Author: 14ymedio

Report Reveals That Cuban Doctors in Mexico Were Limited to ‘Making Up Beds and Conducting Surveys’

Cuban health workers in Mexico were not in charge of covid care areas, according to their blog posts. (Capture)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, June 10, 2022 — Cuban doctors sent to help  during the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico City limited themselves to “preparing beds, taking vital signs, conducting surveys and passing sponges to patients to bathe,” revealed a report released by LatinusUS.

The Mexican portal, led by journalist Carlos Loret de Mola, had access to 1,000 reports written by the Cuban health workers themselves, which recognize that “they were not in charge of covid care areas nor did they carry out any specialized activity.” This contrasts with the triumphalism of the Cuban authorities, who even managed to brag about the decrease in mortality caused by the coronavirus in Mexico. For example, a statement from the Ministry of Public Health last year said that thanks to the health brigade, the case fatality rate was reduced by 21% in the areas where Cubans were assigned.

“With the support of Mexican staff and the experience of the collaborators, they were able to overcome adversity and save more than 95% of those admitted for the new coronavirus there,” said Osvaldo Castellanos Ravanal, who was at the head of the team that worked at the Campo 1 hospital.

The LatinusUS report overturns the official discourse. This media accessed through a transparency portal 426 monthly blogs of Cuban health workers and nurses who were in Army medical units between December 2020 and February 2021, and the reports of 266 health workers who extended their stay in Mexico.

The documents reveal that the members of the Henry Reeve Brigade delivered reports to the Ministry of National Defense based on 30 templates, completed on a computer and by hand, in which “words, paragraphs, wording and even the same omissions and the lack of signatures are repeated,” the report mentions.

The use of templates for the preparation of the reports has also been pointed out by Javier Larrondo, president of the NGO Prisoners Defenders. “The doctors are given a model and they say: you have to do it like this,” explains Larrondo, who details that they can tell them to change a point and sign it or “they can tell them to just take it and sign.” These papers, denounces the activist, “are to distort reports and fulfill what they ask of us in a fraudulent way.” continue reading

In the monthly reports of activities that they delivered, the Cuban health workers specify the activities that they carried out. Highlighted text: Disinfection of surfaces. [Screen capture]
About 700 Cuban health workers were in Mexico from April to July 2021, and the federal government transferred 135,875,081.52 pesos ($6,296,342) to Mexico City, through the Institute of Health for Welfare to “help in the COVID crisis.” Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration spent a total of 150,759,867 pesos ($6,986,091), adding 14,884,785 pesos ($689,749) for the lodging and feeding of Cubans.

That first contingent, closely followed by the press, was continued by others from December 2021. Mainly destined for military hospitals, their operation turned out to be more opaque, and it isn’t yet known how much Mexico paid Havana for them.

Mexico’s support for the island was increased with a controversial scholarship program for medical students. The Administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador gave $1,501,766 to the Comercializadora de Servicios Médicos Cubanos, S.A. for 172 students studying a specialty on the island, and 1,000 scholarship applications were expected.

Despite the failure in its first stage, this year the offer was expanded to 13 medical specialties. Scholarship recipients, who will receive support of 1,090 euros per month, will have to cover the cost of health insurance ranging from 231 euros to 753 and will be paid “directly.”

The Government of Mexico also confirmed this year the hiring of 500 doctors and the purchase of Cuban vaccines against COVID-19. The Mexican president called those who oppose the arrival of this brigade “selfish” and warned that he “will not take a step back.”

López Obrador gave his statement while a Mexican judge admitted to processing a lawsuit rejecting the hiring of Cuban doctors, and a complaint was filed on June 5 by opposition deputy Gabriel Quadri with the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic “for human trafficking, labor exploitation and forced labor,” before the arrival of the health workers.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Regime Expels an American Journalist who Wrote a Book about Guanabacoa

Anthony DePalma, American journalist and writer of books about Cuba. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, June 12, 2022 — American journalist Anthony DePalma was arrested at José Martí International Airport in Havana on June 8 and later expelled to his country after being declared “Inadmissible,” according to a document that was given to him before taking the flight back to his country.

DePalma, who worked for The New York Times, told CiberCuba that the officers who arrested him at the terminal didn’t explain the reason for preventing him from entering the island. When he went through the health checkpoint and presented his passport to Migration, he was separated from the line and interrogated.

“I was ordered to stay in a corner of Terminal 3 for almost six hours, without giving me an explanation or offering me a glass of water, or the possibility of making a call to notify the people who were waiting for me about what was happening,” said the journalist, who has written about the Cuban reality.

“After several hours of psychological torture, he was informed that he wouldn’t be allowed to enter the island and that he must return to the United States on the next flight,” his friend Jorge García, whom he visited on his return from the island, said on Facebook.

The journalist said he was carrying two suitcases with medicines, humanitarian aid and copies of his book The Cubans: Ordinary Lives in Extraordinary Times, which collects the life stories of five Guanabacoa natives. His wife, Miriam Rodríguez DePalma, who left the island as a child, is from that Havana neighborhood.

After waiting at the terminal, DePalma was returned to the United States on another flight at 6:15 p.m. that same day, without his suitcases. “After several hours of total abandonment, a couple of officers came and took him as a prisoner to the plane. And the suitcases were forgotten,” García said on his social network. continue reading

The suitcases later arrived in Miami. “Everything is intact, but the reality is that the people who needed it will not have it for now,” the journalist adds.

CiberCuba says that the medicines and supplies that DePalma carried in his suitcases were intended for his friends in the Guanabacoa neighborhood, who inspired him to write his book.

He added that for more than 40 years he has traveled to Cuba without a problem, but after the publication of his book the incident occurred. “I think it was the result of the book,” he says.

The shortage of basic products, such as food and medicine, was one of the main economic elements in the anti-government protests of last July 11, the largest in decades.

After these demonstrations, the Cuban government opened the possibility for travelers to bring food, toiletries and medicines to the island without tariff limits, “such as accompanied luggage.” In May of this year, it extended this provision until December 31, 2022, according to General Customs on its website.

Now, the ministry assures that they maintain this temporary decision of flexibility “taking into account that the conditions that underpinned this measure are maintained.” The Cuban biopharmaceutical industry also announced that it only produced 59% of the basic catalog of medicines destined for the public health system.

DePalma is a professor at Columbia University, and in 2001 he published A Biography of the New American Continent. in 2003, he began work on The Man Who invented Fidel: Castro, Cuba and Hebert L. Matthews, which was finally published in 2006.

