14ymedio

Officialdom Publishes an ‘Inventory of Calamities’ in the Cuban Province of Ciego de Avila

The provincial industry barely accomplished 11% of the forecasts, that is, a total of 200,000 tons of sugarcane remained uncollected. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 12 January 2022 — The best example of the disaster in the economy of Ciego de Ávila is the sugar harvest, which did its part for what is already recognized as “the worst result in more than a century at the national level,” worst than the previous year. The provincial industry barely accomplished 11% of the forecasts, that is, a total of 200,000 tons of sugarcane remained uncollected.

This is one example of the many catastrophic data that characterized the economy of that territory during the past year and that this Wednesday is summarized in the newspaper Invasor, which promises a next installment in which they will tell about all the good that “was done.”

On the list of bad economic indicators is that 30% of state companies in Ciego de Ávila, a total of 23, have losses. In addition, income barely reached 23.6% of the forecast, 2,971 million pesos, and retail trade, due to its enormous shortage, remains at 77.2% of the forecast.

Ileana Venegas, director of Economy and Provincial Planning, attributed the poor general situation in the first place to the usual reasons, the US sanctions and the pandemic. And then to external and internal causes. As for the former, she made reference to the shortage of wholesale markets, which occurred in good part, she argues, due to the increase in import prices and the problems of international maritime transport. continue reading

With regard to Cuba, she mentioned the ’Ordering Task’*, the “partial dollarization of the economy in relations between companies and of these with the non-state sector,” and the mismanagement of the measures approved for the socialist state enterprise; but in no case did she develop these ideas.

The official also stressed that they are maintaining salary concepts based on productivity that are not sustained, since the latter did not reach 80% of what was expected but the payments were made at 86%, an imbalance that does not contribute to balancing the accounts.

In the chapter on exports the sugar harvest once again plays a leading role due to another fatal fact – Ciego only reached 28.8% of the global sales plan for this product. At the same time, one of the most demanded items from Cuba in recent times appears: charcoal made from the marabou weed. Delays in international maritime transfers caused this natural fuel to be stranded in containers in the Mariel Special Development Zone, resulting in the failure to export 13,300 tons.

The investments did not go well either. The forecast was 5,000 million pesos, but only 62%, 3,100 million, has been executed, according to already consolidated data from the Directorate of Economy and Planning itself. Azcuba and the ministries of Agriculture, Tourism, Energy and Mines, and Transportation were the ones that were most responsible for this breach.

The deputy director of Economy and Provincial Planning, Yens Toledano Padrón, explained that most of the investment has not been executed due to personnel problems, due to the many on sick leave caused by the pandemic, but also to the lack of financing and resources .

“Despite these results, it is necessary to recognize the effort made, in the midst of confronting the epidemiological situation, to have made progress in various activities,” said Ileana Venegas, mentioning among them the approval of 26 MSMEs (Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises), whose performance has not yet been measured, nor their work in the neighborhoods and with the vulnerable, which the majority of citizens do not value, judging by the palpable social discontent throughout the Island.

*Translator’s note: Tarea ordenamiento = the [so-called] ‘Ordering Task’ which is a collection of measures that includes 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 others.

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Cubans Hector Valdes and Esteban Rodriguez are Missing

Independent journalists Esteban Rodríguez and Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho shortly after being admitted to El Salvador. (Twitter / @ R_Cucalon)

14ymedio, Havana, 11 January 2022 — Cuban reporters Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho and Esteban Rodríguez are missing. The General Directorate of Migration and Foreigners of El Salvador, where they arrived on January 4 from Havana, published a statement on Tuesday in which they reported that both abandoned the process of requesting refuge in that country.

The text details that on January 6, both, “on a voluntary basis,” had requested to the Secretariat of the Commission for the Determination of the Status of Refugees, with which the Salvadoran authorities activated the protocols of “protection and humanitarian assistance due to their vulnerable condition “and notified the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner (UNHCR).

In their request, the statement continues, Valdés and Rodríguez “exposed the situation of political persecution for which they were forced to leave their country, alleging torture, intimidation, threats and other harassment towards them and their families.”

Neither of them, however, appeared at the refugee hearing set for this Monday. The appointment was rescheduled for this Tuesday, but they did not appear at that time either, and the process was closed “due to abandonment of the case by the interested parties.” continue reading

“As part of the protocol for the protection of refugee applicants, an attempt was made to locate them in the accommodation that was offered by the Government of El Salvador after their arrival in the country, but they were not there and their location is unknown until now,” the letter specifies.

El Salvador had admitted the two activists to its territory after they were stranded at the capital’s airport, allegedly because both were rejected from entering Nicaragua.

On the same January 4 at dawn, Rodríguez had been released from Combinado del Este, the maximum security prison where he was detained for the protests on Obispo Street, Havana, on April 30, and driven in handcuffs, always according to his testimony, to the José Martí airport with Valdés.

Then, Valdés published a post on his Facebook account, suspended today, in which he reported that both were forced “to make the decision” to leave the island “bound for Nicaragua,” although he added that his intention was to stay there for a few days. He alluded, without specifying, to finally landing at the “place where many Cubans arrive fleeing the terror perpetuated by a totalitarian system.” That is, the United States.

