14ymedio

The New Escape Route for Cubans is Called ‘Nicaragua’

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, 27 November 2021 — One of my first memories dates from 1980, when I was not yet five. In the Havana tenements where I lived the shouts of several neighbors captured my attention and I looked out into the hallway. A large group was shouting insults at a young man who had decided to emigrate through the port of Mariel. Forever engraved in my memory is that explosion of curse words and livid faces.

Now we are experiencing another stampede, but unlike those years, when the Soviet bear sent substantial resources to Cuba, the official pickets don’t have eggs to throw against the doors of those who want to escape the country, nor paint with which to smear their walls with slogans. Instead, the authorities seem eager for the social pressure cooker to be alleviated and new emigres to be added to the list of those who send remittances to the island.

On this occasion, instead of opting to open a pier for all those who would like to come to look for their family or lifting the closure of the borders so that thousands of precarious rafts could cross the Straits of Florida, as happened in 1994, officialdom has come up with a formula that kills many birds with one stone. Thanks to the complicity of the political ally Daniel Ortega, it was announced this week that Cubans do not need a visa to enter Nicaragua.

The Central American country thus becomes the hope of all those who can no longer endure the material hardships and the lack of freedom. But Managua is not the final destination, just a first step to continue reading

embark on the route to the southern border of the United States. The Plaza of the Revolution is well aware of these expectations and estimates that in a few months thousands of its citizens will crowd those border points demanding to enter.

With the move it has just made, the Cuban regime ensures Joe Biden will very soon have a headache, along with a great internal discussion due to the considerable increase in the number of migrants coming from this island. While, by the way, freeing the Island from the most dissatisfied and rebellious, those who might star in the next social explosion like the one that occurred on July 11.

But mass departures are a double-edged sword. The US Administration may see the matter very differently from what Havana projects, and the escape of thousands of Cubans would also have many effects on an already aging society. If, over the next few months, this Island loses a part of its young people, its professionals and those with enough self-esteem to believe that they can prosper in a competitive environment, not only will a democratic change be delayed, but it will also postpone the economic recovery and development of the entire country.

Toying with migratory alchemy can also bring other bitter surprises for Castroism.

____________

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.

Damas Street in San Isidro Street, a Year After the Violent Eviction of Otero Alcantara

Calle Damas 955, in San Isidro, home of the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, as of today. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 26 November 2021 — A padlock permanently closes the two wooden panels of the 955 Damas Street door in Old Havana, which in the past was almost always open. According to many in the neighborhood, at the home of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and headquarters of the San Isidro Movement (MSI), “they always welcomed anyone.” Now, his figure is no longer visible in the doorway or leaning out the window as before. Since the protests of July 11, the artist has been held in a high security prison.

A year has passed since the violent eviction carried out by State Security to remove the group of hunger strikers and their companions from the property, who were demanding the freedom of rapper Denis Solís, and the outlook is now quite different.

This Thursday, November 25, Damas Street was passable, not like a year ago when police surveillance prevented it. From a staircase, music is heard at full volume, a Karol G song coming from the speakers. On the corner, a couple of boys fix a car, another cleans the roof of his pedicab while a young man charges his electric motorcycle.

“The block has been returning to normal,” says a neighbor. “I remember that in those days this was hell, even for us who lived here, they had us under control. The police and the officers had everyone scared, with threats, so that no one would get near Luis Manuel. But they could never screw up the relationship that that boy had with everyone. Here we adore him. He always said that what was his, belonged to everyone.”

The neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous, insistently compliments Otero Alcántara’s generosity. “It was tremendous, the neighbors felt that this was also their home. They passed by, talked, even took food
from the refrigerator if they needed it and ’Luisma’ said not to ask for permission.” continue reading

Solidarity, he argues, went both ways. “His neighbor also gave him food made almost daily. If he made beans, he would bring him some, as if they were family. He made himself known as he is and I tell you something: it is impossible not to love him.”

The neighbor relates that State Security managed to terrorize the area. Long before — and after – -the eviction on November 26, the artist lived harassed and persecuted by the authorities. Upon leaving the Manuel Fajardo Hospital where he was taken that night after several days on a hunger and thirst strike, he found his home besieged by police patrols and State Security officers, who from then on exercised 24-hour a day surveillance.

The government’s violent action against the MSI headquarters unleashed, the following day, an unprecedented protest by citizens, artists and intellectuals at the doors of the Ministry of Culture demanding that freedom of expression and the right to have rights be respected. Where will we meet? What do we do? Where are we going? Were the questions that ran through the WhatsApp groups that was immediately created to coordinate a meeting on November 27.

Faced with the outrage and violence that many had seen on their cell phone screens, the reaction was to take to the streets, that place that in Cuba is reserved only for “revolutionaries”, according to President Miguel Díaz-Canel himself said during the day of protests on July 11, when Otero Alcántara ended up in prison again, where he has not yet left.

“When Luis Manuel was there, we felt safe, his brave attitude was contagious.” That is why, he says, on April 4 “the whole block” came out to sing Patria y Vida and shout “Díaz-Canel singao [motherficker]” in “the face of the Police” and helped prevent the arrest of Maykel Castillo Osorbo.

Now, “with him in prison, everything is different, there is no one who defends us from the abuses of the Police and it’s quiet here,” he laments.

Another neighbor on the block says that Otero Alcántara went to live with an aunt in El Cerro and almost did not return to Damas Street when he left Calixto García Hospital, where he was in custody for a month after another hunger strike he carried out.

“He just came to get some things and left quickly, because here there was the fixed guard of the State Security and the police patrol cars on the corner,” says the woman. “It is very hard what that boy has lived through, the only thing he does is art.”