After the September 11 attacks in New York, he dedicated himself to writing almost 100 profiles of the victims, which led him to win the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

In 2009, he received the Maria Moors Cabot Award, and in 2011 he released his third book, City of Dust: Illness, Arrogance and 9/ll, which was the basis of a CNN documentary.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Cuban Regime Has No Idea What To Do With Private Entrepreneurs

“If my prosperity bothers you, do as I do: Work,” wrote this entrepreneur, known as El Pata, from the town of Alquízar. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 12 June 2022 – Does the Cuban communist regime really know what it wants to do with the new economic actors? There are serious doubts. The best thing the regime can do for them is to forget that they exist, let them function in the most free and autonomous way possible and, above all, provide an adequate legal framework so that they can face their challenges and contribute to the national economy, which is undoubtedly a lot and of high quality. But it doesn’t seem that the regime is going in this direction.

This can be concluded from the exchange held between representatives of private entrepreneurs and authorities of the Ministry of Internal Trade and the Ministry of Tourism last Friday. At that meeting, reports Granma, “several of the main problems that hinder the development of new economic actors, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs); non-agricultural cooperatives (CNAs), and the self-employed, limiting their contribution to the nation” were reviewed. One question: did anyone think of the interventionist communist state as the main and only problem for private actors? No? Well, then, with all due respect, they wasted their time.

To think that right now the global crisis, the increase in the blockade and especially the current situation with certain basic consumer products has some kind of impact on the activity of Cuban entrepreneurs is not true. The proof is that, in the U.S. State Department’s package of measures to soften the dispute, there are some that, without a doubt, are aimed at supporting Cuban private entrepreneurs from the United States. The regime short circuits them, due to its sick obsession against the generation of wealth by private initiative. That is where the problem must be solved, because there is no point in creating more and more MSMEs and CNAs, if the framework in which they must work is full of impediments and obstacles.

Several examples can illustrate the terrible influence that the regime exerts on private activity; for example, forcing informal exchange markets to pay prices for currencies that don’t correspond to the official exchange rate of 1×24. The efficient performance of the new economic actors requires that a formal foreign exchange market be consolidated, especially if the regime continues to sell all kinds of items in the supply markets in MLC (freely convertible currency), which requires the prior holding of foreign currency.

Above all, private actors need to eliminate the suffocating bureaucracy created by the regime to manage business procedures, including registration, as well as review the high taxes they have to pay, which could put the survival of the companies at risk. In that sense, the ONAT [National Tax Administration Office] announcement to start investigating private actors has set off alarms. continue reading

The supply of intermediate goods must be solved, not only because of their prices in MLC, but also because many economic actors face problems of scarcity, especially with imports, which prevents them from meeting their commitments to customers. Private actors are asking the state to authorize importation independently of the state, but the regime doesn’t want to lose the business that allows it to withdraw foreign currency for the state coffers.

The Minister of Internal Trade, Betsy Díaz, pledged to eliminate the obstacles that have an impact on the performance of new economic actors and their contribution to the nation’s economy, but she knows that, for ideological reasons, she will not be able to do so. And that is why they use the global crisis as justification and especially the current situation with certain basic consumer products that also affect Cuba. These are false justifications, because the minister knows that Cuban private entrepreneurs, in agreement with their compatriots in the United States, could solve these problems if they could establish agreements and businesses freely, which the regime does not allow.

For the regime, the solution is to invent greater preparation of the municipalities with regards to new economic actors, adequate legal advice, as well as in the knowledge that state companies have the power to carry out certain activities, which could be used to take advantage of eliminating some obstacles. It’s just more of the same, now seasoned with the role of municipalities. They have no remedy. Things will get much worse.

And, in addition, not satisfied with making things increasingly difficult and obstructing any private wealth creation project, now the regime wants Cuban private entrepreneurs to develop policies on social responsibility.

No one is going to question that this is not important, but can anyone in their right mind think that the Cuban private business sector in its current condition of precariousness and weakness can dedicate itself to these policies? In other words, does the communist regime perform any social responsibility with its state enterprises? Let them give just one example.

As if the prohibitions on the exercise of certain activities or the obstacles and complications in developing free foreign trade activities were not enough, it occurred to someone in the regime that it is necessary to create policies related to social responsibility for all economic actors. How can it be understood that there are fundamental sectors and activities in which the regime has not authorized a single MSME or CNA, such as financial and insurance activity? The lack of chains, even innovation, something so hackneyed by Díaz-Canel in his famous doctoral thesis, escape, at least for the time being, from the private projects of MSMEs or CNAs.

They conclude that what needs to be done is to create an “institute of new actors,” envisaged in the law. More bureaucracy.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

‘Havana is Falling Down and the Government Doesn’t Care’

Despite the fact that San Lázaro is one of the busiest avenues in Havana, the authorities have not closed traffic on that stretch, and the remains of the collapse spill over the sidewalk. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 9 June 2022 — The rains and hail were not the only things that fell this Wednesday in Havana. Again, in the capital, a building collapsed, specifically, the top floor of a three-story building on San Lázaro at the corner Genios.

“Luckily he was still awake, because if it had been later, he would have been gone.” The residents of the place, gathered in front of the ruined building, commented on the event on Thursday, which occurred around 9:15 the night before.

At that time, the roof of the upper floor, where a boy and his mother lived, gave way, falling on the apartment and the balcony, which also took down the balconies on the ground floor.

The young man, who was alone at home, managed to see how the beams gave way and took refuge under a table. “That was what saved his life,” says one of the neighbors, who reports that another of the residents was arriving home from work at that time when the noise occurred. “A glass of water gave him time to drink, and his wife came out white with fright.”

It was something that the neighbors were awaiting with panic. One of them, precisely, had been worried about the storm for days, because the upper balcony was in very bad condition. “The mayor was aware, the delegate… everyone, but they don’t do anything.” continue reading

Two women, who live in a nearby building, also very deteriorated, commented that they are terrified, that they cannot sleep, that they also have no alternative housing and that, meanwhile, the Government is crossing its arms.

“This is going to be a chain, they are going to fall one after the other,” said one of them. “The government is not interested in the fact that Havana is falling down,” replied the other. Just then, a young police officer appeared, clipboard in hand, and began to converse quietly with a man. Immediately, the residents fell silent.