However, according to their testimony, the route had a stopover at the Tocumen airport (Panama), from where they had to fly to El Salvador before continuing to Managua. It was at that point, upon arriving at the San Salvador airport, when they say that they were called by the loudspeaker to inform them that Nicaragua, governed by a partner of the Cuban regime, Daniel Ortega, was rejecting them.

Hacemos saber al pueblo salvadoreño y a las organizaciones que protegen los DDHH, como al periodismo en general el siguiente comunicado sobre el caso de los periodistas cubanos Héctor Valdés y Esteban Rodríguez: pic.twitter.com/0uAKe7GMNq

— Ricardo Cucalón (@R_Cucalon) January 11, 2022

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‘New Cars’ Given to Cuban Athletes, Who Then Thank Fidel Castro

Among those who received cars this time are the taekwondo player Rafael Alba and the four-time Olympic champion Mijaín López. (HIT)

14ymedio, Havana, 12 January 2022 — A row of shiny cars parked at the entrance of the Ciudad Deportiva (Sports City), in Havana, caught the attention of passers-by on Wednesday. In social networks, an Internet user shared images of the singular scene with a text that read: “Mercedes-Benz for our Cuban Olympic champions.”

The news was confirmed by the JIT digital site this afternoon, which specified that the delivery occurs thanks to “an agreement of the Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers.” Cars of various makes, not just Mercedes-Benz, were assigned “free of charge” to “renowned sports personalities,” the publication notes.

Among the athletes benefited are Serguei Torres, Fernando Dayán, Julio César La Cruz, Andy Cruz, Arlen López and Roniel Iglesias, Juan Miguel Echevarría, Maikel Massó and Yaimé Pérez, as well as Omara Durand and his guide Yuniol Kindelán, Leonardo Díaz, Robiel Yankiel Sol and Leinier Savón. continue reading

According to JIT, the canoeist Serguei Torres, who was the Olympic champion in Tokyo 2020, spoke on behalf of “the stimulated ones” in an event that brought together several officials in the Sports City: “To express thanks for this gesture, turned into reality in the midst of harsh circumstances for the country, it means recognizing once again the priority assigned to a sport that owes everything to the Revolution and its undefeated Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz.”

Also receiving cars this time were the taekwondo practitioner Rafael Alba, the shooter Leuris Pupo, the judoka Idalys Ortiz and the wrestlers Reineris Salas, Luis Alberto Orta, as well as the four-time Olympic champion Mijaín López.

Official media in media also reported the news. It specified that they were “new cars,” and that the Granma discus thrower Leonardo Díaz Aldana, who won bronze in throwing the disc at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, received one of the vehicles. In addition, it was reported that the athlete had received “a Ventus range wheelchair,” donated by the German prosthetic firm Ottobock.

A few months ago, other images of “awards” to athletes generated a wave of memes and criticism on social networks when, on their return from the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, the athletes received as a stimulus in their community a basket with taro, yuccas, two packages of sausage, a carton of eggs, two bottles of oil, a cake, detergent, deodorant, pumpkin and bananas.

In 2017, a group of Cuban coaches and athletes from eleven disciplines who won medals at the Olympic, Paralympic and World Games received Chinese cars as a “stimulus to honor” and recognition of their results.
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Cuba: Is Otero Alcántara More Dangerous Today Than Frank Pais Was in 1957?

Frank País, the bellicose, was released and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, the pacific, remains imprisoned. (Collage)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 12 January 2022 – When, half a year ago, the first secretary of the Cuban Communist Party said in response to the popular demonstrations against the dictatorship, that the combat order had been given, he was not uttering his worst phrase. No. The worst thing was when he said “They have to go over our dead bodies if they want to confront the Revolution! We are ready for anything, and we will be in the streets fighting!”

People of goodwill may not have imagined that the threat of being willing to do anything would materialize in the disproportionate prison sentences to which more than 200 protesters have been subjected to date.

The disproportion happens, first, through the legal definition of the acts, which converted what should have been classified, at most, as “public disorder” into crimes punishable with greater severity, such as sedition, attack, contempt, instigation to commit a crime and other atrocities. The disproportion also happens because of ignoring the discontent of the people before a State that abuses its prerogatives; the danger in which citizens feel themselves due to the inability of their leaders to guarantee their survival, and, above all, citizens’ belief that they are protected by a right: the right to protest.

It gives the impression that the judges and prosecutors who have tried these protesters have omitted what the Penal Code itself establishes in its Chapter III to define the “exemptions of criminal responsibility,” among them “legitimate defense” is mentioned, as it “state of necessity” and the “exercise of a right.” continue reading

Perhaps they should be reminded of what Magistrate Manuel Urrutia Lleó did on March 14, 1957 when Case 67 was initiated against the young people from Santiago who, on 30 November 1956, took the city of Santiago de Cuba by force of arms to support Fidel Castro’s landing (which ultimately took place on December 2 of that year).

On that occasion, Urrutia said that the young people could not be convicted, because what they had done was protected by the Constitution of 1940, which said that the people had the right to rebel against a dictatorial government. Specifically: “In view of the usurpation and illegal retention of power by Batista and his followers, the defendants acted in accordance with their constitutional rights.”