A relative of the artist who spoke with 14ymedio remembers that the last time he visited him in prison, Otero Alcántara told him: “Living here has taught me that nothing belongs to anyone, if you want to watch a movie on television and the one who’s bigger and stronger wants to watch the ballgame, that’s what you have to watch.”

Although the artist was laughing as he said it, the relative did not have the courage to answer what he was thinking: “It is 955 Damas Street that is your house, Luis Manuel, not this dungeon where they have put you.”

____________

This Year’s Sugar Harvest Announced Even Worse Than Last Year’s and Cuba Will Have to Import Sugar

The authorities allege delays in repairing the machinery of the sugar mills and lack of resources to start this year’s harvest. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 24 November 2021 — The Azcuba State monopoly itself has filled its latest statements with caution when announcing the start of this year’s sugar harvest on the island: no good news is in sight for the sector.

“The most important thing is to talk with the sugar workers about the difficult conditions in which the country will carry out this harvest,” warned Jorge Luis Tapia Fonseca, deputy prime minister, during a meeting with officials and producers from Matanzas.

An industry expert, who gave spoke anonymously to Reuters, put it bluntly: “The industry has more or less collapsed. The situation is worse this year than it was in the past and it will take time to reverse it.”

The British news agency reported this Wednesday that the Cuban Government transformed its 56 plants into separate companies that will include local plantations and that they will be able to set wages and continue reading

cane prices as well as maintain control of 80% of their export earnings.

“For the workers of the recently created agro-industrial sugar companies, it was not easy at all to face the period of repairs, both of the mill and the agricultural machinery, under the pressure of enormous limitations of spare parts, supplies and other material resources, and in addition, the scourge of covid-19 in the most critical months of the pandemic,” Azcuba explained in a note on Tuesday .

The note informs that the harvest, which normally starts in November, will begin late, on December 5, at the 14 de Julio station in Cienfuegos.

Tapia Fonseca insisted on a “critical analysis” and “we have to pay more to those who produce and review the workforce of non-direct workers in each group.” He spoke of the need to evaluate sowing “by the degree of germination of the crops and not for the fulfillment of the plan of hectares,” and requested “a diversification of the agricultural productions in all the productive forms.”

For his part, Jorge Santana Hernández, general director of the agroindustrial sugar company Mario Muñoz, from the municipality of Los Arabos, in Matanzas, confessed that they have “a 6% delay” in repairing machinery, but said they hope to start production on December 20.

Last year’s harvest was a real catastrophe . With just 816,000 tons of sugar, 68% of the 1.2 million planned, the Island had the worst figure since 1908.

According to official figures, last year Cuba was only able to count on 416,000 tons of sugar for national consumption, since it had committed an annual sale of 400,000 tons to China. The Island consumes annually between 600,000 and 700,000 tons of the product.

The worst harvest since the 1959 Revolution was 2009-2010, when 1.1 million tons were reached, which forced the Cuba to import sugar from France made from beets.

Of the 156 sugar mills were in operation before 1959, only 56 remain. In that year, 5.6 million tons of sugar were produced, which increased in the 1970s and 1980s to seven and eight million tons a year.

However, the expert consulted by Reuters announced that the situation could improve if appropriate measures were taken: “They will have to go further with reforms, attract foreign investment or divert money from other sectors such as tourism.”

____________

Electric Motorbike Fire Forces a Building Evacuation on Tulipan Street in Havana

The incident affected the garage of a five-story multi-family building located on Tulipán and Central streets, near Rancho Boyeros Avenue in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 24 November 2021 — A fire of medium proportions affected the garage of a five-story multi-family building located on Tulipán and Central streets, near Rancho Boyeros avenue in Havana, on Wednesday afternoon. The accident was due to a ‘motorina‘ — an electric motorbike — that was parked on the premises, according to several residents of the property speaking to 14ymedio.

The smoke caused at least four residents to be transferred by ambulance to receive oxygen. As this newspaper verified at the scene, an elderly woman and two children were able to walk out of the building on their own, although with coughing and breathing problems. In addition, another woman needed to be carried.

Just before, around 5:20 p.m., residents in the area began to smell a strong odor of burning plastic. “We went out to the balcony and the whole street was pure smoke,” a resident in the same block told this newspaper. “There was tremendous shouting because nobody knew exactly where so much smoke was coming from,” she added.

A few minutes later the smoke could be seen in several of the tall buildings that characterize the area and a strong smell of burned plastic spread throughout the neighborhood where several ministries continue reading

such as Transport and Agriculture are located, in addition to other official entities.”

It was a motorina that they had in the garage, it seems that it spontaneously burst into flames when people realized it there was already smoke inside the house,” explains another neighbor. “Now they are cordoning off the area and evacuating everyone in the building.”

Electric motorbikes catching fire is becoming more frequent in Cuba. Last September, a fire in a house in the city of Matanzas caused the death of a 19-year-old girl and wounded two, a 13-year-old boy and a 20-year-old boy.

Only a few months earlier, in May, another motorina fire caused the death of three members of the same family in the city of Sancti Spiritus, including a seven-year-old boy. The vehicle, which was plugged in to charge the lithium battery, exploded inside the house. The accident became the most serious of its kind in Cuba. In 2019, 208 fires of electric motorcycles with lithium batteries were recorded, 164 of them serious and 44 minor.

With the transportation crisis, electric motorcycles with lithium batteries have become increasingly popular on the island, a phenomenon that has increased since the product is also available for purchase in the state stores that only accept freely convertible currency.

In the last year, 10,000 electric units of 21 different models have been marketed, including motorcycles, bicycles, scooters and tricycles.

