14ymedio

Cuban Migration Part 10 – A Few Days in a Texas Jail and the Unknown Taste of Freedom

The author of this series of articles, with young Nicaraguans and Hondurans, minutes after crossing the Rio Grande to enter the US near McAllen, Texas. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Alejandro Mena Ortiz, 2 May 2022 — The conditions of the prison were not bad, as I was saying, and in addition you could also play Parcheesi, dominoes, chess, soccer or basketball. We turned into a huge, multinational family.

One of the Cubans who impressed me the most was a guy from Villa Clara who sold everything to be able to leave. He worked with the province’s Fund for Cultural Assets, but he was self-employed. He did restoration works in theaters, in houses of culture, and they paid him lots of dollars. He told me that the level of corruption in the Cultural Center, at least in the municipality of Santa Clara, is incalculable. But then things got bad and Covid was the last straw.

This man was never interested in politics or the situation in the country, because he says that there were months in which he earned thousands of dollars. He built a mansion for himself, houses for the whole family, established pig farms… He had a lot of money and sold it all, although he didn’t tell me a figure.

I also talked to a guy, Richard, who was a cook in Havana. He was interested in pastry and shops and bakeries, and he always wanted to set up his own business, despite being quite young, 25 years old. An aunt of his who lives in Houston told him: “Mi’jito, (Sonny) you’re never going to become anyone there. Come, I’m going to pay for everything so you can set up your own sweets and bread business.” He left a lot of family in Cuba and that hurt him. He had been in prison for 17 days (he was released from prison on March 14^th). I only spent 3 days.

There was a Venezuelan who told me: “Maduro is a son of a bitch just like Fidel Castro and his entire generation.” This was one of those who went out to protest in Venezuela in 2017 against the regime there, but they harassed him so much that he ended up leaving and going to Peru. He spent four years there, and it did not go badly, but with the pandemic he lost his job and came to the United States, jumping borders from Peru.

This young man told me that the hardest part of the trip was the Darién jungle, very dangerous. In all the groups that go into the jungle, there is always a person who dies, he says, and in his group, it was a 14-year-old boy. The boy, who could have been from from India, according to what he told me, slipped down a rock, hit his head and was left there. The parents paid some natives 5,000 dollars to carry him to Panama, because the coyote didn’t care. They left them in Panama, the little dead boy and his parents. After that, he didn’t hear from them anymore. He says that if you look to the sides of the Darién trails, you’ll see decomposing bodies, because they cannot be carried. continue reading

You have to carry chlorine tablets to drink the river water, but he didn’t have any tablets and he drank it like that, untreated. Of course, then he had diarrhea and fatigue

Another thing he told me is that the water doesn’t even last a day. You have to carry chlorine tablets to drink the river water, but he didn’t have the tablets and he drank it like that, untreated. Of course, then he had diarrhea and fatigue. The coyote tried to rush them and threatened to leave them behind. In another instance, they made progress, paying about 275 dollars each to cross a river. Paying was better, he said, because the danger of dying is much greater.

After all that, he went through Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua… and when he got to Mexico, he said that he crossed it in three days. I told him that he had been extremely lucky, but he disagreed. They had put him in a truck with a false bottom –they had a wooden floor on top, where they placed crates with tomatoes, vegetables, and things like that – and they laid below the false floor, unable to move. Sometimes they stayed like that for 21 hours while they traveled, with stops of up to five hours at the edge of the road, waiting for a checkpoint to leave. They urinated in a bottle that they threw out as best they could, but sometimes it spilled on them.

To make things worse, it either was so hot that they suffocated or so cold that they froze. On one occasion, he says that he thought he was about to die because he was very sleepy and felt nothing.

There were also three Guatemalans there, a strange thing, because they are deported quickly, but they had arrived in December. Their group was caught and they were pointed out as witnesses against the coyote. After 90 days in a prison, they were transferred there, and two had an open expulsion order and the other was given the classification of parole, because it seems that he was the only one who spoke out.

One night, they came to do a PCR test on me and six others, and they told us to be on the lookout, in case they came looking for us. And so it happened: at 4:00 in the morning, they woke us up, they gave us breakfast in a cell and they returned the money we had when we arrived, in my case, 120 dollars. They also took away our prison uniforms and we put on the clothes we arrived in. You could imagine the stink of those clothes.

They took us by bus to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), and once there, an officer had me sign the papers and told me to stay out of trouble. After that, another bus, and then they took us to a church that welcomed us in a courtyard, sitting on chairs, where they called us one by one.

On that portion of the trip, I met one Venezuelan and two Cuban women. The Venezuelan one left in December and was arrested in Guatemala. The coyotes paid to release her and she was arrested again in Mexico: 30 days in a Tapachula prison. When she was let out, she again looked for someone to help her get across. In total, her family spent thousands and thousands of dollars for her to reach the US. She told me that she was very depressed, that if she had known how things were, she would not have done this. She also told me that she would like to return to her country, but that as long as Maduro was still there, she would not return.

The man asked me what was happening in Cuba, he mentioned Fidel Castro, and I told him that it was his fault that we were not free

On our arrival at the church, where they gave us food and clothes, you can’t leave if you don’t have a plane ticket, so my family tried to buy me one from Laredo to Miami, but they were over $800. In normal times, I was told, that flight is about a hundred something dollars, so we found a solution through Houston. They took me to a bus station, where I bought a ticket to San Antonio for 59 dollars. Two older men who help immigrants were waiting for me there.

I was very moved by this, because they gave me food, toiletries, a mask, and even a small blanket to cover myself. I even told them to save it for someone who was more in need than I was, but in the end, I took it, because the trip was long and my flight didn’t leave until 7:30 in the morning.

The man asked me what was happening in Cuba, he mentioned Fidel Castro, and I told him that it was his fault that we were not free. He was very sympathetic. Also, I really liked San Antonio, with its huge buildings. It seemed incredible to me, to be seeing so much beauty before my eyes.

Arriving in Houston, a cousin of mine who lives there found out and said she wanted to come pick me up. She took me to her house, where I ate, showered, and they washed the clothes I had been wearing, and at 5 in the morning they took me to the airport.

I was a little embarrassed, because the treatment was not the same as for the rest of the passengers: they separated me from the line, they searched me more vehemently, they took photos of me… But I was also amazed at the sheer size of that place: a kilometer to my boarding gate, full of shops, people, life.

I entered the Miami airport through gate 21, and my cousin was waiting for me. I grew up with him but life separated us when he left Cuba and went to Spain, when we were 17 years old; then he ended up in the US. Well, here we are, together again.

At the moment of the embrace, of the uncontrollable tears, I began to remember how long I had spent to get to this country and I couldn’t believe that I had arrived safely, that I had arrived alive. After so much waiting I was with my buddy in this land of freedom.

Alejandro Mena Ortiz in the United States. (14ymedio)

I turned 34 years old on my last birthday, as you already know, in the dungeons of an ice-cooler while I was detained. My closest family – my children, my wife, my parents, my grandmother – are in Cuba.

I was a cook for many years in a private restaurant in Havana, but for a long time I have been working as a reporter for 14ymedio. I am so proud of this that I would need a whole chapter to talk about it.

My trip lasted 26 days from the time I left Havana until I arrived on US soil. It cost a total of 10,075 dollars, including plane tickets, payment to coyotes, cash to eat, etc. This money was put up by a relative, to whom in due course, and when I have it, I will begin to return everything “invested” in my trip.