Sobre las 9:15 de la noche, el techo de la planta superior, donde vivían un muchacho y su madre, cedió, cayendo sobre el departamento y el balcón. (14ymedio)

They are just waiting for at least one crane to arrive to finish knocking down “some walls that are in danger, that are very cracked.” These, they detailed, have been deteriorating not only due to lack of maintenance, but also due to the vibration produced by the buses that pass along San Lázaro, one of the arteries of Havana, which connects El Vedado with Old Havana and runs a good part for Central Havana.

Despite this, the authorities have not closed traffic on that section, and the remains of the collapse spill out over the sidewalk.

Unlike the more touristy streets, such as those of the Plaza de la Revolución or the Malecón avenue, San Lázaro has not received repairs for decades. The proximity to the sea has combined with the lack of maintenance to accelerate a deterioration that is deeper from the corner with Belascoaín and to the vicinity of Paseo del Prado.

This Wednesday’s collapse is located right in one of the most damaged sections, the one that starts from the beginning of the avenue to Galiano street.

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Young Daughter of Cuban Rapper Maykel Osorbos Asks the Summit to Help ‘Free Him’

Jade de la Caridad Castillo, daughter of Maykel ’Osorbo’, at a moment in the video in which she asks the Summit to help free her father. (Capture)

14ymedio biggerEFE/14ymedio, Los Angeles/Havana | 9  The six-year-old daughter of rapper Maykel Castillo Osorbo, one of the creators of the song Patria y Vida, imprisoned for more than a year in Cuba, asked the leaders participating in the IX Summit of the Americas for help to “free” him.

“Gentlemen of the Summit, I am writing to you even though I do not know you from Cuba. I want to talk to you about my dad, who is in prison for just singing a song. He has not done anything. Please, can you help me free him? I want him a lot and I miss it,” says Jade de la Caridad Castillo in a video posted on social networks echoed by the singer Yotuel Romero, also co-author of Patria y Vida.

In the video, Osorbo’s daughter implores the solidarity of the participants in the summit that takes place in Los Angeles (USA) to achieve the release of her father, who awaits sentencing after the trial held on May 31, in which the leader of the San Isidro Movement (MSI), the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, was also tried.

The musician was arrested on May 18, 2021 and from the 31st of that same month he was transferred to the Kilo Cinco y Medio maximum security prison. He is accused of attack, public disorder and the escape of prisoners or detainees for some events that occurred on April 4, in a demonstration on Damas street, in front of the MSI headquarters, when the police tried to arbitrarily arrest him and he refused to get in the patrol car.

Alcántara, for his part, has been in prison since July 11, when he was arrested before participating in the peaceful demonstrations that day. For the first, the Prosecutor’s Office asks for 10 years and for the second, seven, for the crimes of outrage against the symbols of the country, contempt and public disorder. continue reading

Yotuel Romero, Osorbo, El Funky, Descemer Bueno and the duo Gente de Zona won two Latin Grammy Awards for Patria y Vida, the song released in February 2021 and turned into the anthem of the peaceful protests that broke out in Cuba on July 11th (11J).

Jade de la Caridad Castillo is the daughter of El Osorbo and his ex-wife Rosmery Hernández, who was present during the oral hearing of the trial.

Organizations that defend human rights, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, denounced that the process against the two Cuban artists was full of arbitrariness.

On Wednesday, Cuban singer Yotuel Romero told Efe in Los Angeles that the one not invited to the summit is the “regime” of Miguel Díaz-Canel, but Cuba is invited.

Yotuel, who met with other activists with the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said that he had explained to the US authorities “the will of the Cuban people to be free.”

“We hope that the world will continue helping Cuba to find its happiness,” he said.

Blinken also met this Wednesday with businesspeople, a moment he took advantage of to commit, on behalf of the United States, to train 500,000 general practitioners and specialists over the next five years in the American continent, to strengthen the region’s health system.

“One of the great announcements of this summit, and the private sector is going to have a fundamental role, is that we have committed ourselves in the coming years to train 500,000 health workers, both generalists and specialists,” said the head of US diplomacy.

Blinken assured that this plan, which President Joe Biden will detail during the summit, “will make a huge difference to improve health services if it is deployed efficiently.”

“We need to build a more resilient health system in our region. We need to be better prepared to manage future pandemics. We need to provide better health services,” he claimed.

The plan is to train the 500,000 health workers over the next five years in collaboration with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, later said during the president’s flight to Los Angeles.

PAHO, which applauded the US initiative in a statement, estimates that the region has a deficit of 600,000 health workers. “Without health personnel there is no resilient health system, no access to care, no pandemic preparedness,” PAHO Director Carissa Etienne said in the statement.

The US government will commit to ending “the acute phase” of the pandemic through improvements in the health system and aid for recovery in the region, a senior administration official said in a call with journalists.

Meanwhile, the invited official delegations have been arriving, including Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, who asked the United States government to get involved in promoting “another type of relationship in the Americas” based on “mutual respect,” “non- intervention” and the “benefit” of all the countries of the region.

“The organization that we have in the Americas must evolve, I even proposed a moment ago that we take into account what President (Franklin Delano) Roosevelt said about good neighborliness to make a policy based on non-intervention and mutual benefit,” he said.

Ebrard did not consider that the exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela is “a lack of respect”, but something “very controversial.”

“Several countries mentioned it at the meeting of foreign ministers (today) because it had already been discussed ten years ago, in Cartagena de Indias (Colombia), in 2012, and it was concluded” that Cuba would be invited, which happened in Panama (2015),” he defended.

In this sense, he regretted that in 2022 there is the same discussion although this does not signify “conflict” with the United States. “We respect each other,” he said. However, he believes that “there are things to change” and that it is “feasible” to do so at this IX Summit of the Americas.

In addition to López Obrador, the exclusion of these three countries by the Biden Administration deeply bothered other Latin American leaders who also gave up attending the conference, such as the Bolivian Luis Arce and the Honduran Xiomara Castro. This is the first time that the United States has hosted a Summit of the Americas since the first edition, which was held in Miami in 1994, under the Bill Clinton administration.

This Tuesday, the president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, criticized not having been invited and viewed it as a missed opportunity, although he also angrily expressed that he would not have wanted to be in such an event. “We are honored to head the list [of exclusions] along with Nicaragua and Venezuela,” he said.

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Several Consulates Suspend Their Services Due to a New Resolution of the Central Bank of Cuba

At the Mexican Consulate, from now people can only pay with MLC [hard currency] cards issued by Cuban banks, or with Visa or Mastercard. (14ymedio)
14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 10 June 2022 — The resolution of the Central Bank of Cuba, in force since this Friday, which prevents consulates on the island from converting their accounts in pesos into foreign currency has caused, from the outset, the paralysis of consular services in several diplomatic headquarters.

The Panamanian Embassy, ​​which has seen a great influx since last March when the country made the transit visa mandatory for Cubans, announced this Thursday the “temporary” suspension of several procedures, which do not include, in any case, the emergency services and the request or renewal of passports for Panamanians.

The diplomatic headquarters clarifies in its brief statement that “it will continue to deliver and stamp visas for people whose transit or tourist visas have already been requested and approved, and were paid for before the measure.”

The service will be resumed, it assures, “once the Panamanian Consulate in Cuba can set up new payment mechanisms.”

In the same way, the Embassy of Brazil also reported a pause in its services, something that the Embassy of Mexico also did two days ago, for which the Central Bank’s resolution was revealed.

All consulates with a presence in Cuba, in short, have to rethink how to charge for the procedures they carry out.

According to the resolution, approved on June 2, which willgo in effect on June 10, embassies must choose in which currency they charge for their procedures, which can be in pesos or in freely convertible currency (MLC). In the event that they choose this second option, their current accounts in pesos will be totally or partially converted to MLC, at the current exchange rate on the day the operation is carried out. continue reading

At the Consulate of Mexico, an official reported this same day at the doors of the diplomatic headquarters, located on the corner of 12th and 7th streets, in the Havana neighborhood of Miramar, from now on you can only pay well with cards in freely convertible currency (MLC) issued by Cuban banks, either with Visa or Mastercard cards.

Dozens of people who already had an appointment for procedures at that consulate gathered this Friday morning, as the diplomatic headquarters warned, to “receive instructions.” The official suggested official explanations by saying that “this could be due to the limitations that Cuba has to manage dollars due to the US embargo.” She without much conviction, because she, at the same time, confessed that the new measures, of which they learned just three days ago, have been a surprise to them.

Some of those who hoped to reschedule their appointment with the new payment method, asked if they could pay with a card that did not have their name or that, directly, did not have an engraved name. The woman, after a few turns, concluded: “Whoever has the card’s PIN can pay with it.”

In a telephone call from this newspaper to the Chilean embassy in Havana, they reported that the procedures will be paid “only in dollars” after the resolution of the Central Bank. In Canada, they said that payment is “by Visa and Mastercard.”

If the embassies wish to continue operating in Cuban pesos, the favorite option of citizens, who more easily have the national currency, deposits can only be made in that currency and they will not be able to make transfers to MLC accounts or transfer funds abroad.

In embassies and consulates, in addition, cash payments of foreign currency will be accepted, except for the dollar, if authorized. In these cases, the resolution states, the bank credits the account in Cuban pesos by applying the exchange rate in force on the day of the operation.

It is also planned that legal entities that have accounts with a liquidity letter and make payments in MLC must attach said letter when making them, while if they do so in pesos, they are exempt.

The news came out two days ago, from a notice on networks from the Mexican embassy, ​​and immediately caused the annoyance of some Cubans, who denounced that they are going to force them to pay for visas and other procedures in foreign currency, one more step in the Cuban Government’s effort, forced to raise foreign exchange in the midst of a desperate economic situation.

Even before the new resolution entered into force, several consulates had already implemented the ability to pay for a visa not only in Cuban pesos but also in its equivalent in foreign currency according to the official rate. In other cases, such as the Colombian or United States consulate, there was also the ability to make the the payment online, an option that many applicants with relatives abroad take advantage of.

Other consulates do not accept payment in cash and require that the person processing the visa deposit the money in a branch of the Banco Financiero Internacional, a requirement that complicates the process due to the few offices that this bank has in Havana and the long lines outside of them formed by travelers seeking to complete this procedure.

The new regulations can further fuel the informal business of lending a Visa or Mastercard to make purchases in stores in MLC or pay for various procedures, such as antigen tests for travel that are carried out in international clinics. These services are used by those who want to avoid the long lines at the free polyclinics.

“I am selling the right to use my Visa card, for every dollar spent you pay me 107 CUP. I have a car, so I pick you up at home and take you to the market or to the embassy where you have to pay,” reads an advertisement published on various classified ad sites. “I can also make purchases online for you, such as bus tickets at Viazul or food from a home delivery portal.”

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Condemned for July 11th (11J) Protests and Expelled from Art School (ISA), Abel Lescay Asks for Help to Record a Disc

The musician Abel Lescay is now focused on his new album, which he is trying to finance through crowdfunding. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 9 June 2022 — Abel Lescay, the musician sentenced to six years in the first instance for the July 11th (11J) protests, has been expelled from the Higher Institute of Art (ISA), where he was studying musical composition. The artist was in the second year and failed several subjects, according to his own words. In the expulsion act it is indicated that article 58 has been applied, which provides for those who “fail more than two subjects in the year enrolled” not to be authorized to repeat it.

“I was expelled from ISA. I struck out a few subjects, they woyldn’t let me repeat. I don’t lose much more than a shelter. I continue my preparation as a composer with my beloved teacher Juan Piñera. I won’t miss Dean Marirrosa’s classes very much, which I ask the universe to get better from his sad karma,” the artist said on his Facebook profile. Lescay confirmed to 14ymedio what happened and downplayed his departure. “It’s not something that surprises us either,” he admitted.

The musician is now focused on his new album, which he intends to finance through crowdfunding. “Now it’s my turn to play. I’m going to have a great album. Throw me the rope there, please,” he asked. Lescay, who has so far obtained 34% of the money he needs, has five days left to raise funds, so he has insisted on asking for help.

“Let’s illuminate this Cuba in blackout. Let’s open ourselves to the light of new music and joy. With a naked soul, with the cold of this downpour, I move away from the official walls and enter the blessing of the universe, working for it and for everyone,” he wrote.

The artist thanks his parents, his band, his partners, his followers on social networks and the musicians who preceded and stimulated him for their support or help, but also “the dictators and the police,” he quotes sarcastically.

“To all the friends who are going to help, to all those who help to make free art in Cuba, to all the organizations involved: this is the moment! We know that we will achieve it, although a great effort still needs to be made,” he insisted. continue reading

Notice expelling of Lescay from ISA. (Facebook)

Lescay awaits the result of his appeal trial, which is expected to be known in early July, according to what he was told. The artist, sentenced in the first instance to six years in prison for offending a police officer during the protests, was seen on June 1 in the court of San José de Las Lajas (Mayabeque).