Official investigations revealed that among the main causes of the fires are reckless acts when charging electric motorcycles, for example leaving the lithium battery charger connected without the corresponding control, using inappropriate chargers, not cooling the motorcycle before charging it, replacing original parts of the electric motorcycle or the illegal manufacture of batteries.

____________

Yunior Garcia Aguilera: ‘Cuba is a Dictatorship of Bureaucrats’

Yunior García Aguilera, at the press conference he gave last Thursday at the Galileo Cultural Center in Madrid. (EFE/Fernando Villar)

EFE/14ymedio, Madrid, 26 November 2021 — The playwright Yunior García Aguilera, one of the promoters of the Civic March for Change in Cuba on November 15, finally frustrated by the regime, insisted this Friday in Madrid that the Island Government is “a dictatorship of bureaucrats.” They are neither “revolutionary” nor “have anything to do with the people.”

The artist arrived in the Spanish capital by surprise on November 17 because, as he explained, both he and his wife were in danger in Cuba, after promoting a peaceful protest against the Cuban government, and right now he has “a short duration visa with limited territorial validity.”

In a conversation at the Ateneo de Madrid with Valentina Martínez, secretary of International Relations of the Spanish People’s Party (conservative), García said that his arrival in Spain last week was “miraculous” since his “destination was jail.”

The dissident denounced “interrogations and permanent surveillance” by the Cuban government in the days prior to his departure from the country and criticized the current situation on the island, where, he pointed out, the authorities use “panic” to control citizens. García Aguilera, a member of the dissident platform Archipiélago, said that “the regime is in panic and very closed” and that the arrival of social networks represented “a window of hope” to organize in the country. continue reading

“Supposedly the United States sends a stream of money for the opposition, we were just guys with cell phones and social networks, that was our job and our crime,” he said.

The playwright noted that the Archipiélago movement “is not from the right, nor from the left, nor from the center.” And he added, “we have in common what hurts us about Cuba, through civic actions, not violence.” Along these lines, he commented that his activism went to another level after the arrest of the artists of the San Isidro Movement in November of last year.

“I grew up being a revolutionary child in a revolutionary family, I wanted to change things from there, from the allowed channels, but from that moment on I understood that it was very difficult to change things through those channels,” he said.

For this reason, he looked for other references of Cuban culture and after that he “disconnected” from the story he had always heard and understood that his criticism had to be “more frontal with the regime.”

The playwright explained his departure from Cuba and acknowledged that “even today” there are things that he does not know how they could have happened.” That day the car we were in broke down, we had to take a taxi, we thought it was all a trap, that the person who was helping us was an accomplice [of the regime]. Even at the airport we thought they were going to catch us there and they were going to say that we were fleeing and they were going to put us in jail,” he recalled when speaking about the trip, which was accomplished with the help of the Spanish Government.

The Cuban government, he said, has been creating “a very subtle system so that the repression is not seen” for 62 years, and where they generate “mistrust” so that friends, relatives and acquaintances are “suspected and you always believe that they can betray you… They make it so that you can’t trust anyone,” he added.

____________

Official Tributes to Fidel Castro Wasted in the Absence of Popular Enthusiasm for his Figure

In several schools, the teachers called on the students to write the hashtag #YoSoyFidel with chalk on the ground and to paint, draw or write texts “in homage to Fidel.” (Facebook)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 25 November 2021 — Several Cuban government organizations called this Thursday for a “Walk for Fidel” to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Castro’s death. The initiative, sponsored by Proyecto Nuestra América, has as its starting point, at 4:30 pm, at Quijote Park and plans to reach the Malecón in Havana.

Although the announcement insists that it is an action that has been repeated “every year” since 2016, the walk has awakened not a few misgivings because it is very similar to what Yunior García Aguilera intended to do on November 14, which State Security prevented.

It is not similar just because of the route, but because the organizations ask the protesters to wear “white shirts and a flower,” which is what the playwright wanted to do. Today he is in in Madrid, where he arrived unexpectedly on Wednesday the 17th.

During the activity, to which has been joined by the Asociación Hermanos Saíz and the Museo Orgánico de Romerillo, the participants will carry a “artisan Granma” boat, made in collaboration with the plastic artist Alexis Leiva Machado Kcho which they will throw into the sea. continue reading

In the face of the criticism that Proyecto Nuestra América received for the similarity with García Aguilera’s plan, the organization edited the invitation post by posting a link to a video that they claim is from the first march and another with photographs of others taken in other years.

Another commemorative action this Thursday was the placement, in some neighborhoods of Havana, of loudspeakers at full volume with the voice of the deceased giving speeches, accompanied by songs by Silvio Rodríguez and the entire musical repertoire that for years has accompanied the official acts of the regime.

Similarly, in several schools in the Plaza de la Revolución municipality, teachers called on students to write the hashtage #YoSoyFidel with chalk on the ground, and to paint, draw or write texts “in homage to Fidel.”

The authorities waited for this November 25 for the inauguration of the Fidel Castro Ruz Center, destined “for the study and dissemination of the thought and work” of the former president, which is located at Paseo y 13th, in Havana’s Vedado district. They specify that “access will be by invitation” and will take place in the Turquino amphitheater, located in the same building, with an event in which the La Colmenita Children’s Theater Company will participate with a play “created especially for this occasion.”

Outside of these initiatives and the pages of the official press, where this November 25, as in the last five years, the face of Fidel Castro multiplies on the covers, Cuba’s streets show less enthusiasm each year to commemorate the death of the architect of the Cuban Revolution.
____________

Suspicion Grows that the Cuban Regime is Preparing a Slow Motion Mariel* Through Nicaragua

The number of Cubans who applied for a visa to Nicaragua in 2019 was almost 45,000, compared to 700 the previous year. (La Prensa)

14ymedio, Havana, 24 November, 2021 — There was not a soul this Tuesday in the basement of the Habana Libre hotel where long lines used to form to buy tickets to Nicaragua’s capital city, Managua, but the storm is coming. After Nicaragua made public this Monday that it will stop requiring visas for Cubans, it only remains for the airlines to reactivate flights between the two countries so that the flow of travelers increases, with an eye on the United States.