My cousin is a truck driver here in the US, so in a few weeks by his side I have already crossed 20 states. I have seen many beautiful things. Also, other very ugly ones that I didn’t like, I suppose that happens in all countries.

Now I am discovering what it is like, seeing the lies that the official media in Cuba told us. This is a country with many objectionable things, yes, yes, yes, but it is a country where one can have freedom. I still haven’t adjusted to that. I still have the ghost of fear, of anxiety, when I see, for example, a police patrol or a police officer approaching, because it reminds me of the oppressors who do not allow us to live our lives.

Up to this point this is my story, and so, just: patria y vida. Patria y Vida [Homeland and Life].

Translated by Norma Whiting

With this chapter ends the series on ‘Cuba, the Island in March.’ A pdf version has been published in the original Spanish and an English pdf will also be prepared and linked to here, along with links to the other articles on this site.

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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.

Only Five of 524 Cubans Charged for 11th July (11J) Protests Have Been Acquitted

The press does not have access to the trials, only a few images are captured and broadcast on the Primetime Newscast. (Screen capture)

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 25 May 2022 — A total of 519 of the 564 people who have been tried in Cuba for the anti-government demonstrations last July – 92% – have been sentenced and 40 are still awaiting their sentencing, the NGO Justicia 11J reported on Tuesday.

According to a statement from the organization, only five of the defendants have been acquitted after the start of the trials, at the end of 2021.

In the event that the 40 people who are still awaiting their resolution are found guilty, the percentage of those sentenced would rise to 99%, according to data from the association.

The NGO also reported that “of all the people tried or awaiting trial, we can say that around 70 to 80% have awaited trial under pretrial detention.” In addition, it criticized that 101 people are still waiting for their legal process to begin.

On the other hand, Justicia 11J increased its record of detainees after the demonstrations from 1,444 in April to 1,470 today, 12 minors of whom are under 18 years of age.

With the data of this same association, it can be asserted that the appeals of the convicted are not serving to modify the sentences either. As of 13 May, 40 people had received a response to the review of their sentence in the first instance, of which only one managed to go from one year in prison to acquittal. continue reading

Also in another case, after appealing a sentence of 3 years and 8 months, a prisoner obtained a reduction to 2 years and two months. Most of the remaining cases, at least 32, have kept the sentence intact and some isolated cases have modified the form of imprisonment or reduced the time of internment by one month.

Despite this, organizations defending the rights of prisoners insist that the families continue to resist and not give up a right that could be useful to them, even though the percentage of success is very low.

Relatives of those convicted and organizations have not ceased to criticize the trials, with a total lack of guarantees, fabrication of evidence and high sentences, accusations that the Supreme Court rejects.

However, two weeks ago, Raucel Ocaña Parada, former prosecutor of Palma Soriano, in Santiago de Cuba and now exiled in Europe, awaiting a resolution of his asylum request in Switzerland, said in an interview that the sentences are decided by the party and are imposed on the courts, which are not independent.

The Cuban Attorney General’s Office assured in January that 790 people had been prosecuted for the July 11 protests, of which 55 were between 16 – the minimum criminal age – and 17 years old.

Amnesty International requested to be able to attend the trials, to which the press also does not have access, but it has never been answered in the affirmative. For the upcoming trial of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, scheduled for next Monday and Tuesday, the opposition has asked the correspondents to do everything possible to cover it.

The NGO Prisoners Defenders points out that at least 842 people were in prison on the island at the end of 2021 for political reasons, mostly for the events of July 11, although the authorities insist that there are no political prisoners and assure that the legal charges have to do with “acts of vandalism.”

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Cuba’s Machiavellian Use of Migration

Four Cuban migrants cross the Rio Grande in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua (Mexico). (EFE/Luis Torres)

14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 25 May 2022 — On June 22, 1990, before the United Nations, Nelson Mandela firmly demanded that the sanctions against Pretoria be maintained. The African leader wondered what mistake had been made to allow a country with apartheid to be seated after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the Nuremberg Trials. He strongly urged that the measures not be relaxed until the crime is stopped.

In Cuba we have suffered for decades an ideological apartheid that segregates citizens into two camps: “revolutionaries” and “worms.” Those who have been pigeonholed in the second group have suffered imprisonment, physical and psychological torture, persecution, acts of repudiation, exclusion, censorship, harassment, separation from their jobs or expulsion from their places of study, forced expatriation and even death.

##The historical amnesia that they try to impose on us from the propaganda machine cannot erase horrendous memories such as the shootings, the UMAP (Military Production Aid Units), the ’parameterization’, the sinking of the tugboat March 13 or the combat order of July 11 of last year, where the “revolutionaries” obtained a license to stone, beat or shoot at the demonstrators.

There are testimonies that claim that several public health centers were instructed to deny medical assistance to those they considered “worms.” The irrefutable mark of that apartheid that we suffer is summarized in the phrase that affirms that the streets, the common space, belong only to the ethnic group that carries the revolutionary gene in its cells.

The accession of Miguel Díaz-Canel to the one-party throne has been a huge setback for the aspirations of citizens in areas such as freedom of expression, pluralism, social participation, rights, economic prosperity or democratic changes. Today, a generation without charisma, mediocre to the core, lacking legitimacy or historical weight, clings to the reins of power. The current leadership knows that it no longer has the support of the majority, and the panic of suffering the same fate as Nicolae Ceausescu is reflected on their faces. continue reading

That’s why they quickly resort to the club and the gag. That’s why they keep the largest number of political prisoners behind bars in all of Latin America and see young people as a major danger. That’s why they unanimously approve a reactionary, cowardly and medieval Criminal Code. That’s why they include penalties of up to ten years in prison for the crime of treason that not even contemporary monarchies have taken so far.

It’s a fact that the majority in Cuba is already fed up with the dictatorship and want change. Opinion is divided into how and where. Many were optimistic when Obama decided to try a new strategy, defrosting tensions and trying to empower the private sector on the island. Trump returned to ice and aggressive speech. Now Biden zigzags between isolation and the relaxation of sanctions.

But beyond the leaders’ back and forth is a population of 11 million trapped in hopelessness, misery, impotence and fear. That same citizenry that erupted on June 11 today finds no choice but to sell everything, grab a backpack and cross borders. Although the ruling press says with cynicism that Cubans go to Nicaragua to contemplate the lava of the Masaya volcano, we all know that the stampede advances much further north.

The regime, an expert in turning its defeats into victories, has always used migratory waves for a triple purpose. First, the exodus serves as an exhaust valve to release internal pressure. Second, migration crises are used as weapons to put anyone sitting in the White House on the ropes. These frequent exoduses have almost always been the responsibility of Democratic administrations. Lyndon B. Johnson naively believed that the quarter of a million Cubans who left through Camarioca and the Puente Aéreo could return to Cuba in a short time.

Jimmy Carter lost the 1980 elections, among other things, due to the bad press that exaggeratedly reported the exodus of the Mariel Boatlift. Clinton had to set up the Guantanamo Naval Base as a temporary refuge to avoid a collapse in south Florida, during the Rafter Crisis. But the third and most Machiavellian use of migration by the regime is to convert exile into economic investment. Every Cuban who flees becomes a potential sender of hard-currency remittances.

The vaunted national sovereignty is nothing more than a mirage, a kidnapping, a fallacy.

Translated by Regina Anavy

American Businessman Authorized by the U.S to Invest in Cuba Is Keeping His Deal Secret

Kavulich still needs the approval of the Cuban side and is sure that he will get it. (Cubadebate)

EFE (via 14ymedio), New York, 19 May 2022 — The United States authorized for the first time in six decades an investment in a private business in Cuba, undertaken by John Kavulich, who told EFE today that he has been in contact with “officials of the Joe Biden Administration,” congressmen and senators who have allegedly been helping to bring this operation to fruition for almost a year.

