Ayuda Ciudadana, told CiberCuba that López Miyares will live in a rental house located in El Vedado, Havana, although the exit documents from the Ceiba 4 women’s prison stated she would reside in Centro Habana.
Cuban justice considered López Miyares, born in Havana in 1959, guilty of treason and espionage for revealing the names of Cuban operatives to the FBI. During her trial, in October 2017, Department 1 of the Cuban Counterintelligence indicated that she was being investigated along with her husband for providing secret information, according to Radio Televisión Martí.
According to her son, Michael Peralta, the woman was deceived. He told The New York Times that his mother’s ingenuity could have been a factor in Milanés’ tricking her.
López Miyares was 20-years-old when she met Félix Milanés Fajardo at a meeting. Although they took different paths, they met again and, in 2007, they married.
The American newspaper details that Milanés, sentenced to 17 years in prison, confessed to having been a Cuban intelligence agent, which prevented him from leaving the island, which is why López Miyares made weekend and school holiday trips to Cuba for 10 years. Court records, which show access to her diary, point to her husband as an alcoholic who was financially dependent on her.
A family member said that, while in prison, Milanés called López Miyares to travel to Havana. She did so and, just as she got off the plane, she was arrested and tried for espionage.
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The billboard advertised phone recharges in Cuba, but this Thursday it was removed after pressure from opponents in Miami. (Collage)
EFE (via 14ymedio), Miami, 15 July 2022 — A billboard announcing telephone recharges with the logo of the Cuban state telecommunications monopoly Etecsa was removed from a Miami highway due to pressure from activists and exiles, local media reported this Friday.
The removal occurred this Thursday after a campaign on social networks in which the content of the billboard placed on one of the busiest highways in Miami and Hialeah, a city populated mostly by people of Cuban origin.
“It is incredible that this has happened in the cradle of the exile,” Esteban Rodríguez, an exile, told the Telemundo channel. Several users published photos of the billboard today on social networks without warning of the controversy, in which the actress Tahimí Alvariño, the advertising face of the Katapulk company, which sells telephone recharges to Cuba with the Etecsa logo, was seen.
“Cubans respect each other, they removed the advertising of the Castro regime,” wrote Ileana Leiva Reveron to accompany the billboard without advertising content. “Don’t be amazed at the poster, be amazed at your fellow citizens in that city who make this announcement possible,” wrote a Cuban resident in Israel on Twitter. continue reading
The owner of Katapulk, the Cuban-American businessman Hugo Cancio, responded to the controversy in a written statement sent to the Telemundo channel, in which he stressed that Etecsa is not sanctioned by the US Government: “This is an activity authorized by the regulations from OFAC (an office of the US Treasury),” he said.
“Etecsa is the Cuban telecommunications company where all Cubans inside and outside the island process their recharges and buy their data packages for internet use and other services,” he said. “The idea is not to cause attention or controversy. We decided to offer this much-needed service to our clients and being new, we wanted to give legitimacy to this management,” he added.
Activist Esteban Rodríguez declared before the Telemundo cameras that the fence was “an insult to the people, to exile and Cubans” and stressed that “with pressure” anything can be achieved.
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Mexico has been a historic trading partner for Cuba, especially due to its geographical proximity. (ACN)
EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 16 July 2022 — Cuba and Mexico closed a bilateral business forum this Friday in Havana with the signing of 12 agreements, after the business rounds held in the last two days in Havana with the main objective of expanding Mexico’s investments on the island.
The more than 80 Mexican and 150 Cuban companies examined the possibilities of relationships in the textile, food, information technology, renewable energy, biopharmaceutical, transportation, and tourism sectors, among others.
On this last day of the meeting, a group of Mexican businessmen visited the Mariel Special Development Zone, the business center and merchant port where the Cuban Government plans to locate a large part of technological innovation projects and industrial concentration, with a view to increasing exports.
The opening of the event on Thursday was attended by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, and Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz, along with First Vice President Ricardo Cabrisas and the Ministers of Economy, Alejandro Gil, and of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Rodrigo Malmierca.
The Mexican delegation was headed by Héctor Guerrero, Undersecretary of Industry and Commerce of Mexico and the ambassador in Havana, Miguel Díaz Reynoso.
Currently, 11 Mexican firms — mixed ownership and private — operate in Cuba, among which there are three companies based in the Mariel Zone. continue reading
Mexico has been a historic trading partner for Cuba, especially due to its geographical proximity and the historical links between the two countries.
Both nations have an economic complementation agreement in force, through which tariff preferences were granted to the import of various goods.