The situation has put the Florida politicians in the spotlight, and they have demanded immediate action from Joe Biden in the face of the “hostile act” of the Government of Daniel Ortega, with the assistance of Havana, and the third guest is yet to arrive: Caracas. Conviasa, the Venezuelan state airline, sanctioned by the US since February 2020, planned to resume its flights between Havana and Managua in December, and, although for now it is silent, it is likely to take advantage of the business. continue reading

“This summer I expressed my concern and warned that the Cuban regime would use mass migration as a weapon in the aftermath of the historic July 11 protests. The Ortega-Murillo regime is helping the Cuban dictatorship by eliminating visa requirements to instigate mass migration toward our southern border. The Biden Administration must respond quickly and take this for what it is: a hostile act,” Senator Marco Rubio, of Cuban origin, said Tuesday.

This voice of alarm was joined by Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar, who in an interview on Radio Mambí did not want to fail to comment on the question. “This is a new initiative that shows that Daniel [Ortega], very intelligently, is telling Cuba, ‘We are going to create chaos on the border, and I am going to give you the step to do it’.”

Ortega’s decision to open the door to as many Cubans who want to leave the island is understood as a response to the Reinforcing Nicaragua’s Adherence to Conditions for Electoral Reform Act of 2021, known as the RENACER Act, a response to elections considered a ‘pantomime’, which became law earlier this month. The country voted on November 14 in elections in which up to seven opposition candidates had been jailed, including the Nicaraguan president’s biggest rival, Cristiana Chamorro.

With an official participation of 65.34%, which independent calculations lowered to 20%, the presidential couple rose to power for the fourth time in a row, fifth for Daniel Ortega as head of state.

The international community, with the exception of Russia, China, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela, rejected an election classified as fake by the European Union. The White House went even further and said it was “neither free nor fair, and it certainly was not democratic.”

For this reason, just three days later, Congress approved the Renacer Law that allows Biden to impose all kinds of sanctions on the Managua regime, including its exclusion from the Free Trade Agreement. It also involves the incorporation of Nicaragua on the list of countries subject to visa restrictions for corruption and requests intelligence reports on the activities of the Russian Government in the Central American country, including documentation of arms sales.

Biden warned in his first moments of condemning the Nicaraguan elections that he would use “all the diplomatic and economic tools” at his disposal to support the people of Nicaragua “and hold the Ortega-Murillo government and those who facilitate its abuses accountable.” The US already had multiple sanctions previously approved for members of the Nicaraguan government.

Managua’s response comes from the hand of Havana, very upset with the Biden Administration, from which it expected a much kinder treatment in line with the time of the thaw, during which the current US president was vice president.

The protests of July 11 and November 15 have also led the Cuban regime to seek a way out for those who, tired of repression and scarcity, intend to escape to the United States and see the visa exemption as a good opportunity. Getting rid of the critics and more mouths to feed is one reason why Havana can be very grateful to Ortega.

In January 2019, when the Nicaraguan government placed Cuba in migratory category B, which allowed obtaining a consular tourist visa for 30 CUC without waiting for the approval of the General Directorate of Migration in Managua, trips immediately skyrocketed. Until then, generally around 2,000 visas per year were issued to Cubans, except in 2018, when just 701 were issued. A year later, with the new rule, the figure reached 44,829, according to data from the Nicaraguan government itself.

The arrival of the pandemic stopped the entire flow of migrants who, at that time, found in Managua the base from which to leave for the United States. Although these facilities also meant access to a new source of supply for the mules, a good number of travelers they chose the country to start the journey to the southern US border, creating large plugs in northern Mexico.

The route is also particularly dangerous, even when it avoids the Darien jungle. Exposed to corruption and coyotes, migrants are victims of all kinds of robberies, scams, arrests and other dangers, including physical ones. However, the urge to flee has shown power with all kinds of threats.

The ping pong game is also joined by Mexico, a country that has a president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who sympathizes with the leaders of Cuba and Nicaragua, but is also the principal affected by the crisis at the borders and is obliged to maintain good relations with the United States, its largest commercial partner and source of work for many Mexicans.

The flow of migrants arriving from Central America ends up falling on the Mexican authorities and will now increase again with the expedited route open to Cubans. Between January and September of this year, and despite the fact that there have still been multiple border restrictions due to the pandemic, Mexico has detected more than 190,000 undocumented immigrants and has deported almost 74,300, according to the Migration Policy Unit of the Ministry of the Interior.

Finally, the contest of Venezuela in the scuffle is expected. Its airline Conviasa is vital for the Havana-Managua connection, its desire to help friendly governments and create problems for its imperial enemy and, incidentally, earn cash with the sale of tickets, will not take long to appear in the equation.

Before the pandemic, the Venezuelan airline had 3 weekly flights to the island. Recently, Conviasa reported, without specifying further details, that it could return to Havana in December and November has already reopened its routes to the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Russia, Mexico and Panama. The latter can already be reached from Cuba through Copa Airlines. So the connection already exists.

*Translator’s note: ‘Mariel’ refers to the Mariel Boatlift of 1980, when some 120,000 Cubans emigrated.

____________

A Sad Christmas in Cuba

Not all Cuban homes will have the symbolic Christmas Tree, simply because national businesses will not be selling them. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 23 November 2021 — The air begins to blow from the north, the cool temperatures announce the arrival of the brief Cuban winter and, with it, Christmas is also approaching. The little trees sparkle in a festival of colored lights behind the windows and some shelves are dressed in gala and garlands, but only in the so-called ‘dollar stores’, which accept payment only in hard currency, symbols of the economic apartheid that is taking hold in the country.