The 150 accused were not “protesters” but combatants. Led by Frank País and wearing the olive-green uniform, they took to the streets wearing an armband with the flag of the July 26 Movement. Armed as they were, they attacked the Maritime Police station and another police station in the city center.

In the same case, there were 22 expedition members from the yacht Granma, who confessed to having landed in Cuba under the direction of Fidel Castro, to fight to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and transform the economic, political and social order of the country.

On May 8, 1957, in the eleventh session of the Santiago de Cuba Emergency Court for Case 67 of 1956, the Prosecutor Francisco Mendieta Hechevarría stated that the confession of the accused “constitutes proof that they have acted out of love for the country and to give it a government that makes it happy and free from the anguish that it is experiencing.” A week later, Frank País, along with other detainees, left Boniato prison acquitted for lack of evidence.

There is the right to wonder if in today’s Cuba there are no longer judges and prosecutors like those. And also, with the forgiveness of those who are offended by the comparison: is Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara more dangerous today than Frank País was at the time?

All the historical data mentioned in this text have been taken from Lucharemos Hasta el Final (We Shall Fight to the End), 1957, a volume edited by the Office of Historical Affairs of the Council of State of Cuba.

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Roberto Batista, Author of a Book that Vindicates the Memory of His Father Fulgencio, Dies in Madrid

Roberto Batista is the author of the book ‘Son of Batista’ (Verbum). (Courtesy)

14ymedio, Yaiza Santos, Madrid, 12 January 2022 — Roberto Batista Fernández will not be able to fulfill his desire to return to a democratic Cuba, where human rights are respected and there is a Constitution based on the division of powers. The lawyer, the son of Fulgencio Batista and his second wife, Marta Fernández, died this Wednesday in Madrid at the age of 74 as a result of pancreatic cancer.

“They cannot operate on the tumor at the moment. While waiting they will administer chemo and in three months there will be a revaluation,” he had written to his friends in September, on the eve of the presentation of Hijo de Batista (Son of Batista) at the Madrid Book Fair, leaving, at the same time, a halo of good humor: “I’m in good spirits.”

This newspaper witnessed his spirit when it interviewed him on the occasion of the publication of his memoirs, which caused no little controversy. In them, he reported on the mixed feelings towards his father, who staged a coup in Cuba in 1952 and was in power until he was overthrown by the Castro Revolution on January 1, 1959. continue reading

‘Bobby’, as Roberto insisted on being called, described Fulgencio Batista as an extraordinary father who breached the constitutional mandate and that mistake “took a heavy toll,” but even worse was releasing Fidel Castro from jail in 1955, acquitting him, months after the assault on the Moncada Barracks.

Born in New York, Roberto Batista returned to that same city at the age of 11, together with his younger brother Carlos Manuel, two days before los barbudos [the bearded ones] entered Havana, and he practiced there for many years as a lawyer.

In his book, he vividly describes the shock of exile and of having that surname. That experience was for him, he repeated insistently, “a wound that never healed and will remain there until I die.”

There will be a wake for him this Thursday from 7:45 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. in the funeral home of the San Isidro Cemetery in Madrid. He will be buried there, in the family pantheon, where the remains of his parents and his brother Carlos Manuel lie.
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Donating Cell Phone Minutes, a Simple Way to Support Change in Cuba

Wright and Miralles, partners in life, not just in art, told Efe that the purpose of this project is to support the social protest and help people on the Island. (EFE/Wright/Miralles)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Miami, 11 January 2022 — Cuban-American artists Antonia Wright and Rubén Miralles have volunteered to support a plan that will keep members of the Cuban opposition connected so they may coordinate amongst themselves and inform on events on the Island through something as simple as donations to pay for cell phone minutes.

Wright and Miralles, known for their art in public spaces, have transformed two benches at strategically located bus stops in Miami-Dade county with text that alludes to political prisoners on the Island, which number more than 500 after the July 11th protests, and “Patria y Vida” [Homeland and Life], the anthem of those demanding political change in Cuba.

In addition, those benches, one located in the center of Miami and another in Hialeah, a city where the majority of the population is Cuban, urge people to send a text message with the word “Cuba” to 56512, through which donations of any amount can be made to “recharge” mobile phones of people on the Island.

“There are still more than 500 Cubans detained. Send mobile minutes to help Cubans organize,” the bench reads, along with the number to be texted, a Cuban flag and “#patriayvida.” continue reading

Wright and Miralles, who are partners in life, not just in art, told Efe that the purpose of this project is to support the social protest and help people on the Island.

Donations will be distributed by Cuba Decide, which defends the right of Cubans to decide which political system they want, because, according to the artists, they can ensure these funds “directly reach those who need them,” without Cuban government intervention.

Rosa María Payá, Cuba Decide’s leader, told Efe that being connected amongst themselves and with the world is fundamental for opposition members and activists on the Island.

“When Cubans are connected, mobilization is much more effective,” emphasized Payá, to signal the important role cell phones played on July 11th, the largest protests on the Island since 1959.

It is also important so they can make known the results of repression unleashed by the Government since then, the situation of political prisoners, and the trials to which those that participated in the protests are subjected, she added.