According to 2019 data from the National Office of Statistics and Information of the Island (Onei), Mexico is among the 10 main trading partners of Havana, but far from Venezuela, China and Spain.
This business meeting has coincided with the celebrations for the almost 120 years of establishment of uninterrupted diplomatic relations between the two countries — which will be fulfilled in 2023 — and which included the visit of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the beginning of May.
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The deterrent power of the police and the Criminal Code have pushed many protesters into exile. (EFE)
14ymedio, Manuel Cuesta Morúa, Havana, July 13, 2022 — The protests of July 11th and 12th, 2021, or the ’July Days’, defined some “firsts” in Cuba. It doesn’t matter how far back in history we search, we will not find protests of such magnitude.
For the first time, strictly spontaneous demands were made, but with a conscience; and,
for the first time they occurred and spread throughout the whole country;
for the first time in a public space, people of all social circles, of all generations and identities joined together;
for the first time social action against a militarized regime was fundamentally civic;
for the first time foreign influence or actors did not appear in the relaying of demands;
for the first time the idea and the reality of the people were genuinely in contrast with the regime’s narrative about the people;
for the first time the legitimacy of civil society was validated under totalitarian pressure itself;
for the first time the official discourse about the crisis was overtaken by the clear social conscience of those authentically responsible for it;
for the first time the identity between Cuba and Revolution, in capital letters, was massively refuted;
for the first time the demand was not only a substitution of power, but rather a change in its rules;
for the first time a visible social minority, expressing to the still silent majority, exposed — with clarity and through overwhelmingly peaceful means — a minority regime in power; and…
For the first time we demonstrated that Cuba is an exception in the Americas, this one will not pass for the tacit “pact of political non-participation” that many media outlets and political sectors believed had been signed between Cubans and the government.
Harshly repressed as it was, especially the disproportionately long sentences of the protesters and by the political orchestrations of the judicial system in punishment mode, as opposed to any minimal notion of rule of law, this deep citizen revolution which continue reading
was not prepared in Mexico and did not land in Las Coloradas, emptied the contents of the totalitarian state’s political hegemony to conclude the slow process of the Cuban revolution’s ideological erosion, very visible since the 1990’s.
It was a political revolution from the bottom, aborted in its demands, which dislodged, above, a barracks revolution with tired offerings. Although they are reinstated on the surface, nearly a year after those events, a type of loud calm in society alongside a mass exodus of Cubans — a result of the deterrent power of the police and the Criminal Code — the political dimension of 11J (July 11th) summarizes the rupture between a self democratized society and an ever increasingly autocratic regime.
Civil society’s response to 11J have been diverse. However, all converge on demanding freedom for political prisoners, most of them young, sentenced to between 4 and 25 years for exercising their constitutional rights and their recognized universal human rights, in essence, freedom of expression, association, assembly and protest.
But, following 11J, does it have to do only with freedom for political prisoners and prisoners of conscience? I believe not. The demands of freedom for all those who have been jailed for political reasons and for conscience requires first establishing and laying down the pillars and creating the climate to exercise these and other rights, but in liberty.
This time, what is under discussion is the possible and necessary release from prison resulting in the closure of Cuban political prison. This, unlike in times past, during which more than 3,000 political prisoners were released in 1977 and in 2011 those 75 prisoners of the ill-named Black Spring of 2003, only to reproduce and increase political prison.
The probable success of the political demands and strategies to establish democracy and respect for human rights is a path to close this loop, one that is not very short.
I participate, along with those who believe that these are times for amnesty for liberty. The amnesty, in a vision shared by organizations such as the Council for a Democratic Transition in Cuba and by independent attorneys in Cuba and abroad encapsulates in a single process, here and now, seven essential cumulative claims of Cuban society:
The release of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, a matter of highest human sensitivity which touches thousands of families;
The end of political prison itself;
An official acknowledgement of dissent;
The prevalence of human and constitutional rights;
The institutional opening of a democratization process with an emphasis on the preeminence of the law;
The establishment of a climate of national reconciliation for an inclusive democratization, in a venue beneficial for all parties where justice, rather than a rematch, will prevail and political realism;
All in a context where the conversation about freedoms extends beyond elite circles.
This is how the Draft Law of Amnesty and Decriminalization of Dissent, shared by the CTDC on March 30, 2022, is described and, for what can be referred to as the closure of political prison, involves the modernization of a new Criminal Code related to colonial times, which decriminalizes, once and for all, ideas and their civic consequences.