Although the official discourse strives to show these days as a time of hope, after the worst of the pandemic, this Christmas can hardly be joyful. Many are no longer among us: those who lost the battle against the covid, those who went to prison simply for going out to protest, those who went into exile leaving broken families, children who can’t to see their parents, parents who can’t see their children.

The end of the year will come in the midst of a crisis that seems to have no end, a galloping devaluation of the Cuban peso and the increasingly evident impossibility of a life in which all Cubans have the same opportunities. Buying traditional products to celebrate in December, such as pork, black beans and cassava, poses a challenge for many families due to the high cost.

Polarization is not only political, but economic. Inequalities are more pronounced than they have ever been between those who can pay with foreign currency and those who only have the humble national currency. And the Christmas holidays are a true reflection of those differences.

Not all Cuban homes will have the symbolic Christmas Tree, simply because national businesses will not be selling them. For this reason, many will have to observe the garlands and the twinkling stars behind the almost inaccessible window of a store in which they cannot even dream of shopping.
____________

What Remains of the Cuban Revolution

At the door of the building, a red motorcycle is the only sign of modern life. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Photo of the Day, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 22 November 2021 — A crumbling building, eaten by moisture, with plants growing wild from the cornices. On the columns, several slogans against the dirty white that seem recent: “Long live the CDRs” (Committees for the Defense of the Revolution), “Long live the 9th [sic] Congress” (of the Communist Party of Cuba, PCC), “Long live the PCC,” ” Viva Fidel.”

There seems to be no life, however, inside the building. It is empty? It looks dark and inhospitable. At the door, a red motorcycle is the only sign of modern life. Perhaps one of those State Security agents who swarm around Havana these days left it there. Perhaps he is stationed on a nearby corner to prevent a citizen suspected of being an activist, practicing independent journalism, or simply thinking differently from going out into the street.

____________

The Paris Club Must Stop Financing the Repression in Cuba

Havana Provincial Police Patrols. (Vladimir Molina Espada)

14ymedio, Luis Zúñiga, Miami, 22 November 2021 — The Cuban regime faces a very delicate and dangerous situation to maintain itself in power. On the one hand, the July 11 protests, in more than 40 cities and towns, showed the disgust of the population, which is living under the longest dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere, as well as multiple economic and social disasters.

On the other hand, Havana is on the verge of economic bankruptcy and does not have the slightest possibility of reversing that situation, already unsustainable for millions of Cubans.

Recently, several Members of the European Parliament joined with the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance in their denunciations against democratic governments and credit institutions, such as the Paris Club, which has just forgiven $8.5 billion in debt loaned to the ruined Cuban economy. Such indolence materializes behind closed doors, with its back to the Cuban people, and without demanding structural reforms from the island’s government.

As Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat, president of the Cuban Democratic Directorate, pointed out, those 8.5 billion dollars were not used for the development of Cuba, or to carry out urgent infrastructure works. Nor even to solve the enormous need for housing.

The loans ended up in equipment for repression. It’s enough to see the expensive equipment of the special troops, the hundreds of police cars bought for the Police and the amount of fuel spent in the massive military mobilizations, on November 15. Meanwhile, hospitals are falling apart.

The communist leadership had always placed its trust in avoiding continue reading

any dangerous situation, thanks to the terror imposed on the population with the power of arms, its special troops, and with guaranteed impunity to strike, repress and even kill.

Any cancellation of the enormous Cuban debt must be conditional on real changes in the country. Otherwise, governments and financial institutions will continue to finance the repression in the country. Cuba will need, when the conditions for a democratic transition are met, the goodwill of many countries to rebuild its economy, after decades of communist disaster.

The Island will have to change, inexorably. This is demanded by a large majority. On November 15, despite the gigantic police and paramilitary deployment, significant events occurred, such as seeing priests and nuns lead groups that circumvented police controls and took to the streets; in addition to many houses that displayed messages of “Patria y Vida” (Homeland and Life) and balconies with white or yellow fabrics, as a symbol of rebellion.

________________

Editor’s Note: The author is a political analyst and former political prisoner in Cuba.

____________

Yunior Garcia Annoys the Cuban Regime More from Spain Than He Did on the Island

Yunior García Aguilera (in the center, facing the camera), during a workshop at Saint Louis University in Madrid, in 2019, which was visited by former Spanish President Felipe González. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Frank Calzón, Miami, 22 November 2021 — Yunior García Aguilera, the young Cuban playwright of the Archipiélago Movement, arrived in Madrid on Wednesday, November 17, after the regime mobilized the Army and its police forces from one end of the country to the other to prevent thousands of Cubans from peacefully demonstrating demanding Liberty.

A few hours after his arrival in the Spanish capital, some already condemned Yunior García for “having left the country,” when his presence in Europe presents a more serious problem for the Government than his remaining on the island.

Others hurled expletives at him, in a totalitarian Castro way, for criticizing the US embargo, while he denounced the crimes of Castroism and demanded international solidarity for hundreds of young people arbitrarily imprisoned in Cuba.

The Spanish press, which had just reported the suspension in Havana of the accreditation of the correspondents of the EFE press agency, precisely for having interviewed the playwright, published their statements upon arrival. Pablo Casado, an important opposition leader and continue reading

president of the People’s Party, received him last Thursday, denouncing the Cuban government as “a terrible dictatorship with thousands of murders and political prisoners.”