Cuba Decide has launched a campaign targeting Cuban-American artists and small business owners to volunteer and raise funds to help the cause of freedom in Cuba.

“We appreciate all the friends for their help in elevating the voices of those who have no voice, supporting our movement until we achieve freedom and democracy in Cuba,” adds Cuba Decide on its Instagram account.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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A Ration Store Clerk in Havana Posts Signs So People Will Stop Asking Her if There is Coffee

A ration store (bodega) located on e Street between 23rd and 21st in Havana’s El Vedado district with a sign that says “No coffee has come in.” (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 11 January 2022 — “No coffee has come in and no coffee has come in.” The clerk at the ration store on E Street between 23rd and 21st, in Havana’s El Vedado district, has chosen to put up two large signs with these words, as she is tired of saying it over and over again to customers who come in asking about the product, while she has no idea when there will be coffee.

“I put up the signs so that people would be warned,” she says with annoyance, while noting that at the beginning of the year the official press published that the distribution of coffee through the ration book corresponding to January was imminent. “It is not only coffee, there is no compote or milk for children, there are minors who have not had milk since last month,” she adds bluntly.

In another ration store in the same neighborhood, at 27th and A, the picture is the same. “There is no coffee here either,” said the clerk.

Where the product does appear is on the black market, but only now and then. A few blocks from E Street, at the agro-market on 19th and B, this newspaper was able to verify that an informal vendor was offering each package, exactly the same one that is distributed in the family ration basket, at 50 pesos. But residents of the area say that it is not always available in the informal market.

The disappearance of ration-book coffee, and its disappearance in stores that take Cuban pesos or only foreign currency, has coincided with a significant rise in the price of the package that emigrants abroad buy for their families on the island. continue reading

Mayra, a resident of Centro Habana, says in a smiling tone that “her mind cannot function without a sip of coffee.” A few days ago, she was forced to ask her daughter, an emigrant in Spain, to buy her a package from one of the online stores.

Her daughter “flatly” refused, she says, because “a 250-gram package of Cubita or any other brand costs more than $20 on these sites.” For example, one of the stores that offers its merchandise on the Cuballama page, managed from Miami, is selling 250 grams (half a pound) of the El Arriero brand for $25.

“Luckily a friend from the neighborhood, who despite living alone in his house has five more relatives who are now living in the United States still listed on his ration book, sold me the six packages that he received from the bodega last month,” explains Sergio, a resident of Cerro. “Thanks to that I still have coffee. He sells me each packet for 40 pesos because otherwise I would have to give up to 60 pesos for one on the black market.”

Brewed coffee is also absent in private coffee shops. “I go all over El Vedado and Central Havana looking for a place to have a snack and, incidentally, have a little cup of coffee and they aren’t selling it anywhere,” says Madelaine, a housewife who decided to go out this Tuesday to do some shopping in the agro-markets. “Even in the cafés they put the price on the board, but all the shop assistants tell me the same thing: ’We don’t have coffee’.”

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The Cuban Prosecutor’s Office Says that Otero Alcántara is a ‘Social Danger and Must Remain in Prison’

The artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. (EFE / Archive)

14ymedio, Havana, 11 January 2022 — The Prosecutor’s Office has rejected the request for a change in the precautionary measures for the artist and member of the San Isidro Movement (MSI) Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, considering that he is a “social danger.” In a statement released this Monday through Facebook, the group reports that the activist’s lawyer has received the notification denying him the provisional release requested almost a month ago and indicating that he must remain imprisoned until the date of his trial.

“This fact does not surprise anyone because it has already occurred historically when they have tried human rights defenders in total arbitrariness. And more recently they continue to do so in the ’performative’ and cruel trials in which the system has sentenced hundreds of Cuban citizens just for exercising on July 11th (11J) their constitutional rights in the public spaces that belong to them,” affirms the San Isidro Movement.

According to the group, the artist is currently “in a total state of vulnerability, sick and every day more psychologically damaged. The damages that the Cuban government has caused him are already irreversible.”

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara has been in the Guanajay prison, Artemisa, since the July 11 protests. The artist was accused of public disorder, instigation to commit a crime and contempt when, in April 2021, he attended a birthday party in which the residents of the neighborhood where he resides ended up singing Patria y Vida. Although he was at liberty awaiting trial, he was detained during the summer protests when he was sent to prison.

In addition, in 2019 he was also accused of “outrage against national symbols” for a performance with a Cuban flag, although the case was dismissed in 2020.

“It is regrettable that the arbitrariness to which Luis Manuel is being subjected continue reading

continues. The cruelty towards him continues by the agents of the Cuban state. Luis is an artist, a human being who has not harmed anyone, he has only made use of his right to freedom of expression to raise your voice for all of us,” adds the message published yesterday by the MSI.

The post adds that the artist is relieved since he knows that Esteban Rodríguez is out of jail despite the forced exile to which he is subjected, but that “his concern for Maykel [Castillo Osorbo] increases with each passing day, mainly because he also is sick in prison.”

The repression that the State has exercised since 2018 against Otero Alcántara began to worsen in November 2020, when he began a hunger and thirst strike together with several activists to demand the release of rapper Denis Solís. The action ended with the the police, on November 26, storming the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement in Old Havana, where the members of the group were entrenched, and the arrest of the 14 activists who were inside the building.

This event prompted the protest of a group of artists and intellectuals on November 27 at the entrance of the Ministry of Culture to ask for solutions from the authorities of the sector. Two months later, the events led to a new dispute in which officials ended up coming to blows against the protesters.

At the end of April, Otero Alcántara once again declared a hunger and thirst strike to demand an end to the police siege of his home. State Security entered his home at dawn and transferred him to the Calixto García Hospital, where he remained for a month controlled by the security forces without explanations.

The artist was considered one of the 100 most influential people of the year by Time magazine.

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July 11th Protesters in Artemisa, Cuba Receive Sentences of Up to 12 Years in Prison

Eddy Gutiérrez Alonso was sentenced to 8 years in jail. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 9 January 2022 — For the crimes of public disorder, contempt, assault, and insulting national symbols, 13 protesters who participated in the peaceful protests on July 11th (11J) in the municipality of Artemisa, were sentenced on Friday; sentences ranged from 4 years of ’limited liberty’ to 12 years in prison.

The trial was held at the end of November in the courtroom of the People’s Provincial Tribunal of Artemisa, the province where the first popular protests occurred, in the municipality of San Antonio de los Baños. During the trial, family members denounced the fabrication of crimes and the use of false witnesses, used by the prosecutor to seek longer sentences.

Luis Giraldo Martínez Sierra (27 years old) received the longest sentence, 12 years in prison, followed by Yeremin Salcine Jane (31 years old), with a 10-year sentence. Victor Alejandro Painceira Rodríguez (26 years old) was sentenced to 7 years and José Alberto Pio Torres (28 years old), Iván Hernández Troya (25 years old) and Yoslen Domínguez Víctores (33 years old) were all sentenced to 6 years.

Javier González Fernández (34 years old) and Alexander Díaz Rodríguez (41 years old) will have to spend 4 and 5 years in prison, respectively, while Eduard Bryan Luperon Vega (21 years old) and Yurien Rodríguez Ramos (42 years old) were sentenced to 4 years of forced labor without internment.

For his part, Yoselin Hernández Rodríguez (39 years old) faces a sentence of 5 years of ’limited liberty’, while Leandro David Morales Ricondo (23 years old) faces a 4-year sentence of the same. continue reading

In the case of young Eddy Gutiérrez Alonso (24 years old), the sentence was 8 years behind bars. “I was crying all night. For going out to protest he must spend 8 years in prison,” his girlfriend, Rachel, became indignant during the conversation on Friday, after learning of the tribunal’s decision. “I’m very depressed with all of this, I still have not processed the sentence.”

The document which describes the sentences, to which we had access, was issued on December 27, 2021, but the political prisoner’s family members and defense attorneys received it on Friday. It is signed by the judges of the Municipal Tribunal of Artemisa, Yurisander Diéguez Méndez, Ernesto Amaro Hernández and Leonel Llerena Díaz. Furthermore, it should be stated that all of those tried were given joint penalties for various crimes.

Of all those accused, it is said that “they walked in the middle of the public road, obstructing all traffic,” on several municipal streets in Artemisa. As they walked, “they raised and agitated their hands, so people would follow them,” while also “screaming ’police dickheads’, ’police motherfuckers’, and Díaz-Canel motherfucker’,” this last phrase directed at President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, “which exacerbated the spirits of those present and contributed to other people joining.”

Among the accusations against Luis Giraldo Martínez Sierra, the tribunal said it took into consideration his decision to “snatch from a government official” a Cuban flag, “which deserves respect for all it represents and the implicit honor it carries and in lashing out against the said symbol, demonstrated total irreverence.” The “facts” are described as “severe” because he also “decided to snatch the national symbol from the hands of a woman, physically smaller than him, shows a level of aggression on the part of the accused.”

With regard to Yeremin Salcine Jane, the judges considered “his active role in citizen disorder,” that he “uttered demeaning phrases against government officials,” in addition to “assaulting agents who were there to fulfill a mission, for which he hit and intimidated one truck driver so drivers would abandon their attempt to drive on, acts which resulted in marked violence and aggression in the public roadway.”

Of Eddy Gutiérrez Alonso, they stated that “in addition to disturbing the peace and offending government officials, he assaulted agents who were trying to contain the crowd’s illegitimate advance, for which he hit, threw a jar and intimidated the driver,” of a military truck, “so he would be unable to continue driving.”

Regarding the truck, the document also mentions the vehicle is a HOWO, “olive green, with ’PNR’ on its front doors, referring to the National Revolutionary Police, and belongs to the Military Unit 5274 Brigade of Prevention Troops of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Havana.”

Some of the accused, “lay on the ground to prevent the truck from advancing,” described the sentencing document. “Later, they stood in front” of the vehicle and “with their hands, lashed out against the vehicle and its occupants, striking the front of the vehicle, Eddy joined in, forcefully striking the passenger side door of the car several times with a closed fist and damaging it.”

The document continues, while the truck was turning a corner onto another street, Eddy “grabbed a plastic bottle from the floor and threw it into the cab,” in the direction of the driver, “without injuring him.”