This draft is backed by the Constitution and the law. If 10,000 citizens sign the draft, the proposal will have the required citizen legitimacy, allowing it to be presented to the National Assembly for legislative procedures.
Is the government obligated to consider this or other citizen proposals? Morally yes, politically no. For this reason it would be necessary for us to establish a political benchmark: the number of signatures necessary of Cubans and friends of democracy on the island, within Cuba and abroad, to achieve restorative justice. Faced with a government that does not listen, the legal benchmark is not enough to get it to act rationally, with a concept of justice and a focus on rights. In this sense, the gathering of signatures becomes a citizen platform for excellence, in the midst of state criminalization of the right to protest, for the legitimate expression of the civic will of Cubans and the support of those in the international community that wish to accompany us.
With four additional values: the strengthening of citizen networks; the creation of a framework of solidarity and social indebtedness to Cuban political prisoners; the creation of a proactive climate against the social and political violence engulfing society — we refer to this climate as the Orange Country; and re-legitimizing the civic demands expressed publicly during the July Days.
The support of the international community will be decisive. Globalization of rights is the only answer to the globalization of autocracies. As confirmed by the brutality of Russia’s illegitimate invasion of Ukraine, the doctrine of international realism without moral idealism is an assault against realism itself. The liberal order, which is the order of rights, is the only one in which the stated goal of the states — good governance for wellbeing — coincides with the means to achieve them: the exercise of freedoms within the rule of law.
Democratic governments and civil society could renew their urgent and mature commitment to freedom in this hemisphere, definitively supporting the peaceful demands of freedom for political prisoners, along with those in their countries: Cuba, historically one of the chronic sources of migration issues in the region. Human rights, migration, political prison all form a critical vortex the solution to which requires a systematic and global effort. Support for amnesty is an excellent political expression of that dual commitment: to democracy and to human rights.
Translated by: Silvia Suárez
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Ermes Orta, one of the young people arrested in Sancti Spíritus because of 11J, offers his testimony to ’14ymedio’
14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, On 16 July 2021, five days after the massive protests throughout Cuba, State Security forcefully entered a house on Calle Independencia #77, in Sancti Spíritus. There, they detained several young people, none of whom had gone out on the streets on 11J.
Ermes Orta Bernal was one of the ones who testified. Almost a year after those events, Ermes spoke with 14ymedio by telephone from the United States, where he now resides, to offer his version. The story reveals the regime’s strategies in jailing boys who did not even protest publicly.
“No crime was committed, it was just a punishment they wanted to inflict on the residents of Sancti Spiritus,” confirms the 20-year-old
“No crime was committed, it was just a punishment they wanted to inflict on the residents of Sancti Spiritus,” confirms the 20-year-old
Ermes tells that, after July 11th, a group of friends from Sancti Spíritus decided that they had to demonstrate peacefully once again, to demand the freedom of political prisoners Luis Mario Niedas Hernández and Alexander Fábregas. To that end, they joined a WhatsApp group called “Todos por laLibertad” and agreed to march as soon as possible.
That July 16th, at Leodán’s house, he says, “there was never a weapon, a machete, nothing, just a thermos of coffee on the table.” The police knocked on the door and entered without the residents’ consent. The boys turned their phones on and began broadcasting directly through their social networks. “We have nothing to talk about,” they told agent Orelvis Pérez Díaz, who had “taken an interest” in them for some time.
More strangers began to enter the house. Apparently, according to Ermes, State Security knew the purpose of the meeting, and had brought more people to support the arrest. “When we asked them to see an arrest warrant, they told us that it was not necessary, that they just wanted to talk.”
The atmosphere began to heat up when one of the officers discovered a recording phone and violently slammed it against a table. The boys remained calm in the face of the agent’s attitude and agreed to leave the place.
His phrase of choice was “They are ready to be transferred to Nieves Morejón,” referring to the maximum-security prison in Sancti Spiritus
“When we left the house there were a lot of people outside,” recounts Ermes, “there was police presence, many cars, people with sticks and stakes yelling “delinquents!” at us. Those people had been taken from their workplaces for an “act of revolutionary reaffirmation” against the young men, under the pretext that they had stoned the windows of a foreign exchange store. continue reading
They were transferred two by two to the Sancti Spíritus Bivouac. The cars: a police car, a Jeep and a black Geely. “We know the type of people they are, and they have been followed up,” snapped the officer who received them.