The following day, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, published a photo of his interview with the young opponent, reiterating “Spain’s commitment to freedom.” This weekend, denunciations of Castroism circulated on the networks by Czech, Dutch, Spanish and Latin American parliamentarians.

The Plaza of the Revolution’s capacity to maneuver continues to deteriorate. A couple of months ago, the European Parliament, with a vote of 426 in favor and 146 against, approved a resolution condemning the repression on the island, and a growing number of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are demanding the suspension of cooperation agreements with Cuba, due to the failure to comply with a clause on respect for human rights.

Much progress has been made, I would dare to say that more than is generally recognized in the diaspora and on the island.

Times change and most young people are not interested in Fidel Castro; many despise him, blaming him for the misery of their lives and the national tragedy. Opposition leaders have dismissed the official rhetoric of intimidation and insults to Cubans who think differently.

Today, a minimum of internet access is essential for the functioning of any society. In the case of Cuba, this is key especially for the development of tourism, an economic factor of vital importance given the disappearance of the sugar industry and, likewise, of the gift of Venezuelan oil. It will be impossible for President Díaz-Canel to keep the entire country permanently under media martial law and with a suffocating military presence in the cities and towns of the nation. Protests in Cuba, personal or massive, can no longer be ignored internationally.

The public commitment of the Cuban Church, after decades of caution or complicity, worries Raúl Castro and the leadership, made up mostly of white, obese, stagnant octogenarian military men, veterans of a revolutionary insurrection that today is pure paleohistory for the new generations that now demand a change towards a life in truth.

Yunior García insists that he not be called the leader of the Archipiélago Movement, suggests that the United States tighten against the regime without causing pain to the Cuban people, and opposes, as many have done, the so-called “pressure cooker” doctrine, which has never been the foundation of Washington policy. If so, there would not be two million Cuban-Americans, nor would the exile remittances alleviate the hunger of thousands of families.

Joe Biden is right: the US must provide free internet to Cubans, and “the oppressors,” as the American president describes those who misgovern in Cuba, should give their families the dollars in remittances that are sent in dollars from the United States. Biden has made concessions to tourists to enjoy our beaches and must not do more until there are serious changes in Cuba.

The future is today, no matter how criminally the commanders of the past strive to deny the undeniable: that Cuba is finally opening up to Cubans themselves. And that Cubans have a date with freedom.

____________

Archipielago Considers Reasons for Cuban Protests Valid and Extends Them to November 27

Screen shot from video recorded by Yunior García Aguilera from his home in Havana on November 14.

14ymedio, Madrid, 16 November 2021 — The image of Yunior García leaning out of the window of his apartment with a flower in his hand and dressed in white while a mob tries to block his view of the outside by lowering a Cuban flag over his window has become an icon of the civic struggle in Cuba. From Spain, the Cuban filmmaker Yimit Ramírez has made a poster that captures the essence of November 14, when State Security prevented the playwright from marching with a white rose, as he had announced he would.

As he explained to 14ymedio, Ramírez considers that the fact of “covering him with the flag is horrible… You can’t do that with the flag, but even less with people. These people are so outdated that they don’t even know their own horrors. It’s a very symbolic image. The flag as a prison.”

The Archipiélago platform considers that, despite the Cuban government’s attempts to prevent the Civic March for Change on November 15, “never have the Cuban people been more united in the fight for their rights” and so has called for the protests to be extended until November 27, one year since the sit-in of artists and intellectuals before the Ministry of Culture.

Between now and the 27th, the opposition group proposes a series of activities to make its message visible and asks people to continue wearing the color white and continue reading

carrying a rose of the same tone, joining in on a cacerolazo (banging on pots and pans) at 9 o’clock every night, and spreading the message of what it is happening in the country among families and neighborhoods, particularly to those who do not have social networks.

In addition, they invite each sympathizer to bring a rose to a monument to a Cuban martyr whenever they deem it appropriate and safe, and documenting the act to spread it, since Archipiélago considers that there is still “a debt of honor to the Apostle* José Martí.”

The platform launched its proposal in a statement released after midnight in which it took stock of the previous day. In the text, they emphasize that the Government has criminalized and disrespected the right to freedom of expression, assembly and demonstration recognized by the Cuban Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and, what is worse, setting “Cubans against Cubans.”

“The Cuban government has responded to our demands as a dictatorship does: extreme militarization of the streets, more than 100 activists besieged [in their homes], arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances, acts of repudiation, violence, threats, coercion and hate speech,” denounces the text, which warns that it will not accept this escalation of violence against peaceful citizens.

Despite all the efforts of the authorities, Archipiélago considers that the March was a success due to the solidarity received from 120 cities around the world and those who were able to go out into the streets within the Island or show their adherence to the mobilization with a minimal gesture. “We have surpassed ourselves as a nation and here is the resounding success of 15N”.

The objectives of the struggle that continues from today until the 27th continue to be the initial ones: the liberation of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, respect for the rights of expression, assembly and demonstration, the cessation of violence between Cubans for political reasons ,and the beginning of a dialogue that allows resolving differences through democratic and peaceful means.

In addition, the end of the statement opens a door so that the 27th is not the last day of activities. “If the Government does not give up its efforts to violate our rights, we will continue the civic struggle until Cuba is a State of Rights, a Republic ‘with all and for the good of all’.”

The platform notes that since the 16th, many people linked to the opposition are still unaccounted for, detained or besieged in their homes and sends its solidarity to all those affected.

For its part, the Cubalex Legal Information Center published this Tuesday a record in which it documents the arrests of at least 56 people in the context of civic days for change, of these 27 just on November 15, and they include 11 people reported in enforced disappearance.

Of the more than 50 people arrested, “11 were previously in detention for participating in the 11J [11 July] protests,” details Cubalex.