In another part of the country, Matanzas province, another trial resulted in six-year jail sentences for Tania Echevarría, Leylandis Puentes Vargas, and Franciso Rangel Manzana for protesting on 11J in the municipality of Colón, reported Radio Televisión Martí this Saturday.

Manzano and Puentes, members of the Pedro Luis Boitel Party for Democracy, have been in prison since July 11th.

The families of the 13 people sentenced in Artemisa, as well as those of the opponents in Colón, have said they will appeal the sentences imposed on the political prisoners.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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The Cult of Fidel Castro Grows to Drown the Echoes of the Protests in Cuba

Monument to Fidel Castro inaugurated in La Parra, Cienfuegos. (Granma)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, Panama, 10 January 2022 — A sculpture in the shape of a hand that comes out of the ground, a full-body relief, a pilgrimage with his photo and the reissue of a book with interviews are part of the new wave of a cult of personality that has Fidel Castro at its center. As the regime feels itself up against the ropes more and more, it raises the ghost of a man that Cubans have been questioning and forgetting at rapid pace in the last five years.

“Who is that, mamá?” her five-year-old daughter asked a friend who barely turns on the official television but who, in a slip, tuned into the newscast when Castro’s bearded and aged face appeared during a speech at the opening of this century. Rejection, indifference and forgetfulness spread among the younger generations relative to those who aspired to fuse his figure with the concept of nation.

This distancing has been viewed with concern by the current leaders, who, in the absence of any results to show, only have left to elevate Castro to a mystical dimension. The man who promoted the destruction of religious altars, fueled the stigma against scapulars, and fueled the rejection of baptism is now treated by his sycophants as a prop saint who is taken out for a walk in political processions. continue reading

The Cuban system has no ideology left, and any vestige of social justice has long since evaporated. The current faces of power lack charisma and some are true examples of the opposite, such as the mediocre Miguel Díaz-Canel, the silent Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja and the tedious Bruno Rodríguez. With that squad of gray people there is no way to ignite any spark in the hearts of the people.

So the official propagandists have launched a crusade: reverse popular discontent and drown out the echoes of the July 11 protests by inaugurating monuments in memory of Fidel Castro or centers where his shoes are exhibited, and repeating his name in every public discourse. They have even attributed to him the initial impetus for the creation of vaccines against covid-19.

They repeat the script that once worked for them.

However, times differ. Castro can no longer instill terror, a skill which many believed to be the underpinning of the primary ‘gift’ of his leadership. It was not his long hours in front of the microphone — in which he ended up speechifying and contradicting himself; nor was it his body shape — taller than the average Cuban; much less his supposed wisdom — a myth created from which he spoke boldly of everything and had groups of advisers who prepared extensive summaries. No, Castro’s influence over millions of people on this Island rested on fear.

People feared that one morning he would wake up and dictate a measure to eradicate a type of market, confiscate large tracts of land or launch an offensive that would destroy the last vestiges of private entrepreneurship. Inside their homes people trembled because a phrase said in the wrong place could lead a son or a mother to a prison cell, where the “revolutionary justice” that Castro bestowed without mercy would end up destroying their lives. The fear was so great that countless nicknames were invented so as not to say his name and even the pronoun “He” was reserved for him in conversations, to relieve the panic of pronouncing his eleven letters.

No, that fear does not suddenly return at banners and sculptures that recall it. That fear was left in the past and the current paroxysm that the cult of personality around Fidel Castro has reached is causing mockery and boredom. His political heirs are creating a network of monuments, which not only contradicts the last will of their late leader, but is already in the crosshairs of social anger.

The people love to bring down the altars to those who believed themselves worthy of being on them.

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Cuba Exceeds 1,000 Covid Cases and Changes the Isolation Protocols

Cuba currently has 3,803 confirmed active covid-19 cases. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 6 January 2022 — With 1,429 new positive cases for covid-19 reported this Thursday, Cuba exceeded one thousand infections registered in one day, a figure that the Ministry of Public Health had not reported since last October 25 when it reported 1,210 patients.

With the increase in cases — this Thursday there were 462 more than yesterday — the authorities, without giving many details, have outlined what would be a new protocol for the locally-related infected that involves the voluntary isolation of the sick at home.

“The protocols establish that all those who are vaccinated, the symptoms are generally almost none and the home confinement system must be strengthened,” Prime Minister Manuel Marrero said on Tuesday at a meeting where the behavior of the pandemic was analyzed. “We cannot count on the school buildings, the universities, the tourist facilities that we used to isolate at other times.”

“We must appeal for a responsible isolation in the homes and that each person knows how to take care of themselves in order to take care of their family and others,” added Marreño, who also insisted on maintaining other measures such as the use of a mask and avoiding crowds of people, but yes: “keeping the economy active” is a priority. continue reading

The provinces that reported the most cases this Thursday, according to health authorities, are Pinar del Río (251), Matanzas (166) and Camagüey (163). However, in others such as Havana, which last week registered fewer than 100 daily, an increase is already being seen in health centers.

“La Covadonga (Salvador Allende hospital in Havana) is already full with covid patients and they dedicated that hospital only for patients with the disease,” a medical source in the capital told 14ymedio.