Kavulich, President of the United States-Cuba Economic and Trade Council, does not give many details about the investment “up to 25,000 dollars,” nor does he give the name of the Cuban business, since he prefers to wait for Cuba to give the go-ahead. He only announced that this business is not related to the Government of Miguel Díaz-Canel, has more than 5 years in the service sector and has continued growth.

The businessman doesn’t want to give names of who his partners have been in the Biden administration: “[They were] officials of the Biden-Harris administration, including the State Department, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice in all areas, as well as the two houses of Congress,” says Kavulich.

Until now, the U.S. embargo on Cuba, in force since 1960, prevented this type of investment and, according to Kavulich, it’s the first time that this type of license has been approved since the boycott came into force.

No official of the Biden Administration has so far spoken on this issue or on the eventual lifting of the embargo on investments in Cuba.

The investor submitted the license request to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on June 10, 2021, and this agency gave him the green light on May 10, 2022. continue reading

Kavulich points out that his efforts with the White House and Congress date back long before the Biden Administration, during which time he has been figuring out if his investment efforts can be successful.

After formally submitting his petition last June, the businessman was optimistic, but as the months went by he lost hope.

“They gave me contradictory statements and communications in the past two months that shattered all my optimism,” he recalled, stressing that the final news of the approval of the investment took him completely by surprise.

In order for Kavulich to be able to invest in this company – -which he discovered thanks to a Facebook group — he still needs the approval of Cuba, but the businessman says he is “90% sure” that he will get it.

“My 90% certainty is not because the Cuban government is enthusiastic, but because of how necessary it is,” he stressed, explaining that this need has become more evident with the great blow that the island’s economy received with the pandemic.

Likewise, Kavulich notes that his objective in this investment is not intended to look for “a fast dollar,” but to pave the way for future investors.

“My role as president of the council and the work that the council has done since 1994 is that if there is a problem, we try to solve it and then let everyone know what we did. And that is precisely what we are doing here,” he says.

For Kavulich, the fact that an investment is allowed by a U.S. businessman on the island can represent a great “potential” for Cuba’s private sector.

Yesterday, Biden took another step in opening up to Cuba by announcing a relaxation of the limitations on remittances and flights, among other things, reversing part of the last round of sanctions applied by former U.S. President Donald Trump.

“It’s hard not to see a connection. We applied for the license on June 10, 2021. They issued the license on May 10, 2022, and six days later, they announced all these other changes. If one plus one equals two, in this case there is no doubt that it’s not a coincidence,” he concluded.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Remnants of the Cuban Censor Who Attends Me

Xavier Carbonell in a debate last month in the Tenerife Noir Film Festival, the Atlantic Festival of the Noir Genre, organized each year in the Canary Islands. (Facebook Tenerife Noir)

14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, May 22, 2022–Those who think that all ciberclarias* are slick and anonymous are mistaken. Some come with pedigree and martial ranks. There is a group of ever-loyal comrades, trained in military or Party schools, who do not understand the Five Grey Years, nor the special periods, nor have they foreseen crises other than capitalism.

Antonio Rodríguez Salvador belongs to this caste of commissars, censor by vocation and certainly by trade. Last week, I came upon an article by this subject where he demonstrated stupefaction at one of my statements, published in this and other dailies: that the Italo Calvino Prize for Novels — one of Cuba’s most prestigious — had been awarded to me last year and I rejected it in favor of another literary award offered in Salamanca, where I now live.

With more reluctance than skill, what Rodríguez Salvador suggests is that the author of this column must be unhinged, a pathological liar, and that the news outlets that interviewed me, among them El País and 14ymedio, displayed lack of professionalism by speaking with a deranged man.

My first reaction was compassionate laughter, because I understand that the business of defending Castroism is ever more difficult and everyone has to make a living. I understand that Humberto López’s yapping and that of the so-and-so from Con filo — I never remember his name — eclipse the humble trade of censoring in writing, in La Jiribilla or in Granma. continue reading

The nonsense of this CDR [Committee for the Defense of the Revolution] member — inconceivably, a reader of independent news outlets — not only implicated me, but also a colleague at this daily. Thus, to dispel any of my censor’s doubts, I will clarify a couple of points about that day when I received two awards for a single novel.

Toward the end of October 2021 a dark personality called me from Uneac (National Union of Writers and Artists in Cuba) — I don’t plan to identify him, but Rodríguez Salvador must know who I am speaking of: “Don’t act like you don’t know,” he said, “you won the Italo Calvino.” My interlocutor assumed that the Uneac officials in Santa Clara, where I lived and worked, had already spread the rumor. But they were miraculously discreet and I only found out during that phone call. “We do not have a way to get you here, so figure it out.”

Then he read to me the remarks of the judges, which included Roberto Méndez, Carlos Zamora, and Gaetano Longo, which included beautiful and very generous words about the novel. If they are gentlemen and honorable, they will say whether I lie.

On that day I received two missed calls from a Spanish number. I responded and it ended up being the office of the mayor of Salamanca, who on the following day gave me the news of the other prize. When I presented the situation to the person at Uneac, his words were these, “The Spaniards will take the money back when they find out and furthermore you will cause political issues for us with the Italian Embassy, which funds the one here.”

Due to copyright, I could not accept both awards. I opted for the Peninsula’s award, and not for metaphysical reasons: it offered more money and would allow me to leave an oppressive, castrating country where those who travel, live, and triumph — paid by the Government — are the commissars like Rodríguez Salvador, who takes photos of himself “strolling in Buenos Aires” during that country’s book fair.

“Well,” clarified the person from Uneac when I communicated my decision, “we’ve reached a new agreement and there is no problem with your resignation. Send it to me in writing.” His tone, always vulgar and now evasive, had changed since our last conversation. “You know,” he said before hanging up, “that if you say anything, we will categorically deny it.” The prize was awarded in November to writer and finalist, Dazra Novak, who undoubtedly deserved it.

They knew the results since the beginning of 2021. Uneac kept it a secret because the pandemic restrictions prevented Italians from traveling to the country with the 4,000 euros. The fact that one novel on surveillance, paranoia, and censorship had won the prize is a symptom of how weary they, the commissars themselves, are of the game, the act, and the secrecy.

Paradoxically, Uneac opted to hide everything, begin from scratch, and “categorically deny.” The Association’s panic of the “irregular” explains why Antonio Rodríguez Salvador does not have the slightest idea of what happened and accused me of post-modern piracy.

Among other finesse of intellect, the Sancti Spiritus-based writer rambles on about my opinions of the Pope, spiritual fulfillment, and life on the island. “It may be that for this author it is less profitable to publish his works in Cuba than portray himself as censored by the regime,” he concludes.

Rodríguez Salvador forgets — conveniently — what I said in that same magazine and now repeat. I am not interested in playing the role of a censored intellectual (although I was and many times); I am not a writer of political literature (though I am a citizen with the right to criticize the Government of his country) nor do I dramatize exile. I care about writing and living, freely and decently, and that is impossible in Cuba.

“On the conscience of glorified ciberclarias like Rodríguez Salvador are the young prisoners and exiles of the Island. Those who die crossing borders to escape their country. Their families. The censors, for cowardice, money or the inherent malice of mediocrity, are the dictatorship’s most sordid accomplices. If they weren’t so dangerous and infamous, they’d only evoke pity.”