*Translator’s note: José Martí is considered a hero by Cubans on all sides of the divides, and is popularly called “the Apostle.”
____________

Cuban Embassy in Spain Hides Behind Covid to Ignore the Call of the Spanish Government

José Manuel Albares, Spanish Foreign Minister, upon his arrival at the EU Foreign Minister’s Summit this Monday in Brussels. (EFE)

14ymedio, Brussels, 15 November 2021 — The Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, assured this Monday that Spain “will not give up” until the Cuban authorities return “all credentials” to all journalists from the Efe Agency in Havana, stripped of them on Saturday without receiving an explanation.

The Secretary of State for Latin America and the Caribbean and Spanish in the World, Juan Fernández Trigo, summoned this Sunday the Cuban Embassy’s charge d’affaires in Madrid, Eumelio Caballero.

However, Caballero will not attend the urgent call reporting, by sending a medical certificate, that he has covid. Upon receiving the document, both spoke by phone and he was told “the unacceptability of this situation and the need for all credentials to be returned.”

“They have returned two for the moment, but we are not going to give up on asking for all credentials to be returned,” Albares told the press upon arrival at a Council of Foreign Ministers of the European Union in Brussels.

The restitution of these press credentials is something that Spain “continues to demand”: continue reading

“We are doing it from the first moment, from the moment we have learned of this situation,” he explained.

“It does not seem acceptable to us that credentials are withdrawn for no reason. Freedom of the press in any country in the world is vital,” Albares emphasized.

The head of Spanish diplomacy stressed that they have not received “any” explanation from the Cuban authorities about the measure against the Efe team in Havana, adding that “we have simply managed to have two credentials returned and we are waiting for them to return the others.”

The decision of the Cuban authorities occurs at a delicate moment in the country, with a Civic March called by the opposition for this Monday, a march that has been outlawed by the Government.

On Saturday, the heads of the International Press Center (CPI) of Cuba urgently summoned the Efe team in Havana that is currently accredited — three editors, a photographer and a TV camera operator — to inform them that their credentials were withdrawn without clarifying whether the measure is temporary or permanent.

But this Sunday they restored the press accreditations to only two of Efe’s journalists in Havana.

____________

Madrid’s Parliament Asks for the Embassy in Cuba to be Opened to the Dissidents

TheAssembly of the Community of Madrid, Spain, during the vote on a resolution in support of human rights in Cuba and against the dictatorship, this Thursday. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Madrid, 18 November 2021 — On Thursday, Assembly of the Community of Madrid approved a resolution in defense of human rights in Cuba and against the dictatorship.

In this “non-law proposal,” as it is called in legal terms, presented by the People’s Party (PP, conservative), majority in the regional parliament, they ask the Spanish Government to open the Embassy in Havana to “all defenders of human rights and freedoms “within the Island.

In addition, it asks the Executive to work so that the Cuban dictatorship frees “all those detained for their ideas” and ceases the repression, “so that Cuba can advance towards a free country with prosperity for all.”

The resolution also demands that the Socialist Government (PSOE) of Pedro Sánchez recognize that Cuba is a dictatorship “that violates the human rights and freedoms of its citizens,” while requiring it to collaborate so that Cubans “can exercise their own country the rights to free expression, assembly, association and demonstration without being repressed by its rulers.”

“The Madrid Assembly urges the regional government to continue supporting the more than 23,000 Cubans residing in the Community of Madrid in their fight for freedom and democracy, since nothing that happens in Latin America is foreign to Spain, and much less to continue reading

Madrid,” the proposal also says.

Attending the debate in the Assembly as a guest was Alejandro González Raga, former political prisoner of Cuba’s 2003 Black Spring and director of the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights, based in the Spanish capital, who was greeted from the podium by the popular deputy Almudena Negro before initiating the defense of the proposal.

In his speech, Negro recalled the protests of July 11 on the island, repressed by the dictatorial regime established by “the infamous Fidel Castro and the homophobic Che Guevara,” as well as the frustrated initiative of 15N (15 November), which was prevented and delegitimized by a “criminal and corrupt dictatorship” that has plunged “70% of the population” into poverty.

“The communist project in Cuba has failed, as always happens with any socialist project wherever it is established,” said the deputy, who demanded that the Spanish left not be “in profile” like President Pedro Sánchez, who “avoided referring to to Cuba for what it is,” and to stop claiming that the regime is not true socialism. “What happens in Cuba is real socialism,” he asserted, “and that is why there is hunger, misery and crime.”

“It cannot be that free society looks away,” he demanded, and criticized the legitimacy granted to Cuba and other authoritarian governments such as Nicaragua or Venezuela by organizations such as Celac (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States), which, he said, contributes to the “expansion of liberty-cide in America.”

**Results of the vote on the “non-law proposal” in favor of Cubans protesting against the regime. (Capture)**

Almudena Negro also had words for some of those persecuted by the regime, such as Raúl Rivero, recently deceased, Guillermo Coco Fariñas and Yunior García Aguilera, whom she welcomed to Madrid, and concluded her speech with the slogans: “Viva Cuba libre, patria y vida.”

In defense of several amendments to the proposal, the deputy for the right-wing party Vox, Rocío Monasterio, the daughter of a Cuban from Cienfuegos, spoke more harshly. Thus, he referred to communism as the “most pernicious ideology in the history of mankind.”

In this regard, she said that she met with some of the former prisons who were Cuban plantados who were in Madrid to present the homonymous film by Lilo Vilaplana, who told her what they were told when entering Cuban prisons: you will cease to exist as of today . “This is communism: to cease to exist,” said Monasterio, who referenced the more than 600 political prisoners from 11J (11 July). “Political prisoners must be released, unconditionally, immediately,” she demanded.