The first thing they did was to isolate them for an hour in personal dungeons less than 22 square feet in size. They were then led through a gated courtyard to the infirmary, where they were weighed and measured. They repeated the process later, with new officers, but this time they recorded them with cameras and “worked on their psychology,” according to Ermes.
Their phrase of choice was, “They are ready to be transferred to Nieves Morejón,” in reference to the maximum-security prison in Sancti Spiritus. After the medical check-up, they were kept in their cells. Little by little, they were called to interrogation rooms.
“We began to shout from dungeon to dungeon. Then an officer would come and silence us by hitting the bars hard. At night, they did the same thing with tin cans, they wouldn’t let us sleep. The interrogations were even done at dawn.”
“We did our business in a hole, a latrine, from which water came out twice a day, to be flushed. The stink was nauseating”
When Ermes read the order of disturbance in his precautionary disposition, he noticed that the document accused him of protesting on July 11th. It was difficult for him to rectify that manuscript, which also stated that they had thrown stones at the stores and had offended Díaz-Canel.
“On the third day of being locked up, they fumigated us with chlorine,” recalls Ermes. “A man came, an old man, with a chlorine gun, and he sprayed the liquid on us. I got intoxicated and told the officer: ‘I’m going to die, I’m allergic to chlorine, look what’s happening to me’. The old man replied that he didn’t care, he just did what he was told. ‘And if they send you to kill us, will you kill us?’ The policeman’s response was withering: “Probably.”
According to Ermes, the prison food was not as bad as might be expected, but the hygienic conditions were appalling. We did our business in a hole, a latrine, from which water came out twice a day, to be flushed. The stink was nauseating”
“There was a time,” he says, “when the showers were not working and we had to take some bottles that our relatives brought us. We filled them up with collected water from the trench to be able to wash ourselves.”
As the days went by, they were transferred to other cells, forming pairs with alleged 11J protesters. According to their new condition, they were assigned a number and the interrogations continued.
“They asked us who was paying us. They made us fight among ourselves. The questions were violent. They confronted each other.” The police frequently carried out nasal tests to verify if they were infected with covid-19, fumigated them with chlorine again and demanded the passwords of their phones.
“They asked us who was paying us. They made us fight among ourselves. The questions were violent”
“With all that pressure we had no choice but to deliver them.” From that moment on, the Police had access to the detainees’ messages and private photos.” They showed us naked photos of some of us, our text messages, they continued with the abuse.”
Ermes states that every day they asked the agents: “When are we leaving?” “Tomorrow,” they said, without the promise being fulfilled. Despite frequent chlorine intoxications, they were denied medical assistance.
The initial period in prison was the hardest, particularly for Yoel Castillo, who was 21 years old and is still in prison. Yoel attempted suicide twice. “After the first attempt, they took him to the infirmary where he tried again, hanging himself with a sheet. It was too much pressure for him.”
“They assigned a single lawyer to us, since “they were being so kind to us,” because the office was not working. When you went to find out who the woman was [Dunia Mariana Rodríguez del Toro], it turned out that she had been a State Security prosecutor. She ended up being the lawyer for Yoan and the others. Everything was ‘fixed’. She told us, cynically: ‘Don’t you want me to defend you?'”
Ermes Orta had a lawyer close to him: his own father, but at first, they did not allow him to serve as his attorney. Then they relented, and when he demanded to see the file, they tried to delay at all costs. Examining the documents, he realized that there was nothing of substance written, no real cause formed.
“Someone sent some photos of some machetes and some arrows through the WhatsApp group, but they immediately removed them. We did not send them. That boy was never detained, he was never in court.”
They were released a few at a time, each with a different mandate. Ermes was accused of contempt and conspiracy to commit a crime, without any evidence of violent acts. “It was a mousetrap, to teach everybody a lesson,” he concludes.
“On the record, they even accuse us of wanting to attack a police station in Sancti Spíritus. Six boys! No one believes that”
As a requirement for his phone to be returned, he had to pay a fine. The trial, held in January of this year, was a farce. The accused were called one by one, and the alleged witnesses did not even know them. The courtroom was filled with State Security officers, informers and policemen.
“On the record they even accuse us of wanting to attack a police station in Sancti Spíritus. Six boys! No one believes that. It’s a joke.”
Since he was in high school, in 2019, Ermes Orta was in the sights of State Security. When the long lines began during the pandemic and he denounced the situation on his social networks, an officer began to “observe” him. He was kicked out of boxing training for having “the Statue of Liberty tattooed on his ribcage.” They sanctioned him and, after the events of July 16th, warned him that he was “regulated.” [Ed. note: A euphemism meaning forbidden to travel.]