*Translator’s notes: The so-called “cyberclarias” are accounts that hide behind false identities and photos to defend the actions of the Cuban government on Twitter and attack criticism made by dissidents or activists. (Source)

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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New Failures in Power Plants Cause More Blackouts in Cuba

Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Thermoelectric Plant, in Cienfuegos. (5 de Septiembre)

14ymedio, Havana, 24 May 2022 — Despite the voluntarist declarations of the Cuban leaders, there will be no truce this week for the blackouts on the Island.

As published on Tuesday by the Cuban Electrical Union (UNE) and featured in Cubadebate, there was a failure this Monday afternoon at the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Thermoelectric Plant in Cienfuegos. Unit 3 of that plant stopped working just hours after two units of the Antonio Maceo plant, in Santiago de Cuba, and Diez de Octubre, in Nuevitas (Camagüey), which had been out of order for a few days, came into operation.

“The electricity generation deficit in Cuba continues to affect the service, despite the synchronization of two other units,” says the publication of the official newspaper. continue reading

Last Friday, the UNE explained in a note that, despite the fact that the Lidio Ramón Pérez thermoelectric plant, in Felton, in the Holguin municipality of Mayarí, was back in operation after a breakdown, it was not managing to supply the demand of the country because “six thermal units continue to fail and maintenance is planned at Feltón 2, Mariel 8 and Talla Piedra.”

The UNE has said that the situation is “complex” and President Miguel Díaz-Canel acknowledged that “the country’s energy situation continues to be very difficult” due to “breakages in some plants and the scheduled shutdowns of others for maintenance.”

However, the Cuban president insisted, the fault lies not with the lack of maintenance of the plants, but with the covid-19 pandemic and “the intensified [American] blockade.”

Each blackout has pushed the patience of Cubans to the limit, because they must suspend work due to the constant outages that arrive without notice, despite the broadcast of a schedule by local radio stations. The situation becomes more difficult on hot May nights that require the use of fans or air conditioning equipment to sleep.
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Goodbye ‘Moscow’, Welcome to the Kremlin

Demolition of the remains of the building that housed the Moscow restaurant, this Tuesday. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, 24 May 2022 — It seemed unbeatable. The years of splendor and subsequent decades of decline, but the physical survival of the building made many Havanans believe that the plot located at the intersection of 23rd Avenue and P Street would forever be an imposing mass. This week the city says goodbye to the local Moscow restaurant, synonymous with the end of an era.

There is only one piece left and it is rare. A fragment of the building that once condensed the most mundane pleasures and the fiercest parameterization. All in one. There has been no structure in this city that can summarize so much: relaxation and sobriety; the Cuban self-confidence and the tough Soviet muscle. In the same place where the Montmartre cabaret was located, where Rita Montaner and Josephine Baker performed, borscht soup and fear were established. Then came nothing.

A fire put an end to the stage that began after Fidel Castro came to power and the nationalizations that followed. Then, the building ceased to house the famous Montmartre casino and cabaret. In the late 1960s the place was renamed Moscow, a nod to the Soviet Union. Bolero nights came to an end and the space was filled with dishes of Solyanka soup and Russian salad. Later the flames came. continue reading

Now, three decades after a fire extinguished the brightness of the central location, its ruins have become a headache for the closest neighbors and the city authorities. The news of its demolition fell like a balm among the desperate residents of the vicinity. But nothing turned out as planned. Neither was the ruin so easy to tear down, nor was the city the same as before its dismantling was announced.

Now, photos taken from nearby balconies have been given new angles, but the city isn’t ready to celebrate such frivolities. People complain about the speed of clearing an area when it is going to become a hotel zone. It has been known that an accommodation will be erected in the place that will be managed by the Cuban company Gran Caribe and the Spanish company Be Live.

A few meters away, there are tenements housing dozens of families that are about to collapse due to lack of maintenance. Calle 23 is, without a doubt, part of the heart of a cake much desired by tourist companies and the military conglomerate that manages a good part of tourism in Cuba. But nobody knows if the place of the Montmartre cabaret will give way to a zone of freedom and creativity, as it was in its beginnings, or if it will return to the control of a quiet and nervous Kremlin.

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Cuba: We Need Another Revolution

It would be logical to question the representational legitimacy of Cuba’s ruling elite after the widespread demonstrations that took place in almost every part of the country on July 11, and the brutal repression that followed. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Ariel Hidalgo, Miami, May 17, 2022 — When the so-called Ten Million Ton Sugar Harvest of 1970 failed and a young teacher from a trade school called for “a revolution within the revolution” at a mass rally, he was on the verge of being arrested. The Cuban revolution had been completed just two years earlier and no one dared speak of another revolution. What we did not realize at the time, however, was that a radical policy — the expropriation of all private enterprise — was about to alter the very structures of society. That was the operative phrase: radically change the structures of society.

By that point, the revolution had already been hijacked. The two main objectives of the revolution — the overthrow of the dictatorship which had come to power in 1952 after a military coup, and the restitution of the 1940 constitution to be followed by free elections — had not been met. Those who had taken up arms styled themselves “the Centennial Generation” but, with their final “revolutionary offensive” of 1968, the leaders who emerged from that generation abandoned Jose Martí’s principle of “with all and for the good of all.”

At the end of that nine-year period of dramatic transformation — also marked by the execution and imprisonment of many comrades-in-arms who had fallen victim to that betrayal — what actually emerged was a totalitarian dictatorship and a dysfunctional economic model.

Nevertheless, we kept talking about “revolution.” This included the former dictator, who used the term till the final days of his rule in reference to the revolution of September 4th, twenty-four years earlier, which he himself had betrayed. History was repeating itself, but more dramatically, in a spiral of betrayals.

Given the widespread demonstrations that took place in almost every part of the country on July 11 and the brutal repression that followed, not to mention the deep economic crisis and widespread discontent over the lack of basic rights, it would be logical to question the representational legitimacy of an elite which has, since 1959, been proclaiming itself the vanguard of the Cuban people.

In its past sixty-two years, and despite more than half a century of periodic reforms, this ruling elite — now institutionalized as the Cuban Communist Party — has not been able to extricate the country from this structural crisis. The situation only improves when a generous donor appears on the horizon with a life raft in the form of subsidies. continue reading

No one seriously believes the U.S. embargo is the problem, especially these days. The term “brutal Yankee blockade” has lost all meaning now that Cuba freely trades with American farmers.

What has become clear is that the main cause of the disaster is the economic model itself, which has proved to be unsustainable. Reforms have come and gone but the system remains. The true etymological meaning of the word reform implies a change of shape, not a change of substance. The structure has always been left intact when what it needed was a radical overhaul. But this was never acceptable because that is what revolutions do, and it had already been done in the 1960s.

One month after the July 11 demonstrations, Manuel Cuesta Morua, coordinator of Progressive Arch and vice-president of the Council for Democratic Transition, clearly stated that what the demonstrations were calling for was radical structural change. “I believe what should be done now is to translate the social uprising into a political proposition. This must be led, coordinated and implemented by civil society,” he wrote. On August 21, a letter signed by 284 Cuban intellectuals and artists, living both on the island and overseas, was sent to President Diaz-Canel. It stated, “The time has come for Cuba to move forward on paths different from those you and your government have drawn up for Cubans [to follow].”

No matter how traumatic this word might be for many Cubans, in both cases it refers to the same thing: a new revolution. We are no longer talking about “reforms” but rather radical changes to the structure of Cuban society. This is no longer about the simplistic dilemma — socialism or capitalism — framed by those who currently hold power. We are talking about something very different from what existed before 1959 and what came after: a revolution of those from below, for the good of all Cubans.

Given the urgency, the changes that must be made without delay require transparency. Not catchphrases to disguise hidden motives such as “a revolution as green as palm trees” but rather specific statements about what is going to be done. I think there is a consensus that the state should stop exercising direct control over business activity. In other words, stop micromanaging the managers. The state, which has a history of expropriating corporate monopolies, has itself become one giant monopoly.

But that is easier said than done. In whose hands would these companies end up? Would they be sold or auctioned off to foreign investors? (Would these investors even be interested in sinking money into obsolete or badly deteriorated means of production?) Would these companies be returned to their original owners? This would likely involve lengthy lawsuits by numerous plaintiffs. Would this begin a long process that would just end up replacing one bureaucracy with another?

The members of this bureaucracy — generally chosen for their political reliability than for their competency — are still smart enough to realize that, if the system that appointed them were to fall, their days at the heads of these companies would be numbered. In such a scenario, they wouldn’t think twice about grabbing whatever they could. In that case, who or what would be there to stop them?

So here is my proposal: On day one, immediately send out a memo to all rank-and-file workers at state-owned businesses and factories that, henceforth, they will be allowed to earn bonuses from the fruit of their own labor. They must be exhorted to take over their workplaces, expel their respective directors and replace them, on a provisional basis, with workers’ councils elected by workers themselves.

Could Cuban workers be responsible enough to form management boards with competent people? Let’s remember that Havana’s Hilton Hotel (now the Habana Libre) was not owned by the Hiltons but rather by members of the restaurant workers union, who contracted with the Hiltons to run the operation because they thought the famous hoteliers were better equipped to manage it.

There are many examples from different eras in various countries of companies on the verge of being shut down, either because they were unprofitable or because of labor disputes, which were successfully revived by workers themselves. One such example from the Clinton era is United Airlines. During a strike for better wages, employees were given shares in the company. Later, they decided not just to forego a salary increase but actually decided to lower their salaries. Another example is the British mining company Tower Colliery, which was losing money and facing closure due to the free-market policies of Margaret Thatcher. It was able to survive thanks to the efforts of the workers themselves, who managed to acquire it and turn it into a successful company.

The Anson Construction Company in Illinois is owned by its workers, who are even willing to work on holidays in order to make more money. No one who is not an employee is allowed to own shares in company. Many other examples could be cited.

The leaders that came to power in 1959 underestimated and wasted the nation’s enormous human capital and clipped the wings of its enterprising people, who have the capacity to turn Cuba into one of the most prosperous countries in the world. What we are talking about now is giving them the freedom they need to spread their wings and take flight.

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Cuban Migration Part 9 — They Put 15 of Us on our Knees in a Raft to Cross the Rio Grande

Already very close to the river, three or four people arrived, one of them with a raft with capacity for six people. They told 15 of us to get in. (CBP/File)

14ymedio, Alejandro Mena Ortiz, 1 May 2022 — We were very afraid in that thicket. We didn’t know what was going to happen, we didn’t have phones, helicopters were flying overhead. If they saw us, we had to run, but… there was nowhere to run. We were there for three or four hours. I wrote with a toothpick on a nopal cactus plant “patria y vida” [homeland and life] and drew a little Cuban flag. If a Cuban comes here tomorrow and sees this plant, he will know that another one of his compatriots was here.

After three or four hours, the truck came again and someone shouted the password to the code they had assigned to us and we had to come out running. At that time, we turned into a group of 40, at least, because they had brought others who had the same instructions, and that’s when the chaos started.

Everyone started running through the thorns to try to get a seat in the truck. Fortunately, my Nicaraguan friend was grasping me, because all the while it felt as if I was about to fall down, especially when the driver accelerated.

When we were very close to the river, three or four people arrived, one of them with a six-person capacity raft. They told fifteen of us to get in. I placed myself in the group with the first ones, because I thought that my female Honduran friend was part of that group. However, it didn’t turn out that way. When I looked back, my friend had already remained behind and I would never know what happened to her.

They explained to us what the crossing entailed: they were going to throw the raft into the river, we were going to have to get in and kneel down, so that the 15 of us and the man who was rowing could fit. And that’s what we did. We had to get wet, up to our ankles more or less, and the water was very, very cold. We got in, the man got in, the guide too, in the front, and all of us started to row with our hands so it would take less time. We rowed and rowed… until we reached the other shore.

We quickly walked a few meters. I threw myself to the ground, sank to my knees, pressed my forehead to the ground and was grateful for having arrived alive, not having been scammed, not having been kidnapped and many other things that many migrants unfortunately experience throughout their journey to the United States.

Tears came to my eyes and I called my cousin to tell him that I had already arrived, but I couldn’t even speak, because I had a lump in my throat. continue reading

If a Cuban comes here tomorrow and sees this plant, he will know that another compatriot was here. (14ymedio)

There were many emotions at that moment, but, returning to reality, the men who were helping us cross from the other side of the river yelled at us: “Run, run!” We thought that the immigration officers were coming and we started to run. We went up some hills, down some hills, until we reached a place and said: “Let’s stay here and see if the others come.” But they never did.

When immigration agents arrived, they stopped about 50 meters from us. One, who sounded Mexican, says: “Come, come, come closer, don’t be afraid.” We started running again, because we thought it had to be the Mexicans, but in the end, we heard them speaking to the officers in English and we finally surrendered.

That was very emotional. There were soldiers with AR15 machine guns, but they made nice gestures, like welcoming us, just like the Border Patrol, who were very kind.

They took us to a baseball stadium, where they took our information. One of them, Officer Alvarado, distributed us in vans and, along the way, asked us about our situation, our countries, and we told him. He was very sympathetic.

At the stadium, they removed our belts and shoelaces and took us to a location in McAllen, Texas, where we were sorted, fingerprinted and photographed. They searched us and threw almost everything in the trash, except for the essentials. Then they placed more than 66 people in some cells they call ice coolers for about 24 hours. Horrible, very cramped.

Some Cubans tried to ask me to come closer, but we couldn’t, we didn’t fit. In the end, thanks to them, I was able to sit on a small bench and make room for my Nicaraguan friends. One of the Cubans was from Holguín and the other from Cienfuegos. They told me that one normally stays there for about three days and then goes out with a phone so you can be in contact every week with an immigration officer, to whom you have to send a current photo and the location of the device. In other words, as if you had an electronic ankle bracelet, because you cannot move away from the delimited area.

The food was pretty good, so I thought we could hold our own, but happiness in a poor man’s house is short-lived. They didn’t let us out with a phone, period. They put us on a bus, almost 60 of us, back to another ice-cooler. And the Border Patrol officer intimidated us. In his rather broken Spanish, he said, “Who are the Cubans here?” Almost 20 of us raised our hands. Then he added: “Ok, just so you know, I don’t like Cubans and I’m the boss here. Cubans think that this is Disneyworld, so whoever cracks a joke with me, I’m going to put his face against the floor.”

There are cold or indifferent guards, but not one like this one, none. He had to check on me and even kicked me in the ankle so that I would separate my feet even more. I decided to shut up and suck it up, because, if I had protested, it would have been worse. But he had no right; he did ugly things to us and we felt afraid. He slammed a Nicaraguan into the ground and locked him up because he tried to ask him something. To an older man, who was not feeling well and asked to go to the infirmary, he said: “Drop dead.”