According to his mother’s testimony, Abel Lescay argued at the hearing that he was not a criminal and had no misconduct, but rather that he was a musician whose life is playing the piano, a way of life that he asked not to be deprived of. In addition, he said he recognized that he had exceeded himself and that it is not right to offend on the street, much less the police, although he insisted that it was a song and that rap requires “certain marginality.”

After his trial and sentence, Abel Lescay said that he had received the support of his colleagues at ISA at all times and that when he joined this course he went to speak with the rector, who referred to him as “a talented student” and offered him psychological counseling help to recover from the impact of the days he spent in jail.

However, he did reply to the officials of the institution who attacked a collective letter from artists who defended their freedom and described it as a “campaign that seeks to discredit the Revolution.”

In a statement made public at the beginning of April, the institution pointed out that the #FreeAbelLescay movement was trying to “appeal to the empathy of students and teachers, simplifying the facts for which the artist was sanctioned” and added that the signatories were unaware “of the existing legal system in the country, since his case is in the process of being reviewed by the People’s Supreme Court.”

Lescay thanked ISA for not being “the most repressive part of the dictatorship,” but invited the institution to take a better interest in his case in order to understand the lies it contained. In addition, he described those who wrote the statement as “shameless” and “ass-kissers.”

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The Cuban State Does Not Have Hard Currency to Pay its Debt to Milk Producers

The production of cow’s milk throughout the Island in 2020 was just 455,300 tons, a total collapse compared to 1,120,000 in 1989. (Invasor)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 10 June 2022 — The dairy company of Ciego de Ávila already owes 60,000 in freely convertible currency (MLC) to ranchers in the province, who are producing well above what was contracted to access the stimulus that was promised to them for it. However, the Cuban State affirms that it does not have enough funds in foreign currency to fulfill its promise.

Rubén Pina Ángel Bello, the director of production at the Dairy Company, tells the newspaper Invasor that the ranchers are doing their part and more, but the efforts are null because there is no foreign exchange. “Many are over-fulfilling, on average, about 800 [liters] each month and our contracts are with 2,309 ranchers, which should continue to increase; but even when the company reaches 110% over-fulfillment of the milk plan, the destination of our productions does not generate all the convertible currency we need,” he explains.

According to the text, Ciego de Ávila farmers are delivering 21,900 more liters of milk each day this year compared last year. But the dairy sector received approximately 70 tons of powdered milk per year which, added to fresh milk, served to complete part of its productions and routes.

To cover that import, which the note does not mention whether it has completely disappeared and the reasons, the farmers would have to add about 19,000 liters of milk per day and, in addition, an unspecified surplus for derivatives, such as ice cream, yogurt, butter or cheese that can be sold in MLC. From there the income would be obtained to pay what was promised to the ranchers, who have had to produce in conditions in which that currency is essential.

Pina explains that for this year the total expected volume is more than 16 million liters, one million more than in 2021, but he calculates that they will remain at 12 million. According to the official, the debt has accumulated since February “without being able to do anything there” because the fault, as can be deduced from the rest of the text, lies with those who do not produce or those who choose to sell “on the left,” either because they know they are not going to receive payment from the State or because they are going to get more out of the informal market. continue reading

“Given the logical debt of the dairy sector with the overachievers (and perhaps precisely for this reason), others have applied theirs: they produce their derivatives and sell them, or they go to the informal market where a liter can reach 50 pesos and the value of an MLC can reach 110.00. They apply the convertibility that the State does not apply and deduce that by selling ’outside’ they earn more than with over-compliance, for which they receive 20 pesos, plus 10 cents from the MLC. Those cents, at the informal rate, represent about 11 pesos. In other words, the overachieved liter leaves them with 31 pesos, below the liter on the street,” reads the note.

The Ciego de Ávila industry needs, according to the text, 44,000 liters per day, of which 38,000 go for the ’basic market basket’, which does not produce any of the foreign currency that the State desperately seeks.

The Government included as a key measure among the 63 issued to stimulate production, the payment for surplus milk in freely convertible currency. The idea was to motivate the rancher to produce more and, in turn, be able to meet the costs of imports and other expenses that are increasingly presented in hard currency. But complaints about non-payment have appeared almost from the beginning and the devaluation of the currency in the official market does not attract the farmer who, in fact, can get much more if he sells the milk on the parallel market.

The production of cow’s milk throughout the Island was in 2020 just 455,300 tons, a total collapse compared to 1,120,000 in 1989.

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Cuban Soft Drink Can Factories, Another Victim of the ‘Ordering Task’

Los Portales Factory, located in Guane, Pinar del Río. (Capture/Guerrilla)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, June 9, 2022 — Since the beginning of January, the official press has reported the lack of cans and containers for soft drinks in Los Portales, the main company on the island, associated with Nestlé. The factory, which renovated its machinery in 2018 after a Swiss investment, went from 278 million units that year to only 86 million in 2021. But it isn’t the only one going through a disastrous moment. Las Lomas manufactured 184,000 boxes out of the 4,500,000 planned for 2021, and a similar situation is expected this year.

Edelvy Valdivia Gonz, deputy director of the company, spoke with Cubadebate, which just two weeks ago reviewed the bad data of Los Portales, released in January, to warn that what 2022 presented is unchanged. This Thursday he addressed Las Lomas, which produces Fiesta and Dely soft drinks and which, together with Los Portales and Ember, is one of the three main suppliers of packaging on the island.

The lack of liquidity and the high costs of importing cans are among the causes cited by the staff member to justify the debacle. “The intensification of the blockade, the contraction of markets, the shortage of aluminum and the increase in its price on the international market have made it impossible to have the necessary foreign exchange to increase the levels of production that had been planned,” says Valdivia.

Although, following the official speech, he puts U.S. sanctions and the pandemic in the lead, with the disappearance of tourism as a result, the official doesn’t deprive himself of pointing out the ‘Ordering Task’* as one of the greatest, purely national, distortions that strangle the island. The process caused “a marked increase in costs, since soft drink production has a high percentage of imported inputs and its prices multiplied by 24,” he says.

Valdivia Gonz finds more internal reasons to blame: the interruption of payment mechanisms backed by liquidity. The measure, which was part of a resolution of the Ministry of Economy, was intended to give guarantees of payment to companies, but the lack of solvency led to its suspension. continue reading

“Although the company started almost from scratch, it managed to start producing and selling a few products in the best markets and to get paid with the support of a liquidity charter to start maintaining a production cycle. But then, from the lack of liquidity due to the crisis and the pandemic, it was interrupted.”

Las Lomas produces only canned soft drinks, whose outlook at the international level is already bad due to the high price of aluminum. “On the other hand, shipping companies, due to the blockade, limit themselves to disembarking through Cuban ports, which forces us to hire several to import the raw materials. Added to this is the limitation of the acquisition of spare parts for scheduled maintenance and breaks that have occurred,” he continues.

The company has tried, says the manager, to expand its market through online sales, which provides it with the necessary foreign exchange to continue buying raw materials. In addition, it has begun to sell carbonated soft drinks in bulk in Cuban pesos, a product that, according to Valdivia Gonz, has been well accepted.

Las Lomas is looking for more solutions, such as the acquisition of a filling line of dispensed soft drinks or productions in other systems, such as nylon bags.

However, bulk soda lends itself more to adulteration, a manipulation that diminishes its quality and often provokes rejection by consumers. Stored in tankers or in the so-called thermoses that also move on vehicles, this type of dispensed drink has traditionally been the preferred target for the diversion of resources.

Hygiene is another of the weak points of bulk sales. Customers often complain about the lack of cleaning of the tanks, the handling without taking into account hygienic standards with the consequent gastrointestinal problems. This form of sale also forces the buyer to carry his own container so it works in neighborhoods or around homes but less so in recreational places where many don’t carry a thermos or glass of their own.

*Tarea ordenamiento = the [so-called] ‘Ordering Task’ which is a collection of measures that include eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso as the only national currency, raising prices, raising salaries (but not as much as prices), opening stores that take payment only in hard currency which must be in the form of specially issued pre-paid debit cards, and many other measures related to the economy. 

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Panama Extends the Transit Visa Requirement for Cubans

The measure, in force since March 8, caused hundreds of people to camp for several days in front of the Panamanian embassy in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14medio, Havana, June 8, 2022 — The Panamanian authorities have extended the transit visa requirement for Cubans passing through their territory for three months, until this coming September. This measure, in force since March 8, caused hundreds of people to camp for several days in front of that country’s embassy in Havana.

The new decree, dated June 6, extends the visa application period to 30 days before the trip, unlike the previous one, which established 15 days. The cost remains the same, $50, and the procedure must be carried out at the Panamanian embassy in the applicant’s country of residence.

To do this, you must fill out a form accompanied by two photos, a photocopy of your passport, a flight reservation, a copy of the identity document of your country of residence and proof of payment of consular fees.

The extension also exempts Cubans returning to Cuba from the visa requirement, a provision in force since March 17, in the face of protests in front of the diplomatic headquarters, which also didn’t please the crowd too much, since what they are looking for is to leave the island.

The transit visa requirement affected all citizens who planned to fly to Nicaragua via Panama with the Copa Airlines, the only one that keeps the island connected to Managua and that, since November, when the regime agreed with President Daniel Ortega on the “free visa” for Cubans, has become the main land exit route to the United States.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba: A People on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

With the inexhaustible fuel of indignation, Amelia Calzadilla offered a detailed tour of the hardships that families face every day to put food on the table. (Collage)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 10 June 2022 — One day you explode. The reason may be a power outage, the poor quality of the bread or the excesses of a police officer. The seriousness or insignificance of what happened doesn’t matter, because you carry layer upon layer of discontent settled inside you and in a second you can no longer contain it. They it explodes everywhere. Amelia Calzadilla, a Cuban mother of three, knows what she feels at that moment when the years of swallowing her anger are over.

A resident of Havana with a bachelor’s degree in English, this week Calzadilla stood in front of a camera and launched a diatribe of a little over eight minutes against Cuban officials, ministers and leaders. With the inexhaustible fuel of indignation, she offered a detailed tour of the hardships that families face every day to put food on the table, put shoes on their children’s feet, or pay the electricity bill. And she did it with a sincerity and desperation that is already prompting a barrage of messages supporting her words.

Calzadilla’s message begins addressed to the Minister of Energy and Mines, whom she demands must act as a servant of the citizenry and not as an accomplice in the abusive rise in the price of electricity, which has made it practically impossible for those who do not have gas service to cook food. But as she advances in her catharsis, other names appear: the president not elected at the polls, Miguel Díaz-Canel; the repeating automaton of the same that we have as foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez; the first lady, Lis Cuesta, who cannot be called that but enjoys the luxuries of a queen; and the official journalist Cristina Escobar. This woman of Havana makes demands of everyone, as she announces that this Facebook broadcast could be the last one she does, aware of the repression that is sweeping the entire country.

Calzadilla’s children haven’t been able to enjoy a new toy or eat a treat for years. Monetary apartheid has deprived them of that, as it divides Cubans between those who have foreign currency and can access a continue reading

greater quantity of basic products and those who must settle for the spoils that are accessed with the Cuban peso. This mother and her family were left, in that absurd social separation implemented by the regime itself, on the side of the most disadvantaged. They are those who cannot buy in unpopular stores that take payment only in freely convertible currency, who will never be able to afford a new mobile phone, or buy a ticket to Managua to escape the Island. They are the most disadvantaged under a system that claims to represent the humble.

The social tension that reached its climax in the protests of July 11 has not disappeared, despite the violence unleashed against those protesters and the subsequent exemplary trials that sought to send a message of terror to the rest of the population. The anger only crouched down, but continued to grow, and sprouts in the swearing at a man in uniform by those who have been lining up to buy chicken for hours; in the shouts of “Freedom!” in a concert; in a drawing on a T-shirt; in a hashtag on Twitter; and in a mother who clearly says what so many of us feel: “We can’t take it anymore.”

The tension in the street is perceived everywhere. If there were an instrument to measure that irritation, we Cubans would have broken the limits of the “angry meter” a long time ago. We have been fed up for a long time with this group of incompetents and liars who have turned our country into a miserable place from which our children want to escape at all costs. We are tired of their looting of our resources, of the false unfulfilled promises, of the ridiculous diplomatic role that they have forced us to represent at the international level, of their fat necks and their thin memories.

Everywhere you hear: “Go now!” Because the anger of people like Amelia Calzadilla is reaching a point where fear will no longer work to stop it.

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U.S. Embassy in Cuba will Process Visas for Immediate Family Members

“We will continue to evaluate, as conditions permit, a further expansion of visa services in Havana,” the Embassy said. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 9 June 2022 — The U.S. Embassy in Cuba continues to expand the categories of immigrant visas that it will process in Havana. On Thursday, it announced that by July, immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, including spouses and children under the age of 21, will be able to be interviewed in the island’s capital.

Immediate family visa applicants who will be processed in Cuba must be notified beginning June 9 by the National Visa Center or by the Embassy itself that they “will have their interview scheduled in Havana, and not at the consular headquarters of Georgetown, Guyana,” the legation clarified on its website. Applicants who were informed of their interview before that date “will continue to be processed in Georgetown.”

This expansion of services, “follows the steps taken in May to start the processing of all IR-5 cases, or parents of U.S. citizens, for interviews in Havana,” the Embassy said.

“Preferred family immigrant visas for Cubans will continue to be processed in Georgetown,” the diplomatic headquarters also reported. Within this group are “brothers and children over the age of 21” of U.S. citizens and some relatives of permanent residents.

Regarding the decision to work only with the categories selected so far, they indicate that they recognize “the importance of family reunification for U.S. citizens” and insist that they understand “that other applicants may have difficult circumstances,” but “the Havana Embassy is still unable to accept applications for transfer of other visa categories.” continue reading

Twitter text above: 1/2) Starting in June 2022, the Department will schedule all immigrant visa appointments at @USEmbCuba for immediate relatives, including spouses and children under the age of 21 of U.S. citizens, with interviews scheduled for July 2022.

“We will continue to evaluate, as conditions allow, a further expansion of visa services in Havana,” the legation said, while recalling that its consular staff in the Cuban capital “continue to provide essential services to U.S. citizens and the limited processing of emergency visas for non-immigrants.”

The U.S. Embassy in Havana resumed the processing of visas for immigrants on May 3, processing only the IR-5 category.

Both on that occasion and in its announcement this Thursday, the legation insisted that while work continues to expand services on the island, the headquarters in Guyana “will continue to be the main processing place for all Cuban applicants for family preference immigrant visas and cases of immediate relatives who are already scheduled to be processed in Georgetown.”

The resumption of consular processes “is part of a general expansion of the functions of the Embassy to facilitate diplomatic and civil society engagement,” the legation said at the beginning of last month.

The U.S. reduced the staff of its embassy in Cuba in 2017, after about thirty of its diplomats suffered mysterious health incidents known as “Havana syndrome,” and whose causes have not yet been clarified. Since then, Cuban visa applicants have had to travel to a third country to process their documents such as Guyana, where hundreds of island nationals have to wait for the resolutions of their visas, not exempt from irregularities.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Clothes, Cocktails and Music: A Cuban Entrepreneur Against the Crisis and Covid

Izaguirre laments the high prices in her store, but explains that she does not have the capacity or the resources to increase her production. (EFE)

14ymedio biggerEFE (via 14ymedio), Raquel Martor, Havana, 8 June 2022 — Cuban Loypa Izaguirre, with her small business in Old Havana that offers designer clothes, cocktails and music, is an example of the new generation of young entrepreneurs that is emerging on the island despite the crisis and the pandemic.

The 33-year-old has been promoting the Color Café fashion workshop and café since 2018, a multidisciplinary and modern space installed in a remodeled 1900 premises, an establishment that has just reopened after two years of forced closure due to restrictions to counteract covid-19.

“Every day there is a new challenge that changes your perspective and you have to face it,” Izaguirre tells Efe in an interview. The young woman, who declares herself self-taught, acknowledges that there are plenty of problems in Cuba, but she believes that the “positive vibe” must be maintained with the philosophy that “no doesn’t exist.”

Despite the paralysis caused by the pandemic, Izaguirre chose not to stay home. “We couldn’t stop sewing,” she stresses. Although she was forced to close Color Café and materials were missing, she searched among her friends for fabrics, thread, buttons and other recyclable materials to make masks and clothes.

Then, when steps could be taken towards normality, she reopened and called her employees with a “we start again.” continue reading

The lack of some food in her café-bar, as a result of the shortage of basic products that the Island has suffered for months, was remedied with “a healthy proposal that has been well received by customers.”

She brought fabrics and remnants from abroad, which have been turned into small purses, bags and other wardrobe accessories. Skirts, blouses, dresses and clothes that fit various sizes make up the “comfortable and fresh” proposal of this Havana company, one of the more than 3,600 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) approved in recent months.

Izaguirre laments the high prices in her store, but explains that she does not have the capacity or the resources to increase his production.

“The fabrics are expensive, the workshop is small and I have to pay my employees well (15 in total) so that they feel stimulated to work every day and make an effort to make quality garments,” she summarizes.

Among her clientele there are foreign women living in Havana, although Cuban women also frequent her store, and she tries to favor them with “adjusted prices,” and those who are looking for “custom-made” men’s shirts have joined.

White, red and blue, ruffles, flowing skirts, and stylistic references inspired by the 40s and 50s prevail in the designs. Her commitment is based on “pleasing customers, who understand the importance of coming to a workshop and making clothes.”

An example of her way of facing challenges was her first individual catwalk, just a few days ago in Havana, which was not overshadowed despite a monumental downpour and the still persistent fears about covid in public spaces.

“All of us who worked on it knew each other and we were willing for the job to come out, for that catwalk to be done, totally inclusive,” she says.

Her new collection, “Seasons,” brings together 30 pieces with color, elegance, classic style, daring and a mixture of cultures, conceived for plus size women, the elderly and girls, exhibited on models of the traditional type, of various races and gender.

Izaguirre explains that in Cuba there are currently those who are torn between staying in the country and trying to carry out a project there and those who choose to migrate.

“My decision has been to stay with the perspective of opening up with my Cuban, tropical style and touch, with a design and added value that I believe would make it possible to project myself abroad, and we will try,” she says.

As part of its identity, the brand has a logo that resembles a coffee pot — “a symbol of Cuban identity” — but it is really the idealized silhouette of a woman, explains this entrepreneur.

The young woman is satisfied with the results she is achieving. “They have accepted us, we have positioned ourselves, they recognize the quality and the work we are doing,” she says.

The project, she adds, is “sustainable” because she is convinced of “always finding a solution” with “creativity and human capital,” although she admits that she would like to have more resources.

His look is “to the future” to leave a mark: “That people remember me as a girl who created something beautiful and that is my feeling and what I put into what I do.”

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Lack of Drainage Maintenance Has Aggravated Floods in Matanzas, Cuba

Floods in Jovellanos, in the province of Matanzas. (Girón)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 8 June 2022 — The number of people evacuated in Matanzas due to the rains of recent days continues to grow. This Tuesday, the number already amounted to 5,171 in this province alone. Olga Lidia Ramírez González, secretary of the Provincial Government Protection Commission, told the official press that 4,953 people have been housed in family members’ homes, while the remaining 218 were relocated to state centers.