Until December 31, the suspects were given an antigen test and were admitted, but given the increase in patients, says the same source, “isolation centers will not be enabled as in previous months and the authorities have opted for admission In the home”.

Faced with this new government policy, the health worker warned that “they are not doing PCR and the antigen tests are limited, they are only for pregnant women and children under 2 years of age. The established thing is to do tests through biosensors and in this case the results take three or four days and sometimes you don’t even get the results.”

The increase in daily and active cases is a response to the presence of the omicron variant in Cuba, where experts speak of the beginning of “a new wave of infections” with the increase in the incidence of the disease, but not of fatality.

However, president Miguel Díaz-Canel, during the meeting last Tuesday, emphasized that it will not act as in past months. “Now we must give importance to the home quarantine, but it has to be an adequate, precise, deep, efficient.”

Cuba currently has 3,803 confirmed active cases. Since the pandemic began, 970,567 patients with the disease have been diagnosed and 8,325 people have died, one of them in the last day.

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El Salvador Reaffirms its Support for the Two Cuban Reporters Stranded in the Country

Esteban Rodríguez and Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho offered statements to the press as they left the San Salvador airport. (Twitter / @ R_Cucalon)

14ymedio, Havana, 7 January 2021 — “We are going to support them to do whatever they want to do,” says the Foreign Minister of El Salvador Alexandra Hill in relation to independent journalists Esteban Rodríguez and Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho, who were admitted to the Central American country last Wednesday after being forced to leave Cuba.

The position of the Government of El Salvador towards the reporters occurred after it was learned that President Nayib Bukele took an interest in them and gave the indication that they be allowed to enter El Salvador, Hill told the Nuevo Herald on Friday .

“We are doing everything humanly and institutionally possible to welcome them, to give them all the alternative solutions,” explained the diplomat. The diplomat added that staying in her country was an alternative and that the journalists “cannot and do not want to return to Cuba.”

“Anyone exiled from their own country is abominable to us and is an example of what the Cuban regime is doing with its own citizens.” continue reading

In the few hours that they have spent in El Salvador, they received a medical check-up and have had conversations with the Foreign Ministry.

At dawn on January 4, Valdés and Rodríguez, reporters for the independent newspaper ADN Cuba and members of the San Isidro Movement, boarded a Copa flight in Havana that made a stopover in Panama City. Their final destination was Nicaragua, but at the Panamanian airport, they were informed that they would not be allowed to enter Managua.

The air route also had a stopover in El Salvador before continuing to Nicaragua. At the terminal in the Salvadoran capital, more than 24 hours passed before the authorities decided to admit them “while they were being given humanitarian assistance and their immigration situation was resolved.”

Esteban Rodríguez had spent eight months in prison since, on April 30, 2021, he tried, along with other protesters, to approach the house of artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, who was on a hunger strike. When the police tried to block them, the group started a sit-in to protest against what they considered a limitation of their right to free movement, but they were arrested.

Cuban authorities took Rodríguez to the Havana airport early Tuesday morning directly from prison. Valdés said that he was also taken to the same terminal, where they were both told that they were expelled and that they could never return to Cuba.

The journalists reported that they were forced to make the decision to leave their country and that their intention was to stay in Nicaragua for a few days before ending up at the place where many Cubans arrive “fleeing the terror perpetuated by a totalitarian system.”

Upon leaving the Salvadoran airport, Valdés wrote on his Twitter account along with a photo that recorded the moment: “This was the image where a nightmare created by a system lacking ethical and civic principles like the Cuban regime ended. Thanks to President Nayib Bukele for his solidarity at a time when we were not seeing any light. Thanks to the Salvadoran people. Thank you.”

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Dozens of Cubans Demand a Ticket to Nicaragua in Front of the Conviasa Office in Havana

A group of Cubans this Thursday in front of the Conviasa office in the Miramar Business Center in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 6 January 2022 – “We want a flight date,” dozens of Cubans shouted at the top of their lungs as they gathered this Thursday morning in front of the office of the Venezuelan airline Conviasa in Havana, which is in charge of selling flights between Havana and Managua.

As the days go by, the desperation of Cubans to find a ticket and be able to fly to Nicaragua grows. “Today we almost broke the windows of this place,” says one of the customers who, filled with resentment, spent the afternoon in front of the office located in the Miramar Business Center. The man in his 30s, along with other people, continued to sit outside the building.

“Here you have to come every day, sir, they are going to add flights and more flights,” says another woman sitting a few meters away, very hopeful that she will soon fly to Managua.

“We are not selling tickets. We have reported that sales are suspended for the moment, it is what we have reported all the time,” said an airline employee on Thursday, adding that at the moment they do not know when the tickets will go on sale again. She assumes, she said, that “until the reprogramming progresses,” although she also commented that company authorities in Caracas, Venezuela, were meeting to “see what solution they could come up with for the problem.” continue reading

On December 6, in the same commercial office, Conviasa employees specified that starting on January 1 they would begin to sell tickets for the Havana-Managua-Havana route normally. Then they detailed that prices ranged from $500 to $1,000 in freely convertible currency (MLC).

The frequencies were scheduled for Wednesdays and Saturdays, with the first flight leaving on December 15. In the first trips they were accommodating “people who had already bought the ticket” before flights were suspended due to the pandemic, said an employee. “In case of no-show, tickets will be sold to those in the normal line.”

Customers, looking forward to January 1 and to better organize themselves have, since then, began signing up for waiting lists started by Conviasa staff in mid-December.

Representatives of the airline reported that at the moment the website is not selling tickets from Havana and that they will only be able to make the connection through Panama City-Managua-Panama City. This newspaper was able to verify that there are flights available between these two cities on Mondays and Saturdays in February for a cost of 750 dollars which includes a 10 kilo carry-on and a hold luggage weighing 23 kilos.

“We come every day and this here remains hot,” says another customer who was staying in in front of Conviasa Thursday afternoon. “And because of what happened today they even put agents in plain clothes to take care of this [the office]”, but that will not prevent him from continuing to search for information and from being able to buy his ticket, he assures.

Since, on November 23, the Nicaraguan government established a free visa for Cubans , getting a ticket to Managua has been the main concern of many who see, in the Central American country, the escape route in the midst of the severe political crisis and economic activity that crosses the Island and that has deepened in the last two years.

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Cuba Almost Doubled its Chicken Imports from the US in 2021

Chicken sales from the US to Cuba are growing. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 8 January 2021 — In the absence of domestic pork and despite the “tightening of the blockade” that the Government invokes from time to time, Cuba almost doubled its chicken imports from the United States in 2021.

Between January and November of last year the country bought 252.8 million dollars worth of American chicken meat, according to data from the Department of Agriculture released by Washington and shared this Friday by Cuban economist Pedro Monreal.

The value of US chicken imports in that 11-month period is 76% higher than the total purchases for the entire previous year, which reached 143.7 million dollars. Chicken was once again the highest volume food that the US sells to Havana with 276,774 tons as of November.

A record was set in April when more than $30 million worth of chicken was bought. September was the month with the lowest imports (almost $17.6 million worth), and there was a rebound in November, with more than $25 million in sales. Most likely, the data for December, which will be announced later, are also very high since, given the shortage of pork for the Christmas holidays, the Government invited the population to consume chicken. Once the December sales are included, everything indicates that Cuba will have bought almost twice as much chicken from the US in 2021 than it did in 2020. continue reading

In addition, there was a slight increase in the value of the price per kilo from 0.93 US cents in October to 0.94 a month later. However, the rise in the price of this product had been increasing since months earlier. In August a kilo was going for 0.86 cents and by September it was already 0.89. Chicken is sold in state stores, where it is scarce, for 90 pesos for a 2-kilo bag and, in the informal market, it goes for 350 pesos for the same amount.

“Poultry meat is, by a considerable margin, the number one food imported by Cuba, and it is a product for which there is very little supply capacity of domestic origin,” Monreal wrote at the end of the year, based on recent statistics from the Government of the Island that indicated an annual expenditure of 319.2 million dollars in imports of this meat, which comes from the United States and Brazil.

At the end of October, US food exports to Cuba had doubled in the last year and increased by six-fold in the last two years. Purchases amounted to 22,271,632 dollars, 91% more than in the same month of 2020, when the amount amounted to 11,607,415 dollars, and 501% more than in October 2019, when the amount was 3,704,369 dollars.

The data, extracted from the advance of a report by the Economic and Commercial Council, revealed that the products most bought by the Island from its northern neighbor continue to be chicken (frozen hindquarters, breast and thighs), calcium phosphate, rice and fruit.

Between 2001 and 2020, Washington sent 2.48 million tons of chicken meat worth 2,088 million dollars to Havana.

According to a report by the US International Trade Commission published in April 2016, the country is among the top ten suppliers of food products to Cuba thanks to the 2000 rule that allows it to carry out direct commercial imports of some foods and agricultural inputs, as long as they are paid for in advance and in cash, due to the prohibition of granting credit to the Island in accordance with the embargo laws.

Despite this, chicken, one of the most purchased foods at the national level, still does not reach the population regularly and sufficiently, and people are forced to spend hours in lines to be able to stock up on this product. In addition, in the last two years, chicken has also become one of the most sought after foods in markets where pork appears less and less and at stratospheric prices.

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A Wall Threatens to Collapse a Few Yards from Havana’s Historic Cemetery

The deteriorated sidewalk blocking her passage left a woman resigned to waiting for the traffic to slow down to cross the street. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 8 January 2022 — The collapses and deteriorated houses are not only a thing in Old Havana; just two wooden supports support the weight of a wall in poor condition on Zapata Street that borders the Colón Cemetery, in El Vedado. Passersby constantly pass through the area and this Saturday, an old woman — cane in hand — was walking a few inches from the dangerous wall.

“Grandma, stay away from there, it could fall at any moment,” a young man advised the lady, but the wall was not the only problem. The deteriorated sidewalk blocked the passage of the woman who ended up resigned to waiting for the traffic to slow down to cross the street.

Zapata is not just any avenue. A few yards further on it approaches the Plaza de la Revolución and is a frequent route for official vehicles. Now, from the closed windows of their air-conditioned cars, the Cuban leaders will see the wooden shoring and some walkers risking their lives near the deteriorated wall.

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