“You put up with jail, but when you get out, your friends’ parents ask you not to see them anymore. Then, since no business in Cuba is clean, the people you work with tell you: ‘Don’t come here anymore, because you’re going to have me marked.’ And one needs to understand.”
State Security began to harass him with the idea of leaving the country. They put pressure on his mother, who ended up crying every day. “The only way we are going to leave you alone is if you leave,” they told him.
His brother spent a lot of money from the United States on two flights through Copa Airlines, but the company canceled his ticket days before Ermes could board. Finally, he left the Island on January 27th, through Aruba, on a charter flight. He had to leave his 8-month-old son behind.
“What happened in Sancti Spíritus to us and with those who are still imprisoned was an injustice. After 11J Cuba has gotten much worse and they knew it. That’s why they turned on the valve. But people are no longer afraid because they have children and they don’t want the same for them.”
In exile, where he is preparing to debut as a professional boxer, Ermes says that he has understood what freedom, democracy and the possibility of having a future means. “That same freedom,” he asserts, “is what I want for Cuba.”
Translated by Norma Whiting
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Protest in El Curita park, in Centro Habana, early Friday morning. (Screen capture)
14ymedio, Havana, 15 July 2022 — The state telecommunications monopoly, Etecsa, kept the internet cut off for at least half an hour in Cuba, coinciding with two protests that took place almost simultaneously, in the early morning this Friday, in the capital and in the west of the country.
In Los Palacios, Pinar del Río, the population showed it was fed up with the constant blackouts and power outages they have been suffering for months, aggravated by the summer heat. A group of people took to the streets in the middle of the night banging pots and pans and shouting “we are hungry” and “Díaz-Canel singao!” [motherfucker], as could be seen in videos broadcast on social networks.
Shortly after, official accounts published images of the streets of the same area in complete calm to deny not the information, but that the protests had been significant.
The same operation occurred in Centro Habana, where a woman who was protesting in El Curita park, for being homeless, was joined by dozens of mothers who showed solidarity with her cause. “11:54 at night, a Cuban mother with 2 girls and one in a wheelchair claims that they have nowhere to live because their house is in poor condition,” said a Facebook user.
According to a social network account related to the regime, La Página de Mauro Torres, the protest was dissolved when the first secretary of the Party in the municipality attended the woman personally. continue reading
“You need to have kettledrums and be on the people’s side in order that, when there is a protest, a government official comes forward and looks for solutions. Good for her, she is a short woman, but with a tremendous heart. And also for those who, in their eagerness to solve problems, can find a light in the attention,” said the page owner.
Next, they posted several photographs of the place located between Galiano and Reina street, all calm.
Despite their apparent transience, the protests confirm the pressure cooker that the Island has become, whose citizens no longer hesitate, despite everything, to go out and complain to the rulers about their situation.
The internet outage was also brief, as was confirmed by the page Inventario, with data from Internet Outage Alerts, with a graph showing a sharp drop in connectivity, although the connection has been intermittent in the hours since, according to different people in various provinces of the Island. The service interruption, which was not announced for any technical reason and for which Etecsa has, so far, given no explanations, shows the regime’s commitment to control information, as it fears a new outbreak like the one of July 11th last year, commonly called “11J”.
Translated by Andrea Libre
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Three Cuban Catholic priests offer ’14ymedio’ their experience of the 11J (July 11th) protests a year later. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 14 July 2022 — The oldest man in the cells wears a clerical shirt and a bandage on his head. Four stitches have been sewn over the wound. In the midst of the tumult of 11J in Camagüey, between the sweat and the cries for freedom, a hitman unloaded a bat on his forehead. With the same impetus, the aggressor returned to his group: it is not for nothing that they call this stampede of enraged proletarians rapid response brigades.
Dizzy, hungry – he had not been able to eat lunch – with a bloody head, the man called for help. Police, who take his reputation as a saint and a Samaritan seriously, escorted him to the hospital. There they patched up the wound as best they could and took him, of course, to prison.
That night, Cuba understood that the government was willing to go where it had not dared to go before in order to punish the 11J protesters: attack and imprison a priest. It was not until the following day – and with much pleading from the archbishop – that Castor Álvarez was released.
“That day everything was a party, all that was missing was the drum,” the priest tells 14ymedio, without rancor, a year after the protests. “There were many young people and the elderly came out of their houses astonished, to see that, as if to say: ’Is it true?’.”