One of the most affected municipalities is Pedro Betancourt. In the Camilo 1 community, 960 people “self-evacuated” this Tuesday, while another 14 were transferred to a municipal protection center. In this area, over 11 inches of accumulated water was reached in the early hours of Tuesday, according to Reynaldo Báez Hernández, director of Aqueduct and Sewerage, who said that the channel overflowed and caused flooding.

A man from Matanzas pointed out on the networks of the newspaper Girón that the lack of maintenance of the drainage structure in Camilo 1, Camilo 2, La Luisa and Socorro is the cause of the disasters and that, in addition, all of them are affected by the waters that fall in areas of Jovellanos. “When the canals were periodically maintained and cleaned, that did not happen. We must bear in mind that this area is low and the main crop was always rice due to the conditions of the land,” he explains.

The local authorities had to send 15 trucks, two fire trucks, one rescue and salvage vehicle, an ambulance and other means of transportation to attend to the families, while the earth was removed with backhoes so that the water level dropped.

In this municipality alone, in addition, tons of food and grain have been lost, in addition to the death by drowning of four calves and thousands of tons of tobacco that turned moldy due to humidity.

In Jovellanos, where almost 11 inches of water accumulated in the last 24 hours, 379 inhabitants have had to leave their homes and up to 2,480 people have suffered losses. In addition, 562 homes are affected, 120 of them in the Popular Council of Carlos Rojas. continue reading

Unión de Reyes, where there have also been torrential rains, although to a lesser extent than in the previous towns (6 inches), 70 houses were flooded and a portal collapsed on Monday, just as a truck carrying students was passing, which, fortunately, was not damaged.

In this province, the Cimarrones dam has greatly exceeded the authorized volume, reaching 184% of its capacity, with 9,306 cubic meters, although the authorities assure that “there is no danger at the moment.”

In a high-level meeting held this Tuesday in Havana, the global material damage was evaluated, in addition to the four lives lost. The Minister of Construction, René Mesa Villafaña, said that 1,219 homes were affected, 90 of them with total collapses and 114 partial, in addition to 108 with total roof loss and 546 partial.

On agriculture, the Minister of Economy. Alejandro Gil Fernández, indicated that there was damage to 4,000 hectares of vegetables, pumpkins, sweet potatoes and cassava, among others. While, in Pinar del Río tobacco there were 443 tons collected with damage and 17.5 lost. “However, the total damage is less than one percent of the leaf preserved in Vueltabajo,” he added.

The president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, asked that the weather situation be followed up, since there is saturation of water in the soil: the last straw for the bad harvests that is being reported in Cuba.

Meteorologists have explained how this situation was reached, after a tropical cyclone converged in the Gulf of Honduras, which was diluted, with Hurricane Agatha that affected Mexico. Both events created instability that ended up leading to several days of rain. Finally, Hurricane Álex unleashed the waterspouts that have flooded the western and central areas of Cuba since Friday.

The worst, announces the Meteorological Center, is that the forecast for the month does not improve: “The large-scale meteorological conditions, especially in the Caribbean Sea, to the south of the Island, remain unstable enough so that some another tropical system, which, if it occurs, will be reported in a timely manner.”

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The ‘Cuban With the Flag’ Survives on the Streets of Tampa Without Resolving His Asylum Request’

Llorente (right) and his son crossed into the US through the Mexican city of Nuevo Laredo. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger 14ymedio, Madrid, 8 June 2022 — A year has passed since Daniel Llorente, better known as “the man with the flag” arrived in the United States after storming the Plaza of the Revolution during the 2017 May Day parade with the banner of the 52 stars shouting “freedom.” Luck has not been on his side since then and he barely survives in Tampa, Florida, although he cannot hide a certain satisfaction in the midst of adversity.

“I get up every day at 5, read the Bible, have a cup of coffee and I’m ready to work anywhere. That freedom is priceless,” he told the Tampa Bay Times.

Llorente, 58, arrived with his son, Eliezer, in the United States in June 2021, after a long and complicated journey, like thousands of Cubans. After he broke into the Workers’ Day march, the activist was imprisoned for a month in the 100 y Aldabó prison, and then transferred to the Havana Psychiatric Hospital, known as Mazorra, where he spent another year.

In May 2019, State Security pushed him to leave, with pressure and threats according to his testimony, to Guyana, where he began his journey through Venezuela, Colombia, Central America and Mexico, until he reached Texas, where he began his asylum process.

Then a new life began in which difficulties were not going to be lacking. Until October 2021 he was staying at a friend’s house who took him in temporarily, but finally had to leave to look for a permanent place that he has not been able to find, due to the high housing prices in Tampa.

Shortly after arriving, both he and Eliézer, 22, began working construction, maintenance, cleaning… just about any job that came along. So they were able to buy a car, a very old Mazda that had to be repaired, investing the $900 they saved for an apartment.

Now, the car is his home, and in it he stores his few belongings: a pillow, a blanket, a bag of clothes and toiletries. His son, on the other hand, has suffered a very different fate, he works full time as a dishwasher and kitchen assistant in a restaurant in the city and lives with the family of his Cuban girlfriend. continue reading

Daniel Llorente could barely pay his bills, has been through months of inactivity, and has no family in Florida he can turn to, other than his son with whom he keeps in touch and eats often, but who can’t provide lodging. According to the newspaper, he has had to spend a few nights in Salvation Army shelters and is trying to find room at the Good Samaritan Inn, a rooming house where he hoped to sleep with other tenants for $130 a week. However, there was no space available. “But the administrator said that it is a matter of time. I am a man of faith and I believe that when one door closes, another opens,” says Llorente.

At this time, the Cuban has found work as a construction painter, but the salary remains low and forces him to turn to charities for food, clothing and toiletries.

As for his legal situation, “the man with the flag” is still waiting for his asylum interview, a status that he should have no difficulty achieving, since he has a well-known record as a political prisoner. The delays accumulated by the Administration, however, keep him in that limbo and unable to apply for a green card, a step prior to applying for citizenship.

Llorente has decorated the back window of his car with a photo of himself and his son, hugging an American flag, the same one that is tattooed on one hand. The Cuban flag on the other.

“Sometimes you have to start from scratch. Life is complicated anywhere in the world,” he says optimistically.

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