The day they took me out of that “ice-cooler” was my birthday. I felt very bad because they handcuffed us, and I had never been put in handcuffs, not even in Cuba

In this prison, in this cooler, we spent five days that traumatized me. The diet was meager: a burrito in the morning, juice and some cookies at noon, another juice and other cookies at six in the afternoon, another burrito at ten at night and that was it. I lost 17 pounds, but another guy, who stayed for nine days, lost 20. We know this because they weighed us at the next place when we arrived. The change was incredible.

In this other place there were quite a few Cubans, and one day, I heard one debating with a Venezuelan, to whom he said: “You can criticize anything in my country, but not its education, because it is the best in the world.” I slowly turned to where that young man was and faced him. I told him that that was a lie, that how could he say that after having fled from a dictatorship, he was so indoctrinated.

Many there supported me and, well, we had a discussion, just a debate, nothing violent.

The day they took me out of that cooler was my birthday. I felt very bad because they handcuffed us, and I had never been handcuffed, not even in Cuba. They put handcuffs on my hands, feet and waist: they chained us up and made us go out towards a bus where they took us to a closed prison. I did not understand that, I did not expect it. It seems they were doing this because there was such a large volume of migrants.

There, we feel imprisoned, but with better conditions. Much better. We had a dormitory with 80 bunk beds. Hot showers too, and 55-inch televisions in the bedroom. In addition, the guards treated us very well. Many hardly spoke Spanish, but I acted as an intermediary.

In that place, I was able to call my cousin and tell him: “Buddy, I’m in prison, buddy, I’m in prison,” and I couldn’t speak anymore, because I burst into tears.

Tomorrow:

Final chapter: A few days in jail in Texas and the unknown taste of freedom

Translated by Norma Whiting

The Trial of Cuban Artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara is Set for May 30

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, in a file image. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 23 May 2022 — More than ten months after sending him to jail, the authorities have finally set a date for the trial of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, leader of the San Isidro Movement (MSI). The trial will be this coming May 30 and 31 at the Municipal Court of Marianao, in Havana

This same Monday, the curator Claudia Genlui published a voice message from the artist from the maximum security prison of Guanajay, Artemisa, dated May 17, in which she says that “in these months the regime has given me, as the only way out of prison, the option of exile outside of Cuba, otherwise I will spend seven years in prison.”

About this, Alcántara recounts the “inhuman persecution and repression” that he has suffered from the regime in recent years – which include not having been able to spend more time with his mother and grandmother, who died, and not being able to be with his son, and that his family and friends have lived “terrified,” and that his works of art have been destroyed — to assert: “We have endured all this and more in search of a dream and for the responsibility for the Cuba of today and tomorrow. And they are dreams that nothing has erased even today.” For those dreams, he says he is willing “to sacrifice the artist’s flesh, my artist’s flesh, my freedom-loving spirit.”

“I want to teach my son to fight for his ideas, for love and for a dream and for his dreams, despite everything,” he says in the message, implying that he will not give in to the regime’s offer.

The artist begins his audio offering condolences for “the victims of the Saratoga Hotel,” something that he affirms affected him a lot and filled him with impotence. In addition, he assures that his health “is well within what is possible.”

At the end of last April, Amnesty International denounced that, due to the hunger strikes carried out by Alcántara and the lack of medical attention in the maximum security prison of Guanajay, where he is located, the artist lost the sight of one eye. continue reading

In this regard, Alcántara apologizes to those who have been concerned about his strikes. “These are born of moods in the face of the aberration of the dictatorship. But luckily, until today, I have found spiritual answers that make me reborn,” he says.

Similarly, he says goodbye asking “not to lose faith in the triumph of good, truth and freedom.” At the same time, he exhorts: “Don’t leave me alone. Let’s not leave Cuba’s course in the hands of a dictator or in the course of destiny.”

“For my part, as long as music gives me strength, even if they put me in the most hidden dungeon in Guantanamo or under a stone, I will find a way for my art to reach them and continue betting on all freedom,” he continues. “These are not the words of a clinging male who wants to play the tough, the bastard or the one who can do everything. On the contrary, I am a vulnerable guy, but, above all, I am a dreamer artist of ’homeland and life’ who He’s super connected.”

The artist also has words for the protests of July 11 (11J), the date he was arrested before he could participate in a demonstration. “Soon it will be a year since the last peaceful and unprecedented mobilization of the Cuban people in search of their freedom. This year I had not said how proud I am to be Cuban and of this people inside and outside the Island. I am I’m sure freedom will come very soon, very soon.”

Despite being arrested on 11J, Alcántara’s case is part of the same file under which the musician Maykel Castillo Osorbo is also accused, whose appearance before the court could be the same day 30 or the next, May 31 .

Both are prosecuted for events that occurred on April 4, 2021, when they went out to Damas street, headquarters of the MSI, in Old Havana, to sing Patria y Vida, before the eyes of the neighbors, who then helped the prevent the police from arresting Osorbo.

The Island Prosecutor’s Office requested seven years in prison for Alcántara for aggravated contempt, public disorder and instigation to commit a crime, and ten years for Osorbo, for attack, public disorder and escape of prisoners or detainees. The musician, arrested on May 18 of last year and transferred on May 31 to the maximum security prison of Kilo Cinco y Medio, in Pinar del Río, where he remains, still does not have a trial date.

In addition, Alcántara carries the weight of the accusation of ’outrage to the patriotic symbols’, for carrying out the work or art Drapeau with the Cuban flag.

To defend him from this accusation, his lawyers have called as witnesses other artists, friends of the MSI leader: Julio Llópiz-Casal, Lázaro Saavedra and Amaury Pacheco.

Both he and Osorbo won, earlier this May, the 2022 Freedom Award granted by the human rights organization Freedom House.

The president of this NGO, Michael J. Abramowitz, declared then: “As we face enormous challenges to freedom around the world, it is an honor to celebrate the incredible courage of this year’s laureates to stand up to tyranny.”

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Biden Changes his Policy on Cuba and Venezuela

14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami, 22 May 2022 — What’s going on is very strange. According to an American dictum, one does not change horses in midstream. According to the analysis of Politico – an online portal that is much closer to the Democrats than to the Republicans – the recent announcement of a change in strategy by Joe Biden in his perception of Cuba and Venezuela, means that he is giving up the next election in Florida. Compromising with these two dictatorships means leaving the way clear for the Republicans, as US senator Bob Menéndez and Florida senator Annette Taddeo, both from the Democratic Party, complain.

Something fishy is going on here. The politicians – and Biden is the quintessential “politician” – or the president know something of which we have no idea, perhaps because Juan S. González, the person who manages the foreign policy of the White House in that area of the world, has told him directly. Or perhaps because Biden is going through a stage of dangerous naiveté, unbecoming of a 79-year-old man who has seen the entrails of the authoritarian monster.

Cuba and Venezuela know that they have to move towards democratic change, but there is not the slightest symptom of that. Cuba has just approved a Criminal Code that is infinitely more restrictive than the previous one. The new code increases the “reasons” for which the State can execute people, while keeping in jail hundreds of demonstrators who protested peacefully on July 11, to the tune of the excellent song Patria y Vida (Homeland and Life). continue reading

Spain is the model, although each one must do it in its own way. Neither Díaz Canel nor Maduro have to think much about it. Everything starts with a general amnesty. They speak to opposition parties discreetly. An electoral calendar is established, and the chimera of socialism is buried. In fact, it doesn’t work. It never has and never will. If they want to protect the change with a referendum, it is possible to hold one. Society desperately wants to get rid of those chains.

How many people don’t want change? In Spain, which was an orderly nation, unlike Cuba and Venezuela, they were about 15% or 20%, despite the fact that in 1975, the year Franco died, it had a little less than 80% of the GDP of the leading nations in the European Economic Community. In the end, only less than 10% voted against or were against the change. If they dare, those numbers will be confirmed.

Will they dare? I don’t think so. The conditions for change are there, but I don’t think they will. There is the conviction of the most resounding failure. There has been a generational change, because the original leaders have already died – Raúl Castro and Ramiro Valdés are near the end – and those who follow are supporters of change. And if, in some cases, they don’t support change, their wives and children want to change destiny and not remain tied to the ghostly mandate of the dead leaders, nor to the emotional blackmail of “what Fidel Castro would have done.” Nobody knows what he would have done and, even better, almost nobody cares.

What does the support of China or Russia mean? Almost nothing. The only support Cuba has is based on anti-Yankeeism. Neither one nor the other are Marxists. Both systems have abandoned collectivism in favor of private property, although in China they continue to praise Mao. They provide a real lip service, to him and to his Party, hiding all his crazy things. That is why Fidel brought up the Chinese example, but, as far as I know, he died disappointed in both China and Russia, and he didn’t forgive Putin that his first gesture of independence, when he began to reign alone, without the shadow of Boris Yeltsin, was to close the Lourdes base, without prior explanations.

Why don’t they abandon economic collectivism, the one-party system, and make truly democratic reforms? In truth, out of cowardice. For that reason and because they are very comfortable with immobility. I suspect that in eighteen months Joe Biden and Juan S. González will meet again to examine the results of the change in strategy. It will be a moment of reassessment. Nothing will have happened. They will remain paralyzed. There will be, of course, more sanctions. More hostility. And then, back to square one.

Blackouts Push Cubans’ Patience to the Limits

The dreaded blackouts have returned to the gates of a summer that is perceived as uncertain and difficult. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 23 May 2022 — “This looks more and more like the 1990s,” was the phrase with which a resident of Jovellar Street in Central Havana described the power outage suffered by the area since nine in the morning. The dreaded blackouts have returned to the gates of a summer that is perceived as uncertain and difficult.

“I couldn’t work because I got to a client’s house and there was no light,” laments Mamito, an air conditioning repairman who lost the morning due to the blackout. “Without electricity I can’t test the equipment or show the owner how the fix turned out.” Around the area, in the Cerro neighborhood, the cafeterias were also closed and the traffic lights were off.

Local stations try to broadcast the blackout schedule but sometimes the blackouts come without warning. Those received worst are those that appear in the middle of the night, because the heat of May forces us to use fans or air conditioning equipment to be able to sleep. It is common for shouts to rise with swear words or insults against Cuban leaders when the blades of the fans stop moving in the middle of the night.

But the geography of the blackouts is irregular and reveals the ruling party’s fears of new popular protests like those of last July. “Why don’t they take electricity away from Havanans as much as from us?” asked a resident of the city of Sancti Spíritus on Facebook this weekend. Most of the comments pointed to the authorities’ fear that “people in the capital will throw themselves into the streets.”

“I’m editing and… boom! blackout. Impossible to work like this. I can speak for Pinar del Río, which is where I live, and here in this city there are (minimum) 10 to 12 hours a day without power,” published the influencer Daguito Valdés, a soccer expert with thousands of followers on social networks. continue reading

“You have to wait because we have the guard brigade on the street with several reports,” answers a female voice on the other end of the Unisa Elevator Company line. Reports of elevators getting stuck with people inside and due to a power outage have skyrocketed in recent days. “We are taking longer because we have more calls,” concludes the employee.

In the buildings of Nuevo Vedado, an area of buildings built during the Soviet subsidy, the fear is that “they will remove the electricity and they will not be able to pump the water,” a neighbor of the building known as the pilots’ building next to the street explains to this newspaper. Tulip. “It’s crazy to carry the water up the stairs if we don’t have electricity,” says the man who lives on the 12th floor.

“Call before coming because we don’t know if we’re going to have electricity at that time,” warns Nayaare, a hairdresser from a place leased to individuals near San Rafael Boulevard. “We have had to hurry the turns of several clients because yesterday we had no electricity from the morning until after four in the afternoon.”

Everything slows down when the blackout hits. In the state offices, the employees take the opportunity to paralyze the service to the public, most of the restaurants and cafeterias put up a closed sign and transportation is complicated by the lack of traffic lights. In areas on the outskirts of the city and in the province there is also the problem of mosquitoes.

“You can’t sleep here for three days,” says a young woman from Ciego de Ávila with a small child, in a WhatsApp group. We have to go to the front door of the house and I sit with my son on my lap all night in the armchair, between the rocking and the fan so that the mosquitoes don’t bite him, I can’t sleep a wink.”

A tweet from Lis Cuesta, wife of the Cuban ruler, has added vinegar to the wounds by assuring that he had “his heart in scrubbing mode due to the overwhelming blackouts.” The reaction has not been long in coming and the text has generated an avalanche of responses in which Cuesta’s “cynicism” is criticized and transparency is demanded about the reasons for the current energy disaster.

This same Monday, President Miguel Díaz-Canel acknowledged that “the country’s energy situation continues to be very tense” due to “breakdowns in some plants and the scheduled shutdowns of others for maintenance.”

However, the fault of these “two extremely hard years,” for the president, is not the lack of maintenance of the plants, but the covid-19 pandemic and “the intensified blockade.”

Last Friday, the Cuban Electrical Union (UNE) explained in a note that, despite the fact that the Lidio Ramón Pérez thermoelectric plant, in Felton, in the Holguin municipality of Mayarí, was put back into operation after a breakdown, it was not able to manage to supply the country’s demand because “six thermal units continue to fail and maintenance is planned at Feltón 2, Mariel 8 and Talla Piedra.”

For the UNE, the situation is “complex” and, as does Díaz-Canel, it blames the situation on the US embargo on the island, which has prevented “carrying out the required maintenance in a timely manner.”

Of the 20 electricity generation blocks that the country has, 16 are “out of the cycle of capital maintenance, and also burning fuel very aggresively.”

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Cuba: The Power Behind the Penal Code

Extraordinary session of the National Assembly of People’s Power in which the new Penal Code was approved. (Granma)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 20 May 2022 — The recently approved Penal Code punishes with sentences of up to ten years the citizen “who arbitrarily exercises any right or freedom recognized in the Constitution of the Republic” if that exercise has as its purpose “to change, totally or partially, the Constitution of the Republic or the form of government established by it.”

The previous paragraph is the result of reading articles 119 and 120 of the aforementioned code, which I recommend reading in full and not partially, citing as I do here.

Article 119.1 allows punishing even with the death penalty “whoever takes up arms to obtain by force,” among other things, a total or partial change of the Constitution of the Republic or the form of Government that it establishes.

Article 120.1 provides sentences of up to ten years for anyone who “with any of the purposes stated” in article 119 “arbitrarily” exercises any right recognized in the Constitution.

What does it mean to arbitrarily exercise a right granted by the Constitution? continue reading

Article 80 of the Constitution says that Cuban citizens have the right, among other things, to “exercise legislative initiative and constitutional reform.”

Title XI of the Constitution approved in 2019 has four articles on the subject of constitutional reform. Subsection F of article 227 specifies that citizens are recognized for the constitutional reform initiative “through a petition addressed to the National Assembly of People’s Power, signed before the National Electoral Council, by at least fifty thousand voters.”

Just in case, so that no one is mistaken, article 229 makes it clear that “in no case are pronouncements on the irrevocability of the socialist system reformable.”

Neither by hook nor by crook does the Constitution allow the socialist system to be discarded. But the Penal Code goes further, by punishing the intentions of those who hide behind their constitutional rights to expose the reasons for taking the definitive step that leaves behind the socialist system, or what remains of it, which is nothing more than monopoly of power by one party.

It is clear that the purpose of those who argue in favor of a transformation will always be to make it happen. But you cannot condemn the one who proposes a change as if he were imposing it. It would be like punishing the one who proposes to remove a traffic signal with the fine that falls to the one who does not respect it.

Citizens who prefer another economic or political system should be left no choice but to move to another country. The fear that is evident in this Penal Code is that if dissidents are allowed to express themselves and organize, they will end up convincing the rest of the population that their goals are legitimate and, then, those who rule Cuba today would lose power.

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‘That Secret Symphony’, Holguín’s Poetic Dissidence

Reinaldo Arenas, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Delfín Prats, Rafael Vilches, Luis Yusef y Jamila Medina. (Collage)

14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 21 May 2022 — Holguín exists thanks to a plague of ants and bibijaguas [leaf cutter ants]. It is the strangest and most enigmatic region of the Island. Columbus entered Cuba through it and in Nipe – the largest bay in the archipelago – the Virgin of Charity was found. In that province, according to Cabrera Infante, a dangerous “Bermuda triangle” was formed: Banes, Birán and Gibara. Batista was from Banes, Birán was the Galician fief from which the Castro brothers would emerge, and the writer himself was born in Gibara.

To that list of people from Holguin – both brilliant and disastrous – should be added General Calixto García, the pianist Frank Fernández, the great poet Gastón Baquero, Arnaldo Ochoa – the most famous person executed by the revolution – and even the current Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz.

Holguín, with its warmth and mystery, is also the city of “rebel” poets, the uncomfortable, imprisoned and exiled ones par excellence, such as Reinaldo Arenas and Delfín Prats. Both have gone down in history for their dissident vocation and because they did not remain silent in the face of power. The two were marginalized and deprived – in their time – of the place that corresponded to them in national literature.

Arenas – the best Cuban novelist after Carpentier – opened up the possibilities of a nonconformist and harsh voice, which embodied all marginalizations: homosexuality, “illiteracy” according to the parameters of its censors, drama, the drive towards death, and its eastern and guajira origin. Like a protective ghost of his own, the example of Arenas returned to his land and was fruitful. continue reading

Offering a testimony of that dissident tradition of Holguin writing is Esa secreta sinfonía [That secret symphony]. More than 30 “heir” poets are grouped around a common and imaginary space: the intimate homeland, the city of the Cruz and the parks, and the lands and towns that surround it.

The anthology, with a selection by Beatriz Torrente and edited by Orlando Coré, reviews the most significant authors of the province, whose generations are clearly outlined: the first, inaugurated by Arenas himself, involves already classic and renowned poets, such as Delfín Prats, who lived their youth at the beginning of Castroism.

The second is that of the “sons of the revolution” – such as Ghabriel Pérez, Rafael Vilches or Luis Yussef – who see the Berlin Wall fall and write during the Special Period, with blackouts and shortages.

And the third is that of those who are now 30 or 40 years old, born of disappointment, and many of them exiled or about to be: Moisés Mayán, Javier L. Mora, Camilo Noa, Yunior García Aguilera and Jamila Medina, perhaps the voice most important of this time.

Beyond the usual themes – time, sexuality, death, passions – they all share a meditation on History that often turns into anxiety: “Hemlocks, gallows, crucifixions, bonfires, exiles, castrations, executions and torture, and you impassive,” claims Arenas in the poem that opens the book.

But even when the denunciation, the prophecy, is demanded of him, the poet remembers that they are watching him and they will come looking for him, without anyone defending him: “How to speak of smells and times – of another terror – / when there on the corner / perennially a patrol car pulls up.”

Other poets, such as Orlando Coré, transform personal memory into writing, and offer evidence of their youth in the capital: “From the University of Havana they expelled / birds and diversionists. / Furtively, the / some recognized each other; / surreptitiously , the others, / passed the proscribed titles: / we conspired.”

The motif of the Great Journey, the Journey of Initiation – from east to west, from “the hill” to “the plain” – is frequent in provincial writers, but the generations after Arenas and Coré seek their horizon in exile.

Holguín, like Cuba, is scattered around the globe. As Yunior García notes: “We are not an island, damn it / We are an archipelago / One that holds on with brittle threads / Its unconnected parts / One that has already lost islets at night / And keys in the fog.”

The anthologists place between the pages of That secret symphony an old map of Holguín. In this symbolic space, poets, living and dead, exiled or insular, gather to share their painful memory. This book not only fulfills the role of a poetic collection, but also represents the spirit of that yellowish map of the city: a compass with which to find the deep, lucid and anguished voice of Holguin, which is also Cuban.

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Editor’s Note: That secret symphony. Cuban poets from Holguín, selection by Beatriz Torrente and edition by Orlando Coré, Loma de la Cruz Ediciones. Holguín-Miami, 2022, 312 pages.

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The Electric Union of Cuba: ‘We Did Not Manage to Cover the Demand’

For many Cubans, power outages also mean greater difficulties in cooking. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 21 May 2022 — Summer is approaching and Cubans are losing patience with the Electric Union (UNE). After months of constant breakdowns and long blackouts, the state monopoly is unable to “cover demand” and has announced this Friday that “electricity service will continue to be affected in the coming days.”

In a brief note, the UNE explains that Unit 1 of the Lidio Ramón Pérez thermoelectric plant, in Felton, in the Holguin municipality of Mayarí, managed to turn on its boiler from 2:00 p.m. this Friday after a repair that lasted more than three days. .

But the good news has not lasted very long: “With its synchronization the situation of the National Electric System improves,” but it is not possible to supply all the country’s demand because “six thermal units continue to fail and the planned maintenance in Feltón 2, Mariel 8 and Talla piedra,” says the text.

The situation of the electrical system is classified as “complex” by the UNE, which once again points out that the main culprit is the financial limitations derived from the US embargo “which have prevented the required maintenance from being carried out in a timely manner.” continue reading

At this time, of the 20 electricity generation blocks in the country, 16 are “out of the capital maintenance cycle, also burning a very aggressive fuel.”

The use of this raw material “shortens the cycles of operation between maintenance and requires an intensification of the cleaning, washing and replacement of ducts that are subject to high corrosion,” the note details.

All these factors make “the system very sensitive, many breakdowns occur and creating many limitations. The blocks when they are in service do not reach their maximum power and require interventions because they lose their charge very quickly,” justifies the UNE.

The text concludes by assuring that work is being done “continuously to solve breakdowns in the shortest possible time” and that the population will be informed about “the levels of damage in each of the provinces.”

However, the explanations of the Electric Union have failed to appease the spirits of the monopoly’s customers. Last week has been especially hard on the island with blackouts of more than six hours in numerous locations in the west, center and east.

The high temperatures that are experienced in the country in May force families to keep the fans or air conditioning equipment on all night and the consumption of refrigerated food multiplies. In the midst of the economic crisis that the country is experiencing, the greatest fears are focused on July and August, months in which power cuts traditionally grow.

The blackouts, coupled with food shortages and poor sanitary conditions, fueled the demands of many Cubans who, also tired of the lack of freedoms, took to the streets on July 11, 2021 in the largest anti-government protests on the island in decades.

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