When it all started, Father Castor was at the home of actress Iris Mariño. Seeing the vehemence with which that woman accepted the news, he fell to his knees and begged for a little enlightenment. He had to leave.
He walked three hours with the young people until the encounter with the military. “I told them no, that they weren’t there to hit the people. They had to let the people speak.” The police, he assures, were not as aggressive as the furious “cordon” of civilians, who were already wielding sticks to carry out Díaz-Canel’s “combat order.” continue reading
In the dungeon, the boys – of all colors, religions and ages – asked him if God had crossed Cuba off the map. “I told them that the opposite was true, and we began to pray together and talk,” adds the priest. “I was able to understand those young men, what they were risking. And I knew from their expressions that they would not stop risking.”
From the Special Period, the Cuban began an unstoppable “path of liberation”, reflects the priest. However, the most urgent challenge is “to believe in politics, to believe that a human association can be made with certain rules. We cannot think only of the family, which is perhaps the group to which Cubans advance in association, but also in the country.
For this priest, 11J was a “bright day,” which awakened the old happiness of Cubans. However, some hope gained in the protests “was frustrated by what happened around 15N [15 November].”
“We cannot despair,” he adds, “because the path through violence may be quick, but less durable. The peaceful path is slower, but having the conviction of the hearts and the agreement of men and the wills of all is more successful, more harmonious.”
In Havana, another priest, Jorge Luis Pérez Soto, was also moved to walk with the people during 11J. “I remember that afternoon I left the streets for an hour to go celebrate mass. It was a mystical moment, because spiritually accompanying this people is also urgent.”
The social networks, the growing burden and the generational change are transforming the Cuban reality, he thinks. In addition to light, 11J brought a lot of pain, both for those who “did not know how to peacefully claim their rights,” and for those who were supposed to be “guarantors of citizen order” and ended up calling for “brother against brother” violence.
Several photographs show the priest standing at the entrance to the police stations in Havana, demanding proof of life from the disappeared. Many of the prisoners were Catholic lay people, people of faith and culture, and minors, people about which the establishment in which they were detained was not even known.
It was decisive then, recalls Father Jorge Luis, that the Conference of Religious Men and Women of Cuba organized an accompaniment service for prisoners and their families. In a year of work, the Conference has provided numerous legal, psychological and counseling resources to families who have felt helpless in the face of the harsh sentences of 11J. This service has put the Catholic Church, regularly monitored at all levels, in the sights of State Security.
However, “the repression has been very harsh. Certainly international and media pressure have managed to reduce some sentences, but even so, they continue to be unjust and morally unacceptable for the most part.”
Father Jorge Luis agrees with his colleague from Camagüey that “the Cuban people must learn to listen and welcome each other. Individual agendas must be postponed by common agendas. Violence cannot be viewed in any way as a way to solve anything. The civic education of the people is urgent.”
11J surprised Alberto Reyes outside of Cuba, but this priest would have liked to “experience the protests in the first person.” It is no secret that the G2 has a particular viciousness towards him and that his surveillance file must be extensive and thorough. Despite this – and many other misunderstandings, even within the ecclesial environment – Father Alberto is a voice of resistance and radicalism.
“From a distance, I experienced 11J with a mixture of emotions, with joy and hope that the demonstrations would open a path of definitive change,” he tells 14ymedio. Then came the “profound sadness,” “concern and anger at the repression that was unleashed, and at the opportunity that the government was once again missing to start a dialogue with civil society that would lead to change.”
Although it does not publicly acknowledge it, the power leadership is also experiencing “a situation of continuous wear and tear.” According to the priest, this political system “has more than demonstrated its inability to build a society that is not only prosperous, but also capable of responding to the most basic aspirations of human beings.”
“We are a tired and worn-out people,” he continues, “we are a people whose life is running out in the struggle for survival; we are a people who have learned to defend ourselves as best we can and who go out to parade and applaud energetically while preparing our definitive emigration from the country. We are a people submerged in misery and precariousness where it becomes increasingly difficult to cultivate the values of the spirit. And we are a people who no longer believe in the empty promises that their rulers insist on repeating.”
A burning issue around 11J has been the attitude of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba, accused of weakness in the face of government pressure. Father Jorge Luis, however, assures that “the bishops have interceded a lot, from silence, to help the detainees; they have also spoken in various messages. Their action has been discreet, from anonymity, but they have been present.”.
“In my case,” Father Castor agrees, “my bishop was there both days to get me out of prison,” adding that “many of our laity were also arrested. Many people have expressed approval of our attitude in confronting the authorities in favor of justice, respect, freedom of expression.”
In these three priests a critical spirit and civic roots coexist that they share with many priests and nuns, such as Rolando Montes de Oca or the superior of the Daughters of Charity in Cuba, Nadieska Almeida.
“It is true that not all the pastors have been involved,” recognizes Father Castor, “but you also have to understand the charisms. I believe that there has been a light within the pastors of the Church towards the people. And the people know that they can always find support there.
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Leonardo Padura offered a press conference this Tuesday in the Canary Islands. (Angel Medina/EFE).
EFE (via 14ymedio), Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain), 14 On Tuesday, the Cuban writer Leonardo Padura, literary father of the detective Mario Conde and winner of 2021’s Princess of Asturias Award for Letters, said that throughout his career he has never had the feeling of escaping from censorship, but rather rather of looking for it.
“I don’t escape censorship, but rather I look for it,” said Padura at a press conference in Las Palmas (Canary Islands), where he is participating in the “Literature from the Islands” meeting at the Maspalomas Summer University.
He addressed the publication of his next novel, Gentes decentes, in which he reprises detective Conde, which will hit bookstores at the end of August.
Padura said that the situation in Cuba is “economically very tense and socially very complicated,” because added to the effects of the pandemic on economic assets such as tourism, there is a series of economic deficiencies “carried over for years.”
The writer, who has Cuban and Spanish nationality and resides in Havana, was critical of the “severe trials” of people who demonstrated to protest against the Cuban government just a year ago in Havana.
“I believe that the judicial extreme of such high sentences should not have been reached for many of these people. The Government had the possibility of having a much more humanistic gesture,” he said, and insisted on the “fight for survival” that the most people on the island. continue reading
“I have the sense that the themes and manners of Cuban society have an international projection, but always starting from Cuba and returning to Cuba. I need to hear people speak in Cuba, to be able to know their hopes and frustrations and that is a process that is always in progress,” reflected the author.
For Padura, the best place to follow these processes of transformation of society and assimilate social changes is his neighborhood in Havana, where he has lived since he was born, surrounded by people “who are not even interested or care that he is a writer.”
On why he chose the noir novel as a mode of expression, he said that it seems to him a “generous genre” that allows a lot of freedom.
“I think that the most radical political documents that have circulated in Cuba are probably my novels. There has always been a critical look and I have touched on very deep, very complicated issues. I am interested in everything related to the search for utopia,” he assured.
Regarding the difficulty in finding his novels in Cuba, he believes that it relates — more than to censorship — to the economic situation since, in general, the books in his country “circulate little and poorly… there is a policy of not promoting them and not making my work visible,” he said, although he does not consider himself politically persecuted.
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Workers from the Jobabo Urban Farm, in Las Tunas, during a meeting in which they demanded their salaries. (Capture)
14ymedio, Havana, 14 July 2022 — The workers at the Jobabo Urban Farm are beginning to tire. After two months without pay, the employees ask why they should pay the union and what is it doing for them.
“They constantly tell us that we have to demand more from the administration for their interests, and yes, we do, but these problems are not resolved,” says Adriennis Vega, union representative of this agricultural farm, located in Las Tunas. The 94 workers that make it up have not received their salary for May nor are they expected to do so for June. All that is expected is that it will be until after the middle of this month when they can access credits that allow them to start catching up.
“We work to harvest and support the family. We understand the situation of the company, but this problem has to have a solution,” one of the employees told Radio Cabaniguán. A debt of almost seven million pesos was transferred to the farm from the Empresa Integral Agropecuaria [Comprehensive Agricultural Company], which, in the words of the official press, made it possible to foresee “this tense wage behavior.”
Iryás Arenas Buitrago, director of the farm, explained that everything is due to the combination of two factors. On the one hand, the transferred debt prevents them from accessing bank loans, which makes it impossible to carry out any operation that generates income with which to support the workers’ salaries. continue reading
And then comes the other important question: the orchards produce, but they are far from supporting the almost one hundred employees. “We maintain the Base Business Unit [UEB] with marketing,” explains the official.
The factory, he continues, has 16 workers and is in the investment process, so they need the workforce, but there are no profits to generate wages. In addition, the fuel shortage has led to barely 145,000 pesos from sales instead of half a million.
The official maintains the hope that the reconversion of the farm will allow him greater independence to make his decisions, being of municipal subordination, a recipe, that of decentralization, that the Government is promoting and that, conveniently, helps them to distribute responsibilities.
The case, says Esteban Ajete, president of the League of Independent Farmers of Cuba, is not isolated. The farmer tells 14ymedio that solvency problems affect all kinds of companies, not just agricultural ones, and he even claims to have recent news of at least two businesses in the field of forestry whose employees are not paid. “They don’t have raw materials and poor business management has caused them to go bankrupt,” he says.
Ajete recalls that this is linked to the non-payment of the stimulus in MLC (freely convertible currency) which the Government promised to the farmers and that has not arrived. “They tell them that there is no solvency on the part of the bank,” he maintains. According to the farmer, part of the freely convertible currency that is collected in the country through tourism or hard currency stores goes to a bank in national currency that is completely impoverished. As a consequence, there is none of the promised money nor are there credits for the harvest.
“Sometimes, the farmer has to play it by ear, selling things to be able to plant.” According to Ajete, the loans, when they exist, are also suffocating the farmer. “They have to repay the credit, it’s for supplies, and when the harvest ends the government keeps the amount to repay the loan, from the money they should receive. That’s why many are committed to the bank,” he adds.
The farmer also reveals that one of the worst examples is tobacco. If the harvest spoils because the farmer does not have fertilizers or any other necessary input, the Government harvests it and sells it, not as first class tobacco, but as a lower category. “The government takes something out of him, but the farmer is pawned.”
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On Wednesday, a group of 250 migrants was gathered in an orchard in Eagle Pass (Texas) (Twitter/@BillFOXLA)
14ymedio, Havana, 13 July 2022 — Hundreds and hundreds of people in a line, from one side to the other of the Rio Grande, in an incessant flow like the waters that cross. The images, recorded on the river border of Piedras Negras (Mexico) with Eagle Pass (Texas) and shared this Monday by the American journalist Bill Melugin, illustrate the cold numbers.
According to the Fox News reporter, last week there were more than 13,000 illegal crossings in the same area: “That’s almost 2,000 a day.” A federal source told him that 2,258 illegal immigrants arrived on Wednesday. Matías, a source from the Mexican prosecutor’s office in Coahuila who prefers not to give his last name, told 14ymedio that between Sunday and Tuesday more than 8,000 people crossed the border strip of about 90 kilometers between Ciudad Acuña and Piedras Negras, among them, “several families”.
The official also says that the Northeast cartel has taken over the traffic of Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans in the place. “They have hawks – children, vendors, bartenders – who inform them about free points to cross migrants through the Rio Grande,” he details.
Two coyotes were seen in the images shared by Bill Melugin, revealing the way they operate: once the coyotes leave one group, they return to Mexican territory to guide another.
The arrival of Cubans in the US has reached unprecedented numbers during the Joe Biden Administration. Data offered by the Department of Customs and Border Protection show that in the last eight months a total of 140,602 Cubans have entered the United States by land, an number that already exceeds the Mariel Boatlift exodus of 1980, when 125,000 people reached the United States in seven months. continue reading
Matías knows that the undocumented immigrants who come in a caravan “reach their limits and some residents near Rio Grande support them free of charge so they can reach their American dream.”
Those who arrive by bus are “detected by the hawks, who notify the coyotes about the places where people are. Either under threat or extortion, but they end up agreeing to cross the river with these smugglers,” says Matías. “They charge them between 600 to 1,000 dollars to pass them and they leave them there.” This network also brings migrants from Tabasco and Yucatan.
The Northeast cartel – a split from the old Gulf cartel – is a bloodthirsty group that is not only dedicated to transporting drugs, but also to extortion, kidnapping, homicides, fuel theft, bank robbery and human trafficking.
The Cuban Francisco Torné Martínez is not part of the group filmed on Monday, but he could have been. He stepped on US territory this Wednesday. “They took names and divided the group of more than 200 people, the Peruvians and the Guatemalans were put on a bus to return them over the bridge,” he refers to this newspaper.
Torné was taken along with 22 other Cubans, 39 Venezuelans and 9 Nicaraguans to a church. “Texas is returning those from El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti and Guatemala, but this could change as a result of Texas Governor Greg Abbott intensifying his campaign,” says official Matías.
Translated by Andrea Libre
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14ymedio, Havana, 14 July 2022 — Cuban Abraham Jiménez Enoa, co-founder of the independent magazine El Estornudo, is among the last three winners of the International Press Freedom award granted annually by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The award is shared with him in 2022 by journalist Niyaz Abdullah, from Iraqi Kurdistan; Ukrainian Sevgil Musaieva, director of Ukrainska Pravda, and Vietnamese Pham Doan Trang, who has been imprisoned since last December.