The right-wing deputy also criticized the “traditional parties”, alluding to the PP and the PSOE, which, in her opinion, “have contributed by action or omission” to the perpetuation of the Cuban dictatorship.

“Why are they refusing to sign the suspension of the cooperation?” was one of Monasterio complaints from the PP, and the party also proposed to refuse to collaborate in any investment with Cuban state companies and declare an embargo on the weapons purchased by the Cuban State.

On the part of the leftist group Más Madrid (a moderate split from Podemos), Hugo Martínez Abarca asserted that his party “does not support any dictatorship, without any exception, without any nuance” and that it rejects “the violation of rights that is taking place in Cuba.”

As a solution, they propose a “multilateral diplomacy” and a return to the policies of President Barack Obama, the architect of the thaw with the island between 2014 and 2016, “that produces a democratic transition to Cuba.” However, they also ask for the “end of the blockade,” which they consider “inhuman” and “unjust.” Más Madrid, ultimately, abstained in the vote.

Podemos voted openly against the proposal. For his part, Congressman Jacinto Morano said that the resolution was “support for international interference in Cuban politics.”

Next, he detailed the arguments that Cuban officialdom usually uses in defense of the Revolution: the United States embargo that “keeps the island impoverished” – although he wrongly dated it in 1959, and not in 1960 – the “900 doctors for every 100,000 inhabitants, “health missions” in 59 countries, including refugee camps in Western Sahara “and free education” from birth.

Finally, the PSOE, which abstained from voting, criticized that the People’s Party “are determined to talk about whatever it is, less to talk about Madrid” and that what their group wants is “to talk about Madrid.”
____________

Saily Gonzalez Walks through Santa Clara Dressed in White with a Flower for Antonio Maceo

Saily Gonzalez in the patio of her house after taking a walk through the streets of Santa Clara to lay a flour at the base of a statue of Antonio Maceo. (Saily de Amarillo)

14ymedio, Havana, November 19, 2021 — Saily Gonzalez had already made the announcement on Monday, November 15, when an angry, violent mob prevented her from leaving her home. Her protests were limited to applauding at three in the afternoon and hanging her white sheets from a window. She was unable to do what she wanted to do on that day but she swore she would walk the streets of Santa Clara while holding a white flower the next day. And if she could not do it the next day, she would do it whenever she could. That moment finally came on Thursday.

She carried a yellow flower, “because there aren’t any white flowers on my patio,” said the young woman, who is a member of the dissident group Archipelago and owner of Amarillo B&B. Wearing a white blouse and a small cross hanging from her neck, Gonzalez recorded herself on video as she walked.

“I decided to take my flower to Antonio Maceo for freedom in Cuba, for the rights of all Cubas and for the release of political prisoners,” she tells 14ymedio. It has been one year since Cuban artists Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara and Maykel Castillo, members of the San Isidro Movement, were arrested and imprisoned for protesting the arrest and summary trial of dissident rapper Denis Solis. The two have been on a hunger strike.

“This is my way of honoring those people who began, or took up, this struggle to demand our rights,” she says in the video.

She told 14ymedio that, as she was walking home, no one was following her. continue reading

“This is an individual, civic and totally peaceful demonstration. It’s my response to what is happening here in Cuba,” Gonzalez says to the camera as she walks. She recalls the more than 600 prisoners arrested during or after demonstrations July 11, including artists Alcantara and Osorbo, who she says remain in prison “in very poor condition,” as well as 15-year-old Reniel Rodriguez, who was placed in a center for problem youth for having participated in the July 11 protests.

Rodriguez was released on Thursday in the wake of strong criticism on social media and pressure from international organizations. Barely two minutes into the video a passerby greets her. She asks him, “Do you want to join me? I’m demonstrating.”

The man smiles, waves and says hello to the camera. “Oh, good. Me too,” he quickly responds before continuing on his way. Later in the video someone stops to say, “All the solidarity this has generated is incredible.”

The activist relates how, earlier that day, a woman stopped to tell Gonazalez she herself could not do anything because she would lose her job but that she stood with all those of us who are demanding freedom, human rights and the release of political prisoners.

Gonzalez states that recording herself on her phone provides a level of protection and asks all her followers to stay connected until she ends the transmission.

“I am not going to encourage anyone to do what I’m doing because this is something that takes conviction. You have to have a clear head,” she insists. “I am very clear-headed and I am not going to quit, not in Cuba, not in Sant Clara, where State Security might be the most dangerous.” During her walk, she does not indicate where she is going to avoid incidents such as those that occurred on the 14th and 15th when she was confronted by women who, she says, “do not represent us.”

On Monday and for several days prior, flags of the Federation of Cuban Women were on display outside her home in Santa Clara as members of the organization shouted insults at her.

“I want to contribute to my country. I want to contribute to efforts for a better Cuba. This is my country and I have rights too,” says Gonzalez just as she arrives at her destination, the statue of Antonio Maceo, where she lays her flower and quickly leaves.

After the regime used threats, acts of repudiation and the militarization of cities to disrupt the Civic March for Change, Archipiélago called for peaceful protests to continue. It urged would-be protesters to applaud, bang pots or wear white clothing until November 27. The date marks the one-year anniversary of a sit-in involving more than 300 people in front of the Ministry of Culture. Subsequently, about thirty participants met with Deputy-Minister Fernando Rojas.

One of Archipiélago’s most visible members, playwright Yunior Garcia Aguilera, left Cuba for Spain on Tuesday. The group has offered no explanation for his departure. Saily Gonzalez was one of the members who publicly demonstrated after the march in solidarity with Garcia Aguilera. “I don’t think anyone has the right to judge or criticize what Yunior did. We are not the ones to judge or condemn,” she said.

____________

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: